Here are some of the shows and concerts headed to Anchorage in 2017

The new year arrives with new calendars filled with lots of lovely empty squares just begging to be filled in with reminders of must-see/must-do events. Here is a nowhere-near-complete look forward at some of the cool concerts and shows awaiting us in the next few months.

Jaw power

Spoken-word performances will be in the forefront, starting in January when the Anchorage Concert Association presents Intergalactic Nemesis, a radio drama accompanied by giant projections of comic book art. The troupe was a big hit in their previous visit and we expect the Discovery Theatre to be sold out again when they present "Robot Planet Rising" on Jan. 13-14.

ACA is also responsible for several other nonmusical performances that will be driven primarily by jaw power. On Feb. 8, a road-tour version of the national storytelling radio show "The Moth" featuring several favorite presenters from past broadcasts will team up with Alaska yarn-spinners from Arctic Entries.

Other talky headliners coming our way courtesy of ACA include comedian and Monty Python veteran John Cleese on March 16, Garrison Keillor on April 12 and David Sedaris on May 13. Cleese is making his Alaska debut, but the other two have had several previous dates here.

Along those same lines, Cyrano's will present a new one-woman show based on the writings of the late newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck. "Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End" by Alison and Margaret Engel — the same writers who created the play about Molly Ivers, "Red Hot Patriot" — will run May 11-June 4.

Song and dance

There'll be several full-throttle stage shows with singing and dancing this winter and spring opening on Feb. 3 with Anchorage Community Theatre's production of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill," a musical drama based on a historic performance by blues queen Billie Holiday a few months before her death. Matt Fernandez directs.

From Billie Holiday to "Billy Elliot," ACA will stage its own production of Elton John's musical about a boy who can't be kept from realizing his dream of becoming a dancer, Feb. 14-19. In addition, we can look forward to the University of Alaska Anchorage staging of a musical version of Studs Terkel's "Working," Feb. 10-26, and a return of a huge audience favorite, "Beauty and the Beast," again courtesy of ACA, April 25-30.

Finally, Cyrano's will bring a wacky musical comedy to its stage in the summer, July 21-Aug. 27. "The Great American Trailer Musical" about a stripper who moves into "Florida's most exclusive trailer park," Armadillo Acres, and wreaks havoc in the hitherto placid lives of the established residents.

Drama and laughter

Aside from a reprise of Dick Reichman's "Money" at Cyrano's (Jan. 20-Feb. 12) there won't be much in the way of new local theater — with one serious exception. Perseverance Theatre will stage the world premiere of "They Don't Talk Back" by Frank Henry Kaash Katasse, opening March 3. This play involves three generations of Tlingit men adapting to contemporary Alaska, and promises to be one of the more interesting theatrical events of the season.

ACT will close out the 2016-17 season with a couple of shows that may not be familiar to many theatergoers, "The Best of Everything," sort of a look at "Mad Men" from the perspective of the secretaries (March 24-April 9), and "Things My Mother Taught Me," a comedy about a young couple and their overly concerned parents (May 5-28).

Otherwise we're mostly looking at a slew of scripts that, while beautifully written and extremely popular, have been seen before. They include Noel Coward's "Private Lives" at Cyrano's (March 10-April 2), Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapine Agile" at UAA (March 31-April 9), and at Valley Performing Arts, "Lend Me a Tenor" (Feb. 16-March 5), "And Then There Were None" (March 24-April 16) and "California Suite" (May 5-28).

Melodic majesties

The Alaska Center for the Performing Arts' new 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano will have its public debut on Jan. 6 when Van Cliburn medalist Joyce Yang returns to Anchorage to try it out in a Discovery Theatre concert. It's a propitious first course to the upcoming classical music fare.

Violinist Tim Fain will join the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra on Jan. 28 for the majestic Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms, a piece I do not recall hearing hitherto in a live performance, though surely it's been done here before. The same program will include Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."

