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LIFE
Blue Music Award winners make up lineup of weekend celebration
CHARLESTON -- FestivALL Charleston 2009, an annual arts and culture festival in downtown, is set for Friday, June 19, through Sunday, June 28.
Highlighting this year's festival will be Buddy Guy, Janiva Magness and Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials, 10 original plays as well as lots and lots of art displayed in museums, galleries, storefronts, public places and on the streets and culminating in the Capitol Street Art Fair with 75 vendors.
The eclectic festivities, which are infused with an Appalachian feel, also include a wiener dog race, an ice cream social, street stages with music, jugglers, belly dancers, dog acts and a gargantuan balloon sculpture of the New River Gorge at Bridge Day, complete with life-sized parachutists.
In addition, for the length of the festival, the River Queen sternwheeler will offer cruises up and down the Kanawha River.
Chicago blues great Buddy Guy headlines West Virginia Public Radio/NPR's Mountain Stage on Friday, June 19. Guy, a powerful influence on Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, won two 2009 Blues Music Awards Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Blues Artist. Also performing on Mountain Stage will be Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials, named Band of the Year. They will be joined by powerhouse blues diva Shemekia Copeland and guitar wizard Duke Robillard.
Fellow Blues Music Award winner Janiva Magness, this year's BB King Entertainer of the Year and Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year, will perform at Blues, Brews and BBQ on the riverside lawn at the University of Charleston on June 26.
Three-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, legendary trumpeter and composer, will appear on the UC lawn the following night, June 27, as headliner for the Fund's Wine and All That Jazz event.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Booker T. and the MG's add soul to FestivALL at the Mayor's Concert on Thursday, June 25. They'll bring along Eddie "Knock on Wood" Floyd to handle the vocals.
Ten original plays written by West Virginians will be performed, and five of them will be premieres. Charlestonians Ann Magnuson and Susan Johnston will be coming back home to showcase their work. Magnuson will perform her piece "Back Home Again (Dreaming of Charleston)," commissioned by FestivALL on June 21 and 23. Johnston won the L.A. Weekly Theater Award for Best Play Writing for "How Cissy Grew." The play will have a staged reading with the original Los Angeles cast, including James Denton from the television show "Desperate Housewives," on June 22.
Other original productions include three site-based plays presented by the Charleston Stage Company -- "All Shook Up" in Capitol Roasters coffee shop June 20, and two 10-minute, plays called "The Crossing" in a city overpass on June 27. Five original plays will be on offer at the FestivALL One Act Play Festival on June 27.
The Charleston Light Opera Guild presents "Curtains" on June 19, 20, 26, 27 and 28. This musical comedy whodunit, which received eight Tony nominations, is a show-within-a-show. Although not an original play, "Curtains," choreographed on Broadway by West Virginia's Rob Ashford, has yet to tour, so the CLOG production is something special.
Other festival highlights include the Capitol Street Art Fair the weekend of June 27-28, an art Walk on June 25 and the Smoke on the Warter Chili Cook-Off on June 20.
For more information, visit the FestivALL Charleston Web site at www.festivallcharleston.com, or call 304-342-4298.
More on FestivALL
For more information about FestivALL 2009, visit the official Web site at www.festivallcharleston.com or call 304-342-4298.
For accommodation information, please visit the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau Web site at www.charlestonwv.com or call 304-344-5075; toll free at 800-733-5469.
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