If your taste in the arts runs to the familiar - from Bach, Beethoven and Brahms to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" - the rest of Charlotte's cultural season offers plenty to keep you comfortable. But if you're ready to try something a little new, look how much is in store.

The Charlotte Symphony, N.C. Dance Theatre and Opera Carolina are joining forces for their first time. They'll devote March to a creator who enriched all their art forms: Tchaikovsky.

The collaboration itself is only one of the firsts the monthlong festival will bring. NCDT will present its first performances of "Sleeping Beauty." Opera Carolina will present its first Russian opera: "Eugene Onegin," the story of a cocky guy who rejects a young woman's affections and comes to regret it. The groups are aiming for this to be the springboard for an annual festival - Ulysses, after a butterfly that symbolizes spring.

The Mint Museum has a first of its own coming up. A trio of shows opening in February will look at surrealism, a movement the Mint hasn't examined until this. And some important new plays will get their first productions in Charlotte.

Actor's Theatre of Charlotte will present "Clybourne Park," a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a black family that moves into a white neighborhood in 1950s Chicago. Carolina Actors Studio Theatre will offer "Floyd Collins," a musical about the media frenzy that breaks out after a man gets trapped in a cave.

And Broadway Lights will introduce its audiences to "Come Fly Away," a theatrical fantasy based on Frank Sinatra songs. It's director Twyla Tharp's way of showing that even ol' blue eyes can gain a new sparkle.