WABE Arts

🎭 A Roswell High School senior won Georgia's top poetry competition — and Walt Whitman helped her do it. Rory Berg, the 2026 Poetry Out Loud Georgia state champion, talks with WABE Arts about the Whitman poem that sealed her win, what drew her to the competition as an actor, and the new poems she's bringing to the Poetry Out Loud National Finals in Washington, D.C., April 27–29. 🎧 Se...

A unique garden experience is blooming in Kennesaw this month. Kennesaw State University’s Department of Theatre and Performance Studies is partnering with the City of Kennesaw and Smith-Gilbert Gardens on ‘The Beauty Project: Through the Looking Glass’ — an immersive production for young audiences performed by college students. Sherri Daye Scott talks with KSU professors a...

From Clark Atlanta University student to Netflix leading lady, actress Taylor Polidore Williams has quickly garnered a worldwide fanbase for her role of Kimmy in Tyler Perry's hit streaming drama, "Beauty in Black." She recently spoke with WABE Arts contributor Kenny Murry on Atlanta's music, culture and what's next down the road on her bucket list. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

Emmy and Golden Globe winner S. Epatha Merkerson stopped by WABE Studios after receiving the Black Women Film Network's On Her Shoulders Preservation Award and ahead of a special exhibit at Atlanta's Apex Museum showcasing costumes from her role as Sharon Goodwin on NBC's "Chicago Med." She talked with WABE Arts editor Sherri Daye Scott about what the honors mean, why Atlanta's creative scene is "...

enty years after Gordon Parks documented the segregated South for Life Magazine, more than 40 of those photographs are coming to Atlanta. Jackson Fine Art co-owner Anna Walker Skillman traces the gallery's decade-long relationship with the Gordon Parks Foundation — from a meeting in Paris in 2011 to this landmark exhibition, curated by MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey. On view at Jackson Fine Art...

As Women's History Month comes to a close, Atlanta artist/activist and Living Walls co-founder Monica Campana shares how Mexican painter Frida Kahlo saved her life. Campana , who moved to the U.S. from Peru at 15, her the story of identity, displacement, and why stepping out of her front door is an act of resistance with with WABE Arts and Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott . 🎧 See omnystudio.com/l...

🎭 Spring arrives with live music at sunset on Callanwolde's estate grounds. WABE Arts and Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott talks with Executive Director Andrew Keenan and Operations Director Adam Faust about the 2026 Spring Concert Series: sixteen artists across four outdoor nights, running through May 8th. The lineup spans blues, soul, Americana, jazz, and classic pop. See omnystudio.com/listene...

onne Warwick has been making hits for nearly six decades — and she's not done yet. Ahead of her March 20 performance at Atlanta Symphony Hall, the six-time Grammy winner and 2023 Kennedy Center honoree sits down for WABE Arts' "What's Feeding You?" series. She talks classic TV, a new album of Diane Warren songs with emerging artists, and a long-awaited collaboration with Earth, Wind and Fire...

What happens when a world-class cultural destination decides Atlanta is its next partner? 🎧 Meryanne Loum-Martin built Jnane Tamsna, an acclaimed nine-acre boutique hotel in Marrakech, into a gathering place for the global Black diaspora. Now she's bringing that vision to Atlanta. If you care about Black cultural leadership, global art, and what it looks like to build real economic ecosystems acr...

Cultural icon Fab Five Freddy brings his debut memoir, "Everybody's Fly" to Atlanta's Tara Theatre. He spoke WABE's Sherri Daye Scott about the worlds that shaped him, bridging hip-hop and downtown New York's art scene, and the curiosity that drove it all.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

️ A wealthy family. A 10-acre farm in Cherokee County, Georgia. And a murder. Award-winning CBS News correspondent Peter Van Sant covered the Farris family murder case for "48 Hours,” now he’s going deeper with his new six-episode podcast, “Blood Is Thicker: The Farris Wheel.”  WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott talked&n...

