My college-age son enjoys volunteering with the Arizona Animal Welfare League & SPCA, and often shares tales of the many cats up for adoption — who have looks and personalities as diverse, and intriguing, as their human counterparts. The organization holds its 2012 “Evening to Paws” at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas on Sat, March 10.

The Arizona Humane Society holds its 17th annual “Compassion with Fashion” event at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale on Sat, March 17. This year’s theme is “All you need is love.” Try telling that to the circus cats with an insatiable appetite for hoops and balls.

Space 55 in Phoenix presents “Samantha Martin and the Amazing Acro-Cats” through Sun, Jan. 29. I’m told the little darlings are all well-trained and well-treated house cats. Thankfully they sent me a lovely collection of photos, so my own cat “Pink” didn’t have to pose with pint-sized props. She does a mean jumping act when errant rubber bands cross her path, but hardly seems destined for show business.

Stray Cat Theatre in Tempe is gearing up for their third show this season. It’s a feline-free production titled “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.” Perhaps some of you have cats named after its characters, which include Mother Teresa and Sigmund Freud. (Don’t take the kittens.)

The Stephen Adly Guirgis play is set in a “time-bending, darkly comic world between heaven and hell” and the production directed by Stray Cat artistic director Ron May will features ASU’s incoming class of M.F.A. theatre students. May is the proud companion of a black cat, so let’s hope this piece won’t inspire him to invest in cat-sized roller skates.

– Lynn

Note: No cats were harmed in the making of this post

Coming up: Can you ear me now?

Tags: acrocats, Animal Welfare League, Arizona Humane Society, ASU, cat tricks, charity events, circus cats, Compassion with Fashion, Evening to Paws, fashion shows, Hilton Scottsdale, Judas Iscariot, performing cats, pet adoptions, Ron May, Samantha Martin, Space 55, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Stray Cat Theatre, Westin Kierland Resort and Spa

◀ Artists caught in the act || Scottsdale Street Fair ▶