Best of the best: 5 fun things to do April 17-23

From Weirdsville Records in Mt. Clemens to Flipside Records in Clawson to Rock of Ages in Garden City, independent record stores across metro Detroit will be celebrating themselves Saturday — and why the heck not? Like downtown movie palaces and drugstores with soda fountains, indie record shops have become entities to be cherished in the age of iPads, iPods and instant digital gratification. RECORD STORE DAY was launched nationwide in 2008 as a way of promoting and saluting those businesses that continue to promote homegrown musical acts while affording shoppers an opportunity to track down musical rarities and long-forgotten gems. If shops filled with T-shirts, old concert posters and rack after glorious rack of vintage vinyl are your idea of heaven, this day’s for you.

For the lowdown on participating Michigan stores and their special events, go to freep.com.

Hey, Mother Nature: Ready or not, Rochester is getting on with spring. Nine participating galleries are throwing open their doors Friday evening for the DOWNTOWN ROCHESTER SPRING GALLERY STROLL. Among the stops: Independent Expressions Photography & Design, which is featuring ceramic pieces by Tom Zelinsky of Shelby Township, and Trent Design, where industrial designer Mitch Steinmetz will be displaying a book of photographs that also functions as a coffee table. Meanwhile, Paint Creek Center for the Arts has two shows opening the night of the stroll: an exhibit of photographic portraits by Donita Simpson and “Eight Hands,” which showcases the work of four mid-career artists who work in different media.

6-9 p.m. Friday, downtown Rochester. .

Lavinia Hart has her work cut out for her. The head of the MFA acting program at Wayne State University is taking on the pivotal role of Violet Weston in Hilberry Theatre’s production of “AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY” — and she’s doing it just months after Meryl Streep mesmerized moviegoers as Violet in Hollywood’s adaptation of Tracy Letts’ darkly comic play. “Osage County” centers on a dysfunctional Oklahoma family, and Violet is the most dysfunctional member of all. Drug-addicted, acid-tongued and dying of cancer, she’s a character whom actresses of a certain age will be eager to play for years to come. Hart, a local theater veteran, was founding artistic director of the old Attic Theatre in Detroit.

8 p.m. Friday, 2 & 8 p.m. Saturday, Hilberry Theatre, 4743 Cass, Detroit. 313-577-2972. www.theatre.wayne.edu. $10-$30. Through May 10.

You’ve seen the Whoopi Goldberg movie and the sequel (probably multiple times on cable) and you know the story: A street-smart woman goes into the witness-protection program and, for her own good, is sent to a convent, where she proceeds to rock and roll a choir full of nuns. “SISTER ACT,” one of the biggest movie comedies of the early ’90s, got a Broadway makeover in 2011, and a touring version of the show kicks off a nearly two-week run Tuesday at the Fisher. It comes with tunes by Alan Menken, a man who learned a thing or two about stage and screen music courtesy of his scores for “Little Shop of Horrors” and a bevy of Disney hits, including “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday and continuing through May 4, Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. 313-872-1000. www.broadwayindetroit.com. $40 and up.

Years before he made movies like “Alien,” “Top Gun” and “A River Runs Through It” and long before he won an Emmy for TV drama “Picket Fences,” Tom Skerritt was a Detroit kid. Fresh out of the Air Force, he took classes at Wayne State before heading west and making his movie debut in 1962’s “War Hunt.” He’ll be back home with some stories to tell Tuesday during A CONVERSATION WITH APPLE AWARD RECIPIENT TOM SKERRITT at the Hilberry Theatre. The event will be an “Inside the Actors Studio”-like affair featuring Skerritt, 80, answering questions about his life and career. The Apple Award is given annually by Wayne State’s theater department to a prominent theater or acting figure. It’s named for Sarah Applebaum Nederlander, matriarch of the theater world’s prominent Nederlander family.

5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Hilberry Theatre, 4743 Cass, Detroit. 313-577-2972. wsushows.com. $20. See story in Sunday’s Entertainment + Travel section.