Wanna know what to do this weekend? Yes, you could turn to one of the catch-all repositories (better known as entertainment calendars) for context-free listings. But if you’ve ever dug out a magnifying glass to comb through the trove and grumbled “There’s got to be a better way,” your grumbles have been answered.

The new Thursday newsletter The A-List features 3-5 recommendations on things to see/hear (maybe even touch, probably not taste) over the coming weekend in regional arts/culture.

Let’s get to this weekend’s picks!

Various times | Friday-Sunday | Masonic Temple, Asheville

So many films, mostly shorts—62 in total, to be exact—are sprinkled into themed, ticketed blocks ($10-$20 apiece, though there are also day- and all-fest passes). Pointing out the filmmakers bringing work here would be pointless—unless they’re your friends or family, you haven’t heard of them.

Some of the blocks worthy of a look are “Feral Friday,” a double-feature of “unrelenting, creepy, and even downright feral” films (9pm Friday), Mountain Resilience (10:30am Saturday) and a screening (3pm Sunday) of a documentary focused on survivors of the 1979 Greensboro Massacre, when 5 Communist Workers Party members were killed by Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party members. A Q&A with the filmmakers follows the screening.

7pm Saturday | Mars Landing Arts Center, 37 Library St., Mars Hill

New York’s infamous Blue Note era returns to Mars Hill for a special encore concert at Mars Landing Arts Center (7pm Saturday). Civil Disobedience is a project from New York bassist David Ambrosio, rekindling jazz born from the politically conscious underground of 1960s New York City.

In 2024, Ambrosio led a quintet of New Yorkers in a fantastic concert of this music at Mars Landing. Now, with a new album of this music in hand, Ambrosio has tapped three stalwart Asheville-area musicians—drummer Rick Dilling, saxophonist Will Boyd and vibraphonist Jason DeCristofaro. Together, they’ll breathe new life into long-overlooked works from progressive composers such as Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean, Stanley Cowell, Howard Land and more.

Here’s a link to a conversation I had with Ambrosio about this project.

Through Saturday | Tracey Morgan Gallery, RAMP Studios, 821 Riverside Drive, Asheville

The work of Asheville photographer (and ETSU associate professor of photography) Tema Stauffer contends with the American landscape and its inhabitants, history and moods. Her most recent body of work, Wonderlands, considers the complex culture of southeastern Appalachia, investigated through its terrains and their interactions with humans.

This show closes Saturday, so do get over there—it’s well worth the time. More than two dozen large photographs, many shot in Cherokee, are unfiltered renderings of faded motel signs, sagging porches and barns, roadside stands and signs, and abandoned storm debris illustrating Stauffer’s eye for time-gone-by artifacts.

Here’s a conversation about this body of work between Stauffer and writer/curator Diana Stoll, published this week in the local art journal Holler. Do check it out!

6pm Friday-Saturday | Asheville High School, 419 McDowell St., Asheville

Raining on Sunny Street is a new musical play about a neighborhood of strangers uniting despite their differences in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Without each other, they cannot survive, and with each other, they learn how to live.

The premise is enough to localize it, but playwright Sofia Costanzo was raised in Asheville and is now studying drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. By now, so many people here, understandably, have Helene fatigue, but I’m curious to see how deftly Costanzo turns the weighty material into a musical. And who knows? If she becomes the next Steven Sondheim, you’ll be able to say you saw her on the ground floor.

Are you involved with an event on the horizon you believe I should consider for the A-List? If it’s in the spectrum of performing, literary and visual arts and happening in/around Asheville, I want to know about it.

Send all the details, along with a quality photo or two, to [email protected]

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