PushPush Theater Presents Confessional by Tennessee Williams Opening February 11, 2011

As part of the "Year of Tennessee Williams," celebrating the 100th Anniversary of his birth, PushPush Theater will present a workshop production of Confessional, one of the best of Tennessee Williams' lesser known plays. Often left out of the canon, this play contains a unique style of writing that is even more engaging now then when he wrote it.

Set in a local bar, the play is divided into a series of events that drive the female patrons, Leona and Violet, to extremes. Beginning with a simple, unintended insult, a series of greater injuries afflict each patron on the anniversary of Leona's brother's death.

Confessional is an interactive cafe play, so the bar will be open throughout the performance and afterward for drinks and discussion.

Opens Friday, Feb 11 at 10pm
Runs Wednesdays at 8pm, Thursdays at 9pm, and Fridays at 10pm through Feb 25

Artists include Jennifer Bates, Claire Christie, Tim Habeger, Stuart McDaniel, Wade Tilton, and Patrick Wood. Confessional cafe will open in the PushPush Lounge Space. Previews Thursday, Feb 10 at 9pm,

Please reserve your tickets online at PushPush Theater or call them at 404.377.6332

Innovative Violinist Nicola Benedetti Will Perform at Emory's Schwartz Center on February 25, 2011

The innovative and award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti performs Fri., Feb. 25, 8 p.m., at Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Joining Benedetti will be Pei-Yao Wang on the piano. The program features “From Ayrshire” by contemporary composer James MacMillan, as well as works by Sergey Prokofiev, Ernest Chausson and Richard Strauss.

For ticket information visit, www.arts.emory.edu.

Toulouse-Lautrec & Friends: The Stein Collection On View At The High Museum Of Art Through May 1, 2011

Toulouse-Lautrec and Friends: The Stein Collection at the High Museum of Art features approximately 80 works. 

From Cancan dancers at the Moulin Rouge and the decadent world of Montmartre to advertising posters for rowdy cabarets, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created some of the world's most recognizable images of turn-of-the-century Paris.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's prints and lithographs serve as the centerpiece of the exhibition along with other works on paper by his friends and contemporaries. In addition, sculptures from the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries by such artists as Cordier and Dalou are included in the exhibition celebrating the recently promised gift to the High by collectors Irene and Howard Stein.

The High Museum of Art is located at 1280 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta, GA 30309.

Divine Intervention: African Art & Religion at the Michael C. Carlos Museum Through December 4, 2011

This new exhibition at Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University illustrates the traditional African belief that works of art function as a bridge between the human and divine worlds. Through its creation or through its use in ritual, a work of art becomes potent, filled with the power of the spirit and ancestral realms, and can effect change and transformation in the lives of human beings.

The exhibition features over 50 works from over twenty African cultures including familiar items such as masks and shrines, and less familiar items like the jacket of a hunter from Mali. Covered with amulets, mirrors, talons, and other objects believed to be imbued with nyama, or ritual potency, the jacket both empowers and protects the hunter. Also included are divining instruments that facilitate human communication with ancestors and other spirits. The works in Divine Intervention illustrate the active nature of African art, in which works of art are not passive representations of deities, ancestors, or spirits, but rather agents of communication between the divine and earthly realms.

Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University is located at 571 South Kilgo Circle
Atlanta, GA 30322.

Jazz Trumpeter Nicholas Payton Headlines Emory Jazz Fest

Nicholas Payton, trumpet, and the Gary Motley Trio, Fri., Feb. 18, 8.p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Emerson Concert Hall, 1700 N. Decatur Rd., Atlanta, 30322. Tickets: $15. Acclaimed trumpeter and Grammy winner Nicholas Payton headlines the Emory Jazz Fest with the Gary Motley Trio. Additional Feb. 17-19 Jazz Fest events are at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, and are free and open to the public. For details: Arts at Emory box office: 404-727-5050, boxoffice@emory.edu, www.arts.emory.edu

New Photography Exhibition at Fernbank Museum Reveals the Natural Artistry of Seascapes

Fernbank Museum of Natural History presents the gallery exhibition Seascapes: Photography of Sandra Gottlieb from February 5-August 14, 2011. With a keen eye for the fleeting phenomena of clouds and light, Gottlieb captures the skies and waters of the Atlantic Ocean in this exhibition with beautiful large-scale images that range from the abstract, to the painterly, to the highly dramatic.

Seascapes is a series of 40 large-scale color photographs that concentrate on the sky and water. The images were taken primarily from a single vantage point overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Rockaway Beach, Queens, NY. Some of the later pictures in the series were shot on the southeast coast of Florida.

