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Arts & Music

Art out and about

Pittsboro’s First Sunday celebration is April 6 from 12 to 4 p.m. on Hillsboro Street. This month’s music will be provided by The Haw River String Band on the circle from 1 to 3 p.m. Arts and craft vendors will line the streets selling their work and local galleries and shops are open. Food will be available; also, a wine tasting by Benjamin Winery, local plants and produce. Call 919-260-9725 or go to pittsboroshops.com.

This month’s 2nd Friday Artwalk in Carrboro and Chapel Hill is April 11 from 6 to 9 p.m. Open galleries, entertainment and (sometimes) food. Admission is free. For maps and listings, visit 2ndfridayartwalk.com.

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Arts & Music

Playmakers announces season

PlayMakers Repertory will put on nine plays embodying everything from Shakespearean adventure to coping with HIV/AIDS in its 2008-2009 season. It starts with Shakespeare’s Pericles, from September 24 until October 12. Tanya Barfield then explores African-American identity in Blue Door from October 22 until November 9.

Rick Cummins and John Scoullar’s adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic The Little Prince returns for the holidays from November 26 until December 14.

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Arts & Music

Ah, Oui

Transactors Improv will celebrate “April in Paris (of the Piedmont)” at The ArtsCenter on Friday, April 11 at 8 p.m. The improvised show’s themes are life in Carrboro and spring. The performers will ask the audience to suggest parts of the unscripted performance. Special musical guest guitarist Bryon Settle will also perform with the group.

Tickets are $14, $12 for ArtsCenter Friends and $8 for students. For tickets and information, 929-2787 or artscenterlive.org.

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Arts & Music

Carolina Performing Arts announces season

“Bolshoi” is Russian for “grand,” and it’s the perfect word to describe the upcoming 2008-2009 Carolina Performing Arts Series. The series will present 31 programs in 42 performances in its biggest season yet, including the regional debut of “Swan Lake” by Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet, performances by the Kirov Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the 50th anniversary celebration of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

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Arts & Music

Art Calendar

Carrboro

The ArtsCenter
Center Gallery: ArtsCenter Student Show April 3-29, reception 6-9 p.m. East End Gallery: Elements, the fifth annual Community Art Project.

The Beehive
Matt Vooris- Dinosaurs, Drums, and You! Live storytelling and performance of Drumheller Dinosaur Dance, with dancing and percussion. Performances at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30, Friday April 11.

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Arts & Music

Literary Calendar

McIntyre’s Fine Books
Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro
542-3030
fearrington.com/village/mcintyres.asp

April 10, 3-5pm—Lynne Rossetto Kasper discusses her cookbook The Splendid Table’s How To Eat Supper.

April 12, 11am—Virginia Ironside reads from her book No! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club.

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Arts & Music

Novel love

Erica Eisdorfer.
By Erica Eisdorfer

Recently, I made the mistake of giving my 11-year-old daughter a copy of The Children’s Miscellany by Matthew Morgan. Mistake? I jest. It wasn’t really a mistake: It’s just that now she’s delighted to deliver such tidbits as, “Mom, a billion seconds ago you were a child.” This, as I’m grappling with whether I can push my reading glasses for one more month before I take the bifocal plunge. A billion seconds? Tick-tock.

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Arts & Music

April Shows & Happenings

4/2-20
Amadeus
PlayMakers Repertory
The award-winning tale of Mozart and the court composer Salieri is a sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, brilliant examination of a man at war with his god.

4/4
Howlin Rain
Local 506
Mellow rockers perform with Nightstick and Stratocrusier. 9pm, $10

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Miscellany

The Iron Mountain Railroad

The Whopper, circa 1900. Photo courtesy of  the North Carolina  Collection.
By Leslie Smith and Ethan Clauset

For travelers and farmers headed to market in southern Orange County for most of the nineteenth century, the only way to get there was to travel the old dirt roads from Pittsboro and Durham and the wagon road from Hillsborough. Robert F. Hoke, a former Confederate general, saw the opportunity to put in a railroad that ran from a junction later called University Station to Carrboro to link his mine to the Carolina Railroad in Greensboro. In November of 1880, Hoke was a principal shareholder and chairman of the board when the Iron Mountain Company started to mine iron ore at a site one mile north of UNC campus, near what is now the intersection of Estes and Seawell School roads. The price of iron was high, so it was profitable to mine the ore and then ship it north through Greensboro to Pennsylvania for smelting into high-quality Bessemer Steel.

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Arts & Music

Music Spotlight: Signalfest

Signal Fest returns. The Southeast Electronic Music Festival will be held from Thursday, April 10 to Sunday, April 13 in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. In its third year, local and international performers meet to spin, mix and sample. Signalfest is growing and offering a diverse lineup of electronic artists. This year’s perfomers include Jinx, DJ Babu, DJ Rhettmatic, DJ Garth, Stasis, Phon, Electric Bird Noise, Pressler, Le Castle Vania, Kev Brown, Subscape Annex, D-Nox and many more. A full schedule, tickets and more information can be found at www.signalfest.com.

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Arts & Music

Music Spotlight: Shakori Hills

The Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance rolls around again, this time with the Spring festival. From Thursday, April 17 to Sunday, April 20, dozens of bands perform danceable roots music at the Shakori Hills farmstead in Chatham County, about 20 miles from Chapel Hill.