Apparently, we can never have too many steel magnolias. Hot on the heels of the City of Savannah’s auditions for its Oct. 1–10 production of Robert Harling’s tragicomic play Steel Mangolias, the Tybee Arts Association has announced its own production, with auditions set for 7 p.m. Sept. 6 and 7 at the Tybee Arts Center. The cast list calls for six Louisiana women – delicate as magnolias, Harling describes them, but tough as steel. According ...

Seeing as we pretty much always have a shortage of classical dance in Savannah, it’s heartening to see, on the horizon, the arrival of the State Ballet Theatre of Russia and its full–scale production of Swan Lake.

Stop the presses! The 2010 Savannah Craft Brew Festival is on the books for Sept. 3 and 4 at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center. The beer is here!

All these years after Morning Dance and Catching the Sun, two of the top pop/jazz fusion albums of the early 1980s, Spyro Gyra is still one of the most well-known groups in the genre.

You already know that rock ‘n' roll veteran Eddie Money is scheduled to play the Tybee Island Pirate Fest in October. The news, however, keeps getting better.

2D*2.5D*3D - A collectionof work from three artists: Amanda Hanlon (linoleum block relief prints ironwork), Carol Williams (assemblage of found objects), and Dicky Stone (turned wood sculptures. Kobo Gallery, 33 Barnard St. , http://www.kobogallery.com/

2D*2.5D*3D - A collection of work from three artists: Amanda Hanlon (linoleum block relief prints ironwork), Carol Williams (assemblage of found objects), and Dicky Stone (turned wood sculptures). Opening reception: Aug. 19, 5:30-8:30pm. Kobo Gallery, 33 Barnard St. , http://www.kobogallery.com/

Fashion in Focus - Photos and evening wear from the SCAD Museum collection, including original couture from some of the most famous names in fashion. Runs through Sept. 30. SCAD Museum, 227 MLK Jr. Blvd, http://www.scad.edu/scadmuseum

Fashion in Focus - Photos and evening wear from the SCAD Museum collection, including original couture from some of the most famous names in fashion. Runs through Sept. 30. SCAD Museum, 227 MLK Jr. Blvd, http://www.scad.edu/scadmuseum

Awakening - New work by glass sculptor Jason Antol, including several large works and hot sculpted wings. Runs through August. Liquid Sands Gallery , 319 W. Broughton St. , http://www.savannahartglass.com/

Feathers will fly this weekend, as the Collective Face brings Elizabeth Egloff’s tensile drama The Swan to town. It’s the group’s second staged reading – not a full production, with props, costumes and all that pesky stuff – and it’s taking place on the Savannah Children’s Theatre stage.

One of Neil Simon’s most enduring comedies, 1965’s The Odd Couple began as a play starring Art Carney and Walter Matthau as neatnik newsman Felix Ungar and slob sportswriter Oscar Madison, respectively. Their crotchety relationship became a movie in 1968, with Jack Lemmon as Felix.

For Cathy, it’s the story of the last five years. For Jamie, it’s the next five years.

This week’s specials in the theater department are both musicals – a bit of light summer wear, if you like.

There are plenty of “Aha!” moments in Armstrong Atlantic State University’s production of the classic Agatha Christie mystery The Mousetrap.

The dog days of summer might be slowly coming to an end for the local visual arts scene, which is showing the first signs of waking from its summer siesta. There's no groggy eye-rubbing as we regain our bearings, and this week offers up a little something for everyone with three very diverse events that will carry you right through the weekend.

Sundays might happen once a week, but the process of documenting church services across the city was a project more than a decade in the making for local professor Ja Jahannes, whose exhibit Sunday in Savannah opened at the Beach Institute last week.

On May 17, I stood at the center of an art gallery. I looked around, observing the paintings and sculptures that decorated the walls and accented the room.

