The Shenandoah Shakespeare Company will begin the series at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18, in the Fine and Performing Arts Center. Staging “The Merchant of Venice,” the actors will recreate theater as it was in Shakespeare’s time by engaging the audience, performing with the lights on, using a minimalist set and doubling roles. The performance is free for Western students; $5 for faculty and staff, non-WCU students and senior citizens; and $10 for the general public.

Next up is a Homecoming weekend performance by the Bread and Puppet Theater, presenting “The Divine Reality Comedy Circus” on Saturday, Oct. 20. The Vermont group was founded in 1963 by Peter Schumann, and incorporates music, dance and comedy into its performances, using puppets of all sizes, masks, paintings and costumes. The show, which is free of charge, will begin shortly after the Homecoming football game at approximately 5 p.m. on the intramural fields adjacent to Camp Building. In case of rain, the show will be held in the Fine and Performing Arts Center.

Nine panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will go on display during an opening ceremony in the A.K. Hinds University Center Grandroom at noon Monday, Dec. 3, and will remain on display until a closing ceremony and reception at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 6. The nine 12-by-12-foot panels are part of more than 5,700 panels of the entire Memorial Quilt, an international monument to those who have died of AIDS.

“Provoked,” a spoken-word performance by Henry Rollins, will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 27, in the Fine and Performing Arts Center. Leader of the influential rock ‘n’ roll band Black Flag, Rollins is a Grammy Award-winner for best spoken-word performance and has been doing lyrical and stand-up shows for nearly two decades. The event is free for Western students; $5 for Western faculty and staff, non-WCU students and senior citizens; and $10 for the general public.

Next in the LCE Series is author Russell Banks, whose performance will run in conjunction with the Sixth Annual Spring Literary Festival Monday, April 7, through Thursday, April 10. Banks is a novelist and short-story author of fiction works, including “Affliction” and “The Sweet Hereafter,” and has won a Guggenheim Award and St. Lawrence Prize for fiction. The event is free, and the time and place will be announced at a later date.

The One O’Clock Lab Band will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 12, in the Fine and Performing Arts Center as part of a university arts festival. Known as the University of North Texas’ top-ranked jazz band, the ensemble includes five trumpets, five trombones, five saxophones, a guitar, piano, bass, drum set, and sometimes other instrumentalists and vocalists. Ticket information will be released as the festival nears.

Concluding the series is “The Barber of Seville” by the Asheville Lyric Opera at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, in the Fine and Performing Arts Center. The performance is free for Western students; $5 for Western faculty and staff, non-WCU students and senior citizens; and $10 for the general public.

For more information about the series, call (828) 227-7206, or visit the LCE Web site at http://www.wcu.edu/6047.asp .