Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.

Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.

Saturday, June 10, 2023
Exhibition: NEO MINERALIA
Jun 10 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft

Photo credit:

Sae Honda. Courtesy of the Artist.

NEO MINERALIA suggests that recent rock formations no longer fit within the traditional groups: Igneous, Metamorphic, and Sedimentary. Instead, the Anthropocene, the era of human influence on the climate and environment, has introduced two post-natural rocks: Synthetic and Digital.

NEO MINERALIA presents a selection of new geological specimens crafted by ten international artists exploring rocks as reflections of our effects on human and nonhuman ecologies. By embedding synthetic materials (plastics, e-waste) and layers of data points (critical, financial, social) into the craftsmanship of these artifacts, the artists transgress the definition of rocks, turning them from passive aggregates of minerals into metaphorical aggregates of data. Within their apparent “rockness” we can decode hopes, warnings, and speculative future scenarios.

The featured works stemming from places as varied as Mexico, Japan, Poland, and Australia (including a curated artists’ books library), collectively signal a new era of planetary and geological consciousness where we are asked to read, feel, and listen to rocks in new ways.

Exhibition: Something earned, Something left behind
Jun 10 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft

Photo credit:

J Diamond, “Pony II,” 2022. Courtesy of the Artist

Something earned, Something left behind is an exhibition of objecthood; a critical analysis of the transactional and political languages of everyday and culturally significant objects. This exhibition challenges a history of exclusion and inclusion of People of Color (POC) and their narratives from the canon of craft based on subject matter. It dissects this history’s origins and precedent as an economic transaction to gain access to white spaces.

Racial and ethnic identity influences the way individuals perceive themselves, the way others perceive them, and the way they choose to behave. For this reason, People of Color are expected to perform certain roles in order to fit into hegemonic institutions. These roles can be an active shrinking of themselves and the racialized part of them, or a personal exploitation of their racialized selves. This exhibition addresses and redresses the ways narrowed populations have been included, and the ways in which they have been asked to participate.

Together, this work creates space for and legitimizes POC narratives with depth and care. The exhibiting artists’ practices work against institutionalized expectations of POC work, expanding discourse and inserting new subjectivity into the canon of craft art. It engages with a community hungry for the revitalization and resuscitation of non-Western voices within art spaces. This exhibition challenges the expectations of art from artists of marginalized backgrounds and embraces a new subjectivity of interrogating one’s inherited experiences.

Exhibition: Crafting Denim
Jun 10 @ 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Center for Craft

Photo credit:

Photograph by Bowery Blue Makers

Jeans – with their standardized pockets, rivets, and denim – are so much a part of everyday wardrobes that they are easy to overlook. Yet, in workshops across the nation, independent makers are reevaluating the garment and creating jeans by hand, using antiquated equipment and denim woven on midcentury looms. Crafting Denim explores how and why jeans have come to exist at the intersections of industry and craft, modernity, and tradition.

A product of industrial factory production for over a century, jeans are being recast by a new cohort of small-scale makers including craftspeople like Ryan Martin of W.H. Ranch Dungarees, Takayuki Echigoya of Bowery Blue Makers, and Sarah Yarborough and Victor Lytvinenko of Raleigh Denim, who favor choice materials and small-batch fabrication. The jeans they make merge craft traditions with industry and extend the conversation between hand and machine.

Each maker creates a distinctive product but shares a deep appreciation for materials, tools, history, and denim. These jeans are in dialogue with the past and in line with contemporary interests in sustainability. The small workshops featured here are sites of innovation and preservation, and visitors are invited to take a close look at an everyday item and imagine alternative contexts for making and living in our own clothes.

Italian Renaissance Alive
Jun 10 @ 10:00 am
Biltmore Estate

Explore Biltmore House with an Audio Guide that introduces you to the Vanderbilt family and their magnificent home’s history, architecture, and collections of fine art and furnishings.

