By Howard Pousner, hpousner@ajc.com

Amid a generally tough time for the arts, one Georgian could become $50,000 richer as the result of a visual arts competition announced Wednesday by the Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts.
The Gwinnett County arts center is launching the Hudgens Prize, billing it as one of the largest awards for an individual visual artist in the nation.
The competition is open to any full-time Georgia resident age 18 and up.
“Particularly in times of economic challenge, it is vital that we support the arts and artists, or we lose something that is literally irreplaceable in our culture and our state,” Hudgens Center interim executive director Teresa Osborn said in a prepared statement.
The winning artist, who will be announced Nov. 30, also will be invited to have a solo exhibit at the Hudgens Center in December 2011. Five to 10 finalists will be included in a separate show running from November to next February.
The juror panel includes David …

Continue reading Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts in Gwinnett launches $50,000 art prize »

By Howard Pousner hpousner@ajc.com

The Georgia Council for the Arts, which awarded grants to more than 200 nonprofit arts organizations this year, appears to be in need of aid of its own if Gov. Sonny Perdue’s substantial funding cut for the state arts agency passes.
Perdue’s proposed 2011 budget recommends $890,735 for the GCA, down from $2.32 million this year and $4.18 million as recently as fiscal 2008.
That 79 percent reduction to state arts funding since the recession began has metro and state arts leaders expressing grave concerns and the head of the GCA setting a new goal for her agency: “to stay alive.”
GCA executive director Susan S. Weiner said the budget slashing since 2008 “tells me I have to completely rethink how to maintain the agency’s relevancy to the arts industry of the state.” The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies ranked Georgia 44th for legislative appropriations to arts in fiscal 2009.
Alliance Theatre artistic director Susan Booth …

Continue reading Arts leaders brace for cuts »

Holly Stevenson (from left), Allan Edwards and Wendy Fulton-Adams co-star in Theatre in the Square's "Caught in the Net." Photo by: MJ Conboy

Theater review
“Caught in the Net”
Grade: B-
Through Feb. 21. Tuesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2:30 and 7 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 17 only) at 2:30 p.m. $18-$33. Theatre in the Square, 11 Whitlock Ave. in Marietta. 770-422-8369. theatreinthesquare.com.
Bottom line: Mindless frivolity.

By Bert Osborne

It should come as no surprise that there are as many characters on display in Ray Cooney’s “Caught in the Net” as there are doors lining the boundaries of John Thigpen’s scenic design for Theatre in the Square’s staging of the British farce. Besides the ridiculous plot and frenzied pace, one of the prerequisites of the genre involves elaborately choreographed entrances and exits, typically punctuated by the slamming of doors.
What initially appears to be set in the living room of a modest London home actually takes place in …

Continue reading ‘Caught in the Net’ at Theatre in the Square »

Concert review
Atlanta Chamber Players and Atlanta Shakespeare Company. Tuesday at the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern. www.atlantachamberplayers.org

By Pierre Ruhe

Atlanta’s arts community has a rich and self-congratulatory history of talking about collaboration between disciplines. They are unequivocally good things, the more the better. Yet for reasons of funding or logistics or institutional turf wars, actual fusions of the arts have been relatively rare.
When it has happened — such as when dancers from gloATL performed with musicians from Sonic Generator in the High Museum’s atrium in December — the result is electrifying.
Suddenly, it’s starting to look like a trend. Across its 34-year history, the Atlanta Chamber Players has often performed in nontraditional venues, from art galleries to sacred spaces around town, but Thursday evening, the group took it to a whole new level.
The chamber players hooked up with actors from the Atlanta Shakespeare Company in its …

Continue reading The Atlanta Chamber Players and the Atlanta Shakespeare Company hook up for Stravinsky’s ‘A Soldier’s Tale’ »

Brownlee

Cullum

By Catherine Fox

Call it a celebration of role models.
The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center has created the Nexus Award to honor individuals who have made a profound contribution to the visual arts in Atlanta and beyond.
The first two recipients are Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and Jerry Cullum, editor at large of Art Papers magazine. They will be honored at a benefit event on April 21.
Cullum has been a backbone of the art community for more than 25 years. A critical voice in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, national publications and the blogosphere as well as at Art Papers, he has written countless catalog essays for local artists, often gratis, and spent so much time mentoring and encouraging them that one dubbed him the art community’s parish priest.
Brownlee has built Spelman College Museum into a nationally recognized venue, especially in the realm of contemporary female artists of the African diaspora. …

Continue reading Andrea Barnwell Brownlee and Jerry Cullum receive inaugural Nexus Awards »

Shuler Hensley, left, as the Monster, and Roger Bart as Frederick Frankenstein in "Young Frankenstein" Photo by: SARA KRULWICH

Theater review
“Young Frankenstein”
Grade: B+
8 Jan. 28 – Jan. 30; 2 p.m. Saturday; 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. $18-$57. Presented by Broadway Across America-Atlanta. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 1-800-982-2787, ticketmaster.com.

