IN "STORY THEATRE," Open Circle Theatre uses tried-and-true tales to explore how people cope with disaster. Victims of a (nonspecific) flood in an American town pass the time waiting to be rescued by retelling Aesop's fables and Grimm's fairy tales.

The play retells 10 classic stories, including "The Bremin Town Musicians" and "The Fisherman and His Wife." All these years later, the stories are still touching, and director Ian Armstrong's flood-survival motif is interesting.

In 1993, the Australian singer-songwriter got his big break with the band Noise Addict, whose members were all in their early teens when they signed a record label on the strength of a show at a library book sale. Noise Addict didn't last much longer, but Lee immediately began recording a string of well-received solo albums.

His youth has always qualified his songwriting, but he never played it down, instead becoming a precocious songwriter with a class-clown demeanor, a love of noisy pop-punk and Famous Actress girlfriends.

Luckily, we can still remember him via films like "Trumbo" (a documentary now playing at E St) and "Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted," a play about Trumbo's career and political convictions that opens tonight.

» Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia; through Sept. 28 , $15-$30; 410-772-4900.

Photo courtesy Mitzi Trumbo

It's Maryland State Fair time!

From Aug. 22 to Labor Day, enjoy the glories typical of any well-run state fair. There will be: Thoroughbred horse racing! Travis Tritt! Cotton candy and other artery clogging food stuffs! Rides! Games! Racing pigs! And something called "Milk It Yourself"!

Um, no, thank you!

But the rest I'll take, and take with glee.

See you at the fairgrounds — and for a complete list of activities, prices, etc., click here.

» Maryland State Fairgrounds, 2200 York Rd. Timonium; through Sept. 1, $3-$8 admission; 410-252-0200.

Photo by Linda Davidson/FTWP

BEFORE HE WAS a hot, in-demand new music composer, Vermont-born maestro Nico Muhly was an unaccomplished piano player.

"I was pretty bad, as most young people are," says Muhly. "But I suddenly became better at it when I started singing in a choir."

Now living in New York and a mere twentysomething fresh out of Julliard, Muhly says his initial experience with vocal music sparked something in his imagination that remains very much alive in his mind today.

"Music is an extension of how I think," says Muhly. "What I write is probably the closest representation of my internal soundtrack."

When the play opens, it's been eight months since the accident, but Becca (Deborah Hazlett) and Howie Corbett (Paul Morella) are finding it harder to cope, especially after Becca's younger — and wilder — sister Izzy announces she's pregnant.

It's every parent's worst nightmare, and Lindsay-Abaire's script, along with Mitchell Hebert's direction, makes it feel all too real. Howie and Becca have distinctly different coping methods, and every day is a fight to regain some sense of normalcy in their lives. Add Becca's mother, Nat, who lost a child of her own many years ago and tends to drink, and the guilt-stricken high schooler, Jason, and you have some powerful scenes.

The prodigious improviser gets antsy with scales and bristles at metronomes.

"First of all, I hate rehearsal," said the man born Thomas Bartlett. "With my regular band, we never, ever rehearse. I'd just throw something out there and they'd answer right back."

On Thursday Doveman will play the Parish Hall in the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Silver Spring with fellow modern classicist Nico Muhly and music engineer Sam Amidon, and he's slowly taking to the play, exercise, repeat routine. (The show was originally scheduled for the Birchmere.)

"We're having a great time together. Sam and Nico and I, we have to be on the same page at the same time. We're mixing everything together. We're bridging our individual sets well."

Not that all spontaneity has been lost.

Developed in the 1970s, contact — as it's affectionately called by aficionados — shares characteristics with martial arts, yoga and even ballroom dance. But unlike the latter, there's no set leader or follower, explains Daniel Burkholder, who teaches a contact class at Joy of Motion Dance Center in Friendship Heights.

Start by imagining that you're standing shoulder to shoulder with a partner. You're leaning into each other, touching arms at a single spot. That place — called the "point of contact" — will shift as the two of you move, and so will the amount of weight you put on each other.

Giving in to your impulses, as well as those of your partner, creates a dance that's almost like a physical conversation. One person may take the initiative while the other supports. And then, suddenly, the roles can shift.

Despite the fact that it's improvisation and thus does not require fancy footwork, contact is a specific technique that takes time to learn. That's where Burkholder's class comes in. In each session, he pairs up students and presents exercises that highlight the form's key elements. A dancer might drop to all fours, for example, while the other rolls across his back, making an effort to keep both pelvises aligned.

» Crossroads, 4103 Baltimore Ave., Bladensburg, Md.; Sun., 9 p.m.; 301-927-1056.

Not only is she responsible for the greatest confessional album ever written, and not only is she (with Carole King and Carly Simon) one of most important musical figures of her generation, but this whole music thing was just something she did while waiting for her painting career to take off.

Anyway, myriad local artists will be singing her songs — and no, sorry, the real Joni won't be making an appearance.

» The Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda; Thu., Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m., $15; 301-581-5100. (Grosvenor)

Photo by James O'Mara