Arts

THE RESTAURANTS and merchants of Rittenhouse Row are gathering again on Walnut Street this Saturday, and that means about 50,000 area residents and guests will be joining them for one of Center City's largest street fairs. The Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival will close Walnut from Broad to 19th streets (from noon until 5 p.m.) and feature food, fashion, entertainment and fun for children. It's big. It's crowded. It's fun. And this year there's a lot of new stuff. * Dunkin' Donuts will be giving out free iced coffee on the 1400 block of Walnut.

Inquirer critic and culture writer Peter Dobrin tells you who's making news, noise and splash in the Philadelphia arts world and beyond at

The Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia became the Please Dance Museum yesterday when Tap Team Two & Company stepped in. The duo helped inaugurate "PNC Bank of Stars," a program designed to bring performing arts to the museum. Mayor Rendell, singer Gary Rosen and Chaku the Children's Chuckler were also on the opening bill.

A new American operetta is debuting at McCarter Theatre in Princeton tomorrow. It is as American as it is unexpected, and the story of its coming-to-be is a good example of how the arts ought to work in a country so often art-averse. The title of the piece is Night Governess, and its brilliant, witty composer is Polly Pen. It's based on Behind a Mask, a suspense tale Louisa May Alcott wrote under the pseudonym of A.M. Bernard. (And you thought she did only Little Women.) The tale concerns a family's newly hired governess - who seems to have some devious ends in view.

The Fleisher Art Memorial opens its fall season with its first three-artist exhibit, showing the works of Todd Noe, a metal sculptor who makes familiar yet whimsical objects; sculptress Mei-Ling Hom, who draws on Chinese-American culture in her installation, and Stuart Shils, a painter of city and rural landscapes. The three artists are the first of 15 selected from the Fleisher's prestigious Challenge Series, a competition that drew nearly 500 applicants. The gallery will continue its three-person exhibits through the year until all 15 artists have been exhibited.

The changes came fast and furious to 10 Arts last fall with the departure of its celeb chef, Jennifer Carroll, followed soon after by an official separation from its creator, Le Bernardin's Eric Ripert. The installation of Nathan Volz as chef, though, proves the Ritz-Carlton hasn't ceded its culinary ambitions quite yet. A recent lunch was more or less on par with my previous 10 Arts experiences, but with more emphasis on medium-size sharing plates, local cheese, and charcuterie.

SPOTS AROUND the city will soon be livened up with art, thanks to more than $1 million for arts projects coming to Philadelphia. Mayor Nutter announced yesterday that the city won $1.2 million in grants from ArtPlace America for four projects that will enhance public spaces in University City, Frankford and on the Delaware River waterfront. The projects, selected from a pool of more than 1,200 applications, include: FringeArts on the Waterfront, which received $400,000 to create an outdoor plaza and performance space along the Delaware River, and the Delaware River Waterfront Corp., which was awarded $310,000 for a summer event that will transform Penn's Landing's boat basin into a river stage.

NORRISTOWN - A housekeeper has been sentenced to six years in federal prison in the theft of a Benjamin Franklin bust stolen in Montgomery County and reportedly worth $3 million. Andrea Lawton, 47, of Mobile, Ala., was living in Philadelphia when the bust was taken Aug. 24 from a home where she had worked as a housecleaner. She fled to Alabama with the bust and was arrested Sept. 21 in Elkton, Md., where she planned to sell it. Lawton pleaded guilty in December to a federal charge of interstate transportation of stolen property.

Sunday House of cards Set in the 1970s, a time of turbulent political upheaval in England, James Graham's drama This House imagines the backroom struggles in Parliament. A film of the recent National Theatre production screens at 12:30 p.m. at the County Theater , 20 E. State St., Doylestown. Tickets are $18. Call 215-345-6789. Love and death The novels of James M. Cain captured the chaos of human desire wrapped in mid-20th-century American desperation - in short, perfect for film noir.

Barbara Chase-Riboud, the internationally acclaimed sculptor, poet, and author who lives and works in Paris and Rome, was back this weekend where it all began - Philadelphia. Chase-Riboud was here to help mark the 40th anniversary of the Brandywine Workshop, founded by predominantly African American artists and educators. And she was also here on business: In September, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will hold an exhibit of her work. Outside art circles, Chase-Riboud, 74, may be best known for her historical novels.

This time the painting was Monet's The Japanese Footbridge , an impressionist masterpiece depicting lush gardens and a lily pond. Ronald Sirianni of the Philadelphia Police Crime Scene Unit closed his eyes as instructed and concentrated as other officers fired off details: "Rust-colored water, falling foliage, a weeping willow-type tree . . . " With that, Sirianni opened his eyes and, though he had never seen the painting, selected it...

Neil Gaiman returned to the scene Tuesday night. "UArts gave me something cool," he says, "and I wanted to give them something, too. " A year ago, Gaiman, an award-winning writer of graphic novels ( Sandman ), books ( American Gods ), and movies, gave a commencement speech for the University of the Arts graduating students of 2012. "I didn't know commencement speeches were meant to be dull and interminable," he says by phone, minutes after doing a Talk of the Nation interview at the WHYY studios.

NEW YORK - Singer Andy Williams' eclectic art collection has brought $46 million at a New York City auction. The works sold on Wednesday, the first of a two-day sale at Christie's. The late singer's taste ranged from contemporary, impressionist and modern to Latin American and 20th-century decorative art and design. Auction highlights included Willem de Koonings' "Untitled XVII," ( sold for $9.7 million) and Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Furious Man," ($5.7 million). Williams died last year at 84. The baritone was known for his wholesome, middle-America appeal and easy-listening hits, including the theme to the Oscar-winning tearjerker "Love Story.

Got a minute? I've got 10 people you should meet. Exactly a minute. Six seconds for each. You can do it on Vine, Twitter's mobile app that lets people make and share six-second video loops known as "vines. " You could get a superfast introduction to the glories of this video-looping app via some of its budding auteurs, people like: Pete Heacock, proprietor of First Capital Pictures in North Philadelphia. His vines are suspense stories, jokes, self-portraits in the windows of passing trains . Three of his vines were nominated for awards at the Tribeca Film Festival in April.