By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

• Woodruff Arts Center president and CEO Joe Bankoff will be honored in a private reception and program Wednesday evening at the Midtown center. Bankoff will be recognized by city and state politicians as well as Woodruff board leaders and division heads. Though he’s officially retiring from the Woodruff, the former senior partner with the law firm King & Spalding will lead Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs starting in September.

• Co-founders Jeremy Abernathy and Susannah Darrow have gone full-time with the Atlanta-based online visual arts magazine Burnaway (www.burnaway.org). The move has come after Burnaway raised $20,000 to match a challenge grant from the Atlanta arts foundation Possible Futures. Abernathy, who serves as editor-in-chief, and executive director Darrow promise to present a series of public arts programs over the next year and to raise the pay of its freelance contributors. Burnaway also has moved its …

Continue reading Culture notes: Honors for Bankoff, Cremin; Burnaway’s progress; Pace student crafts a prize »

THEATER
Actor’s Express reveals 25th season lineup
A year after an emergency fund drive helped keep the doors to its West Midtown space open, Actor’s Express has announced its 25th anniversary season.

“We wanted the season to have an ambitious scale and scope that speaks not only to the kind of work that has made the Express great,” artistic director Freddie Ashley said in a statement, “but also to the kind that will chart our course for the future.”

The lineup:

“Kiss of the Spider Woman” (Aug. 25-Oct. 7), the Terrence McNally musical.

“Wolves” (Nov. 10—Dec. 2), a world premiere by Steve Yockey (”Octopus”) billed as a “fairy tale for grown-ups” about a one-night stand that goes way wrong.

“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” (Jan. 12—Feb. 17), a musical by Michael Friedman that reimagines our seventh president as a rock god who fights for the common man.

“Equus” (March 23-April 21), a revival of Peter Shaffer’s Tony-winning drama.

A Broadway comedy to be announced (May …

Continue reading Culture notes: Actor’s Express looks quite alive for season 25; honor for ASO concertmaster Coucheron »

By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

It took some creative thinking to open the Booth Western Art Museum nearly a decade ago in Cartersville, a long way from sagebrush and cactus. And it took a leap of imagination by the late Harry Teague, a native of the northwest Georgia town whose paintings will be shown at the Booth starting May 15 to transform almost instantly into an artist.

After a series of strokes and a heart attack in the 1990s left Teague unable to continue his work as a developer, he turned, out of boredom, to paints and brushes for the first time. What emerged from his fertile imagination were cheerful, detailed acrylic paintings boosted by Teague’s utterly instinctive sense of color, composition and patterning.

Teague showed his work at Folk Fest in Atlanta for several years and had multiple pieces collected by places including the House of Blues chain and Radford University in Virginia. After he died in 2006, his wife DianniaCQ was reluctant to sell the dozens …

Continue reading At Booth Western, folk art by late Harry Teague earns its spurs »

MOVIES
Here’s lookin’ at classics at the Fox, kid
The Fox Theatre plans to celebrate some major movie milestones during the Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival kicking off June 14 with a 70th anniversary showing of “Casablanca.” Other classics with anniversaries on the just-announced slate: 40th of “Godfather,” June 15; 25th of “The Princess Bride,” July 15; and 40th of “Deliverance,” July 20. A sing-along version of “The Sound of Music” (1965) will be shown June 24, and the Fox is holding several slots for recent hits TBA. Tickets go on sale May 22 at the Fox box office, 1-855-285-8499, www.foxatltix.com. HOWARD POUSNER

BOOKS
Emory teaming with Decatur Book fest
More than a dozen Emory University entities are joining forces to become a major sponsor of the AJC Decatur Book Festival. Those organizations include the Emory Libraries, including the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library and its Raymond Danowski Poetry Library; Arts at Emory with the Schwartz Center for Performing …

Continue reading Culture notes: Classics for Fox summer film fest; Emory University signs on with Decatur Book Festival »

CHAMBER MUSIC
Highlands-Cashiers fest lineup
The Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, two hours away in Western North Carolina (just over the Georgia line from Mountain City and Dillard), has provided a stirring soundtrack for summer mountain getaways by Atlantans and others for three decades. Organized by William Ransom of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, the 31st edition will run from July 6 through Aug. 12

Highlights of the 27-concert series include a pre-festival “Classical Jazz” show with Gary Motley Trio featuring Veronica Tate on June 13 (a benefit for the fest) and a free picnic concert with the Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet (June 27); the Eroica Trio (July 27-30) and Linden (Aug. 3-6 and 10-12) and Attacca (Aug. 10-12) string quartets; Laura (violin) and Julie (cello) Albers (July 13-16); and former and current Atlantans including violinist William Preucil (July 6-9), trumpeter Christopher Martin (Aug. 12), the Vega Quartet (July 20-23), cellists …

Continue reading Culture notes: Chamber music in the mountains; Atlanta Music Project in concert Saturday »

THEATER
Atlantan wins August Wilson Competition
Saidah Wade of Clayton County’s Mount Zion High School won first place in the 4th Annual August Wilson Monologue Competition, held Monday night in New York.