Although artists and engineers might seem like strange bedfellows, the link between art and technology is clear. In much the same way that developments in digital media irreversibly changed film, photography and music, at one time it was electricity and the camera which were the cutting edge, changing how artists and audiences alike viewed the world around them.

Several years ago, the first time I heard about a painter named Panhandle Slim, it immediately evoked an image of some artistically inclined drifter riding the rails with an easel and some acrylic paints, who showed up downtown one day with an armload of colorful, primitive portraits and tried to earn some drinking money hawking pictures of pop culture icons and rock stars.

Technically, what Caitlin Dutton’s doing with her Coastal Danse Collective is called interdisciplinary arts – combining movement, music and visual art, in public places, in order to create something fresh and unexpected.

Those who can’t do, teach, goes the old saying. But Pablo Repun, who’s considered one of the finest tango dancers in all of South Florida, is also a teacher of considerable renown. As a native Argentinian, he’s got the dark eyes, the smoldering, mysterious good looks – and the fancy footwork – to aid and abet the “dance of love” on its unstoppable march across the lines of age, race and social strata.

For her spring production, Savannah Arts Academy artistic director Christina Powell decided to forgo the standard kid–ballet repertoire and look to something that hadn’t really been done before – at least not in her medium.

SCAD presents its world premiere of the dance performance The Station this weekend at the Trustees Theater. The light–hearted show brings together a total of 30 dancers and is the brainchild of SCAD performing arts professor Vincent Brosseau.

While most people conversant with the arts have heard of the great Hermitage, Kirov and Bolshoi ballet companies of Russia, there’s another major Russian company that in some estimations is the best of all.

Po-Boys When this little off-downtown eatery opened about a year ago I gave it a try. I was turned off by the overly enthusiastic menu, slow service and ho-hum fare. I went back this week to find a leaner, more efficient menu, a real penchant for doing things from scratch and a survivor's attitude. I was assuming the sliced, deep-fried pickle were from the same SYSCO foods box as every other eatery. I was wrong. ...

Next week kids, I have a lovely, juicy, value-driven Cabernet Sauvignon for you. But this week, please indulge one more week of beer.

21 Shortstop Road trip! Slide your foodiemobile into overdrive and cruise up Hwy. 21, trough Garden City, past Port Wentworth and two miles north of the I–95 interchange, darned near Rincon, you’ll find the bright and shiny new 21 Shortstop. This meat ‘n’ three seems off the beaten path, but enjoys a NASCAR–like stream of traffic every day. Signal far in advance – the tailgaters and speed freaks don’t wanna give you a chance ...

It has been both a pleasure and an honor to chair the Savannah Craft Brew fest since its founding just three short Labor Days ago.

The Red Chimney The open air front porch of this Garden City barbecue joint really wasn’t that uncomfortable in the midday heat. A nice breeze was blowing and the only distraction was the steady drone of tractor–trailers gearing up and down the busy highway. I was going somewhere else, but spied the sign, a puff of smoke from the pit and I was hooked — and pleasantly surprised. First, Garden City cops were eating there. ...

How surprising to discover that one of America's foremost writers of paranormal fiction is a grounded, completely sane and riotously funny woman. From Georgia, no less.

More than a decade ago, the story of Waddie Welcome galvanized a community around the cause of helping an elderly disabled man live out his final years the way he wanted, in the neighborhood he loved rather than the nursing home where he was trapped.

As the old saying goes, behind every great man is a great woman. And what's behind every great woman is the subject of the new book by Sarahlyn Argrow, Secrets of the Woman in the Suit.

The names of the 20 finalists for the National Book Awards have been announced at small venues around the country before -- like at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, for example.

Best–selling author George Dawes Green appreciates a good story. As a writer and the founder of The Moth, where people get on stage and share unscripted stories, he’s done his part in preserving the tradition of storytelling in the digital age.

In case you're worrying about what you're going to give that literary lion in your life for Christmas, worry no more. Here are our reviews of some recent local releases, most of which you can find in local bookstores.