Calendar of Events

Whether on a greenway through a historic park or on a natural trail through the woods, you will observe historic relics and beautiful wildflowers among the dogwood trees on these easy, three-mile hikes. The interpretive hikes will highlight interesting facts, features, and flora about the unique locations.

Dogwood Arts: 865-637-4561 www.dogwoodarts.com

Kathie's third solo exhibition with the gallery, "Along the Way" is a collection of works in oil featuring simple and nostalgic scenes that too often go unnoticed. Kathie’s paintings are timeless interpretations of the atmosphere, light, and story in the landscape around her.

Day in and day out, we spend our time rushing from place to place in anticipation of whatever might be next. In our haste, countless vistas fly past us, hardly glimpsed. Kathie stops for us, beginning an unhindered dialogue with the landscape through the medium of oil paints. Skillful infusions of color, light and shade grant each image a special resonance. Whether a forgotten farmland, an ordinary cityscape, a common food truck or an unnoticed rural home, Kathie introduces us to the common made beautiful along the way. www.KathieOdom.com

An opening reception will be held Friday, April 22 from 5-8 p.m.

The District Gallery, 5113 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Hours: M-F 10-5:30, Sa 10-4. Information: 865-200-4452, www.TheDistrictGallery.com

This funny show with the funny name is a hilarious side-splitting take on greed, love, revolution - and musicals! Set in a time when water is worth its weight in gold, a Gotham-like city is facing a 20-year drought that leads to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. As a result, the citizens must use public amenities, regulated by a single malevolent company that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. But those who fail to pay are sentenced to a dreaded penal colony. A hero decides he's had enough, and plans a revolution to lead them all to freedom! An irreverently humorous satire in which no one is safe from scrutiny.

Oak Ridge Playhouse, 227 Broadway, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. Information and tickets: 865-482-9999, www.orplayhouse.com

By Harold Pinter. Directed by Patrick McCray.

Actors often have to face the challenge of growing older on stage, but in Harold Pinter's Betrayal they have an even more difficult task: they must grow younger as the play progresses. Pinter's play tracks the course of an affair, but it does so backwards: it opens with a meeting between the two lovers some years after the affair ended; it finishes with the first erotically charged encounter between the two, nine years earlier. The performers chart the stages in the affair, discarding the layers of guilt, to become their younger, fresher selves.

The play begins in 1977 with a meeting between adulterous lovers, Emma and Jerry, two years after their affair has ended. During the nine scenes of the play we move back in time through the states of their affair, with the play ending in the house of Emma and Robert, her husband, who is Jerry's best friend.

The classic dramatic scenario of the love triangle is manifest in a mediation on the themes of marital infidelity, duplicity, and self-deception. Pinter writes a world that simultaneously glorifies and debases love.

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

Athens Community Theatre announces its spring 2016 production of Shadowlands, inspired by the life of C.S. Lewi, by William Nicholson. Show dates for Shadowlands are April 21 - 30, 2016.

This play is based on the real life love story of C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, and American poet Joy Davidman. Jack Lewis is smug in his convictions about God and His plan for the world until Joy and her young son enter his life and the bewildered man who theorizes about love in the abstract finally confronts its direct presence.

Shadowlands is directed by recent Oklahoma! star and ACT veteran actor, Whitney Kimball Coe.

Athens Area Council for the Arts: 320 North White Street, Athens, TN, 37303. Info: 423-745-8781, www.athensartscouncil.org

Music by Richard Rodgers; Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; Directed by Terry Silver-Alford. At the Clarence Brown Theatre.

“A majestic spectacle.” - The New Yorker

From the haunting “Bali Ha’i” to the exquisite “Some Enchanted Evening,” this Rodgers & Hammerstein classic features some of the most beautiful music ever composed for the theatre. The Pulitzer Prize and 10-time Tony Award winner is set on a tropical island during World War II and tells the romantic tale of how the happiness of two couples is threatened by the realities of war and prejudice.

Clarence Brown Theatre / Carousel 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

Featuring works by David Denton and Max Robinson. Opening reception April 22, 6-7:30 PM with artists' talk at 6:30 PM.

Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2931 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. Gallery hours: M-Th 9-5, Su 9-1. Information: 865-523-4176, www.tvuuc.org

Special Public Opening: Friday, April 15, from 5:30-8:00 p.m.

In 1929 and again in 1930, Brunswick Records' Vocalion label set up a temporary recording studio at the St. James Hotel in downtown Knoxville and invited locals to come make records. These old-time, jazz, blues, and gospel recordings added Knoxville's voice to American popular music and inspired the next generation of country music stars. In an exciting new exhibition, the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound present a first-time look at the impact of these recordings and the region’s contributions to American popular music. The exhibition features an array of artifacts, videos, sound recordings, and photographs showcasing East Tennessee’s diverse musical heritage. Come to Make Records explores Knoxville’s growth in the early 20th century, the importance of fiddling contests in generating fans and driving record sales, the role of Sterchi Bros. in exposing local talent to a national audience, and examines why Knoxville was selected for the recordings. The exhibit offers a closer look at the St. James Hotel, the site of the Knoxville Sessions, an overview of the local talent that arose from the sessions, and a look at the next generation of artists, such as Chet Atkins and Roy Acuff. The exhibit includes a display demonstrating 130 years of recorded sound from the wax cylinder to the iPod, a re-creation of the St. James Hotel room where the Knoxville Sessions took place, Roy Acuff’s fiddle, Cal Davenport’s banjo, a Bairdola, and an assortment of other instruments. Other artifacts featured are original records from the Knoxville Sessions, a painting by Howard Armstrong, and Carl and Pearl Butler’s performance suits, designed by Nathan Turk. Special video presentations include a film produced by East Tennessee PBS on the Knoxville Sessions, a look at how 78 rpm discs are made, rare footage of Knoxville Sessions artists, and recordings of Roy Acuff, Uncle Dave Macon, and Carl and Pearl Butler.

