Calendar of Events

In this "post-truth" era, how and what should we believe? Join us for an exploration of how information is disseminated and consumed. Between partisan news, filter bubbles, and pundits-for-hire, media literacy and critical thinking are more important than ever.

We are pleased to partner with New York TImes best selling author and Tarbell.org founder Wendell Potter, UT's CCI, School of Information Sciences and School of Journalism and Electronic Media for a deep dive into the rise of fake news, the truth of search engines, the impact of nonstop breaking news, the decline of critical thinking and what we can do about it.

Limited seating available. Please register for all events you'd like to attend.

Knox County Public Library: 500 West Church Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-215-8750, www.knoxlib.org/truth

Featuring The Stella Vees – Hot retro-blues hailing from Lexington, Kentucky!

The Smoky Mountain Blues Society launches its Blues Cruise aboard the Star of Knoxville, running April to October. Boarding time is at 3 pm and the cruise itself runs from 4 to 7 pm.

The Blues Cruises reflect the Smoky Mountain Blues Society's commitment to presenting some of the best known local, regional and nationally touring Blues Music artists. The artists perform onstage during these specialty cruises which take them and their audiences up and down the scenic Tennessee River on the Star of Knoxville Tennessee Riverboat. The Riverboat is located just one-half mile east of Neyland Stadium at 300 Neyland Drive, next to Calhouns. This year’s line-up is a stellar cross section of the modern blues genre.

Tickets are available through the Tennessee Riverboat Company’s website, (http://tnriverboat.com/blues-cruises-2/) and by calling (865) 525-7827. Tickets are just $16 in advance and $20 at the door. Smoky Mountain Blues Society Members can enjoy a special discount. Each voyage will also have a limited food menu and full bar available. More information at www.smokymountainblues.org.

Join us for the first annual Nourish Knoxville Tomato Jam: a drinks competition featuring some of Knoxville's best bartenders and East Tennessee's finest tomatoes. Eight bartenders will create their best tomato-based cocktail, and you get to vote for your favorite! Longtime Market Square Farmers' Market fans will remember our Market Mixers, when downtown bartenders created cocktails based on local ingredients. The Tomato Jam was created out of our most popular Market Mixer, the tomato! For this event, Bloody Marys, Micheladas, and unique cocktail creations will be found all under one roof, thanks to The Mill and Mine!

Taste tomato-based cocktails from: Emilia, JC Holdway, Knox Mason, Knox Kaizen, Lonesome Dove, Peter Kern Library, The Public House, and Sapphire. Knox Mason will provide locally-sourced brunch bites and Three Bears Coffee Company will provide coffee. Plus we'll enjoy some live music and games on the lawn! Tickets are $40 each or $140 for 4. Purchase tickets here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1647071875306349/. Nourish Knoxville: 865-805-8687, https://nourishknoxville.org/

Hosted by Labor Day Sunflower Project

Come jam out to Shimmy and the Burns, Handsome and the Humbles, Black Atticus, and comedy by Todd Lewis on a lazy summer afternoon! Donations collected at the door will go to the revival of the Labor Day Sunflower Project: an annual celebration of our work. We look forward to seeing you there! This event is sponsored by Scruffy City Hall and in part by Blank Newspaper. Thank you so much for supporting this community event!

32 Market Sq, Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
https://www.facebook.com/events/317375135381594

Flying Anvil Theatre kicks off its first season in its new space in Rocky Hill with THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL, music and lyrics by David Nehls and book by Betsy Kelso. Critics have called the 2005 Off-Broadway smash “South Park meets Desperate Housewives.” A country-rock and blues musical about agoraphobia, adultery, '80s nostalgia, spray cheese, road kill, hysterical pregnancy, a broken electric chair, kleptomania, strippers, flan, and disco, the story centers around regular guy Norbert and his agoraphobic wife, Jeannie, whose marriage is threatened by Armadillo Acres' newcomer, the hot young stripper, Pippi. The trailer park also plays home to a Greek-chorus trio of women – Linoleum, Betty, and Pickles, each dysfunctional in her own right. When Pippi’s angry ex-boyfriend shows up, it looks like bad news for everyone, until a surprising secret leads to a happy ending, when the entire cast sings the rousing anthem, ”I Gotta Make Like a Nail (and Press On).”

