Calendar of Events
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.
Join host and Malaprop’s Bookseller Patricia Furnish to discuss a range of books across true crime and public affairs. The club meets the first Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Click here to learn more about the club, view important news, and find the pick for this month.
Join us for our monthly poetry event featuring three poets and coordinated by Mildred Barya. This month, we welcome Marlanda Dekine, Hilda Downer, and Ann Shurgin.
This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited amount of seats available to attend the event in-store. Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event.
If you decide to attend and purchase the author’s books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Feel free to email [email protected] with questions. We look forward to seeing you, whether in-person or online!
Marlanda Dekine is the winner of the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize. Concerned with ancestry, memory, and the process of staying within one’s own body, their work leaves spells and incantations for others to follow for themselves. Dekine is a Tin House Own Path Scholar and author of the self-published collection and mixtape, i am from a punch & a kiss (2017). Their poems have been published or are forthcoming in the Poetry Out Loud Anthology, POETRY Magazine, Emergence Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, Oxford American, and elsewhere. They live in South Carolina with their dog Malachi. For more, visit https://sapientsoul.square.site
Marlanda Dekine’s debut collection, Thresh & Hold is a holy, radical unlearning and reclamation of self. What does it mean to be a Gullah-Geechee descendant from a rural place where a third of the nation’s founding wealth was harvested by trafficked West and Central Africans? Dekine’s poems travel across age and time, signaling that both the past and future exist in the present. Through erasure and persona, Dekine reimagines intergenerational traumas and calls to task narratives of modern-day museums and the Works Progress Administration. Beyond gospel music, fear, and previous generation stories, Thresh & Hold offers magic, healing, and innovative pathways to manifest intimacy.
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Hilda Downer, a long term member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative and North Carolina Writers Conference, has an MA in English from Appalachian State University and an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. Retired from teaching English, she also worked as a psychiatric nurse for over 38 years. Her first book of poetry, Bandana Creek, was published by Red Clay Press. Her second book, Sky Under the Roof, by Bottom Dog Press was a Nautilus Golden Winner. She has published essays and poetry in numerous journals and anthologies. She lives in Sugar Grove, NC.
For more, visit [email protected]
We must “relearn ourselves / with what we have now,” Hilda Downer says in her new collection When Light Waits for Us. Time—in all its countless iterations and absences—bears in on her from every side, all of life an excavation site, a record of who she became and, more hauntingly, who she did not. Even so, Downer recognizes that we live in a “delicate microcosm” where “orchids [are] so specialized / their pollination requires / one particular species of insects.” Her poems assert that we are no different, our souls intersecting, thereby giving us all these ways—music, photography, even poems—to “invent an art to make it worth starting over.”
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Ann Shurgin grew up in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and holds a degree in English and journalism from East Tennessee State University. After a career in journalism and communications in Texas, she moved back home to the Appalachian Mountains. She is a member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative and the Appalachian Studies Association. While the Whippoorwill Called is her first book of poetry.
While the Whippoorwill Called is a sensual delight rooted in laurel thicket and balsam ridge, in the amber glow of home left and returned to, a voice sometimes alone in the mountains nonetheless singing free. Ann Shurgin’s debut poetry collection is also a heart tugger, wishing for love once tasted then flowing past. Both poet and photographer, Shurgin centers us in her lens of wishing and independence, on the Tennessee/Carolina border, knowing that “a stone from Appalachia / is lost without the hollows / and the whippoorwills.” Wrap yourself in evanescent memory and life’s great unfurling, in the quiet woods of what was and is yet to be.
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Mildred Kiconco Barya is a writer and poet. She has written short-stories and essays for various publications, features and travel articles for newspapers. Her first collection of poetry titled: Men Love Chocolates But They Don’t Say won the National Award for poetry publication 2002. She is also the author of the poetry collections The Price of Memory and Give Me Room to Move My Feet. Barya is Assistant professor of Creative Writing and World Literature at University of North Carolina-Asheville. Learn more at http://mildredbarya.com/.
Join host Tena Frank for Malaprop’s Mystery Book Club! Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!
The club meets at Malaprop’s on the second Monday of every month at 7:00 pm.
