By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

Georgia Shakespeare has announced its 2012-13 lineup:

• Shakespeare in the Park (formerly Shake at the Lake, renamed to reflect new location) presents “The Tempest” at Piedmont Park’s Legacy Fountain, May 9-13.

• “Illyria: a Twelfth Night Musical,” June 6-Aug. 5, an adaptation by John R. Briggs, creator of 2010’s “Shrew: the Musical.” Features Chris Kayser as Sir Toby Belch and Tess Malis Kincaid as Maria.

• “Much Ado About Nothing,” June 21-Aug. 4, directed by producing artistic director Richard Garner. Courtney Patterson and Joe Knezevich appear as lovers Beatrice and Benedick opposite Ann Marie Gideon and Eugene H. Russell IV as Hero and Claudio.

• “The Importance of Being Earnest,” July 5-Aug. 3, with Courtney Patterson and Bethany Anne Lind.

• “The Emperor and the Nightingale,” July 14-Aug. 3, a family musical adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen story, with Terrance Jackson as the Emperor and Ann Marie Gideon …

Continue reading Georgia Shakespeare unveils 2012-13 lineup, including Piedmont Park return »

ARTS
Bynums read, write
Atlanta actress Brenda Bynum will read the Passion of Christ from the Gospel of St. Mark at the “Wondrous Love: Southern Folk Passion” service, 4 p.m. Sunday at Druid Hills Baptist Church.

Featuring the Meridian Chorale led by Steven Darsey, the free service interweaves Southern folk hymns with the Gospel narrative. The folk hymns are from the 19th century Georgia tune book, “The Sacred Harp,” some of which were featured in the film “Cold Mountain.”

No tickets required; free will offering will be taken. 1085 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. www.meridianherald.org.

 Meanwhile, Bynum’s playwright-author husband, R. Cary Bynum, has just published a new short story collection, “Reunion in Thera & Other Stories” (Saint Johann Press, $19.95; www.rcbynum.info). HOWARD POUSNER

EVENT
Bluegrass music, rootsy dancing and art
The third annual Blue Grassroots Music & Arts Festival will be held Saturday in Stone Mountain Village. The free doings, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. on the …

Continue reading Culture notes: Brenda Bynum reads, R. Cary Bynum writes; bluegrass, dancing, art fill Stone Mountain Village on Saturday »

Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts has announced a 2012-13 Flora Glenn Candler Concert Series strong in classical and contemporary music but also including a jazz concert and a dance performance.

Here’s the lineup:

• saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his jazz quartet (Sept. 21)

• violinist Gil Shaham (Oct. 4)

• Warsaw Philharmonic (Nov. 2)

• Brazilian classical guitar duo Sérgio and Odair Assad (Nov. 10)

• pianist Yefim Bronfman (Feb. 2)

• violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)cq with members of the Sphinx Symphony (Feb. 22)

• modern dancers Monica Bill Barnes & Company (Feb. 28-March 2)

• bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee (March 22)

• the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (April 12)

Details: http://tinyurl.com/coukzld.

The Schwartz will also celebrate its 10th anniversary in February with events to be announced. HOWARD POUSNER

Continue reading Emory’s Schwartz Center announces 2012-13 Candler Concert Series »

By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

The Atlanta Film Festival, which is screening more than 125 films as part of its 36th edition continuing through April 1, has found time to strike a partnership with the Plaza Theatre, taking over programming and marketing of the 1939 cinema on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

While Jonathan and Gayle Rej will remain owners of the Plaza, which became a nonprofit in 2009, the festival will add new programs and screenings to go along with successful events such as long-standing Friday evening showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” hosted by Lips Down on Dixie.

“When we heard that the Plaza was looking for new owners, we knew we couldn’t just stand back,” film festival executive director Christopher Escoboar said in a release. “The success of the Atlanta film community is dependent on its members looking out for each other and supporting their own.”

A festival spokesperson said that with the festival joining forces with them, the Regs will …

Continue reading Atlanta Film Festival to take over Plaza Theatre programming, marketing »

Book Review
Nonfiction
“The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature”
By David George Haskell
Viking; 288 pages; $25.95

By Gina Webb

“The search for the universal within the infinitesimally small is a quiet theme playing through most cultures, ” biologist David George Haskell writes. Tibetan monks represent the universe in a table-top mandala of colored sand. English mystic poet William Blake asked whether it was possible to see an entire world in just one of those grains.

Haskell poses another challenge: “Can the whole forest be seen through a small contemplative window of leaves, rocks and water?”

His window is a mandala of earth — “a circle a little over a meter across” — found in old-growth forest in the hills of Tennessee. Seated on a flat boulder and armed with a magnifying glass, Haskell studies what goes on at his feet from January to December.

His rules are simple: Be quiet, do no harm, visit often.

