"This Is How It Goes" will be showing 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 10, at the Theater Within. (photo provided by The Theater Within)

See Brian Culbertson & the Funk Experience at Madame Walker Theatre Center on July 31st. (submitted from w-wpr.com)

Art book 'Dimples' by Megan Wells is part of the Harrison Center Gallery's "Book It" event on August 1. (Submitted photo)

'Still Life,' Jia Zhangke's sensitive, award-winning film about two people seeking lost spouses will be showing at Indianapolis Art Center on August 5th. (Submitted by Mary Pappas/ Indianapolis Arts Center)

1. 'Book It'

6 to 9 p.m. Aug. 1, free, Harrison Center for the Arts, 1505 N. Delaware, www.harrisoncenter.org

If you're reading Culture Club on a computer screen or in a free newspaper you grabbed from a plastic box, "the death of the book" may not sound like much of a loss. But "artists' books" are one-of-a-kind works that carefully marry text and image, texture of paper and craftsmanship of binding. "Book It" will feature dozens of such artists' books. After seeing this exhibit, you'll demand that Culture Club be presented as an artist's book.

2. 'Still Life'

6:30 p.m. Aug. 5, free, Indianapolis Art Center, 820 E. 67th St., www.indplsartcenter.org

As a feat of engineering, and perhaps an environmental nightmare, the Three Gorges Dam in China is unmatched. Some 4 million people will eventually be displaced from their homes by its waters. "Still Life," Jia Zhangke's sensitive, award-winning film about two people seeking lost spouses, was shot on location in Fengjie, one of the towns slowly being drowned by the dam's reservoir. In addition to showing a side of Chinese family life not often seen in the West, the movie provides a final record of a community.

3. 'The Merchant of Venice'

8 p.m. Aug. 2, free, White River State Park, 801 W. Washington St. www.heartlandactors.com

The Globe Theatre, where most of Shakespeare's plays debuted, was open- air. You, too, can watch "The Merchant of Venice" outdoors, using a lawn chair, not the hard wooden benches of Olde London. Instead of the "pound of flesh" that agitates characters in the play, bring a pound of bread and cheese. Or hazelnuts and oranges, which the "groundlings" clustered around the stage ate.

4. Brian Culbertson & the Funk Experience

7 p.m. July 31; $25, $35, $45; Madame Walker Theatre Center, 617 Indiana Ave.; (317) 239-5151

Brian Culbertson figured he's done his part to help couples get it on. Now it's time to rewind the evening back to the party and get everybody up and dancing. So when he fronts an 11-piece band for a "Bringing Back the Funk" show, the keyboardist-trombonist will promote his new, less-sensual, more high-energy CD.

5. 'This Is How It Goes'

8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 10, the Theater Within, 1125 Spruce St., $10 to $12; www.thechurchwithin.org

To wrap up its first season, the Theater Within will present Neil LaBute's drama about a complicated reunion of high-school classmates who hook up a dozen years after graduation. Set in a present-day Midwestern town, "This Is How It Goes" is about infidelity and divorce -- but all is not what it seems. Casey Thompson plays Cody, a men's clothing store owner, with Chelsea Anderson as his wife, Belinda, and Ryan Powell as a character known as Man. Rod Isaac directs.