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
The massive and foreboding Great Dismal Swamp sprawls over 2,000 square miles and spills over parts of Virginia and North Carolina. From the early seventeenth century, the nearly impassable Dismal frustrated settlement. However, what may have been an impediment to the expansion of slave society became an essential sanctuary for many of those who sought to escape it. In the depths of the Dismal, thousands of maroons–people who had emancipated themselves from enslavement and settled beyond the reach of enslavers–established new lives of freedom in a landscape deemed worthless and inaccessible by whites.
Dismal Freedom unearths the stories of these maroons, their lives, and their struggles for liberation. Drawing from newly discovered primary sources and archeological evidence that suggests far more extensive maroon settlement than historians have previously imagined, award-winning author J. Brent Morris uncovers one of the most exciting yet neglected stories of American history. This is the story of resilient, proud, and determined people who made the Great Dismal Swamp their free home and sanctuary and who played an outsized role in undermining slavery through the Civil War.
J. Brent Morris is professor of history at the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
Hosted by the Asheville Art Museum, this monthly discussion is a place to exchange ideas about readings that relate to artworks and the art world and to learn from and about each other. Meetings will take place in person at the Art Museum on the second Wednesday of the month at noon. Please click here and scroll to the current month and year to see what the club is reading this month.
This is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
Praised by John Grisham as “beautifully written, impeccably researched, and told with the air of suspense that few writers can handle,” WASTELANDS tells the virtually unknown true story of a thrilling courtroom showdown and the handful of crusading lawyers and neighbors who took on one of Big Agriculture’s largest monopolies. The once-idyllical rural land on North Carolina’s coastal plain, known as “Hog Country,” is home to the largest pork producer in the world, Smithfield Foods. It is also home to a poverty-stricken community who, for more than two decades, have complained that Smithfield’s polluting practices were making them sick and damaging their homes. In WASTELANDS, Corban Addison tells the story of several local residents, backed by five hundred of their neighbors and lead by a team of intrepid lawyers, who brought suit against Smithfield, one of the world’s most powerful multi-billion-dollar corporations.
CORBAN ADDISON is the internationally best-selling author of four novels, A Walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, The Tears of Dark Water (winner of the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize), and A Harvest of Thorns, all of which address some of today’s most pressing human rights issues. Wastelands is Addison’s debut work of nonfiction. An attorney, activist, and world traveler, he lives with his wife and children in Virginia.
The first speaker in our 2022 Grandfather Presents series is Rick Ridgeway. Rick is an outdoor adventurer, writer and advocate for sustainability and conservation initiatives. For 15 years, Rick was the VP of Environmental Affairs and then VP of Public Engagement at Patagonia, Inc. During his tenure he has worked with teams to develop and launch environmental and sustainability initiatives including Freedom to Roam, the Footprint Chronicles, the Responsible Economy Campaign and Worn Wear. He also was the developer of developer of the Higg Index and founding chairman of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, which is today the largest apparel, footwear and home textile trade organization in the world.
Additional, Rick is recognized as one of the world’s foremost mountaineers. With three companions, he was the first American to summit K2, and he has done other significant climbs and explorations on all continents. During his explorations Rick witnessed the degradations of the wildlands that had come to define his life. He saw firsthand the remote grasslands in Patagonia turned into tourist cities and the glaciers on Kilimanjaro disappear. He also witnessed the wildlife that inhabited those wildlands decline, and in the mid-90s, he began a series of journeys that allowed him to communicate what was happening to these formally wild regions. He has written seven books and many magazine stories, and he has produced and directed dozens of television shows. His memoir Life Lived Wild was released in October 2021. National Geographic has also honored him with its “Lifetime Achievement in Adventure” award.
Rick serves on six boards of conservation organizations, including the Tompkins Conservation, the Turtle Conservancy, One Earth and the Kiewit Family Foundation. Rick lives in Ojai, California, and has three children and four grandchildren.
More About Grandfather Presents
Our 2022 speaker series at the Wilson Center for Nature Discovery includes three big Thursday night events with internationally and nationally known presenters. Presented by the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, the series also includes three Saturday afternoon presentations focused on nature, adventure or conservation-related topics on a local or regional scale. Read more.
