ATLRetro

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Shake a tail feather in ATLRetro This Week!

Monday, September 3

Boogie down to Park Tavern for WRFG’s 33rd Annual Labor Day Blues BBQ featuring live tunes by John Nemeth, Jontavious Willis, Dr. Dixon, Mudbone Turner’s Blues Band and more! Rock out with X and Netherlands at the Masquerade! Bewitch it up in the land of Harry Potter at Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville) with screenings of Alfonso Cuaron’s HARRY POTTER & THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004) at 12:30pm, followed by a screening of Mike Newell’s HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE (2005) at 3:45pm! Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! every Monday! Get scandalous and catch a screening of Matt Tyrnauer’s SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (2017) at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, through Sept. 6 (check out our Retro Review here)! Grab your Precious and make your way to Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18 and Regal Mall of Georgia Stadium (Buford) for Peter Jackson’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY [FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001); THE TWO TOWERS (2002); and THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)], screening through Sept. 6! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack as they dish out The Pork Bellys and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, September 4

Cash in Black pays tribute to Johnny Cash at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get rocked with The Yawpers, Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah and the Willow Walkers at Smith’s Olde Bar! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! Spend the night with Sonia Leigh at Eddie’s Attic! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Gray & The Bad Boys get down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, September 5

Emory Cinematheque kicks off their is new killer series, “Hitchcock/Hitchcockian” with a  screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s THE LODGER (1927) at 7:30pm, with live musical accompaniment by film score composer Donald Sosin! Or get apocalyptic with a screening of George Miller’s MAD MAX 2: ROAD WARRIOR (1982) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) at 7:15pm! Spend fantastical nights with the Alliance Theatre’s production of A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, through October 21! Center Stage rocks out with PROG POWER USA XIX featuring Ross The Boss (The Dictators/Manowar), Gloryhammer, Nocturnal Rites and Voyager! Get the rockin’ blues with Joanne Shaw Taylor and JD Simo at City Winery! Spend the night with Chinua Hawk at Eddie’s Attic! Get psychedelic with Bazo Grey, Whiskey Tango and Tendril at The Star Bar! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of George Lucas’ AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Rock on down to The Highlander for their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get rocked with The Wild Hares at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, September 6

Cineprov dishes out a night of MST3K-style laughs at The Plaza Theater as they screen/riff John Badham’s WARGAMES (1983) at 7:30pm! The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival presents E.A. Dupont’s THE ANCIENT LAW (1923) with a live musical score at the Woodruff Arts Center, at 7:30pm! Get rocked in Hell with Gene Loves Jezebel With Jay Ashton at the Masquerade! Spend the night with Liz Phair and Speedy Ortiz at the Variety Playhouse! Boogie on down to Firefly Studio Decatur for Down South Swing’s Level 1: 6 Count swing dance class! Get rocked with Forever ’78 at Venkman’s! Catch a screening of Satoshi Kon’s PERFECT BLUE (1997) at theatres across Atlanta at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth); and Regal Mall of Georgia Stadium (Buford)]! Rock out PROG POWER USA XIX-style with Angra, Doro, Oceans of Slumber and Cellar Darling at Center Stage! Spend the night with Holly Bowling at City Winery! Funk it up with the Atlanta Funk Society at the High Museum! Get folksy with the Hope Griffin Duo and Molly Ruth at the Red Light Café! Or get countrified with the Randy Rogers Band and Parker McCollum at Terminal West! Get some soul with Liniker e os Caramelows at Smith’s Olde Bar! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, September 7

Get rocked with fifty years of MC5, with Man or Astro-Man? at the Variety Playhouse! Stomp on down to The Star Bar and raise a ruckus with the Anders Thomsen Trio, the Moonlight Mechanics and JJ & The Hustlers! Justin Howl along with the Atlanta Funk Society dish out a night of Muddy Waters & Other Blues Favorites at Venkman’s! Get garage rocked at The Earl with the Subsonics, the All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, Vincas, Spodee Boy, Fletcher C. Johnson and Country Westerns! Get your ragtime Dixieland fix with Trey Dahl & The Jugtime Ragband at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre! Or rock on down to the Drunken Unicorn for a night with the Illiterates, The Vaginas, Paralyzer and SEX FARM! Spook on down to The Highlander as Nocturnia celebrates 25 years of darkness! Get down with Ouiser Boudreaux with The Earl Smith Strand Theatre’s screening of Herbert Ross’ STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989) at 8pm! Center Stage continues to rock out during PROG POWER USA XIX with Sons of Apollo, Redemption, Labyrinth, Bloodhound, Persefone and Manimal! Americana it up with Betsy Franck at the Crimson Moon Café! Get down with Jive Revival at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Jason Eady dishes out some Texas country tunes at Eddie’s Attic! Get geeky during The Fandom Nerdlesque’s CON CRASH event at the Red Light Café! Cross the pond to Smith’s Olde Bar for Abbey Road Live! Runaway Gin pays tribute to Phish at Terminal West! Beverly “Guitar” Watkins shakes it up at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get the blues with Ike Stubblefield at the Northside Tavern! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, September 8

Get your rockin’ roots fix with Kool Kats Gringo Star during their album release party, with Tedo Stone and Chick Wallace at The Earl! Boogie down with Kool Kat VJ Anthony during his ‘80s New Wave Music Video Dance Party at Amsterdam Atlanta! Get some soul with Average White Band at City Winery! The Rainmen dish out some ‘60s and ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get your classic rock fix with Five Eight and Adam Hood at Eddie’s Attic! Labyrinth rocks out at The Loft! Step into the Big Easy upstairs with the Rebirth Brass Band at Smith’s Olde Bar, or rock out with Space Giants downstairs! Get some rockin’ soul with Kitten Fontaine at Avondale Towne Cinema! Catch a screening of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) at Venkman’s at 10am, later followed by The Coonhounds’ tribute to Tom Petty, and then Saved by the Band! Make your way to the Waffle House Museum for their 10th Anniversary Party featuring country legend and guest of honor, “Whisperin’ Bill” Anderson! Get rocked with more prog goodness during PROG POWER USA XIX at Center Stage with Tarja Tarunen, Alestorm, VUUR, Soen, Eclipse and Triosphere! Get the blues with Frankie’s Blues Mission at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get down with Ross Pead at the Northside Tavern! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, September 9

Get your classic silent film fix at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre’s Silent Comedy Shorts event, featuring live organ accompaniment at 3pm! Jazz it up with Trio Deluxe during Venkman’s Bottomless Mimosa Brunch! Bewitch it up in the land of Harry Potter at theatres across Atlanta with a screening of Alfonso Cuaron’s HARRY POTTER & THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004) at 2pm, followed by a screening of Mike Newell’s HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE (2005) at 6pm [AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Phipps Plaza 14]! It’s a night of Texas country western at City Winery with Robert Earl Keen! Make your way to the Cobb Energy Center for a night with Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Farhan Akhtar! Jason Eady dishes out some Texas country tunes at the Crimson Moon Café! Mandi Strachota gets the blues at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Bluegrass it up with Blood on the Harp at Eddie’s Attic! TCM Big Screen Classics brings Robert Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) to theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); and AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville)]! Make your way to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for 10,000 Pontiacs! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Rodger & Hammerstein’s THE KING AND I (1956) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner!

Ongoing

Spend fantastical nights with the Alliance Theatre’s production of A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, through October 21!

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every first Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

The Highlander rocks out with their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday!

Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

by Claudia Dafrico
Contributing Writer

SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (2017); Dir. Matt Tyrnauer; Opens Friday, August 31 at the Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema; Trailer here.

Director Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary, SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD (2017) is many things. It is a romp through the most sordid tales of Hollywood’s past; it is an in-depth observation of LGBTQ culture during the repressive studio era; and it is the curious and complex story of one Scotty Bowers, Hollywood’s most notable pimp. It is important to mention that both Scotty and his former employees do not consider him to be a pimp, insisting that he never took money from those working for him. Regardless of the terminology used to describe him, the fact is that Scotty Bowers spent the postwar years in Hollywood setting up Tinseltown’s best and brightest with one of a gaggle of young men that hung around Scotty’s gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. In an era when being outed as gay would at the very least cost you your career and reputation, and in some cases put you in a mental institution or behind bars, the secretive services provided by Scotty proved to be an invaluable outlet for many stars to pursue their lifestyle behind closed doors, away from the paparazzi and the adoring fans that would be devastated to learn that their idols were anything less than the ideal straight laced, heterosexual figureheads of the Postwar era.

