Top o’ the weekend to ya! Whether you’re as Irish as the Blarney Stone or just enjoy a good excuse to day-drink, there are plenty of St. Patrick’s Day weekend activities for all ye lads and lassies.

Kick off the holiday Saturday with the 47^th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which starts at Eggleston Avenue and Reedy Street, travels north on Eggleston, west onto Central Parkway, south down Sycamore Street and east on Fifth Street. Nick Clooney serves as grand marshal for the parade, which steps off at noon.

Fountain Square and Washington Park will be bustling with Irish pride on Saturday as well. Enjoy plenty of drinks, grub, live music and Celtic entertainment between bar hoppin’ from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on the Square and 8 p.m. at the park.

Naturally, the Irish Heritage Center of Greater Cincinnati is also offering plenty of holiday festivities. From Irish dancers to an on-site pub, the center offers a more traditional but fun run of events Saturday and Sunday. Find a full schedule here.

ReelAbilities, the film festival featuring movies made by and about people with disabilities, continues this weekend. Catch film screenings Friday and a closing event Saturday at the Contemporary Arts Center. Read our feature on the festival here.

Local arts organizations have collaborated on a multifaceted performance inspired by Shakespeare’s works. Catacoustic Consort (which performs “early music” from the Renaissance to Baroque periods) and concert:nova (a chamber music ensemble that performs in unconventional spaces, blending traditional with contemporary styles) worked together with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to present a show of music performed in or drawn from Shakespeare’s plays in A Common Thread. The show takes place at Mercantile Library Sunday and Monday. Read our full feature on A Common Thread here.

For more stuff to do this weekend, check out our To Do page or full calendar (with plenty of St. Patty’s Day bar events) and Rick Pender’s Stage Door for weekend theater offerings.

Comedian Doug Stanhope is performing at Go Bananas in Montgomery nightly through Sunday. Known for his sharp tongue and boozy performances, Stanhope is a comedy giant. He has released a number of comedy CDs and DVDs, toured around the globe and recently played a seriously deep character in an episode of Louie. Expect plenty of foul-mouthed fun. Tonight's show is at 8 p.m. Find details here.

Speaking of people who like to drink, tonight is our Swizzle Soiree, an annual celebration of the release of our bar guide. Head on over to PLAY downtown from 5:30-10:30 p.m. There will be free drink tickets and hors d'oeuvres from area restaurants, happy hour specials all night, music from Pop Empire and lots of giveaways — movie passes, shot glasses and two passes to Bonnaroo! Sign up to register and be present at 9 p.m. to win. It's gon' be fun. Check out the event on Facebook for more info.

The Cincinnati Opera's Opening Gala takes place April 28, with an after-party at the Duke Energy Center. In preparation for this "Late Night in Charleston," Japp's is hosting a happy hour tonight. Preview the event, and help the Opera decide which signature cocktail (by none other than Molly Wellman) to serve next month. The party runs 6-9 p.m. Go here for details.

Catie Curtis performs at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center, Yonder Mountain String Band will be at Madison Theater and Ultraviolet Hippopotamus play The Mad Frog tonight. Find live music details here.

Tonight in theater: Collapse at Know Theater, West Side Story at the Aronoff and Into the Woods at CCM. Find more recommended picks for tonight here.

Before you leave for the night, set up that DVR for Delocated, Awake, 30 Rock and more Thursday television gems. Peep our TV column for details.

Happy National Pretzel Day! In honor of this momentous occasion, Servatii offers free pretzel sticks to every guest today. We suggest going all-out with one of their tasty, giant pretzel sandwiches, too. Find a location to stop by here.

Another TED event takes place locally today, this time on Xavier's campus. TEDxXavierUniversity brings leaders in innovation from across the city and country to speak on the theme "Touching the hearts and minds of others through innovation, service, and leadership." Speakers include emcee Michelle Beckham-Corbin (President and Chief Digital Marketing Strategist of C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC), Todd Henry (founder and CEO of Accidental Creative), Rashmi Assudani PhD. (Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at XU's Williams College of Business) and other CEOs, directors of non-profits and cutting edge entrepreneurs. The free event runs 1-5 p.m. today at the Cintas Center Schiff Banquet Hall. Guests should have already reserved their spot in advance.