PLUS: Immersive, multi-sensory Italian Renaissance Alive exhibition created by Grande Experiences

PLUS: FREE next-day access to Biltmore’s Gardens and Grounds

This visit includes access to:

  • Italian Renaissance Alive at Amherst at Deerpark®
  • 8,000 Acres of Gardens and Grounds for two consecutive days
  • Antler Hill Village & Winery
  • Complimentary Wine Tastings at the Winery
  • Tastings require a Day-of-Visit Reservation, which can be made by:
    • Scanning the QR Code found in your Estate Guide
    • Visiting any Guest Services location
  • Complimentary parking

Art Exhibition: Italian Renaissance Alive

This fascinating experience takes you on a spellbinding tour of Italy, fully immersing you in the beauty and brilliance of iconic masterworks from the greatest artistic period in history

Ooh La La Curiosity Market
Jun 10 @ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Pritchard Park

Ooh La La Curiosity Market is an artist’s market that takes place in Pritchard Park, located in the center of beautiful downtown Asheville and will showcase the work of more than a dozen local artists. Taking place on Saturdays throughout Summer and every Saturday in October. Ooh La La will feature works by local painters, leather smiths, jewelry makers, potters, up-cycled crafters, and other curious delights, all beneath the colored canopies of large market umbrellas. In addition to the artists, the market will also feature live local music with three musical acts performing each Saturday and will include everything from a solo saxophonist to folk, blues, acoustic and jazz acts.

Gatherings of Artists + Writers Coffee
Jun 10 @ 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Tryon Fine Arts Center

TFAC invites all artists: painters, sculptors, writers, performers & more — to a casual weekly drop-in gathering on Saturday mornings at 9 AM to share your works in progress, alert others, and chat about art and what’s happening in your community.

The first weekly Coffee is Saturday, August 20 at 9 am.

No RSVP needed, just drop by!

Free parking available on Melrose Avenue, behind and alongside TFAC.

Black Mountain College and Mexico (BMC/MX): Exhibition
Jun 10 @ 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

Black Mountain College and Mexico (BMC/MX): Exhibition, Publication, and Public Programming

Black Mountain College (1933–1957), a small but remarkably influential liberal arts school in rural North Carolina, had important links to Mexico that until now have been little investigated. A crucible of twentieth-century creativity, BMC galvanized and inspired artists and intellectuals from around the world, while Mexico’s innovations and age-old traditions—in fine and applied arts, architecture, poetry, music, performance, and more—dovetailed with, and indeed drove, global impulses toward modernism and beyond. Among the many key BMC figures whose lives were importantly touched by experiences in Mexico were Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Jean Charlot, Elaine de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Carlos Mérida, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, Clara Porset, M.C. Richards, and Aaron Siskind. In turn, engagements with BMC and its legacy have played a significant role in shaping contemporary approaches to art in Mexico, evident in the works of Jorge Méndez Blake, Iñaki Bonillas, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Jose Dávila, Gerda Gruber, Lake Verea, Gabriel Orozco, and Damián Ortega, among others.

The exhibition BMC/MX features works by these and other prominent contemporary Mexican artists alongside a selection of historic works by BMC artists, highlighting the ways in which ideas and modalities are translated across materials, space, and time.

Related programming, planned in collaboration with Mexican artists, features a series of public events, including a performance by artist (and BMC/MX co-curator) David Miranda to take place at Different Wrld; an exhibition visit (in Spanish and English) with BMC/MX Project Director Eric Baden; and a series of experiential art events in the BMCM+AC library.

The exhibition is accompanied by the book Black Mountain College and Mexico (forthcoming late summer 2023), which investigates the people, ideas, and practices linking BMC and Mexico during the life of the school, as well as resonances between BMC and the work of contemporary Mexican artists. With contributions by BMC/MX’s curators, as well as by artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, design scholar Ana Elena Mallet, and author and activist Margaret Randall, this fully illustrated volume brings new light to this complex and underexplored subject.

BMC/MX is an investigation into modes of communication—the arenas in which new ideas and alliances may come to be—between Black Mountain College and Mexico, between past and present, between form and idea.

About the Curators

BMC/MX’s Project Director Eric Baden is a photographer and from 1994 to 2022 was professor of photography at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. He is the founding director of photo+, a multidisciplinary arts event held in Asheville, North Carolina.

Artist and educator David Miranda is curator at the Museo Experimental El Eco (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM), and teaches at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” in Mexico City.