At 91 years old, one would assume that Scotty Bowers would choose to slow down in his twilight years, long withdrawn from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. This assumption could not be farther from the truth, as we see in film. Bright-eyed and talkative, Bowers has the enthusiasm of a man decades younger than his ninety-plus years. He and his wife Louise putter about their Los Angeles home and maintain active social lives that transcend their age (Scotty goes to publishing parties and meets up with his old employees; Louise sings at various nightclubs in full black-tie regalia).

The film captures Scotty’s most recent endeavor: the publication of his 2012 book FULL SERVICE, wherein he recounts his dealings with the stars. The book claims that countless celebrities thought to be heterosexual were in fact bisexual and gay, as evidenced by Scotty hooking them up with one of the many young men (and even a few women) under his employ. Scotty rattles names off like it’s nobody’s business (Cary Grant, George Cukor, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Vivien Leigh among others). Many readers are concerned whether outing celebrities that presented as straight while alive is disrespectful, considering the fact that they had no chance to consent to being outed. Bowers vehemently denies any disrespect on his part, claiming that because he chose to wait until every star mentioned in the book had passed away, he is abstaining from causing damage that could have destroyed their reputation in life. Whether or not this is a morally-sound decision is up to the viewer, but Scotty brushes any accusations of libel off his shoulder.

As the film progresses, another less ribald and optimistic side of Scotty begins to be unearthed. He and his wife live in a hoarding hellscape. Scotty unwilling or unable to part with the trinkets he’s collected over the decades filling both his home, a second home, and multiple garages. He does not seem to consider this to be much of an issue, but his wife mentions in passing that his refusal to see a therapist plays a large part in his dysfunction. Scotty slowly begins to open up about his past and it is befallen with personal tragedies, from the deaths of his brother in WWII and his daughter when she was only 23. The onset of the AIDS crisis took the lives of many of his friends and colleagues and led to Scotty’s decision to retire from his career as a pimp. His unwavering work ethic and commitment to “show up and get the job done” left him emotionally disconnected, unable to cope with the scale of his heartbreak. The years spent bottling up the pain came to a head when Scotty began to come apart at the seams on camera, finally acknowledging and coming to terms with his pain in the most emotionally intimate moment in the film.

While it is true that SCOTTY AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD takes a more serious turn when delving into Scotty’s past, it is by and large a fun and witty film, chock full of off the wall stories about celebrity sexcapades straight from the source itself. While Scotty’s story is not one that is well-known by the general movie-going audience, it is a story worthy of being told, warts and all. Be sure to catch Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary exclusively at Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema opening Friday, August 31.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

On the cusp of Netflix’ upcoming ten-part prequel fantasy-adventure series, “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” and Atlanta’s 32nd Annual Dragon*Con, the Center for Puppetry Arts unleashes the mythical world of Thra with an extra special exhibit, “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: World of Myth and Magic,” opening to the public August 31. Guys, gals and Gefling, why not take a fantastical leap through time and explore the behind-the-scenes magic with puppet masters, Jim Henson, Brian Froud, Frank Oz and more!

Get up close and personal with the Gefling, the Skeksis and more as this special exhibition features more than fifty rare items on display. You’ll have the chance to experience prototypes and early versions of the film’s characters we’ve come to love, film props, costumes and more. Froud’s original concepts for the film are revealed, along with behind-the-scenes film production photos. You’ll also have the chance to experience the impact and legacy created by this cult-classic as you wander through the land of Thra, featuring the details and artistry that went into creating this mystical masterpiece, along with its influence on Henson’s subsequent film, LABYRINTH (1986).

For those who hold a special place in their heart for Jim Henson and THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982) and are craving more fantasy and adventure, you’re in luck, because the center will be hosting The Dark Crystal Ball on Thurs. August 30, featuring extra special guests Brian Henson [Henson’s son and Chairman of the Jim Henson Company]; Halle Stanford [producer of Netflix’ “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”]; and Kirk Thatcher [Emmy Award-winning writer, producer and director, and judge of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge]. Get gussied up in fantasy masquerade attire, because you won’t want to miss out on the New Year’s Eve-style countdown to the Great Conjunction, heavy hors d’oeuvres, cash bar and more while you get down with the creatures of Thra! General Admission: $175, which includes all of the above, as well as admission to the Worlds of Puppetry Museum; VIP Admission: $300, which includes the above plus entry to the event an hour early, a special cocktail hour with the special guests, and a special gift bag. So boogie down with the best of ‘em and come celebrate the Center for Puppetry Arts’ exciting new exhibit, “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: World of Myth and Magic!”

Special announcement: Dragon*Con goers will get a chance to catch the exhibit a day early at a special price. Just bring your con badge to the center and you’ll receive special $10 pricing for admission to the World of Puppetry Museum (which includes the Dark Crystal exhibit), valid Aug. 30 – Sept. 9!

Museum admission includes access to the “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: World of Myth and Magic” exhibit and the full Worlds of Puppetry Museum, featuring the largest collection of Jim Henson puppets and artifacts in the world, as well as a global gallery, featuring puppet traditions from around the globe. Tickets can be purchased online here or by calling 404-873-3391. Museum hours: Tue.-Fri. (9am – 5pm); Sat. (10am – 5pm); and Sun. (12pm – 5pm).

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Hey all you Kool Kats and Kittens! It’s Geeks ‘n’ Glory this week as the 32nd Annual Dragon Con invades Atlanta! We’ve got all the sci-fi geekery your hearts could desire! And you won’t want to miss all the blues, punk and rock ‘n’ roll mischief! So, get out and get Retro!

Monday, August 27

Get intergalactic and catch a screening of the 2018 IMAX Re-Release of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) at theatres across Atlanta [AMC Dine-In North Point Mall 12 (Alpharetta); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; and Regal Mall of Georgia Stadium (Buford)], through Aug. 29! Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday! The Plaza Theater screens Lee Aronsohn’s 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE MAGIC MUSIC MOVIE (2017), documenting the ‘70s Colorado jam band, Magic Music, through Aug. 30! Or get adventurous at the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) with a screening of Rob Reiner’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) at 7:30pm! Spend the night with Nikka Costa at City Winery! Get down with Matt Pendrick at Blind Willies! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!” Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, August 28

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Film in Films Classics Series with a screening of Gene Kelly’s classic SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) at 7pm, featuring a pre-show intro and post-show Q&A session! Or celebrate 25 years of David Anspaugh’s RUDY (1993) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Fiddle on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Sylvia Rose Novak and The Rogue Tones! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get old-school with Funky Bluester at Blind Willies! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blues it up with the Crosstown Allstars at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, August 29

Raise a rockin’ ruckus in The Basement with Reverend Beat-Man & Izobel Garcia (Blues Trash Duo), Dusty Booze & The Baby Haters, the Midnight Larks and Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah! TCM Big Screen Classics presents a 60th Anniversary screening of Joshua Logan’s SOUTH PACIFIC (1958) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of David M. Evans’ THE SANDLOT (1993) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Folk rock it up with The Great Peacock and Kevn Kinney at The Earl! Rock on down to The Highlander for their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday! Mike Ledbetter gets down with an Otis Rush Tribute at Blind Willie’s! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Catch a screening of Bruce Lee’s ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) at 7:15pm! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, August 30

DragonCon 2018 kicks off with a second-line New Orleans-style parade featuring the Black Sheep Ensemble at 5pm! Have a magical night during the Center for Puppetry Arts’s The Dark Crystal Ball at 7pm, celebrating their new exhibit “Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal: World of Myth and Magic,” opening Friday, Aug. 31, (keep your eyes peeled for our Retro Review coming soon) and featuring special guests from the Jim Henson Company, a costume contest and more! DragonCon wouldn’t be the same without the tried and true Tiki night rocking out with the retro-tastic Soldado at Trader Vic’s! Geek it up and live long and prosper while experiencing The Greatest Generation, a podcast dedicated to Star Trek: The Next Generation at The Earl! Garage rock it up with Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah, The Minks and Forbidden Waves at The Star Bar! The Hot Hearts put on their farewell show at Eddie’s Attic! Get some soul with Loose Ends featuring Jane Eugene at City Winery! Catch a 50th Anniversary screening of The Beatles’ YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) at the Buckhead Theatre at 7pm! Venkman’s dishes out a rock fight between Led Zeppelin and The Who! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Stomp on down to Blind Willie’s for a night with Heather Luttrell! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, August 31

Get your uber geek on as the 32nd Annual premier sci-fi convention, DragonCon 2018, kicks off its first full day, running through Sept. 3! It’ll be an event chock full of rockin’ retro shenanigans, including a comic/pop artist alley, sci-fi classics, alternative history, comics, pop-art, fantasy, horror, paranormal, sci-fi literature, Star Wars, Tolkien, Star Trek, and more! Tonight, you won’t want to miss the Alternate History Temporal Ball, Who’s Line Is It Comic Book Improv, Pin-Ups by the Pool Party, a screening of Eduardo Miyar’s noir/sci-fi hybrid PAGE-JUMPER (2018), featuring Kool Kat Mike Malloy during the DragonCon Independent Film Festival, and so many more sci-fi ‘n’ geeky shenanigans!

