Where did our star go?

Don't mistake Allison Semmes for the diva she plays onstage in "Motown the Musical" at the Orpheum, but she did fly home this week for Christmas while many of the other cast members stayed in Minneapolis for two days of no performances. Semmes jetted off to Chicago — "only an hour away," she told I.W. But she proved that she's a trouper, not a diva like Diana Ross whom she portrays onstage. When Semmes was doing "Motown" in Chicago a while ago, Ross herself was performing at a theater across the street. The hardworking actress didn't get to see Miss Ross. "But my parents did," she said.

Jon Bream

Where the girls aren't

The folks at Graywolf Press are finding themselves in a strange position — defending their commitment to diversity. The Minneapolis nonprofit literary publisher has steadily built a reputation for publishing serious works by men, women, people of color, and works in translation – a diverse group. But when publisher Fiona McCrae recently announced the 2015 lineup for fiction, there were no women on the list. There are four women on both its 2015 poetry and nonfiction lists. But readers on Facebook responded to the fiction lineup with surprise and anger. McCrae said in an interview that the men on the fiction list are, mostly, not the mainstream: two African-American writers, a gay writer, several writers in translation. "I was very conscious of how international the list was," she said. "We're always balancing, and we've got grant considerations, translation grants. Books don't show up in Noah's Ark formation." Still, she said, it won't happen again.

Laurie Hertzel

A Joe Cocker memory

As we remember Joe Cocker, who died this week, we look back at the rock stylist who headlined on the opening night of Minneapolis' now-legendary music venue, First Avenue, on April 3, 1970, when the club was known as the Depot (so named because the building was previously a Greyhound bus station). Cocker returned to the club one more time in 1994, the same year he played the 25th anniversary Woodstock festival. However, he could not remember the 1970 gig nor the venue when the Star Tribune interviewed him in 2009 before what would be his last Twin Cities-area performance, at Mystic Lake Casino. He said, "The Depot? I'll have to run it by Chris Stainton [his longtime keyboardist]. It doesn't ring a bell at all to me."

Chris Riemenschneider

Joe Cocker on the “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour in 1970.

Kid comes back

A ubiquitous name on the Twin Cities scene through most of the '00s — or, rather, "names" — Darren Jackson is finally back in town for a long-overdue Kid Dakota gig, the moniker under which he released a series of delightfully frayed rock albums through Low's label Chairkickers and Graveface Records. He has been bouncing between his native Spearfish, S.D., and grad school at Virginia Tech of late, but he's been writing new material the whole time, with not one but two new records in the works and sessions booked next month at Pachyderm Studio. He will debut a lot of the new tunes with new drummer Matthew Kazama of the Birthday Suits on a home-for-the-holidays lineup also featuring Alpha Consumer, International Karate and the Black Eyed Snakes, featuring Low's Alan Sparhawk. (8 p.m. Tue., Turf Club, $10-$12.)

C.R.

Metsa: the Musical

Ever the Renaissance man, veteran Minneapolis singer-songwriter Paul Metsa is now hosting a radio show on the Internet. His next project is transforming his compelling 2011 memoir "Blue Guitar Highway" to the stage. With the help of longtime Twin Cities actor/director Jim Stowell, Metsa has adapted his personal tales of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (he's rubbed elbows with everyone from Dylan and Springsteen to Joey Ramone and Bob Mould) as a musical. A gifted storyteller who writes like Sam Spade talks, Metsa will be joined by a cast of singers and musicians including Willie Walker, Mari Harris and Sonny Earl. (8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., Phoenix Theatre, 1605 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls. $15-$20.)

Jon Bream

On tap in Shakopee

Horse tracks and roller coasters are no longer the only forms of entertainment in Shakopee. We kid, but Shakopee sees its first taproom open Friday, as Badger Hill Brewing Co. gets a place of its own. Led by brothers Broc and Brent Krekelberg and Broc's wife, Brittany, Badger Hill spent two-plus years in an "alt-prop" relationship (in which breweries share space and equipment) with Minnetonka's Lucid Brewing before finding its new 13,000-square-foot home south of the river (4571 Valley Industrial Blvd. S., Shakopee). The move will bump their capacity from 1,200 to 3,000 barrels and allow them to add a taproom — and give I.W. a place to stop after a day at the races.

Michael Rietmulder