STEVIE STEPS UP: Over the last several years, Stevie Nicks has spent time visiting wounded soldiers rehabilitating at Walter Reed in Washington D.C. She knew music was really the only thing she had to offer them, but it’s kinda hard to set up a full band in a hospital room. So she came up with another idea. “If you get injured in the war and they fly you back to Walter Reed, you don’t really have time to fill up a new iPod because almost every single person over there’s iPod got blown up. So I made an iPod that had like 900 songs on it, basically had every kind of music, from blues to rap to country to classic rock,” she tells dallasnews.com in a story previewing her Verizon Theatre show tonight.

HIP POCKET IS HOT: If you’re considering seeing a show at Hip Pocket Theatre, the first thing that crosses your mind is probably, “Do I feel like sweating through the whole thing?” since the performances are outdoors. Its current show, Siddhartha, is playing now during the hottest time of the year, and from reading the reviews, it sounds as if it’s worth your sweat. “This is the coolest show the company has done in ages: an adaptation of Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel, Siddhartha,” Mark Lowry writes on dfw.com. “In tackling the adaptation, no small task, Johnny Simons has brought a solid version to the stage, punctuated by his enchanting narration, and given the audience an excellent Cliffs Notes version of the text’s original beauty and brilliance,” says Kris Noteboom on theaterjones.com. Catch it through Aug. 28.

SANTA FE KEEPS IT FRESH: Have you enjoyed our own Olin Chism’s recent reviews of this summer’s Santa Fe Opera program? Well, Olin is probably already excited to head back to Santa Fe as the company announced that it will present three new works in the coming years. Among the new pieces will be an adaptation of the Charles Frazier novel Cold Mountain.