Kool Kat Shane Morton a.k.a. one helluva Viking vixen with Valkyrie rock out with The Scragglers, The Crush and Twin Trances during The Star Bar’s Virgo Party! You won’t want to miss southern roots royalty Michelle Malone and Webb Wilder at The Vista Room! Bookworm it up at the 2018 AJC Decatur Book Festival, through Sept. 2! Get the rockin’ blues with Jackwagon, The Dround Hounds  and Skunkweed Juju at Avondale Towne Cinema! Catch a superhero double feature at SCADShow’s screenings of Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN THE MOVIE (1978) and SUPERMAN II: THE RICHARD DONNER CUT (1980) at 6pm! Get the blues with Bobby Rush at City Winery! Jam out with Bird Dog Jubilee and Lady Love at Aisle 5! Funk it up at Venkman’s with Homecooking: Excursions in Afro-Beat Funk featuring Mausiki Scales & The Common Ground Collective! It’s a blues showdown at the Northside Tavern with Cool John Ferguson, Melvin Zachery and Terrance Prather! Get the blues with House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, September 1

It’s day 2 of DragonCon 2018! So, sci-fi it up with a whole lotta retro goodies! You won’t want to miss the Dragon*Con Parade at 10 am; Ballyhoo Motion Pictures and Kool Kat Daniel Griffith’s MST3K THEY DO STUPID THINGS event, Lips Down on Dixie’s largest ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW event Kool Kat Talloolah Love’s Glamour Geek Revue and so much more!

Get some soul with The Brian McKnight 4 with special guest Lyfe Jennings at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre! The Plaza Theater screens ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY (2002), through Sept. 2! Rock out and folk on with Wovenhand, Blood on the Harp and US Prisms at The Earl! Get rootsy with Cody Marlowe followed by outlaw shenanigans with Sarah Shook & The Disarmers at Eddie’s Attic! Rock on down to The Star Bar for a night with Santoros, Fun Isn’t Fair, Post Hunk and Sex Farm! Funk it up with Funk You at Terminal West! Bluegrass it up with Battlefield Collective at Venkman’s! The Chi-Town Transit Authority Pays tribute to Chicago at The Vista Room! Get down with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank Williams, Jr. at Lakewood Amphitheatre! Get the blues with John Nemeth at Blind Willie’s! Get some soul with Grant Green, Jr. at the Northside Tavern! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, September 2

It’s day 3 of DragonCon 2018, so sci-fi it up and get geek-filled with a whole lotta shenanigans, including The Art of the Tiki panel featuring Kool Kat Derek Yaniger, Horror in Clay’s Jonathan Chaffin (see our Shop Around feature here), the Mechanical Masquerade and more! Hula on down to the Victory Sandwich Bar as they and The SOS Tiki Bar bring you a rockin’ LUAU featuring The Flame Throwers and Exotica Tiki Punk DJs! Or spend the night with Peabo Bryson and Jeffrey Osborne at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre! Stomp on down to The Earl for a night with The Goddamn Gallows and Birdcloud! Celebrate 25 years of David Anspaugh’s RUDY (1993) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Willie Sugarcapps! Get your Americana fix with Taylor Chaffin at Kavarna! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of George Lucas’ AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner!

Ongoing

The Marietta Theatre Company presents NUNSENSE through Sept. 1! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Aurora Theatre in Lawrence presents Disney’s NEWSIES, through Sept. 2! (LAST CHANCE!)

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every first Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

The Highlander rocks out with their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday!

Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

ATLRetro goes back to school with some killer old-school shenanigans! Come shake it up and see what we’ve found for you!

Monday, August 20

Drink & Draw goes batty with Kool Kat Madeline Brumby as Batgirl, hosted by Jon Waterhouse, at My Parents’ Basement! Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday! Or get adventurous at the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) with a screening of Steven Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) at 7:30pm! Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the ELVIS ’68 COMEBACK SPECIAL at theatres across Atlanta at 7:30pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Rock on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with Black Cat Adventure Squad, Craigzlist Punks and Play Center! Make your way to The Vista Room for a night with the Emerald Empire Band! Get the blues with Bob Page at Blind Willies! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, August 21

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Film in Films Classics Series with a Muppet-y screening of James Frawley’s THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979) at 7pm, featuring a pre-show intro and post-show Q&A session! Get hep to the jive with Ganstagrass at City Winery! Folk it up with The Retrovales at Java Monkey! Get some soul and rock out at Smith’s Olde Bar with The Sagas, Phantom Phunk and Indigo Innuendo! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get down with Ira Malkin & The Vipers at Blind Willies! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blues it up with the Crosstown Allstars at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, August 22

Jeff Beck and Paul Rodgers rock out at Chastain Park! Get intergalactic at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Steven Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Folk it up with The Great Peacock and Kalen Nash at The Earl! Raise a ruckus with Johnny Roquemore, Mike Aiken, Candy Fernaux and Brian Perry at the Red Clay Theatre! Funk rock it up with Cure My Enemy, The Dround Hounds and Nobody’s Darlings at The Star Bar! Rock on down to The Highlander for their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday! Geek it up at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Dungeons & Dragons 101: Learn to Play event! Get to the root of it all with Joe McGuinness at Blind Willie’s! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Catch a screening of Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING (2003) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) at 7:15pm! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, August 23

Rock out with Jesse Colin Young (The Youngbloods) at City Winery! Get to Beer & Lounging at the Clermont Lounge with the Jacks River Band, Andrea Colburn & Mud Moseley and Sasha Valley of the Outlaw Women Band! Rock out at The Highlander with DJ Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! Boogie on down to the Fox Theatre’s Coca Cola Film Festival screening/sing-a-long of Randal Kleiser’s GREASE (1978) celebrating 40 years at 7:30pm! Shenanigans ensue at theatres across Atlanta as RiffTrax takes on Peter Yates’ intergalactic space tale, KRULL (1983) at 8pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Get folksy with Besides Daniel, Jonathan Peyton, The Brook & The Bluff and Michael Coast at Eddie’s Attic! Stomp on down to Smith’s Olde Bar for a night with The Early Favorites, Brewery Road and Peter Searcy & the Goodnight Noises! Get rocked with The Sleepers, Small Reactions and Twin Studies at The Star Bar! Adron dishes out a night of ‘60s neotropical soul with Pip the Pansy at Terminal West! Spend the night with Questionable at Best at Venkman’s! Funk it up with The Dip at Vinyl! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ tunes with The Knotty Boys and killer island cocktails! The Juke Joint Dukes get old-school at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, August 24

The Highlander gets hell-bent with ELZIG, Kool Kats The Casket Creatures and Rotten Stitches during the Road to Marred Up Fest! Get heavy Swedish-style with Yngwie Malmsteen in Heaven, or rock out in Hellwith Black Stone Cherry at the Masquerade! It’s a night of rockin’ tributes at The Star Bar with The Cherry Bomb (Joan Jett & The Runaways) and Evil Women Rock (all female tribute to Black Sabbath)! As if! Amy Heckerling’s ‘90s classic, CLUELESS (1995) screens at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre at 8pm! Get the hill country blues with Cedric Burnside and Ben Nichols at City Winery! Or Americana it up with Sarah Peacock at the Crimson Moon Café! Get down with Kool Keith at the Drunken Unicorn! Bluegrass it up with The Travelin’ McCourys at Eddie’s Attic! Get the rockin’ blues with The Groove Rockets at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! ATL Collective relives Alanis Morrisette’s JAGGED LITTLE PILL at Terminal West! Honky tonk it up with Whitey Morgan at the Variety Playhouse! Get rocked with Marty Manous at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! The Plaza Theater screens Lee Aronsohn’s 40 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE MAGIC MUSIC MOVIE (2017), documenting the ‘70s Colorado jam band, Magic Music, through Aug. 30! It’s a blues showdown at the Northside Tavern with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and Beverly “Guitar” Watkins! Get the blues with Sandra Hall & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, August 25

