Calendar of Events

Celebrate Asian Culture with martial arts, music, dancing, authentic food, fashion, crafts, kids activities, and more! Celebrating its fourth annual event. Join everyone downtown for an exciting - and delicious! - celebration of all things Asian culture.

Knox Asian Festival aims to promote diverse cultures and celebrate traditions and talents from the Asian continent. The Festival aims to bring together people from various cultural backgrounds, to promote peace, harmony, unity and healthy life styles. Each participating country will showcase its unique music, dance, food, fashion, handicrafts and other products.

Performers: Japanese Drum group "Matsuriza" from Disney World; Chinese Traditional Professional Musicians (21 strings Harp); Lion/Dragon Dance; Philippines Traditional Dance; Japanese Traditional Music; Indian Dance; Vietnam Dance; Martial Arts Demonstration; K-Pop; J-pop; Cosplay Contest.
Parade at 11AM with City Mayor/County Mayor/Other VIP Speech; and more!

Authentic Foods Vendors from Vietnam, Philippines, China, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Korea, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and 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/

Featuring Cheryl Renee - "Goddess of the Blues" will leave her throne in Cincinnati, Ohio for a day!

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.

Sunday, August 27, 2017, 8:30-10:00PM
Doors open at 8:30pm , Show at 9pm, BYOB

Originally from Austin, TX, Trey Galyon started his comedy career after failing out of Texas A & M University Architecture School, and getting fired from most of his 'real' jobs. He quickly became a favorite at the local Austin clubs and began hitting the road up and down the Midwest. He’s been lucky enough to perform with some of the best Comedians of the last decade. With his underground style, stoner sensibility and quick wit, Trey was called the ‘Anti Hero of Comedy’ by the Austin Chronicle. He's been a part of SiTV's Latino Laugh Festival, the Charleston Comedy Festival, Philly Fringe Festival, NY Underground Comedy Festival and has appeared numerous times on Doug Loves Movies Podcast and Getting Doug With High web series. His album, The Moronic, was released by Rooftop Records in 2014.

Raised in Tennessee, Jeff began performing in 2006 and rapidly established himself as a strong, unique comic throughout the Southeast. He has performed at the Scruffy City Comedy Festival, Cape Fear Comedy Festival, Burning Bridges Comedy Festival, and Rock Bottom Comedy Fest. He was voted Top Knoxville Comic in the Knoxville Mercury 2015 Top Knox Readers' Poll and a Runner Up in the Rocky Top Comedy Contest in 2013.

Sunday, August 27, 2017, 8:30-10:00PM
Tickets $10 by reservation or pay at the door.
The Central Collective, 923 N. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-236-1590, info@thecentralcollective.com, www.thecentralcollective.com

Next in our Women in Film series: Wadjda. The story follows an 11-year-old Saudi girl who dreams of owning a bicycle so she can beat her friend Abdullah in a race. A story of the triumph of the human spirit, Wadjda is the first feature film ever made by a female Saudi director.

Join us in celebrating women in film at 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 27 at Lawson McGhee Library, 500 W Church Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. www.knoxlib.org.

Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to welcome Tanque R. Jones, Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, and Erica Wright for the August installment of our reading series. The reading will take place at Hexagon Brewing Co., located at 1002 Dutch Valley Dr STE 101, Knoxville, TN 37918. The Sundress Reading Series is free and open to the public.

Tanque R. Jones was one of the first poets to receive an MFA from the University of Tennessee in 2014. Her poems have appeared in Connecticut River Review, Colere, West Trade Review, and Clackamas Literary Review. Her first book, Woman in Transition, was published by WordTech Communications in 2016. In this sultry, hard-hitting collection, the poet is a truth-teller, speaking of race and class in East Tennessee, embodying strength and honor.

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick’s work has appeared in Salt Hill, Stirring, Versal, The Texas Observer, Devil’s Lake, and Four Way Review, among others. She is listed as a contributor of both poetry and prose in A Shadow Map: An Anthology of Survivors of Sexual Assault published by Civil Coping Mechanisms. Hardwick has chapbooks out with Thrush Press and Mouthfeel Press, and serves as the poetry editor for The Boiler Journal. Before Isadore is her first full-length collection.

Erica Wright is the author of the poetry collections All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned (Black Lawrence Press, 2017) and Instructions for Killing the Jackal (Black Lawrence Press, 2011). Her poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor at Guernica Magazine as well as an editorial board member of Alice James Books. Her latest novel is The Granite Moth (Pegasus, 2015). The Sundress Reading Series is an award-winning literary reading series that is held monthly at 2PM at Hexagon Brewing Co. just outside of downtown Knoxville.

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

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

By Yasmina Rena. The Tony Award-winning comedy of grown ups behaving badly.

God of Carnage begins as two highly strung couples, Alan and Annette Raleigh and Michael and Veronica Novak, meet for a civil discussion about a playground fight between their sons. The conversation quickly morphs into a laugh-out-loud, train wreck of an afternoon among savages, called "ninety minutes of sustained mayhem" by The New Yorker. The New York Times hailed God of Carnage as a "four-way prize fight" and the Chicago Tribune praised Reza's play, calling it a "savvy and deliciously caustic new comedy."

This must-see received the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, as well as the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards for Best Play.

"Elegant, acerbic and entertainingly fueled on pure bile. It's Reza's sharpest work since 'Art'."
—Variety

This production contains strong language.

