2022 Market Season: Every Friday April – October

From the local favorites to new regional acts, all live from the river banks of the Nantahala. Raft, dine, then jam with us with Live Music every Friday and Saturday from 5pm-8pm between Memorial Day and Labor Day!

We can’t believe it’s been ten years since the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge came onto the Lake Lure scene! The Bridge is a premier garden destination that draws visitors from around the world. From the beginning, our volunteers have lovingly created and maintained the gardens and delighted in sharing information and their passion with all who visit.

Whether we’re chatting with visitors as they walk the gardens or making presentations in more formal sessions, we love talking shop. To mark this special occasion, we are hosting a special FUNraising and FUNDraising event.

As part of commemorating the anniversary, we are growing and enhancing our education program. Currently, all classes are conducted “open air,” which means we sometimes have to cancel or move a class due to rain or excessive wind or do our best to provide shelter from the hot sun. To grow our vision and attract even more visitors to our beautiful area, we need a structure where we can safely conduct classes and events and where our schedule is not weather-dependent.  All proceeds from the anniversary party will go toward building and operating our new Education Center. Make plans now to join in the fun and support the cause.

Tickets – $80 per person
Includes:

• Live music by Johnnie Blackwell
• Three-course dinner buffet & dessert
• Cash bar
• Silent Auction – get ready to purchase items for your garden and more!
• 

This driving tour through Mitchell and Yancey Counties will take visitors along the meandering Toe River, across its many bridges, around barns, acres of fields, and miles of forests all while visiting the talented studio artists and galleries participating.

Meet the Artist Reception 

Wanna hear the best local music ​and​ drink the best local beers? Hop aboard LaZoom’s Purple Bus and rock out with a local band while we take you on a journey to Asheville’s premiere local breweries.

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.

A restorative sound bath to heal your mind-body and raise funds for FOMCA (Friends of Madison County Animals).

Lay back on the island in one of the oldest rivers on the planet – the French Broad.

Allow your worries and tension to be gently washed away and you relax into the healing vibrations of a sound bath.

This ancient practice is designed to re-set the nervous system, bringing peace and balance to the body-mind.

FOMCA provides free and low-cost services to pet owners in need, with the goal of reducing pet overpopulation, preventing neglect, suffering and the unnecessary relinquishment or abandonment of animals. They strive to preserve the human/animal bond by keeping pets and their families together when they hit on hard times.

Game Highlight: Dollar Dog Fridays

$1 Hot Dogs presented by Blossman Gas and Mix 96.5

Promotion: Tourists Fireworks Night

A beautiful full-length production of the classic romantic ballet ‘Giselle’ performed by the celebrated Ballet Conservatory of Asheville’s pre-professional company.

A story of innocent love and betrayal, with the much loved score by Adolphe Adam

This year Ballet Conservatory of Asheville’s alumni have performed with American Ballet Theater, Miami City Ballet, Finnish National Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet and been award scholarships and placement in every top ballet university program.

This Spring semester we are thrilled to welcome choreographer in residence, Nick Kepley.

Every Sunday evening Modelface Comedy brings you the best comedians from all over the country

Having grown up working in his folks’ Memphis BBQ restaurant, Charlie Vergos is 100% Southern on the surface, but his erratic attention span, piano playing and wandering years spent in the comedy scenes of Memphis, New Orleans, Cape Town, Chicago, Brooklyn, and now post-pandemic Memphis have developed his act into a colorful rambling far more vibrant than a simple regional cartoon.

Since starting stand-up in 2009, Charlie has worked at The Onion, performed in clubs all over the country and several comedy festivals, including the Limestone Comedy Festival, Laughing Skull, 10,000 Laughs, and a full run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022, among several others. His debut album, Barbecue Rich, debuted at #1 on Apple Music in June 2020.

Featuring TBA

ages 18+

doors at 6:30pm, show at 7pm

The Moppets present six student written and directed short plays June 2 & 3 at Attic Salt Theater.

“Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘2BR02B’ ” – Everything was perfectly swell. Or was it?
“The After School Superhero” – A small town where nothing happened and a hero no one asked for.
“A Holiday Song” – A grumpy businessman is warned to change his ways. Sound familiar? Prepare to be surprised.
“Mary, Mary” – A bloody history explored through the lens of a nursery rhyme.
“Salome” – A humorously re-told act in one tragedy.
“Swords, Lights and Nuts” – This is not your typical Nutcracker story.

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
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.