Diana Stoll is an editor, writer and curator who works with institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has served as an editor at Aperture and Artforum magazines, and contributes writings to prominent arts publications.

Pulp Potential: Works in Handmade Paper
Jun 10 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Paul Wong, Carbon, silver and gold, 2016, pigmented linen and cotton pulp, publisher: Dieu Donné, New York, edition 3/25, 18 × 11 inches. Gift of Dieu Donné, New York, 2022.27.06. © Paul Wong.

On View March 8 through July 24, 2023
The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery • Level 1

Paper is an essential part of the art-making process for many artists, serving as the base for drawing, painting, printmaking, and other forms of art. As a substrate, paper can vary in weight, absorbency, color, size, and other aspects. Since industrialization, paper has primarily been produced through mechanical means that allow for consistency and affordability.

What happens, then, when an artist chooses to return to the foundations of paper, wherein it is made by hand using pulps, fibers, and dyes that reflect the human element through variations, inconsistencies, flaws, and surprises? Certain artists have sought out these qualities and embraced them, making paper not just a support on which to work, but fully a medium in and of itself.

Pulp Potential: Works in Handmade Paper is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, former assistant curator, with assistance from Alexis Meldrum, curatorial assistant. Special thanks to Dieu Donné, New York, NY.

ROCK STARS + DINERS SOLO ART EXHIBIT
Jun 10 @ 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
ART ON 7TH

This solo exhibition will feature artwork representing Peterson’s wide range of works, from illustrations to oil paintings. Designer of more than 150 concert posters for San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore and other concert venues, he’s illustrated concert posters for music legends Paul McCartney, Van Morrison, John Legend, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, and Bonnie Raitt to name a few. Now residing in Asheville, Peterson continues to do illustrations but primarily concentrates on painting “urban landscapes” using oil on canvas.

The exhibition will feature both illustrations and oil paintings, and many of his concert posters will be available for purchase as well. Using traditional skills of drawing and painting, Peterson observes and expresses the emotion of subjects seen and experienced in daily life, and makes scenes go from ordinary to the extraordinary.

Born and raised in New York City, Peterson, a product of the esteemed Art Institute of Boston and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, for more than 40 years he has worked as a professional illustrator, designer, and fine artist. Rooted in the tradition of American painting, he draws inspiration from such masters as N.C. and Andrew Wyeth, Charles Sheeler, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and Winslow Homer.

To quote a recent article written about Christopher Peterson, “His journey as an artist exemplifies the transformative power of traditional techniques and a deep connection to the rich heritage of American painting.”

ARTIST WINE & CHEESERECEPTION JUNE 6 5-7PM

Toybox’s (mostly) Monthly Puppetry Series
Jun 10 @ 11:00 am
The Magnetic Theatre

Toybox’s (mostly) Monthly Puppetry Series
Presented by Toybox Theatre, with special guest artists
Toybox Theatre, in collaboration with The Magnetic Theatre, presents a new puppetry series for ALL AGES. This new series will feature original works by acclaimed award-winning puppeteer and clown Toybox, and will bring some of the best puppeteers in the nation as special guests!
Toybox Theatre has been entertaining audiences from coast to coast with their unique brand of humor and art for over 20 years! Garnishing many “fan favorite” and “funniest show” awards, Toybox has also received an UNIMA Citation for Excellence in the Art of Puppetry, and funding from The Jim Henson Foundation.
Saturday May 06, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=177146
Saturday June 10, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179633
Saturday July 8, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179634
Saturday Aug 19, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179635
Saturday Oct 14, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179637
Saturday Nov 11, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179638
Saturday Dec 16, 2023 at 11:00am: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?show=179639
PRICING
Adults $20; Children (12 and under) $10
All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Asheville Art Museum Free Community Day: Focus on Buckminster Fuller
Jun 10 @ 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Mark your calendars for June 10 as our Learning & Engagement department welcomes our community into the Museum for free between noon–5pm. Celebrate our newest exhibition Altruistic Genius and featured programs centered on Buckminster Fuller including public tours, art activities, an interactive musical demonstration, and Fuller’s World Peace Game.

