Don’t miss: “In the Heights”
Atlanta audiences will be among the first outside New York to see the 2008 Tony Award winner for best new musical. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s love letter to his Washington Heights, N.Y., barrio is, in its way, a kinder, gentler “West Side Story” — a salsa-and-merengue-driven tale of immigrants who discover the meaning of home and family in a complicated and challenging New World. The book is by Pulitzer Prize nominee Quiara Alegria Hudes, who Alliance Theatre patrons know from this year’s “26 Miles” and the eloquent “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fuge.” After opening in Tampa in October, the Broadway Across America-Atlanta production heads directly to the Fox Theatre.
Nov. 3-8. $19-$55. Fox Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 1-800-278-4447. wwww.ticketmaster.com

Also consider: “Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical”
How cool that the definitive ’60s musical about peace, love and racial harmony is coming to …

Continue reading Fall Arts Preview: Theater Picks »

Steve Aishman and Jason Parker, our friendly correspondents from SCAD-Atlanta, remind us that the financially struggling gallery Eyedrum is holding an art auction Friday night. If you’re looking for eclectic art at affordable prices, this event is a good bet. Eyedrum, they write, is not a small or inconsequential part of contemporary Southern culture. Since its establishment in 1998, the non-profit has won numerous grants and awards, including a $30,000 curatorial grant from the Warhol Foundation in 2006.
There will be live performances of local bands and all proceeds go directly to supporting Eyedrum’s operating costs and programming – which includes contemporary art, music, film, theatre and literary events.
A site covering Atlanta’s visual arts, Art Relish, www.artrelish.com, will post live updates and video interviews from the event.
Steve Aishman teaches photography at SCAD-Atlanta. Jason Parker is SCAD’s manager of social media.
Eyedrum Benefit Auction
7 – 10 p.m. …

Continue reading Eyedrum Auction Friday »

By Steve Aishman and Jason Parker

For the AJC

This weekend marks another opportunity to witness the High Museum’s extraordinary support for Southern culture with the opening of its latest “Picturing the South” photography series.
For more than a decade, the High has commissioned the best photographers from around the world to provide a contemporary perspective on the South.
Past participants in “Picturing the South” have included artists like Dawoud Bey, who monumentalized Atlanta High School students, and Emmet Gowin, who took aerial photographs of Southern paper mills.
Next up: “Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods,” opening Saturday. The Minneapolis-based Soth, who was profiled in the New York Times last week, is best known for his monograph “Sleeping by the Mississippi.”
His images taken along America’s “third coast” blended landscape and portrait photography to produce a poetic sense of the place and the people along the river.
For the High, Soth has …

Continue reading Acclaimed photographer at High »

Still from "Alphaville" trailer, 2009

The first time I heard the name Charles Huntley Nelson, it was in a conversation with local artist Kojo Griffin, who had recently achieved a level of success most local artists only dream of. Griffin was telling me how he had been pursuing an education in applied arts, thinking commercial art was a good way to fulfill his creative passion and still pay the bills. But then he met Nelson, who convinced Griffin to abandon his commercial aspirations and pursue fine art. After that I heard Nelson’s name invoked time and again as someone who significantly influenced so many other local artists.

An assistant professor of art at Morehouse, Nelson was a conceptual artist who explored identity and technology in cerebral, multi-media projects. For the “Charles Nelson Project” in 2001, Nelson sought out people online who shared his name and painted their portraits, which became, he said in the artist statement, “self-portraits in a sense because of …

Continue reading R.I.P. Charles Huntley Nelson »

16-year-old conductor Ilyich Rivas

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is giving away 4,000 lawn tickets to its last concert of the season at Verizon Amphitheatre at Encore Park in Alpharetta.

The Aug. 15 concert features the U.S. debut of 16-year-old guest conductor Ilyich Rivas. The program includes Verdi’s “Vespri”  Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, performed by Elena Urioste. The evening will end with fireworks.

Effective immediately, Fulton County residents with proof of residency may pick up four free tickets and a parking pass at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre box office or the Woodruff Arts Center box office.

The giveaway is made in partnership with the Fulton County Arts Council.

Continue reading ASO gives away 4,000 concert tickets »

Pat Conroy’s first book in 14 years, “South of Broad,” comes out Aug. 11. Here’s a sneek peek at Gina Webb’s review, which appears Sunday in Living & Arts:

Now, in his first book in 14 years, the one-and-only prince of tides himself returns to his old haunts, this time promising—in a dazzling prologue — that “everything I now reveal to you will be Cha>rleston-shaped and Charleston-governed and sometimes even Charleston-ruined.”

Ahh, ruined! That’s the Pat Conroy we know and love. And it’s no idle threat. “South of Broad” is a lavish, no-holds-barred performance by a writer who, in full possession of his strengths and flaws, explodes on stage with another bravura, irresistibly poignant attempt to resurrect his old demons — suicide, mental illness, child abuse, and the rage and pain left in their wake — and to save the characters who are menaced by them.

But for many Conroy fans, meeting the cast of “South of Broad” will feel like a family reunion, …

Continue reading Pat Conroy: “South of Broad” long-time coming »

By STEVE AISHMAN and JASON PARKER
For the AJC
This weekend marks another opportunity to witness the High Museum’s extraordinary support for Southern culture with the opening of their latest “Picturing the South” photography series.
For over a decade, the High has commissioned the best photographers from around the world to provide a contemporary perspective on the South. Past participants in “Picturing the South” have included artists like Dawoud Bey who monumentalized Atlanta High School students, and Emmet Gowin, who took aerial photographs of Southern paper mills.
Next up: “Alec Soth: Black Line of Woods,” opening Saturday. Minneapolis-based Soth is best known for his monograph “Sleeping by the Mississippi”; his images taken along America’s “third coast” blended landscape and portrait photography to produce a poetic sense of the place and the people along the river.
For the High, Soth has produced twelve large images that explore the spiritual …

Continue reading New Southern photos for the High »