Detail from a promotional poster for the Art Museum of Western Virginia's final exhibit, "Past Present Future"

Courtesy Mill Mountain Theatre

The Stinky Cheese Man (Matt Harris) tries to get a couple of kids (Hanley Smith of Alpharetta, Ga., and Hilary Sutton of Lynchburg) to play with him in the touring production of the musical "Stinky Cheese Man" on the main stage at Mill Mountain Theatre from April 1-6.

Want to see the last exhibit ever at the soon-to-be-former Art Museum of Western Virginia? You'll have to help make it first.

The museum at Center in the Square, whose galleries will shut down June 10 (though summer camps and other programs will continue), wants visitors to impart their own museum-related thoughts, photographs, impromptu art or whatever on the gallery walls, beginning April 4.

The art museum, which has been a part of Center in the Square since 1983, will reopen as the Taubman Museum of Art in new, $66-million quarters two blocks away on Nov. 8. The museum was located in South Roanoke before its move to Center in the Square.

Have a cherished museum memory from 30 years ago? Write it on the wall. Have a strong opinion about the controversial design of the new building? Write that down, too.

"Write, scribble, paint on the walls," reads the museum poster for the interactive exhibit, to be called "Past Present Future."

The exhibit will continue until the museum's doors close and staff begin the trek to their new quarters, sometime in late summer or early fall -- at which point the walls will almost certainly be painted over and redone.

Opinions are welcome, stressed museum external affairs director Kimberly Templeton said. Snapshots, too. "Really, we're just looking for any kind of expression that people want to share."

The museum's $3 admission rate applies (under 12 admitted free). Call 342-6760 or visit www.artmuseumroanoke.org.

Squeezing in parking

Many people have asked where visitors to the new Taubman Museum are going to park. Now comes a partial answer: some can park in the street.

The city plans to make Norfolk Avenue one-way going east between the museum and the railroad tracks, and create approximately 16 new parking spaces there, Public Works Director Bob Bengtson said.

In addition, the city will extend a sidewalk from Market Street, where the David R. & Susan S. Goode Railwalk currently ends, for another 400 feet in the direction of the Williamson Road bridge, though the sidewalk will narrow to as little as 5 feet wide.

The new parking spaces, curb and sidewalk will be made possible by eliminating the westbound lane of traffic, Bengtson said.

The work, which will cost about $25,000, should be completed by the museum's opening date, Bengtson said.

Eeeeeeew!

Smelly people need love, too. Just ask the Stinky Cheese Man, appearing on Mill Mountain Theatre's main stage April 1-6.

"The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fair(l)y Stoopid Tales" has already been performed before 20,000 schoolchildren from Pulaski to Fredericksburg during a five-week road tour, director Pat Wilhelms said.

A compilation of well-known fairy tales, which collide comically with one another throughout the 55-minute musical, "Stinky Cheese Man" is based on the popular children's book of the same title by Jon Scieszka.

"It's fairy tales turned upside down and inside out," Wilhelms said. "Everyone keeps coming into other people's stories."

Even the Stinky Cheese Man (played by Matthew Harris) is based loosely on the Gingerbread Man. He wants to be liked, said Wilhelms, "but he's got that major funk going on."

Other characters include Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks, Rapunzel and Thumbelina. The cast includes the young acting professionals in the Mill Mountain Players as well as local children.

Most kids in the audience already are familiar with the story, having read the book, Wilhelms said.

As for an overarching moral -- there really isn't one, except that books can be fun. "You never know what kind of surprises are inside a book," Wilhelms said.

Tickets are $10 to $15. Call 342-5740 or visit www.millmountain.org.

Rescue art deadline

Entry deadline for the 3rd annual Rescue Mission Permanent Collection competition is April 2. Original work only, please.

Winners will be honored as Permanent Art Collection Artists, spotlighted on the Rescue Mission's Web site and get two months' window display at Art on a Mission in Tanglewood Mall.

The winners will be announced at a reception May 4.

For more information, e-mail monica@ rescuemission.net or call 777-7662.

Actors, musicians needed

The Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre at Ferrum College will hold auditions for singers, dancers and musicians for its resident company on Saturday.

Company members must have some college or equivalent dramatic experience, be available to work full time from May through early August, and be able to live at Ferrum College.

High school graduates or first-year college students with dramatic experience may become apprentice company members. Auditions by appointment only. brdt@ferrum.edu; (540) 365-4354.