What to see, do and hear: new musicals, the (other) Carters, Afro-Cuban art, more

THEATER

The Essential Theatre Festival is currently at 7 Stages Theatre until September 3. This weekend, the world premiere of Matthew Hoffman’s The Manuscript — winner of the 2023 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award —  is on stage at 8 p.m. Saturday night and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Read ArtsATL editor-at-large Jim Farmer’s interview with founder Peter Hardy to find out how playwriting became Essential Theatre’s “north star.” Tickets start at $25. 

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SheATL, a division of SheNYC Arts, is staging its fourth annual play festival this weekend at Theatrical Outfit. Three different plays written by women will take the stage Thursday through Monday: A Shy Redemption, by K. Parker; Chicana Legend, by Alexis Elisa Macedo; and Rathskeller: A Musical Elixir, by Brianna Kothari Barnes. Read new ArtsATL writer Jaclyn Turner’s preview of the festival to find out how these three playwrights created new worlds within their works. Tickets start at $25. 

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Beautiful: The Carole King Musical opens this weekend at Aurora Theatre and stars Bethany Irby, an Atlanta actor who also plays the piano. In a Q&A feature earlier this week, ArtsATL writer Sally Henry Fuller spoke to Irby as well as to Director David Rossetti about this special role and the original vision Aurora had for bringing it to stage. Tickets start at $21. 

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MUSIC

Steve Earle began his career as an acclaimed but trouble-prone singer-songwriter who battled drug and alcohol addiction. Now sober (He convincingly portrayed an AA sponsor in the HBO series The Wire.), Earle has become an elder statesman of the Americana music scene and one of the best living American songwriters. He is rooted in the Texas storytelling traditions of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, and Earle’s latest album, Jerry Jeff, is a tribute to Jerry Jeff Walker. Earle performs Monday at 8 p.m. at City Winery. The show is sold out, but you can sign up for a waiting list for last-minute tickets.

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Danny Dudeck, better known as “Mudcat,” returns to the venerable blues club Blind Willie’s Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Dudeck is a master of the acoustic blues, with an encyclopedic knowledge of old and often obscure songs and the musicians who wrote and sang them. He also helped bring notice to forgotten blues artists such as Frank Edwards (a fixture a Blind Willie’s for years), Cootie Stark and Beverly “Guitar” Watkins. Be sure to check out our in-depth story on Mudcat from earlier this year. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

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ART+DESIGN

Parable of a Late Bloomer; An Exhibition of New Work by Chinemerem Omeh opens at Mason Fine Art on Thursday, August 17. Omeh is a Nigerian artist now based in Atlanta who found his voice as a young child through painting and drawing. Opening reception 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Artist talk scheduled for September 9 at 1:30 p.m.

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Aaron Artrip’s solo exhibit Dark Water/Bright Fire can be seen at the South River Art Studios in East Atlanta. Artrip’s first love is music, so it’s no surprise that he looked for a unique way to express sound. The prints on display in this exhibit were generated by a synthesizer, then put through a photographic printmaking process to create two-dimensional images.

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The Artists Talking: Conversations in Paper and Paint group show continues at the Marcia Wood Gallery through September 16. Conventional thinking is that artists work on paper to develop their ideas before creating the final work on canvas or panel. This show aims to challenge that idea. The work of 12 artists, including Frances Barth, Deborah Dancy, Scott Eakin, Timothy McDowell and Joe Peragrine, will illustrate both techniques. The gallery says the conversations “range from quiet dialogues to raucous back-and-forths.”

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Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative will open at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art on Friday. This touring exhibition is the culmination of Rosales’ work exploring the lives of the Yorubá deities and the related creation story. Her Afro-Cuban ancestry informs her vibrant paintings, which are also steeped in Greek mythology and Christianity; she uses techniques and images from the Renaissance. One of her works is a feminist take on Michelangelo’s famous fresco The Creation of Adam that challenges Eurocentric notions of beauty. Through December 2. Suggested donation $3.

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BOOKS

Historian E. Stanly Godbold Jr. will discuss his new book on Georgia’s most endearing presidential couple, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, as part of the Atlanta History Center’s Author Talk series Wednesday at 7 p.m. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: Power And Human Rights, 1975-2020 delves into their marital partnership, where Rosalynn served as an advisor to her husband when he was in the White House, even sitting in on Cabinet meetings. Tickets for nonmembers start at $10.