Saturday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m.

If anyone can upstage the 145-member Canterbury Choral Society, that person is surely Ron Raines, a Broadway musical veteran who prefers sharing the spotlight to stealing it. No wonder the society invited him to headline its first show of the 2012-13 season, Broadway to Bricktown at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave. Raines is an Oklahoma City University graduate who went on to attend the premiere school for arts, Juilliard. He was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for his role as Alan Spaulding on the soap opera Guiding Light, but it was his long-running musical theater career and recent run in Follies, which earned him a 2012 Tony Award nomination. Pick a famous musical, and Raines has played a lead role in it. That’s why Broadway to Bricktown is certain to be a real treat for theater lovers. Tickets are $40-$65, available at www.canterburyokc.com.
 

Saturday, Oct. 27

National Geographic magazine is famous for its stellar photography and startling images from around the world. Through its pages, we’ve seen fascinating creatures from the frigid ocean depths, the intimate details of nomadic existence on Tibet’s grassy plains and other snapshots of living from around the world both familiar and mysterious. Nothing against good reporting and writing, but a photo is worth a thousand blurbs, particularly a photo from a National Geographic assignment photographer.
Gilcrease Museum, 1400 N. Gilcrease Road, Tulsa, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., Oklahoma City, are two of a handful of museums across the country opening an exhibit of pictures of the American West this Saturday. The photos are taken from across 125 years of the magazine’s publication and include a shot of the Oklahoma land grab at the opening of the Cherokee Outlet.
Go to the Gilcrease (gilcrease.utulsa.edu) and Hall of Fame (www.nationalcowboymuseum.org) for museum hours and admission information. National Geographic: Greatest Photographs of the American West continues in Oklahoma City through Jan. 6 and in Tulsa through Feb. 3.

Thru Jan. 13

Roy Lichtenstein painted giant works that looked like segments of old comic strips or ads to examine American popular culture and themes on romance, war, patriotism and consumerism. If you’re looking for fluid pastoral scenes, you’ve found the wrong artist.
In every frame, large, precisely painted and placed dots make up the tones similar to mass printing techniques of the past. Through this pop artists challenging work, America is bigger and more complex than any Sunday funny could convey. The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art is exhibiting 20 prints of his work, including a series of American Indian theme lithographs that have rarely been seen. The exhibit, which opened this month at the museum, continues through Jan. 13. Admission is $3.50-$6.50. The museum is open Sunday-Friday. Go to www.jewishmuseum.net for hours and other details.
 

Saturday, Oct. 27, at 8 p.m.

Kate Smith isn’t a name widely familiar to generations born after the Boomers, who grew up listening to their own parents hum to renditions of songs such as Last Time I Saw Paris, Seems Like Old Times, White Cliffs of Dover and others that resonated over the airwaves at the frontlines and home front during World War II. Opera star Stephanie Blythe pays homage to the icon and the songs like God Bless America that sustained the country with hope during those long solemn years with a special performance dedicated to U.S. veterans. Choregus Productions presents We’ll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith with Stephanie Blythe at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, at Cascia Hall Performing Arts Center, address. Tickets are free to WWII veterans and/or their spouses. Companions attending the event with a veteran or spouse pay $28. Regular admission is $35. For more, go to www.choregus.org.
 

Thursday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m.

Will Carrie Underwood ever be able to separate herself from American Idol, the TV singing competition she won in 2005? Maybe the question should be, “Does she want to?” Since being named winner of the Fox television show’s fourth season for her country soul and dynamite voice, Underwood has racked up enough awards and accolades to appease the gods, including multi-platinum artist, female vocalist of the year (Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association) and entertainer of the year (ACM). AI is just the first in a long line of titles Checotah’s favorite daughter will assume through her monumental entertainment career. Billboard’s “reining queen” of country music sets down her "Blown Away Tour" with opening act Hunter Hayes at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, 100 W. Reno Ave., Oklahoma City. Show is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25. Tickets are $46-$66. For more, go to www.chesapeakearena.com.

Friday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m.

The timing couldn’t be better, but was it coincidence that Theatre Tulsa and Odeum Theatre Company decided to open Hamlet so close to Halloween and the Day of the Dead holidays? It would be easy enough to ask, but let’s not spoil the mystery. The play about a brooding Danish prince running up and down the stairs of his dead father’s castle is haunting and disturbing as he faces the ghost, calls out his uncle for the king’s murder, tells off his mother for marrying his uncle and sends his would-be girlfriend to her death after killing her father. That Hamlet. This play is also gratifying because it’s the Shakespeare play most familiar to many of us, and, honestly, we sort of like how it makes us feel to “translate” English to English and offer footnotes.
Theatre Tulsa and Odeum presents the play with an adult cast and a youth cast alternating through its Nov. 3 run at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 110 E. Second St. Opening night is at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26, and tickets are $12-$16. Go to tulsapac.com for the show schedule and to purchase tickets.