Calendar of Events

All Ages – under 12 requires venue approval

THIS EVENT IS RAIN OR SHINE
NO BAGS ALLOWED

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.

RPB is a formidable improv comedy group consisting of Tom Chalmers, Mondy Carter, Karen Stobbe, Kim Richardson and Josh Batenhorst.

This is how it works: RPBs will ask the audience for suggestions and then they make that come to technicolor life. Get ready to be a part of the experience because this show will push the envelope of ridiculous fun.

Tickets are $15. Doors open at 6:30pm and seating is first come first served. Online ticket sales end an hour before the performance time, but there may still be tickets available for purchase at the door. Call BMCA for availability at 828.669.0930.

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.

On Saturday, June 3rd, guitars will be abundant in Brevard as iconic guitarist Bryan Sutton hosts the Second Annual North Carolina Guitar Celebration at Brevard Music Center’s Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium and is the culmination of Sutton’s Blue Ridge Guitar Camp. The concert will feature Bryan Sutton with special guests Darrell Scott, Sierra Hull & Justin Moses, Andrew Marlin (Watchhouse), Jeff Hanna (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), Dom Flemons, Jon Stickley, Ed Helms (The Office and The Hangover movies), T. Michael Coleman and Jack Lawrence along with the instructors, Chris Eldridge (Punch Brothers), Courtney Hartman, Marcel Ardans, Matt Munistari, Jake Eddy and Woody Platt. This year’s event is also celebrating Doc Watson’s 100th birthday.

Bryan Sutton is the most accomplished and awarded acoustic guitarist of his generation, an innovator who bridges the bluegrass flatpicking traditions of the 20th century with the dynamic roots music scene of the 21st. His rise from buzzed-about young sideman to first-call Nashville session musician to membership in one of history’s greatest bluegrass bands has been grounded in quiet professionalism and ever-expanding musicianship.

Auditorium seating is reserved.  Lawn seating is general admission.

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

Where the Heart Is is supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the Arts Council of Henderson County, the City of Hendersonville, Exceptional Papers, Inc., A Growing Concern Garden Center and the Carolina Ace Hardware and Garden Center. Written by Brevard playwright Stephen Marsh, Where the Heart Is tells the story of Maria O’Shaughnessy, who runs an unofficial North Carolina boarding house that’s home to several elders. Presented as a stage reading, actors don’t memorize scripts but read them while incorporating minimal staged movements. Brevard playwright Stephen Marsh wrote Where the Heart Is over a few months. Born in Bournemouth, England, at age 15, Marsh participated in local theatre productions and was later accepted into drama school in London. Marsh later moved to California and then the East Coast, becoming a production designer in motion pictures, film and television that spanned his 45-year career. The cast of Where the Heart Is features Natalie Broadway as Maria, Jeb Buffinton as Dan, Chris Hanks as Jim, Lyn Morton as Henry, Lynn Place as Mrs. Carlisle, Joan Rinchisen as Henderson, Don Schwartz as Toad, and Terry Terranova as Ted. Where the Heart Is’ artistic team includes director Rowan Duncan and stage manager Amanda McLoughlin. A Greenville, SC native, Duncan was recently seen on stage at HT in The Importance of Being Earnest, Calendar Girls and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. They currently works as HT’s Production Manager, and loves putting their theatre degree to use every day. Duncan studied theatre at North Greenville University and loves to act, direct, and costume design. The show is rated PG due to mild language. Showtimes are 3 pm and 7:30 pm on Saturday, June 3. Running time is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. Hendersonville Theater has made masks optional for patrons, and no proof of vaccination is required to attend a performance.

Written by Brevard playwright Stephen Marsh, Where the Heart Is tells the story of Maria Shaughnessy, who runs an unofficial boarding house that’s home to several elders. All goes well until… Presented in a reader’s theater format, actors don’t memorize scripts but read them to the audience while using their voices and upper bodies to convey the roles they are playing. Actors also use vocal and facial expressions, as well as hand and arm movements. All Seats: $15 and includes a glass of wine

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 1

Theorem of Apocryphal Manifestos, performative action by David Miranda

Bizarre Sábado 2

Chat with Curator Eric Baden / Charla con curador Eric Baden / ¡Hola! Asheville Festival

Saturday, June 10, 2023 – 2–5pm

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

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.

