He was diagnosed with ALS - better known as Lou Gehrig's disease - back in October, and now the disease is not so slowly robbing him of his physical presence, his ease in articulating his limbs, his ambulatory power. Eventually it will take away his ability to breathe.

A cursory glance at the Facebook page dedicated to A/perture Cinema, the new 160-seat art-house theater located off 4 th Street in downtown Winston- Salem, offers insight into the public's reaction to the venue's grand opening on Jan. 10.

If art represents a way of working through our collective thoughts and emotions, Lena Jones and Anastassiya Popova have discovered the best way to channel that seemingly ininite energy source. Jones, a native of Kropotkin, Russia, recently moved into a new place and been forced to cope with living alone for the irst time.

A bit of advice for New Year's Eve revelers: If you're a weary from watching non-stop college football bowl games and you're not too terribly hung over, check out the First Friday arts celebrations in both Greensboro and Winston-Salem on Jan. 1.

A young man bearing a plaster cast on his right arm strolled nonchalantly through Krankies Coffee Werehouse and took the stage, leaving the standing-room-only crowd to wonder about his true identity.

She is also a friend who is quick with support and good advice. And it is to her credit that I consider her a friend - not because my friendship is such a valuable thing, but because when compared to Lorraine Ahearn as a columnist, I come off looking like a piker.

The curtain rises on Act I as guests of the Silverhaus family begin arriving for their annual Christmas party. As the Silverhaus children, 15-year-old Clara and 11-year-old Fritz, enjoy the evening's festivities with their friends, Herr Drosselmeyer arrives.

December's First Friday is the last one before the holiday, and artmakers in both Greensboro and Winston-Salem are finishing off their wares in preparation for a shopping frenzy..

Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, railed against the commercialization of Christmas in the TV animated holiday classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Schulz's method of delivering his message came in the form of a sweet, heartwarming story about Charlie Brown's search for the true meaning of Christmas.

"What do you do with the love you feel?" Madge Owens, played by UNC School of the Arts senior Ali Bill, asks her mother, Flo, in William Inge's play, Picnic. Madge's question to Flo, played by Rebecca Wolf, gets at the very heart of the conflict in the 1953 Broadway hit play currently being revived by UNCSA's production at the Catawba Theatre at Performance Place.

The Revolve Film and Music Festival and the Weatherspoon Art Museum have teamed up to present the North Carolina premiere of the critically acclaimed environmental documentary Dirt!

The independent feature film Wesley, a biographical drama tracing the life of clergyman John Wesley (1703-1791), the architect of the Methodist movement, will enjoy its Winston-Salem premiere this Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Stevens Center (405 W. 4 th St.). Much of the cast and crew will be on hand to greet the audience and discuss the production following the screening.

If the purpose of drama is to invoke a sense of wonder in the viewer - to pitch us out from the comfort of our everyday mundane world and pull us, like a tractor beam, into unknown territory - then Wake Forest University Theatre's production of Jose Rivera's Sonnets for an Old Century.

As you approach the Reynolda House along its winding and wooded driveway, with the botanical garden set below the main house and an expansive front yard in the foreground, you can feel the splendor coming from the stonework.

The Stained Glass Playhouse's production of James Goldman's acclaimed, award-winning historical drama The Lion in Winter will open this Friday at 4401 Indiana Ave., Winston-Salem.

You may not know "The Rusty Bucket Kids Club," but soon enough you might. With so many small-screen franchises devoted to kids, teens and tweens, it's no surprise that a local production would seek to make its own mark in the marketplace.

The tile-covered walls deep inside Triad Stage reverberated with the voices of men who had been unnerved by what they had just witnessed. Opening night of David Mamet's Oleanna sparked a vigorous postmortem in the men's room.

Director M. Seth Reines should be commended for casting the husband-and-wife team of Jillian Nyhan Zygo and J. Michael Zygo in the lead roles of Robbie Hart and Julia Sullivan. Reines has worked with the Zygos on separate occasions, directing Jillian in the touring company production of Funny Girl.

The School of Drama at UNC School of the Arts will open its 2009-10 performance season with August Wilson's acclaimed Fences, which will open on Oct. 29 at the Catawba Theatre, located in Performance Place on the UNCSA main campus (1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem).

The Paper Lantern Theatre Companys production of The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, a cross between a stage play and a documentary about the aftermath of Matthew Shepards death, was performed Monday at the Arts Council Theatre in Winston-Salem. The performance represented one of more than 150 staged readings held around the world on Oct.