For a decade we’ve highlighted our rich, diverse arts scene during May, with Bravo! A Celebration of the Arts.  It’s always a good time to vulture the culture in and around Hilton Head, but we put a particular energy behind it in May.  You just can’t go wrong.

This time May overflows.

Opening at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina is How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.  The Frank Loesser classic won seven Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama when it opened on Broadway, so it’s good, very good.  But what has kept it constantly in production somewhere for over 50 years is that it is funny.  Very, very funny.  The ambitions and foibles of its characters – and the satire-rich environment of corporate life – never go out of fashion.  It’s fresh off a Tony-winning 2011 Broadway revival.

Anne Burnette Matthews as Hedy La Rue - "A Secretary Is Not A Toy"

See J. Pierrepont Finch climb from window-washer to chairman of the board – and get the girl – with little more than a winning smile and a self-help book tonight through May 27 at the Arts Center.  Tickets are online at www.artshhi.com or call 843 842-ARTS (2787).

Opening May 1 for two weeks at South Carolina Repertory Company is an evening with Katherine Hepburn, brought to life by resident artist Peggy Trecker White.  Tea At Five, by Matthew Lombardo, is a personal conversation with Kate at her Fenwick estate in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  Hepburn’s clear, dry commentary ranges through the highs and lows of being a Broadway star, an Oscar-winner and “box office poison,” all at the

Peggy Trecker White channels Hepburn

same time.

This inside-out look is grounded in Hepburn’s own account, Me: Stories of My Life.  During the evening, Katherine shares her own view of a flinty Yankee upbringing, her rapid success on Broadway and then in Hollywood, her long love of Spencer Tracy and the hidden wounds of never compromising.  The sheer span of Hepburn’s career is a presence in the play; Act 1 takes place in 1938 and Act 2 in 1983.

Tea At Five promises to be an evening we won’t forget.  Call the South Carolina Rep box office at 843-342-2057.

And Evita.  Beautiful and thrilling.  The Andrew Lloyd Webber – Tim Rice musical is arguably one of the spectacles that saved Broadway back in the day.  It’s running there now in a production nominated for Best Musical Revival, and the New York Post called it, “A big, fat, high-octane blockbuster.”  Still, our own May River Theatre in downtown Bluffton got the rights to produce it here at the same time, from May 11 through 27.  The MRT production is directed by Wendall MacNeal and stars Livie Schwerdt, Daniel Cort, Pete Zeleznik and Michael Cofield.  Call the May River Theatre box office at 843-815-5581 for tickets.

A reminder of the variety of riches we enjoy here awaits those who want to explore a little farther up South Carolina’s Treasured Coast.

On May 31 ARTworks will present Picasso At The Lapin Agile, comedian Steve Martin’s play about what might have happened if Picasso and Einstein hung out at the same bar, just before Cubism and Relativity changed the world.  ”Picasso” has brought down the house and made a lot of people think, “Hmmmm,” too, in many successful productions.  ARTworks is the arts council of Beaufort, Port Royal and the Sea Islands.  Picasso At The Lapin Agile will take the stage at their theatre at 2127 Boundary Street in Beaufort May 31 through June 10.  For tickets on line, it’s http:/beaufortcountyarts.com/theater.htm or by phone 843-379-2787.

Yes, May is overflowing with Bravo!, and this is just the theater part.  Our visual arts are in full flower, too.  More about that next time!

Be ready for a more active role than just browsing, when you visit the annual Art Market at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn Plantation, Saturday and Sunday, April 28^th and 29^th.

The artists themselves are there – it’s one of the rules – so ask away if their view, their technique or their media intrigue you.  Demonstrations are going

Under the oaks at Art Market

on all around you – pottery, weaving, glass firing, metalworking, wood turning.  So learn if you like.  And see if your impressions match those of the judge, when ribbons are placed and $5,000 in prizes are awarded.

This marks the tenth year of the juried fine art and craft festival outdoors.

Clay artists Martha and Gaff Pearce

You can join them for an artists’ reception Saturday evening, April 28, with reservations, and just $20 per person.  The party features food and beverages from some of Hilton Head Island’s favorite restaurants.

