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Gray Areas: It’s a Halloween weekend of The Zou and some fireworks

Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment: • James Brown may have been the hardest working man in show business, but Khalid Tabbara will be the hardest working man on Halloween. The Austintown native will be doing triple duty for a show Friday at Westside Bowl in Youngstown. His current music project is MUNNYCAT, the L.A. based indie pop duo featuring Tabbara as Khaledzou and his wife, Hubbard native Katianne Timko-Tabbara, as K808. It will be their first local show since the release of MUNNYCAT’s album “til death do us art” in August. Before MUNNYCAT, Tabbara ...

Mahoning Valley arts and entertainment

Art ARTS & EDUCATION AT THE HOYT, 124 E. Leasure Ave., New Castle, Pa.: “Jim Soppelsa: Abstract Variations” and “Dan Droz: Hidden in Plain Sight,” both through Nov. 6. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday. hoytartcenter.org and 724-652-2882. ASHTABULA ARTS CENTER, 2928 W. 13th St., Ashtabula: Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize Exhibition, through Friday. Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. ashtabulaartscenter.org and 440-964-3396. BUTLER ...

‘Living Dead’ can’t be killed

As anyone who's seen a George A. Romero movie knows, it ain’t easy to kill the living dead. Apparently the same is true for Rust Belt Theater Company’s “Living Dead: The Musical.” The theater founded by Robert Dennick Joki had to find an alternate location for its annual Halloween production because of a landlord-tenant dispute at Youngstown’s Club Switch, its home for several years. That search led it to Greene Eagle Winery, “the first and only people to bite,” said Keith Stepanic, director of this year’s production. However, less than a week before its ...

First Wednesday adds music to poetry reading

There will be some music to go along with the poetry at Lit Youngstown’s next First Wednesday Reader Series event. The Catro Trio will accompany poet Philip Terman, and the program also will feature poet Wendy McVicker. McVicker served as poet laureate of Athens from 2020 to 2022. Her most recent full-length book is a collaborative collection with poet Cathy Cultice Lentes, “Stronger When We Touch” and chapbook “Alone in the Burning.” Terman, who lives in Grove City, Pa., is the author of “The Whole Mishpocha” and “My Blossoming Everything” and was co-translator on ...

‘Rust Belt Gothic’ event planned for book release

Bill O’Rly celebrates the release of his debut short story collection with “Under a Steel Moon: A Rust Belt Gothic Experience.” The immersive event blends performance art, music, folklore and speculative fiction to mark the release of “Rust Belt Gothic: Volume I.” Illustrated by Rachel Lynn Clifford with cover photography by Nea Bristol, the book chronicles a haunted Mahoning Valley where “steel mills collapsed into silence, slag heaps groan in the dark and old neighborhoods remember more than they should.” “This isn’t imported horror. It’s born of the Valley ...

Locally shot ‘Bando’ gets premiere

There’s a new cop patrolling the beat in Warren … and maybe on televisions everywhere. The first three episodes of “Bando,” a police drama created by 1998 LaBrae High School graduate Ryan Freeman, will premiere Saturday at Boardman Movies 8, and the plan is to have all episodes of the limited series available on streaming channel Tubi in early 2026. Freeman has worked as a cinematographer and in various roles on other people’s projects, but this is the one he’s developed on his own as creator, writer and executive producer. For “Bando” he drew upon his own experience ...