Boris Kodjoe has spent 25 years building a career between Hollywood and the world — from “Madea’s Family Reunion” and “House of Cards” to the Full Circle Festival in Ghana to the Kodjoe Family Foundation. At the United Way of Greater Atlanta’s 10th Annual African-American Partnership Leadership Luncheon, he sat down with WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sher...

Playwright Beth Hyland on ‘Fires, Ohio,’ a Chekhov-inspired world premiere at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre through March 22. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lunar New Year celebrations often center family traditions, but Atlanta’s Asian American Advocacy Fund is planning a nightlife-style take. WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott speaks with Nicole Kang about “Bet on Your Future,” a Feb. 27 casino night at The Supermarket in Atlanta featuring live music, games, local AAPI businesses and an art showcase with 13 Asian Amer...

🎭 The Atlanta Opera has broken ground on a new home along the Atlanta Beltline: the Molly Blank Center for Opera and the Arts, backed by a $27.5 million leadership gift from The Arthur M. Blank Foundation. WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott spoke with Atlanta Opera general and artistic director Tomer Zvulun inside the historic Bobby Jones Clubhouse minutes before the ceremony. He ex...

SCAD’s annual Black History Month concert, “BAM! — Black Artists in Music,” is back. This year’s concert centers on Black love, pairing student performers with guest artists, including Grammy-nominated Avery Wilson and Tony-nominated Amber Iman, for a show designed to land as both performance and collective release. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs has issued two big signals: expanded city arts funding and the newly announced 2026 Atlanta Jazz Festival lineup. WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott talks with Executive Director Adriane Jefferson about her first year in the role — from distributing more than $2 million in grants to building a community-shaped creative ac...

Broadway classics, reimagined in Atlanta. “Broadway Sideways” comes to the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, featuring members of the Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus and Atlanta Women’s Chorus performing songs by Broadway composers in unconventional casting. Musical director Jason Wynn and Breman executive director Leslie Gordon discuss representation, partnership and how Atl...

When “School Daze” premiered in 1988, it was controversial before most audiences ever saw it. Written and directed by Spike Lee, the satirical, music-driven film examines life at Mission College, a fictional historically Black campus, and sparked debate among HBCU leadership even before cameras rolled. Why ‘School Daze’ faced pushback before filming Some administrators obje...

After nearly five decades of publishing contemporary art criticism from Atlanta outward, Art Papers is preparing for its final year. WABE Arts & Culture editor Sherri Daye Scott speaks with executive and artistic director Sarah Higgins about how the publication is choosing to “end well” — from planning its final issue to preserving its archive and creating space for reflectio...

Ahead of a special screening at Art Farm at Serenbe, WABE Arts goes inside AILEY, the documentary that reconnects choreographer Alvin Ailey to his life, voice, and legacy. Director Jamila Wignot and former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater company member and educator Nasha Thomas reflect on hearing Ailey in his own words, the role of rehearsal as sacred space, and why Atlanta audiences have long...

Quiet mornings, creative resets, and playful reinvention. As Pete the Cat takes the stage at the Center for Puppetry Arts, creator James Dean joins WABE Arts to talk about working in silence, remixing The New Yorker, finding inspiration around Atlanta, and what he hopes young readers carry with them. Hosted by Sherri Daye Scott as part of our “What’s Feeding You?” series See omny...

‘MJ the Musical’ returns to Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, and for cast members Michael Nero and Zuri Noelle Ford, it’s a homecoming. The two Atlanta-connected performers talk with WABE Arts & Culture Editor Sherri Daye Scott about stepping inside Michael Jackson’s creative process, from rehearsal-room discipline to the collaborators who shaped the Dangerous World Tour....

Blue Man Group returns to Atlanta with a refreshed national tour — and a new character audiences are seeing in the U.S. for the first time. WABE Arts talks with drummer and composer Ursula Sargent, who performs as the show’s new Rockstar, about the energy behind the role and touring life. 🎧 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, a new exhibit invites kids to explore aviation history through movement, imagination, and hands-on play. “AIM HIGH: Soaring with the Tuskegee Airmen” blends real artifacts with STEM learning to help young visitors connect to a legacy of flight — and possibility. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.