MUSIC
Atlanta native Adron (above) returns home for a show at Eddie’s Attic on Sunday at 6 p.m. She sprang into the spotlight in 2018 with the release of Water Music, an album that showcased her sophisticated songwriting. Now living in Los Angeles, and the veteran of a tour opening for Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, Adron is working on an album to be called The Trickster in addition to a self-produced EP called Peru that features music she recorded in her bedroom during the pandemic. Tickets are $20.
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The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, an early roots music act and also one of the finest, comes to City Winery tonight for a show that will feature their own hits plus the music of Bob Dylan. The Dirt Band formed in 1966 in California and hit the charts in 1971 with their rendition of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles.” Their classic album Will The Circle Be Unbroken from 1972 helped define modern Americana music and included stand-out performances from country music legends such as Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson and Mother Maybelle Carter. 8 p.m. Tickets start at $65.
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THEATER
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody, the happy character with the same name as the title runs into the character Death and then goes on a journey through his past to discover the Meaning of Life. Beginning previews at the Alliance Theatre on Friday night, the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist was inspired by a 15th-century morality play, Everyman. “Sounds odd to talk about joy when you’re talking about mortality, but the tone and impact of this piece is so, so joyful,” said Alliance Artistic Director Susan V. Booth, who co-directs the Alliance season opener with associate artistic director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden. “And in a time of ever-multiplying senses of division, a piece that reminds us of the most basic of human connections seems so very necessary.” Booth departs soon to become artistic director of Chicago’s 97-year-old Goodman Theatre. Through October 2.
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Now for something completely different by way of the Bard, there’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse. With a script that allows for the inclusion of a lot of Atlanta flavor and improvisation, and featuring aces Trevor Perry, O’Neil Delapenha and Ebony Jerry acting up, Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s production is “a celebration of Blackness,” Benjamin Carr writes in his ArtsATL review. “All audiences should join this celebration — with its many wild turns, it’s a lot of fun. It’s bold, joyous, sharp, unapologetically political, delightfully queer, thoroughly unpredictable and to-the-minute with its included pop-culture references and jokes.” Through September 4.
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The Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, launching with a Kick-Off Reunion Party at Kimpton Overland Hotel tonight, presents four packed days of performances, staged readings, master classes, panels, film screenings and special events. Especially notable are Saturday’s programs at Southwest Arts Center. They include a double-feature of music star-related stagings at 4 p.m., with Eunice in Paris, Amina S. McIntyre’s script about Nina Simone concluding a two-year run of shows in a Paris bar, starring Parris Sarter; and Nancy at Home, about Nancy Wilson’s life, love and legacy, written and performed by Dawn Anthony. Then, at 7:30, BNS Productions of Charlotte performs August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
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ART+DESIGN
You know graffiti has gone legit when a university library presents an exhibit about it. Graffiti: A Library Guide to Aerosol Art features images by noted graffiti photographers such as H.J. Parsons and Jack Stewart, and a 12-by-8-foot wall of original graffiti created by writer BASER. There’s also an interactive space where visitors can create their own tags and post them on the Wall of Fame. Schatten Gallery at Emory University Woodruff Library. Open during regular library hours through January 8, 2023. Free.
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April Harrison and Stacey Brown are two established artists who, according writer Trelani Michelle, haven’t received the attention they deserve. A North Carolina native, Brown (whose watercolor on paper, Worship, is shown above) has lived in Atlanta since 1986 and works with photography and paint. Harrison lives in Charlotte and focuses on themes of love, faith and hope in her collage and mixed-media pieces. Both reveal through their work the complexity of being Black. “As much as we’re churchgoers, we’re also addicts,” Michelle writes, “. . . even in our ordinary, mundane moments, we’re still models of beauty and power and hope. Our lives and what we produce in it are valuable.” New works by Brown and Harrison comprise the exhibit Still Here, opening at the Black Art in America Gallery and Gardens on Saturday, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. The artists indeed will be there. Through October 7.
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Off the Grid at the High Museum of Art closes Sunday. As ArtsATL reviewer Rebecca Brantley wrote: “The curators’ thematic approach highlights cross-cultural connections, giving needed attention to women, artists of color and art from the American South.” The show includes quilts, photographs and more in what Brantley says is a great illustration of the way grids are far more than a geometric artform as seen in works by Minimalist and abstract painters. Tickets $16.50. Free for members.
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DANCE
Core Dance premieres its new season of inside:out with an opening reception tonight at 8 p.m. at the company studio on Decatur Square. inside:out – Prague Collection features a video collection from Core Dance’s work at the National Gallery Prague, led by Artistic Director Sue Schroeder. The Prague Collection videos mirror exhibits and works in the gallery and will stream nightly from dusk until midnight on the Core Dance studio windows through September 30. 133 Sycamore Street.