Beginning at 6:00 p.m., Julie Belcher from the Pioneer House will display an art exhibition in the Bilo Nelson Auditorium of the East Tennessee History Center with music provided by saw player Robert Maddox. At 7:00 p.m. there will be a program with musical performances by local musicians, including Kelle Jolly, David Balle, saw player Robert Maddox, and the Tennessee Stiff Legs, of songs from the 1929 and 1930 Knoxville Sessions with remarks by Dr. Ted Olson, co-producer and co-author of The Knoxville Sessions box set book. The evening will conclude with a screening of rare film footage of Knoxville sessions artists Uncle Dave Macon, Willie Seivers, and Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong. Relatives and descendants of the musicians that recorded during the Knoxville Sessions will also be acknowledged during the program.

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

Explore more than 60 miles of trails, open gardens, and camera site sites as you enjoy a walk, bike, or drive the time honored tradition of the Dogwood Trails and Open Gardens. Holston Hills is the 2016 Featured Trail.
For an online version of the Dogwood Trails & Gardens Guide please visit
http://www.dogwoodarts.com/trails-and-gardens/
Dogwood Arts: 865-637-4561

APRIL 15, 16, 22, 23 AT 7:30 P.M. and APRIL 17, 24 AT 2 P.M.

Do good works overcome evil, in the end? This is the ultimate question posed by "Which Side Are You On: The Florence Reece Story," an original play that will have its world premiere at Pellissippi State Community College. The play is written by Pellissippi State's Writer-in-Residence Edward Francisco. It is a fictional retelling of the life of Florence Reece, an American social activist, poet and folksong writer. The daughter and wife of coal miners, she penned the song "Which Side Are You On?" which became a social justice anthem after Pete Seeger recorded the tune in 1940. "Florence Reece began writing this song when she was just 12 years old," Francisco said. "She finished it when she was 31, after hiding under a bed with her seven children to avoid the bullets fired by hired gun thugs working for the mining company. She tore a calendar page off the wall and wrote the lyrics."

That year was 1931, the beginning of the Harlan County War, a decade-long battle between coal miners and union organizers on one side and the coal companies, gun thugs and law enforcement officials on the other. The war included a series of strikes, skirmishes, bombings, executions and the occupation of Harlan County by both state and federal troops. Reece's husband, Sam, a union organizer, died of black lung in 1978. Reece died in Knoxville in 1986. The final scene of the play imagines what may have been some of the final words shared between Sam and Florence, among them: Do good works truly matter? Because so little information exists about Reece's life apart from her contributions during the Harlan County War, Francisco conflated the fictional retelling of Reece's life with experiences from his own grandmother, the daughter of a coal miner herself.

At the Clayton Performing Arts Center at Pellissippi State: 10915 Hardin Valley Road, Knoxville, TN 37932. Information: 865-694-6405, www.pstcc.edu/arts

"DEATHTRAP" April 14-16; 21-24.
Tony Award winning comedy-thriller in 2 Acts by Ira Levin.
Produced by The Tellico Community Players in The Pat Smith Theatre
304 Lakeside Plaza, Loudon, TN 37774

To make Sidney's slump all the more painful, Clifford Anderson, a student of one of Sidney's writing seminars, has recently sent his mentor a copy of his first attempt at playwriting for Sidney's review and advice. The play Deathtrap, is a five character, two-act thriller so perfect in its construction that, as Sidney says, "A gifted director couldn't even hurt it." Using his penchant for plot, and out of his desperate desire to once again be the toast of Broadway, Sidney along with his wife, Myra, cook up an almost unthinkable scheme: They'll lure the would-be-playwright to the Bruhl home, kill him, and market the sure-fire script as Sidney's own. But shortly after Clifford arrives, it's clear that things are not what they seem! Indeed, even Helga Ten Dorp, a psychic from next door, and Porter Milgram, Sidney's observant attorney, can only speculate where the line between truth and deception lies.

For information and tickets: http://www.tellicocommunityplayhouse.org/

A world-class visual arts exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculpture which enliven downtown Knoxville, the McGhee Tyson Airport and Oak Ridge. Sculpture artist Isaac Duncan III, a Brooklyn, New York native who currently resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee served as the Juror for the 2016-2017 exhibition. #AIPP

Dogwood Arts: 865-637-4561 www.dogwoodarts.com