theater

The promo card for Flashpoint Theatre Company's production of Between Us is a picture of a man's dress-shoed foot facing off with a woman's high-heeled one, a smashed wine glass between them and merlot spreading across hardwood. Oooh, the drama! Joe Hortua's Virginia Woolf-like take on marriage and friendship gets its Philly premiere starting this week.
Sept. 29-Oct. 16, $12-$15, 2nd Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-514-0361.

art

Full disclosure: Susan Hagen is one of City Paper's art critics, but she's also an established artist in her own right. For her new show at Schmidt Dean, "The Lost Army and Other Small Monuments," Hagen worked with a soft wood, linden, and charred it to created delicate shadowing and rough, but expressive, detail. The result is a powerful collection of miniature carved soldiers, weapons drawn or at rest, in all manner of moods: defeated, confused, moved, sad, angry — and yes, lost. Also showing: painter Anne Seidman's studies in color and line.
Through Oct. 15, Schmidt Dean Gallery, 1710 Sansom St., 215-569-9433.

books

Wicked, the Broadway musical, doesn't hit the Academy till March, but the guy who started it all is here with his new book, Son of a Witch. Will Gregory Maguire's fans tolerate this corny pun and read about the male heir of Elphaba (aka The Wicked Witch of the West)? Was the lion cowardly?
Thu., Sept. 29, 7 p.m., Chester County Books, 975 Paoli Pike, 610-696-1661.

theater

Can two heady concepts meet for a successful show? Caliban Productions is going to try with Perfection Unspeakable, a play by Tom Minter about angels engaged in a heavenly chess match over free will, in a production using American Sign Language, dance and spoken dialogue.
Through Oct. 23, The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 212-868-4444, www.smarttix.com.

books

Girl nearly crushed to death by a piano at a jazz club. Girl grows up to be an R&B singer haunted by the ghost of ragtime legend Scott Joplin. Tananarive Due swings into town with her mystery Joplin's Ghost. Joining her is Philly's multi-pen-named L.A. Banks, with the latest in her Vampire Huntress series, The Forbidden.
Thu., Sept. 29, 7 p.m., Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341.