Go Out! Fun events this week

Photographs of train graffiti taken by Lauren Beyer (aka graphotogirl) are on display Saturday through March 4 at Playhouse on the Square's Café Lobby.

Comedian Sheryl Underwood performs tonight and Saturday at Harrah's Tunica Casino's Funny Bone.

FRIDAY

Pens for the Pen

The theater troupe Voices of the South performs the latest installment of its theatrical outreach series, "Prison Stories IV," true stories from women serving time in the Shelby County jail system. In this staged reading, actors tell stories of joy, tragedy, hope and forgiveness. The proceeds help provide books, pens, paper and art supplies to inmates.

8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Theatre South, 1000 S. Cooper. Suggested donation is $20. Call (901) 726-0800.

Mental music

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical "Next to Normal," a suburban family struggles with the fallout of a mother's decision to stop taking medications for bipolar disorder. As tragic memories resurface, the rock-and-roll score takes the family members on a psychological roller-coaster ride to the darkest corners of the mind.

8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 12 at Playhouse on the Square, 66 S. Cooper. All opening weekend tickets are $20. Call (901) 726-4656.

Riseling retrospective

A reception in Memphis College of Art's Main Gallery in Rust Hall celebrates "Robert Riseling Retrospective 1974-2011: A Founders' Day Exhibition." The chronological scope of the title indicates the years when Riseling taught at MCA; he also led the annual Horn Island trip for more than 20 years. This retrospective of 46 paintings will be displayed through Jan. 29. A concurrent exhibit is showing at the MCA Gallery at Playhouse on the Square through March 4.

5-7 p.m. Memphis College of Art, 1930 Poplar in Overton Park. Call (901) 272-5100.

Laughs from Little Rock

Comedian Sheryl Underwood begins a two-night stand at Harrah's Tunica Casino's Funny Bone comedy club. Originally from Little Rock, Underwood has been taking Hollywood by storm, recently joining the panel for CBS's afternoon gabfest "The Talk" and appearing in a guest spot on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless" scheduled for February. She can also be heard most mornings on the syndicated radio program "The Steve Harvey Morning Show," broadcast locally on Soul Classics WRBO-FM 103.5.

13615 Old Highway 61, Tunica Resorts, Miss. Show times: 7:30 and 10 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m., 9:30 p.m., and midnight Saturday. Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 day of show. For tickets, call (662) 357-4242, or go to funnybonetunica.com.

Boys to Men

"The Boys Next Door" is a touching comic-drama about four mentally challenged men living together and tended to by a caseworker. Veteran director Marler Stone helms the production at Germantown Community Theatre that opens Friday and runs through Feb. 5.

7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Tickets: $15-$21 ($10 for younger than 12). Call (901) 754-2680, or go to germantowncommunitytheatre.org.

SATURDAY

Train art talk

Local photographer Laura Beyer will talk about her work that focuses on train graffiti during an opening reception for her exhibition in the Café Lobby at Playhouse on the Square. The show will be displayed through March 4.

6-7:30 p.m. 66 S. Cooper. Call (901) 726-4656.

Live at the Lamp

Charlotte, N.C., trio Paint Fumes, who just put out the vinyl EP Egyptian Rats on the Slovenly Recordings label, bring their Oblivians-inspired punk-rock to the Lamplighter Lounge. Locals William Stull and Shirley Bent (actually a male two-piece whose EP GHOULZ came out in December) open.

9 p.m.; admission free, though donations will be accepted. For more information, call (901) 726-1101.

Oboe Extraordinaire

Not many oboe players can claim to have gone into the Temple of Doom alongside Indiana Jones, or to have been cast away with Tom Hanks on a deserted island. But Tom Boyd, former principal oboist with the Honolulu Symphony, has been lending his instrument to Hollywood film scores for years. As part of University of Memphis' Double Reed Festival, he'll perform a free concert of various music along with bassoonists Albie Micklich, Keith McClelland and Paula Brusky.

1 p.m. at Harris Concert Hall, University of Memphis, 3775 Central. Call (901) 678-1651.

WEDNESDAY

Sound Capture

The Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum opens a new exhibit highlighting the great recording legacy of the Bluff City. "Recorded in Memphis" is a celebration of the studios and sound visionaries — from Sun to Stax, American to Ardent, Royal to Easley-McCain — that helped capture the city's contributions to music history, and which continue to thrive today. The exhibit runs through September.

Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum, 191 Beale. Free with regular admission ($11 adults; $8 youths 5-17). For more information, call (901) 205-2533, or go to .

THURSDAY

As Seen on British TV

Formerly known as the British Television Advertising Awards, "The British Arrow Awards" is the new name for the annual film anthology that collects a year's worth of the United Kingdom's wittiest, sexiest, most epic and most tearjerking TV commercials. This compilation has become one of the most popular screening events on the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art calendar, so the film repeats Jan. 27-29.

7 p.m. Tickets: $8, or $6 for museum members. For more information, call (901) 544-6208, or visit brooksmuseum.org.

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