 

Altruistic Genius: Buckminster Fuller’s Plans to Save the Planet brings the inventions and designs of R. Buckminster Fuller to Western North Carolina and introduces visitors to Fuller’s strategies for the sustainability of humans and the planet relating to housing, transportation, mathematics, and engineering. This exhibition features two major suites of prints by Buckminster Fuller among other remarkable works from his multi-decade career and is presented in three sections: Inventions, Synergetics, and Black Mountain College and Lasting Influence.

 

Altruistic Genius add-on tickets on June 10 are $7 for Members and $10 for nonmembers. Free general admission on Community Day is made possible through support provided by our patrons.

Bizarre Sábado 2 – Chat w/ Curator Eric Baden / Charla con curador Eric Baden / ¡Hola! Asheville Festival
Jun 10 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

 

Bizarre Sábado

During the course of the exhibition, BMCM+AC will host a series of experiential art events. These “Bizarre Sábado” happenings are inspired by Mexico City’s Bazaar Sábado, the innovative gathering place and crafts market first organized in 1960 by BMC alum Cynthia Sargent and her husband Wendell Riggs. The Bazaar Sábado continues to this day.

Bizarre Sábado 3: Saturday, June 17, 2023 – 1–5pm

Bizarre Sábado 4: Saturday, July 1, 2023 – 1–5pm

Bizarre Sábado 5: Saturday, July 15, 2023 – 1–5pm

Bizarre Sábado 6: Saturday, July 29, 2023 – 1–5pm

A series of performative and experiential actions featuring local artists @ Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Library {120 College Street, Asheville, NC}

Bizarre Sábado 7

Black Night/Noche Negra: Photographs of Mexico—Slideshow with BMC/MX Project Director Eric Baden

Wednesday, August 16, 2023 – 8pm

@ Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street, Asheville, NC}

Bizarre Sábado 8

Zine Release Celebration and Presentation of selected works from the Abraham Cruzvillegas Call for Art

Saturday, September 2, 2023 – 1–8pm

@ Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street, Asheville, NC}

and Lamplight AVL {821 Haywood Rd. Asheville, NC}

As part of the BMC/MX project, students and artists have been invited to engage creatively with visual prompts offered by Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas. Images of the resulting artworks will be compiled into a zine (available at BMCM+AC in September 2023), and selected works will be on display at Lamplight AVL on September 2.

Black Mountain College and Mexico (BMC/MX): Exhibition, Publication, and Public Programming

Black Mountain College (1933–1957), a small but remarkably influential liberal arts school in rural North Carolina, had important links to Mexico that until now have been little investigated. A crucible of twentieth-century creativity, BMC galvanized and inspired artists and intellectuals from around the world, while Mexico’s innovations and age-old traditions—in fine and applied arts, architecture, poetry, music, performance, and more—dovetailed with, and indeed drove, global impulses toward modernism and beyond. Among the many key BMC figures whose lives were importantly touched by experiences in Mexico were Anni and Josef Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Jean Charlot, Elaine de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Carlos Mérida, Robert Motherwell, Charles Olson, Clara Porset, M.C. Richards, and Aaron Siskind. In turn, engagements with BMC and its legacy have played a significant role in shaping contemporary approaches to art in Mexico, evident in the works of Jorge Méndez Blake, Iñaki Bonillas, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Jose Dávila, Gerda Gruber, Lake Verea, Gabriel Orozco, and Damián Ortega, among others.

The exhibition BMC/MX features works by these and other prominent contemporary Mexican artists alongside a selection of historic works by BMC artists, highlighting the ways in which ideas and modalities are translated across materials, space, and time.

Related programming, planned in collaboration with Mexican artists, features a series of public events, including a performance by artist (and BMC/MX co-curator) David Miranda to take place at Different Wrld; an exhibition visit (in Spanish and English) with BMC/MX Project Director Eric Baden; and a series of experiential art events in the BMCM+AC library.

The exhibition is accompanied by the book Black Mountain College and Mexico (forthcoming late summer 2023), which investigates the people, ideas, and practices linking BMC and Mexico during the life of the school, as well as resonances between BMC and the work of contemporary Mexican artists. With contributions by BMC/MX’s curators, as well as by artist Abraham Cruzvillegas, design scholar Ana Elena Mallet, and author and activist Margaret Randall, this fully illustrated volume brings new light to this complex and underexplored subject.

