Three Shows You Should See This Month

By Gioia Patton

Gather your girlfriends together for a fun night of entertainment. Our arts insider, gives you a sneak peek at a few performances worth attending this month.

Two Christmas Shows Not To Miss

By Gioia Patton, Arts Insider

Let me tell you why you should consider attending these two shows this season. Even if you have seen them before.

Three Things You Should See This December

By Gioia Patton, Arts Insider

It is holiday season, but we have found some shows that are just good no matter what time of year it is. Check out these three shows that the Arts Insider recommends.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Come on Down!

By Gioia Patton

You can win prizes, play games, and “Come on Down!” at this November show. Our Arts Insider shows you how to get into the action...

Arts Insider interview with Vanessa Williams: Saved the Best for Now

 Prophetically, Vanessa Williams’ parents put on her birth announcement: "Here she is: Miss America” // Photo by Mike Ruiz

At the top of this year’s Miss America’s televised competition Miss America CEO Sam Haskell declared to the beautiful singer/actress Vanessa Williams on camera that just because some Miss America officials were furious in 1984 after Penthouse bought and published nude photos of Williams (without her consent), that had been shot two years before- and given the then 21-year-old 72 hours to either resign her title *ten months into her being the reigning Miss America, or be stripped of her title, doesn’t mean that Williams should have been made to feel “any less than the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be”.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Taste of Louisville

October 7th marks this year’s 42nd annual *ORIGINAL taste in town at Louisville Executive Aviation (Bowman Field). This hugely popular local event celebrates a variety of food and beverage exhibitors from around the city, and ‘the best of the best’ will be named in three categories — Savory, Sweet, and Swig.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Diane Schuur and the Jamey Aebersold Quartet perform the Great American Songbook

Legendary jazz vocalist and two-time Grammy® Award-winner, Diane Schuur joins New Albany’s own jazz legend and 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, Jamey Aebersold and his Quartet in bringing the Great American Songbook to life. Often referred to as “American Standards,” the Songbook is a uniquely American collection of popular music from the 1920s to the 1960s. Composers include George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter whose songs were popularized by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Tormé.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: COPPÉLIA Louisville Ballet

A ballet classic unfolds in a Louisville setting! Audiences will experience a fresh reimagining of the beloved autumnal story, as conceived by Louisville Ballet's own Artistic and Executive Director, Robert Curran. Now set in Louisville's Germantown during the fall of 1917, this version creatively brings our city to life just as the United States is on the brink of joining World War 1. While Curran and his team of local artists respect and embrace the original storyline, based on the writings of E.T.A. Hoffman, this world premiere production captures the vibrancy of a community on the verge of incredible and rapid change.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA

The 2013 Tony® Award-winning Broadway musical from the creators of South Pacific and The Sound of Music opens the PNC Broadway in Louisville 2015/2016 Season. With its fresh new take on the beloved tale of a young woman who is transformed from a chambermaid into a princess, this hilarious and romantic Rodgers + Hammerstein's CINDERELLA combines the story's classic elements – glass slippers, pumpkin, and a beautiful ball along with some surprising twists.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Rock the Yacht

The Arts Insider is really looking forward to finally hearing live some of her favorite Pop and soft rock music hits that occurred between the years 1975-1983, when Little River Band, Ambrosia, Stephen Bishop and Robbie Dupree come together for the Rock the Yacht 2015 tour at Freedom Hall.
Formed in Melbourne Australia in 1975-to date the soft rock music of Little River Band has sold over 30 million records and produced 10 singles in the Billboard Hot 100 charts, including “Take It Easy On Me,” “It’s A Long Way There,” the #1 hit “Help Is on Its Way, and the ballad *“Reminiscing”-(*recognized by BMI as one of the most frequently played songs in the history of American radio-the highest achievement of any Australian pop song internationally).

