THEATER
Bard or not the bard at Shakespeare Tavern?
Having performed the last of what some believe to be the entire 39-work canon of the bard’s plays in March, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the New American Shakespeare Tavern opens yet another work that some scholars believe to be at least partly his work. Included in Arden’s “Complete Works of Shakespeare” just last year, “Double Falsehood” is an action-packed tragicomedy thought to be based on a story in Cervantes’ Don Quixote that was first performed at London’s Theatre Royal in 1727. It previews Thursday,6/2 with a two-week run starting Friday.6/3 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern.com. HOWARD POUSNER

ARTS
Cafe opens at busy Callanwolde arts center
The Callan Café, designed in the style of an Irish coffee shop, has opened at busy Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, the Gothic-Tudor-style mansion built in 1920 as the home of Coca-Cola heir Charles Howard Candler.

Open to students, parents …

Continue reading Culture notes: New play at Shakespere Tavern could be by bard; cafe opens at Callanwolde; changes at Hudgens Center »

Book Review
Fiction
“Silver Sparrow”
By Tayari Jones
Algonquin, 352 pages, $ 19.95

Meet the author
7:15 p.m. June 8. Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur, 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225, www. georgiacenterforthebook.org.

7:30 p.m. June 10.Charis Books & More, 1189 Euclid Ave N.E., Atlanta, 404-524-0304, www. charisbooksandmore.com.

4 p.m. June 12. Blue Elephant Book Shop, 407 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur, 404-373-1565, www.blueelephantbook shop.com.

Gina Webb / For the AJC

Set in Atlanta during the ’70s and ’80s, Tayari Jones’ third novel opens with a statement as nakedly honest as a 12-step confession: “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.”

The narrator, Dana Lynn Yarboro, reveals that four months after her birth, on the day James finally agreed to make an honest woman out of her mother, Gwendolyn, he had already been married for 10 years. His wife, Laverne, had recently had a baby, Chaurisse.

Bigamy sounds exotic, Dana agrees. But “even in Baptist …

Continue reading ‘Silver Sparrow’ By Tayari Jones »

VISUAL ART
High director receives  French honor
If High Museum of Art director Michael Shapiro takes to wearing berets and sipping only fine French wines in coming weeks, Atlantans will have to understand.

On Friday, Shapiro was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by French ambassador François Delattre. The medal recognizes Shapiro’s efforts to promote French-American cultural relations, including, of course, Louvre Atlanta, the High’s three-year partnership with the celebrated French institution that brought numerous treasures to Atlanta, ending in 2009.

Shapiro, who was presented with a Chevalier award in 2005, returned to Paris earlier this year to discuss a future partnership with Louvre leaders. HOWARD POUSNER

VISUAL ART
Booth leader to head Western museum group
Seth Hopkins, executive director of Cartersville’s Booth Western Art Museum, has been elected president of the Museums West Consortium, an organization of 13 prominent Western art museums in the …

Continue reading Culture notes: French honor for High Museum’s Shapiro; Booth director to head Western museum group »

THEATER
Express’ 24th season
Continuing to fight its way out of financial trouble, West Midtown troupe Actor’s Express has announced its 2011-12 season lineup: the musical “Spring Awakening,” the 2011 Humana Festival hit “Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them,” the Atlanta premiere of Broadway’s “Next Fall,” a co-production with Theatre Emory of “The Night of the Iguana,” Libby Whittemore in the fourth “Libby’s at the Express” cabaret show and the musical “Xanadu.” Subscriptions and single tickets available via 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com. HOWARD POUSNER

ARTS
Westside facility preview
An arts facility aiming for a September opening, the Westside Cultural Arts Center celebrates with an open-to-the-public crawfish boil and construction party, 1-6 p.m. May 21. The 12,5000-square-foot building, a project of Dr. James Chappuis, an orthopedic spine surgeon, will serve as an event space for a variety of arts and will include a gallery run by Fay Gold, whose self-named …

Continue reading Culture notes: Actor’s Express’ 2011-12 season; new Westside space to include Fay Gold gallery »

By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

Larry Gellerstedt III, president and chief executive officer of Cousins Properties, has been elected chairman of the Woodruff Arts Center board of trustees.

In the role, Gellerstedt will preside over a changed Woodruff board structure. The arts center is creating an 18-member governing board that will meet monthly to manage day-to-day corporate and fiduciary responsibilities. The Woodruff’s 70-plus-member board of trustees, including 13 newly appointed members, will continue to meet twice yearly, focusing on committee work, projects and fund-raising.

The arts center is also establishing a 33-member Community Roundtable drawn from Atlanta’s business, government and creative communities. It will be co-chaired by retired Coca-Cola Enterprises executive Vicki Palmer and Javier Goizueta, president of the Coca-Cola Co.’s McDonald’s Division.

