Regional arts and entertainment events

Sunday

Music by Rodgers Here are two chances to consider work by a master of the stage musical, Richard Rodgers. One of Rodgers and Hammerstein's best musicals,

State Fair

, wasn't written for the stage at all, but as a 1945 movie (they truly don't make those like they used to). The plot is deceptively simple - a farm family makes a three-day visit to Iowa's agricultural exhibition - but with songs such as "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "Our State Fair," it's a truly affectionate and affecting tale. It took 50 years for someone to finally put it on stage, augmented by songs cut from other Rodgers and Hammerstein shows. A new production of the 1996 show goes on at 2 and 7 p.m. today at the

Walnut Street Theatre

, 825 Walnut St., and continues on a Tuesday-through-

Sunday schedule to Oct. 19. Tickets are $10 to $70. Call 215-574-3550. . . . The incandescent cabaret singer

Andrea Marcovicci

performs songs by Rodgers and Hart at 3 p.m. today at

the Prince Music Theater

, 1412 Chestnut St., and at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 3 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets are $41 to $54. Call 215-569-9700.

Monday

Politics and poetry Two former national security advisers,

Zbigniew Brzezinski

(Jimmy Carter's) and

Brent Scowcroft

(George H.W. Bush's), talk about current and future U.S. foreign policy at 6:30 p.m. at the

National Constitution Center

, 525 Arch St. Tickets are $15. Call 215-409-6700. . . . Five Philadelphia poets -

Scott Edward Anderson

,

Randall Couch

,

Tom Devaney

,

Ish Klein

and

Trapeta B. Mayson

- read from their works, with a musical interlude by

Hezekiah Jones,

at 7 p.m. at

Kelly Writers House

, 3805 Locust Walk. Admission is free. Call 215-573-9748.

After the fall The former lead singer of the Mendoza Line,

Shannon McArdle

had a bad breakup with her husband and former band mate just about the time the group's final album came out. Her husky vocals are lo-fi, but not downbeat, in her current solo work of cinematic pop. She opens for Icelandic one-man band

Mugison

at 8 p.m. at

the North Star Bar

, 2639 Poplar St. Tickets are $10. Call 215-787-0488.

Tuesday

In the neighborhood Conductor

Rossen Milanov

leads

the Philadelphia Orchestra

in works by Bernstein, Verdi, Arturo Marquez, Copland and Gershwin for a

City Hall Neighborhood Concert

at 7 p.m. at

Dilworth Plaza

, Broad and Market Streets. Admission is free. Call 215-893-1988.

Wednesday

Movies by Majewski In his challenging films, the Polish writer and artist

Lech Majewski

favors a lyrical visual language and a philosophical aesthetic. A retrospective of his work at

International House,

3701 Chestnut St., includes

The Knight

, a 1980 medieval parable about the quest for a gold-stringed harp (7 p.m. Wednesday);

The Garden of Earthly Delights

, a 2004 drama about a dying, Bosch-obsessed art historian on a last trip to Venice with her boyfriend (7 p.m. Thursday);

Gospel According to Harry

, a 1994 dark comedy about suburban life in a post-apocalyptic desert California (7 p.m. Friday);

Angelus

, a 2000 drama about a backwoods circle of occult alchemists in 1950s Poland (5 p.m. Saturday); and

Glass Lips (Blood of a Poet)

, a 2007 experimental film consisting of 33 visions of a writer locked in an asylum (7 p.m. Saturday). Tickets are $7 per film. Call 215-387-5125.

Thursday

By other names Kazutaka Nomura performs as

Pwrfl Power

when the singer and guitarist plays his skewed folk-pop, sounding like the soundtrack for a digital TV children's show about post-college slackers on a Smithsonian reel tape. David "Moose" Adamson bills himself as

Grampall Jookabox

for his outings playing big-beat blues filtered through a broken drum machine. They headline a four-band bill at 7 p.m. at the

Green Line Cafe

, 45th and Locust Streets. Tickets are $5. Call 215-222-3431.

Friday & Saturday

Family matters With her acclaimed 1980 novel,

Housekeeping

, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2004

Gilead

,

Marilynne Robinson

established herself as one of our finest writers, able to find deep meaning in the quotidian. She reads from her third novel,

Home

, a revisit to the characters and settings of her second, in

the Free Library's

Montgomery Auditorium, 19th and Vine Streets, at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $14. Call 215-567-4341.

World beat Canadian banjo player

Jayme Stone

teams with Malian kora master

Mansa Sissoko

on the wonderful

Africa to Appalachia.

The duo plays at the

Calvary Center for Community and Culture

, 801 S. 48th St., at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $10 to $20. Call 215-729-1028. . . . A native of the Outer Hebrides, Scottish singer

Julie Fowlis

remakes the Gaelic tunes of her islands on her fine CD

Cuilidh

, infusing them with a wistful exuberance. She performs at

World Cafe Live

, 3025 Walnut St., at 8 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $23. Call 215-222-1400.

Edgy comedy Extremism in the pursuit of comedy is no jest, and satirist and TV show host

Bill Maher

proves that. He performs at

the Tower Theater

, 69th and Ludlow Streets, Upper Darby, at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $25 to $75. Call 610-352-2887.