Calendar of Events

The Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival, inspired by the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tenn., will bring three nationally known storytellers to Oak Ridge June 7 and 8 with performances at the Historic Grove Theater.

The storytellers are Charlotte Blake Alston, Josh Goforth and Bil Lepp. Each uses the power of storytelling to entertain and educate audiences, with hilarious, exaggerated tales or with true stories that shed light on cultures and historic events.
All three storytellers will perform at 7 p.m. Friday, June 7, and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday, June 8 at the Historic Grove Theater. Lovers of storytelling can attend all three shows and hear different tales at each one. Tickets to each event are $15 for adults and $5 for children ages 5 to 17.

Tickets may be purchased at the Flatwater Tales website, https://flatwatertales.com. Tickets may also be purchased with cash or check at Calamity’s Coffee, 219 Jackson
Square, Oak Ridge.

https://flatwatertales.com

Three storytellers from the Flatwater Tales Storytelling Festival, are offering free, 35-minute shows the mornings of June 7 and 8 at the Oak Ridge Senior Center and Oak Ridge Public Library. Those interested in attending must sign up for free tickets on the festival’s website because of limited seating.

Oak Ridge Senior Center, 1405 Oak Ridge Turnpike, at 11 a.m. Friday, June 7. Josh Goforth will offer a “Taste of the Tales” and will jam, workshop style, with the center’s guitar group. The Senior Center welcomes adult visitors. Adults 18 and older are welcome to attend with or without a guitar for a foot-stomping good time.

Oak Ridge Senior Center, 10 a.m. Saturday, June 8. Lepp, a popular and humorous
storyteller on the national circuit, will offer a taste of his witty tales. Adults 18 and older are welcome to attend.

Oak Ridge Public Library, 1401 Oak Ridge Turnpike, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 8.
Alston, described as enchanting, mesmerizing and captivating, will present a short
program for children 5 and older and their families.

Those interested in attending must sign up for free tickets at https://flatwatertales.com/ because of limited seating.

https://flatwatertales.com/

In coordination with Rhinestone Fest in the Old City, RED Gallery presents a collaborative exhibit of textiles, leather goods and paintings featuring the work of reclaim, Fado Made and katemade.co. This exhibition highlights recent runway pieces that blend tradition and creativity across various mediums.

First Friday, June 7, 5-9pm
Open Gallery Saturday, June 8, 1-8pm

RED Gallery, at 130 E Jackson Ave, Knoxville, TN, features primarily local and regional artists. The gallery is located in the historic Jackson Atelier building in Knoxville’s Old City. Gallery owner Robin Easter is proud to provide a unique space for Knoxville to experience and enjoy a broad range of visual arts. To learn more about RED Gallery, email robin@robineaster.com.

6/6 • Phenomenal Fireflies (SOLD OUT)
6/7 • Movies Under the Stars: Pirates of the Caribbean
6/7 • Evening Paddle
6/8 • Evening Paddle
6/8 • Phenomenal Fireflies (SOLD OUT)
6/9 • SoundBath Meditation
6/9 • Preserving the Harvest: Canning 102 (Pressure Canning)
6/9 • Self- Care Sunday Yoga
6/9 • Butterflies, Bees and Beetles
6/9 • Evening Paddle

And more!

Ijams Nature Center, 2915 Island Home Ave, Knoxville, TN 37920. Visitor Center open daily 10-6; grounds and trails open daily from 8 AM - dusk. Information: 865-577-4717, www.ijams.org

The world-premiere performances by Knoxville composer Jason Overall
Thursday, June 6 and Saturday, June 8, in the Old City Performing Arts Center, 111 State Street, Knoxville.
Both performances will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets to The Doctor and the Devils are available at MarbleCityOpera.com/tickets General admission tickets are $40 each. VIP tickets are $50 each. VIP tickets include an invitation to meet composer Jason Overall at a pre-show reception with refreshments.

The Doctor and the Devils is adapted from a gothic-horror screenplay by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The screenplay was based on the true story of two body snatchers who murdered at least sixteen people and sold their bodies for anatomical dissection in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1828. The opera explores the theme “do the ends justify the means” as the doctor who purchased the bodies used them to discover lifesaving surgical procedures. Thomas renamed the historical characters, changing the name of surgeon Dr. Robert Knox to “Dr. Thomas Rock.” He changed the names of body-snatchers William Burke and William Hare to “Bob Fallon” and “Broom.”