Fernbank Museum of Natural History is located at 767 Clifton Road, NE in Atlanta. Other happenings at Fernbank include: The special exhibition Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, on view February 19-August 14, 2011; the grand opening of the all-new children’s exhibition Fernbank NatureQuest in late March 2011; and blockbuster IMAX® films, including Animalopolis (showing through March 17, 2011), Journey into Amazing Caves (showing through March 17, 2011) and Greece: Secrets of the Past (currently showing Friday nights but will show daily beginning March 18, 2011).

For more information, visit fernbankmuseum.org.

Stage Door Players Present Bye, Bye, Birdie

January 28 Through February 20, 2011

Conrad Birdie has been drafted, devastating his teenage fans across the nation. Albert Peterson is a songwriter to the rescue. He and his secretary (and long-suffering girlfriend) Rosie scheme to have Birdie sing a song on The Ed Sullivan Show, and then kiss a randomly-chosen high school girl goodbye before going off to the Army. This classic American musical is a favorite for the ages.

For ticket information, visit Stage Door Players.  Stage Door Players is located at 5339 Chamblee Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, Georgia.

8th Annual Oakhurst Wine Tasting on February 27, 2011

Buy a commemorative tasting glass for $20 and sample wines from around the world in participating Oakhurst businesses.

Transportation/shuttle provided. Limited to the first 750 participants.

For more information, visit www.decaturga.com

New Martinis & IMAX® Season at Fernbank Museum

After the annual December break, Martinis &IMAX® is back on Friday nights at Fernbank Museum of Natural History. The 2011 season promises good times, lively music, fantastic films, delicious food, and refreshing cocktails—all beneath the world’s largest dinosaurs. Martinis & IMAX® is held every Friday through November from 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. and features a special Salsa Night on the third Friday of each month.

Atlanta’s original destination for cultural nightlife, Martinis & IMAX® will feature Journey into Amazing Caves at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., Greece: Secrets of the Past at 8 p.m., and The Greatest Places at 10 p.m. on the five-story IMAX® screen through March 17, 2011. Fernbank will have a new film schedule in the spring.

One of the most popular nights for Martinis & IMAX® is offered in February when Fernbank features a special Valentine edition of Martinis & IMAX®. This year’s Valentine’s Celebration will take place on Friday, February 11 and will offer an all-inclusive package with two film tickets, a dessert, a bottle of wine, and more for only $45. Individual Martinis & IMAX® tickets are also available, which include one film ticket (no food or drink included), for $12 each.

Salsa Nights turn up the heat on the third Friday of each month with live Salsa dancing and great Latin tunes. Salsambo Dance Studio offers free dance lessons during the evening when they aren’t entertaining everyone with their electrifying moves on the dance floor.

Fernbank Museum of Natural History is located at 767 Clifton Road NE in Atlanta.  For more information, visit fernbankmuseum.org.

Callanwolde Presents Valentine Tango with Tango Rio

Friday, February 11, 2011 at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center

Learn to appreciate authentic Argentine tango. You will learn about the rhythm and movement of Argentine Tango and how to focus on connecting with the music and your partner. Learn how two bodies can move as one. Dancers of all skill levels are welcome and no partner is necessary. The evening begins at 8:00 pm with an introductory lesson from the expert instructors of Tango Rio. After the introductory lesson, you will be ready to try out your new moves with an open tango dance party, beginning at 9:15 pm.

Callanwolde Fine Arts Center is located at 980 Briarcliff Road, N.E. Atlanta, Georgia 30306.

Theater Emory Uncovers a Pulitzer Prize-winning Gem with “Buried Child”

Theater Emory continues its Pulitzer Prize-winning season with “Buried Child” by Sam Shepard, February 17-27 in the Mary Gray Munroe Theater. This dark comedy focuses on the secrets of a dysfunctional American family that hides its past and avoids familial intimacy by flinging their acerbic wit.
 
“Buried Child”, written in 1978, first saw the stage in San Francisco at the Magic Theatre on June 27, 1978. It premiered at Theater for New York City, in New York City on October 19 of the same year. The following year, the play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was later revived on Broadway in 1996.
 
Theater Emory performs “Buried Child” February 17-19 and 23-26 at 7 p.m. and February 20 and 27 at 2 p.m. in the Mary Gray Munroe Theater, Dobbs University Center, 3rd floor, 605 Asbury Circle at Emory University.

Taipei Chinese Orchestra with Wu Man, Pipa on Feb. 13 at Emory University

Hear the ancient sounds of the pipa along with the dramatic arrangements of the Taipei Chinese Orchestra on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University.

Wu Man, pipa virtuoso, joins the orchestra to perform on the two thousand-year-old plucked instrument.