Charged with bringing community perspectives and connections to local and national resources to the arts …

Continue reading Gellerstedt to lead changed Woodruff Arts Center board »

ARTS
Woodruff anniversaries
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has released a video tribute to Robert Spano celebrating his 10 years as music director (view at http://youtu.be/9zZHpA4R0Pg). The maestro will conduct the ASO May 19, 21 and 22 in a Symphony Hall program that includes its first-ever performance of the Rachmaninov Spring Cantata (tickets: www.atlantasymphony.org). Meanwhile, the Alliance Theatre, another Woodruff Arts Center division, is planning a gala celebrating artistic director Susan Booth’s 10th season on Sept. 10, opening night of “Into the Woods.” HOWARD POUSNER

VISUAL ART
A page of popularity
Selected by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in April as a Working Artists Project honoree, Atlanta artist Brian Dettmer was recently profiled on “CBS Evening News” (watch it at http://bit.ly/kU7rV2). Dettmer is shown at his gallery, Saltworks,cq and in his studio, where he carves intricate sculptures out of discarded books. As part of the MOCA GA prize, he will …

Continue reading Culture notes: ASO honors Spano decade in video; Alliance planning Booth 10-year gala; Atlanta artist profiled on CBS »

Book Review.
Nonfiction
“Seeds: One Man’s Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees That Inspired Famous American Writers”
By Richard Horan;
Harper Perennial, $14.99; 384 pages

Gina Webb / For the AJC

The inspiration for Richard Horan’s “Seeds: One Man’s Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees That Inspired Famous American Writers” took root in 2001 with a “cockamamie scheme” to travel across the country gathering seeds from the trees of well-known figures who had influenced his life or the course of American history.

His original plan was to start a tree farm with saplings he’d raise from the seeds. A publishing friend advised him, instead, to write a book.

The result is a delightfully rebellious and enlightening account of his pilgrimages to the former homes and estates of “great Americans, ” most of them writers and many of them Southern, as well his visits to Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Appomattox.

Beginning with the Wizard of Oz Memorial Oak Grove in New York, …

Continue reading “Seeds: One Man’s Serendipitous Journey to Find the Trees That Inspired Famous American Writers” By Richard Horan »

CLASSICAL MUSIC
ASO trumpeter honored
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal trumpet Thomas Hooten is the first recipient of the Mabel Dorn Reeder Honorary Chair, a five-year award to an ASO musician who demonstrates excellence. Part of a $1.85 million endowment gift to the orchestra from the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation announced in January, the chair comes with a one-time $10,000 stipend to be utilized for professional development. In a prepared statement, Hooten praised the Atlanta-based foundation for “stepping up and supporting the arts in the Atlanta community during these tough economic times.” HOWARD POUSNER

Continue reading ASO trumpeter Hooten wins 5-year, $10,000 honor »

THEATER
Stephen King appearance
The Alliance Theatre’s “Taste of the Season” event promoting its 2011-12 slate will feature an especially notable special guest May 24-25: Stephen King, whose musical with John Mellencamp, “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County,” will receive its world premiere here next spring.

King will appear live on May 24, via video on May 25. The event is by invitation only, but the Alliance will extend an invite to anyone purchasing season subscriptions (starting at $80) by May 19.

Also appearing at the promotional event will be Tovah Feldshuh, Broadway star of “Golda’s Balcony”; Atlanta playwright Janece Shaffer (”Broke”); and Alliance artist-in- dialogue Pearl Cleage.

The King-Mellencamp collaboration, with musical direction by renowned producer T-Bone Burnett (”O Brother, Where Art Thou?”), will close the Alliance main stage season. Alliance artistic director Susan V. Booth will direct. The run will be April 4–May 13, 2012.

Information: 404-733-5000. …

Continue reading Culture notes: How to score tickets for Stephen King at Alliance; ART Station honored; KSU gets theater grant »

VISUAL ART
Free museum admission
Several close-by museums will offer free admission on May 18 as part of Art Museum Day and International Museum Day, initiatives of the Association of Art Museum Directors and the International Council of Museums intended to emphasize the value museums bring to their communities. Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Design Atlanta and Spelman Museum of Fine Art, all in Atlanta, and the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens will be opening their doors for free. The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw will offer $2 off adult admission and provide free advice on conserving heirlooms hourly, 10 a.m.-noon and 1-3 p.m. Information: www.aamd.org/about. HOWARD POUSNER

THEATER
Atlantans shut out at August Wilson competition

Atlanta finalists came away without awards but with a wealth of experience at the 3rd Annual August Wilson Monologue Competition held in New York City on May 9.

The …

Continue reading Culture notes: Museums offer free admission May 18; August Wilson Monologue Competition results »