The sheer variety of media sets Art Market apart, from the watercolors of Christine Crosby to the dreamlike bark-and-fiber

Book making by Jim Norton

forms of Kim Keats.  And the outdoor setting is simply unbeatable.  Often the artists exhibiting here are inspired by the setting to start a work on the spot.

Honey Horn has that effect on people.  For over two hundred years this rich stand of live oaks, open fields and salt marshes has been both a haven for visitors and a good place to work at peace with nature.  So the structures restored here on Honey Horn Plantation are windows into how people lived

Tidal Creek At Edisto by Christine Crosby

in the Lowcountry long before the first bridge was built, just a half century ago.  And miraculously, Honey Horn is in the midst of everything, where the Cross Island Parkway joins Highway 278.

Discovery House at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Honey Horn Plantation is one of the art community’s favorite exhibit spaces at any time.  Open daily from 9 to 4:30 and Sunday from 11 to 3, its tall windows and human-size rooms seem to make the outdoors part of any exhibit, even the ones that take place inside.

A blue plate mandala by Byron & Georgia Knight

Now though, take advantage of an outdoor festival in the full flower of a Lowcountry spring.  Don’t miss Art Market at Honey Horn Plantation April 28^th and 29^th.  Admission is free and there’s a $6 parking donation.  For reservations to the artists’ reception, 5:30-7 p.m. Saturday, April 28, just call 843-689-6767, extension 224.

“I like the movie as much as anybody.  I like the play more.”  That’s how the director, Bob Farley put it.  And that’s saying something, since the movie won four Oscars from nine nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress.  If you hurry, you can slow down and see Driving Miss Daisy the way the artists saw it when they fell in love with it.  Daisy plays through Saturday, April 1, at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina.

The production at the Arts Center reunites director Farley with the 20^thanniversary revival cast of Driving Miss Daisy; Rob Cleveland as Hoke, Jill Jane Clements as Daisy and William Murphey as Daisy’s son Boolie.   The script has been called “the most jam-packed 37 ½ pages ever written for

Jill Jane Clements as Daisy - Rob Cleveland as Hoke

the American theater.”  It won the Pulitzer Prize.  And it’s fair to say that no better cast than this has ever performed it, since it first went on in 1987 with Dana Ivey and Morgan Freeman.  And that’s some tall cotton, because when Daisy finally made it to Broadway, and to London’s West End, in 2010-2011 it was with James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave and Boyd Gaines.

Even though this is not much notice, I wanted to document this production in the blog because of what it says about our theater connections in Hilton

Director Bob Farley and CEO Kathi Bateson at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina

Head Island.  We are fortunate, and this show has been another fine example of that.  The connections between our theatre community and the history of this show are woven as beautifully as a sweetgrass basket.

The story starts around 1987 when Bob Farley was director at the Alliance, Atlanta’s Tony-Award-winning theater.  He went to New York to cast a show.  (As our Arts Center team on Hilton Head does every few months.)  On the trip, Bob made a point of seeing a new show Off-Off-Broadway, because a young actress he’d worked with at the Alliance was playing the lead in it.  Driving Miss Daisy.  Even to Bob’s experienced eye it was love at first sight.  Through tears.  “I was crying at the end of the show,” Farley recalled. “It was just so brilliant.

Bob started fast and lobbied hard to get the rights to Daisy – - which is set in

20th Anniversary - As Fine A Cast As Ever Played Daisy

Atlanta – - and the Alliance production went up just a year after the opening in New York.  You might say things went well.  Daisy became the longest-running stage production in the Southeast.  The connections continued.  The actress who played the first Daisy in the Atlanta production was the mother of the first Daisy in New York.  No fooling.

Fast forward a couple of years, near the end of the 1980’s, and Arts Center CEO Kathi Bateson is working at a theater in Virginia.  She’s on the receiving end of a cultural exchange with Theatre Mossoviet in the crumbling Soviet Union.  The play that Moscow got in exchange?  Bob Farley’s Alliance production of Driving Miss Daisy.

Do call today for tickets, 843-842-ARTS (2787), or get tickets online at www.artshhi.com .

Two events this month remind us of something vital about the history of the Lowcountry.  We get along here.  With each other.  With the environment.  Not always perfectly, but in a way we can celebrate and give thanks for.

