Weekly Entertainment Guide – Don Carlo, Kinky Boots & Spring Festivals!

Looking for something to do this week? Robin Bloom shares her picks.

What’s Happening

Philadelphia Science Festival

The Philadelphia Science Festival kicks off Friday, April 24 with nine days of family friendly fun. The community-wide celebration of science and technology features more than 100 events all across the region with more than 200 partners. Highlights include Astronomy Night, Friday, April 24 at over two dozen different locations. Discovery Day is Saturday, April 25 at 5 different locations. Enjoy Explorer Sunday, April 26 along with many more events including the Science Carnival on the Parkway on Saturday, May 2. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Science Festival. #GetNerdyPHL

International Orchid Show and Sale

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University hosts the Southeastern Pennsylvania Orchid Society International Orchid Show and Sale, Friday through Sunday, April 24-26. Celebrate the arrival of spring with exhibits of exotic and common varieties of orchids and shop vendors from Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brazil, Ecuador, and the United States. Free lectures and guided tours of the show and the Academy’s world-renowned botanical collection are also offered, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia. Photo by ANS/Mike Servedio.

Center City Jazz Festival

Celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month at the 4th annual Center City Jazz Festival, Saturday, April 25, 1pm-7pm, showcasing Philly’s jazz scene with a “festival crawl” offering 19 bands at 5 venues all within walking distance. Artists include Ben Schachter & Re:Trio (pictured), The Huntertones, Surface to Air, Matt Davis’ Aerial Photograph, West Philadelphia Orchestra, and many more at Chris’ Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom Street, Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Milkboy Philadelphia, 1100 Chestnut Street, Franky Bradley’s, 1320 Chancellor Street, and TIME, 1314 Sansom Street. All access ticket $15 in advance and $20 same day. Photo courtesy of Ben Schachter & Re:Trio.

Music & Food Festivals

Wyebrook Music Festival is back for a second year at the Wyebrook Farm, Saturday, April 25. Doors open at 10am with seven live bands and nine hours of music including Marah, Frog Holler, Mason Porter, Birdie Busch, The Youngers, Manatawny Creek Ramblers, and Chris Rattie. BYOB and bring lawn chairs or blankets and explore the grounds, 150 Wyebrook Road, Honey Brook, PA. On-site parking available and dogs welcome! Photo courtesy of Wyebrook Music Festival. #SassySays

17th Annual Manayunk BBQ, Bourbon, and Blues Craft Beer Fest is Saturday, April 25, 1pm-5pm, offering tastings of more than 60 craft beers, with live blues music at the Manayunk Brewery & Restaurant, 4120 Main Street, Philadelphia.

The 8th annual Lehigh Avenue Arts Festival, also known as the Portside Community Arts Festival, is Saturday, April 25, 12pm-5pm, rain or shine with live music, food, crafts, children’s activities, and the inflatable sculpture contest at a new location, Penn Treaty Park, 1341 North Delaware Avenue, Philadelphia. Rain date: Sunday, April 26, 12pm-5pm.

For the Love of Words

Poetry Ink & Philadelphia Art Book Fair

Philadelphia Art Book Fair takes place Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25, featuring new releases from photo and art book publishers, as well as artist books, zines, publications from art institutions, conversations, keynote lectures, and a Friday night party. With 50 exhibitors from around the country and the region at the Annex on Filbert, 830 Filbert Street, Philadelphia. Free and open to the public. Presented by Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and The Print Center. Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Photo Arts Center.

The 19th Annual Poetry Ink: 100 Poets Reading is Sunday, April 26 beginning at noon, as Moonstone Arts Center hosts an open, festive, participatory event with academic poets, famous poets, free form poets, street poets, unknown poets, spoken word poets, published poets, unpublished poets and more. Each reader gets 3 minutes, Brandywine Workshop, 728 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia. Coffee supplied – you bring dessert!

ArcheDream for HUMANKIND

ArcheDream for HUMANKIND returns to its hometown of Philadelphia with its newest show, Lil Glo Peep & other Fairytales, Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25, 7pm and 9:30pm. The internationally touring black-light mask and dance theater company communicates universal ideas and emotions by merging ancient ritual and magical storytelling with modern technology. This performance melds dance, theater, and puppetry techniques to reimagine favorite childhood fables, Shiloh Baptist Church, 21st and Christian Streets, Philadelphia. Photo by Jacqui Tichenor.

Delaware Festivals

The WilmFilm Festival returns to Penn Cinema Riverfront with more than 50 independent and documentary films, April 23-26, Wilmington, DE.The annual Bug & Bud Festival buzzes back to downtown Milford, celebrating Arbor Day and Delaware’s State Bug, Saturday, April 25, 9am-4pm. Enjoy a Ladybug and Tree costumed parade for kids and pets, live entertainment, arts & crafts vendors, children’s activities including a children’s art show and nature related activities, paddle boat rides, games, and more, rain or shine and free along Walnut Street, Front Streets and the Mispillion Riverwalk. #SassySaysMt. Cuba Center (pictured) hosts the annual Wildflower Celebration, Sunday, April 26, 10am-4pm, with activities for the entire family including gardening demonstrations, live music, plant giveaways, and the opportunity to explore the gardens and to picnic, 3120 Barley Mill Road, Hockessin, DE. Pictured: Lilac Allee, designed in 1936 by Thomas Sears of Philadelphia, featuring twenty-five cultivars of French hybrid lilacs, at their colorful and fragrant peak in early May. Photo courtesy of Mt. Cuba Center.