Schedule
5 – 6 p.m.: Entrance Gate opens for event. Proceed about one mile to Wilson Center for Nature Discovery.
5:15 – 5:45 p.m.: VIP event in the sunroom (holders of Pro Series Pass) to meet Rick.
5:30 – 6 p.m.: Reception for all ticket holders inside Wilson Center for Nature Discovery
6 – 7 p.m.: Presentation in Classroom in the Clouds event space
7 – 8 p.m.: Book Signing & Exhibits Open
Tickets
$50 per person (purchase below starting June 6)
Grandfather Presents Series Pass available for Bridge Club Members. Read more.
Refunds/Cancelations
The majority of Grandfather Mountain events generally sell out and have a waiting list. If you cannot attend the event that you registered for please let us know. Full refunds will be given to individuals who reach out to us at least five days before the event. This allows time for individuals on the waiting list to make accommodations to attend the event. To cancel your registration please call 828-733-2013 Monday-Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
The Friends of Pack Library will be having its annual Super Summer Book Sale on July 15 & 16. There will be antique and collectible books for sale, including hundreds of like-new comics, music CDs and DVDs, with lots of great items for children and adults.
The Special Collections department at Pack Library will be offering miscellaneous ephemera, including postcards, items good for coffee table display and crafting. On Friday, July 15, the sale will be from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and all items will be priced as marked. On Saturday, July 16, the sale will be from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and all books will be half-off the marked price.
In addition, Bookends Used Book Store at Pack Library will be offering 50% off all items in the store. The CDs, DVDs, comics, and Special Collections items will be priced as marked both days and not included in the half-off sale. Cash, check, and credit cards will be accepted for all sales. All proceeds benefit the library.
The Friends of Pack Library will be having its annual Super Summer Book Sale on July 15 & 16. There will be antique and collectible books for sale, including hundreds of like-new comics, music CDs and DVDs, with lots of great items for children and adults.
The Special Collections department at Pack Library will be offering miscellaneous ephemera, including postcards, items good for coffee table display and crafting. On Friday, July 15, the sale will be from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and all items will be priced as marked. On Saturday, July 16, the sale will be from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and all books will be half-off the marked price.
In addition, Bookends Used Book Store at Pack Library will be offering 50% off all items in the store. The CDs, DVDs, comics, and Special Collections items will be priced as marked both days and not included in the half-off sale. Cash, check, and credit cards will be accepted for all sales. All proceeds benefit the library.
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Join us to discuss this month’s book: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood This is a hybrid in-person/virtual meeting. Participants may come in person to the North Asheville Library or participate via Zoom. Registration is required for the Zoom link. The North Asheville Book Club meets on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. |
This event is a free event, but registration is required. Click here to register. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
The After Ever After trilogy is an epic, lyrical fairy tale of real relationship beyond the “happily ever after” union where most love stories end. Princesses based on Cinderella, Snow White, Belle and Sleeping Beauty transform by wicked-witch magic to claim their confidence as queens. Book III, The Queen’s Rain, entwines the threads of animal and human, feminine and masculine, city and wild, future and past, to integrate that forbidden magic which the heroines first encountered in Book I, then faced more deeply in Book II. Now they must heal their children’s traumas and return this magic to their kingdoms and queendoms, in the hopes that their peoples will evolve and unite, rather than condemn them.
In addition to the After Ever After trilogy, Mindi Meltz is the author of two more novels, Beauty and Lonely in the Heart of the World, and creates Animal Wisdom knowledge decks. Originally from the coast of Maine, she lives in an off-grid home in the mountains of Western North Carolina with her husband, cats, and goats.
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Join us for the Enka-Candler History Book Club! We read historical fiction and non-fiction books. The next book for discussion is, “Revelations” by Mary Sharratt due to the discussion being cancelled in June. All newcomers are welcome. We will be meeting in the community room. |
If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!
A novice fifth-grade teacher embarks on a clandestine love affair with another teacher, which sets her on the tumultuous path of self-discovery.
It is 1963, one of the most turbulent years in American history. The escalating tensions and conflicts in society at large are playing out in classrooms, principals’ offices, and school boards across the country, along with the first stirrings of social transformation, though the past still holds its suffocating grip. And behind the closed door of the teachers’ room in one small Midwest town, two teachers set eyes on each other and find it hard to look away.
