Carrboro has been called the “Paris of the Triangle,” a label that may refer to the town’s love of food, music and the other arts, or its informal bohemian ambience. The 18th Annual Carrboro Day celebrates all of those qualities and more with poetry readings, music, a plant giveaway and food trucks.
Soprano Angela Brown’s first opera role was as an Ethiopian slave in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida.” “I remember standing up there not wanting to learn those words because they were too hard,” she said of the Italian libretto. That initial opera experience was “way back in the day, before I even started to study,” Brown said in a phone interview.
He was the first poet to create a new voice for America, and his language spoke to the people, celebrating everyone from laborers to presidents. A group made up of writers, Carrboro and Chapel Hill town officials, and anyone who still wants to sign up will celebrate the poetic vision of Walt Whitman with a community reading of “Song of Myself” Saturday.
There were a few technical difficulties during the opening night of the Broadway tour of “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” at the Durham Performing Arts Center Tuesday, but it was still a sparkling confection of costumes, music and lighting. “Priscilla” is the name of the bus that two drag queens and a transsexual use to travel across the Australian Outback on the way to a performance where one of them, Tick (Wade McCollum), will meet his son. After intermission, Act Two was delayed a few minutes and the audience was told that the tech difficulties were with the bus but they were “going to give you the best show we can.” The cast and crew of “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” delivered, and this reviewer didn’t think any glitches distracted from the rest of the show. The bus itself, the centerpiece of the set, is a brightly lit show of lighting and set design, much like the sparkly, color changing curtains.
When the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble performs this weekend, expect an evolution. They call their program “Rhythm Evolved” for good reason.
The national tour of the glittery comedy musical “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” is coming to the Durham Performing Arts Center Tuesday with all 492 colorful costumes that garnered a Tony Award.
In the gallery space at Blue Coffee Café, Randy Rogers’ painting proclaims, “We Are ALL the FACE of HIV/AIDS.” Matthias Pressley’s painting “Survival in the Face of Stigma” sits next to Rogers’ painting. Adina Black’s painting “Journey” proclaims that there is “Change Ahead.”
The Martha Graham Dance Company had planned to use Halston’s original costumes for a revival of Graham’s 1984 “Rite of Spring.” This work is included in the company’s Friday and Saturday programs at UNC’s Memorial Auditorium. Superstorm Sandy changed that plan.
Wesley C. Hogan, a historian widely honored for her documentary work on the civil rights movement, has been named the new director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
Special limited releases from Merge Records of Durham and Yep Roc Records of Hillsborough will be available Saturday for the sixth annual Record Store Day.
Detroit has been the subject of documentaries with varying focus on its abandonment and resurgence, but “I Have Always Been A Dreamer” looks at the city in a different light. The former boom town’s status today is juxtaposed with mid-boom Dubai, the shiny, always-being-developed city in United Arab Emirates that was once just desert.
The Durham Earth Day Festival – a free afternoon featuring music, activities to learn about and celebrate the environment – will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at Durham Central Park on Foster Street.
The Durham County Library is inviting members of the Durham community of all ages to tell their stories using the visual medium of comics. The yearlong Durham Comics Project will begin Saturday as part of the library’s third annual Comics Fest.
