Calendar of Events

Caesar has returned to Rome in triumph after a devastating civil war. However, a group of conspirators is disturbed by Caesar’s increasing power and ambition. To help their cause, they persuade Brutus, a good friend of Caesar and a man regarded through the city for his honesty and honor, that the welfare of Rome demands that Brutus conspire against his own friend. Brutus joins the conspiracy and set events in motion that will leave Rome in deadly peril.

The play will be performed Thursdays and Fridays at 7 PM, Saturdays at 1 PM and 5 PM, and Sundays at 3 PM.

The play is performed by 16 talented young actors, from ages 12 to 17. Charlotte Stark, a KCT intern and student director of this season’s Little Women, plays the title role.

Performances are typically Thursday-Sunday, and tickets are $12 per Adult, $10 per child. Reservations are strongly recommended. Group rates are available for groups of 12 or more by making advance reservations by phone. Knoxville Children's Theatre, 109 E. Churchwell Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917. Information: 865-208-3677, www.knoxvillechildrenstheatre.com

Lauren Gunderson’s revenge comedy “Exit, Pursued by a Bear” will be performed in the Clarence Brown Theatre’s Lab Theatre

The production contains adult themes and language. The Open Caption performance will take place Sunday, Nov 3. Following that performance, a Behind the Scenes Sunday event will take place and involve a discussion around domestic abuse. A talk back with the actors will take place November 10 following the 2 pm matinee.

In this wild revenge comedy set in the North Georgia mountains, Nan has had it with her abusive husband. And she’s determined to teach him a lesson before she leaves! As he sits there, tied up in a hunting cabin, covered in honey and ready for bear, Nan makes him watch re-enactments of scenes from their dysfunctional marriage.

Playwright Lauren Gunderson’s smart, funny plays about empowered women -- both real and imagined -- have made her one of America’s most popular playwrights. Many of her biographical plays explore the lives of women who found ways to thrive in male dominated professions.

Clarence Brown Theatre, 1714 Andy Holt Ave on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. For information: 865-974-5161, www.clarencebrowntheatre.com. For tickets: 865-974-5161, 865-656-4444, www.knoxvilletickets.com

by Ken Ludwig, Agatha Christie

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must identify the murderer – in case he or she decides to strike again.

“Hang on for the ride!” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Murder On The Orient Express is a funny, fast-paced thrill ride!" —The Hartford Currant

Theatre Knoxville Downtown, 800 S. Central Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information & tickets: 865-544-1999, www.theatreknoxville.com

Free and open to the public
Reception Friday, October 18, 6:00 to 7:30 pm. Artists’ talks at 6:30 pm.

Organized in 2001, the Knoxville Photography Collective is a group of photographers who meet monthly to share images, technical information, encouragement, and inspiration. Members Katharine Emlen, Tony Hayzen, Owen Weston, Wayne Setser, David Bryant, Robert Minick, and Brian McDaniel each have distinctive styles and perspectives. Hayzen, for instance, is passionate about landscapes and wildlife photography, whereas Weston looks for hidden images in the commonplace.

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 37919, www.tvuuc.org

Our annual juried exhibition! Details TBA

Oak Ridge Art Center, 201 Badger Avenue, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Hours: Tu-F 9-5, Sa-M 1-4. Information: 865-482-1441, www.oakridgeartcenter.org

Dogwood Arts is on a mission to Keep Knoxville Blooming––one tree at a time. Through our annual Bazillion Blooms program, disease-resistant dogwood trees are on sale now at dogwoodarts.com or by phone at (865) 637-4561 through November 18th . These 2’ – 4’ bare-root trees are available for $25 each or five for $100. Tree pick-up day and community-wide tree planting date is set for Saturday, December 7th.

Planting trees is a simple and effective way to clean our air, reduce stress, and conserve the environment. We encourage everyone to ‘dig-in’ and make a lasting difference by planting trees during the fall gardening season. Trees planted in the fall have time to develop strong root systems over the winter months before the challenges of the drying summer heat.

The Bazillion Blooms program began in 2009 with a mission to revitalize tree plantings along our historic Dogwood Trails and throughout the region. Last year, Dogwood Arts reached our goal of adding 10,000 dogwood trees to East Tennessee’s landscape in just 10 years through the Bazillion Blooms program, ensuring our region’s spring beauty will continue well into the future. Larger blooming trees, flowering shrubs, bulbs, and perennials are available at these participating Garden Centers: Ellenburg Landscaping & Nursery, Mayo Garden Centers, Northshore Nursery, Stanley’s Greenhouse & Wilson Fine Gardens.

Trees ordered from Dogwood Arts must be picked up on Saturday, December 7th, from 9AM-12PM at the UT Gardens off Neyland Drive. Trees will not be distributed at a later time or date.

Dogwood Arts, 123 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com

Science in Motion: The Photographic Studies of Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbott and Harold Edgerton

Photography itself was born out of a passionate engagement between art and science.

“…there needs to be a friendly interpreter between science and the layman. I believe that photography can be this spokesman, as no other form of expression can be; for photography, the art of our time, the mechanical scientific medium which matches the pace and character of our era, is attuned to the function. There is an essential unity between photography, science’s child, and science, the parent.”
—Berenice Abbott, Photography and Science, 1939

Photography’s pioneers, Josef Nicéphore Niépce, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot, were inventors, scientists and mathematicians. The results of their intellectual endeavors dramatically affected the art form and forged a reciprocal relationship between art and science in photography that has continued to this day.

