John Crutchfield is a poet, playwright and performer based in Asheville. His plays Ivory, The Songs of Robert, Everything and God, and Twelve Treatises on Memory have been produced regionally, as have various shorter works. An avid collaborator, he has created and performed interdisciplinary work with X Factor Dance, Sans Pointe Dance, G. Alex and the Movement, Legacy Butoh, and Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre. He has been Artist-In-Residence at the North Carolina Governor’s School, the Djerassi Artists Foundation, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Association d’Art de La Napoule (France), and the Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe (Germany). He teaches part-time at Warren Wilson College and works as a literary translator. More info at: www.johncrutchfield.com
Steven Samuels has served as manager of, and occasional actor with, New York's Ridiculous Theatrical Company; senior editor of TCG Books and American Theatre magazine; artistic associate at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.; instructor of theater history at New York University; and a judge on the Village Voice Obie committee. The recipient of a New York State Council on the Arts playwrighting fellowship, he edited Charles Ludlam's Complete Plays and Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly, and David Kaufman's award-winning biography of Ludlam, Ridiculous! He has taught creative writing at Warren Wilson College and in the Great Smokies Writing Program, and directed a new production of John Crutchfield's The Songs of Robert for performances in Asheville, Boone, and the New York International Fringe Festival. He is also the newly named artistic director of The Magnetic Field, a café, bar, and performance house scheduled to open in the River Arts District's Glen Rock Depot in spring 2010.
Well Dada my Dada: what does it mean these days for art to be “avant-garde”?
Is the festival pushing boundaries as one might expect?
It’s not the Dublin you’d find today, or even the Dublin of The Troubles. In David Brendan Hopes’ The Beautiful Johanna, Dublin is an apocalyptic nightmare, riddled by bomb blasts, machine gun bursts, and — perhaps most frightening of all — fire. Yet the subject of the play is neither horror nor hell. It’s love.
The aerobic performance of The Big Bang‘s two actors and their sheer indulgence in the silly is a wonderful prescription for the mid-winter blahs.
Deep into its second decade, the neo-burlesque movement appears to be approaching a critical mass of performers that combine the traditional, early-twentieth century blend of comedy, music and striptease with a strong contemporary sensibility.
The Santaland Diaries at ACT is a loose-limbed, easygoing evening that honors and remakes the original Sedaris work. Even if you’ve seen it in before, you haven’t seen it quite like this.
If you have never encountered the original Dickens tale,or have only the vaguest recollection of it, The Montford Park Players offer you an excellent opportunity to make up this deficiency with their authentic adaptation. Watching it, you may feel yourself transported back to the nineteenth century, not only by the story and its setting but by the acting and staging, too.
Asheville’s got talent far out of proportion to the size of its population. Our lovely town’s got the market in eccentricity pretty much cornered, too. Asheville’s also got a generous heart, and its audiences are warm and indulgent. Put them all together and you’ve got Asheville Vaudeville, the latest entry in a burgeoning world of live, variety entertainment.
ACDT’s current full-length show is a spectacular and moving program of original dance.
The girls are back! Asheville’s first and only female sketch-comedy troupe presents its latest material.
From the Immediate Theatre Project and N.C. Stage: This inventive adaptation of the classic tale earns its place as an anticipated local holiday tradition.
The Hallelujah Girls, the latest from Asheville-based comedy writing team Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, is a fun and fluffy Southern-fried treat.
Read all recent avlent tweets
and get info about how the feed works.