The Contemporary Arts Center continues to bring unique musical performances to the museum. Tonight, local quartet Makr performs Georg Friedrich Haas' "In iij. Noct." at 8 p.m. The music collective features current and former students of The University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music Eddy Kwon, Brodie Johnson, Joshua Ulrich and Suzanna Barnes. Doors open at 7:30 tonight and tickets are $14.

Comedian John Heffron makes a tour stop at Funny Bone on the Levee starting tonight. Heffron was the winner of Last Comic Standing's second season and has performed on tons of late night shows and Comedy Central specials and at comedy festivals. A relatively "clean" comic, Heffron avoids politics and controversy in his acts, focusing on the naturally funny aspects of everyday life. Tonight's performance begins at 8 p.m. Find details here.

Check out our music blog for tonight's live show lineup and our To Do page for more events, art shows and performances.

The Flaming Lips are releasing a 24-hour song on Halloween. According to frontman Wayne Coyne, "it's a song about death and it's a song about fucking and it's a song about life." The Lips will be releasing five limited-edition versions of the track that will be placed on a hard-drive and then inserted into human skulls provided by Oklahoma business, Skulls Unlimited. Coyne said, "There's a place in town that's called Skulls Unlimited that's been here for almost as long as The Flaming Lips have been here, and it sells human skulls." By the way, those skulls have already been sold for $5,000 a piece.

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Remember when you could buy a proper cocktail with the spare change in your pocket? OK, probably not, but you can still enjoy Prohibition-era prices at Japp’s new happy hour kicking off Friday. From 4-6 p.m. tonight (and each night thereafter), Japp’s will serve up 33-cent Plymouth gin martinis with a side of live Jazz and ‘20s-‘30s standards.

Pet owners have rallied for a downtown dog park for years; now there are two! In addition to Washington Park’s AstroTurfed dog area is Fido Field on Eggleston Ave. The space is made possible my volunteers and fundraising, as it is not managed by the Cincinnati Park Board. Help contribute to the maintenance of Fido Field by enjoying a night out on the Balls Around the Block bar crawl Friday. Dog lovers and drinkers alike will hop from the Contemporary Arts Center (check-in by 6 p.m.) to bars like Igby’s, Righteous Room, Madonna’s and more, enjoying drink and food specials at various locations. Registration for the event has closed; walk-ups will be accepted until 7 p.m. at the CAC for $40. Check out the bar crawl map and learn more about Fido Field here.

While there aren’t any new theater productions opening this week, there are plenty of shows to check out at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, Playhouse in the Park and Covington’s Carnegie Center. Read about them in Rick Pender’s Stage Door.

Downtown’s newest bar, 601 Lounge and Nightclub, hosts a grand opening Saturday. Doors open at 9 p.m.; $10 cover includes two free drinks. Like a lot of newer downtown clubs, 601 looks to cater to the VIP/bottle service crowd, so dress to impress — or you’ll be stuck in the cold.

Check out our calendar  for more events, art shows, concerts, theater productions and more happening this weekend

The Screen Actors Guild Awards were Sunday and I didn’t watch that low-budge mess, but here are the winners if you care. America’s girl crush, Jennifer Lawrence, nabbed an SAGy (?) for her role in Silver Linings Playbook (I know I’m late on this, but that movie is just great. Go see it.) After a non-wardrobe malfunction, JLaw accepted by citing the first job that got her the ubiquitous SAG card: an MTV My Super Sweet 16 promo.