BMC/MX is an investigation into modes of communication—the arenas in which new ideas and alliances may come to be—between Black Mountain College and Mexico, between past and present, between form and idea.

About the Curators

BMC/MX’s Project Director Eric Baden is a photographer and from 1994 to 2022 was professor of photography at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. He is the founding director of photo+, a multidisciplinary arts event held in Asheville, North Carolina.

Artist and educator David Miranda is curator at the Museo Experimental El Eco (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM), and teaches at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” in Mexico City.

Diana Stoll is an editor, writer and curator who works with institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has served as an editor at Aperture and Artforum magazines, and contributes writings to prominent arts publications.

Cinderella: Enchanted
Jun 10 @ 2:00 pm
Flat Rock Playhouse

A fresh take on a timeless classic, perfect for the whole family. With great warmth and more than a touch of hilarity, the hearts of children and adults alike still soar when the slipper fits. Inspired by the acclaimed teleplay starring Whitney Houston and Brandy, this version of the magical fairy tale is reborn with the Rodgers & Hammerstein hallmarks of originality, charm and elegance.

Big Fish
Jun 10 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
HART Theatre
By Andrew Lippa and John August
On the Steve Lloyd Stage
Directed by Candice Dickinson

What tall tales will we tell to be the hero of our own stories? 

When Will finds out his father is dying of cancer, he is on a mission to find the truth behind the tall tales his father has always told him. Audiences will be in awe as they travel back and forth from Will and Edward’s stark reality to the beautiful and larger than life fantasies of Edward Bloom’s past. This charming, warm hug of a musical features Southern-fried music from Andrew Lippa and is based on the 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace that also inspired the 2003 big-screen adaptation directed by Tim Burton. A musical for dreamers, this show has sweeping melodies, gorgeous dance numbers, and celebrates the imagination, culminating in a thrilling theatrical experience. Full of giants, witches, mermaids, and, of course, an exceptionally large fish, Big Fish is about what’s real and what’s fantastic, what’s true and what’s not true, what’s partially true and how, in the end, it’s all true.

Suitable for all audiences.

DA CLASSROOM AIN’T ENUF
Jun 10 @ 7:30 pm
The Magnetic Theatre

DA CLASSROOM AIN’T ENUF
By Charles Payne
Directed by Katie Jones

Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf is an exploration of the intersection of Black and Brown communities, particularly in and around the American educational system. The play features an ensemble of four actors who play teachers, students, and their families, and is a mix of poetry, prose, and music, with original tracks by composer Richard Jones. This choreopoem is inspired by the work of Ntozake Shange.

Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective presents HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANEY SISTER’S FIRST 100 YEARS
Jun 10 @ 7:30 pm
Wortham Center for the Performing Arts

HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANEY SISTERS’ FIRST 100 YEARS opens as 103-year-old Sadie Delany and 101-year-old Bessie Delany welcome us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. As they prepare a celebratory dinner in remembrance of their father’s birthday, they take us on a remarkable journey through the last hundred years of our nation’s history, recounting a fascinating series of events and anecdotes drawn from their rich family history and careers as pioneering African-American professionals. Their story is not simply African-American history or women’s history. It is our history, told through the eyes of two unforgettable women as they look not only into the past, but also ahead into the twenty-first century.

Montford Park Players: Wendy + Peter – A Peter Pan Story
Jun 10 @ 7:30 pm
Montford Park Players

All shows will be at the Hazel Robinson Amphitheater in the Montford District of Asheville, and all will be presented absolutely FREE of charge!
Written and Directed by Skyler Goff
This World Premiere was penned by local playwright Skyler Goff and tells of the continuing adventures of our favorite Lost Boy. A fantastical way to kick off our season!

All shows will run Fridays through Sundays and all will be presented at 7:30pm and prime seats can be reserved.

Montford Park Players has been bringing some of theater’s greatest works to Western North Carolina for over 50 years. Montford Park Players continues its mission of bring free theater to the community. The summer season allows everyone to come spend an evening under the stars, seeing some of the best live performances presented in Asheville.