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.

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!

By Lauren Gunderson

Produced by Immediate Theatre Project

Four badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.

From the people who brought you Silent Sky comes this grand and dream-tweaked comedy about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world.

Discretionary Content: Adult themes and badass ladies

John McEuen, born in Oakland, CA in 1945, moved to southern California’s Orange County with his family for high school years, where he thought his teenage dream job in Disneyland’s Magic Shop (at 16 years old) was “as good as it gets”. He and lifelong high-school friend both got that 1963 job (magic shop co-worker, Steve Martin) were 17 when music came along. After seeing Missouri bluegrass group The Dillards in an Orange County club, John’s life headed towards his new dream: make magic with music and be a traveling music man. Leaving his Garden Grove spawning ground, moving to Hollywood, dream became a reality more than imagined it could be!

In 1971 John initiated the landmark Will the Circle be Unbroken* album by asking musical mentors Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson to record; then with his brother Bill (band manager, record producer) it grew to inviting Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, Roy Acuff, ‘Bashful’ Brother Oswald, Vassar Clements, and Merle Travis to a

Nashville studio, hooking them up with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, for 5 magic hot August days of recording.

The now multi-platinum “Circle” is honored both by Library of Congress and the Grammy Hall of Fame. * “One of the most important records to come out of Nashville…” Chet Flippo, Rolling Stone

Multi-instrumentalist McEuen (banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, piano, dulcimer) recognized as a founding member and award-winning outstanding performer of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (50 years!), departed NGDB at the end of the 50th year anniversary tour Oct. 22, 2017 due to demands for his solo work. In addition to John’s

numerous solo accolades, NGDB was inducted in to Colorado Music Hall of Fame 2015. He covers it all in his highly praised book The Life I’ve Picked on Chicago Review Press, published April, 2018.

McEuen has made over 46 albums (7 solo) that have earned five platinum and six gold records, multiple Grammy Awards and nominations, CMA and ACM awards, an Emmy film score nomination, IBMA record of the year award, and performed on another 25 albums as guest artist. John’s production of Steve Martin – The Crow won the

2010 Best Bluegrass Album Grammy.

The Music of the Wild West CD- produced by McEuen, was honored with the Western Heritage Award. Other accolades include: Grammy nomination for String Wizards II; the Uncle Dave Macon Award (for excellence in preservation and performance of historic music); 2009 he was inducted in to the Traditional Country Music Hall

of Honor. As a producer/composer of film scores, John has produced award-winning projects of his own and for several other artists.

John has continually performed since 1963 – over 10,000 concerts, 300 television shows, 11,000 interviews and flown more than 4 million miles. In 2010 he was honored with the Best in the West Award solo performer from the Folk Alliance Organization.

McEuen’s rich history of creating, producing and preserving original and traditional

folk music earned him the 2013 Charlie Poole Lifetime Achievement Award.

McEuen joined forces with Martha Redbone in 2011 to co-write, arrange, perform on and produce her Garden of Love album where they put Englishman William Blake’s artful poetry of 200 years ago to the ‘Appalachian sound’. Playing a variety of instruments, he fit it to the musical landscape of the late 1800’s.

Made in Brooklyn. – (Stereophile Magazine's Record of the Month; winner: Independent Music Award’s Best Americana album in 2018), produced by John and David Chesky, earned rave reviews.

John was inducted in 2017 to the American Banjo Museum Hall of Fame

John’s first book, The Life I’ve Picked on Chicago Review Press has over 100 5-star rave reviews on Amazon.

John’s popular Sirius/XM Acoustic Traveller Show, now in its 18th year, is found on The Village channel.

Radio Host, author, television show producer, writer, concert promoter, multi-instrumental musician, performer, magician, John McEuen continues to explore the music world. “I am grateful people continue to support what I do, as it excites me to continue making things. I feel like some of my best projects are ahead, like my next album out this summer on Compass Records! So many stories. so many songs, so many notes, so little time!”

• Visit the Artists Website
• Sample Video

This show will probably sell out in advance.

Thus, advance ticket purchases are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !!!!!!!

tickets: Matt Maeson – That’s My Cue Tour Tickets | Asheville, NC | The Orange Peel (etix.com)

Chaotic Comedy is a night of Improv, Sketch, Magic and Stand Up Comedy all in one show!!! Anything can happen

Lineup: Marlene Thompson, Joe Carroll, Christian Lee and more!!!

ages 21+ (must have ID with you)