Director Jayne Morgan says the show is a real audience pleaser. “We’ve heard from a number of people who have seen the show in other cities and can’t wait to see it again. The show is outrageous and funny and over the top – the perfect summer musical if you’re just looking for a something fun.” Terry Silver Alford will be musical directing and Dana Wham will choreograph. The cast of seasoned performers includes John Cherry, Tiffany Fenech, Mandi Lawson, Emily Helton, Chevy Anz, Curtis Bower and Wham.

Performances are Wed-Sat at 7:30 PM and Sun at 2 PM.

Flying Anvil Theatre, 1300 Rocky Hill Road, Knoxville. Information: 865-357-1309, www.flyinganviltheatre.com

Part of the 2017-18 "Best of Theatre Knoxville Downtown" Season!

By Howard, Williams, and Sears. Greater Tuna is the hilarious comedy about Texas' third smallest town, where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. The eclectic band of citizens that make up this town are portrayed by only two performers, making this satire on life in rural America even more delightful as they depict all of the inhabitants of Tuna—men, women, children and animals.

"Howlingly funny."
– Variety

"The audience all but exploded the theatre with laughter."
– The New York Post

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 319 North Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

Five friends secretly convene in the middle of the night to act out the tragic tale of Julius Caesar. They soon become swept away as their own prejudices and personal vendettas begin to parallel the lives of the characters in distant Rome. Alliances and rivalries are turned upside down when the fun of play-acting takes a serious turn as Shakespeare’s poignant drama begins to hit home. Five actors with no set, no costume changes, and only candlelight bring the essence of this classic play vividly alive with the sheer theatricality of this all too timely story.

This is a site-specific production. Performances take place on UT campus, but exact locations are secret and change nightly. You will be given more in depth instructions including arrival time and audience meeting location via email 48 hours prior to your selected performance.

Performances are 90 minutes with no intermission and are staged in the round. If you need to leave during the performance, you will not be able to return to your seat. You will be assisted in finding alternate seating locations in order to ensure the enjoyment and safety of all patrons with minimal disruption to the performance.

Please arrive at the audience meeting location 15 minutes before the scheduled start time. There will be no late seating for this production. We will leave the audience meeting location at the scheduled start time and move to the secret performance site; if you arrive late, you will be left.

Info: https://nowisthetimeofnight.com/
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/julius-caesar-tickets-35546116391

Once again Tomato Head walls shimmer with the many-hued and luminous paintings of Jessica Payne. One of our favorite local artists, Jessica’s work fills the space with vivid color and imagery that excites the eyes and provokes conversation. One of her favorite memories is when, “I was eating at the downtown Tomato Head during one of my exhibits a few years ago, and I saw a family in the middle of the room looking around and discussing my paintings. At one point a little girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, went up to look closer and immediately turned around and with a frown said, ‘Mommy it’s already sold.’”

Jessica grew up in Knoxville as the youngest of six in a long line of artists, and drawing and painting were hobbies that she came by naturally – both her father and grandmother spent their free time putting color on canvas. But while she took art classes and thought at times that her career might veer toward the arts, it was only after she took a degree in Social Work and Women’s studies and started a path to law school that she felt a tug to a more creative vocation. It was in the week of her 25th birthday while she sat outdoors when she committed to a different way of life: “I spent my birthday weekend sitting and observing so many beautiful things that had been around me for a long time. I felt an intuitive pull to change my life in a drastic way.” Promptly thereafter, Jessica joined Americorps where her urge to create found expression in the earth as she worked to help establish Beardsley Farm; later the same urge would lead her to study cooking, until finally through a variety of online courses and her own drive, she found both an approach and technique for painting that helped unlock her artistic life.

She says: “A huge thing I learned from artist Flora Bowley, after taking her online course Brave Intuitive Painting, is to keep painting until something works.” This approach helps keep Jesssica’s creative energy in flow, and it works in conjunction with her technique of layering. Jessica’s technique results in vibrant and multi-faceted imagery that contains the genuine chaos of natural creativity that, she says, eventually evolves into order. One of the most fun aspects of Jessica’s art is that her paintings often shine. The color, the variety of imagery, not to mention the playful use of glitter and mica, give our featured artist’s work a liveliness that almost leaps from the walls in a joyful celebration of the beauty that surrounds us and lives inside us, too. Don’t let it pass you by.