“Everything has to be said.” This is the conviction guiding Indigo De Souza’s sophomore album, Any Shape You Take. This dynamic record successfully creates a container for the full spectrum—pushing through and against every emotion: “I wanted this album to give a feeling of shifting with and embracing change. These songs came from a turbulent time when I was coming to self-love through many existential crises and shifts in perspective.”

Faithful to its name, Any Shape You Take changes form to match the tenor of each story it tells. “The album title is a nod to the many shapes I take musically. I don’t feel that I fully embody any particular genre—all of the music just comes from the universe that is my ever-shifting brain/heart/world,” says Indigo. This sonic range is unified by Indigo’s strikingly confessional and effortless approach to songwriting, a signature first introduced in her debut, self-released LP, I Love My Mom. Written in quick succession, Indigo sees these two records as companion pieces, both distinct but in communion with each other: “Many of the songs on these two records came from the same season in my life and a certain version of myself which I feel much further from now.”

Throughout Any Shape You Take, Indigo reflects on her relationships as she reckons with a deeper need to redefine how to fully inhabit spaces of love and connection. “It feels so important for me to see people through change. To accept people for the many shapes they take, whether those shapes fit into your life or not. This album is a reflection of that. I have undergone so much change in my life and I am so deeply grateful to the people who have seen me through it without judgment and without attachment to skins I’m shifting out of.”

Lead single “Kill Me,” written during the climax of a dysfunctional relationship, opens with the lines “Kill me slowly/ Take me with you.” This powerful plea, that begins within the quiet strum of a single electric guitar, is diffused by Indigo’s ironic apathy—a slacker rock nonchalance that refuses to take itself seriously: “I was really tired and fucked up from this relationship and simultaneously so deeply in love with that person in a special way that felt very vast and more real than anything I’d ever experienced.”

Across the table from that irreverence sits the sincerity of the single “Hold U,” a more energized, neo soul-inspired love song that substitutes apathy for a genuine expression of care. “I wrote ‘Hold U’ after I left that heavy season of my life and was learning how to love more simply and functionally. I wanted to write a love song that was painfully simple.”

Growing up in a conservative small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Indigo started playing guitar when she was nine years old. “Music was a natural occurrence in my life. My dad is a bossa nova guitarist and singer from Brazil and so I think I just had it in my blood from birth.” It wasn’t until moving to Asheville, NC that Indigo began to move into her current sound, developing a writing practice that feeds from the currents that surround her: “Sometimes it feels like I am soaking up the energies of people around me and making art from a space that is more a collective body than just my own.”

“Real Pain,” one of the most experimental tracks on the record, is Indigo’s attempt to make that phenomena more intentionally collaborative. Starting soft before dropping down into a cavernous pit of layered screams and cries, “Real Pain” collages the voices of strangers—audio bites Indigo received after posting online asking for “screams, yells and anything else.” “Hearing these voices join together and move with my own was really powerful. The whole record was a release for me. And I hope it can be that for others.”

At the forefront of all De Souza’s projects is her magnetism—her unique quality of spirit that is both buoyant and wise. While her backing band has undergone shifts between releases, her sound has stayed tethered to her vision. Any Shape You Take is the first full-length album that Indigo produced herself. Teaming up with executive producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, The War on Drugs) and engineers/producers Alex Farrar and Adam McDaniel, Indigo recorded the album at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s studio in Chapel Hill, NC and finished it with additional production and mixing at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville. Moving past the limitations of a home studio, Indigo could finally embody the full reach of her sound: “It felt really exciting to lean into my pop tendencies more than I have in the past and to trust my intuition to take the songs where I felt they should go. I had the tools to do it and collaborators who were willing to
go there with me.”