Montford Park Players allows patrons to bring their favorite food and beverages to their shows and sells beer, wine and concessions at the shows. If you’ve never been to the Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre for a Montford show, there’s no better season than this one. If you have been, you know why you should come back and catch everything we have to offer!

Raunchy Little Musical
Jun 10 @ 7:30 pm
Hendersonville Theatre

Book by Joanne Koch

Music by Ilya Levinson

Lyrics by Owen Kalt

 

Directed and Staged by: Jimmy Ferraro

Approximate Run Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Rating: Mature due to adult situations, humor, and language

Crass. It is an evening with this pioneer of edgy comedy anchored by an original score by Grammy-nominated composer Ilya Levinson, with plenty of Belle’s jokes and songs that topped the charts of the “adults only” record section… the “party records” your parents played when you were sent to bed. Inspired by her Jewish comedian father, Belle, a classically trained pianist, defined the odds (and her mother’s wishes for a career at Carnegie Hall). She rose to the top of a very limited genre of performers playing to packed clubs worldwide in an era when “women ain’t comics” culminating in a sold-out appearance at Carnegie Hall..her greatest success and yet her demise.

Fat Italian Wedding Murder which ran for 2 years in Florida and most recently in Chicago. He also produced and directed the hit New York premiere of Raunchy Little Musical…Belle Barth is Back!, scheduled to open at The Hendersonville Theatre in June and in Chicago in the Fall.

His credits as a producer and director are an outgrowth of decades as a professional performer throughout the U.S. and overseas, including Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatre. He made his Broadway debut in Fiddler On The Roof, directed by Jerome Robbins. Jimmy appeared in two Broadway national tours of Fiddler, with over 3000 performances to his credit. He starred as Tevye, (his signature role), in Fiddler in the 2012 National Tour, (winning Broadway World’s Best Actor in a Musical Award). He is also known  throughout the country for his roles as Sancho Panza in Man Of La Mancha, Nicely-Nicely in Guys And Dolls, each of which he has played more than 1000  performances and as Edna in . Jimmy and his wife, Broadway actress Dee Etta Rowe, now make their home in Hendersonville.

Cinderella: Enchanted
Jun 10 @ 8:00 pm
Flat Rock Playhouse

A fresh take on a timeless classic, perfect for the whole family. With great warmth and more than a touch of hilarity, the hearts of children and adults alike still soar when the slipper fits. Inspired by the acclaimed teleplay starring Whitney Houston and Brandy, this version of the magical fairy tale is reborn with the Rodgers & Hammerstein hallmarks of originality, charm and elegance.

Sunday, June 11, 2023
Biltmore Estate: Ciao! From Italy Sculptural Postcard Display
Jun 11 @ 8:30 am
Biltmore Estate

Included with admission

Embark on a scenic journey across George Vanderbilt’s Italy with a large-scale outdoor display that combines brilliant botanical designs with authentic messages written by Vanderbilt himself.

Beautifully handcrafted of natural elements, each sculptural postcard depicts a location or landmark Vanderbilt visited more than a century ago. This captivating complement to Biltmore’s Italian Renaissance Alive exhibition reveals Vanderbilt’s passions for travel, culture, architecture, and art as well as his personal experience of such renowned Italian cities as Milan, Florence, Venice, Pisa, and Vatican City.

Adding to the charm and visual appeal of Ciao! From Italy—sure to be a hit among kids of all ages—is the G-scale model train that travels in and out of each postcard in this enlightening display!

Bonsai as Fine Art
Jun 11 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
The North Carolina Arboretum
  • Vendor Area Open. Offering for sale bonsai, bonsai pots, tools and accessories.
  • Bonsai Pottery Invitational Exhibition.  Featuring works by well-known Bonsai Potters with a selection of works for sale.
  • Bonsai Exhibit.  Blue Ridge Bonsai Society. Showing a selection of potted trees trained by club members.
  • Educational Videos. Featuring Arthur Joura, bonsai curator of The North Carolina Arboretum, and Bjorn Bjorholm, professional bonsai artist and educator.