On March 30 the Gullah Museum will dedicate an historic marker so that generations to come will know that the museum’s “Little Blue House” is on

Invitation to museum marker dedication, by Amiri Farris

land that was purchased by William Simmons, great-grandfather of Gullah Museum director, Louise Miller Cohen, after the Civil War. The house was built in 1930 for Mr. Simmons’ grandson, William “Duey” Simmons.

The invitation to the dedication ceremony was designed by Amiri Farris, a bright, young light in art.  Amiri carries on the style and many of the traditions of Gullah art, and he teaches at University of South Carolina Beaufort.  It is significant that although much of Amiri’s work might be described as Gullah, Amiri was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in West Palm Beach.  Style is not the only element that suggests Gullah tradition in his work.  Amiri’s love of the subjects and locale of the Lowcountry plays a part in it too.  His family roots are on St. Helena Island.

Beaufort Armory, by Amiri Farris

The power of Gullah art to inspire indeed carries on beyond generations and boundaries.  Another sign that Gullah art is alive today is that Amiri is also the designer of this year’s official RBC Heritage Golf Tournament poster, the winner of an annual juried
competition for that honor.

Quilts & Clothespins, by Amiri Farris

And on March 9 Amiri’s art opened as part of a new exhibit at Four Corners Gallery in Old Town Bluffton.  His work in this exhibit is clearly in the Gullah tradition and yet radiates an exuberance all its own.  This is not commemoration of Gullah art, but rather one of its strongest vital signs today.

Paired with Amiri in the Four Corners exhibit, “Lowcountry Life,” is long-time Hilton Head artist Doug Corkern.

No “sentimental journey,” Doug’s new work nevertheless seems intent on documenting the homes and sheds and chicken yards of the Lowcountry.  Loving, but unflinching in its honesty, Doug’s masterful pen-and-ink line renditions are warmed here with color.  The color seems to come from within the drawings rather than to be imparted by an outside light.  And not just places, but Lowcountry faces and animals get this discerning and loving eye in Doug’s “Little Surprises” series.

It is part of life’s poetry that Doug was also an architect responsible for many of the original Harbour Town homes in the early days of Hilton Head as an

Pritchardville Store, by Doug Corkern

island resort.  His success in designing peace between development and nature there, for The Sea Pines Company, made waves throughout the worlds of business and design.  The first ad I wrote on Madison Avenue in 1973 was about Sea Pines’ other development, in Puerto Rico, Palmas Del Mar, and the only word I could come up with to say how the buildings fit with the Caribbean shoreline was “blending.” Doug Corkern was one of the people responsible for designing that original harmony with nature here on Hilton Head Island.

The new wave of Gullah art and the old guard of “come-ya” artists that the Lowcountry drew to itself in the 1950’s and 60’s.  Quite a combination.  See it now under one roof at the Four Corners gallery at 1263 May River Road in Old Town Bluffton.  And honor the roots of the authentic Lowcountry on March 30 at the Gullah Museum, 187 Gumtree Road on Hilton Head Island.  Together they say a lot about how we get along here.

Sharing may be the essence of art.  And it’s not a bad idea with dessert, too.  Come to the Gullah Museum, 5 p.m. to 7:30 on Wednesday, October 19 for a unique session of both.

For the third year the Gullah Museum will host this gathering of art, stories, communities and pastry.  Although the pies and cakes are judged, the guests are the real winners.

I’m told that, “…there is no event like this,” and I can’t wait to take part.  Adults, children and families all play a part in the hands-on atmosphere.  Children are encouraged to make an art project and take it home.

A highlight of the event is the work of Sandy Branam.  Sandy painted a cycle of Gullah “trickster tales,” depicting life lessons as passed down in the Gullah oral tradition.  Prints of the trickster tales and the stories behind them will be on display.

Adults share stories ranging from the barrier islands, to Mexico, to Cleveland, since the Gumtree Road locale converges residents from the “binyah” to the “comeyah,” that is, those who’ve been here for generations and we who’ve come here in recent times for Hilton Head’s beauty and opportunity.

Beaufort Armory by Amiri Farris

And indeed Gullah art is a treasured part of the beauty here.  Hard to describe stylistically because it encompasses techniques characteristic of a host of practicing artists, Gullah is one of those “you know it when you see it” things.  Exuberance and humility, profound simplicity, sun-saturated color – the genre has brought fame to Jonathan Green and Amiri Farris, and a home turf for the expression of excellent artists who remain less known, like Diane Britton Dunham and Alan Fireall.  The Gullah eye even inspires adopted Islanders like Marci Tressel.  It is a part of the Lowcountry you must not miss.

