Get Out: Garden Tours, Summer Music, and Bugs!

June 26 brings Connecticut's Historic Gardens Day, which means green oases at 14 state museums and historic homes are open to the public for free tours between noon and 4 p.m. Among the featured gardens are those at Farmington's Hill-Stead Museum, Wethersfield's Webb-Deane-Stevens House, and the Harriet Beecher Stowe and Butler McCook homes, both in Hartford. (Please note that the Hill-Stead tour hours end at 2 p.m. because of a wedding.)

For more information about the tours, visit cthistoricgardens.org.

Safe Street Art at the Lutz

Children ages 6-10 are invited to explore the underground world of street artists on Tuesday, June 28, from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Lutz Children's Museum in Manchester. Little taggers can learn about the contemporary art form, see examples of the work and create their own temporary street art on the museum walls.

To register and find out about cost, call 860-643-0949 or visit the museum Web site.

Sultans of Sax at Windsor Art Center

The seven-piece saxophone choir Sultans of Sax performs June 26 at the Windsor Art Center in Windsor. The group, which is based in Boston, plays both classical and popular jazz music from the early 1900s to today. Its collection of horns includes unique saxophones ranging from the small Eb sopranino sax to the large Bb bass instrument.

Concert time is 2 p.m. Suggested donation is $10 at the door. The Windsor Art Center is at the corner of Central and Mechanic streets in Windsor. For more information, visit www.windsorartcenter.org or emailinfo@windsorartcenter.org.

Free World Music Concert at Blue Back

The six-piece Martha's Vineyard-based band Entrain plays a free concert on June 29 at West Hartford's Blue Back Square. Come to enjoy the band's upbeat world music complete with a brass section and "tons of drums" or to help celebrate the end of TD Bank and West Hartford's Playhouse on Park's Pennies for the Playhouse campaign. If you still have some spare change rattling around in your pocket, donations for the Playhouse will be graciously accepted.

Concert time is 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Blue Back Square. For more information, visitwww.playhouseonpark.org.

Katy Perry in Dream Sequence at Mohegan Sun

Pop superstar Katy Perry makes a stop at Mohegan Sun Arena Saturday night, June 25, on her California Dreams Tour. The California girl's 5 million-seller “Teenage Dream” album is one of only nine albums to yield four or more Hot 100 number one singles on Billboard. First came "California Gurls," featuring Snoop Dogg, then the title single, next "Firework" and last "E.T." – which hit No. 1 on May 12. Perry thus became the first artist in history to spend a whole year in the top 10 of Billboard Hot 100.

Perry has won People's Choice Awards and various international honors. She is savvy about social networking and is plumbing that arena to prop up her connection with fans on this tour.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45. For information, call 888-226-7711 or visit the Mohegan Sun Web site.

CC Revisited at Foxwoods

There are certain songs you'll never tire of. Among them are “Down on the Corner,” “Susie Q” and “Proud Mary.” Throw in a little weather-appropriate “Who'll Stop the Rain” and you know we're talking Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Two if its members, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, couldn't leave those tunes behind either and so they formed Creedence Clearwater Revisited back in 1995. That band will perform Thursday, June 23, at MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods.

Revisited's version of CCR has toured North America, South America, New Zealand, Europe and Asia and preserved the popular sounds in its latest albumRecollection.

Tickets are $30-50. The show starts at 8 p.m. For information, call 800-200-2882 or visit the Foxwoods entertainment Web site.

Tim Allen Buzzes into Mohegan

Tim Allen is known best as the personality of ABC's hit sitcom “Home Improvement” and as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the popular animated “Toy Story” films. But before all that he did stand-up. Allen will bring his comic tour de force to Mohegan Sun Arena on Thursday, June 23, at 8 p.m.

For his television show, he collected a Golden Globe Award, Emmy nomination and the People's Choice Award for “Favorite Male Performer in a Television Series” – eight years running. He also appeared in the hit movies The Santa Clause and Wild Hogs.

Tickets are $35. For information, call 888-226-7711 or visit the Mohegan Sun entertainment Web site. 

 A Musical Midsummer Night's Dream at Talcott Mountain 

"If music be the food of love, play on." So sayeth William Shakespeare, and so playeth the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, which kicks off its annual summer music series, the Talcott Mountain Music Festival, with Summer Begins, an evening of music inspired by the Bard. The June 24 event, held at the Performing Arts Center at Simsbury Meadows, features Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream. HSO's new music director Carolyn Kuan leads the band. Colin McEnroe, host of WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show, narrates. Also included in the program is Haydn's Concerto for Trumpet featuring HSO principal trumpet player Scott McIntosh. The concert concludes with a display of fireworks.

Gates open at 6 p.m. Concert time is 7:30 p.m. The Performing Arts Center at Simsbury Meadows is at 22 Iron Horse Boulevard, Simsbury. Single tickets range in price from $20 to $45. Lawn tickets for kids 12 and under are $5. Discounts are available for tickets purchased in advance.  For more ticket information, contact HSO ticket services at 860-244-2999 or visitwww.hartfordsymphony.org. For information about Simsbury Meadows, visitwww.town.simsbury.ct.us and search "Performing Arts Center." 

Bugs! in 3D at Connecticut Science Center

Insects in Borneo get their close-up in 2003's Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure, a 3D film that arrives June 25 at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford. Watch the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly; see a praying mantis catch its dinner; observe a beetle wrestling match; and come face to face with over 40 other types of insects that inhabit the tropical rain forest of Southeast Asia. Directed by Mike Slee, the 40-minute film is narrated by Dame Judi Dench. Writing for The New York Times, critic Elvis Mitchell called the film "Vivid and visually stunning."

For screening information, visit www.ctsciencecenter.org or call 860-SCIENCE (or 860-724-3623). The Connecticut Science Center is at 250 Columbus Boulevard, Hartford. 

Work of Acclaimed Video Artist at New Britain Museum

So She Floats, a video created by Boston-based conceptual sculptor and installation artist Deb Todd Wheeler, opens June 25 at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain. Wheeler's work, the third installment of the museum's new media series, was inspired by the 1988 discovery of a vast expanse of accumulated plastic debris floating in the North Pacific. For her video, Wheeler costumed a woman in an inflatable dress made of blown film polyethylene, the material that daily newspapers are wrapped in. The result is a poetic rumination on the earth's oceanic currents, and the role that humans play in the creation of plastic waste.

The exhibition runs through Oct. 9. An opening reception is July 1 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The New Britain Museum of American Art is at 56 Lexington St., New Britain. For more information, visit www.nbmaa.org or call 860-229-0257.

Koppel Visits Twain House in August

Early notice on this event because it's likely to be a sell-out: Veteran broadcast journalist Ted Koppel is the featured guest for a special event Aug. 18 at the Mark Twain House in Hartford. The event, part of the 2011 Clemens Lecture Series, is a conversation between Koppel, the 37-Emmy Award-winning anchorman, and WNPR's John Dankosky. The conversation covers Koppel's 42 years at Nightline, his 42 years at ABC, his current work with The New York Times and NPR, and the state of modern journalism.

Start time is 7 p.m. Tickets cost $45; $40 for Mark Twain House members. For reservations or more information, phone 860-280-3130. The Mark Twain House & Museum is at 351 Farmington Ave., Hartford. For general information, visit www.marktwainhouse.org or call 860-247-0998.