Improv Chattanooga: It's Giving Grateful

Improv Chattanooga presents: It's Giving Grateful. Share what you are thankful for to inspire an evening that'll leave you feeling full. 

Improv Chattanooga is a non-profit performing arts theater company dedicated to bringing the art, creativity, expression, and growth that comes from the practice and play of improvisation. Through entertainment, education, and training we aim to continue to grow our community and bring more joy to folks in the area.

More info: improvchattanooga.com

We are delighted to present a RARE matinee performance by 3 of our favorite practitioners of musical free improvisation. Jack Wright is an icon of the form, and Evan and Ben are agile cohorts to say the least. For those seeking autumnal excitement, we offer this alternative to SEC football.

WREST is…

Jack Wright (saxophones), Evan Lipson (double bass), Ben Bennett (percussion)

These three musicians live in Easton PA, Knoxville TN and Philadelphia respectively, and come together several times a year for touring, sometimes including guitarist Zach Darrup (Phila.) as RAWL. They began as a collaboration in Chicago in 2012 and played several shows on their way east.

The handful of people who know this kind of music call it free improvisation; others might say "experimental jazz," or even noise. This group played on tour for several years, mainly in the Midwest and Southeast, and after seven years has the chance to do it again. Wrest is restless, using all their imagination each show to do something stranger than we did the night before.

"Wrest-ing never does serious bodily harm but might scare your aunties and inlaws out of the room real quick. Sound and magic tricks on sax, floor percussion, bass. What happened? We don't know what we're doing until we're doing it."

We hope you will join us for a special Saturday matinee performance by these 3 astoundingly talented musicians!

Tickets: $10, Music starts at 3:00pm

Interactive Movie Showing - Repo! The Genetic Opera

A worldwide epidemic encourages a biotech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.

Join Seed Theatre at Barking Legs Theater for an interactive movie showing of Repo! the Genetic Opera on Friday, November 15th. 

Seating begins at 7pm

Movie begins at 7:30pm 

This movie is rated R and is recommended for mature audiences 

Kash Wright’s Trio performance are a great way to experience the pleasures that continue to come from the classic confirguration of piano, bass and drums. We always look forward to hearing Kash with drummer Jim Crumble, and this evening’s performance gives us our first chance to hear bassist Charlie Kirchen. Charlie has recently moved to the area to join the faculty at the University of the South, and he has his own trio in NYC.

We've been privilged to host the quartet led by saxophonist Alan Wyatt since our Wednesday Jazz Series began a decade or so ago. Alan is a master, and guitarist Shawn Perkinson is on the same level. Complemented by bassist David Schwab and drummer Stephen Humphries, this is great, classic contemporary jazz.

Admission is just $10, tipping the musicians is strongly encouraged!

Cast Iron Storytelling presents FEAR/LESS

FEAR/LESS marks the third installment of Cast Iron Storytelling’s live, true story events!

Featuring 6 new storytellers mentored by Jason Tinney, FEAR/LESS brings together storytellers from Chattanooga, Soddy-Daisy, and Ooltewah to share personal memories of a time they confronted a real-life fear. 

Our live events are like sitting on the porch on a Sunday afternoon, swapping stories with family and friends — and audience members are welcomed to interact through shared laughter, tears, and responses evoked by these trips down memory lane.

We’re honored this event was funded with support from ArtsBuild as a recipient of the Community Cultural Connections Grants. Fostering greater connectivity through shared experiences is what we do, making the mission of Community Cultural Connections a perfect fit for Cast Iron Storytelling!   

One great show deserves another, and the Tennessee Sheiks rocked the house mightily last fall, so we’re bringing them back for another Autumn treat.

It is hard to categorize the Tennessee Sheiks. Collectively, the band represents the diversity of American roots music. Each player is expert in his or her instrument as well as several being music composers. Energy and fun-loving style shows in the Swing, Bluegrass, Blues, Alt-country, Jazz, or original material they play. The exchange and synergy that music generates make it a joy to hear them perform.