Get retro rocked at The Star Bar as Little Steven’s Underground Garage presents a night with The Woggles, Barrence Whitfield & the Savages and Bad Spell! The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema delivers a special matinee screening of James Frawley’s THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979) for the kiddies at 10:30am! Get retro rocked at Chastain Park with Denny Laine (The Moody Blues), Jeff Carlisi, Peter Beckett, Elliott Lurie, Albert Bouchard and Yacht Rock Revue! The Aviation Wing of Marietta present their Wings and Whitewalls day event featuring a retro car show, food trucks, a pin-up contest and live tunes by Kitty Rose & The Rattlers, Atomic Boogie and The Sideburners! The Highlander rocks out with the Marred Up Fest featuring Buck Swifty, Die 985, DDC, The Sideburners (Twice in one day!), Degradation and Dale Jepsen and the Nighthawks! Permanent Waves pays tribute to Rush at Avondale Towne Cinema! Kool Kat Jeffrey Butzer and more dish out their PJ in PJs: The Music of Polly Jean Harvey Pajama Party at The Earl! Haunt on down to Amsterdam Atlanta for Kool Kat VJ Anthony’s COFFIN CLASSICS: Goth Industrial Darkwave Music Video Night featuring Goth, dark 80s and more! Sax it up with Dwan Bosman and special guest Morgan Bosman at the Red Light Café!  Opera on Tap Atlanta presents Mozart & Mimosas at Noni’s Bar & Deli! Make your way to The Earl Smith Strand Theatre for the Marietta International Film Festival screening films through Aug. 26! Shenanigans ensue at theatres across Atlanta as RiffTrax takes on Peter Yates’ intergalactic space tale, KRULL (1983) at 12:55pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Haunt it up with your heart at the Historic Oakland Cemetery’s Love Stories: Summer Date Night event! Stomp on down to the Crimson Moon Café for a night with The Texas KGB! Funk it up with AJ Ghent and Delta Moon at Eddie’s Attic! Get your ‘80s MTV-era synthpop fix with Electric Avenue at MadLife Stage & Studios! Forever Abbey Road pays tribute to the Beatles at the Red Clay Theatre! Rock out at the Variety Playhouse for a night with Dead Affect and Interstellar Echoes! Get the blues with Bob Margolin at Blind Willie’s! It’s a blues showdown at the Northside Tavern with Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck and Bill Sheffield! Get down and dirty with The Wild Hares at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, August 26

TCM Big Screen Classics presents a 60th Anniversary screening of Joshua Logan’s SOUTH PACIFIC (1958) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Retro it up at Chastain Park with Rick Springfield, Loverboy, Greg Kihn and Tommy Tutone! Get some soul with Candi Staton at City Winery! Make your way to the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of David M. Evans’ THE SANDLOT (1993) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival Presents Shalom Bollywood, celebrating the Jewish stars that that dominated early Indian cinema! Or get adventurous at the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) with a screening of Rob Reiner’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987) at 12pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get down with Little G. Weevil at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Marietta Theatre Company presents NUNSENSE through Sept. 1!

The Aurora Theatre in Lawrence presents Disney’s NEWSIES, through Sept. 2!

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every first Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

The Highlander rocks out with their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday!

Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

This Week in ATLRetro has Kool Kats galore! Come see all the shakin’ shenanigans we’ve dug up just for you!

Monday, August 13

Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday! Time travel to Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) for a screening of Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) at 7:30pm! Or catch a screening of Isao Takahata’s GRAVEYARD OF THE FIREFLIES (1993) at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Funk it up with Tower of Power at City Winery! Get experimental with Kraus and No Life at the Drunken Unicorn! Get the blues with Clark Ashton at Blind Willies! Get funky and groove on down to Café 290 every second and fourth Monday of the month for a taste of Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!” Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, August 14

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Film in Films Classics Series with a screening of Robert Altman’s THE PLAYER (1992) at 7pm, featuring a pre-show intro and post-show Q&A session! Get Texas countrified and swing on by Atlanta Symphony Hall for a night with Lyle Lovett & His Large Band with special guest Francine Reed! Get sizzlin’ with Kool Kat Katherine Lashe and her burly-Q gals of Syrens of the South as they hit the books during their Tease Tuesday Burlesque: Back to School event, shakin’ it up at the Red Light Café! Get a second funky helping of Tower of Power at City Winery! Folk it up with Skout at Smith’s Olde Bar! Make your way to Eddie’s Attic for a Q&A with Dave Lory, Jeff Buckley’s Manager and author of FROM HALLELUJAH TO THE LAST GOODBYE! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get down with Andrew Black at Blind Willies! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blues it up with the Crosstown Allstars at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, August 15

Get campy and catch a screening of Beeban Kidron’s TO WONG FOO (1995) presented by WUSSY MAG at The Plaza Theater at 8pm (doors at 7pm)! Rock on down to The Highlander for their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday! Wax on and wax off at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of John G. Avildsen’s THE KARATE KID (1984) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Or catch a screening of Isao Takahata’s GRAVEYARD OF THE FIREFLIES (1993) at 7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Glam it up with Steel Panther at the Buckhead Theatre! Or get your Americana fix with Lori McKenna and Dustin Christensen at City Winery! Rock out at The Earl with DeGreaser, Glove, Twisty Cats and Muted! Get some grit, soul and rock ‘n’ roll with Magnolia Moon, Hush Money and Whiskey Tango at Smith’s Olde Bar! The Electromatics dish out a night of Chicago/West Coast blues at Blind Willie’s! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Catch a screening of Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) at 7:15pm! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, August 16

Videodrome and The Plaza Theater sells their souls for rock ‘n’ roll with their Plazadrome Cult Film Series screening of Brian De Palma’s PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974) at 9:30pm! Rock out ‘70s-style with Rare Birds and Blackfox at The Star Bar! Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the ELVIS ’68 COMEBACK SPECIAL at theatres across Atlanta at 7:30pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Get folksy with Nate Currin at Eddie’s Attic! The BadAsh Allstar Team dish out their ELO Jam at the Red Light Café! Smith’s Olde Bar gets down with a night of dirty ol’ rock ‘n’ roll with World is Watching, Kyle Troop & The Heretics, Judah Kim & The Assasination and Edelwood! Get some rockin’ soul with Fire & Knife Duo at Solis Two Porsche Drive! Make your way to Venkman’s for The Atlanta Jazz Orchestra! Get groovy with Kendall Street Company and C2 & the Brothers Reed at Vinyl! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck & The Atlanta Horns get down at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, August 17

Get hellacious and rock on down to The Star Bar for a night with The Hanging Judge, Redneck Nosferatu and The Jasons! Get your southern retro electro rock fix with Stop Light Observations at Terminal West! Catch a live taping of The Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast at the Variety Playhouse! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck records live at Avondale Towne Cinema! The Marietta Theatre Company presents NUNSENSE through Sept. 1! Strike a pose and vogue it up at Mary’s for Madonna-Rama, celebrating the Grand Dame of Pop’s 60th birthday! Spend the night with Trombone Shorty, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Galactic at Chastain Park! Rhett Miller rocks out at City Winery! Folk it up with Michael McDermott and Halcyon at Eddie’s Attic! Get jazzy with Marquis Hare at the High Museum! The Purple Madness pays tribute to Prince at MadLife Stage & Studios! Experience Black Moth Super Rainbow at the Masquerade! Folk it up with Boo Reefa at Tin Roof Cantina! The Good Times Brass Band gets down at Venkman’s! The Earl Smith Strand Theatre dishes out some golden oldies with their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19! Big Shoes pay tribute to Little Feat at The Vista Room! Get rocked with Godsmack and Shinedown at Lakewood Amphitheatre! Blues it up with Stoney Brooks at the Northside Tavern!  Fat Matt’s Rib Shack dishes out their R&B Revue! Beverly “Guitar” Watkins gets the blues at Blind Willie’s! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, August 18

