Phuzz Phest, Paper Lantern Theatre, Poet Conor O'Callaghan, and a Herstoric Joint Concert
5th Annual Phuzz Phest
For audiences looking for new sounds across many genres, Phuzz Phest has become an annual “must attend” festival.
The 5th Annual Phuzz Phest kicks off on Friday April 17th, and runs through Sunday April 19th. For the 5th anniversary my guest today, Phuzz Phest founder Philip Pledger, promises the biggest festival yet. The three day festival will feature over 60 music artists at venues across downtown Winston-Salem.
In full disclosure Eddie's musical project 1970s Film Stock is performing at the festival, and he'll be hosting a guitar effects pedal event. Philip stopped by WFDD to talk about some national and local Phuzz Phest highlights.
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Paper Lantern Theatre Presents A Bright New Boise
Paper Lantern Theatre Company is bringing the Obie Award winning play A Bright New Boise by Samuel Hunter to Winston-Salem.
It's a tough little play to describe really. There's a typically bleak corporate break room in a craft store in Idaho where our lead character Will is summoning The Rapture. After a scandal at his Evangelical church, he had to flee his rural hometown and he eventually winds up at a Hobby Lobby, to work, but also to try and rekindle a relationship with a son he had given up for adoption years ago. Alex works there too and there's Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, described as “a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings”. Together with their foul mouthed boss these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby take on the real unreal world with a little helping hand from modern faith.
It's highly entertaining and heady stuff, but nothing the talented actors and directors at Paper Lantern Theatre Company can't handle. Lee Spencer who plays Will returns to Paper Lantern for the third time in A Bright New Boise. He's joined by Phillip Wright who plays Alex, Will's son, and founding member of Paper Lantern, Artistic Director Amy Da Luz.
A Bright New Boise runs through March 22nd at Hanesbrands Theatre in downtown Winston-Salem with evening shows at 8:00 PM and Sunday matinees at 2:00. It's a great play, but it's loaded with a healthy dose of strong language and so decidedly NOT for children.
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Conor O'Callaghan and The Shack
2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the premier publisher of Irish poetry in North America: Wake Forest University Press in Winston-Salem. This weekend they'll be celebrating with a national launch of the publisher's new book, entitled The Shack. In it, several contemporary Irish poets reflect on their time in the foothills and mountains straddling North Carolina and Virginia. Conor O' Callaghan grew up in the tobacco town of Dundalk, Ireland. As a visiting professor at Wake Forest University for several years, he says he found Winston-Salem far more familiar than he expected it to be. Maybe some of that familiarity allows Conor to take in his Piedmont surroundings with the keen perceptive eye of a lifelong North Carolinian. I love his combination of keen observation, and twinkle in the eye. He spoke with David from his home in England.
The Shack is now available for purchase on the Wake Forest University Press website as well as on amazon.
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Bennett College and Spelman College
On Monday, March 16th the Bennett College Choir and Spelman College Glee Club will come together for a "Herstoric" event. The schools are the only two historically Black colleges (HBCUs) for women in the country, and together they celebrate Women's History Month with their first joint choral concert.
https://youtu.be/umen9t_Xj98
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