Nancy Brennan Strange's effervescent vocals, Brent Thompson's marvelous and unique vocal style, masterful instrumentals, instrumental solos that make you want more, and a really big sound, all add up to a musical treat.

The 2023 Tennessee Sheiks are: Don Cassell - mandolin, guitar, dobro, and vocals; Nancy Brennan Strange - vocals, guitar; Don Wood, guitar, lap steel guitar; Barry "Po" Hannah - guitars; Michael Crawley - blues harp, vocals; Marcus Shirley - piano/keyboards; Will Ross - bass; Nicholas Cassell - drums, percussion; Brent Thompson - vocals, guitar

Tickets: $25 adv, $30 at the door

Cast Iron Storytelling presents FEAR/LESS

FEAR/LESS marks the third installment of Cast Iron Storytelling’s live, true story events!

Featuring 6 new storytellers mentored by Jason Tinney, FEAR/LESS brings together storytellers from Chattanooga, Soddy-Daisy, and Ooltewah to share personal memories of a time they confronted a real-life fear. 

Our live events are like sitting on the porch on a Sunday afternoon, swapping stories with family and friends — and audience members are welcomed to interact through shared laughter, tears, and responses evoked by these trips down memory lane.

We’re honored this event was funded with support from ArtsBuild as a recipient of the Community Cultural Connections Grants. Fostering greater connectivity through shared experiences is what we do, making the mission of Community Cultural Connections a perfect fit for Cast Iron Storytelling!   

Get ready for a night of frights, Chattanooga. Ambush Improv presents an evening of spooky scenes including the tale of a death, your death. One volunteer audience member will be interviewed and the story of their demise and subsequent funeral will be performed. Come peek through the veil at Barking Legs Theater on October 17th.

Doors at 7:30, show at 8:00.

Robbie Fulks is a unique and revered figure in the acoustic music world, as you’ll read much more about just below. Our good pal Terryl Greene turned us on to Robbie years back, and we were able to book him in 2015 for what turned out to be an extraordinary show. He surrounds himself with some of the best musicians around, and we can now share that he’ll be in the company of Missy Raines, one of the most esteemed bassists in bluegrass, and young mandolin virtuoso, Tristan Scroggins

Robbie Fulks is a singer, recording artist, instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter. His current release, Bluegrass Vacation on Compass Records, returns him to his bluegrass roots, with a large group of masterful musicians including Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Justin Moses, Ronnie McCoury, Alison Brown, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Todd Phillips, John Cowan, Brennen Leigh, Randy Kohrs, Sierra Hull, Stuart Duncan, Shad Cobb, and Chris Eldridge. Across 11 new original songs (and one freewheeling interpretation of the Delmore Brothers), Robbie covers themes like small-town blues, the endurance of childhood memory, inebriation, love, divorce, the role of music in strengthening family bonds, losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s, and bluegrass itself.

His most recent release, 2017’s Upland Stories, earned year’s-best recognition from NPR and Rolling Stone among many others, as well as two Grammy® nominations, for folk album and American roots song (“Alabama At Night”).

Fulks was born in York, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a half-dozen small towns in southeast Pennsylvania, the North Carolina Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge area of Virginia. He learned guitar from his dad, banjo from Earl Scruggs and John Hartford records. He attended Columbia College in New York City. In 1983 he moved to Chicago and joined Greg Cahill’s Special Consensus Bluegrass Band. He taught music at Old Town School of Folk Music from 1984 to 1996, and worked as a staff songwriter on Music Row in Nashville from 1993 to 1998.

His early solo work — Country Love Songs (1996) and South Mouth (1997) — helped define the “alternative country” movement of the 1990s. For most of the present century, Robbie has been playing acoustic music through microphones, which lets him give more attention to his flatpicking and banjo playing, and complements his more sepia-toned subject matter — the slings of time, the troubles of common people. His repertory of traveling players includes folks like Shad Cobb, Missy Raines, Robbie Gjersoe, Jenny Scheinman, Matt Flinner, Don Stiernberg, and Jesse Cobb. However, two non-acoustic recent side projects are his 2018 duo record with Linda Gail Lewis, Wild! Wild! Wild!, an NPR favorite which leans to rock-and-roll and classic country-and-western, and his double-vinyl reinterpretation of the Bob Dylan record Street Legal, which is titled 16, is musically unbounded and is no one’s favorite.

