Arts in the city

• PHOENIX Players are lashing out from October 7-22 at the ANU Arts Centre with “The Wizard of Oz”, directed by Kelda McManus and Jon Garland. It has no fewer than 20 little Munchkins and BJ Anyos as the Wicked Witch of the West. Dinner and show (including a child’s menu) through Teatro Vivaldi 6257 2718. Bookings to 6257 1950.

• IT looks like being an Italian season of art. With the support of the Italian Embassy, perspex and foam works by non-conformist painter-sculptor Sante Monachesi, originally curated out of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, are at the Gallery of Australian Design, at Commonwealth Place in the parliamentary triangle, until October 29.

• YOU can’t keep an old rocker down. Jon English and his troupe of young musos will be at the Canberra Theatre with “The Rock Show… More!” That means more Beatles, more Stones, more Who, more Zepplin, more Bowie, more Elton, and so on. Bookings to 6275 2700.

• PAINTBOX Fine Art, 32 Lonsdale Street, Braddon, has Sophie Gralton’s “A Child Most Likely”, 11am-5pm, Wednesday-Sunday, until October 9. Most works are autobiographical self-portraits, but she crops the eyes so that the result is a fleeting moment or a memory.

• IDENTICAL twin brothers and stars of Melbourne International Comedy Festival, James and Benjamin Stevenson are at Civic Pub, 8 Lonsdale Street, Braddon, 8pm, October 5-8. The show will be recorded for a CD release. Tickets at the door.

• POETRY comes to the screen, when the cream of the “Poetry in Film” festival appears at the National Film and Sound Archive at 7pm, October 10. Independent film makers were asked to interpret the poem “Four Letters Three Words”, by Belinda Hilton, into a short film.

• A NEW dance film “…in wonderland” by James and Emma Batchelor, part of  Canberra Contemporary Arts Space’s festival “Close Range”, running all day on October 8 and beginning with performance art films in CCAS’s Gorman House space. “…in wonderland” will then be performed at 7.30pm as an installation supported by living sculptures, featuring dancers Laura Boynes and Adelina Larsson and musicians Shoeb Ahmad and Tristen Parr. Tickets $10.

• VETERAN Canberra storyteller Brian Hungerford and lover of all things Iberian, has just launched “Different Waters 1588-2011”, “a fantastical entertainment” that looks at the interweaving cultures of Australia, Spain, Ireland and England. Inquiries to brilu@grapevine.com.au