Rock on down to The Star Bar for the Upbeat! Benefit (founded in memory of Atlanta’s Tony Dinnewith), benefitting local independent musicians, with a hellacious line-up featuring The Scragglers, Bad Spell, Codeine Haze, Screamin’ Demons, Blowdown, Captain & Maybelle, Dusty Booze & The Babyhaters and Kool Kats The Casket Creatures! Toto invades Atlanta Symphony Hall! Kool Kat Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics dish out a night of Georgia soul at the Red Hare Brewing Company in Marietta! Allied Ink Tattoo with Kool Kat Chris Hamer of UrbnPop host their first ever Punk Rock Flea Market, from 4pm – 9pm! Make your way to Avondale Towne Cinema for their Led Zeppelin Jam III! Get your magic fix at ATL Craft’s Bewitching Bazaar at 7pm! Or get witchy at Markster Con’s TriWizard Ball at Fado Irish Pub! Spend the night with Kool Kat Fred LeBlanc with Cowboy Mouth at the Buckhead Theatre! Get countrified with Mac McAnally at City Winery! Criminal Records dishes out some gritty psychedelic garage rock with Kool Kats Gringo Star during their album release party! Bluegrass it up with Adam Wakefield & Nick Hagelin at Eddie’s Attic! Departure pays tribute to Journey at the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre! Indie rock it up with Jonah Matranga at the Masquerade! The Chi-Town Transit Authority pays tribute to Chicago at the Red Clay Theatre! Get down with Escape Vehicle, Sugarfoot and Free Hat at Smith’s Olde Bar! Get your ‘60s and ‘70s rock fix with The Rainmen and Penny Western at Tin Roof Cantina! Catch a 10am screening of Disney’s THE LION KING (1994) at Venkman’s followed by ATL Collective reliving the hit from The Doobie Brothers! Blues it up with Albert White and Shelton Powe at the Northside Tavern! Get down and dirty with the Juke Joint Dukes at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get the blues with Sandra Hall & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, August 19

Get the blues with Southern Avenue and The Vegabonds at Park Tavern! Get intergalactic at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Steven Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Or get adventurous at the Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) with a screening of Steven Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) at 12pm! Get countrified with Mac McAnally at City Winery! Todd Nance & Friends and Back to Memphis get down at Smith’s Olde Bar! Make your way to Venkman’s for a night with Harvest Moon! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get down with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Earl Smith Strand Theatre dishes out some golden oldies with their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19! (LAST CHANCE!)

The Marietta Theatre Company presents NUNSENSE through Sept. 1!

The Aurora Theatre in Lawrence presents Disney’s NEWSIES, through Sept. 2!

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

The Highlander rocks out with their Punk/Metal/New Wave Karaoke Night, every Wednesday!

Get your vinyl fix during Little 5 Points Corner Tavern’s Records of Mass Destruction! event, every Monday!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

Peter Hardy. Photo courtesy of Peter Hardy.

The 2018 Essential Theatre Play Festival is back for its 20th year, through August 26 at the West End Performing Arts Center. This Atlanta-based summer festival is unique for its emphasis on Georgia playwrights,  many of whom have gone on to national fame. This year’s repertory-style event features two extraordinary world premieres by young playwrights, BUILT TO FLOAT, a haunting magic realist story of two sisters by Rachael Graf Evans and WOKE, a powerful coming of age tale of two friends, one black, one white, transitioning from high school to college, by Avery Sharpe, as well as A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT WAYS I’D LIKE TO DIEge (2 nights only, Aug 16-17!), a one-man show written and performed by Tim McDonough, long-time Georgia Shakespeare actor and Theater Emory artistic director .

The man behind the curtain, so to speak, of the Essential Theatre is Founding Artistic Director Peter Hardy, who has been working in Atlanta as a writer, director, actor and producer for more than 30 years.  His plays have won national awards and have received more than 30 productions around the country, and he’s a Suzi Bass Award-winning director.  For many years he served as artistic director of the outdoor drama UNTO THESE HILLS in Cherokee, North Carolina. He’s also been seen onstage at Horizon Theatre, Actor’s Express, Aurora Theatre, Georgia Ensemble Theatre and Theatrical Outfit, and in the past two years has appeared in five productions at Shakespeare Tavern.

ATLRetro caught up with Peter to find out more about Essential Theatre and why this year’s festival should be “essential” to Atlanta theatre-goers, as well as what this Kool Kat is up to next.

Congratulations on this being the 20th annual festival. Why is this such a big deal and how did the opening go?

It’s always a challenge to produce brand-new plays, most of them by writers who—by definition—have no name-recognition value when we first present them. The fact that we’re still going—and doing better than ever, I think—in a summer theater season that is now dominated by big popular musicals, is something I’m really proud of. But every year, we have to fight for those audiences! Our opening weekend—for Rachel Graf Evans’ BUILT TO FLOAT—went just great, with a fantastic response from the crowd.

Why did the festival decide to focus exclusively on Georgia playwrights? Haven’t some of the plays and playwrights gone on to national fame?

In our early years, we would produce one new Georgia play each Festival, along with other Regional Premieres from around the country. But, as time went by, we got more and more good submissions from Georgia playwrights, and that was what we were becoming best known for, anyway, so we made that the focus of our mission. In 2001 we produced the first play by an 18-year-old from Decatur named Lauren Gunderson, (If you missed our 2017 Kool Kat interview with Lauren and ADA AND THE MEMORY ENGINE, catch up here), who has gone on to become—literally—the most produced American playwright of the past couple of years. After we did Topher Payne‘s EVELYN IN PURGATORY in 2012, he’s gone on to have his plays produced Off-Broadway, around the country, and at many of the theaters in the Atlanta area, as well as writing several television films. Jordan Pulliam‘s BAT-HAMLET—a comic mash-up of BATMAN and HAMLET—has gone on to eight further productions, including one that’s just about to open at Out of Box Theater in Marietta. Those are just the most obvious examples.

How do you select the winning plays?

Our submission deadline each year is April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday. For 2019, we got over 90 submissions, and they will be read and evaluated by volunteer readers, all writers and theater professionals. Ultimately I make the final decisions, in consultation with trusted advisors. We accept any kind of plays, on any subjects—they just have to be written by current Georgia residents, and we highly prefer scripts that would take at least an hour to perform. Artistic choices are always, ultimately, subjective, but my answer to the question “What kind of plays are you looking for?” is always “Good ones.”

BUILT TO FLOAT. L-R: Rachel Wansker and Suzanne Roush. Hardy says this shot is “from a part of the show that is an extended haunted-house-of-the-mind sequence that has a nice ‘Caligari’ look to it. Photo credit: Elizabeth Cooper.

Tell us a little about each of the plays and playwrights? What about these stood out in the selection process and why should audiences come out? Maybe a favorite scene. Let’s start with BUILT TO FLOAT by Rachael Graf Evans.

BUILT TO FLOAT, early on, seems to be a standard family drama, about two adult sisters trying to cope with the legacy of their troubled—even traumatic—childhood. But it quickly becomes apparent that everything is not what it seems, and there are multiple levels of reality at play as we learn more and more about these characters and their lives. I love the way the play reveals and transforms itself as it goes on, like a flower unfolding itself. It takes the audience on a journey of understanding, and leads to a powerful and positive ending. All that may sound kind of vague, but really, I don’t want to give away too much!

WOKE. L-R: Karina Simmons, DaShon Green, Paul Danner, Derrick Robertson. Photo credit: Elizabeth Cooper.

Next, WOKE by Avery Sharpe?

This is another play that takes you by surprise. It starts out like a comedy, with two high school graduates—one black, one white—who have been friends for years, just goofing around with each other, talking about girl and parents and their favorite rappers. We see them awkwardly moving toward serious relationships with a couple of girls they like. But then they have a real falling out when it comes to their very different understandings and opinions about racial injustice, and the epidemic of young black men being killed by police. It becomes a very thought-provoking examination of prejudice and privilege, but in the end it’s still a strong story of friendship and people trying to understand and communicate with each other.

By the way.I’m particularly pleased that this year—for our 20th Annual Festival— we’re producing the World Premieres of two young writers, each of them just starting out in their careers!

Tim McDonough.

And finally A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT WAYS I’D LIKE TO DIE, the one-man show written and performed by actor Tim McDonough? As I recall (but may be incorrect), the festival usually has included two shows?

For many years, we produced three plays in repertory, for the Festival. Since 2014 we’ve been doing only two—along with some staged readings in our Bare Essentials series. But last year, as an extra attraction, we presented two performances of a one-man show called INDEPENDENT, featuring popular local actor Dan Triandiflou—and written by John D. Babcock—about the legendary actor-filmmaker John Cassavettes. We didn’t really have to “produce” it so much as give them a time-slot in the Festival, and it gave us the chance to present more offerings, making it more of a “festival.” This year we’re doing the same thing with Tim McDonough’s one-man show, a darkly comic meditation on mortality—you know, how he’d like to die, and what kind of lighting he would like to have. Tim was Artistic Director at Theatre Emory for years, and has been a distinguished Atlanta actor since the 80s.

Atlanta isn’t always thought of as a theater city and yet there are some tremendous performances happening here in this city. What would you say to a New Yorker or anyone else not from Atlanta who is skeptical about our theater scene?

Anyone who doesn’t think Atlanta is a theater city should take a look at the huge number of producing companies there are, all over the metropolitan area. I don’t know of any other city in the South, anyway, nor in many states around the country, that have so much theater to offer. Of course, the booming film-TV industry that has grown up in the area means there is more and more acting talent to draw on, all the time. And where you’ve got a bunch of actors, you’re going to have a lot of theater happening.