Karen Murphy, fresh from college, has taken on her first teaching job. Despite her best efforts, she can’t seem to stick to the subjects in her fifth-grade school books, helped along by the antics of a girl who upends all her lesson plans. She has a lot to learn, and her women colleagues are there to offer their advice, especially the enigmatic fourth-grade teacher, Esther Jonas. As Karen quickly discovers, the devoted spinster teacher with no life beyond the classroom is a myth—the school is teeming with passion and secrets, her own perilous desire for Esther Jonas included.
The Teachers’ Room offers both a panoramic view of a changing America and an intimate portrait of the hidden lives of teachers.
“The Teachers’ Room is a remarkable novel. The presentation of the setting is beautifully evocative, truly recreating an era. And the historical background—1963 in the Midwest, teachers who had to be closeted or risk everything—was such an important and pivotal time in American social history. But The Teachers’ Room is never dry history. The plot will make the reader keep turning the pages. Most of all, The Teachers’ Room is a wonderful read—engaging, vivid in its depictions, deeply interesting in its characterizations, and very moving.” —Lillian Faderman, renowned scholar of lesbian and LGBT history and literature
Award-winning playwright Lydia Stryk was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois, birthplace of barbed wire and flying ears of corn. After high school, she trained at the Drama Centre in London and pursued an acting career in New York for exactly one year before returning to school to study History and Education. She substitute-taught in New York City public schools, observing the social lives of children and the inner workings of the education system with fascination, and she completed a doctorate in Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation, “Acting Hysteria: An Analysis of the Actress and Her Part,” was an attempt to understand why her own short-lived experience acting the woman’s part felt pathological. Her plays have been produced across the country and beyond. The Teachers’ Room is her first novel. www.lydiastryk.com
Kia Corthorn is the author of the novels The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, winner of the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and Moon and the Mars which was released in 2021. She is also an internationally produced playwright, garnering the Windham Campbell Prize for Drama, the United States Artists Jane Addams Fellowship, and the Horton Foote Prize, among others. She lives in Harlem, New York City.
This club meets in-person and virtually. If you are interested in attending, please email [email protected] for more info and instructions!
Join host and Malaprop’s bookseller Patricia Furnish to discuss a range of books across different periods of history. The club tackles challenging subjects, hence “NOTORIOUS.” Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!
The club meets at Malaprop’s on the 3rd Thursday of every month at 7:00 pm.
Join us for a virtual evening with Daniel Silva presenting Portrait of an Unknown Woman, in conversation with Jamie Gangel.
This event is hosted by Books & Books/Miami Book Fair + indie bookstore partners.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Tickets are $29.99 each (plus applicable tax and shipping). Each ticket includes a signed hardcover copy of Portrait of an Unknown Woman, and a link to access the live event on Zoom. (Personalization is not available.) Purchase below.
Please make sure you submit the correct email address with your ticket purchase and that your email filters will allow messages from addresses @malaprops.com. The link required to attend will be emailed to you prior to the event.
NOTE: Books bundled with event tickets may be shipped ONLY to United States addresses. Books will not be shipped before publication date, July 19, 2022. Postal delivery times vary.
In a spellbinding new masterpiece by #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a high-stakes search for the greatest art forger who ever lived.
Stylish, sophisticated, and ingeniously plotted, Portrait of an Unknown Woman is a wildly entertaining journey through the dark side of the art world–a place where unscrupulous dealers routinely deceive their customers and deep-pocketed investors treat great paintings as though they were just another asset class to be bought and sold at a profit. From its elegant opening to the shocking twists of its climax, the novel is a tour de force of storytelling and one of the finest pieces of heist fiction ever written. And it is still more proof that, when it comes to international intrigue and suspense, Daniel Silva has no equal.
Daniel Silva is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, House of Spies, The Other Woman, The New Girl, The Order, and The Cellist. He is best known for his long-running thriller series starring spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon. Silva’s books are critically acclaimed bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than thirty languages. He resides in Florida with his wife, television journalist Jamie Gangel, and their twins, Lily and Nicholas.
