ArtCraft

F. Scott Fitzgerald spent his scant month in Louisville in the cold, punishing days of March and early April, when spring's promise still feels quite remote to those left weary by the winter. But his sumptuous descriptions of Jay Gatsby's glittering parties in West Egg remind us of something ... a certain handful of nights in early May, when the city knots its bowties tighter and grips its champagne and bourbon cocktails with a fierce determination to wring the very life out of Derby week: 

Louisville's Shakespeare Behind Bars is in its 18th season producing the works of Shakespeare with a company of incarcerated men. In June, they’ll open “Richard III,” the Bard's dramatization of the rise and fall of Richard, the Machiavellian Duke of Gloucester, and England's House of York, at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange.

The gonzo branding experts at Kentucky for Kentucky (the folks behind the guerilla state motto campaign "Kentucky Kicks Ass") have re-imagined Louisvillian Hunter S. Thompson's famous essay "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" as a witty racing program poster, featuring illustrated details from the story rendered in jockey silks. The poster was designed by Rachael Sinclair and printed by Lexington's Thoroughbred Printing.

Stage One Family Theatre’s production of Joseph Robinette's stage adaptation of E.B. White's "Charlotte's Web" is now open at the Kentucky Center. This year is the 60th anniversary of “Charlotte’s Web” winning the Newbery Honor award for excellence in children’s literature. White's novel about a "radiant" pig and his barnyard friends remains one of the best-selling children’s books of all time. 

“Charlotte’s Web” is a fun and heartfelt play about talking animals, but its themes are deep – the inevitability of death runs through the story. 

The Kentucky Nonprofit Network staged its first Kentucky Gives Day this week, raising $330,000 for 380 nonprofit organizations in one 24-hour online campaign on April 24.

In the annual Kentucky Writers' Day program at the Capitol, Governor Steve Beshear inducted poet Frank X Walker as the state's new poet laureate. Walker is the first African American to hold the post, and at 53 years old, the University of Kentucky professor is also the youngest. The Kentucky Arts Council announced Walker's appointment in February.

Quilting is a time-honored craft that traditionally made beautiful and efficient use of scrap fabric and scarce materials. The annual juried exhibit at New Albany's Carnegie Center for Art and History showcasing the artform's contemporary expression celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.

"Form, Not Function" opens May 10 with a reception honoring the 25 art quilts selected by jury from more than 300 entries this year. Participating artists come from as far away as California and as close as Louisville and Southern Indiana.

A bugler plays the call to the post to signal the beginning of the race, but Louisville's Bourbon Baroque ensemble will end their season with an 18th-century interpretation of the iconic spring-time blast. Indiana University Early Music professor Kris Kwapis will play the baroque trumpet for Bourbon Baroque’s final season concert, which includes Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s choral piece “Te Deum.”

Actors Theatre of Louisvilles' apprentices open their final production of the season tonight. The New Voices Young Playwrights Festival is a bill of ten-minute plays written by eight area high school students. 

The plays were selected from more than 500 ten-minute plays submitted by middle and high school students from Kentucky and Southern Indiana this year. Each play in the festival receives a full production, with a director, designers, a dramaturg, a cast of apprentice actors and a seat in the rehearsal hall for the playwright.