Tracy Silverman will return with his own Concerto for Electronic Violin with the ASO on Feb. 25; Silverman proved to be a real crowd-pleaser on his last appearance here. The ASO season will conclude on April 1 when the Anchorage Concert Chorus and Alaska Chamber Singers will join the players in excerpts from Modest Mussorgsky's opera "Boris Godunov." The concert is billed as "Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Alaska Purchase."

Speaking of opera, Anchorage Opera will present the Alaska debut of "Glory Denied," Feb. 10-18. This new work by composer Tom Cipullo is based on the ordeal of Col. Jim Thompson, who was imprisoned in North Vietnam from 1964 to 1973, America's longest-held POW.

The Alaska Airlines Winter Classics chamber music series, Feb. 10-12, will seem like old home week when festival founder violinist Paul Rosenthal returns for programs that will include works by Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin, Philip Glass and a whole lot of Beethoven. Rosenthal will be joined by pianist Natasha Paremski and cellist Wendy Sutter. The festival's current executive director, Zuill Bailey, will also be in town for two free performances of "Tales of Hemingway" by Michael Daugherty, the work for which he is up for a Grammy Award this year.

Firemen and fossils

The first First Friday of the year, Jan. 6, will include a different kind of exhibit at Kaladi's downtown. It's a show of artwork submitted by the community that recognizes the efforts of Alaska's first responders, police, firefighters, EMTs, etc. As always with art openings in Alaska, the public is invited and admission is free.

The International Gallery of Contemporary Art at 427 D St. opens the new year with its traditional show of work by members. In the months to come we can expect solo shows by artists including Katherin Coons, Allison Estergard, Joe Carr, Carmel Anderson and Michael Conti. A group show titled "Postcards to Anchorage," curated by Linda Infante Lyons, will go up in March.

The series of art shows at Alaska Pacific University will continue with work by Janet C. Kickok and Teisia Chleborad in January, paintings by Paula Payne and prints by Denis Keogh in February, paintings by Dan Miller and photographs by Richard Murphy in March, and encaustic and collage work by Joyce Coolidge and Sharon Trager in May.

New activities at the Anchorage Museum feel a little muted while a major addition and gallery renovation is underway. But we note a show by acclaimed local photographer Brian Adams, "I Am Inuit," opening Feb. 24 and running through the summer. Adams' vivid "environmental portraiture" has been a hit both with Alaskans and out-of-state connoisseurs.

If things seem slow for the moment, the wait should be worth it when the museum's new expansion opens in September. Among other things, the new space will provide room for displaying some of the dazzling items in the museum's permanent collection and restoring to view historical pieces from the Alaska Gallery. Those artifacts are currently undergoing cleaning and fix-up in a space where visitors can look in and see what's going on.

The opening of the expansion will coincide with what should be a delightful all-ages exhibit by Ray Troll, "Cruisin' the Eternal Coastline." Troll, who previously drove around the Intermountain West with paleontologist Kirk Johnson to create the delicious "Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway," has again teamed up with Johnson for a tour of the Pacific Coast of North America, all the way from Baja to Point Barrow. The show will include paintings, fossils and light and audio installations. Should be fun and, for those curious about the latest finds from ages past in Alaska, very informative.

Miscellaneous

Pulse Dance Company will deliver a double-bill at Alaska Pacific University, Feb. 17-26. The program will include Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and, with help from local indie rock band Modern Savage, choreography set to the music of Led Zeppelin.

"Across the Shaman's River: John Muir, the Tlingit Stronghold, and the Opening of the North," a new book by Daniel Lee Henry, is due out in October, published by the University of Alaska Press. An assiduous scholar, Henry has been collecting the history of the Haines area pre- and post-contact for several years and, from tantalizing sections previously released, has information about the development of Alaska that is not widely known.

Finally, in the too-soon-to-tell department, we hear the Anchorage Symphony will again present a multidisciplinary show titled ARTic Convergence. Last May's edition of the event featured films by local cinematographers accompanied by live music. This year's offering, set for March, will apparently include a contribution from the Pulse dancers, but further details are not available at this time.