BABY BARD: For Junior Players’ The Taming of the Shrew, the action has been moved to a Gypsy camp in France and given a decidedly ’80s flare. Seems risky. So did it work? “Even if it is not your kid or your neighbor’s kid jumping around up on the stage, this Taming can make even the most hard-hearted aesthete laugh at its charming and sometimes surprising gaiety,” Phil Cerroni writes on theaterjones.com. “It’s also a blast seeing the gymnastics feats, sweet songs, vivid dancing and effusive joy these kids bring to the stage like presents overflowing under a tree,” Nancy Churnin writes on dallasnews.com. Catch it through Sunday.

HOPING ALONG: Fort Worth’s Toadies are back with a new album, Play. Rock. Music. – it’s first since 2008. And it sounds as if the band has recaptured some of the magic of 1994’s Rubberneck. “Howls, thunderous guitars and stylish menace – the Toadies bring it all on Play.Rock.Music., which wisely leaves listeners wanting more,” Preston Jones writes on dfw.com. “Rather than burning out and fading away, the band seems intent on conserving energy this time around, expending it in short, ferocious, precisely directed bursts.”

THE ART OLYMPICS: The Olympics officially open tonight (although, strangely, some events have already taken place). Anyhoo – did you know that the Olympics used to hand out medals for art?