Community Calendar

Join us for a FREE day of Halloween festivities for all ages on October 17th from 11am-4pm.

Come dressed in your favorite costume to enter our kid's costume contest, and celebrate the season with local craft vendors, Halloween history lessons, crafts, pumpkin painting, and more! Kids can also take part in a Halloween-themed scavenger hunt throughout the site, solving puzzles and following clues to uncover a secret word and earn a special prize! Don't miss out on a full day of Halloween magic with a side of history!

Enjoy a short naturalist ramble during prime elk mating season while learning about the species and its reintroduction to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Smokies Life Branch Out event. Oconaluftee Visitor Center, Cherokee, N.C. Cost: For Park Keepers, $45; to join and attend, $85 (Park Keeper basic membership $40 + event registration $45). Info – SmokiesLife.org/branch-out-events or email: membership@smokieslife.org.

Free Spirit Theatre, a not-for-profit community theatre group, will present JOHN by Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright, Annie Baker, October 21-25 at Borderland Playhouse (802 Sevier Ave., Knoxville). For tickets and more information see www.freespirittheatre.org

Learn about black bears, an iconic symbol of the Smokies. Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranger-led program. Sugarlands Visitor Center, Tenn. Free. Info and confirm details: nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/calendar.htm or 865-436-1200.

New Food Pantry now available to neighborhood and surrounding areas twice a month. Every 2nd Thursday of each month we will be giving away non-perishable goods and personal care items. On the 4th Thursday of each month we will be serving a hot meal.

Free Spirit Theatre, a not-for-profit community theatre group, will present JOHN by Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright, Annie Baker, October 21-25 at Borderland Playhouse (802 Sevier Ave., Knoxville). For tickets and more information see www.freespirittheatre.org

Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus revels in the elegance and excess of a single night gone slightly off course. Through an elaborate game of disguise, friends, spouses, and rivals cross paths at a glittering masquerade ball where champagne flows freely, and no one is who they claim to be. Beneath the comedy, Strauss keeps a sharp eye on social pretense and the thin line between mischief and consequence, all set to some of the most irresistible waltzes ever written.

Performing October 23 and 25, this production captures the spirit of escape and reinvention at the heart of Strauss’s beloved comedy. Identities blur, and champagne carries everyone a little further than they intended. Knoxville Opera invites you to settle in and enjoy the ride - an evening where appearances shift, alliances change, and the consequences don’t arrive until morning.

Sung in English with projected English text.

Animal Farm is a fable with a sting.

The story begins with joyous triumph. The animals of Manor Farm, tired of hunger, labor and mistreatment, rise up against their human owner and drive him away. At last, they believe, they are free. They will build a new society in which all animals are equal, and no creature lives under the mastery of another.
But ideals prove easier to proclaim than to preserve.

A Staged Dramatic Reading

As part of the production, Theatre 23 is launching an educational outreach program for public, private and home-school students throughout the Knoxville metropolitan area. Director Suzy Short has developed a curriculum to accompany the production, designed to meet applicable Common Core State Standards and give students a deeper understanding of Orwell’s work, its historical context and the questions it raises about power, propaganda, language and individual freedom.

Friday, October 23 — 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 24 — 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 25 — 2:30 p.m.

Free Spirit Theatre, a not-for-profit community theatre group, will present JOHN by Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright, Annie Baker, October 21-25 at Borderland Playhouse (802 Sevier Ave., Knoxville). For tickets and more information see www.freespirittheatre.org