Looking for a fun thing to do with your kids and grandkids?  Take them to Story Theatre,  a show built around some of the Grimm’s Brothers tales and Aesop’s fables, created by Paul Sills, founder of the Second City Improv Group in Chicago.

Each year The School of Theatre Arts’, program etc… (educational theatre company) presents a play for children in the fall. This entirely student directed, acted & designed production performs first on campus and then tours to area schools.

According to Laura A. McCammon, faculty mentor and founder of etc…, “the director of this show, Kelena Jones, also believes in the relationship of story to community and the relationship of story to literacy skills in children.  She has chosen ‘Henny Penny’, ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’, ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’, ‘Two Crows’ and ‘The Golden Goose’.  These stories have (been) slightly modernized.”

You can catch these shows at 10:00 am and 7:00 pm on Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25 and at 1:30 on Saturday September 26 in the Marroney Theatre, 1025 N Olive Rd, Bldg #3 on the UA campus.  Tickets are $5 and can be reserved by calling the Fine Arts Box Office  at 621-1162.  Tickets can also be purchased at the door.

I found Yappy Hour at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort by following the barking of a few of the dozens of dogs that were enjoying the beautiful outdoor patio. I don’t mean to make it sound like it was cacophony, they were actually quite well behaved considering they were at a cocktail party.

Not being a dog person, I fortified myself with a glass of wine and went to talk with the guest of honor, my friend, Edie Jarolim, author of “Am I Boring My Dog”, and blogger of Will My Dog Hate Me? She was merrily scribbling away signing books. At the appointed hour we were directed indoors for the reading.  I passed the corner for “dogs and their owners” with chairs on plastic sheeting over the dance floor.

Jennifer Duffy, representing Loews, told us that the resort is a pet friendly hotel – in addition to dogs you may bring your cat, iguana or bunny rabbit.   Edie then entertained the very appreciative audience, both human and canine, by reading from her charming, funny and very helpful book.  Both novice dog owners (like Edie) and veteran dog people will learn something from this comprehensive guide to being the best dog caretaker you can be. Frankie the doggie muse was on stage looking very snappy in his black tie.

If you missed it, don’t worry, she’ll be reading at Clues Unlimited, A Mystery Bookstore, 3146 E. Ft. Lowell Rd, on Saturday, October 17 at 2:30 p.m. at a benefit for Arizona Greyhound Rescue .  Also reading will be Marlene Bachmann, author of a new mystery set in Tucson dealing with nefarious doings at the local greyhound track. Twenty per cent of the book sales for the event will go to AGR. Greyhounds welcome.

San Francisco invades Tucson!  Mark you calendar for some Bay Area entertainment here in the Old Pueblo.

Sister Spit: The Next Generation

Friday October 2, 8:00 PM at Gallagher Theater, University of Arizona, Free and open to the public

Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hitting the road again, with a whole new all-girl lineup of zinesters, fashion plates, novelists, performance artists, slam poets and fancy scribblers. Inspired by the legendary Sister Spit Ramblin’ Roadshow of the 90s, Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hauling a vanload of killer underground female talent across the USA carrying on the tradition of rowdy, raucous literary adventure. Come and meet your new favorite performers!

Beth Lisick, author of the books Monkey Girl, Everybody Into the Pool, and Helping Me Help Myself. Nude performance artiste. Comedienne.

Ariel Schrag, comics artist who documented her queer youth in a series of graphic novels — one of which, Potential, is being made into a movie by Killer Films.

Sara Seinberg, poetic powerhouse. Creator of the multi-city K’Vetch Queer Open Mic. Artistic Director of the past three Homo-A-Go-Go festivals. Photographer extraordinaire.

Kirya Traber, slam poet superhero. Teacher of poetry to the youth. Organizer of performances exploring queerness, race and more.

Ben McCoy, performance artist, novelist-in-progress, force of nature. Whose writings have been made into the short films My Hustler Boyfriend and The Face of God.

Rhiannon Argo, skater, future librarian, present novelist. Author of the queer tour-de-force The Creamsicle, which takes you into the lives of pill-popping, pole-dancing, heart-breaking, gender-fucking young queers

Hosted by Michelle Tea, co-founder of Sister Spit and the muscle behind Sister Spit: The Next Generation. Author of a bunch of books, including the Lambda Award-winning Valencia, and the coming-of-age-on-drugs novel Rose of No Man’s Land.

And special guest Tania Katan.

More info: http://www.myspace.com/sisterspitnextgen,

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Mighty Real with Lynnee Breedlove and Silas Howard

Saturday, October 10, 8 p.m., Dinnerware Artspace 264 E. Congress St. Sliding scale $7 +, all ages show

An evening of dueling solo shows

Lynnee Breedlove is an improv comic. Silas Howard makes 50-Cent videos. Lynnee is funny and ugly. Silas is poignant and handsome. Always disarming, alarming, and keeping you on your rocker boot toes, both use multimedia performance to trace the queer history that made them the men they are today.

Lynnee Breedlove’s all new solo show, Confessions of a Poser is a comic look at the mystery of the purple dick, how to use legacies of cultures not your own, and how to kill things, eat them and still be a Buddhist. He’s been told, “Too many props for standup,” and “Too many punchlines for theater.” Buckets, knives, and body parts are still integral to the show. Although dickless himself, weirdly, his biggest fans are straight bio boys, DWD, Dudes With Dicks, probably due to his constant appropriation of straight non-trans male culture.

Opening for Lynnee is Silas Howard’s one-man-show, Thank you for Being Urgent, tale of a transman in the queer punk world of San Francisco, spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood, searching for true tales of fierce outsiders, re-imagining the mainstream, traversing serendipitous heights and punishing ironies, Thank you for Being Urgent chronicles burlesque dancers with dementia, tranny jazzmen and film executives, using archival photos, film clips, and monologue.

More info: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mighty-Real-Tour