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The Big Ticket

Into the Woods
Stephen Sondheim’s musical about the danger of wishes. Preview: Thursday, Nov. 4, 8 p.m. Opening night: Friday, Nov. 5, 9 p.m. Continues thru Nov. 20. Clarence Brown Theatre. Call 974-5161 for tickets.

Carbon Leaf w/ The Avett Bros.
Richmond-based Celtic-tinged rockers with hot Carolina bluegrass. Thursday, Nov. 4, 10 p.m. Barley’s. $7.

New Black w/ Matgo Primi, Maxi & the Pads and special backstage guest Anti:clockwise
New Wave-inspired punk, and more. Friday, Nov. 5, 10 p.m. Pilot Light. $5.

Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra with The Halcyon Trio
Performing the local premiere of Schifrin’s ‘Triple Concerto’. Friday, Nov. 5, 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 7, 3 p.m. Bijou Theatre. $25.50, $17.50.

The Clumsy Lovers w/ The Navigators
Canadian bluegrass w/ New York roots rock. Sunday, Nov. 7, 10 p.m. Preservation Pub. Free.

Malcolm Holcombe
WDVX supports wildly genius artists. Support WDVX. Monday, Nov. 8, 8 p.m. Barley’s. Donations requested.

The Shiftless Rounders
Old-time cowboy folk featuring Phill Wisor on clawhammer banjo. Wednesday, Nov. 10, 12 p.m. WDVX Blue Plate Live and 10 p.m. Barley’s. Free.

The Big Tease w/ Perfect Orange
Two of the hardest-working local bands deliver pop tunes and ska. Wednesday, Nov. 10, 9 p.m. New Amsterdam. $5.

History for the Holidays: Meet the Authors
Local authors sell and sign their work, plus John Fain and Thomas Burton speak. Sunday, Nov. 7, 1-5 p.m. East Tennessee History Center. Free.

November Fringe: Works outside the Mainstream
Getting theater companies together to perform must not be as much like herding cats as I thought because that’s exactly what’s happening at the Actors Co-op’s Black Box Theatre over the next two weekends. Each day features a different grab-bag of performances: Terry Weber and some puppets perform Killing Lincoln; Co-op regulars take on some adult-content and Chekov shorts; the always-wacky All Campus Theatre performs CUT; InterAct Children’s Theatre for the Deaf performs the fairytale Jack and the Beanstalk; and the WordPlayers delve into a musical telling of parables. A special treat is two performances by poetry slam-master, spoken-word artist Derrick Brown. Call the theater for a schedule of who performs when, or just show up and jump headfirst into the grab-bag. Experiencing the unexpected is what the Fringe is all about. (Paige M. Travis)
November Fringe • Nov. 5, 6, 12 & 13 • Times vary • Black Box Theatre • $5 for each performance, $6 for Derrick Brown • Call 909-9300 for times, dates, and reservations

Pat Green
Last fall, Pat Green packed thousands of hormonally addled frat boys and sorority girls sporting the freshman 15 into the Old City Courtyard for a mixer of epic proportions. It’s doubtful many were there for the music, but they shoulda been. Green plays country—the good kind, unlike most of the other achy-breaky stuff that WIVK touts. With sing-along performances that rival David Allan Coe in rowdiness, the singer-songwriter cultivated a dancehall following in the Lone Star State before becoming a posterboy for university Greek systems across the country. And, with his choice twang, Green is following in the footsteps of his inspiration Willie Nelson and making a name for himself one college town at a time. Stop by Patrick Sullivan’s Back Room for a plate of barbecue brisket and deep-fried corn-on-the-cob before the show and make for an evening thick with raucous Texas tradition. (Clint Casey)
Pat Green w/ Roger Creager • Friday, Nov. 5, 9 p.m. • Blue Cats • $20

Ted Kooser
The recently named U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, is a poet of the people. Garnering much comparison to Wallace Stevens, who was an insurance salesman moonlighting as a poet, Kooser is a retired vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life Insurance. Though business and poetry seem an unlikely marriage, Kooser’s work relishes the simple things in life, often revealing more than the stodgy verse filling the pages of classic poetry collections. His poems, compact in length but hefty with meaning, typically echo a solitary feeling or scene. This Iowa native now lives in Nebraska and uses stark language to mirror the landscape of the Midwest, sagging heavily with its own desolate yet profound emptiness. The poem “After Years,” from the most recent of his 10 publications, Delights and Shadows, recounts a lonely experience of watching an unnamed person walk away. “At the other side of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times the size of our own sun exploded and vanished, leaving a small green spot on the astronomer’s retina as he stood in the great open dome of my heart with no one to tell.” By capturing small-town life and trivial notions, Kooser crafts poems rich with modesty and immense with clarity. (Molly Kincaid)
Ted Kooser • Friday, Nov. 5, 12 p.m. • Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library • Free