Theatrical Outfit’s 2013-14 season speaks volumes about change

Theatrical Outfit, the downtown Atlanta theater with a literary bent, has announced a 2013-14 season rich in stories about personal transformation.

“The characters of these plays face adverse, even life-threatening, external circumstances out of their control,” Outfit executive artistic director Tom Key said in making the announcement. “What makes compelling theater is watching how they change the only thing they can — their very selves.”

The lineup:

• Sept. 11-Oct. 6: "The Guys" by Anne Nelson. Opening on 9 /11, and featuring Jasmine Guy and Brian Kurlander, this drama is set in motion when editor Joan receives an unexpected phone call from fire captain Nick. He asks her help in composing eulogies he must deliver at memorial services for the men he lost on 9/11, and the two find a common bond as they navigate through grief, sometimes with humor.

• Oct. 23-Nov. 10: "Harabel." A one-woman narrative, by and starring Jonida Beqo (known on the slam poetry scene as Gypsee Yo), that blends theater, dance and poetry to relate her life-affirming journey from Albanian refugee to American artist.

• Nov. 27-Dec. 22: "Gifts of the Magi" by Mark St. Germain. The holiday musical based on two O. Henry short stories returns. (Offered outside the subscription package.)

• Jan. 29-Feb. 23, 2014: "The Best of Enemies" by Mark St. Germain. Inspired by Osha Gray Davidson's non-fiction book of the same name, St. Germain's new drama tells a story of transitions about Ann, a civil rights activist, and C.P., a KKK leader.

• April 2-27, 2014: "Dividing the Estate" by Horton Foote. Having starred in Foote's 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner "The Young Man from Atlanta" in 2011, Tom Key directs the author's Tony-nominated comic tale of family dysfunction about the Gordons of Harrison, Texas.

Subscriptions are on sale now, with single tickets available July 1, via 1-877-725-8849, www.theatricaloutfit.org.

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Highlights of North Carolina festival

The Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival, two hours away in western North Carolina (just over the Georgia line from Mountain City and Dillard), has lured Atlantans and others with top-flight musicians playing in intimate concert settings, gorgeous vistas and other mountain getaway assets for more than three decades.

Organized by William Ransom of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, the 32nd edition will run from June 28 through Aug. 11

Highlights of the 27-concert series include:

• Cleveland Orchestra (and former Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) concertmaster William Preucil, his violinist-daughter Alexandra (appointed Cleveland Orchestra's assistant concertmaster in April) and others performing a program of Mozart, Brahms and Mendelssohn on June 28-29.

• A program of flute works titled "The Magic Flute" featuring the Atlanta-based Vega String Quartet plus German flutist Anthony Reiss and Belgian clarinetist Roeland Hendrikx, both making their festival debuts, on July 19-20.

• The Parker Quartet, which won the 2011 Grammy for best chamber music performance, appearing at the fest for the first time, playing four concerts Aug. 2-5.

• The Final Gala Concert with the Festival Chamber Orchestra in its first-ever performance of Bach's Concerto for Oboe and Violin on Aug. 11. Eugene Izotov, Chicago Symphony principal oboist, and Atlanta Symphony concertmaster David Coucheron are among featured instrumentalists. The concert will be followed by a gourmet dinner at Wildcat Cliffs Country Club.

Information: 1-828-526-9060, www.h-cmusicfestival.org.

MUSEUM

Bonanza of Western entertainment

Cartesville’s Booth Western Art Museum has announced the schedule of its Summer Entertainment Series:

• June 20: "An Evening with Cathy Smith: Artist, Costume Designer, and Historian." Smith's film and TV credits include costumes for "Dances With Wolves," "Geronimo" and "Son of the Morning Star" (for which she shared a costuming Emmy in 1991). A consultant on many Western-set films over the last two decades, Smith grew up near two Sioux reservations and tells stories from the real-life and dramatized West.

• July 18: "Bullets and Ballads," a program about Western movies and Hollywood cowboys featuring Booth historian (and master of gun tricks) Jim Dunham and cowboy balladeer Jim Dorsett.

Both events $25 for Booth members,$30 for “not-yet-members” (includes food, drinks and cash bars).

• Aug. 3: 10th Anniversary Western Swing Dance with music by Swing South and a review of the museum's first decade. $60 members, $75 guests (includes hors d'oeuvres, two drink tickets, and a souvenir 10th anniversary Booth belt buckle).

The programs are at 7 p.m. in the Booth Ballroom Tickets: 770-387-1300. More information: www.boothmuseum.org.

ARTS

Working Artist opportunity

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia is putting out a call for its 2013-14 Working Artist Project. Guest juror Franklin Sirmans, contemporary art curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will select three metro Atlanta visual artists who will win support including a stipend of $12,000 to create work over a year’s time, an exhibition (plus a catalog) and a studio assistant.

The deadline to apply is 11:30 p.m. June 30. The application form is available via MOCA GA's website: www.mocaga.org /workingartistproject.asp.

Funding for the sixth year of the Working Artist Project is being provided through a $100,000 grant from the Charles Loridans Foundation, MOCA GA recently announced.