Three of the arts — visual, literary and performing — will be in full flower this weekend in downtown Washington.
The arts-rich revels kick off with a one-woman show about Georgia O’Keeffe, the strong-willed artist who painted famously expressive flowers, landscapes and sun-bleached steer skulls.
This one-act drama featuring actress Kelley Rouse begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Turnage Theater on Main Street.
The program is sponsored by Friends of the Brown Library, with support from the Beaufort County Arts Council and other entities.
Admission is $5 a person to the public and free to members of Friends of the Brown Library.
For more information, call the arts council at 252-946-2504 or see the Friends’ website, www.friendsofbrownlibrary.com.
“We thought it would be a good fit because it combines the literary and performing arts and also the visual arts,” Joey Toler, executive director of the arts council, said when asked about the apparent partnership that spawned these events.
According to an e-mail from Rachel Victoria Mills, president of Friends, “this program ought to be subtitled ‘Washington works together’ — you can’t imagine how many people have been a part of this.”
The performance will be preceded by a reception from 6:15 p.m. until 7:15 p.m. at RiverWalk Gallery, also on Main Street.
At the same time, an exhibit, titled “Southwest Art Comes Home to Washington,” will be on display in the lobby of the Turnage.
The exhibit will be comprised of works by local artists such as Jeff Jakub, Alice Stallings, Sam Wall, Alexandra Bloch, Doris Schneider, Mills and others, related Toler.
The festivities continue Saturday with a poetry workshop by Nancy Mitchell Ebert at RiverWalk.
“I think it’s a great example of collaboration and it sounds like an exciting weekend,” said Toler.
The Turnage provides its performance space for Friends programs at a relatively low cost, as it does with some other nonprofit groups, explained Scotty Henley, executive director of the theater.
“It’s a theatrical-based presentation, but it has reference to authorship of a biography as its foundation,” Henley remarked, speaking of the O’Keeffe show.
Friends raises money for the City of Washington’s Brown Library through happenings like an annual book sale. The organization also offers public talks or shows for its members and the public at the library and in other venues like the Turnage.