'Art Beat' With Sean Rameswaram

(Dec. 11-12) THE WINTER'S TALE Winter may still be a dozen days away, but you'd never know at Silver Spring's Round House Theatre, where The Winter's Tale offers a chance at some seasonal Shakespeare. A friendship is marred by paranoia and jealousy in the Bard's dramedy, but fear not—he ties a happy ribbon around it the last act.

(Dec. 9-Feb. 8) PAINTING WITH FIRE If you're trying to avoid winter, you can pass some time warming up at Painting With Fire, showing through early February at Zenith Gallery located in Northwest Washington's Chevy Chase Pavilion. Artist Peter Kephart uses traditional tools, but also gunpowder, and indeed fire in order to roast his surreal landscape portraits into perfection.

(Dec. 9) GERALD CLAYTON TRIO Wunderkind jazz pianist Gerald Clayton knows a thing or two about perfection. The 26-year-old began studying classical piano at the age of seven and began earning accolades shortly thereafter. Clayton and his cadence keepers jazz up the Strathmore Mansion in North Bethesda tonight at 7:30.

Background music: Two Heads, One Pillow by Gerald Clayton