The singers in the world-premiere cast of The Doctor and the Devils are Stephen Salters as Doctor Rock; Cody Boiling as Murray; Lela Philbrook as Elizabeth; Ema Mitrovic as Annabella; Jenna Ziccardi as Jennie; Gianna Grigalonis as Alice; John Overholt as Broom; and Daniel Johnson-Webb as Fallon. Jason Overall is a composer, organist, and choral conductor. He is also the director of music of Saint John's Episcopal Cathedral in Knoxville. The stage director for The Doctor and the Devils is Marble City Opera’s Executive Artistic Director Kathryn Frady. The orchestra conductor is Marble City Opera’s Music Director Brandon Coffer.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at www.marblecityopera.com/tickets
Social Media links: FB: facebook.com/MarbleCityOpera
IN: @MarbleCityOpera
TW: @MarbleCityOpera

Kid A’ Riffic Fun in the Park is an event for children offering hands on crafts and activities provided by City departments and entities. Kid A’Riffic will be held on Wednesdays in June and July from 10am-1pm at a different park each week. Come enjoy making crafts, playing games and so much more while making fun memories over summer vacation. All activities are free!

June 5 - Baxter Ave Park & Fire Station #3, 204 E. Baxter Ave
June 12 - Chilhowee Park with Touch-A-Truck, 401 Lakeside St
June 26 - Fort Kid, 1049 World's Fair Park Drive
July 10 - Morningside Park, 1600 Dandridge Rd.
July 17 - Fountain City Park, 117 Hotel Rd.
July 24 - West Hills Park, 410 N. Winston Rd
July 31 - World's Fair Park, 910 World's Fair Park Dr.

*No events on June 19 and July 3

https://www.knoxvilletn.gov/government/city_departments_offices/special_events/kid_a__riffic_fun_in_the_park

Join us this summer for a museum experience that features weekly rotating themes – from “Backyard Exploration” to “Dig It! Dino Week” and more! Muse Pop celebrates the intersectionality of science and play through weekly programming and is included with your general admission ticket!

Backyard Exploration JUNE 3 – JUNE 7
Transportation Station JUNE 10 – June 14
Sky's the Limit JUNE 17 – JUNE 21
Storytime Summer JUNE 24 – JUNE 28
Totally Tech JULY 1 – JULY 5
Dig It! Dino Week JULY 8 – JULY 12

The Muse Knoxville, 516 N. Beaman Street, Knoxville, TN 37914. Information: 865-594-1494, www.themuseknoxville.org

June 1 - August 3, 2024
First Friday Receptions | June 7, July 5, August 2, 5-9pm
UT Downtown Gallery

In Southern Black communities, our stories aren't simply passed down from one generation to the next—they serve as maps with markers for our future. This truth is evident in The Bottom, a neighborhood in East Knoxville, Tennessee. Despite its demolition in the 1950s due to urban renewal and systemic racism, its legacy lives on.

Curated by Good Black Art and grounded in the research of Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin, a local sociologist specializing in race, place, and Black communities, The Bottom: Stories from the Neighborhood is an exhibition that delves into life in the neighborhood beyond its destruction. While it highlights the narrative of Knoxville, it resonates with Black, Brown, Indigenous, and underprivileged communities across different times and places. The exhibition presents both familiar and imaginative interpretations by two Southern artists through a dialogue of folklore and futurism, drawing from oral histories of former residents and archival sources from The Bottom.

AHMAD GEORGE is a painter and multimedia artist from Memphis, Tennessee. They’ve shown at NADA Miami as well as national and international group and solo exhibitions. Through their work, they explore the liminal space between reality, mythology, folklore, and self. Their worldbuilding thins the veil of this world by mixing imagery of the American South (mostly scenes from Tennessee and Mississippi) with local and sourced myths from different parts of the world. Oftentimes, they use people from their own life to be the protagonists of these narratives. Major themes they explore in their paintings currently include generational history, transformation, consequence, and spiritual alchemy.

