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From May 24, 2007...

• The ats community's economic impact
• UAB's Fringe Festival of New Theatre
• Sounds Around Town
• Community Calendar
• Hard-hitting rock from Birmingham's Leaderdog

This week, the group Americans for the Arts announced the results of what it says is the most comprehensive economic impact study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry ever conducted in the United States. The report finds that the nonprofit arts community generates hundreds of billions of dollars in economic activity every year and that it is a major economic driver. WBHM's Tanya Ott reports.

The arts impact on communities

Loosely defined, fringe theatre is out of the mainstream theatre that champions new and experimental works for the stage. Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot comes to mind. Fringe theatre festivals are regular fixtures in major American cities. Now add the Birmingham/UAB Fringe Festival of New Theatre to that list. Through Sunday at the Alys Stephens Center, theater goers can see six different works performed by student actors. The festival grew out of UAB Associate Professor Lisa Channer's "experimental company" class, which stresses the ensemble approach to bringing new works to the stage.

Lisa Channer interview

Luke Harlan, a student in Lisa Channer's experimental company, recently won the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Director Award. He says that the ensemble approach to acting is very rewarding.

Luke Harlan interview

Music has the ability to instantly remind us of a place. For me, The Doors "Light My Fire" will forever remind me of a summer I spent on the beach near Fort Morgan on the Alabama coast. I was painting my girlfriend's parents beach house and I managed to make that job last all summer. And if you've ever visited those particular beaches, you'll know why I didn't want to leave. This week on Tapestry we're launching a new series called Sounds Around Town...about places that remind us of songs or songs that remind us of places.

Sounds Around Town

Patti Lovoy lives in Vestavia, but enjoys weekend breakfasts in Homewood to her mental soundtrack - the Eagles' "Peaceful, Easy Feeling". If you've got a place and a song that go hand-in-hand, drop us an e-mail to tell us about it. We might just feature you on Tapestry.

To hear the audio portion of the Community Calendar from Tapestry, click here.

Want to know more? Activeculture.info is a one-stop source for finding out what's going on in the Birmingham metro area.

According to the local band Leaderdog, rock-and-roll slaps you in the face; it comes at you, from the front - not from behind. In other words, it demands attention. And their latest CD captures that lexicon. "Attention, please" is the band's first full-length LP with more than a dozen tracks that grab your ears and don't let go. Leaderdog's musical influences range from Zeppelin to AC/DC to Guns-n-Roses to Alice in Chains: straight, unadulterated, pure rock. The band has toured at some festivals in the South and Midwest and even had a single featured on A&E's "Dog: The Bounty Hunter". This song is "Are You Ready to Go" from their new CD "Attention Please." Dave Bowman is Leaderdog's lead singer. (AUDIO MONTAGE)

The tune is "Are you Ready to Go" from Leaderdog's new CD "Attention Please". Dave Bowman and his bandmates play The Legacy in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, June 2 and perform at City Stages two weeks later. There's more rock-n-roll from the group, including downloads, inside the Tapestry section of WBHM-dot-ORG.

Tapestry is produced by Tanya Ott, Michael Krall and Hunter Bell. The community calendar queen is Francesca Rosko and this week's Sounds Around Town segment was produced by Les Lovoy. Additional production help from Steve Chiotakis. I'm Greg Bass and we'll see you next week!