Radio: multiple appearances on WSM’s “Grand Ole Opry”; PRI’s “Whadd’ya Know”; NPR’s “Fresh Air,” “Mountain Stage,” and “World Cafe”; and the syndicated “Acoustic Cafe” and “Laura Ingraham Show.” TV: PBS’s Austin City Limits; NBC’s Today, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Later with Carson Daly, and 30 Rock. From 2004 to 2008 he hosted an hourlong performance/interview program for XM satellite radio, “Robbie’s Secret Country.” Artists who have covered his songs include Sam Bush, Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird, Mollie O’Brien, Rosie Flores, John Cowan, and Old 97s.

Robbie’s writing on music and life have appeared in GQ, Blender, the Chicago Reader, DaCapo Press’s Best Music Writing anthologies for 2001 and 2004, Amplified: Fiction from Leading Alt-Country, Indie Rock, Blues and Folk Musicians, and A Guitar and A Pen: Stories by Country Music’s Greatest Songwriters. As an instrumentalist, he has accompanied the Irish fiddle master Liz Carroll, the distinguished jazz violinist Jenny Scheinman, and the New Orleans pianist Dr. John. As a producer his credits include Touch My Heart: A Tribute to Johnny Paycheck (Sugar Hill, 2004) and Big Thinkin’ by Dallas Wayne (Hightone, 2000). Theatrical credits include “Woody Guthrie’s American Song” and Harry Chapin’s “Cottonpatch Gospel.” He served twice as judge for the Winfield National Flatpicking Guitar competition. He tours yearlong with various configurations.

Besides country and bluegrass music, Robbie is fiercely fond of Charles Mingus, P.G. Wodehouse, quantum mechanics, his wife Donna, comedy in almost all forms, cooking, swimming laps, the past, Arthur Schopenhauer, Universal horror movies, his grandson and even his sons, coastal towns in the offseason, and rye whiskey, though in nothing like that order.

One of the great privileges we’ve had at Barking Legs over the past decade or so has been the opportunity to present the music of saxophonist Greg Tardy. Since he last performed for us, Greg’s star has continued to rise through his role as saxophonist in the Bill Frisell Quartet. The pairing with Frisell, who is one of the most influential musicians in contemporary jazz, is also documented on a beautiful duo recording, More Than Enough.

For this special Wednesday jazz on the main stage, Greg will be joined by the Italian pianist—and now Barking Legs favorite—Margherita Fava, Rob Linton on bass and Dave Potter on drums will be dealing strong stuff for sure.

If you have even a passing interest in contemporary jazz, you really need to see this show. If you’ve heard Greg before, you almost certainly want to hear this show. John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and many other greats are now only to be heard on recordings. Experience Greg Tardy live!

Doors open at 6:30, music at 7:30. 

This is an all ages show. 

The first two Wednesdays in October are Jazz Special Events, with international touring heavyweights Jonathan Barber (10/2) and Greg Tardy (10/9) performing at the Legs! Save up to $15 when you buy both 10/2 and 10/9 Jazz shows together at checkout!

$20 advance/$25 at the door. Just $10 for students!

Doors open at 6:30, music at 7:30. 

This is an all ages show. 

Jonathan Barber & Vision Ahead is a powerful declaration of intent for a band that’s been making waves on the modern jazz scene. Barber’s blend of classic, swinging jazz with elements of gospel, rock, soul, and fusion is a compelling showcase of Barber’s broad stylistic range as a drummer, performer and composer.

More info: jonathanbarbermusic.com

The first two Wednesdays in October are Jazz Special Events, with international touring heavyweights Jonathan Barber (10/2) and Greg Tardy (10/9) performing at the Legs! Save up to $15 when you buy both 10/2 and 10/9 Jazz shows together at checkout!

$20 advance/$25 at the door. Just $10 for students!