Time for Young country
One of the few TV talent-show winners to enjoy a substantial career in music, Chris Young, victor on "Nashville Star" in 2006, is best known for down-tempo hits like "Sober Saturday Night" and "Losing Sleep," two of his nine No. 1 country numbers. Will the 32-year-old Tennessean have enough up-tempo tunes to carry his first arena headline tour? Opening are deep-voiced newcomer Kane Brown of "What Ifs" fame and Lanco, the new group behind the recent No. 1 hit "Greatest Love Story."JON BREAM
7:30 p.m. Fri. Target Center, Mpls, $37-$57, axs.com
In the solo musical "My Mother Has 4 Noses," singer Jonatha Brooke brings to life her late mother, a Christian Scientist whose prosthetic noses were the result of cancer untreated for too long. Brooke discusses her break with the religion ("I discovered Advil!"), caring for her mother ("Dementia gave mom such refreshing candor!") and coming to terms with her own grief in a show that takes full advantage of her frankness, humor and powerful voice.
CHRIS HEWITT
Closes March 4, Jungle Theater, Mpls., $37-$47, jungletheater.com
"A Crack in the Sky," Ahmed Ismail Yusuf's story of a shepherd boy's journey from rural Somalia to urban America, gets an inventively absorbing production by director Faye Price. The wry, well-acted show uses storytelling and re-creations to dramatize an immigrant's tenacity, hunger and dreaming. But its success is more important than its stagecraft. This "Crack in the Sky" opens a window onto a culture that we otherwise know only from news reports.
ROHAN PRESTON
Closes March 4; History Theatre, St. Paul. $15-$40, historytheatre.com
Looks like the Winter Olympics has conspired with the movie "I, Tonya" to reignite interest in a 1994 scandal involving U.S. figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. So it's time for a reboot of "Tonya and Nancy: The Opera." Librettist Elizabeth Searle once described the 2006 piece as a satire aimed at "the media and the ultracompetitive, crazy-making skating world, a microcosm of our crazy country."
TERRY BLAIN
7:30 p.m. Wed., BlackStack Brewing, St. Paul, donation; 10 p.m. Sat., Bryant-Lake Bowl, Mpls., $10, mixedprecipitation.org
"Judy Chicago's Birth Project: Born Again" is not a retrospective, but a curious look back at one of the foremost feminist artists in American art history. In her 1984 needlework "Creation of the World," a homely sort of rainbow rectangle frames a swirly, '60s psychedelic feeling world of a woman's limbs and genitalia, a literal depiction of how life actually begins. Radical and powerful, these are the images that suggest that yes, the future is female.
ALICIA ELER
Ends March 16. Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, gallery.stkate.edu
Hard-core David Bowie fans know the names Mike Garson, Earl Slick and Carmine Rojas. They are among the former Bowie sidemen teaming up for Celebrating Bowie, a traveling tour with a revolving cast of singers and players. Featured in Minneapolis will be vocalist Gaby Moreno plus multi-instrumentalist/producer Mark Plati. They promise ch-ch-changes in the Bowie repertoire from night to night.
JON BREAM
7:30 p.m. Wed. Pantages Theatre, Mpls, $53.50-$200, ticketmaster.com
History and science merge for STEM Family Day. Focused on the role of science, technology, engineering and math, kids can learn while having fun with fossils, simple machines and splashing around in the water lab. Greet raptors from the Raptor Center. View a flour dust explosion and meet historical figure William de la Barre, a Minneapolis water-power and milling engineer.
MELISSA WALKER
11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat. $6-$12. Mill City Museum, Mpls. mnhs.org
Ballet Minnesota co-founder Andrew Rist goes way back with Robert Cleary, artistic director at Kanopy Dance in Madison, Wis. They met in the 1980s, when both danced for Loyce Houlton's Minnesota Dance Theatre. They reunited in 2008 for Rist's "Beethoven's 9th Symphony," with Cleary dancing the lead. A decade later, they reprise that ambitious project in honor of Ballet Minnesota's 30th anniversary.
SHEILA REGAN
8 p.m. Fri. & 2 & 8 p.m. Sat. Cowles Center, Mpls., $22-$34, thecowlescenter.org.
You don't have to be into jam bands or bass solos to appreciate the innovative brands of funk offered by Galactic and Lettuce. The New Orleans-reared Galactic crew has been carrying the torch for its city's rich, Meters-led funk tradition for two decades now and always puts on an electrifying live show. Boston's B3-organ-ized groove-rockers Lettuce have a more psychedelic tone that's all over their new Miles Davis-inspired album, "Witches Brew."
CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER
8 p.m. Thu., Palace Theatre, St. Paul, $32, eTix.com
