So long, soggy summer. Fall is nearly here, and with it a stellar lineup of arts events jockeying for position on the social calendar. If you have to pick only a dozen events to attend this fall, here are 12 we highly recommend. Offerings range from public art street parties and a music festival to theatrical premieres and art shows. If you can’t find something to do on this list, you just aren’t trying.
1. Art on the Atlanta Beltline. A procession of illuminated top hats, parasols, orbs and ghosts ushers in the fourth annual public art showcase when the Atlanta Beltline Lantern Parade kicks off Sept. 7. Festivities begin at 7:30 p.m. with tailgating at the intersection of Krog and Irwin streets in the Old Fourth Ward, and the parade begins at 8:30 p.m., ending at Piedmont Park. Over the next five weeks, more than 70 artists and arts groups will perform and exhibit artworks at various locations along the Beltline corridor. Art installations include Allen Peterson's 8-foot-tall Phoenix sculpture made from railroad artifacts and David Lewis Bean's musical bike rack composed of tubular bells. Performers include Crossover Movement Arts and Thimblerig Circus. Sept. 7-Oct. 13. Free. For schedules and maps, go to www.art.beltline.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
2. "Choir Boy." The Alliance Theatre has become a hothouse for cultivating up-and-coming playwrights since it launched the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition 10 years ago. To honor that milestone, the theater joins the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York to co-produce this American premiere by Tarell Alvin McCraney, winner of the 2008 Kendeda competition. Having already played New York, where its run was extended twice, the play is a coming-of-age story about a boy who finds refuge from the bullies at his elite school for African-Americans in the gospel choir. Previews Sept. 20-24. Opening night Sept. 25. Runs through Oct. 13. $25-$45. Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, www.alliancetheatre.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
3. Music Midtown. The spirit of Lollapalooza permeates our homegrown music festival this year. Many of the same acts who played that festival in Chicago in early August appear this fall at Music Midtown, including Phoenix, Queens of the Stone Age, Tegan and Sara and the Mowgli's. But we get the added bonus of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who headlined the first two Lollapaloozas, respectively, starting in 1991. The lineup is heavy on rock, but hip-hop gets a nod with 2 Chainz, who hails from College Park. Also representing the local music scene are the Black Lips and Drivin N Cryin. Sept. 20-21. Gates open at 4 p.m. Friday, noon Saturday. Piedmont Park. $50 Friday, $85 Saturday, $110 two-day pass, VIP options available. 1-800-745-3000, www.musicmidtown.com. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
4. Jazz Roots. Jazz impresario Larry Rosen's touring concert series is built around name-recognition talent booked into multi-act and themed shows. It launched last season at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, where it will grow from three to five shows for 2013-14. The lineup: Sept. 25, "Tribute Ella, Joe, Basie" (featuring Janis Siegel, Kevin Mahogany, Count Basie Orchestra); Oct. 26, "A Night in Rio" (Sergio Mendes, Eliane Elias); Dec. 2, "Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour" (Koz, Oleta Adams, Keiko Matsui and Jonathan Butler); Jan. 30, 2014, "New Orleans" (Aaron Neville, Dirty Dozen Bass Band); Feb. 26, 2014, "Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating Ray Charles" (Take 6, Kirk Whalum, Nnenna Freelon, Clint Holmes, Shelly Berg, Clark Atlanta University Orchestra). Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta, $29-$99. www.cobbenergycentre.com, www.ticketmaster.com. HOWARD POUSNER
5. "The Navigator." Based on the steampunk fantasy novel by Northern Irish writer Eoin McNamee, this tale about a boy named Owen who battles insectlike aircraft and giant grotesques to save the world is given an interactive theatrical treatment by 7 Stages at the Goat Farm Arts Center. Audience members follow the action across the grounds of the 19th-century munitions factory, where they stand in for soldiers or friends of the cast and encounter roving set pieces, towering puppets, video projections and more. Associate Artistic Director Michael Haverty adapted the script and directs the ambitious production that re-creates air and sea battles, time tornadoes and a race to the center of the Earth. Sept. 26-Oct. 13. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $6.48-$11.11. Presented by 7 Stages at the Goat Farm Arts Center, 1200 Foster St., Atlanta. 404-523-7647, www.7stages.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
6. Atlanta Celebrates Photography. Now in its 15th year, ACP partners with artists and organizations throughout the metro area to spotlight photography exhibits, lectures and events during October. Highlights this year include National Geographic photographer Alison Wright, who gives an artist talk at 6 p.m. Oct. 3 at Pace Academy Arts Center, where her exhibition, "Face to Face: Portraits of the Human Spirit," is on view Oct. 1-31. "Everybody Street," a documentary about New York street photographers, including Mary Ellen Mark and Bruce Davidson, screens 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Plaza Theatre. Deborah Willis, a leading historian of African American photography, lectures 7 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Spelman College on "Posing Beauty in African American Culture," a touring exhibition she curated. It's on view at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art through Dec. 7. For details, go to www.acpinfo.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
