Every Friday, we highlight three great shows from local performing artists that you can see this coming weekend.

Voices “Vintage Bash”
Saturday, April 12th at 7:30PM at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room

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Not every artist is a pro. Some are doctors or accountants or waiters, and they live out their artistic side on nights and weekends. In fact, some of our favorite area performers volunteer their time to bring beauty to audiences.

Take Voices, Chapel Hill’s community chorus. 130 local singers come together for two large-scale concerts every year (not to mention several more from Cantari, a smaller ensemble drawn from the best singers of the group).

But it’s not cheap to rent rehearsal and performance space, so Voices depends on dues and donations. This Saturday, though, they have a much more fun way to give back to a community cultural staple: their “Vintage Bash,” a throwback fundraiser this Saturday night at Cat’s Cradle’s new Back Room space. There’ll be terrific food and drink, dress and dancing straight out of the 60s, and of course a performance or two. You’ll get a great party and the knowledge that you’re supporting the artistic life of your community.

 

Transactors Improv: From Soup To Nuts
Saturday, April 12th at 8PM at The ArtsCenter

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Transactors has been alive and kicking for more than thirty years – an eternity for an improvisational theater. Members have come and gone, but the group has kept the quality of their performances consistently high. A whole generation of adults and kids have lived with Transactors as a part of their community, and that’s not changing for the next foreseeable generation.

Saturday night’s show, dubbed “From Soup To Nuts,” serves as a great introduction to the group (just in case you weren’t able to attend these first thirty years): it features every form of improv imaginable, from hilarious short vignettes, to spontaneous musicals, to a full-length play built entirely from audience suggestions. It’s a fast and funny ride through the edge-of-your-seat theater that Transactors has raised to an art form.

 

The Village Band Concert
Sunday, April 13th at 2PM at Carrboro Commons

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The word “amateur” comes from the Latin word for “love” – and perhaps no local group embodies amateurism as a form of love for their art as much as the Village Band. This Chapel Hill / Carrboro institution is an old-style town band, with volunteer musicians of every skill level joining together. Nor is age a restriction; members range from their teens to their 90s. They play the kind of music that wouldn’t seem out of place in The Music Man – patriotic marches, show tunes, and classical suites.

This Sunday afternoon, they’ll be playing in a community band’s natural habitat: an outdoor gathering space. They’ll set up shop on Carrboro Town Commons, and play for anyone who sets up a lawn chair or happens by on their way to the store. You might be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into a bygone time. But the Village Band is just one part of a network of community-based artists, friends and neighbors who make art because they love it.

For more on these and other great activities, visit our full event calendar, or click here to sign up for our newsletter and get “Ten Things To Do In Chapelboro This Weekend” delivered every Thursday to your email inbox.