Via Dlisted:

Local drag queen Penny Tration (government name: Tony Cody) was selected to be on the fifth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race via a Facebook fan vote. The season premiered Monday on Logo and, sadly, our girl was the first to sashay away. Now, call me biased (because I am), but Penny deserved at least another week. Having spent time in The SweatShoppe, Penny’s HQ and studio, I know she’s one of the hardest working queens in the biz. She makes her own clothing and wigs, does some outstanding makeup work and looked more like a real curvalicious lady than Serena ChaCha, the other queen up for elimination this week. When the two were instructed to lip sync for their lives, it was clear Ms. ChaCha was the winner (damn her splits!). Unfortunately, Penny did not know the lyrics to “Party in the USA,” so I think we can all just blame Miley for this tragedy. Penny, we still love ya! Keep doing yo thang.

Adrian Grenier (Vincent Chase to most but forever the Drive Me Crazy dude to me) tweeted big news for Entourage fans this week: the movie spinoff has been greenlit! Mind you, Entourage may follow in its sister Sex and the City’s footsteps by glossing over anything cool about the series and pooping out a 2-hour douchey bromance, but fans will certainly still flock to theaters to check it out.

Adapting TV shows for the big screen is nothing new — just look at Star Trek. In Entourage’s case, a successful show on HBO for eight seasons, a movie will provide one last chance for fans to see Vince and his buddies...and one last chance to squeeze any last profitability from the series. But what about adapting shows that weren’t necessarily successful on TV in the long term? Party Down was an excellent Starz comedy from 2009-2010. Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino and a bunch of other hilarious familiar faces from TV comedy portrayed a crew of kooky caterers, each episode following them to a different catered event. It got a lot of late-in-show life love from Netflix viewers (because who watches Starz?!) but was cancelled after two seasons. Ever since, there have been hopes and rumors of a film version from fans and cast members alike. While the crossover is still unconfirmed, here’s an awesome faux trailer, made from clips from the series, with a horror twist:

And because everyone loves Mrs. Doubtfire, check out a creepily realistic look at what the family film would look like if it had taken a dark turn.

If you’re like most theater kids or women between the ages of 10 and 110, then you can quote Mean Girls and Les Mis like a champ and you will love this.

Tonight is a night that myself and Lizbeans everywhere have been dreading for some time — the series finale of 30 Rock. You can read my full eulogy here, but I have to say while I’m happy the show is going out while it’s still good (Tina Fey and Alec Bladwin both snagged aforementioned SAG awards for their performances in the show), I’m really going to miss my weekly dose of Ms. Bossypants. From the beginning, 30 Rock has been a writer’s comedy and I will cherish every quote that has been ingrained in my brain over the past seven seasons (ex. "Live every week like it's Shark Week." - Tracy Jordan). On this momentous evening, I leave you with these life lessons from Liz Lemon.

My feelings are best described by this Claire Danes supercut:

Broken Social Scene is on indefinite hiatus. Band leader Kevin Drew told The Huffington Post, "This is the healthiest thing we can do. There's no bad blood, no problems, everyone is at peace. We've had a lot of inter-relationships, some have worked, some haven't. But we all loved what we were doing. And I think we we're always fair."

Work it out, guys! We love you together.

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Alice Skirtz will discuss and sign her new book Econocide: Elimination of the Urban Poor today at Findlay Market’s Skirtz & Johnson. The book looks at how Cincinnati “has used legislation and the administration of public policy to serve the ends of privatizing public assets and displacing people who are perceived as undesirable because they lack economic power and privilege.” Skirtz is also a social worker and founder of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless — proceeds from tonight’s book sales will go to the organization. The signing runs 4:30-6:30 p.m.

Women Helping Women is a 24-hour crisis service helping victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. The non-shelter program offers intervention and support services for women — and men — in Southwestern Ohio. Tonight, Sharonville transforms into Oz for Light Up the Night: Emerald City Ball, a benefit for Women Helping Women. Don your best ruby slippers as you enjoy dinner-by-the-bite, Wizard of Oz-themed cocktails, auctions and music — all for a wonderful cause. Tickets should have been reserved in advance. Go here to get involved with the organization by adopting a family, donating or volunteering.