The results, collected in his book “The Forest Unseen, ” take the …

Continue reading “The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature” By David George Haskell »

THEATER
Aurora’s 2012-13 lineup
Lawrenceville’s Aurora Theatre has announced its 2012-13 lineup: the Neil Simon musical “Sweet Charity” (Aug. 2-Sept. 2), Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” (Oct. 4-28), a reprise of “Christmas Canteen” (Nov. 23-Dec. 23), Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s comedy “Bob” (Jan. 17-Feb. 10), a musical to be announced (March 14-April 7) and Marc Camelotti’s comedy “Don’t Dress for Dinner” (May 2-26). Season tickets are on sale: 678-226-6222, www.auroratheatre.com. HOWARD POUSNER

DANCE
Ticket exchange offer
With Theatre in the Square closing its doors this week, its Marietta square neighbor, Georgia Metropolitan Dance Theatre, is offering holders of outstanding theater tickets the chance to attend its weekend performances the ballet “Peter Pan”  at Cobb County Civic Center. Theatre in the Square patrons can trade upcoming show tickets at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre box office starting an hour before show time (offered as long as seats are available). 7:30 tonight, 2 …

Continue reading Culture notes: Aurora announces ‘12-13 season; dance troupe offers exchange for Square ticket holders »

THEATER
‘Color’ of courage
East Point’s Tri-Cities High School Visual and Performing Arts Magnet Program has the heady honor of being the first U.S. high school awarded rights to perform Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple.”

A frequent contender in the annual Shuler Hensley Awards for high school musical theater at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre , Tri-Cities is in the first week of a two-week run of the challenging Broadway musical, tapping the talents of nearly 100 students.

Shows at the Viola Turner Theater are at 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 5 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. March 28-30. General admission: $15 adults; $10 students and seniors. Adult tickets only available in advance via www.brownpapertickets.com; purchase others at door with ID. 2575 Harris St., East Point. 404-669-8200, ext. 150. HOWARD POUSNER

THEATER
Act 3 develops Holocaust musical
In the arts, even in a rough economy, sometimes angels make unexpected landings.

An audience member impressed by …

Continue reading Culture notes: Tri-Cities High nails honor of staging ‘Color Purple’; Act 3 prepares Holocaust musical written by high schoolers »

BENEFIT
Extra helping of culture with that cause
Most benefits for arts groups dish up good food and drink and a dose of diversion in support of a good cause, but few would promise a “labyrinth of arts experiences with installations and performances revealed in the most curious places,” as does a press release for the Wonderglo gathering Saturday night at the W Atlanta-Midtown. Haven’t heard of an arts group called Wonderglo? It’s a merger of two of the city’s emerging arts nonprofits, WonderRoot arts center in Reynoldstown and gloATL, the modern dance troupe based at the Goat Farm — both of which have helped make the arts more accessible to Atlantans, sometimes literally in the middle of streets and other public spaces.

Here’s the skinny on Wonderglow: Atlas Sound (the side project of  Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox) will headline music offerings. Collaborating artists include Fahamu Pecou, Gyun Hur, Scott Ingram, Todd Murphy, Lonnie Holley, gloATL, Sonic Generator, Jason …

Continue reading Culture notes: An extra helping of culture in Saturday’s Wonderglo benefit; Anoushka Shankar plays Rialto on Saturday »

By Associated Press

An Atlanta-based nonprofit is planning to bring North Korea’s national orchestra to the U.S. for a tour that would start in Atlanta, according to the group’s president.

The North Korean National Symphony Orchestra would bring 164 musicians and journalists for an 18-day visit that would also include stops in Oxford, Miss., and New York, said Robert Springs, the president of Global Resource Services, a humanitarian group that works in North Korea.

He said he hopes the visit will take place in the spring but the details are still being worked out and it awaits government approval. Springs has scheduled a press conference on Thursday to release more details about the trip. The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment.

Springs’ group has sent three musical groups to North Korea over the last 14 years, including Christian rock group Casting Crowns.

“The hope is that we can better understand the people of North Korea and that they can better …

Continue reading North Korean national orchestra could soon visit U.S. for tour starting in Atlanta »

DANCE
A ‘Jazzy’ awakening
A Tchaikovsky classic is given a modern twist in Ballethnic Dance Company’s reprise of “Jazzy Sleeping Beauty,” Friday through Sunday at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts. Featuring a multicultural cast of 50, the full-length ballet opens in the 1840s with Tchaikovsky’s classical score and moves on to the Princess awakening to a jazz score in the 1940s. 7:30 tonight, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. 349 Ferst Drive N.W, Atlanta.404-894-9601, www.ferstcenter.gatech.edu. HOWARD POUSNER

THEATER
Closing and opening at Horizon
After a 12-week run attended by more than 10,000, Horizon Theatre’s encore production of “Avenue Q” will close April 1. Times for the final two weeks of performances: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 3 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Meanwhile, $5 gets you into a sneak-peek reading of Horizon’s next production, “The Waffle Palace: Smothered, Covered and Scattered 24/7/365,” a comedy by Larry Larson and …

Continue reading Culture notes: Ballethnic brings back ‘Jazzy Sleeping Beauty’; closing, opening at Horizon Theatre »