Pies and cakes could be connected with art in this culture, because they are meant to be shared.  It is by no means unique to the Gullah community that when a woman set out to bake, she often baked two – two pies, two cakes.  The effort is about the same, and there’s always someone who would especially appreciate it that day.  Someone ill, someone bereaved, maybe somebody just extra busy about now.

Bubba Duey's Little House by Mira Scott

Hosted in “The Little House” at 187 Gumtree Road, just beyond the Hilton Head Recreation Center, even the venue of the Gullah Pie & Cake Contest is part of the action.

Paintings, etchings and photos of The Little House have been the works of artists as varied as Walter Greer, Amari Farris, Maddy Ivans and Mira Scott.  It stands on land first purchased by a freed slave, William Simmons, who served with the Union Army in the Civil War.  The land stayed in the family after his passing in 1922, and the house has stood there since 1930.  Through the generosity of William Simmons’s great-granddaughter, Louise Miller Cohen, it’s become the home of The Gullah Museum.

The Gullah Pie & Cake Contest is a community event, and there is no admission.  As a worthy local cause supported by donors, though, any donations to The Gullah Museum are gratefully accepted.

Charlene Gardner started Four Corners in 2005 as a framing shop for artists and art lovers.  By 2007 it was a gallery.  Charlene’s curious mind and restless enthusiasm made it obvious to her that framing put her in touch with artists who weren’t showing at other galleries.

That was Four Corners’ pipeline to the unique.  And unique is the final standard for what you’ll find there.  It’s what these artists and works have in common.  As a result, no art excursion through Bluffton is really complete without heading west from the top of Calhoun Street, until you see the tidy, white frame storefront on the right, at 1263 May River Road.

Look at the light in Marge Cutter’s and the strokes in James Lewis’s oil paintings.  I don’t see anything like them anywhere else.

See how Susie Chisolm makes bronze flow like water, or grin like a barefoot boy with a big fish.  Marvel at how Jack Anderson brings wood to life with curves and textures and fitting that seem to be at the same time human, and beyond human ability alone to create.

Doug Corkern combines ink and watercolor in ways I haven’t seen elsewhere.  His work does right by the inspiration he draws from Winslow Homer, Whistler and John Singer Sargent.  It comes to life with a feel all his own, though, possibly because of his uncanny ability to sketch quickly from life.

The lowly pencil becomes a passionate, precise artistic instrument in the hand of Richard Coyne.  As I reflect on one of his drawings, of a scene in a fog, I still don’t understand how the soft effect was achieved.

There are real delights here.  And you’ll feel welcome the minute you walk in.  Sign the guest book and prepare to breathe deep.

As an actor, it seems I’m Facebook friends with several of the cast in Dreamgirls, the first play of this season at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina.  And I can tell you that the high spirits – the joy and confidence and eagerness – that I see there, at this stage of rehearsal, are remarkable.  In fact, they’re almost not normal.  The feeling inside the cast is that this show is shaping up to be very special indeed.  Dreamgirls previews September 28 and 29, and it opens Friday, September 30.

One Night Only - Dreamgirls at the top

Helmed by Hilton Head’s favorite New York director, Casey Colgan, Dreamgirls takes you on a flashy, passionate ride to the top, with the stars and star-makers of rhythm and blues, behind the hits.  You’ll be hip deep in the panache, the conquer-the-world attitude of the early sixties, and you’ll be touched by the price they paid to live their dreams in the seventies. Don’t miss this one.

As the Dreamettes - Paying Backup Dues

Stars were born from Dreamgirls; the show is that good.  Jennifer Hudson barreled her way to national attention with her all-in performance of And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.  And Beyonce made a hit from the film years later with One Night Only.  Dreamgirls won six Tony Awards and two Grammys and has continued to thrill audiences on stage and screen.  The Arts Center is presenting the costume designs of the original Broadway production.