Fifteen high school students from seven cities competed in the finals at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre. Wade’s top finish brought a $1,000 cash prize.

Christian Helem of Chicago took second place, and Tyler Edwards of Los Angeles was the third-place finisher. Each was awarded college scholarship opportunities, cash prizes and a collection of Wilson’s “Century Cycle” plays.

In the national finals, organized by Atlanta-based Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company, students performed a short monologue from one of the 10 plays in the Wilson cycle.

Regional competitions were held earlier this year in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles and New York. HOWARD POUSNER

Continue reading Atlantan Saidah Wade wins August Wilson Competition in N.Y. »

By Rosalind Bentley
rbentley@ajc.com

Though Georgia may be at the bottom of the list when it comes to state arts funding, hundreds of arts administrators, instructors and performers turned out Wednesday at the Fox Theatre Egyptian Ballroom to hear National Endowment for the Arts chairman Rocco Landesman.

Landesman, the Tony award-winning producer of “Angels in America” and “The Producers,” was concluding a two-day listening tour through Georgia to introduce him to arts communities. The visit was part of Landesman’s national “Art Works” tour, which is part of his platform to highlight the role the arts play in boosting local economies and making cities and towns more liveable. Landesman began his tour in Macon on Tuesday giving the keynote address at the annual Georgia Arts Network conference.

While he talked much about making the arts “a catalyst for positive change in a place,” during the hour-long session, Landesman spent a good deal of time talking about …

Continue reading NEA chief Landesman talks up arts education in Atlanta »

ATTRACTIONS
Woodruff Foundation gives $2.5 million for Gainesville garden
The Atlanta Botanical Garden’s plans to open a public garden in Gainesville gained momentum with the announcement Wednesday that the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation has donated $2.5 million toward the development of Smithgall Woodland Garden.

With the Woodruff gift, the Botanical Garden has raised more than $18 million toward a $21 million first-phase goal for land, greenspace conservation, infrastructure and permanent endowment. The first phase of the 168-acre woodland will include a serpentine and wooded entry road, visitor center, a 2,000-seat amphitheater and some five acres of display gardens.

The amphitheater and visitor center will be named for Gainesville residents Doug and Kay Ivester, who recently made an undisclosed donation to the project, described in a release as a “similar gift” to the Woodruff’s. Ivester is a retired Coca-Cola CEO.

The land off Gainesville’s Cleveland Highway that was …

Continue reading Culture notes: Woodruff Foundation gives $2.5 million for Gainesville garden; High Museum to host Print Fair »

Book Review
Fiction
“A Land More Kind Than Home”
By Wiley Cash
William Morrow; 320 pages; $24.99

By Gina Webb

Sundays have turned sinister in rural Marshall, N.C., since pastor Carson Chambliss took over the local church 10 years ago. Newspapers taped over the windows conceal the services during which normally “God-fearing folks” who would never take risks have begun to test their faith in dangerous games.

But when two young brothers witness something they shouldn’t, and one dies under suspicious circumstances, the subsequent investigation turns up some ugly truths about what goes on behind the walls of “the simple concrete block building” where the boys’ mother has formed fierce attachments — especially to the scarred and charismatic preacher.

Nine-year-old Jess Hall and his brother Christopher, affectionately nicknamed “Stump, ” are just boys being boys one afternoon during the summer of 1986, when they get caught spying on their mother. Jess runs to hide in the woods, but …

Continue reading Book review: ‘A Land More Kind Than Home’ By Wiley Cash »

THEATER
Last call: “Ghost Brothers”
The Stephen King-John Mellencamp gothic musical “Ghost Brothers of Darkland County” enters the final week of its Alliance Theatre run starting Tuesday night, with eight performances remaining through Sunday evening, including 2:30 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night’s show is close to capacity, but otherwise availability is good, according to an Alliance spokesperson. $45-$85. 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000. www.alliancetheatre.org. HOWARD POUSNER

FILM
Encore for ‘The Artist’
If you think Mom will enjoy the suave stylings of Jean Dujardin, there are a few chances left for her to see “The Artist” in metro area theaters. The Academy Award-winning film will be re-released Friday for one week. The film, which nabbed five Oscars, including best picture and best actor forDujardin, also stars Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell and scene-stealing Uggie the dog. MELISSA …

Continue reading Culture notes: ‘Ghost Brothers’ in the home stretch; ‘The Artist’ back in theaters in time for Mother’s Day »