This exhibition of thirty-six photographs offers a rich and extensive view of the scientific studies done by three of photography’s greats—Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbott and Harold Edgerton. Each of these artists invented devices to study and represent aspects of light and motion scientifically and photographically. Their works not only illustrate scientific phenomena clearly and elegantly but also reveal the artists’ individual artistic sensibilities.

McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, 1327 Circle Park Dr on the UT campus, Knoxville, TN 37996. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 9AM-5PM, Sunday, 1-5PM. Information: 865-974-2144, http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

Sundays from 8-11 PM
Hosted by Brickyard Bar & BBQ and True Grit Comedy
4928 Homberg Dr., Knoxville, Tennessee 37919

Welcome back to Bearden, once again, for your local Sunday night Comedy open mic, hosted by David Habel. We'll be featuring some of the best comedians that Knoxville, East Tennessee, and beyond have to offer. Newcomers are encouraged and inclusivity is promoted. Come out, laugh, and take a break from life.

Sign-up: 8:00-8:30 - Mic goes Hot: 8:30

https://www.facebook.com/truegritcomedy

Whistler & Company includes nearly a dozen works by Whistler accompanied by more than 50 etchings by some of his most accomplished American and European contemporaries. Whistler’s gritty images of the River Thames, views of Venice, and Parisian scenes are among works featured in the exhibition. Other artists who participated in the etching revival include Francis Seymour Haden, James McBey, Edwin Edwards, David Young Cameron, Muirhead Bone, Mortimer Menpes, Charles Meryon, Maxime Lalanne, Joseph Pennell, and Frank Duveneck, among others.

Although best known for innovative paintings such as Arrangements in Gray and Black No. 1 (popularly known as “Whistler’s Mother”), Whistler was a talented printmaker. The exhibition Whistler & Company examines the artist’s influential role in the etching revival of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This revival took hold in France, England and the United States. Artists set out to reestablish etching—the art of incising lines with an etching needle into a thin copper plate which was then inked and pressed into paper with the help of a printing press to create impressions—as an art form that could stand on its own. Inspired by Rembrandt, and the old masters, practitioners created remarkable original and expressive compositions that gained popularity with refined collectors and the broader public.

The legacy of expatriate American artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Lowell, Massachusetts 1834-1903 London) was far-reaching, and his sphere of influence included early 20th-century East Tennessee. The Nicholson Art League, for instance, Knoxville’s leading art group of the period, dedicated its entire December 1, 1911 program to Whistler. Led by noted impressionist Catherine Wiley, the gathering featured presentations including “Whistler’s Influence on American Art,” and Whistler, His Life and Work.”

All of the works in in the exhibition are drawn from the Reading Public Museum’s permanent collection of works on paper, which numbers more than 10,000. Whistler & Company: The Etching Revival is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

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

"It’ll Tickle Yore Innards!”: A (Hillbilly) History of Mountain Dew

Special Members Preview: Thursday, June 27, 2019, from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

The exhibition highlights the drink’s history, from the origins of the term “mountain dew” and the development of the marketable hillbilly image that influenced media and culture, to becoming the third most popular soft drink brand.

The exhibition includes more than 200 artifacts highlighting the drinks history, moonshining, and the hillbilly image. The exhibition begins with video footage of early moonshine busts and a visit to a moonshine still in Cocke County in 1938. A variety of liquor jugs, dating from as early as the 1890s are on display with other moonshine paraphernalia. There is an assortment of artifact reflecting the early color writers and their effects on the hillbilly image, as well as artifacts from Knoxville’s 1910 Appalachian Exposition. One case contains a variety of “hillbilly” memorabilia, including Beverly Hillbillies dolls, comic books, Lil’ Abner items, and a pair of Hee Haw overalls.

The exhibition features a 1900 carbonation machine from the Roddy Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Knoxville and a sizeable display of rare and highly collectable bottles, including a few dating to Knoxville in 1927, a progression of Mountain Dew bottles over the years, and a variety of other vintage soft drinks from around the region. Of special interest are the “Barney and Ally” bottles, which were the first Mountain Dew bottles ever produced. In 1951 and 1952, the Hartman Beverage Company produced 7 oz. green and clear bottles. The applied color label’s bare the name of the creators of Mountain Dew. In the early 1950s, green bottles were reserved for “colorless” flavors, while clear bottles were used for drinks where the color would reflect the actual flavor. Mountain Dew was originally bottled as a set of flavored drinks and not as a specific flavor like today. Also displayed are a variety of items relating to the Hartmann family.

East Tennessee Historical Society, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Museum hours: M-F 9-4, Sa 10-4, Su 1-5. Information: 865-215-8824, www.easttnhistory.org

3:00 PM - 6:00 PM on the 1st & 3rd Sunday of each month

Blackhorse Brewery on Gay Street in Downtown Knoxville hosts the WDVX Downtown Jam. Banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars all welcome. This is a great opportunity to meet new musical friends, learn tunes and jam!

WDVX info: 865-544-1029, http://wdvx.com

Blackhorse Brewery Gay Street Pub, 430 S Gay St, Knoxville, TN 37902: (865) 249-8511 or https://www.blackhorsebrews.com/pubs/knoxville

Dogwood Arts Art In Public Places - Temporary Sculpture Exhibition

An exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculptures in downtown Knoxville, the McGhee Tyson Airport, Zoo Knoxville, and Oak Ridge. The annual rotating installation is one of many Dogwood Arts programs focused on providing access to the arts for everyone, promoting awareness of the strong visual arts community thriving in our region, and creating a vibrant and inspiring environment for residents and visitors to experience.

Sculpture installation will take place March 22-23, 2019.

Dogwood Arts, 123 W. Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN 37902. Information: 865-637-4561, www.dogwoodarts.com