What to see, do and hear: Marsalis, High exhibit, Jewish Film Fest and more

ART+DESIGN

Brooklyn-based artist Leonardo Drew is known for creating contemplative, abstract sculptures. Some of them are being exhibited at the Zuckerman Museum of Art starting Sunday. Leonardo Drew: Cycles, from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation will also include prints, many of them powerfully large, and works in handmade paper. Drew transforms cotton paper pulp and pigment into what suggests densely populated cities, a forest or an urban wasteland, articulating the cyclical nature of life. Through May 7. Opening reception Sunday from 4-6 p.m. Masks are encouraged, but not required.

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 On February 22, Spalding Nix Fine Art is hosting an Instagram Live Artist Talk with Michael Porten, an interdisciplinary artist based in Savannah. Porten is one of the artists in the gallery’s current group show, Turning Point, up through March 18. His inspiration is often drawn from contemporary pop culture and iconography, focusing on “the synchronicity of seemingly disparate content and contexts.” Imagine references as diverse as Vonnegut and Voltaire. 11 a.m.

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If Covid destroyed your dreams of a trip to Paris, consider a trip to the High Museum of Art, where the photo exhibit André Kertész: Postcards from Paris opens on Friday. In 1925, the Hungarian-born Kertész arrived in Paris with little more than a camera and meager savings. Postcards from Paris is the first exhibition to bring together Kertész’s rare carte postale prints. These now-iconic works offer new insight into his early, experimental years and reveal the importance of Paris as a vibrant meeting ground for international artists. Masks required for all visitors over the age of two.

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DANCE

Core Dance continues its ingenious REEL Art project with a film by Jennifer Scully-Thurston. It will premiere on Friday and continue through March 27. REEL Art is a series of video installations that appear nightly on the company’s front studio windows in Decatur Square. Scully-Thurston describes her film, a quiet con•triv•ance, as “. . . a dance depiction of what the female identified condition is like from the inside. From young to wise, abled to differently abled, without offspring into empty nest.” The opening reception honors both Scully-Thurston and Adam Larsen, whose work was featured in January and early February. Friday 7 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. Pre-registration is highly encouraged. Limited seating will be available to ensure adequate social distancing on the Decatur Square steps. On February 23, Scully-Thurston will give an artist’s talk. Masks required.

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MUSIC

Jazz legend Branford Marsalis brings his quartet to the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts Friday at 8 p.m. Marsalis is perhaps the most renowned saxophonist of his generation and led The Tonight Show with Jay Leno  band from 1992 to 1995. He has performed with everyone from Sting to the Grateful Dead to the New York Philharmonic. Either a Covid vaccination or a negative test taken with 72 hours of the concert by medical personnel is required. Tickets are $80.

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The Pacific Mambo Orchestra, a 20-piece big band that features Georgia-born trombonist Jamie Dubberly, performs Saturday at the Rialto Center for the Arts. The San Francisco-based group received a Grammy in 2014 for Best Latin Tropical Album, and their latest release, The Ill Side, explores the band’s roots in salsa, bolero and timba genres. Tickets start at $39. Masks are encouraged, but not required.

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Southern music icon Randall Bramblett performs Friday at 8 p.m. with the Megablasters horn section at the Red Clay Music Foundry in Duluth. Bramblett has performed as a sideman with Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood, Bonnie Raitt, The Allman Brothers Band and Widespread Panic. But he is also an acclaimed and insightful songwriter and performer who has released 11 albums. Tickets start at $20. The Foundry encourages, but doesn’t require, audience members to be vaccinated and masked.

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FILM+TV 

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Georgia’s largest film festival and the largest Jewish-themed festival in the world, is underway for 2022. Late in the recent Omicron surge, the festival made the decision to go fully virtual for the second straight year. While anyone who’s experienced the festival will miss the communal moviegoing experience, a plus is the enhanced virtual platform that allows viewers to watch any film in the lineup at any time during the fest’s run rather than be constrained by viewing windows. “As we jokingly like to say, you can now watch the Opening Night film selection on Closing Night, and vice-versa,” festival executive director Kenny Blank told ArtsATL. Through February 27. Read reviews of 11 of the films HERE.

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The 2022 SCAD TV Fest, celebrating all things television and streaming, also is taking place virtually through Saturday. Cast members from a wide array of shows (including Judy Greer, Dulé Hill, Saycon Sengbloh, Christina Ricci, Ed Helms and Randall Park), show runners and other contributors from a variety of popular and new programs will be participating. More than 20 shows will be represented, including As We See It (Prime Video), Ghosts (CBS), Grey’s Anatomy (ABC), Hacks (HBO Max), Station 19 (ABC), The Cleaning Lady (FOX/Warner Bros. TV), This Is Us (NBC) and The Wonder Years (ABC). Panel topics include Sketch to Screen: Costume Design for Television and Finding Your Perfect Pitch. Full lineup here.

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THEATER

Pushed back from early January due to Covid-19, Vanity Fair opens Thursday at Roswell Cultural Arts Center. Georgia Ensemble Theatre’s production features two women — one born into privilege, another from the streets — who attempt to navigate a society that punishes them for every misstep. Playwright Kate Hamill (Sense and Sensibility) said when she read the book by William Makepeace Thackeray, she was struck by the book’s judgment of its female characters. “I thought, wouldn’t this be an interesting story to explore how we judge people while we ourselves often engaging in questionable conduct? Especially how we judge women, how we want to break them down into a sort of madonna-whore complex.” Through March 6. Proof of vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours and masks required.

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New play development is becoming a big thing for Atlanta theaters. Two companies have plays-in-progress in coming days, with audiences encouraged to provide feedback to the playwrights.

Theatrical Outfit, in partnership with Working Title Playwrights, will present four digital readings on four consecutive nights at 7 p.m., February 20 through 23, during the Graham Martin Unexpected Play Festival 2022. First up is A Most American Town by Lee Osorio. Set in Osorio’s hometown of Lumpkin, Georgia, this ghost story explores the plight of the residents of the ICE detention center, and one activist’s journey to make peace with the town’s past. It’s followed by The Bullet by Keena Redding (February 21); Sharon Mathis’ Web (February 22); and John Mabey’s A Complicated Hope (February 23). Free, but reservations encouraged.

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Meanwhile, True Colors Theatre Company will present readings of three plays inspired by A Raisin in the Sun. First up is Younger, Friday through Sunday, written by Atlanta playwright and ArtsATL Editor-at-Large Kelundra Smith. It chronicles the journey of Lena Younger, the family matriarch of Raisin, from Jackson, Mississippi, to Chicago during the Great Migration. Continuing into mid-March the readings, being billed as “Reality of Realty,” will be at Southwest Arts Center. Masks required plus proof of vaccination (for ages 12 and older) or a negative test within 72 hours.