Jamie Gangel is an award-winning special correspondent at CNN covering politics and breaking news. Prior to that, Gangel was at NBC News and spent nearly two decades as National Correspondent for TODAY, covering a variety of issues, from popular culture to hard news.
Our Town
PLAY
By: Thornton Wilder
Directed by: Robert Arleigh White
Seeking a large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Be YOU! Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet. The director prefers that you prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing for your audition.
PRODUCTION DATES: September 30th – October 16th, 2022; Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:30 pm. Cast must plan to arrive at least 1 hour prior to show time.
REHEARSALS: August 8th -September 29th. A printed rehearsal calendar will be available at auditions – you are able to list any conflicts you have with the rehearsal schedule at this time.
DIRECTOR SEEKS: A large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Bring your weirdness…be YOU!
Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet.
AUDITION MATERIAL: Auditionees – The director prefers that you prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing. You may additionally be asked to read from sides (pages from the script) at the audition. (Check back for sides here closer to audition date.) Need help finding a monologue? Check out this handy monologue resource!
Directed by: Robert Arleigh White
AUDITION DATES: Monday, July 25th and Tuesday, July 26th, 2022; 5:30-7:30 pm
PRODUCTION DATES: September 30th – October 16th, 2022; Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:30 pm. Cast must plan to arrive at least 1 hour prior to show time.
REHEARSALS: August 8th -September 29th. A printed rehearsal calendar will be available at auditions – you are able to list any conflicts you have with the rehearsal schedule at this time.
DIRECTOR SEEKS: A large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Bring your weirdness…be YOU!
Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet.
AUDITION MATERIAL: Auditionees – The director encourages you to prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing, but it’s not required. If you don’t have a monologue, you will be asked to read from sides (pages from the script) at the audition.
Need help finding a monologue? Check out this handy monologue resource!
Scripts are available for checkout from the theatre. Or, borrow the script here from the library. (Disclaimer: The library version may be slightly different from the version we are using.)
SIDES:
AUDITION FORM: Fill out this Audition Form here or at the audition.
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Primary Characters:
- Stage Manager – a narrator, commentator, and guide through Grover’s Corners. She joins in the action of the play periodically, as the minister at the wedding, the soda shop owner, a local townsman, etc., and speaks directly to Emily after her death.
- Emily Webb – one of the main characters; we follow her from a precocious young girl through her wedding to George Gibbs and her early death.
- George Gibbs – the other main character; the boy next door, a kind but irresponsible teenager who matures over time and becomes a responsible husband, father and farmer.
- Frank Gibbs – George’s father, the town doctor.
- Julia (Hersey) Gibbs –George’s mother. She dreams of going to Paris but doesn’t get there. She saved $350 for the trip from the sale of an antique furniture piece but willed it to George and Emily. Dies while visiting her daughter in Ohio.
- Charles Webb – Emily’s father, Editor of the Grover’s Corners Sentinel
- Myrtle Webb – Emily and Wally’s mother.
Secondary characters:
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- Joe and Si Crowell – local paperboys. Joe’s intelligence earns him a full scholarship to MIT where he graduates at the top of his class. His promise will be cut short on the fields of France during World War I, according to the Stage Manager. Both he and his brother Si hold marriage in high disdain.
- Simon Stimson – the choir director and church organist. We never learn the specific cause of his alcoholism and suicide, although Joe Stoddard, the undertaker, observes that “He’s seen a peck of troubles.” He remains bitter and cynical even beyond the grave.
- Howie Newsome – the milkman, a fixture of Grover’s Corners.
- Rebecca Gibbs – George’s younger sister. Later elopes with a traveling salesman and settles in Ohio.
- Wallace “Wally” Webb – Emily’s younger brother. Dies of a burst appendix on a Boy Scout camping trip.
- Professor Willard – a rather long-winded lecturer
- Woman in the Balcony – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with temperance
- Belligerent Man at Back of Auditorium – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with social justice
- Lady in a Box – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with culture and beauty
- Mrs. Louella Soames – a gossipy townswoman and member of the choir
- Constable Bill Warren – the policeman
- Three Baseball Players – who mock George at the wedding
- Joe Stoddard – the undertaker
- Sam Craig – a nephew of Mrs. Gibbs who left town to seek his fortune. He came back after 12 years in Buffalo for Emily’s funeral.
