Bobcat Goldthwait

Goldthwait is dead -- at least the high-pitched, frantic version who once lit the guest chair on fire on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The comedian, 49, has settled down into a respectable career behind the scenes, helming "Jimmy Kimmel Live" for nearly three years and making dark, thought-provoking films, including "God Bless America," which screens Friday at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival. His new, calmer standup persona will be on display this weekend at Acme. -Neal Justin

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'Capital Crimes: The St. Paul Gangster Musical'

History Theatre first staged this musical by David Hawley and composer Drew Jansen in April 2000. Hawley and Jansen have tuned up the script and songs, and Noah Bremer directs this production. Bremer is the innovative founder of Live Action Set. Hawley tells the story of St. Paul's gangster life through the eyes of Nate Bomberg, a St. Paul reporter who covered the police beat for 52 years. Matt Erkel, Josiah Austen Gulden and Kimberly Richardson portray three of the hoods in the production. -Graydon Royce

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Adam Carolla

The podcast game has done wonders for Carolla. It's not as if the public wasn't familiar with the funnyman from his radio and TV career ("Loveline," "The Man Show"). But when he launched "The Adam Carolla Show" podcast in 2009, his profile truly exploded. Guinness World Records named it the world's most downloaded podcast last year, with its residual buzz spawning book deals ("In 50 Years We'll All Be Chicks") and reality TV spots ("The Celebrity Apprentice"). Always politically incorrect and raunchy, Carolla will deliver his cranky rants via standup. -Jay Boller

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'Sensation'

Performance artist Jaime Carrera steps out of the spotlight and brings in a diverse cast of performers to pay homage to the 1980s variety TV show "Solid Gold." The two-night-only revue will be a sparkly spectacle of dance, music, fashion, drag and puppetry (!) mining the pop fluff nostalgia and Reaganomic climate of the "me" decade. The lineup features drag queen Barbie Q, Scottish-born performance artist Fiona "The Whisky Wench" MacNeill, drag king Audra Tracy (better known as the Diamond Gawd) and choreographers Joanna Furnans, Chris Schlichting and Kristin Van Loon. -Jahna Peloquin

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