7. Flux Night 2013. Like Alice down a rabbit hole, nighttime visitors to Castleberry Hill on Oct. 5 will enter a wonderland of mind-boggling outdoor performance art installations incorporating visual arts, dance, film, music, sound and light. Now in its fourth year, Flux Night has its first curator — Helena Reckitt, former director of exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center of Atlanta and curator of Toronto's 2012 Nuit Blanche, the inspiration for Flux Night. This year's theme, "Free Association," will be explored through 20 installations, six curated by Reckitt featuring London-based conceptual artists Heather Phillipson, Oswaldo Macia and Pablo Bronstein, among others. Participating local artists include Michi Meko, Fahamu Pecou, Core Performance Company and Micah and Whitney Stansell. 7 p.m.-midnight Oct. 5. Castleberry Hill. Free. www.fluxprojects.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
8. Art Party and the reopening of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. Back before Flux Night and Art on the Atlanta Beltline and other interactive public art street parties, there was Art Party, a highly anticipated, see-and-be-seen, art-centric bacchanal hosted every year by the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. After a decadelong hiatus, Art Party is back to kick off the reopening of ACAC, which closed in mid-June for renovations. The space reopens with a new lecture hall that can accommodate 100-plus people, as well as new lighting, heating and cooling systems and refurbished restrooms and lobby. Opening exhibitions include an installation by Fallen Fruit, an L.A.-based art collective that "uses fruit as a filter" to examine communities and issues, such as race, labor and urban planning, said curator and artistic director Stuart Horodner. Also featured is Atlanta artist Steven L. Anderson, whose "Energy Strategies" uses textiles, drawings, video and sound to create a meditative environment. Art Party, 7 p.m.-midnight Oct. 19, $50 advance, $60 door, $25 members. Exhibitions run through Dec. 14. Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means St., Atlanta. 404-688-1970, www.thecontemporary.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
9. Book Festival of the MJCCA. Atlanta's other big book festival occurs in November when the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta hosts two weeks of author appearances including Pat Conroy, who's promoting his new memoir, "The Death of Santini." Also on tap are Chris Matthews, Lily Koppel, Scott Turow, Jeffrey Toobin and Alan Dershowitz. Nov. 2-17. Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 678-812-4005, www.atlantajcc.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
10. "Go West: Art of the American Frontier From the Buffalo Bill Center of the West." When it starts getting cold way out West in Cody, Wyo., residents hunker down and visitors stop visiting. Which is why the Buffalo Bill Center there is comfortable sending such a large chunk of its permanent collection to the High Museum of Art for this exhibition opening Nov. 3. Focusing on Western art-making between 1830 and 1930, its 300 pieces will include paintings and sculptures by Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, as well as posters, photographs and paintings created for Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West show. A complementary contemporary art exhibit also from the Buffalo Bill Center, "Today's West," opens Oct. 24 at Cartersville's Booth Western Museum. High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. $19.50; $16.50, students and seniors; $12, ages 6-17; free, 5 and younger. www.high.org. HOWARD POUSNER
11. "James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, a Celebration in Dance." The Godfather of Soul was also the Godfather of Dance. That's the thrust — so to speak — of this move-bustin', funk-filled, Apollo Theater-produced touring show that is a highlight of the Rialto Center for the Arts' season (which launches with Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club on Oct. 5). Conceived by choreographer Otis Sallid, "Get on the Good Foot" features Philadanco (the Philadelphia Dance Company) and guest artists performing Brown-inspired new works by six choreographers from four continents. 8 p.m. Nov. 9. Rialto Center for the Arts, 80 Forsyth St., Atlanta. $39.72-$65.64. www.rialtocenter.org. HOWARD POUSNER
12. ASO's Stars Shine on Shaw. The late Robert Shaw, who was artistic director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for 21 years until 1988, is credited with laying much of the foundation for the creative success the orchestra enjoys today. Among his many achievements, he established the ASO Chorus and Chamber Chorus, took the orchestra on its first European tour, and led the orchestra to win 18 Grammies. Along the way, he picked up a Kennedy Center Honor and was made an honorary "Officier des Arts et des Lettres" by the French government. On Nov. 10, a recital celebrating Shaw's legacy will feature vocalists Christine Brewer, Marietta Simpson and Sylvia McNair, along with musical director Robert Spano and cellist Lynn Harrell. Proceeds benefit the making of "Robert Shaw: Man of Many Voices," a documentary co-produced by Georgia Public Broadcasting. 3 p.m. Nov. 10. $50-$75. Symphony Hall, 1280 Peachtree St., Atlanta. 404-733-4900, www.atlantasymphony.org. SUZANNE VAN ATTEN
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