- Man from among the Dead
- Woman from among the Dead
- Mr. Carter (Dead)
- Farmer McCarty
Join host and Malaprop’s Bookseller Allison to dive into the wreck of the wily and wonderful world of science fiction, fantasy, weird fiction, speculative fiction, and literary horror with a healthy mix of underappreciated classic and contemporary books. Meets the last Monday of every month at 7 pm on Zoom. Also meets on the second Monday of every month at 7 pm to discuss the film adaptations of the books we read. Click here to see a full schedule of what the club is reading and contact the club host to join. Club attendees get 10% off the book at Malaprop’s!
Our Town
PLAY
By: Thornton Wilder
Directed by: Robert Arleigh White
Seeking a large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Be YOU! Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet. The director prefers that you prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing for your audition.
PRODUCTION DATES: September 30th – October 16th, 2022; Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:30 pm. Cast must plan to arrive at least 1 hour prior to show time.
REHEARSALS: August 8th -September 29th. A printed rehearsal calendar will be available at auditions – you are able to list any conflicts you have with the rehearsal schedule at this time.
DIRECTOR SEEKS: A large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Bring your weirdness…be YOU!
Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet.
AUDITION MATERIAL: Auditionees – The director prefers that you prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing. You may additionally be asked to read from sides (pages from the script) at the audition. (Check back for sides here closer to audition date.) Need help finding a monologue? Check out this handy monologue resource!
Directed by: Robert Arleigh White
AUDITION DATES: Monday, July 25th and Tuesday, July 26th, 2022; 5:30-7:30 pm
PRODUCTION DATES: September 30th – October 16th, 2022; Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:30 pm. Cast must plan to arrive at least 1 hour prior to show time.
REHEARSALS: August 8th -September 29th. A printed rehearsal calendar will be available at auditions – you are able to list any conflicts you have with the rehearsal schedule at this time.
DIRECTOR SEEKS: A large cast of all ages, representing our community of Asheville. Tattoos, piercings, and extra-ness are welcome! Bring your weirdness…be YOU!
Actors of all ages, gender identities, races, ethnicities, and disabilities will be considered for any desired role indicated on their audition sheet.
AUDITION MATERIAL: Auditionees – The director encourages you to prepare a one-minute memorized monologue of your choosing, but it’s not required. If you don’t have a monologue, you will be asked to read from sides (pages from the script) at the audition.
Need help finding a monologue? Check out this handy monologue resource!
Scripts are available for checkout from the theatre. Or, borrow the script here from the library. (Disclaimer: The library version may be slightly different from the version we are using.)
SIDES:
AUDITION FORM: Fill out this Audition Form here or at the audition.
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Primary Characters:
- Stage Manager – a narrator, commentator, and guide through Grover’s Corners. She joins in the action of the play periodically, as the minister at the wedding, the soda shop owner, a local townsman, etc., and speaks directly to Emily after her death.
- Emily Webb – one of the main characters; we follow her from a precocious young girl through her wedding to George Gibbs and her early death.
- George Gibbs – the other main character; the boy next door, a kind but irresponsible teenager who matures over time and becomes a responsible husband, father and farmer.
- Frank Gibbs – George’s father, the town doctor.
- Julia (Hersey) Gibbs –George’s mother. She dreams of going to Paris but doesn’t get there. She saved $350 for the trip from the sale of an antique furniture piece but willed it to George and Emily. Dies while visiting her daughter in Ohio.
- Charles Webb – Emily’s father, Editor of the Grover’s Corners Sentinel
- Myrtle Webb – Emily and Wally’s mother.
Secondary characters:
-
- Joe and Si Crowell – local paperboys. Joe’s intelligence earns him a full scholarship to MIT where he graduates at the top of his class. His promise will be cut short on the fields of France during World War I, according to the Stage Manager. Both he and his brother Si hold marriage in high disdain.
- Simon Stimson – the choir director and church organist. We never learn the specific cause of his alcoholism and suicide, although Joe Stoddard, the undertaker, observes that “He’s seen a peck of troubles.” He remains bitter and cynical even beyond the grave.
- Howie Newsome – the milkman, a fixture of Grover’s Corners.
