In the Wings:What's new and exciting in the Triangle theater and dance scene.

In a wedding season marked by swooning sighs of "I do," "Fistful of Love" fights back with a belligerent "I won't" at Manbites Dog Theater.

PSE Broadway LLC will co-produce a new show based in part on a memoir by Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of former South African president Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela. It's aiming for Broadway in 2010.

Preacher's son Tim Tyson explores North Carolina's racial past -- and uses it to change minds and hearts.

Screening a made-in-America documentary about a French artist in front of an audience of Parisians would make anyone anxious, let alone a pair of Durham filmmakers venturing for the first time into the critical world of film festivals.

Let It Pour:It's not easy being Champagne.

The difference between a spice and an herb Storing fresh herbs Drying herbs Freezing herbs Cooking with herbs.

Black Widow.

Be assured that Nam Le's brilliant debut short story collection, "The Boat," will quicken your pulse and awaken every nerve in your being. For avid readers who have hungered for stories that can transport them physically, intellectually and emotionally, stories so well-structured and narrated they appear to reinvent the form itself, the literary American Idol is Nam Le.

Sometimes, it feels as if Rick Bragg isn't so much writing as erupting like some Mount St. Helens of adjectives, adverbs, nouns and all the rest of it. This man can put the words together. The former New York Times national correspondent, 48, now has done something not many writers, even really good ones, can get away with -- finished a three-book memoir.

A biographer strives for a balanced view of a divisive figure.

By 1973 the Grateful Dead had entered the second era of its 30-year run (1965-95). With the death of singer Ron "Pigpen" McKernan that March, the band had lost its bawdy blues soul. But Bob Weir's full flowering as a rhythm guitarist and songwriter gave the band another front man in addition to Jerry Garcia.

Scott Robinson Plays the Compositions of Thad Jones: Forever Lasting ***1/2

Other grades.

You know your movie trailer is playing a tough crowd when about 10 seconds into the trailer for "Love Guru," as Jessica Alba first appears on screen, someone shouts out: "Love interest!"

PedEgg foot file.

There's no telling what the cliffhanger will be when Transactors Improv Co. ends the first season of its drama "City of Medicine" at 8 p.m. Friday. But it will probably involve sex.

American Orchestral Song ***

As I greedily wolfed down whole chapters of C.J. Sansom's vast, captivating new thriller, "Winter in Madrid," I began calling it "Casablanca North," although that sobriquet is ultimately more whimsical than fully accurate.

Snow:My friend and I had met for coffee.