Triad Arts

"Two Tuesdays in October" at Centenary United Methodist Church kicks off with Dr. Edwin Wilson’s lecture entitled "The Three Ages of Man: Keats, Wordsworth and Yeats". The free lecture will be held at Centenary United Methodist Church on Tuesday evening, October 22nd, at 7:00. For many years at Wake Forest University, Ed taught a course on William Butler Yeats, and his 2009 lecture series at Centenary included the poetry of his favorite Yeats along with that of Thomas Hardy, and T.S. Eliot. 

Long ago there was an arrogant Dutchman who thought that he could sail around the Cape making a bet with the Devil in the process. Well, he lost that bet, and to lift the Devil’s curse he’s forced to sail the high seas for centuries in search of the one woman who will love him truly and forever. The Dutchman is given one chance every 7 years to come on land a try to find his one true love, and Friday, October 25th is his lucky day. That’s when the Piedmont Opera’s production of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman comes to the Stevens Center of the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

The art of comedy is alive and well in the Triad and much of the credit goes to The Idiot Box Comedy Club in Greensboro. There you’ll find a veritable beehive of activity going on year-round. This fall is no exception with their monthly Knuckleheads production—an all-ages, kid friendly show with stand up, improve and sketch. Comedian Eric Trundy and club owner Steve Lesser are teaching stand up classes, and tonight at 8:00pm at the Idiot Box it’s round two of The 6th Annual Ultimate Comic Challenge. Eric knows the UCC well, as does Idiot Box Co-owner Jennie Stencel. Jennifer is a comedian and improv actor well-known to Triad audiences. From 2006-2010 she was the comedic traffic reporter on WXII-TV whose on-air antics—rapping the traffic report—eventually wound up on CNN, VH1, and MSNBC. David Ford began by asking Jennie how the Ultimate Comic Challenge came into being.

Bel Canto Company presents Double Double Toil and Trouble, an exciting, international concert of cutting-edge 20th century pieces for vocal ensemble featuring Gian Carlo Menotti’s mammoth 30-minute work The Unicorn, The Gorgon and the Manticore: Three Sundays of a Poet (Introduction, Twelve Madrigals and six Interludes). The performances are Saturday, October 12 at 8:00 pm, and Monday, October 14 at 7:30 pm in Christ United Methodist Church in Greensboro. Bel Canto Artistic Director and conductor Welborn E. Young discussed the program with David Ford from his studio at the UNC at Greensboro where he is Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music. Also on the program will be music by Hungarian composer György  Orbán, Norwegian Ola Gjeilo, and Finnish composers Bengt Johanson, and Jaako Mäntyjärvi. Today we give a sample from all four.

The High Point Theatre’s

The Story of My Life shares the lives of six adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Greg Silvernail, James Loudermilk, John Linville, Cecelia Henry, Karen Lash and Ghree Lockard. Their stories are told through photographs, spoken and written word, and visual art that they created in collaboration with instructors from the Sawtooth School for Visual Art. The multi-media exhibition opens Friday, October 11th and it’ll remain on display through November 14th at the Sawtooth School in Winston-Salem.

Downtown Kernersville’s Arts DVine presents Witches’ Crawl Friday night, October 11th from 5-9pm.

Award-winning poet and novelist Anthony S. Abbott was born in San Francisco and educated at the Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts and Kent School in Kent, Connecticut. He received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1957, his A.M. from Harvard University in 1960 and his Ph.D. in 1962.  Tony joined the English Department at Davidson College in 1964, became Full Professor in 1979, and was named Charles A. Dana Professor of English in 1990. He chaired the Department from 1989 to 1996. Tony’s poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals including New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, and The Anglican Theological Review. He’s the author of five books of poetry, including the Pulitzer nominated The Girl in the Yellow Raincoat.