Cool Picks Thursday, February 28, 2013

1) Spring Awakening is the current production of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. The Tony award-winning musical intertwines 19th century German expressionism ideas with the  angst and energy of the current day pop music scene.  A group of adolescents experience confusion and pain as they navigate societies sexually repressive mores and cultural double standards. Book and lyrics by Steven Sater, music by contemporary pop musician Duncan Sheik, directed by Tome Cousin with musical direction by Thomas Douglas. Adult themes and content. 8 p.m. Runs through Saturday. Philip Chosky Theater, Purnell Center. CMU Campus, Oakland.

2) Eilen Jewell plays Club Cafe tonight. Jewell is a singer/songwriter who got her musical start busking on the streets of Santa Fe while attending college. Post college she moved to L.A., where she  played her music on the streets of Venice Beach. On to Massachusetts, where Jewell started playing the clubs while working on recording her first album, Nowhere in Time. Tonight , she’ll feature songs from Queen of the Minor Key– her fourth, full length album–with moody vignettes, gritty sax riffs and the sweet wailing of low slung guitars. Special guest Henry F. Skerritt (The Holy Sea). 8 p.m. 56 S. 12th St., South Side.

3) Mario’s East Side hosts its Team Trivia Night every Thursday night. Win, place or show and your team will earn Mario’s gift certificates. Play against the Miller Lite Girls, you could even win Miller Lite trinkets and giveaways! 8 p.m. 5442 Walnut St., Shadyside.

4) Lincoln (PG-13), the movie chronicling President Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to abolish slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment in the waning days of the Civil War, is still screening at some local movie houses and cineplexes. “Lincoln” stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field as the presidential power couple, Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Steven Spielberg brought his legendary directorial talents to the film, based on a book by noted historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Entertainment Central editor Deborah McDonald reports a “very moving, informative view of the seamy and transcendent contrapuntal forces of the American political process.”

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