RECENT THEATER REVIEWS: B.J. Cleveland stole the show in Theatre Three’s staging of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee last year. He again plays William Barfee, the bespectacled nerd in Theatre Arlington’s version, which Punch Shaw calls “hysterically funny.” (dfw.com) … A Song for Coretta at African American Repertory Theater doesn’t sound like it fares as well. The show in theory is supposed to honor the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but when the play makes a left turn near the end, Lawson Taitte wonders, “whether the playwright is honoring Coretta Scott King or exploiting her memory to express its own preconceptions.” (dallasnews.com) … Meanwhile, M. Lance Lusk was nonplussed by Stolen Shakespeare Guild’s Pride and Prejudice. “The lackluster plainness of this production means no fun with Darcy and Jane,” he writes. (theaterjones.com)

SILENCE!: Do you remember around this time last year the dust-up over the state’s refusal to provide incentive money for a film about the Branch Davidian compound? Well, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression didn’t forget. It has given a Jefferson Muzzle award to the Texas Legislature. More about that on dallasnews.com.

MUSIC BITS: Preston Jones walks us through The Regulator, the new album from Dallas’ Nicholas Altobelli. (dfw.com) … Good Records celebrates its 10th birthday on Saturday. Hunter Hauk asks Chris Penn, who co-owns the store with Tim DeLaughter, about what we can expect during the party/Record Store Day celebration. (quickdfw.com) … Thunder Soul, about a Houston high school band in the 70s, has been the most-talked-about film at the Dallas International Film Festival. But it seems that Carter High School was also recording at the time. (Unfair Park)