ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WHATEVER YOU LIKE: Cobb art and entertainment in 2023

By Brian McKeithan bmckeithan@mdjonline.com

There is no shortage of things to do in Cobb County, and all signs point to 2023 bringing plenty more events.

For baseball fans, there is the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park. For thrill seekers, there is Six Flags Over Georgia. For movie buffs looking for an experience beyond the usual Regal or AMC — perhaps a silent movie accompanied by a live orchestra — there’s the Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre on Marietta Square.

If you’re looking for other old-fashioned entertainment, Feb. 17-19 the Strand is hosting a live reading of an episode of “The Lone Ranger,” the radio show that started in the ’30s, complete with costumed actors, an orchestra, and a foley artist doing sound effects.

“It’s a fun callback to yesteryear, and it’s not something you can see, as far as I’m aware of, anywhere else,” said Andy Gaines, the manager of the Strand.

Gaines said that 2022 marked the end of a strategic 5-year plan for the Strand, and the creation of a new one. The theater will focus on improving what they already do well, he said, which includes a wide range of performances, a quarterly comedy series, jazz and folk concerts, and the “Strand Ole Opry” series of country music performances.

“I don’t know what the thing is that you like, but I guarantee it’s happening on this stage at some point,” Gaines said.

In addition to the venues and arts institutions, Cobb has a plethora of public food and art festivals throughout the year. One of the largest is Chalktoberfest, the chalk festival put on every fall by the Marietta-Cobb Museum of Art.

“Our mission is to bring the community together through art, that’s one of the reasons we started Chalktoberfest,” said Sally Macaulay, the museum’s executive director.

Macaulay said she’s particularly excited about Chalktoberfest 2023 because of plans to add more international artists to the lineup, and she hinted that this year’s Chalktoberfest may have a theme “having something to do with old movies.”

Among other new additions, the museum will add its first glass-fusing class to its lineup of painting and sculpting classes. Macaulay added that the museum will begin revamping parts of its historic building, with plans to begin painting the exterior during the first months of 2023.

“The direction we’re going in is really just building community through art — having new events, having new exhibitions, having new art classes,” Macaulay said.

One of the museum’s planned exhibits in 2023 will be made with contributions from the community. The “Quilting the Pandemic Project” will tell the stories of Cobb locals during the pandemic through quilting. Residents can contribute quilt squares to the project, which will then be stitched together into quilts that will be on exhibition.

“We’re basically recording people’s experience of an event that 200 years from now people are going to ask, ‘Oh, what was it like in Marietta?’ Well here are these tangible projects giving the stories of people’s experiences,” said Candise Curlee, the museum’s director of education.

The exhibit is scheduled to open April 1.

“This is taking a traditional form of storytelling and bringing it into the modern world,” Curlee said.

If 2022 was the year of reopening, 2023 could be a year of thriving. Holly Quinlan, the president of Cobb Travel and Tourism, which works with arts organizations throughout the county, said she thinks 2023 will be a “breakout year” for a Cobb arts scene still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

“I think it will be a story of continued resilience,” Quinlan said.

Whether it’s the Atlanta Ballet at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, or the annual production of “The Nutcracker” danced by students of Marietta’s own Georgia Dance Conservatory, Cobb has options upon options for fans of dance, music, art, and nearly anything else.

Good luck choosing what to do first.