Asides: Events and news about the arts
Playmakers talk after ‘Seminar’
Daniel Wallace and Randall Kenan, faculty in the UNC Creative Writing Program, will participate in a discussion following the 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, performance of “Seminar.”
The play, now in production by the PlayMakers Repertory Company, is described as a dramatic-comedy. Four aspiring writers have their works and their egos dissected by a legendary novelist.
The show and discussion take place at the Paul Green Theatre on Country Club Road in Chapel Hill.
The discussion is free; tickets for the play start at $15. The show runs through Nov. 1, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday-Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday and next Saturday-Sunday.
Wallace is the author of four novels, including “Big Fish.” Kenan has published a novel, two nonfiction books and a collection of short stories, “Let the Dead Bury Their Dead.”
For information and to purchase tickets to the play, call 919-962-7529 or go to www.playmakersrep.org.
Spencer celebrated in Hillsborough
The life and works of author Elizabeth Spencer (“The Light in the Piazza,” “The Voice at the Back Door”) will be celebrated Sunday in Hillsborough.
Authors Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus and Sharon Swanson, who directed the documentary, “Landscapes of the Heart: The Elizabeth Spencer Story,” will talk about Spencer, 94, who lives in Chapel Hill.
Spencer, who grew up in Mississippi during the Great Depression, moved to Italy in the 1950s because of dissension between herself and her family over racial intolerance. In Italy she wrote “The Voice at the Back Door,” which was chosen for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1957 by the jury. The governing board overruled the choice and gave no fiction prize that year.
Sunday’s event, which includes a screening of the film, starts at 2 p.m. in the Whitted Center, 300 W. Tryon St., Hillsborough.
Tickets are $10; a limited number of signed copies of “A Voice at the Back Door” are available for purchase in advance, combined with a ticket for $30. Other of Spencer’s books and video copies of the film also will be for sale at the event.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Burwell School Historic Site. The Burwell School was one of the state’s earliest female academies.
For more information go to www.burwellschool.org or call 919-732-7451.
36 artists’ views of Carolina
Thirty-six artists are represented in the Village Art Circle’s juried show “Carolina on My Mind,” which opens Friday.
Selections were made by Roger Manley, director of the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in Raleigh. Many of the artists will be at the opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday. The show will run through November at the gallery, 200 S. Academy St., Cary. For more information, go to www.villageartcircle.com.
A Hogwarts Halloween
The N.C. Symphony will perform “Halloween at Hogwarts: The Music of Harry Potter” at 7 p.m. Friday and 1 and 4 p.m. Saturday. The Saturday shows are part of the NCS Kids Series Young People’s Concerts.
The orchestra will perform selections from the Harry Potter films, and illusionist Lyn Dillies will perform. Rei Hotoda will conduct. Selections include “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt, “Hedwig’s Theme” from Harry Potter Suite for Orchestra and “Harry’s Wondrous World from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
Audience members are encouraged to dress as their favorite character from the books. Free preconcert activities, which begin an hour before each concert, include the MetLife Instrument Zoo and face painting.
The concerts are at Meymandi Concert in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, 2 E. South St. in downtown Raleigh. Tickets are $23. For more information, go to www.ncsymphony.org, or call 919-733-2750 or toll free 877-627-6724. Tickets can also be purchased one hour prior to concert times at Meymandi Concert Hall.
This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 5:47 AM with the headline "Asides: Events and news about the arts."