ART EXHIBITS

• The Peoria Art Guild’s Sculpture Walk Peoria 2024 opens May 19.

SPECIAL EVENTS

• The Gerald M. Brookhart “Arts in Education Spring Celebration” runs through May 15 outside the Peoria County Courthouse with performances by local students from throughout central Illinois.
• Blacksmithing demonstrations are scheduled at Wheels o’ Time Museum on the second and fourth Saturdays starting this month through October.

COMEDY

• Tim Cavanaugh brings his inventive stand-up and humorous songs to the Waterhouse on May 10, and two weeks later, comic Vince Carone returns to the venue.

MUSIC

• The Peoria Area Civic Chorale will be at Five Points Washington on May 3-4 and at the First United Methodist Church on May 5 for their season-ending concert performance, “Songs of Hope and Inspiration.”
• The Peoria Public Library’s free community concert “Music in the McKenzie” on May 5 will feature Still Shine (above right).
• The Philharmonic Chorale at ICC presents “A Festival of Song” at Illinois Central College’s Performing Arts Center in East Peoria on May 12.
• The Violent Femmes will perform at the Peoria Civic Center Theater on May 15.
• Joshua Allen performs in the Singer Songwriter series at Tres Rojas Winery in Washington on May 17.
• The Peoria Symphony Orchestra’s last concert of the season, “Spring Virtuosi,” is May 18, featuring guest artist Richard Hirschl, a cellist.
• The annual “Summer Camp” music fest Memorial Day weekend was retired, but this year Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe will still have days of music, as Jay Goldberg Events & Entertainment presents “Solshine Reverie” featuring dozens of bands, including returning favorites moe. and Umphrey’s McGee

THEATRE

• “Big Fish” will be at Peoria Players Theater on May 3-5 and 9-12, starring Jarod Hazzard and directed by Chip Joyce.

CLASSES & LECTURES

• Lawyers for the Creative Arts on May 7 presents the Nonprofit Compliance Series: Nonprofit Reporting Requirements.
• The Fine Arts Society of Peoria presents Jane Oneail lecturing on “John Singer Sargent: Master with a Brush” May 9 at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

— For more information and details, check out the full online calendar at artspartners.net.

SCREENS

May 1 — A free screening of “This is Where I Learned Not to Sleep,” an award-winning documentary on family violence, will be at 6 p.m. at Arbor Hall Auditorium at Illinois Central College’s Peoria campus on North University. Sponsored by the 10th Judicial Circuit Family Violence Coordinating Council, the showing will include a panel discussion featuring Nashville Police Lieutenant (ret.) Mark Wynn, who’s in the film.

May 2 — “A Man in Full” (Netflix) stars Jeff Daniels as a real-estate mogul facing bankruptcy when business and politics conflict. The six-episode series co-stars Lucy Liu and Diane Lane.

May 4 — “The most exciting two minutes in sports,” the Kentucky Derby: Run for The Roses will air late afternoon on NBC.

May 5 — After a woman dies, her daughters discover she’s led a double life in “Maryland” (PBS), starring Eve Best and Suranne Jones, with Stockard Channing.

May 8 — “Dark Matter” (Apple+) stars Joel Edgerton as a professor abducted into the multiverse and trying to return home before his family faces a villainous alternative of himself. Jennifer Connelly co-stars in the nine-episode series.

May 17 — John Krasinski wrote and directed the comedy “If” (in moviehouses), about a youngster who can see “imaginary friends” — who miss the companionship of people. Ryan Reynolds and Cailey Fleming star, with voices of Emily Blunt, Steve Carell, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Jon Stewart and the late Lou Gossett Jr.

May 27 — “Houses of Horror: Secrets of College Greek Life” is a six-episode (A&E) docuseries about campus Greek life through first-person accounts exposing how hazing, sexual assault, drug use, and systemic racism can persist within groups built on exclusivity, secrecy and power.

— Compiled by Bill Knight