Communique with Gina Gambony

Listen to Angie Carl from the Nature Conservancy and Cape Fear Ranger Bill Walker talk about Fire in the Pines. This annual celebration of Southeastern "fire forests" is bigger than ever this year, even though the burn ban due to Hurricane Florence dampens the fire part.

Forward Motion Dance presents its yearly celebration of dance. This year, it's called "The Eclectic Collection," featuring dancers from the Cape Fear Area, guest choreographer Judy Greenhut, and new music from Wilmington composers. Listen above.

Composer William Brittelle will be in Wilmington Sunday, October 14 for the premiere of Si Otsedoha (We're Still Here).  The North Carolina Symphony and the Cherokee Chamber Singers will perform this new work at the Wilson Center at 7:30pm. 

Julius Cole Rassin-called Cole by his family and many of his friends-passed away at the age of 22 in February this year. Cole was an actor, a musician, and a prolific songwriter. He left behind so much music, and his friend Hannah decided to record six of his songs in tribute to his life and talent.

Barbara McKenzie says everyone has a magical NPR moment-when you hear something on NPR that just knocks you off your feet and makes a huge impact on your mind, your heart, even your life. That moment for Barbara came when she heard poet Samuel Menashe on NPR's Weekend Edition. He was being interviewed because he received the Poetry Foundation's Neglected Masters Award. 

Caring for animals brings reward and heartbreak. If you care for wild animals, you have little control over the strong hand of nature and her logic; there will be losses. But then again, nature's surprising resilience shows itself as well.

When a child experiences a significant health condition or other life-altering challenge, the family is focused on survival. That's where Welcome Home Angel can step in to think about practical and aesthetic fixes for the child's living space.

Professor Louie and the Crowmatix are making their first visit to Wilmington this Friday 9/5 at The Rusty Nail.  Showtime is 8:00pm. These Grammy-nominees have been called "Roots Music Royalty" and are consistently noted in reviews for their talent and music heritage. 

Director Katherine Vernon says chase scenes, flashy dance numbers, and glittering sets are not required for a riveting night of theatre--just mix a well-crafted story with talented performers. The particular play she's talking about has spectacle aplenty ... it's just all inside the hearts, minds, and souls of the characters.

You may have never heard of the award-winning show Violet, though it premiered off-Broadway back in 1997. The musical has received more attention and increased production in the last few years after a 2014 Broadway revival. Opera House Theatre Company brings it to Thalian Hall.

Oak Island Art Guild throws its 29th Annual Arts & Crafts Festival this Saturday, September 1. Work by over 130 artists will be on sale, along with hotdogs, funnel cake and kettle corn. The event runs from 9:00am to 4:00pm and is free.

WHQR Commentator Nan Graham is excited about sound effects-especially the really big (and really old) one at Thalian Hall.

Cameron Art Museum holds Community Day on Saturday, August 25, an art celebration for all ages. In addition to activities for young people (and a discount for fall classes), the interactive, mega-technical exhibit A Time When Art Was Everywhere from TeamLab in Japan opens. 

New York singer, songwriter, and record producer Paul Loren performs a free concert at Gravity Records Thursday. He's vacationing in the area and fell in love with the record store when he saw the classic albums on the shelves.    

Panache Theatrical Productions presents the classic cowboy tale of Liberty Valance onstage at North Front Theatre in downtown Wilmington. Actor Robin Dale Robinson relishes playing the outlaw, Liberty, against Bradley Coxe's law-and-order hero from the east, Ransom Foster.

Together, Soprano Nancy King and guitarist Robert Nathanson form Duo Soreño. While they are both classically trained musicians, they've been commissioning new classical music for nearly 20 years. The latest collection is Waking the Sparrows.

Athenian Press and Workshops holds Art of Resistance Charity Gala & Exhibit Saturday, August 11 at the Athenian House on Wrightsville Avenue. In addition to the exhibit and auction, the event features poetry, live music, and uncensored conversation. 

The film came out in 1950, and the musical hit Broadway in 1994. It took nearly 25 years after that for the noir classic Sunset Boulevard to hit the stage in Wilmington. Opera House Theatre Company presents the award-winning musical at Thalian Hall through Sunday, August 19. 

The Wilmington Jewish Film Festival presents three films in August for its Summer Series: Ida (8/9), Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (8/16), and The Band's Visit (8/23).

Make Trouble works at the intersection of three theatrical elements: ensemble-building, devising, and Shakespeare. The group presents the final performances of Romeo & Juliet and Love's Labour's Lost this weekend.

Mouths of Babes Theatre Company is adapting stories from the book Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries into a theatrical production. The group wants input about this work-in-progress at its staged reading tonight (Wednesday) at UNCW. 

Director Christopher Marino presents another immersive Shakespeare performance to Wilmington with Twelfth Night, or What You Will. The flexible SRO Black Box Theatre makes possible a staging without walls between audience and performers. 

Die Fledermaus is hilarious and a great "first opera" for the uninitiated, according to Opera Wilmington singers. The show is onstage at UNCW's Main Stage Theatre for just 4 performances: July 20, 22, 27, & 29.

Listen above to our backstage rehearsal conversation with Director Nancy King and singers Michelle Lerch, Shannon Kessler Dooley, and Joshua Collier. See our gallery of pictures below. 

The Race Matters Book Discussion Group began in January this year.  The focus book right now is We Were Eight Years in Power, a collection of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates penned between 2012 and 2017 for The Atlantic. 

Gwenyfar Rohler loved Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" as a child. In adulthood, the story becomes more complicated. 

Die Fledermaus. Twelfth Night. Rhiannon Giddens. Peter & the Wolf. Audrey Ochoa. Virtual Reality. These are some of the offerings at UNCW's Lumina Festival of the Arts this year, running through July 29.

100 Black Men of America began in New York City in 1963 with the motto "What They See is What They'll Be." The Coastal Carolina Chapter launched in 2008-and the group is hosting a celebratory Awards & Recognition Breakfast on Saturday, July 14 at 9:00am at Shell Island Resort.

Elvis Presley, Peggy Lee, The Coasters, Christine Kitrell, The Drifters--these great acts (and more) performed music written by the dynamic songwriting duo, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. Opera House Theatre Company presents the musical revue of their most popular tunes, spanning from the early '50s to the early '80s. 

There's not much humor in the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve, but that changed when Mark Twain decided to pen their diaries, Anthony Lawson decided to adapt it for stage, and Steve Vernon decided to direct it for Keepin' On Productions. The show runs through July 22 at the Cape Fear Playhouse.

Do you ever stay up all night? How about in the middle of the ocean ... alone? 

Guest Commentator John Wolfe shares what he discovers in that kind of solitude; listen above. Wolfe is a writer and mariner who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.