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: August Wilson’s SEVEN GUITARS

Artistic Director Les Waters and Managing Director Jennifer Bielstein kick off Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 2015-2016 Season with August Wilson’s Seven Guitars directed by Colman Domingo (author of the 2015 Humana Festival premiere Dot and Tony Award nominee for his role in The Scottsboro Boys). After serving jail time on a trumped-up vagrancy charge, blues musician Floyd Barton sets out to win back his girl and reclaim his pawned guitar, hoping to make a new hit record.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: The Wendy Williams Sit Down Tour…Too Real for Stand Up

Wendy Williams, modern media legend and host of her popular Emmy nominated The Wendy Williams Show, brings her singular brand of talk, "tea", and unbridled comedic stylings to America's stages for an unforgettable night with Wendy. This is not your daytime talk show host Wendy.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Barrels & Boots Music Festival

Barrels and Boots Music Festival makes its inaugural showcase at this year’s Kentucky State Fair. Held in Freedom Hall, the one day, six artist event will mix country newcomers and chart toppers, all in the middle of exciting Kentucky State Fair fun.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Kevin Hart’s WHAT NOW? TOUR

In 2012, the Philadelphia, PA. native was tapped to host the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards garnering much industry praise for his appearance. His comedy tour, Let Me Explain, took him to 90 American cities before hitting countries throughout Europe and Africa. A testament to his talent and popularity, Hart became only the second American in history to sell out London’s O2 Arena.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Louisville Palace’s Film Noir Series

Film Noir is one of Hollywood’s only organic artistic movements. Beginning in the early 1940s, numerous screenplays inspired by hardboiled American crime fiction were brought to the screen, primarily by European émigré directors who shared a certain storytelling sensibility: highly stylized, overtly theatrical, with imagery often drawn from an earlier era of German “expressionist” cinema. Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, and Otto Preminger, among others, were among this Hollywood vanguard.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: DANCING WITH THE STARS: Live!

Following a sold-out winter tour and the 10th Anniversary Season of ABC’s hit show Dancing with the Stars, Dancing with the Stars: Live!  is back on the road-visiting over 40 cities across America, including Louisville @ the Louisville Palace, Sunday, August 2nd. Season 20 DWTS champion Rumer Willis joins the cast of dancing professionals in 25 of those tour dates (*including the Louisville Palace date,) although due to multiple stress fractures Willis suffered to one of her feet while rehearsing for the tour, the singer/actress is expected to only sing during her segments.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Diana Krall

Multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall is one of the most accomplished and distinctive musicians in the world today. Currently, the Canadian native is on a worldwide tour performing her stunning new album On Wallflower, produced by Verve Records and legendary producer David Foster.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo 35th Anniversary Tour

"My dream was to be the singer in a rockin' band, like Robert Plant was to Led Zeppelin or Lou Gramm to Foreigner," the former Patricia Mae Andrzejewski wrote in her 2010 memoir: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. "I wanted a partnership, like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had, an unrelenting back-and-forth between talented musicians. The sound I heard in my head was raucous, with hard-driving guitars speeding everything forward. I was a classically trained singer with a great deal of musical knowledge, but I had no idea how to make that visceral, intense sound happen. I had to evolve, but I didn't know how to make that evolution happen."

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: BOSTON

Always a huge crowd pleaser with their high-energy stage show, out-of-this-world sound, and remarkable musicianship and singing, BOSTON prides itself on performing a totally live show without the use of prerecorded music or technical enhancements, delivering the extraordinary sound that is faithful to their studio recordings.

Arts Insider Pick of the Week: WOMEN ON FIRE by Irene O’Garden

Exploring the breadth of women's issues with humor and wisdom, WOMEN ON FIRE earned the highest rating for audience satisfaction from the Wall Street Journal/Zagat Theatre Survey. From ad exec to Midwest mom to care-giver to construction worker, each character is on fire in her own way- with passion, fear, self-discovery, even shopping! An evening of twelve emotionally charged monologues.