AMERICUS — Editor’s Note: Every Thursday a list of local and area upcoming entertainment and cultural events will be published on the Steppin’ Out page in the Times-Recorder. To submit information for this listing, please send to Steppin’ Out, c/o Americus Times-Recorder, P.O. Box 1247, Americus GA 31709, or fax to 928-6344 or e-mail to beth.alston@gaflnews.com



Americus

Exits and Entrances, the award winning drama by South African playwright, Athol Fugard, and directed for Sumter Players by South African native, Irmgard Schopen-Davis, will be performed at 7:30 p.m. March 1 at the GSW Fine Arts Theatre. The performance will be a tuneup for the Players trip to Louisville, Ky., to compete in the Southeastern Theatre Conference as the Georgia community theatre representative and will be the last chance for local supporters to see the play performed in accordance with the competition rules.

No admission will be charged, but donations are encouraged to help defray the cost of travel to Louisville the following week. Attendees also will bid in a silent auction for articles offered by donors to the theater group. Tickets to the Players' production of Hairspray at the Rylander will be available as well as subscriptions to the remainder of the 2012-2013 season. Credit/debit cards may be used for all donations and purchases.

 

Chamber Concert Series

Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) has announced its 2012-2013 Chamber Concert Series: April 8 – Sima Trio. All performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. in GSW’s Jackson Performance Hall, unless otherwise noted. Tickets available and can be purchased at the door. For information or tickets, call 931-2204.



Montezuma

Museum Hours

The Macon County Historical Museum is open from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and by appointment. Call the Montezuma Downtown Development Authority at 478-472-4777 for more information.



Atlanta

The High Museum of Art

1280 Peachtree St. N.E.

Ongoing

Although many people became familiar with the Reverend Howard Finster through his 40,000 late-20th century paintings, the centerpiece of his work was Paradise Garden. This outdoor museum was built to celebrate all the inventions of mankind, but dedicated to the glory of God. His oeuvre is best considered as an installation and performance piece, of which the paintings are the extant artifacts.

In the early 1960s, Finster bought a parcel of swampy land, which he cleared and drained by hand. For the enjoyment of visitors, he planted edible and ornamental plants and began to construct concrete walkways, walls, and miniature mountains encrusted with thousands of found objects–everything from glass marbles to a jar containing a neighbor's tonsils.

Beside the walkways, he modeled figurative concrete sculptures; over the years, he built many structures, including a tall tower of bicycle parts and a chapel, the World's Folk Art Church. Through the 1980s, Paradise Garden flourished, bringing visitors from around the world to Pennville, Georgia, and international fame to its creator, who would preach to visitors and perform his own songs, accompanying himself on his banjo.

Today the High Museum owns the largest public collection of objects from Paradise Garden, many of which remain on permanent display in the Folk Art galleries. Among them are sidewalk slabs; concrete sculptures, including The Calf and the Young Lion and The Weaned Child on the Cockatrice's Den; Finster's Gospel Bike; and many signs and paintings that once adorned the garden.

• Civil Rights Photography, 1956-1968

Ongoing

 The High Museum of Art holds one of the most significant collections of photographs of the civil rights movement. The works on display are a small selection of the collection, which numbers more than 250 photographs that document the social protest movement, from Rosa Parks’s arrest to the Freedom Rides to the march on Washington, D.C. The city of Atlanta—the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—was a hub of civil rights activism and figures prominently in the collection. Visionary leaders such as Dr. King, Congressman John Lewis, and former mayor Ambassador Andrew Young are featured alongside countless unsung heroes.

The photographs in this collection capture the courage and perseverance of individuals who challenged the status quo, armed only with the philosophy of nonviolence and the strength of their convictions. The images were made by committed artists, activists, and journalists, who risked injury, arrest, and even death to document this critical moment of growth in our nation. The tenacity of these dedicated and gifted people — on both sides of the camera — continues to inspire social justice advocates today.