Ensemble Theater Cincinnati takes audiences on a “trip down musical memory lane” with its production of Life Could be a Dream, onstage tonight. Fans of ETC’s Wonderettes productions will feel at home with this sock hop-era musical that follows the Crooning Crabcakes as they try to make the big time and win a local radio contest. Sing along to classic hits like “Runaround Sue,” “Earth Angel,” “Unchained Melody” and more tunes from the time. Tickets to tonight’s 7:30 show are $36.

Check out our music blog for tonight's live show lineup and our To Do page for more events, art shows and performances.

Tuesdays mean Drinking Liberally — the progressive, informal social group sprung from Living Liberally. Join like-minded individuals at Clifton’s Fries Café (first and third Tuesdays; second and fourth Tuesdays at Dutch’s Bar and Bottle Shop) and talk current events, the upcoming election and other hot issues in a relaxed setting. Arrive by 7:45 p.m. to get in on an Adriatico’s order.

The Piccadilly Circus has set up its big top at the Bank of Kentucky Center and tonight is the last chance to check out the spectacle. Expect standard circus favorites like camels and elephants, high bar performers and clowns. Bring the kids early and check out a free petting zoo and elephant, camel and pony rides. Showtimes tonight are 4:30 and 7:30 p.m; bring $10 cash for parking.

SmartTalk ConnectedConversations continues its series of inspirational speakers tonight with pioneer, publisher and producer Vy Higginsen. Higginsen’s story is marked with numerous accomplishments – she was the first black female radio personality to land a prime time gig in New York City, the first woman in advertising sales at Ebony magazine, the first black woman to produce a drama on Broadway and has founded a non-profit for young artists. Titled “Seeing No Limitations,” tonight’s 7:30 p.m. show promises an enlightening evening.

This is the perfect time of year to start a home garden, and tonight Civic Garden Center presents an organic vegetable gardening class. Tending a garden doesn’t have to be a pain – instructor Melinda O’Bryant will demonstrate how to care for your garden using compost, organic fertilizers and pest controls and weed suppression techniques. The program runs from 6:30-8 p.m. and admission is just $10; free for CGC volunteers.

University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music hosts two free concerts at 8 p.m. tonight. Visiting composer from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Scott Wyatt performs with and CCM faculty and students in the Cohen Family Studio Theatre. As part of CCM’s Guest Artist Series, the New Continent Saxophone Quartet of the Sichuan Province, China plays Robert J. Werner Recital Hall.

Check out our music blog and To Do page for more happening tonight.

The Crazy Fox Saloon hosts a beer tasting tonight featuring samples from Goose Island and Shocktop breweries. There will be five varieties total, and a distributor on hand to answer any questions. If you've never been to the Newport bar, you're in for a treat — it's one of the most welcoming drinkeries around! The tasting runs 7-10 p.m. Check out the event on Facebook.

Comedian Robert Hawkins headlines tonight through Sunday at Go Bananas in Montgomery. Hawkins is a particularly keen joke writer, and was the story editor on the former Fox sitcom Titus. Tickets are only $4 tonight with a college or military I.D. Go here to read P.F. Wilson's interview with the comedian.

Ongoing visual art shows to check out today: A Retelling at Artisans Enterprise Center in Covington, Findlay Market — Heart of the City at the Cincinnati Museum Center, Contextual: An Exhibition of Image and Word at Northern Kentucky University's Main Gallery and Impressions and Improvisations: The Prints of Romare Bearden at the Taft Museum of Art, to name a few. Looking to take home a new piece of art? Brighton's semantics gallery is hosting a Last Dance/Last Chance auction to sell works from excellent local and visiting artists and raise funds for the space. Bids are welcome at the gallery 7-9 p.m. tonight, or via email until 8:30 p.m. Find artist information and auction details here.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company takes on a new scribe, presenting Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility  through March 18. The popular tale is brought to stage beautifully, and Rick Pender has designated it as a Critic's Pick. Read his rule review here. Weekend seats are selling fast, so tonight's showing is a great opportunity to check it out. Other shows tonight include Speaking in Tongues at Cincinnati Playhouse and Know Theatre's Collapse.

Prefer spending your Thursdays with Liz Lemon, Austin Scarlett and "Jon"? That's cool — we've got all your television needs here.