Calendar of Events

Celebrate Asian Culture with martial arts, music, dancing, authentic food, fashion, crafts, kids activities, and more! Celebrating its third annual event. Join everyone downtown for an exciting - and delicious! - celebration of all things Asian culture. Highlights:
+ Kids Asian World in which kids can get a Passport to get stamps and get an award.
+ Parade 11AM and 3PM.
+ Performance: Japanese Drum (TAIKO), Philippine Tinkling Dance, Vietnam Dance, Tai Chi, Vietnam Dance, Indian Dance, Japanese Harp and guitar, Traditional, Laos dance, Professional Thailand dance, Kimono Show
+ and much more!

The event is free, family friendly and FUN! On Market Square in downtown Knoxville. Presented by the Asian Culture Center of TN.
http://www.knoxasianfestival.com/

Summer Concert Series!

August 28 - Left Foot Dave and the Magic Hats
September 25 - Frog and Toad's Dixie Quartet

Doors open at 4 PM, music starts at 5 PM. Cost is $5 per person. Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Hours: Grounds and trails open during daylight hours. Call for Visitor Center hours. Information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

Book signings with regional authors Shane Simmons and Robert Sorrell author discussing their new books, Legends & Lore of East Tennessee and Historic Homes of Northeast Tennessee

Union Ave Books, 517 Union Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-951-2180, www.unionavebooks.com

THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN BLUES SOCIETY, as an official Affiliate organization of The Blues Foundation, proudly invites the music loving public to its annual presentation of the East Tennessee Regional portion of the 33rd International Blues Challenge (IBC). The event will begin at 5pm at the OPEN CHORD in West Knoxville. Festivities begin at 4pm. Currently 5 different acts have completed applications to compete. They must follow the strict timing and regulations specified through the The Blues Foundation. http://blues.org/international-blues-challenge/official-rules/. More artists may be added to the local bill up to the August 25th cut-off. They all will be judged by a panel of three live music experts.

The winning artists in each category of Band, Solo/Duo or Youth will represent East Tennessee at the 33rd International Blues Challenge to be held January 31-February 4, 2017. The International Showcase will open the event on January 31 with competition rounds February 1-4 in venues located on historic Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. The cover charge for competition will be $8.00 general admission & $5.00 for current Blues Society members. All proceeds collected will fund the winning bands’ travel to Memphis. OPEN CHORD located at 8502 Kingston Pike is non-smoking and family friendly with a full restaurant menu and beverage service available throughout the event. www.openchordmusic.com

The Sundress Reading Series is thrilled to host Linda Parsons, Phoebe Reeves, and Don Peteroy for our August reading series!

Both poet and playwright, Linda Parsons is an editor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She served as poetry editor of Now & Then magazine for many years and has received literary fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, as well as the Associated Writing Programs’ Intro Award and the 2012 George Scarbrough Award in Poetry, among others. Parsons’s poetry has appeared in journals such as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Asheville Poetry Review, and Shenandoah, as well as in numerous anthologies. This Shaky Earth, published by Texas Review Press, is her fourth poetry collection. Her adaptation, Macbeth Is the New Black, co-written with Jayne Morgan, was produced at Maryville College and Western Carolina University. Her play Under the Esso Moon was selected for the Tennessee Stage Company’s 2016 New Play Festival.

Phoebe Reeves earned her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College and now teaches English at the University of Cincinnati’s Clermont College in rural southern Ohio, where she advises East Fork: An Online Journal of the Arts. Her chapbook The Lobes and Petals of the Inanimate was published by Pecan Grove Press in 2009. Her poems have recently appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Drunken Boat, Phoebe, and Memorious.

Don Peteroy is the author of Wally (Burrow Press, 2012). He was a past winner of the Playboy College Fiction Contest, and his work has appeared in Eleven Eleven, New Orleans Review, Chattahoochee Review, Permafrost, Cream City Review, Yemassee, Florida Review, and many others. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati, where he serves as the Assistant Editor of the Cincinnati Review. He is currently at work on a novel called Zombies with Elephant Trunks that Shoot Fire.

As always, the Sundress Reading Series is free and open to the public! At Bar Marley: http://www.barmarley.com/

Sundress Academy for the Arts: (865) 560-6106, safta@sundresspublications.com, http://www.sundresspublications.com/safta

When a young girl fails to heed her mother’s advice, she must face the consequences of straying from the wooded path as she travels to her beloved grandmother’s house. Along the way she encounters a stealthy huntsman whose watchful eye may be just what she needs for protection from the sly and cunning wolf. True to the classic tale, this adaptation offers a fresh approach to a well-known children’s story.

Showtimes
Sat Aug 27, 2016 | 1:00PM
Sat Aug 27, 2016 | 4:00PM
Sun Aug 28, 2016 | 2:00PM

Oak Ridge Playhouse, 227 Broadway, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Information and tickets: 865-482-9999, www.orplayhouse.com

There's something for everyone in the 18th Annual Summer Movie Magic lineup! Travel back in time with us and see these American classics as they should be: in a historic theater, with a bag of popcorn in your lap, and a cold drink in your hand. Come experience some of your favorite classics! Organists Bill Snyder and Freddie Brabson will play the Mighty Wurlitzer organ before each film.