With acclaimed Yiu-Kwong Chung conducting, the Feb. 13 concert program blends traditional Chinese and Taiwanese folk music with a contemporary spirit. Using instrumentation, voices and visual effects, many pieces portray imaginative and dramatic scenes, such as the pipa concerto “The Yang’s Saga.”

The Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO), the first professional Chinese orchestra in Taiwan, has long established a high reputation for its versatility and artistic excellence since its founding in 1979. TCO has experienced an era of unprecedented artistic growth, with a reputation for innovative and adventurous programming that has served to broaden the definition of traditional Chinese music.

Renowned internationally as a virtuosic pipa performer, Wu Man has also carved out a career creating and collaborating on projects that give this ancient Chinese instrument a new role in today’s music world, not only introducing the instrument to new audiences, but greatly enhancing and growing the core repertoire.

The performance will be held at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Emerson Concert Hall, 1700 N. Decatur Rd., Atlanta, 30322. For more information, click here.

Monsters, Demons, and Winged-Beasts: Composite Creatures in the Ancient World at The Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory

February 5 - June 19

The abundant imagination of the ancient world gave birth to a vast array of monsters that inhabited a rich world of myth, legend and high adventure. This exhibition, drawn from the permanent collections of the Carlos Museum and loans from private collections, explores the menagerie from the Greek perspective, focusing on the ways in which the Greeks borrowed imagery from Egypt and the ancient Near East, and developed a vast repertoire of richly-imagined creatures that proliferated the Greco-Roman world.

From the siren, the human-headed bird whose call is fatal, to the cannibal cyclops Polyphemus, to the winged horse Pegasus and the Chimera, the fire-snorting lion with a serpent’s tail, this exhibition traces the development and dissemination of “monstrous” imagery through works in gold, silver, precious and semi-precious stone, terracotta, papyrus, and more.

Michael C. Carlos Museum is located at 571 South Kilgo Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322

February Concert Listings for Eddie's Attic

Eddie's Attic is a popular live music venue for aspiring and accomplished performing songwriters located in Decatur, Georgia a small, artist-friendly town within the metro Atlanta area.

A "listening room" with a superior sound system/acoustics, where customers are asked to silence cell phones and actually listen to the songs, has made the Attic's music room a hit with music enthusiasts.




February 1 - Caleb Hawley, Rachel P & Kurt Scobie (folk/soul/pop)
February 2 -Freight Room Reunion: An Open Bluegrass Jam with The Dappled Grays (bluegrass)
February 3 - Stewart Lewis & Reed Foehl (folk)
February 4 - Dan Bern (folk)
February 5 - Jill Andrews (of The Everybodyfields) & Robinella
(Americana/folk rock)
February 6 - Marshall Chapman (rock)
February 7 - Songwriter's Open Mic
February 9 - Trace Bundy (fingerstyle guitarist)
February 10 - Adam Levy, Dylan Sneed & Hannah Miller (folk)
February 11 – Jackopierce (acoustic pop)
February 12 - David Jacobs-Strain & Paleface (roots)
February 13 - Drew and Ellie Holcomb (folk rock)
February 14 - Songwriter's Open Mic
February 15 - Leon Redbone (jazz/blues standards)
February 17 - Natalia Zuckerman & Garrison Starr Band (folk)
February 18 - Randall Bramblett (folk rock)
February 19 - Jackson County Line & Gary Nicholson (Americana)
February 20 - Francine Reed with trio (blues)
February 21 - Songwriter's Open Mic
February 22 - Seth Glier, Rachael Sage, & Reed Waddle (folk)
February 24 - Jay Nash CD Release & Trent Dabbs (folk)
February 25 - Rebecca Loebe with special guest John Francis (folk)
February 26 - Cathie Ryan (Celtic)
February 27 - Granville Automatic, Emily Lynch, Bethany Dick-Olds, John McNicholas, & Jessica Cayne (folk/rock)
February 28 - Songwriter's Open Mic

Eddie’s Attic is located at 515-B N. McDonough Rd., Decatur, Georgia 30030.

African Art and Religion Exhibition At the Carlos Museum Explores Protection, Health and Healing

Michael C. Carlos Museum presents “Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion” on view from February 5 through December 4, 2011. “Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion,” drawn from the Carlos Museum’s rich collection of African art, with select loans from private collections, illustrates a traditional African belief that works of art function as a bridge between the human and divine worlds. The exhibition features over 50 works from over twenty African cultures including shrine sculptures, masks, divination instruments, and body adornments.

The works in “Divine Intervention” illustrate the active nature of African art, in which works of art are not passive representations of gods, deities, ancestors, or spirits, but rather agents of communication between the divine and earthly realms for the purpose of addressing fundamental human concerns regarding physical health, psychological well being, and social harmony.

For more information, visit the Michael C. Carlos Museum.