 

Special Events at the Arboretum

Saturday, June 10, 11:00 am:  “Transforming Plant Material into Fine Art.” Bonsai Styling Demonstration by bonsai artist Bjorn Bjorholm.

Saturday, June 10, 3:00 – 5:00 pm:  Live and Silent Auction. Selected bonsai from the Arboretum’s collection will be auctioned.  Proceeds support the Bonsai Program at The North Carolina Arboretum. 

 

77th Season at Asheville Community Theatre
Jun 11 @ 10:00 am
online
We’ve got magic to do just for you!
We are beyond thrilled to invite you to our 77th Season at Asheville Community Theatre! Join us for a year of mystery and magic that is overflowing with spellbinding stories and captivating characters.

  • Pippin
    Performances: September 15-October 8, 2023
  • Elf: The Musical
    Performances: December 1-23, 2023
  • Flyin’ West
    Performances: February 9-25, 2024
  • Matilda: The Musical
    Performances: April 12-May 5, 2024
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps
    Performances: June 21-July 7, 2024
Find your corner of the sky!
Whether you’re seeking the flexibility of choosing individual shows or the perks of a subscription, here’s everything you need to know in order to unlock the theatrical experience that’s right for you.

  • June 1, 2023: Re-subscriptions
    • Current Season Subscription holders get exclusive access to early bird prices and first choice of seating.
  • June 14-27, 2023: Early Bird Subscriptions
    • Reduced pricing for Season Subscriptions opens to the public and is available for two weeks.
  • June 28, 2023: Season Subscriptions
    • Regularly-priced Season Subscriptions go on sale for the remainder of the season.
  • July 5-18, 2023: Single Tickets: Opening Weekend Discount 
    • New this year! Tickets for opening weekends are offered at a discount: musicals are 2 for $60 and plays are 2 for $50 – with no maximum ticket limit. The opening weekend discount is only available during this time period and does not include Elf: The Musical.
  • July 19, 2023: Single Tickets
    • All tickets for all shows are now on sale!
Italian Renaissance Alive
Jun 11 @ 10:00 am
Biltmore Estate

Explore Biltmore House with an Audio Guide that introduces you to the Vanderbilt family and their magnificent home’s history, architecture, and collections of fine art and furnishings.

PLUS: Immersive, multi-sensory Italian Renaissance Alive exhibition created by Grande Experiences

PLUS: FREE next-day access to Biltmore’s Gardens and Grounds

This visit includes access to:

  • Italian Renaissance Alive at Amherst at Deerpark®
  • 8,000 Acres of Gardens and Grounds for two consecutive days
  • Antler Hill Village & Winery
  • Complimentary Wine Tastings at the Winery
  • Tastings require a Day-of-Visit Reservation, which can be made by:
    • Scanning the QR Code found in your Estate Guide
    • Visiting any Guest Services location
  • Complimentary parking

Art Exhibition: Italian Renaissance Alive

This fascinating experience takes you on a spellbinding tour of Italy, fully immersing you in the beauty and brilliance of iconic masterworks from the greatest artistic period in history

Eidolon art exhibition
Jun 11 @ 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
Tyger Tyger Gallery

Exhibition dates: June 9 – July 23

Hours: Tuesday-Saturdays from 10-5 pm, Sundays 11-4 pm

Eidolon is an ancient term from Greek -oeidēs “form”. Early meanings included “mental image”, “appearance”, and “reflection” (as in a mirror or pool), and later, “apparition” or “imaginary entity”, among other things. Expanding beyond the definition pointing to a phantasm or specter, eidolon also sounds like some kind of astral or idyllic place in a novel or poem about an imaginary world. Eidolon features the work of Jacqueline Shatz and Margaret Thompson.
Jacqueline Shatz’s small sculptures of ambiguous and hybridized figures float, entwine, swim, commune with animals and collapse into abstract arabesques and gestures, hinting at mythology, in-between states, and the permeable nature of existence. Margaret Thompson’s paintings are inspired by elements of the symbolist movement and magical realism; she channels dreams and the associative powers of the imagination into her practice, painting subjects that live between our physical realm and spaces beyond the categories of known experience: they are unrestrained, undefined, and free.