On view at the downtown Knoxville Tomato Head on Market Square through August 3rd.

Tomato Head, 12 Market Square (865-637-4067) and 7240 Kingston Pike, Suite 172 (865-584-1075), in Knoxville. http://thetomatohead.com

The Art Gallery at Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church (ORUUC) will present an exhibit of the work of Kathy Holland from July through September 8. A gallery opening talk and artist reception will be hosted at the church on Sunday July 16, at 12:30 p.m. The public is invited.

ORUUC is located at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike in Oak Ridge. Admission to the gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For artists interested in a showing contact Nancy Starr at starroakridge@gmail.com or call 865-483-8684.

Knoxville Children’s Theatre, in partnership with The Ritchie Company, will present the Young Performers’ Edition of “The Wizard of Oz,” based on the classic book by L. Frank Baum and the classic motion picture owned by Turner Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros.

The live stage play will be performed July 14 - 30, Thursdays and Fridays at 7 PM; Saturdays at 1 PM and 5 PM; Sundays at 3 PM.

This musical play contains all the favorite songs and scenes from the famous film, with the timeless characters of the book: Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, the Wicked Witch of the West and more. The score by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg contains some of the most iconic songs of the theatre: “Somewhere Over The Rainbow,” “Follow The Yellow-Brick Road,” and We’re Off To See The Wizard.”

The play is performed by 29 talented young actors, from ages 8 to 17. Isabelle Hannah plays Dorothy, and Kennis Van Dyke plays her nemesis, The Witch. Ethan Turbyfill, Keegan Spurr, and Andrew Fetterolf play the Scarecrow. Tin Man, and Lion, respectively.

Dennis E. Perkins directs the production. The musical director is Paul Jones. Knoxville Children's Theatre, 109 E. Churchwell Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-208-3677, www.childrenstheatreknoxville.com.

Showtimes
Fri Jul 14, 2017 | 8:00PM
Sat Jul 15, 2017 | 8:00PM
Thu Jul 20, 2017 | 8:00PM
Fri Jul 21, 2017 | 8:00PM
Sat Jul 22, 2017 | 8:00PM
Sun Jul 23, 2017 | 2:00PM
Fri Jul 28, 2017 | 8:00PM
Sat Jul 29, 2017 | 8:00PM
Sun Jul 30, 2017 | 2:00PM

Strike the band up and pull the stops out! Hallelujah, it’s Mame! Celebrate the kick-off of the Playhouse’s 75th Anniversary with one of Broadway’s biggest, brassiest musicals. It’s the height of the Roaring 20’s and the indomitable Auntie Mame becomes the guardian for her ten-year-old nephew, Patrick. While her life is turned up-side-down and many of her priorities change, Mame stays true to her mantra “Life is a banquet!,” and takes on the establishment with style and panache, living life to the fullest while opening new windows to the eyes of her young charge.

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

Encore Theatrical Company will present the musical masterpiece “Ragtime” July 14-23. Based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow, “Ragtime” is a musical that inspires everyone through its poignant and epic story and a score of show-stopping musical numbers.

It’s the turn-of-the century, everything is changing and anything is possible. “Ragtime” follows the lives of three American families and their communities through the promise-filled early 20th century. Set against the backdrop of the volatile melting pot of New York City, the musical weaves together three distinct American stories—a determined Jewish immigrant father, a daring Harlem musician, and a stifled woman of privilege—united by their courage, compassion, and belief in a better tomorrow. Together they confront what it means to be an American at the dawn of a new century.

Encore’s cast of 50 local actors are from all over the East Tennessee region. Performances run for two weekends with evening performances on July 14, 15, 21, and 22 at 8:00 p.m. and matinee performances on July 16 and 23 at 2:00 p.m. Performances are located at the Jefferson County High School Performing Arts Center, located at 115 W. Dumplin Valley Road in Dandridge.

For tickets and more information about the production, please visit www.etcplays.org or call 423-318-8331.