26 Aug, 2016 at 8:00pm (Doors open at 7:00 PM)
28 Aug, 2016 at 2:00pm (Doors open at 1:00 PM)

Tom Cruise sets the screen ablaze as Maverick, a reckless F-14 pilot who flies by instinct and breaks all the rules. While attending the Navy's elite air combat training academy, Maverick romances the civilian astrophysics instructor (Kelly McGillis) and competes with crackerjack pilot Ice (Val Kilmer) for top honors. He is the quintessential rebel, upsetting senior officers with his antics and risk-taking while simultaneously amazing them with his skill, but can he come though when the stakes are raised and his skills are put to the test?

Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. For information/tickets: 865-684-1200, www.tennesseetheatre.com, www.ticketmaster.com

The Knoxville Film Festival returns to Regal's Downtown West Cinema 8.
The mission of the Knoxville Film Festival is to recognize and celebrate the art of independent cinema. It exists to provide a stimulating gathering in which the lovers and creators of independent cinema come together to see and discuss interesting works from local, regional, national and international filmmakers.

The Fourth Annual Knoxville Film Festival will take place August 26-28 2016, at the Regal Downtown West Cinema 8 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Produced in partnership between Secret City Films and Dogwood Arts, the festival will screen feature, documentary and short films and will include workshops and educational events, filmmaking competitions, networking opportunities, special guests and social events. In addition to the 7-Day Shootout Filmmaking Competition and a Student Filmmaking Competition, the festival will screen films that have been submitted for consideration by independent filmmakers from around the world.

Regal Downtown West Cinema 8
1640 Downtown West Blvd
Knoxville TN 37919
(844) 462-7342
Visit www.knoxvillefilmfestival.com to view the complete schedule. Weekend festival passes are on sale now!

The Knoxville Film Festival is produced in partnership by Dogwood Arts and Secret City Films.

BLANKfest, a wide-ranging festival celebrating Knoxville, TN’s rich entertainment culture, will take place in Market Square. Presented by BLANK Newspaper and scruffycity.com, this year’s iteration will benefit Knoxville-based nonprofit agency Positively Living. In addition to the outdoor stage in the square, participating venues will include Scruffy City Hall, Preservation Pub and Cocoa Moon. Tickets are on sale now! Beginning at 5:00 P.M. on August 26th, an entertainment roster comprised of over 60 acts will perform across four stages. Noted comic/emcee/Knoxville ambassador Zachary Fallon hosts a self-curated cavalcade of local comedians, improv artists and burlesque presenters at Cocoa Moon. Explaining the inclusiveness of the festival, BLANK Publisher Rusty Odom says, “The goal behind BLANKfest is to celebrate each vein of the entertainment scene in Knoxville.

http://blanknews.com/2016/07/blank-newspaper-and-scruffycity-com-present-3rd-annual-blankfest/

Enjoy the sounds of the Native American flute music, lively demonstrations and more. Nationally acclaimed, award winning Native American musicians will be performing all days of the festival and vendors will be on site showcasing handcrafted Native American jewelry, music, art and flutes. Performances and concerts will take place daily beginning on Friday, August 26th and carrying through to Sunday, August 28th. To view a current list of performers and to view more details about the Festival: http://www.gsmheritagecenter.org/2016/07/mountain-magic-native-american-music-cultural-festival/
$7 per guest, per day - FREE for GSMHC Members

Fri Aug 26, 6-9 PM
Sat Aug 27, 10 AM - 10 PM
Sun Aug 28, 12-4 PM

Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, 3/4 mile east of traffic light at the Highway 321 and 73 intersection towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, TN. Hours: M-Sa 10-5. Information: 865-448-0044, www.gsmheritagecenter.org

The Knoxville Museum of Art announces Romantic Spirits: Nineteenth Century Paintings of the South from the Johnson Collection, featuring more than thirty 19th-century masterworks from the renowned Spartanburg, South Carolina-based collection.

The paintings in Romantic Spirits present an evocative glimpse into nineteenth-century Southern life, and reveal the importance of oral tradition and “a sense of place” in the development of the Romantic Movement in the South. The exhibition seeks to present a balanced view of how Romanticism evolved in the North and the South, the genre’s ties to Europe, and how culture, customs, education, and travel influenced each artist. It also reveals connections between featured painters and their contemporaries, specifically authors and poets such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a masterful still life of peaches by Knoxville artist Lloyd Branson.

The public is invited to an exhibition preview reception on Thursday, August 25 from 5:30-7:30pm.

Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37916. Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM, Sunday, 1-5PM. Information: 865-525-6101, www.knoxart.org

By Mary Chase, directed by Stacy Littleton. Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey — whom Elwood describes as a six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit. Elwood introduces Harvey to everyone he meets. His social-climbing sister, Veta, increasingly finds his eccentric behavior embarrassing. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium. When they arrive at the sanitarium, a comedy of errors ensues. The young, handsome, and very flirtatious Dr. Sanderson commits Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When Elwood shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on the staff, including sanitarium director Dr. Chumley. Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection that will make him into a "perfectly normal human being, and you know what bastards they are!" (in the words of a taxi cab driver who has become involved in the proceedings) does Veta realize that she would rather have Elwood the same as he has always been — carefree and kind — even if it means living with Harvey. Tickets: $13.00 online or $15.00 at downtown merchants and at the box office prior to performances.

The Lyric Theatre, 320 Grove Street, Loudon, TN 37774. http://www.lyrictheatrecompany.org/