When Tarocco: A Soldier’s Tale debuts Friday, May 29 at The Orange Peel, it will mark the completion of a long and complex trail that began, appropriately enough, on a forest trail.
Smart bets: The Crowin’ Hen
“A whistling girl and a crowing hen will never come to any good end,” says local musician and award-winning playwright Tom Godleski, reciting the mountain saying that inspired his latest play. The production, Godleski explains, “blends storytelling and music with mountain traditions.”
Theater Review: “Parallel Lives” at NC Stage
Sketch comedy-based two-woman show Parallel Lives stars Neela Munoz and Nichole Hamilton, who give nuanced and broadly bodacious performances.
Blast from the past: Review of Scott Bradlee’s Post-Modern Jukebox
In a city as musically diverse as Asheville, it’s easy to be picky about what bands and musical genres you pay to see. Seldom does a concertgoer find a crowd as diverse as the one that came out to The Orange Peel for Youtube-sensation-turned-touring act Scott Bradlee and Post-Modern Jukebox.
Theater review: “Brief Encounters” by The Magnetic Theatre
The Magnetic Theatre makes an official return to a permanent facility at 375 Depot St. in the River Arts District. It’s across the street from the space it left a little over two years ago. A soft opening features Brief Encounters, a series of one-act plays.
Local playwright Waylon Wood stages sentimental “Letters and Notes”
“It’s a strange process; it’s like osmosis,” says producer, writer and director Waylon Wood of his latest play, Letters and Notes Found on the Windshield at the Piggly Wiggly Parking Lot. It opens at Asheville Community Theatre’s black box performance space 35below on Friday, May 8.
5 Questions (LEAF edition) with Fox & Beggar Theater
LEAF is almost here — the festival’s 40th iteration runs Thursday-Sunday, May 7-10. In advance, Xpress is talking to performers about what they have planned and why being part of LEAF’s 20th anniversary is so special.
Theater Review: “A Streetcar Named Desire” at Asheville Community Theatre
Before a word is uttered on stage, the audience is awe-struck by the set. Constructed by Jack Lindsay, it fills the wide ACT stage. It looks and feels like it has been plucked out of New Orleans circa 1950 and dropped into downtown Asheville.
Letter writer: Great theater awaits with An Iliad
“This is to alert your readers to a performance far above what is commonly available. The N.C. Stage Company is putting on An Iliad through April 19.”
LA Story: Former Ashevilleans grow their careers in California
Where do you go when you aspire to more than Western North Carolina can offer? For these four former Ashevilleans, the answer was Los Angeles.
Theater Review: The Actor And The Assassin at HART
Just in time for the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Haywood Arts Regional Theatre executive director Steve Lloyd brings a nearly three-decade-long labor of love back to the stage.
Faces in the crowd: WNC crowdfunding initiatives
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features the Fox and Beggar Theatre’s art fusion production, Noah Proudfoot Stockdale’s musical musings on love, improved resources for the Drum Heads podcast and a traveling documentary and art exhibit about estranged siblings’ visual art.
Theater review: “An Iliad” by Immediate Theatre Project
Tales don’t get much older than Homer’s Iliad — a tale almost as old as time. But An Iliad, now showing at N.C. Stage Company, is a modern variation of the tale, with an intimate approach, giving us a lone poet and a piano player set among the bare stage of a theater.
All together now: {Re}HAPPENING invades Lake Eden
On a summer evening in 1952, a handful of people at Black Mountain College forever changed the course of modern art with a single performance — the world’s first happening. On Saturday, April 4, the sixth annual {Re}HAPPENING will aspire to recapture that mythic spirit at the long-defunct school’s former grounds at Lake Eden, now the home of Camp Rockmont.
Theater review: Private Lives
Once upon a time, before the fast-paced world of entertainment we’re accustomed to, there was Noël Coward. His plays were the height of upper crust British humor, depicting high society and often sinking to the lowest depths of humanity (thereby mocking the stereotype). Coward’s style and wit became the forbear of early cinema and the […]
Theater Review: “The Wizard Of Oz” by Flat Rock Playhouse Downtown
Everything about the production was magical from the moment the lights went down and the music came up.
Full confession: “Awkward Sex… and the City” comes to Asheville
The only thing more awkward than having awkward sex is talking about it. Onstage. To an audience of strangers. But the femmes fatales of Awkward Sex … and the City will do just that at Lexington Avenue Brewery on Thursday, March 19.
Asheville Amadeus festival celebrates Mozart and local art
The inaugural Asheville Amadeus Festival — which runs March 17-22 — sees the Asheville Symphony Orchestra team up not only with Highland Brewing Co., but also with local groups ranging from N.C. Stage Company and the Asheville Art Museum to the Blue Ridge Orchestra and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville.
Smart bets: Tales on Market Street
“I wanted to use the arts to bring diverse communities together, so we could share our likenesses instead of our differences,” says Joseph Robinson, organizer of Tales on Market Street.
Faces in the crowd: WNC crowdfunding initiatives
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week’s coverage features Chuck Brodsky’s eleventh studio album, an owl enthusiast’s quest to depict a catalogue of his favorite feathered creatures, plus Anam Cara’s move to pay its directors for their hard work.
Different Strokes! tackles domestic abuse in From Ashes To Angel’s Dust
Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective has never shied away from uncomfortable themes. In the last five years, the group brought activism to the stage while making a distinct impact on the local theater landscape.