Pulp Potential: Works in Handmade Paper
Jun 11 @ 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Asheville Art Museum

Paul Wong, Carbon, silver and gold, 2016, pigmented linen and cotton pulp, publisher: Dieu Donné, New York, edition 3/25, 18 × 11 inches. Gift of Dieu Donné, New York, 2022.27.06. © Paul Wong.

On View March 8 through July 24, 2023
The Van Winkle Law Firm Gallery • Level 1

Paper is an essential part of the art-making process for many artists, serving as the base for drawing, painting, printmaking, and other forms of art. As a substrate, paper can vary in weight, absorbency, color, size, and other aspects. Since industrialization, paper has primarily been produced through mechanical means that allow for consistency and affordability.

What happens, then, when an artist chooses to return to the foundations of paper, wherein it is made by hand using pulps, fibers, and dyes that reflect the human element through variations, inconsistencies, flaws, and surprises? Certain artists have sought out these qualities and embraced them, making paper not just a support on which to work, but fully a medium in and of itself.

Pulp Potential: Works in Handmade Paper is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Hilary Schroeder, former assistant curator, with assistance from Alexis Meldrum, curatorial assistant. Special thanks to Dieu Donné, New York, NY.

Big Fish
Jun 11 @ 2:00 pm
HART Theatre
By Andrew Lippa and John August
On the Steve Lloyd Stage
Directed by Candice Dickinson

What tall tales will we tell to be the hero of our own stories? 

When Will finds out his father is dying of cancer, he is on a mission to find the truth behind the tall tales his father has always told him. Audiences will be in awe as they travel back and forth from Will and Edward’s stark reality to the beautiful and larger than life fantasies of Edward Bloom’s past. This charming, warm hug of a musical features Southern-fried music from Andrew Lippa and is based on the 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace that also inspired the 2003 big-screen adaptation directed by Tim Burton. A musical for dreamers, this show has sweeping melodies, gorgeous dance numbers, and celebrates the imagination, culminating in a thrilling theatrical experience. Full of giants, witches, mermaids, and, of course, an exceptionally large fish, Big Fish is about what’s real and what’s fantastic, what’s true and what’s not true, what’s partially true and how, in the end, it’s all true.

Suitable for all audiences.

Cinderella: Enchanted
Jun 11 @ 2:00 pm
Flat Rock Playhouse

A fresh take on a timeless classic, perfect for the whole family. With great warmth and more than a touch of hilarity, the hearts of children and adults alike still soar when the slipper fits. Inspired by the acclaimed teleplay starring Whitney Houston and Brandy, this version of the magical fairy tale is reborn with the Rodgers & Hammerstein hallmarks of originality, charm and elegance.

Juneteenth Freedom Fest
Jun 11 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Carl Sandburg Home

 

The park will host a community “Juneteenth Freedom Fest” on Sunday, June 11 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in cooperation with the Black History Collective of Henderson County. The event will feature music and art demonstrations, with a special presentation by Christopher D. Sims, a poet, activist, and spoken work performer.

Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective presents HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANEY SISTER’S FIRST 100 YEARS
Jun 11 @ 3:00 pm

HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANEY SISTERS’ FIRST 100 YEARS opens as 103-year-old Sadie Delany and 101-year-old Bessie Delany welcome us into their Mount Vernon, New York, home. As they prepare a celebratory dinner in remembrance of their father’s birthday, they take us on a remarkable journey through the last hundred years of our nation’s history, recounting a fascinating series of events and anecdotes drawn from their rich family history and careers as pioneering African-American professionals. Their story is not simply African-American history or women’s history. It is our history, told through the eyes of two unforgettable women as they look not only into the past, but also ahead into the twenty-first century.

DA CLASSROOM AIN’T ENUF
Jun 11 @ 4:00 pm
The Magnetic Theatre

DA CLASSROOM AIN’T ENUF
By Charles Payne
Directed by Katie Jones

Da Classroom Ain’t Enuf is an exploration of the intersection of Black and Brown communities, particularly in and around the American educational system. The play features an ensemble of four actors who play teachers, students, and their families, and is a mix of poetry, prose, and music, with original tracks by composer Richard Jones. This choreopoem is inspired by the work of Ntozake Shange.