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

Director Casey Colgan returns to the Arts Center, where his credits are literally too numerous to mention.  Last season Casey directed and starred in Hairspray, and directed Smokey Joe’s Café.  Hilton Head audiences have seen Casey’s work in The Producers, My Fair Lady, Mame, Camelot and Les Miserables, to name only a few.

Among the actors returning to the Arts Center stage for Dreamgirls is Deonte L. Warren.  Deonte lit up Hairspray with his dance groove as Seaweed J. Stubbs, and then looked like Sam Cooke’s identical twin in Smokey Joe.  It’s rare for a New York actor to appear in three Arts Center productions back-to-back – - but not rare for them to want to!

And Dreamgirls is just the beginning.  The Arts Center production series this year is certainly one of the most exciting they’ve ever staged.  The Drowsy Chaperone, Shout!, Lend Me A Tenor and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying are a string of Broadway hits any producer would be proud of.

Tickets for Dreamgirls – or the whole season – are now on sale online or by calling the Box Office at 843-842-ARTS or 888-860-2787.

Every year or so the Art League hosts a brief, off-season Mardi Gras for artists and art lovers.  Fabulous Fakes is a kind of masked ball exhibit where you might see Condoleezza Rice as the Mona Lisa, the Eifel Tower in place of the Harbour Town Lighthouse or Whistler’s Mother holding a martini.

David Musial brings Paris to HHI

Irreverent and fun, Fabulous Fakes is where art lets its hair down, and you’re invited to take part.  Come Friday, September 24 from 1 p.m. to 5.   Enjoy refreshments and a cash bar.  And by all means take part in the Jackson Pollock Paint Pitch!  Or create your own faux Alexander Calder mobile, in a workshop by sculptor Mark Larkin.  You might even want to take home your own Fabulous Fake.

You can vote for your favorite fake.  Your ballot will enter you for a chance to win tickets to a preview of Dreamgirls, the Arts Center’s theater season opener.  With 40 participating artists you’re sure to find something that tickles you.  The hard part is deciding which

Don Nagel relaxes Whistler's mom

work you like best.  Someday the Art League may bring a laugh-o-meter to help you decide.

That’s the spirit.  It’s just for fun.  But is it art?  OH yeah.  Behind the yuks is a subtle reminder that art is subversive by nature.  Whistler’s Mother floats in air when you look closely.  John Singer Sargent’s highfalutin’ portrait subjects stand away from perspective and take their light from whatever direction suits the detail.  Both foretell the coming of the topsy-turvy Modern – - while passing civilized through polite society.

Michael Nicastre's offshore drilling

Art comes to humanity pretty soon after our basic physical needs are met, and it seems essential to this consciousness that we think of as human.  But that doesn’t make it serious.  Certainly not all the time, anyway.

Fabulous Fakes is a great place to take part in that fun.  Hope to see you there!

Flowers.  One thing may have gotten more civilized during our lifetime.  Flowers are abundant now and fairly easy to buy.  Factors ranging from airplanes to fertilizer make it handy to pick up some respectable blooms on the way home from work.

The exhibit coming this week to the Walter Greer Gallery at The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, though, is a lesson in the difference between seeing . . . and really seeing.  The Color Of Life presents photographs by Jean-Marie Côté, and with one look there’s no mistaking that this is how flowers look to an artist with a very special eye.

The Color Of Life is up from September 7 through October 1, and in it Côté does to our everyday view of flowers what a figure skater might do to an NHL goalie.  This show runs rings around our accustomed sense of beauty.

His work seems to unfold inside the camera, at the event of the shutter – - rather than afterward in digital manipulation.  In each photo there is a clear sense that you are taking part in that moment.  Jean-Marie’s methods include waiting for light and nature to play their hand, and knowing when the instant has arrived.

He brings a sense of theatre, too.  Inside Côté’s studio there are hand-built light boxes.  And he seems to prefer working “in front of the lens” with filters, rather than working after the shot, with software.  This is personal.  And it shows.

Take a few moments this September to refresh your sense of wonder over sights you thought you knew.  Visit The Color Of Life in the Walter Greer Gallery at The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina.

And join in if you can, for the opening reception, 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, September 8.  Jean-Marie will be there the next morning, too, for an artist’s talk, open to the public at 11 a.m. Friday, September 9.  For more information, or to arrange a group visit, just call 843-681-5060 or visit www.ArtLeagueHHII.org