BUILT TO FLOAT. L-R: Suzanne Roush and Rachel Wansker. Photo credit: Elizabeth Cooper.

What’s the secret origin behind the Essential Theatre and the festival, and have you been involved from the start or how did you get involved?

In the early 80s, I spent several years in New York City, temping and directing small Nowhere-NEAR-Broadway productions, some of which I put together. When I moved to Atlanta in 1986, I started doing independent projects under the name of the Essential Theatre, along with acting and directing for other companies. Back then, “The Essential Theatre” was just me getting some people together and doing a show. But they were few and far between, and usually in a different venue every time. And, even though we got some good reviews and audiences, we never got much recognition. It was hard for an independent show to get noticed. Also, I tended to do plays I had written, or little-known plays by other writers, so it was even easier for us to fall through the cracks. Around 1998 I got the idea: “Maybe if we do THREE plays no one has heard of, it will get more attention.” And so the idea of doing a Festival was born—and right away, it worked, and we had a feature article in Creative Loafing for the first Festival, in 1999. Once we started doing the annual Festival, it slowly began to be a company, and not just me calling people up. We have a General Manager, Jennifer Kimball, who has taken us to a whole new business level, and there are designers, directors and technicians who have been working with us for years, and actors who have done many show with us.

When did you first get started in theater and is there a story behind that? Did you always want to be an actor/playwright/director?

My parents were in theater—working both professionally and in universities, where they taught. I mostly grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where they were professors at UNC. When I first went to college, I rebelled against my parents for a while by considering becoming a history or English scholar, and I changed majors several times. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t good at anything but theater and writing. I’ve been pursing writing and directing since college, and occasionally acting—though, in recent years, I’ve been appearing onstage more, most often at the Shakespeare Tavern. I never had a great desire to do Shakespeare, but I’ve found that I quite enjoy it.

Peter Hardy at the Aurora Theatre playing “The Man in Gray” (basically, the Devil) in ABIGAIL/1702

Because we are ATLRetro, we have to ask who are a few of your favorite 20th century playwrights? Who are inspirations and favorite plays and a sentence or two as to why?

I love and appreciate many, many playwrights—and novelists and musicians and filmmakers, etc.—but the two who most directly and specifically inspired and excited me, starting around 1980, were John Guare and Sam Shepard. Guare wrote SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION and HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES and other, wonderful, lesser-known works, like MARCO POLO SINGS A SOLO, and I loved the way his scripts blended comedy and tragedy and melodrama and surrealism—that was a direct influence on my own writing. And, when I was living in New York City, I saw the original productions of Shepard’s FOOL FOR LOVE and A LIE OF THE MIND, both directed by him—and they changed my life. They’re probably the two most amazing productions I’ve ever seen. At their best, they tap into something deep and mythic about American families and the battlefield of love between men and women.

When/where will we see you or one of your works onstage again as a playwright, director or actor?

Right now the Essential Festival is completely absorbing me—then we’ll start reading the close-to-100 scripts we received to be considered for next summer’s Festival. I don’t have any current plans to be back onstage soon, but hey—I’m available to audition! Send me an invite!  And I’m always writing. I tend to take a long time to finish things, and I get distracted by other projects. But I’m—hopefully—lose to finishing a play called THE OTHER PART OF THE PICTURE, which was inspired by an apartment I had in my grad school days at Penn State. It’s about neighbors who gradually get to know each other better, but never as well as the audience does. And I’ve also been excited about a screenplay—my first full-length one—called NOCTURNAL, which is a Hitchcock-inspired psychological mystery. About a woman who, um, goes around swimming in other people’s pools, at night. And there’s a half-finished supernatural novel, DREAMLAND DRIVE-IN, which has been on the shelf for a while, but which I still like, and I fully intend to get back to it, one day, because I don’t want the cliché of a “half-finished novel” to add to my necklace of regrets.

BUILT TO FLOAT. L-R: Alex Van and Heather Schroeder. Photo credit: Elizabeth Cooper.

Anything else you’d like to tell ATLRetro readers about the festival or the upcoming 2018-2019 Essential Theatre season?

The Essential Theatre doesn’t really have a “season”—we produce our annual Festival in the summer, and that’s mostly it, aside from occasional special development projects like one we recently started, that had to do with turning the story of Syrian refugees into theater pieces. So, check out the Festival at www.EssentialTheatre.com—we’re running through Aug. 26! And—this may or may not happen, but maybe soon—we really want to present a concert performance of a new musical called MEMORY LANE, which is about the residents of a senior home where many of the patients have Alzheimer’s Disease. We frequently do staged reading of new plays, which aren’t hard to put together, but with a musical, it’s more challenging. So, nothing is definite, but we really hope we can do something with that in September, on or near National Alzheimer’s Day.

Purchase tickets and find out more here!

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Hells bells! ATLRetro is where it’s at This Week! Come see what we’ve found for you!

Monday, August 6

Get ghastly and catch a screening of Ivan Reitman’s GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) at 7:30pm! Get the blues with Bill Sheffield at Blind Willies! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And blues on down to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack for a side of Dry White Toast and a plate full ‘o finger lickin’ BBQ!

Tuesday, August 7

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Film in Films Classics Series with a screening of Preston Sturges’ SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS (1941) at 7pm, which includes a pre-show intro and post-show Q&A session! Get your ‘90s rock fix at Chastain Park with Stone Temple Pilots, Bush and The Cult! Get some soul with Syleena Johnson at City Winery! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Get down with the Down-To-Earth Blues Band at Blind Willies! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! Blues it up with the Crosstown Allstars at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, August 8

Get down with Snake Plissken at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of John Carpenter’s BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Or hang with “The Dude” as TCM Big Screen Classics presents a screening of the Coen Brothers’ THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Spend the night with Tortured Soul at City Winery! Get to the root of it all with Bradford Loomis and Garrett Moore at Red Clay Theatre! Make your way to The Star Bar for Champagne Superchillin’, Kook Kat Jeffrey Butzer and The Comparts, Pine & Tolliver and Tuk Smith! Get the blues with Kenny Wayne Shepherd at Atlanta Symphony Hall! Or get down with Unknown Lyric at Venkman’s! Kool Kat Scott Glazer’s Mojo Dojo gets down at Blind Willie’s! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Geek it up at Noni’s Bar & Deli during their Dungeons & Dragons 101: Learn to Play event! Grab your Precious and catch a screening of Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) at 7:15pm! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, August 9

Raise a ruckus with Kool Kat Spike Fullerton with Ghost Riders Car Club during their Back to School Special at the Clermont Lounge! Or get down to Chastain Park for a night with Dwight Yoakam, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle! Bluegrass it up with Sam Bush and Danny Burns at City Winery! Rock out at The Highlander with DJ Howiestein and Mister Wilson’s Over the Edge Record Party! Nightrain pays tribute to Guns ‘N’ Roses at MadLife Stage & Studios! Spend the night with Paul McDonald and Kool Kat Brooks Mason with Georgia Flood at Smith’s Olde Bar! Get your British Blues rock fix with Marty Manous at Solis Two Porsche Drive! Get rocked with The Stoplight Roses, The Skylarks and Hyperspace at The Star Bar! Stomp on down to the Red Light Café for their Bluegrass Jam! Get some rhythm with the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra at 529! Jazz it up with Selina Albright at Suite Food Lounge! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Blues it up with George Hughley & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, August 10

The Empress of Soul Gladys Knight and The O’Jays invade Chastain Park! The Fernbank Museum of Natural History dishes out a night of prohibition pandemonium with their Fernbank After Dark: Brewing & Bootlegging event, featuring live music by Chelsea Shag! Or New Wave it up with The Alarm at City Winery! Christina Christian & Brian Revels get down at the Crimson Moon Café! Get some soul with Chinua Hawk at Eddie’s Attic! Hell’s Bells! Lakewood Amphitheatre gets rocked with Slayer, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Testament and Napalm Death! Get some soul with Gareth Asher at POUR! Sail On pays tribute to The Beach Boys at the Red Clay Theatre! Get jazzy at Solis Two Porsche Drive with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Or fiddle it up with Amanda Shires and Cory Branan at the Variety Playhouse! Get sax-y with Boney James at the Wolf Creek Amphitheatre! Get art rocked and doom funked with Cave of Swimmers, ZRUDA, Hot Ram and Ssurround Ssound at The Star Bar! The Earl Smith Strand Theatre dishes out some golden oldies with their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19! Stomp on down to 529 for a night with Ben Trickey, Blood on the Harp, Charles Walker and Georgia Slim! Catch a screening of Steve Barron’s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990) at SCADShow at 7pm! Rock on down to The Vista Room as 84 pays tribute to Van Halen! Get your hellacious hula on during Ritual’s Gothic Luau and Dark Tiki Party at Heretic! Spend the night with the Gin Blossoms at Chamblee City Park! Funk it up New Orleans-style with Zydefunk at the Northside Tavern! Get the rockin’ blues with Big C. at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! House Rocker Johnson & The Shadows get down at Blind Willie’s! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, August 11