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

There’s something for everyone in the 19th Annual Summer Movie Magic lineup! Moviegoers will travel back in time and see these American classics, as they should be: in a historic theater with a bag of popcorn in their lap and a cold drink in their hand. Come experience some of your favorite classics on the big screen! Both digital and 35mm films will be screened, and organists Bill Snyder and Freddie Brabson will play the Mighty Wurlitzer organ before each film.

Friday, August 25 • 8pm
Sunday, August 27 • 2pm

Tickets can be purchased at the Tennessee Theatre box office, Ticketmaster.com or by phone at 865-684-1200. Ticket price is $9.00 for adults, $7.00 for children under 12 and seniors 65 and over; subscriptions are $45.00 for adults and $35.00 for children and seniors. Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. www.tennesseetheatre.com, www.ticketmaster.com

KTC was founded by nationally and internationally recognized Tattoo Artist Danny Fugate and wife Amanda Marie and their crew at Ambition Tattoo to bring a higher level of tattooing to the greater Knoxville area. Taking place at the Downtown Worlds Fair Park Holiday Inn, this event will be held walking distance from Historic Downtown Knoxville, Knoxville Museum of Art, the Sunsphere and much more! KTC will be bringing in artists from all over the country and abroad. This will give all, the chance to get tattooed by some of the best and upcoming tattoo artists in the industry. Attendee's will enjoy sideshows, tattoo contests, unique vendors and media coverage from various industry magazines. This 3 day live tattooing Extravaganza will be something you will not want to miss!

HOURS
FRIDAY 2 - 10
SATURDAY 12 -11
SUNDAY 12 - 7
http://www.knoxvilletattooconvention.com/

In the GEOFFREY A. WOLPERT GALLERY

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, 556 Parkway, Gatlinburg, TN 37738. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Information: 865-436-5860, www.arrowmont.org

The McClung Museum Store’s annual Summer Sale will be open to the public August 21–31st. Jewelry, books, and toys are just a few of the items that will be discounted. As always, tax is included, and all proceeds from the store sales go to support our free educational programming. Hurry in for back to school savings while supplies last.

The Store is open during regular museum hours:
Monday–Saturday: 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 1:00–5:00 p.m

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Art Exhibit at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
Free and open to the public

When: Opening reception August 18 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.; artists’ talks at 6:30 p.m.

Carra Artis paints impressionistic landscapes in oil. She hopes the viewer, through her work, will appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and mankind’s mark on the landscape. She strives to capture the essence, time, light, and mood of the scene. Almost all of her paintings are “en plein air,” meaning painted on location, or plein air completed in the studio. After moving to East Tennessee in 2013, Artis was overjoyed to find a group of nurturing artists, “Tuesday Painters,” a weekly plein air painting group. She is currently their coordinator. A member of the Arts and Cultural Alliance, her work has hung in shows at the Emporium, winning an honorable mention at the Tennessee Artists Association show in 2016. She has continued her growth by studying with Kathie Odom, John Lasater IV, Jason Sacran, Dawn Whitelaw, and Peggy Root. She has been influenced by visits to major art museums in New York City, Washington, D.C., Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Florence, and Dublin. Her paintings are in private collections in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Zach Searcy creates mixed media work with paint, resin, found materials, and inkjet pigment transfers. Compositions juke, push, and pull to create a visceral experience. More recently the works have started to move through all axes, with compositions that spill over the side or toward the viewer. Materials and textures have become fixed in a way that the paintings become something that could be held or touched. This show of new works and old explores the experience of art’s function to take us to a faraway place as well as remind us that we are, in fact, right here. Searcy is a self-trained artist from Knoxville, Tennessee. He has been featured throughout the Southeast; at the NEXT Gallery in Denver, Colorado; and at the William King Museum of Art. He has served as a juror of the Dogwood Arts Festival. Once obsessed with browsing art on his smart phone late at night, Searcy brought this vision to curating a physical space in Knoxville: Zach Searcy Projects. The shows ranged from contemporary painting to a computer-controlled xylophone, and the space hosted for the Big Ears Documentary Project. He resides in Knoxville and splits his time between his studio and throwing darts with his brother.

Gallery hours: 10 AM – 5 PM, Monday through Thursday and 10 AM – 1 PM, Sunday
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Gallery, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37918

The live stage play will be performed:
Fri., Aug. 18 at 7 PM, Sat., Aug. 19 at 1 PM & 5 PM, Sun., Aug. 19 at 3 PM
Thurs., Aug. 24 at 7 PM, Fri., Aug. 25 at 7 PM, Sat., Aug. 26 at 1 PM & 5 PM, Sun., Aug. 19 at 3 PM, Thurs., Aug. 31 at 7 PM, Fri., Sept. 1 at 7 PM, Sat., Sept. 2 at 1 PM & 5 PM, Sun., Sept. 3 at 3 PM.

The prospects of the five unmarried Bennet sisters are looking up when Mr. Bingley, a wealthy young bachelor moves into the neighborhood. Young Jane Bennet catches his eye, but her sister Elizabeth clashes with his best friend, Mr. Darcy. Both sisters will have to dodge a wife-hunting Reverend, a soldier with elopement and revenge on his mind, and a Lady who disapproves of them all. Jane Austen’s timeless novel is a delightful coming-of-age comedy for all generations.

The play is performed by 18 talented young actors, from ages 12 to 18. Charlotte Stark plays the unconventional Elizabeth Bennet, and Noah Seaman plays her sparring partner, Mr. Darcy.

Knoxville Children's Theatre, 109 E. Churchwell Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-208-3677, www.childrenstheatreknoxville.com.