Last Friday McCain-goers enjoyed a program called Fiesta Flamenca danced by a New York company known as Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. The dancers were accomplished. The music was vaguely exotic. And the performance was generally pleasing.

The Manhattan Arts Center is celebrates 15 years of theatre at its present location on Poyntz Avenue.

TOPEKA — The Topeka Symphony Youth Ensembles will present their spring concerts at 2 p.m. Sunday at Washburn University's White Concert Hall. Three youth ensembles will perform: the Youth Orchestra, conducted by Steven Elisha; the Youth Philharmonic, conducted by Carolyn Rich Voth; and the Debut Orchestra, conducted by Carolyn Sandquist.

TOPEKA — The Topeka Jazz Workshop, Inc., concert originally scheduled for Jan. 3, but snowed out and postponed, will be presented Sunday at the Downtown Topeka Ramada Hotel and Convention Center, 420 SE 6th Street. It will feature Kansas City vocalist Ron Gutierrez, a native Topekan who grew up in a jazz atmosphere: Both his father Tony and his uncle Hank played with the Topeka Jazz Workshop Band years ago.

The third course of Manhattan Arts Center's "scrumptious" theatre season was served up this past Friday, a sellout celebratory "fifteenth anniversary" remounting of A.L. Gurney's The Dining Room in the Grosh performance hail. The production was dedicated, fittingly, to the man "who made it all happen," the late Dwight Nesmith, who was in at the start of Manhattan's community theatre and helped sustain it for over forty years. Final presentations in the show's run this week: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, finishing with a Sunday matinee, March 7.

The touring production of the musical "Annie" which a large crowd saw in K-State's McCain Auditorium last Wednesday night was decent in every respect. It was directed by the show's lyricist, Martin Charnin, and featured respectable sets and costumes, appealing choreography, twenty-two talented cast members capable of nearly Mermanesque song blaring, a wonderfully transparent pit band of seven, and a dandy dog.

The issue of race is sometimes hard to talk about. But three friends from California are bringing the topics of race, stereotypes and inclusion to McCain Auditorium in a way that will make you laugh, cry, think and talk.

Manhattan High School's theater unit performed an uncredited play version of Lewis Carroll's two Alice books, "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." The story was closer to the one in "Through the Looking Glass." The title of the entertainment was "Alice in Wonderland."

The knights will say "ni" at the Manhattan Arts Center's Monty Python Fun(d)raiser Friday and Saturday night. The MAC will serve high tea, fine desserts and Monty Python.

TOPEKA — A Valentine's Day concert presented by Topeka Jazz Workshop, Inc., will feature a saxophone quartet called "The Four Others," based on the famous Four Brothers quartet in the old Woody Herman Band days.