Rev it up during Rockabilly Rumble Vat Southern Devil Harley Davidson featuring one hellacious day filled with hotrod and bike shows, contests, a retrotastic vendor’s market and live tunes with The Tremors and Slim & The Gems! Get down to the Elliott Street Pub for a night with Kool Kat Spike Fullerton with the Russian Roulette Band and Andrea Colburn & Mud Moseley! Boogie down with Kool Kat VJ Anthony during his ‘80s New Wave Music Video Dance Party at Amsterdam Atlanta! Catch a screening of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) at Venkman’s at 10am! Cruise on by The Earl Smith Strand Theatre for the Creepers Car Club Car Show, from 2pm – 8pm, and stick around for their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19! Rock out with JesusHoney, Secret Shame and Picture One at The Earl! Folk it up with Griffin House at Eddie’s Attic! Get hell-bent at The Highlander with Hembree & The Satan Sisters, The Sawedoffs, the Go-Nowheres and Freakshow Sinema! Blues it up with Dr. Dixon, Stoney Brooks and Nathan Nelson at the Northside Tavern! Boogie down to the Red Light Café for the Queerly Beloved Revue’s End of Summer Bash! Spend the night with the Gin Blossoms at Suwannee Town Center Park! Get groovy at Terminal West with Voodoo Visionary, Hedonistas and Tallboys! Bluegrass it up with Dierks Bentley, Brothers Osborne and Lanco at the Verizon Amphitheatre! Jazz it up with Crushed Velvet at The Vista Room! Spend the night at the Center For Puppetry Arts during their Puppet Party Series event Puppets and Pints! Rough Draft funks it up at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get the blues with Big Bill Morganfield at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, August 12

Time travel to Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) for a screening of Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) at 12pm! Funk it up at Aisle 5 for their Sunday Funk event! Or catch a screening of Isao Takahata’s GRAVEYARD OF THE FIREFLIES (1993) at 12:55pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); and AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow)]! Doria Roberts dishes out a night of the blues at City Winery! Classically jazz it up with Arpenik at the Red Clay Theatre! Get folksy with Lateral Blue, Control Burn and Logan Magness at the Red Light Café! The Earl Smith Strand Theatre dishes out some golden oldies with their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19! Come on out to My Parents’ Basement and celebrate their 3rd Anniversary with food specials, a comic book sale and more! Wax on and wax off at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of John G. Avildsen’s THE KARATE KID (1984) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get down with Little G. Weevil at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Earl Smith Strand Theatre dishes out some golden oldies with their Jukebox Giants: Motown & More music and dance revue, boogying down through August 19!

The Aurora Theatre in Lawrence presents Disney’s NEWSIES, through Sept. 2!

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

by Melanie Crew
Managing Editor

Come see what ATLRetro has in store for you This Week!

Monday, July 30

Rock out with The Dollyrots and The Hearsay at Smith’s Olde Bar! Spend the night with Jess Williamson, Twin Studies and Moses Nesh at The Earl! Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires it up at Blind Willies! Get darkly folksy with Xasthur and Wino at 529! Swing on by Big Band Night featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 17-member orchestra at Café 290 every first and third Monday of the month! Boogie on down to the Northside Tavern and spend an evening with Lola at her famous Monday Night Northside Jam! And get the blues with Larry Griffith at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Tuesday, July 31

The Landmark Midtown Art Cinema continues their Film in Films Classics Series with a screening of Jean Luc-Godard’s CONTEMPT (1963) at 7pm, which includes a pre-show intro and post-show Q&A session! BODEGA rocks out at The Earl with Fun Isn’t Fair! Spend the night with Pony Bradshaw at Eddie’s Attic! The Vans Warped Tour invades Lakewood Amphitheatre featuring The Interrupters, Reel Big Fish, Less than Jake, Chelsea Grin and so much more! Fiddle it up with Chris Wilcox & The Boys at the Red Light Café! Get old-timey with Ol’ GoForth at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! Stomp on down to Blind Willies for a night with the BooHoo Ramblers! Jam it up with Joe Gransden and his jazz jam session at Venkman’s every Tuesday! The Star Bar delivers a night of retro shenanigans with DJ Quasi Mandisco’s Little 5 Points Dance Party featuring retro-soul, funk, ‘80s, ‘90s and more! JT Speed gets down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! And as always, groove on down with Swami Gone Bananas at the Northside Tavern!

Wednesday, August 1

Get retro-tastic at The Star Bar with Brian Revels, The Kernal and Book Club! Live long and prosper at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of Nicholas Meyer’s STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN (1982) at 2:30pm/7:30pm!  Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta/Duluth/Marietta) presents a screening of Paul Brickman’s RISKY BUSINESS (1983) at 7:15pm! Get down with OKCello at City Winery! Folk it up with Great Peacock and Tojo & Womz at The Earl! Get the blues with the Cazanovas at Blind Willie’s! Funk it up with the Mike Veal Band at Tin Roof Cantina! Get jazzy at the Red Light Café with The Gordon Vernick Quartet! Get your folk rock fix with Matt Nathanson and O.A.R. at the Roxy! Or make your way to the Northside Tavern as Danny ‘Mudcat’ Dudeck fires up a night of acoustic blues! St. James Live! delivers their Hump Days Blues night, getting classic blues-style every Wednesday! And as always, it’s Ladies Night at Johnny’s Hideaway which plays hits from Sinatra to Madonna for a generally mature crowd.

Thursday, August 2

Cineprov dishes out a night of horrorific laughs at The Plaza Theater as they screen/riff Claudio Fragasso’s TROLL 2 (1990) at 7:30pm! Or make your way to the Fox Theatre as they continue their Coca Cola Summer Film Festival with a screening of William Wyler’s FUNNY GIRL (1968) at 7:30pm! Stomp on down to Eddie’s Attic for a night with Reverend Hylton, Frankie Boots, Stu Larson and Tim Hart! Spend the night with Pentley Holmes at Java Monkey! Get rocked with Boy Hits Car at the Masquerade! Honky tonk it up with Smokey Jones & The 3 Dollar Pistols and I Want Whiskey at Venkman’s! Get down with Atlanta’s own, Arrested Development at City Winery! Cody Matlock & the Mothership get down at Darwin’s Burgers & Blues! It’s Mai Tai Thursday at Trader Vic’s so hula on down for a night of rockin’ island tunes and killer island cocktails! Blues it up with The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! The Northside Tavern gets rockin’ with a little Chicago/Delta blues of The Breeze Kings! Get your boogie on at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, as Chickenshack featuring Eddie Tigner, delivers some honky-tonk blues! And as always, boogie down at Mary’s, as the East Atlanta venue gets funky with their weekly Disco in the Village.

Friday, August 3

Stomp on down to 529 for Nikki & The Phantom Callers’ 7” Release Party with special guests, Kool Kat Rod Hamdallah, the Invisible Teardrops and Roadkill Debutante! Bogey & The Viceroy swank it up with their Stevie Wonder Dance Party at The Vista Room! Or rock out with The Distractors at Avondale Towne Cinema! Catch Lauryn Hill at Chastain Park! Or get down with Arrested Development at City Winery! Get brutal with Sadistic Vision at The Earl! Creedence Clearwater Revisited makes their way to the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre! Get Dixie-fied and swing on by the Red Clay Theatre for a night with the Swingin’ Saddle Cats and Tray Dahl & The Jugtime Ragband! Funk it up with Brandon “Taz” Niederauer at Terminal West! Rock out with Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ at Venkman’s!  Catch a screening of the Coen Brothers’ O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000) at 8pm at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre! Chester Gregory brings you The Eve of Jackie: The Legacy of Jackie Wilson at Marietta’s New Theatre in the Square! Tribute pays tribute to the Allman Brothers Band at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre! Get the rockin’ blues with Dani Mac & Co. at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! George Hughley & The Shadows get down at Blind Willie’s! Time-Warp it up at The Plaza Theater as they continue their tradition of screening THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Saturday, August 4

