This week in RFT, April 15 to April 22

A repertorial smorgasbord awaits this week in RFT. Writer Kristen Hinman gets the ball rolling with a story on the Liberation Christian Church, whose hip-hop "Soul Force" sermons has made for a unique worship experience every other Sunday on the Delmar Loop. You'll also want to take a look at "Diary of a Mad Man," by Keegan Hamilton. Here, Hamilton tells the bizarre story of Dennis Long, who, after failing to get us to write a story about him, went out and made his own news -- as in stealing a Mercedes-Benz, dousing himself with gasoline, lighting a match, then crashing the car through the front door of a Florissant nursing home

The feature story is one you're not going to want to miss, either. Kristen Hinman (yes, it was a busy week) summons the literary world inhabited by Keisha Ervin, whose gritty tales about the mean streets of St. Louis have earned her the reputation as one of the country's hottest purveyors of urban fiction.

And, as always, spend some quality time with RFT theater critic Dennis Brown, who this week let's us know about that surprise finale at the Kevin Kline Awards. In Cafe, Ian Froeb takes us back to the reinvented, but hotter-than-ever eatery, The Shaved Duck. Our featured music presentation comes complements of Christian Schaeffer, who talks with CeliaShacklett , a one-woman musical renaissance.