Francis Marion

Life is about making connections, and when my daughter told me she wanted me to interview her Band Director Brent Bristow at Arkansas State University Beebe because he started a band named EMERALD CITY COUNCIL and released a new album entitled MOTION CARRIES, I was intrigued.

Becca Carter Freeman is set to hold a staged reading of her new original play, 'The Living Orchid' at The Tank on March 3rd and 4th at 7 pm.

DANIELLE HOWLE releases 'Current' (Kill Rock Stars Nashville) - Out Now! Southern poet/songwriter Danielle Howle releases her latest album 'Current' on Kill Rock Stars Nashville. Over the years, she's been compared to Patsy Cline, Nina Simone, and author Flannery O'Connor.

Other nominees include Halftime, Love, Lizzo, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, and Sheryl. The MTV Movie and TV Awards will be hosted by Drew Barrymore and airing live on Sunday, May 7 at 8 PM ET/PT from the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica, California. America Pie was released in 1971 and spent four weeks at No. 1 in 1972.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) has announced the selection of the nationally recognized firms Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, based in Charlotte, and Steinberg Hart, based in Los Angeles, as the design team that will lead Phase One of a multiphase, comprehensive renovation of the historic Stevens Center in downtown Winston-Salem.

As tickets to America’s premier performing arts festival go on sale to the public today at 10:00am EST, Spoleto Festival USA is revealing the final major piece of its 2022 season. With 14 performances spanning the length of the Festival, The Approach receives its US premiere in the historic Dock Street Theatre in downtown Charleston.

In addition to newly announced shows, the band has announced three very special NoCap livestreams. The streams will air on Mondays, starting June 14, and will go through June 28. 

Step Afrika!, the world's first professional dance company dedicated to the art of stepping, continues its 25th season with a newly commissioned work, international and national touring and performances throughout their hometown of Washington, D.C. 

Greenville Chautauqua celebrates its 20th Anniversary History Alive Festival. Get ready to discover that we are stronger than we think - that courage can be learned - and that we can get braver. These are times that try men's souls. And turbulent times forge muscles of grit. Five historic leaders, who in times of great adversity learned to become courageous, are coming to the Chautauqua History Alive Festival. And they want to talk with us.  And all the shows are FREE! (Nominal charge for shows in Asheville, NC)

The Penis Monologues 'The Long Hard Truth'- After rave reviews and six sold out shows; by popular demand, The Penis Monologues 'The Long Hard Truth' written and directed by Karen Roberson, is back for two encore performance May 19th and 20th, 2018.

The year is 1986 and fall is declining into winter in a small Midwest city where ten-year-old Tina Brackett languishes in a coma caused by tainted fast food chicken produced by the Happy Farms Co. Raymond Locke, operative for the high-flying public relations firm that represents Happy Farms, is damage control central. But tragedy begets opportunity, and everyone is angling for a game-changing piece of the action surrounding Tina's impending death. Among the players in this Darwinian battle for survival are the District Attorney looking at a possible murder charge, a reporter working on the story of his career, a high-minded crusader against corporate greed and malfeasance, and Tina's enigmatic single parent, Ken Brackett. Pitted against these sordid foes, Raymond Locke is trying to save his job and his marriage, crumbling beneath the weight of caring for an autistic son. A noir journey into the heartland of America and the American psyche, Words to Die For evokes a shadowy, Mad Men-like world were the truth is less important than the spin.

FORK RETCH, S.C. -

The highly anticipated novel, 'Butterflies Wake' by Arlene Lagos is coming back to Charleston where it all first began. The short-film-turned-novel is about an underground female Mafia who rights the wrongs of an unjust society. The story was inspired by friends who appear not only in the short film, but also on the front cover of the book. The cover was photographed by Daniel Island native Jan Marvin at the Francis Marion Hotel downtown. Marvin also designed the cover of the book. All ten women live in the Charleston, North Charleston, West Ashley, James Island, Daniel Island and Mount Pleasant areas and were in the making of the short film that debuted in 2011 at Film Meets Fashion. Lagos will be back in Charleston for the release party and book signing which will be held on Friday, August 15th at Triangle Char Bar on 828 Savannah Hwy in West Ashley from 7pm-10pm. Lagos has written poetry, stage plays, screenplays and short stories for over 20 years. In addition to writing Butterflies Wake, she's also written the Beyond Earth Series as well as twelve short stories that are published in the Giant Tales anthology.

Three-time South Carolina Fiction Project winner Phillip Gardner explores love, loss, and reconciliation in his third short story anthology. Available today from all major distributors, including Amazon's MatchBook program, 'Available Light' is a tragi-comic exploration of relationships between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents and children, and brothers and sisters. The richly drawn, often eccentric characters often struggle to express their love, but all are eventually able to follow a path illuminated by whatever light is available to them.

Touring season is here again, and Neil Berg has some shows coming up.

Trustus Theatre is opening the world premiere of The Sweet Abyss, a new play by South Carolina playwright Jon Tuttle, on Friday August 14th at 8:00pm. This new show was commissioned by the Trustus Playwrights' Festival in 2008, and is now finding its' first home on the Trustus Main Stage.

DISCOVERY SUNDAY at LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE have announced Females in Focus: An Exploration of Women in the Early Years of Film on Sunday, October 12, 2008.