- Rebecca Gibbs – George’s younger sister. Later elopes with a traveling salesman and settles in Ohio.
- Wallace “Wally” Webb – Emily’s younger brother. Dies of a burst appendix on a Boy Scout camping trip.
- Professor Willard – a rather long-winded lecturer
- Woman in the Balcony – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with temperance
- Belligerent Man at Back of Auditorium – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with social justice
- Lady in a Box – attendee of Editor Webb’s political and social report – concerned with culture and beauty
- Mrs. Louella Soames – a gossipy townswoman and member of the choir
- Constable Bill Warren – the policeman
- Three Baseball Players – who mock George at the wedding
- Joe Stoddard – the undertaker
- Sam Craig – a nephew of Mrs. Gibbs who left town to seek his fortune. He came back after 12 years in Buffalo for Emily’s funeral.
- Man from among the Dead
- Woman from among the Dead
- Mr. Carter (Dead)
- Farmer McCarty
Romance Book Club is a space to celebrate love in literature. Whether it’s set in early 1800s London, a distant planet years into the future, a fantasy world of magic, or our own contemporary universe, we are here for the stories that end with a happily-ever-after (or at least a happily-for-now).
Meetings will take place at 7:00 PM ET on the last Tuesday of each month via Zoom. Please visit the Romance Bookclub page for the monthly selection, and email Samantha at [email protected] for the link to join.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library impacts the pre-literacy skills and school readiness of children under the age of 5 in Buncombe County. The program mails a new, free, age-appropriate book to registered children each month until they turn five years old. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. If you have any questions about the program, please send an email to [email protected].
A national panel of educators selects the Imagination Library titles, which include: The Little Engine that Could, Last Stop on Market Street, Violet the Pilot, As an Oak Tree Grows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Llama Llama Red Pajama, Look Out Kindergarten, here I come, and many more (take a look at all the titles).
Register your child now!
The Foodie Book Club is a club about food writing. The club meets on the last Wednesday of every month at 7:00 PM. Click here for details and monthly picks!
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library impacts the pre-literacy skills and school readiness of children under the age of 5 in Buncombe County. The program mails a new, free, age-appropriate book to registered children each month until they turn five years old. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. If you have any questions about the program, please send an email to [email protected].
A national panel of educators selects the Imagination Library titles, which include: The Little Engine that Could, Last Stop on Market Street, Violet the Pilot, As an Oak Tree Grows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Llama Llama Red Pajama, Look Out Kindergarten, here I come, and many more (take a look at all the titles).
Register your child now!
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library impacts the pre-literacy skills and school readiness of children under the age of 5 in Buncombe County. The program mails a new, free, age-appropriate book to registered children each month until they turn five years old. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. If you have any questions about the program, please send an email to [email protected].
A national panel of educators selects the Imagination Library titles, which include: The Little Engine that Could, Last Stop on Market Street, Violet the Pilot, As an Oak Tree Grows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Llama Llama Red Pajama, Look Out Kindergarten, here I come, and many more (take a look at all the titles).
Register your child now!
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library impacts the pre-literacy skills and school readiness of children under the age of 5 in Buncombe County. The program mails a new, free, age-appropriate book to registered children each month until they turn five years old. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library creates a home library of up to 60 books and instills a love of books and reading from an early age. If you have any questions about the program, please send an email to [email protected].
A national panel of educators selects the Imagination Library titles, which include: The Little Engine that Could, Last Stop on Market Street, Violet the Pilot, As an Oak Tree Grows, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Llama Llama Red Pajama, Look Out Kindergarten, here I come, and many more (take a look at all the titles).
Register your child now!
The Haunted Trail at the Adventure Center of Asheville is hosting open auditions! The Haunted Trail (brought to you by Asheville Plays) is a family friendly all ages event that features 15 live action story based scenes in an outdoor trail. Actors bring the scenes to life as guests pass through. Actors earn free event tickets based on the amount of nights they have committed to working. Mellow Mushroom provides cast and crew dinner each night! This event raises meals for MANNA food bank, so come have fun and support your community this Halloween season and help us say BOO! to hunger! Volunteer actors should be at least 16 years old. For more information please contact our creative director, Lauren Rivas. [email protected]