ERIN LEANN MITCHELL is a textile artist from Birmingham, Alabama. Her work is an expansion of the southern quilting tradition, using a mixture of textiles and collage gathered in textile markets and fabric stores. These multidimensional assemblages render the realities of southern Blackness into radical new imaginings. Repositories of history, rampant with particulars, my quilt-based pieces are storytelling vehicles. They liberate imaginative territory, creating a home-place for full subjectivity and resistance. They indicate a way forward. Quilting is a dynamic, evolving artform linking Africans in the diaspora and those on the continent. She honors tradition as she reshapes it, paying homage while challenging convention. Her needlework moves Black women’s legacy off the clothesline and onto museum walls.

This exhibition is in partnership with Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin, The Bottom, and Good Black Art. Funding for the UT Downtown Gallery is generously provided by the Arts & Culture Alliance, Knox County, and the Department of the Treasury.

UT Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay Street. Hours: W-F: 11am - 6pm, Sat: 10am - 3p. For more information: ewing@utk.edu | https://downtown.utk.edu

Flights of Fancy: Artworks inspired by Hummingbirds by Cheri Jorgenson

Artist statement: My wildlife artwork began after our Covid isolation, when I finally became aware of these animals. I became an appreciator and observer of our local residents, particularly hummingbirds, and began to create artwork inspired by them. In 2022, our art group was invited to do an art show at Ijams Nature Center, home of the Annual Hummingbird Festival, and many of these were exhibited there.

Bio: Cheri Jorgenson has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alabama and a Masters of Science in Art Education from the University of Tennessee. Originally a graphic designer, she was then an art teacher for Knox County Schools for 20 years, retiring from the L&N STEM Academy in 2020. She was the 2012 Tennessee Art Educator of the Year and the 2021 National Art Honor Society Sponsor of the Year. In 2004, she co-founded COMMA, an air group that meets weekly at UT Gardens. Ms. Jorgenson lives in South Knoxville with her husband in a very old farmhouse surrounded by natural habitat.

June & July 2024
South Knoxville Library Gallery, 4500 Chapman Highway, Knoxville, TN 37920
Hours: M/T/R: 10am – 8pm, Wed: 10am – 5:30pm, F/S: 10am – 5:30, Sun: Closed. (Closed Juneteenth and Independence Day)

The Nief-Norf Summer Festival is a multidisciplinary new music festival that brings together performers, composers, improvisers, scholars, and music technologists for collaboration and exploration of contemporary music within an immersive environment. Hosted at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the festival provides opportunities for masterclasses, workshops, and performances with world-renowned faculty at the state-of-the-art Natalie L. Haslam Music Center. Nief-Norf fosters an incredible community of contemporary musicians who create, collaborate, experiment, and problem solve in exploration of what it means to be contemporary musicians and perform for a modern audience.

https://www.niefnorf.org/

Winner of two Obie Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards as Best New American Play and Best Off-Broadway Production. An inspired comic romp, equal in inventive hilarity to the author’s classic comedy The Nerd, the present play enjoyed a sold-out premiere in Milwaukee before moving on to a long run Off-Broadway. Based on what the NY Post describes as a “devilishly clever idea,” the play demonstrates what can happen when a group of devious characters must deal with a stranger who (they think) knows no English.

THE FOREIGNER
Fri. May 31st 2024, 7:30 pm
Sat. Jun 1st 2024, 7:30 pm
Sun. Jun 2nd 2024, 3:00 pm
Thu. Jun 6th 2024, 7:30 pm
Fri. Jun 7th 2024, 7:30 pm
Sat. Jun 8th 2024, 7:30 pm
Sun. Jun 9th 2024, 3:00 pm
Thu. Jun 13th 2024, 7:30 pm
Fri. Jun 14th 2024, 7:30 pm
Sat. Jun 15th 2024, 7:30 pm
Sun. Jun 16th 2024, 3:00 pm

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

Featuring Richard Jolley, Andrew Saftel, Maggie Taylor, Margaret Scanlan, Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Michael Poness, Eric Pardue, Jennifer Theom, Denise Riddle and Sally Brogden

Closed Sat May 25 - Mon May 27 for the holiday weekend

Bennett, 5308 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Hours: M-Sa 10-5:30. Information: 865-584-6791, https://bennetthome.com/