Civil Rights Photography 1956-1968 is an ongoing installation, and the photographs will be rotated every six months.

• Nellie Mae Rowe: At Night Things Come to Me

Ongoing

At Night Things Come to Me has been installed in the Nellie Mae Rowe Room. Rowe often portrayed beings that seem to come from another plane of existence. Some take the form of hybrid creatures, combining features of different animals. Rowe simply called them "varmints" or said they were "something that ain't been born yet." Others, which take humanoid shape, she identified as "haints" or spirits.

In one vivid drawing, whose title gives this exhibition its name, she portrayed herself lying in bed being visited by otherworldly creatures of her imagination. You can visit them, too, in At Night Things Come to Me.

• Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial

Through March 3

Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, this exhibition highlights Thornton Dial's significant contribution to the field of American art and shows how his work speaks to the most pressing issues of our time – including the war in Iraq, 9/11, and social issues like racism and homelessness. The exhibition presents 59 of Dial's large-scale paintings, drawings and found-object sculptures, including 25 works on view for the first time. Spanning twenty years of his work as an artist, it is the most extensive showing of his art ever mounted.

Thornton Dial was born in rural Alabama in 1928 and spent most of his adult life laboring in the region's heavy industry, including work as a welder for the railway car-maker Pullman Standard Company. Throughout his life, Dial also made "things," and gradually became adept in the media of painting, drawing, sculpture and watercolor. Dial first gained recognition as a major artist in the late 1980s, with the growing interest in so-called "folk" or "outsider" art. Despite being self-taught and choosing to remain outside of the formalized art world, his work has continued to earn critical praise for its deft fusion of painting and sculpture, its emotional power, its wide-reaching social commentary, and its unique expression of a contemporary vision of the African American experience in the South. Dial's works are included in the collections of a number of major museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the IMA, and the Milwaukee Museum of Art.



Night Life:

Americus

American Legion Post 558

Ga. Highway 30 West

Open 6-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday

7 p.m. Tuesday is Bingo Night

Wednesday is Games Night

Open 6 p.m.-2:30 a.m. weekends

Friday is Grown Folks Night Out, featuring dance party, karaoke, music video and disco lights show from 9 p.m.-2:30 a.m. Presented by Monster Screen Projections

Saturday is Oldies Goldies Night

Sunday is Members/Guests Night



Astro’s “The Dance Clubb”

153 Sunset Park Road

Entertainment for 21 and over

11 p.m.-until

Thursday: College and Ladies Night

Friday: Midnight Special

Saturday: Dress to Impress Live

I.D. required

Valid college student ID exempt



Floyd's Pub at BEST WESTERN PLUS Windsor Hotel

125 W. Lamar St.

Ladies Night: Tuesdays beginning at 5 p.m. Ladies only enjoy specials on

drinks.

Live Music:

Fridays beginning at 10 p.m. No cover, must be 21 and older with valid ID.

For more information, call 924-1555. Look for us on Facebook!



G.W.F. Phillips Lodge

The Lodge is open every Friday night with oldies from the ‘70s and ‘80s with Master TJ and Bronco Bill at the Elks Lodge. No teens allowed.



Pat’s Place

1526 S. Lee St. 924-0033

11 a.m.-11 p.m. Monday-Saturday

• Wednesdays, fresh oysters and shrimp through April



Quality Inn Lounge (Hillside Cafe)

1205 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Vickie Craig, deejays every Friday and Saturday nights with karaoke from 9 p.m.-midnight and dance music until 2 a.m. Low drink prices and specials



Cypress Grill at Lake Blackshear Resort and Golf Club

2459-H U.S. Highway 280 East

www.cypress-grill.com

South Georgia’s entertainment capital, combining the best in live music, unique casual dining and lakeside relaxation with the atmosphere of an upscale resort. Set in a natural environment on the shores of Lake Blackshear, the Cypress Grill is the perfect backdrop for outdoor dining on the patio, cocktails with friends or dancing the night away.