Cape May Spring Festival

Cape May celebrates the season with its annual Spring Festival, April 25 through May 4, with private home tours, ghost tours, murder mystery meals, Time Capsule Trolley Tour, food and wine events, and more, along with the exhibit “Light, Particularly: Alice Steer Wilson’s Cape May.” An opening reception is Friday, April 24, 7pm, Carriage House Gallery at the Physick Estate, 1048 Washington Street, Cape May, NJ. The exhibit will be on display through November 1. Photo courtesy of the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities.

University Festivals

New Jersey Folk Festival & Communiversity ArtsFest

The annual New Jersey Folk Festival is this Saturday, April 25, 10am to 6pm, rain or shine, celebrating its 41st anniversary with a maritime theme and music stages, artists & crafters, and more all part of Rutgers Day at the Eagleton Institute Grounds on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. Free. Photo courtesy of the New Jersey Folk Festival.

Communiversity ArtsFest (formerly the Communiversity Festival of the Arts), a “town-gown” event presented by the Arts Council of Princeton and the students of Princeton University, returns this Sunday, April 26, 1pm-6pm, rain or shine, with more artists, crafters and merchants with activities for all ages. Events include live entertainment, children’s activities and games, food from around the world and wide representations of the communities and organizations that help the Princeton community thrive, in downtown Princeton, Nassau and Witherspoon Streets, Palmer’s Square (on the Green), and throughout Princeton University’s campus.

Sacred Arts

Glencairn Museum hosts a Sacred Arts Festival this Sunday, April 26, 1-5pm, with family friendly activities and demonstrations of religious art in the making, including mosaic making, glass-blowing, manuscript illuminating, henna designs, stained glass painting workshop and completion and ritualistic dismantling of a sand mandala, stone carving, and more, 1001 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, PA. While there, check out Marc Chagall and the Bible, opening Saturday, April 25, including etchings and lithographs of the artists graphic works and historical posters, along with colored images from his 1956 and 1960 suites of Bible lithographs.

You may also like…Gershman Y explores the use of religious text in contemporary art with the exhibit And the Word Is… through May 14. Artists include Sandow Birk, Johanna Bresnick, Michael Cloud Hirschfeld, Martin Brief, David Stephens, Carole P. Kunstadt, Nicholas Kripal, and Stephanie Kirk, 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. Pictured: King David and His Harp by Marc Chagall, lithograph published in 1956.

Onstage

Opera Philadelphia’s “Don Carlo”

Opera Philadelphia’s Don Carlo takes to the stage at the Academy of Music, Verdi’s grand opera of passion and political intrigue, based on the play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (Don Carlos, Infante of Spain) by Friedrich Schiller. The dramatic new co-production with Washington National Opera and Minnesota Opera features Philadelphia native (Temple University and Curtis Institute of Music graduate) bass-baritone Eric Owens as the tyrannical King Philip II. Marking their Opera Philadelphia debuts are tenor Dimitri Pittas as Don Carlo, soprano Leah Crocetto as Elisabeth de Valois, and Grammy winning Mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as Princess Eboli. Performed in Italian with English supertitles in five performances, April 24 through May 3, Academy of Music, Broad Street, Philadelphia. Photo courtesy of Opera Philadelphia.

Broadway Philadelphia: “Kinky Boots”

The Broadway tour of Kinky Boots stomps into Philadelphia April 28 through May 10. The Tony award-winning production featuring songs by Cyndi Lauper, a book by Harvey Fierstein, and direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell. The musical is based on the 2005 film by the same name which was inspired by the true story of Charlie Price, who inherits a shoe factory from his father, Forrest Theatre, 1114 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Quintessence Theatre Group’s “The Three Musketeers”

Quintessence Theatre Group, known for adapting epic works of classic literature and drama for the contemporary stage, honors the wit and dramatic genius of Alexandre Dumas with the world premiere of The Three Musketeers. The new production was adapted by ensemble members Mattie Hawkinson, Josh Carpenter, Sean Close and Artistic Director Alexander Burns, who directs. Expect passionate poetry, swashbuckling sword fights and 17th century French costumes, through May 10, Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Avenue, Mt. Airy. Post-show talkbacks with the director on April 26 and 30. Photo by Photo by Alexander Iziliaev.

“In the Blood” at Theatre Horizon

Onstage at Theatre Horizon is Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood, an urban re-telling of The Scarlet Letter about a homeless mother of five striving to escape from poverty, through May 9. Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh and starring New York based actor Ashley Everage, Barrymore winner Forrest McClendon, Akeem Davis, Sam Sherburne, Christina May, and Cathy Simpson. In conjunction with the production is an innovative new program that sends the actors into homeless shelters to present the play and hold dialogues after each performance. Artwork will be created around the stories and featured in the theater lobby during the run of the show, 401 DeKalb Street, Norristown, PA. Photo by Matthew J. Photography.

Art Appreciation

Horace Pippin: The Way I See It at Brandywine River Museum

Horace Pippin: The Way I See It, a major exhibition of over 65 paintings by the self-taught African American artist, opens this Saturday, April 25. Assembled from museums and private collections across the U.S., the landmark display features the artist’s bold, colorful and expressive paintings of family life, history, religion and war. Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Pippin (1888-1946) served in World War I as a “Harlem Hellfighter” and sustained an injury that limited the use of his right arm. He taught himself to paint and went from obscurity during the 1930s to being considered one of the leading figures of 20th century art. On view through July 19 at the Brandywine River Museum of Art, the only venue for this exhibit, accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue, U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, PA. Pictured: Harmonizing, 1944, by Horace Pippin (1888-1946) oil on fabric.

Look for #SassySays – recommended by Sassy as “dog friendly!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each week, the Entertainment Guide spotlights interesting local arts offerings happening now, including music, dance, theater, museums, special exhibitions and other arts events from across the region.

To submit an event to be considered, email Robin Bloom at artscalendar@whyy.org.