By Wendell Brock

Talk about bringing a show back from the grave.
Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein,” which critics prematurely pronounced DOA when it appeared on Broadway three years ago, has made a triumphant recovery in the form of a national tour playing the Fox Theatre through Sunday.
Scaled-down from its monster-size construction, deliciously performed by a first-rate company of over-the-top comedians and featuring a gently affecting turn by Marietta native Shuler Hensley as the misunderstood monster, “Young Frankenstein” transmogrifies the low-brow shtick of the 1974 film into a relentlessly …

Continue reading ‘Young Frankenstein’ at the Fox Theatre »

Esther Levine is a long-time Atlanta publicity escort and media specialist who accompanies visiting authors around town to their various readings and publicity events. Every couple of weeks she compiles a list of upcoming author appearances. It’s not necessarily comprehensive, but it’s a good representation of local literary events. Here is a selection from her calendar for February.

Feb. 2
T.C. Boyle
“WILD CHILD: and Other Stories”
Award-winning author of twelve novels including THE WOMEN, THE INNER CIRCLE, A FRIEND OF THE EARTH, WORLD’S END, WATER MUSIC and over 100 short stories, has written a new collection of short stories. In the title story of the new collection, Boyle retells the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, in a way that makes it become not just new but shows how it must have happened. The tale is magical and moving and is a powerful investigation of what it means to be human. Boyle’s …

Continue reading Upcoming Book Tour Events »

FROM THE ATLANTA OPERA – The Atlanta Opera’s Zurich General Director Dennis Hanthorn announced today the details of the company’s 2010-2011 season, its fourth in the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. The Atlanta Opera’s new season, featuring Puccini’s beloved “La bohème,” Gershwin’s American classic “Porgy and Bess,” and Mozart’s funny and poignant “Così fan tutte,” will be presented October 2, 2010 through April 17, 2011.

Season tickets are on sale now. Ticket prices for a full, 3-opera subscription range from $75 to $459 plus handling. To purchase, visit www.atlantaopera.org or call 404-881-8885 or 1-800-35-OPERA (Mon-Fri, 9 am–5 pm). Single tickets, starting at $25, will go on sale in September.

The Atlanta Opera opens its 2010-2011 season at the Cobb Energy Centre on October 2, with Giacomo Puccini’s beloved La bohème. This incomparable opera classic tells the tale of six penniless artists full of idealism, beauty and unbridled love. Their …

Continue reading Atlanta Opera announces 2010-2011 season »

“Relief Work”
8 p.m., Jan. 30. 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave., Little Five Points. $20, $15 for students and seniors. buy online at www.ticketleap.com.

Zoetic Dance Ensemble and slew of other contemporary dancers and dance groups will perform a benefit show to raise proceeds for American Red Cross Metro Atlanta Chapter to support its Disaster Relief Fund in Haiti. Performers include Mallory Baxley, Blake Dalton/Crossover Movement Arts, brooks & company dance, 7 Stages/Negusworld, Redemption Dance Theater, Sideways Dance Company, Staibdance, T Lang
Zoetic Dance Ensemble

For more information contact info@zoeticdance.org

Continue reading Contemporary dance benefit for Red Cross in Haiti »

Tess Malis Kincaid, Brent Rose (middle) and Louis Gregory in "Good Boys and True" at Actor's Express. Credit: Actor's Express

Theater review
“Good Boys and True”
Grade: B
8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sunday. Through Feb. 13. $25-$30. Actor’s Express, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W. (King Plow Arts Center). 404-607-7469, actorsexpress.com.
Bottom line: Despite a few missteps, a compelling drama.

By Bert Osborne

“Good Boys and True” is equal parts chilling character study about a pathological prep-school student embroiled in a sex-tape scandal and hand-wringing melodrama about how his mother comes to grips with it.
In either regard, under the sound direction of Melissa Foulger, the new Actor’s Express production is never less than intriguing — and not much more.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s titillating plot points certainly grab and hold our attention, and the two central characters are smart and well-spoken.
The deeper the play digs beneath their “glorified …

Continue reading Actor’s Express production of ‘Good Boys and True’ »