EyeDrum brings their The Signal and The Noise series to The Plaza Theater with a screening of Robert Wiene’s THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1921) with a live one-of-a-kind musical performance by Paul Mercer, Gabe Monticello and Kool Kat Aileen Loy at 7pm! Or rev on down to The Star Bar with Kool Kat Hot Rod Walt & The Psycho-Devilles, Little Lesley & The Barshots, Bucky Lastard and Slim & The Gems! Get snazzy with the Georgia Pinup Posse’s End of Summer Yard Sale at Garage 71 Studios in Buford at 10am! Join the fantasy and catch a screening of Jim Henson’s THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982) at the Center for Puppetry Arts at 8pm! Funk it up at Terminal West during The James Brown Dance Party! Get countrified with Will Kimbrough at Art Farm/Serenbe! Get to jammin’ with Jupiter Coyote at the Buckhead Theatre! Get jazzy with Melvin Miller at City Winery! Gypsy jazz it up with Kool Kat Amy Pike and The Bonaventure Quartet with Maggie Koerner at Eddie’s Attic! Get mischievous with a folksy punk fix with Tail Light Rebellion, Gateway to Hell and Car Crash Kid at The Highlander! Folk it up with Boo Reefa at Java Monkey! Kool Kat Rich Desantis and The Street Fighting Band pay tribute to The Rolling Stones at MadLife Stage & Studios! Rock out with Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and Louise Warren at Venkman’s! Siamese Dream pays tribute to Smashing Pumpkins at The Vista Room! The Strand Ole Opry brings you their O Brother, Where Art Thou Concert at 8pm at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre! Chester Gregory brings you The Eve of Jackie: The Legacy of Jackie Wilson at Marietta’s New Theatre in the Square! The Blues Hearts get down at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack! Get the blues with Sandra Hall & The Shadows at Blind Willie’s! St. James Live! delivers their Tribute to the Legends night every Saturday night! And as always, DJ Romeo Cologne and DJ Kwasi Mandisco transforms the sensationally seedy Clermont Lounge into a ’70s disco/funk inferno late into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday, August 5

Hang with “The Dude” as TCM Big Screen Classics presents a screening of the Coen Brothers’ THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998) at theatres across Atlanta at 2pm/7pm [AMC Barrett Commons 24 (Kennesaw); Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18; Hollywood Stadium 24 (Chamblee); Avalon Stadium 12 (Alpharetta); Cinemark Tinseltown 17 (Fayetteville); Perimeter Pointe 10; Regal McDonough Stadium 16 (McDonough); Georgian Stadium 14 (Newnan); AMC Sugarloaf Mills 18 (Lawrenceville); AMC Southlake Pavilion 24 (Morrow); and AMC Avenue Forsyth (Cumming)]! Get your ‘80s fix at Chastain Park with A Flock of Seagulls, Animotion, Berlin, Farrington & Mann, Naked Eyes, Nu Shooz and Wang Chung! Get down with Bettye Lavette at City Winery! Make your way to the Crimson Moon Café for their Boomers Gone Wild event! Get the blues with Eli Cook and Nora Jane Struthers at Eddie’s Attic! Get down with Snake Plissken at the Northlake Festival Movie Tavern’s Flashback Cinema series screening of John Carpenter’s BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986) at 2:30pm/7:30pm! Get ghastly and catch a screening of Ivan Reitman’s GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) at Studio Movie Grill (Alpharetta) at 12pm! Get sweet and low down blues-style at the Northside Tavern with Uncle Sugar with Eddie Tigner! And get the rockin’ blues with Garrett Collins at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack!

Ongoing

The Aurora Theatre in Lawrence presents Disney’s NEWSIES, through Sept. 2!

ATL CRAFT presents a magical occult Movie Night every second Friday of every month!

My Parents’ Basement goes old-school with their monthly Pinball Tournament, every firsts Wednesday of the month!

Geek it up and get to bowlin’ at The Comet Pub & Lanes’ Comet Cosplay, getting nerdy the first Monday of every month!

Dad’s Garage’s Big Boozy Nerdy Game Night brings out the kid in you, every first Monday of the month at 7pm! 

Union EAV rocks out with their Punk Rock Karaoke ATL, and every last Tuesday of the month!

Geek it up at My Parents’ Basement with their weekly Tuesday night Nerd Trivia at 8pm!

Nerd Film Mafia screenings at the Diesel Filling Station following NerdCore Trivia, every last Tuesday of the month!

The Plaza Theater Time-Warps it up as they screen, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) every Friday night, featuring the live cast of Lips Down on Dixie at midnight!

Get your reggae fix with Rub-A-Dub gettin’ down at WildPitch Music Hall, every second Sunday of the month!

Every first and third Mondays are Big Band Nights at Café 290, featuring Joe Gransden and his amazing 16-piece orchestra playing jazz and swing standards in the tradition of The Glen Miller Orchestra and other legendary groups.  Second and fourth Mondays are Bumpin the Mango, ‘The groove that makes you want to move!’

Every first Wednesday is the Graveyard Tavern’s Graveyard Swing Night, featuring the swingin’ jazz and boogie-woogie sounds of the Savoy Kings!

If you have a suggestion for a future event that should be included in This Week in Retro Atlanta or see something we missed, please email us at atlretro@gmail.com.

by Claudia Dafrico
Contributing Writer

LOVE, CECIL (2018); Dir. Lisa Immordino Vreeland; Narrated by Rupert Everett; Zeigeist Films/Kino Lorber; Opens Friday, July 27 at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema; Trailer here.

“Be daring. Be different. Be impractical.” Such are the words of Cecil Beaton, famed photographer, designer, all-around renaissance man, and the subject of Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s highly entertaining documentary LOVE, CECIL, opening Fri. July 27 at Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema.

Through interviews with Beaton’s peers and admirers, narration drawn directly from personal diaries, and archive footage of the man himself, Immordino Vreeland, who also directed PEGGY GUGGENHEIM:ART ADDICT (2015; Retro Review here) crafts an intimate portrait of the visionary force that was Cecil Beaton. To document every photograph taken, every costume designed, or every diary entry written by Beaton would be a Herculean task, seeing as how his massive body of work spans from the early 1920s to the end of his life in the late 1970s, but Immordino Vreeland touches upon each era of Beaton’s work with such grace and brevity that the viewer feels as though they have accompanied Beaton on his artistic journey each step of the way.

Born in Hampstead, London in 1904, Cecil Beaton came into the world with less of a clear career goal and more of a broad artistic flair that manifested itself in every part of his life. Instead of attending classes at University and receiving what one would consider a “traditional” education, Beaton  spent his days creating theater clubs, performing as a female impersonator, and photographing his friends, many of whom were a part of the London socialite group known as the “Bright Young People.” Through this circle, Cecil became enamored with the aristocrat Stephen Tennant, and thus began a long pattern of Beaton finding himself infatuated with both men and women who did not necessarily return his affections. In one of the most commendable facets of the film, Immordino does not eschew Beaton’s sexuality, but chooses to highlight it, pulling direct quotes from Beaton’s diary where he explicitly states that he is attracted to men. This is not to say that Beaton did not have feelings for women as well however, as his long lasting obsession and possible affair with Greta Garbo is discussed in the film at length.

After his years as a Bright Young Person, Cecil moved to New York and was soon hired by Vogue, where he became a noted fashion photographer. Beaton’s career highlights are too numerous to list in full, but among his most notable achievements Immordino features are the portraits of the Queen Mother, Wallis Simpson, and the rest of the royal family, his wartime photographs taken during World War II (Beaton took over 7,000), and the costume and set design for films such as GIGI (1958) and MY FAIR LADY (1964), for which he won Academy Awards for both Art Direction and Costume Design on the latter.

No matter what the medium, Cecil was noted for being able to do more than just make something pretty; he was able to create an entire mood, and present the world as he wanted it to be seen as opposed to how it appears on the surface. His portraits of royalty, Hollywood starlets, and ordinary citizens and close friends all have a classic yet Modernist feel to them, an aesthetic that would carry over to his works on the big screen. While many artists who achieved fame in the pre-WWII era through the 1950s failed to keep up with the rapidly evolving youth culture, Beaton continued to mesh with whatever was fresh and innovative. He made art with the “Bright Young People” of this new generation, including Mick Jagger and Twiggy, and still maintained his classic sense of style and Jazz Age wit.

Cecil Beaton may not be a household name to many in 2018, but as LOVE, CECIL proves, the man had a sensibility to him that remains timeless, and his art continues to inspire those who seek to eschew the traditional in favor of the unique. Be sure to catch Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s charming new film to have a chance to fall in love with Cecil.