On the first hangover-free shopping day of the new year, we hightail our cheapskate asses to the nearby Barnes & Noble, where calendars are mercifully half-price. This trip also gives us a chance to buy the books we didn't get for Christmas. We wanted Dick Wolf's Law and Order Book, to stoke our obsession with the cop-lawyer drama creator's show and its wicked, witty stepsisters (SVU/Criminal Intent). Lately, we've enjoyed the students-killing-teachers plot lines, although our faculty-provoked rage is long gone. If yours isn't, or if you're a music student at Southern Methodist University, you can get some consequence-free revenge by watching (and heckling) the SMU music school faculty at Sunday's free Music in the Meadows: Cyber Music multimedia performance at 3 p.m. in the Meadows Museum, 5900 Bishop Blvd. The teachers go techno with synthesized pieces and improvisation. "Just Joan: Alone With My Thoughts" with music/lyrics by Robert Frank, who teaches music theory/composition, and the soprano stylings of voice department chair Joan Heller, promises "turmoil and resolution," Heller says. Beats arrest and prosecution, we say. Call 214-768-2516. --Annabelle Massey Helber
Say Ahhh
The GoodDoctor is in
1/16
UNSEEN: A Collective Premiere. Ten plays, 10 minutes each, six playwrights, four actors, comedy and drama. All world premieres, these playlets revolve around experiences normally unseen. Two male and two female actors play 29 characters and explore the full gamut of experiences common but seldom seen in daily life--the little dramas that unfold on the other sides of doors or just over the horizon. It's what really goes on in the ladies room, what parents and teachers really say about kids on the other side of the glass wall. Didn't you always want to know? What passes between a couple who have loved and lost but badly want to reconcile? And of the things that are deep in the well of privacy: Beyond the sheer nervousness a person feels when moving out on her own for the first time, what are the truly dangerous fears that could make that person self-destructive? GoodDoctor Productions commissioned these original plays, all by local playwrights, and will present them at the Bath House on White Rock Lake at the end of Northcliff off Buckner from January 16 through January 24 with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays. Tickets are $8 to $10. Call 214-458-9187. --Jim Schutze
Field's Dreams
1/16
While those coming from a background of rulers and starchy blazers may find them disturbing, the nuns of William E. Barrett's Lilies of the Field are sweet and amiable. Lilies--the play version--hits the Irving Community Theater stage, 3333 N. MacArthur in the Irving Arts Center, this week, featuring wayward journeyman Homer Smith and his habited cohorts in a wacky emotional journey about feelings and growing as a person and such things. The show runs January 16 through January 31. Ticket prices range from $12 to $17. Call 972-252-2787. --Mary Monigold
Family Ties
1/16
After the holidays, you're probably sick of your family. But if you're going to see Heartland, a new musical that's fresh from its world premiere, expect to get another face-full of familial bickering and bonding. Heartland is all about coming home again, not coming home again, coming home again and wishing you hadn't, all taking place in the most classical of settings: the family farm. Previews run from January 16 through January 18 with regular showings from January 20 through January 25 at the Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St. Preview tickets are $20; regular tickets are $10 to $53. Call 214-631-ARTS or visit www.ticketmaster.com. --Mary Monigold
