The First Annual Owensboro Bourbon & Jazz Festival will take place beginning Friday, June 15 through Sunday, June 17.  Celebrating the rich bourbon heritage along with special jazz performances, the festival will begin with a music party at Friday After 5.  The schedule of events will include bourbon tastings, art shows, cocktail contests, and more.

To get the full experience and the best deal, VIP packages are available for overnight visitors and regional visitors.

Brescia University is exhibiting paintings of Erwin “Lex” Shipley from April 13 to May 13 in the Anna Eaton Stout Art Gallery on the second floor of the Campus Center.

Shipley’s work, which has been collected by many of the people who became aware of him through the 1970s and 1980s in Owensboro and is sometimes categorized as “naïve” and “primitive,” is in a personalized, untrained style similar to that of Van Gogh.

The Performing Arts Academy of Daviess County High School will present “Once Upon a Mattress” on March 9-11. Showtimes are at 7 p.m. Friday; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday; and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and will be available at the door.

The musical version of the classic fairy tale, “The Princess and the Pea,” puts a rollicking spin on the familiar story of royal courtship with side-splitting shenanigans.

“Chance are, you’ll never look at fairy tales quite the same again,” promises director Candy Miller.