“I feel very much like a shape-shifter with my music, I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world.” It is exactly this balance that Indigo strikes in her Saddle Creek debut, Any Shape You Take. A listening experience that gives back, as you shed and shape-shift along with her.

indigodesouza.com

Nickel Creek is the platinum-selling, internationally renowned roots trio of mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins. The Grammy-winning band has revolutionized folk and roots music since first performing together as children at a pizza parlor in San Diego in 1989, signing to acclaimed roots label Sugar Hill Records after wowing the bluegrass circuit for a decade. Nickel Creek quickly broke through in 2000 with their Grammy-nominated, Alison Krauss-produced self-titled LP, which showcased not just their instrumental virtuosity but their burgeoning songwriting prowess. The trio quickly followed that effort with the Krauss-produced This Side, a landmark release that earned Nickel Creek the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and brought their progressive take on acoustic music to a broader audience, greatly influencing the sound and trajectory of roots music in the process. 2005’s Grammy-nominated Why Should the Fire Die? found the trio pushing genre boundaries even further, incorporating elements of alt-rock and indie pop into their singular brand of acoustic music. Nickel Creek’s most recent album, 2014’s critically acclaimed and joyously received A Dotted Line, ended a seven-year recording and touring hiatus for the band, during which members explored other musical and creative avenues.

Each member of Nickel Creek has taken part in many outside projects over the years, too. Thile is a 2012 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and served as the host of the American radio variety show Live from Here (formerly A Prairie Home Companion) from 2016 to 2020. Over the course of Nickel Creek’s career, Thile has released collaborative albums alongside world-renowned musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Brad Mehldau and Stuart Duncan. His Grammy-winning band Punch Brothers has released six studio albums, the most recent being 2022’s Hell on Church Street, a re-imagining of the beloved 1983 Tony Rice album Church Street Blues. Sean Watkins has kept busy outside of Nickel Creek, too, co-founding Watkins Family Hour alongside Sara, releasing three albums with the collective and maintaining the long-running collaborative show in Los Angeles for a decade. Sean has also released a string of solo albums, most recently 2020’s This Is Who We Are with the Bee Eaters. Sara Watkins’ extracurricular projects include the aforementioned Watkins Family Hour band, as well as co-founding the Grammy-winning roots trio I’m With Her alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz. Sara has released four studio albums, most recently 2021’s Under the Pepper Tree. She has contributed fiddle to recordings by artists like Phoebe Bridgers, the Killers and John Mayer.

Nickel Creek will release Celebrants, their first new album in nine years, March 24 via Thirty Tigers.

Nickel Creek will be joined by opening act Gaby Moreno.

The WNC Farmers Market is the premier destination for buying and selling the region’s best agriculture products directly from farmers & food producers to household & wholesale customers in an environment that celebrates the region’s diverse culture, food & heritage.

House of Operation:

WNC Farmers Market: 24/7, 361 days a year market access for farmers
Office: Monday- Friday, 8am-5pm
Market Shops: 7 days a week, 8 am-5 pm
Wholesale and Truck Sheds: 7 days a week

WNC Flyer bike race: Start/finish is at Oskar Blues Brewery, 342 Mountain Industrial Drive, Brevard. Starts 8 a.m. Bike ride, bluegrass, barbecue and complimentary first brew to support advocacy efforts of Blue Ridge Bicycle Club. Register at www.wncflyer.com.

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!

Presented by Bee City USA- Hendersonville and Bullington Gardens

For educators: teachers, camp counselors, home-school parents, childcare professionals, summer program leaders, and more, the Pollinator Exploration Kit provides excellent tools. Bee City USA – Hendersonville is eager to help you share the wonder of pollinators with children you teach. The kit includes sets of 12 sturdy child-size insect nets, special bug capture bubbles, bug boxes with magnifying lids, and magnifying glasses. Two pop-up insect habitats and two sets of laminated fold-out field guides (NC Trees & Wildflowers, NC Butterflies & Moths, Bees & Other Pollinators) are also included. The kit can be loaned for up to a week (as available) and may be picked up and returned weekdays 9am-4pm.

Pick-up location:

Bullington Gardens, 95 Upper Red Oak Trail, Hendersonville.

Cost: no charge

Reservation needed: contact [email protected] to check availability and reserve the dates to borrow the Pollinator Exploration Kit.