Arts and Humanities

The new season at Actors Theatre of Louisville is off to a rousing start with an energized and stylish contemporary production of William Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet.” The season opener is both a homecoming for the director, Louisville native Tony Speciale, and a bright sign of things to come for the theater with new artistic director Les Waters at the helm.

It’s now estimated that 750-thousand people, two and a half percent of the population, died in the American Civil War, from 1861 to 1865. A new documentary from filmmaker Ric Burns explores how the scale of the war’s carnage forced Americans and woefully unprepared government officials to deal with death on a massive scale.

It’s called Death and the Civil War and will premiere on September 18 as part of the American Experience series on PBS. WFPL's Rick Howlett caught up with Ric Burns Friday on Byline.

It’s fine to hit the downtown First Friday Trolley Hop without a plan. Park, wander in and out of galleries, grab a drink or dinner with friends and hop a TARC trolley from one end of downtown to the next and back—you’re sure to find something to catch your eye or ears.

But with so many events and gallery receptions happening at once, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, so every month we take a look at five don’t-miss art events happening during the hop.

The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft opens a month-long celebration of the new exhibit “Storytelling as Craft, Chapter One” tomorrow with oral and visual stories. The exhibit runs through November 11. 

The Speed Art Museum board of trustees has elected three top Speed leaders to share interim director duties during the museum's executive director search. 

Chief Operating Officer Lisa Resnick, Chief Financial Officer David Knopf and Scott Erbes, the museum's director of collections and exhibitions and curator of decorative arts and design, have been named co-interim directors and will lead the museum during its three-year expansion and renovation project. Resnick will chair the leadership team.