“Permanent Collection,” a play directed by Arizona State University professor Charles St. Clair, is now performing at the Herberger Theater after opening at ASU West Campus in celebration of Black History Month, and it’s worth checking out.

Who knew Scrooge was such a great dancer?

As the curmudgeonly character from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” actor Robert Kolby Harper does the running man, the cabbage patch, the dab, and even twerks. It’s hilarious – as it’s meant to be in this shake-and-bake parody of the classic from improv comedy enterprise Second City – but it’s also impressive, because the dude has some seriously sweet moves.

“The Merchant of Venice” is one of William Shakespeare’s most controversial plays. Southwest Shakespeare Company’s production proves it is as timeless as it is contentious.

The plot revolves around a man named Bassanio and his courtship of a woman named Portia. Bassanio needs 3,000 ducats to be her suitor, and he borrows the money from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, with Bassanio’s merchant friend, Antonio, acting as guarantor on the loan. The terms are steep: If Bassanio can’t repay Shylock on the specified date, Shylock will take a pound of Antonio’s flesh.

The play has been set in pretty much every era and time period imaginable over the past 500 years; Southwest Shakespeare Company sets theirs in the U.S. during the late 1920s, presumably just prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that helped trigger the Great Depression. Two rolling panel walls with doors and Art Deco windows, a faux marble floor and counter, braided columns, mannequin torsos draped in 1920 clothes, and a black chalkboard showing New York Stock Exchange rates set the stage for the talented cast of actors, and an oft-disturbing but always powerful story about prejudice, race, and religion.

Every four years, two things happen: The United States holds a presidential election and the Summer Olympic Games take place. While election coverage has dominated the headlines for months on end, for a couple of weeks in August, five pint-sized powerhouses managed to distract us. They were the U.S. women gymnastic team at the Rio games, dubbed “The Final Five”: 2012 Olympians Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, along with first-time Olympians Madison Kocian, Laurie Hernandez and Simone Biles. We held our breath and marveled at every tumble and vault, twirl and landing. They were invincible and they stole our hearts.

Now that the Olympics are in the rearview mirror, the Five will take part in the 36-city Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions, an exhibition of more than 30 gymnasts, including members of the men’s and women’s 2008, 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic teams as well as other world-class gymnasts. If you’re one of the many fans who caught Final Five fever this summer, you’ll have a chance to see them let loose in a non-competitive setting.

On Thursday, Sept. 22, the tour will stop at Gila River Arena in Glendale. Tickets start at $28.50 and go up to $143.50. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit kelloggstour.com.

“If Aphra Behn were here tonight, I hope she’d forgive our trespasses,” the groovy hippie chick says in the prologue, touching a white marble bust perched nobly next to a hot pink lava lamp with a zebra-striped base.

So opens Liz Duffy Adams’ play “Or,” in which there are many trespasses -- terrific trespasses and glorious liberties, which historical muse Aphra Behn, if she be anything like legend and this character portrayal, would no doubt forgive but downright appreciate. The play is an entertaining exploration of themes including identity and disguise, feminism and sexuality, and societal paradigms, built around a fascinating female figure from the literary canon and packed with witticisms and dashing dialogue. And Southwest Shakespeare Company’s production of “Or,” is a buoyant and brilliant testament to the talent of the company.