Carrboro
Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore
The ArtsCenterAlternately plucking and sawing his cello beneath soulful vocals, Kentucky’s Ben Sollee fuses precision and passion, traditionalist folk and dirty blues. Though he’s a classically trained cellist, it’s his brazen volley between expert melodic forms and furious percussive rags that have earned him acclaimanchored by a lauded debut disc, 2008’s Learning to Bend, and buoyed by a slot in Abigail Washburn’s supergroup Sparrow Quartet with Bela Fleck. Sollee applies that brazen creativity to Dear Companion, his new Jim James-helmed collaboration with songwriter Daniel Martin Moore, a deceivingly simple troubadour whose folk-pop gentility landed him a home at Sub Pop after an unsolicited demo tape found its way to the right stereo. Moore’s own music falls somewhere between Sondre Lerche-esque lounge-pop and back-porch love songs. Moore’s free-floating melody and Sollee’s fiery embellishment charm throughout Dear Companion. Though a benefit record to spread awareness about the destructive impact of mountaintop removal coal mining, these songs ultimately act less as protest anthems than heartfelt hymns of witness. Tickets are $13-$15 for the 8 p.m. show. Visit www.artscenterlive.org. Ashley Melzer
Durham
Spring Awakening
Durham Performing Arts Center“Teen horniness is not a crime,” intones the porn star-turned-talk-show-host played by Sarah Michelle Gellar in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales. Had Frank Wedekind appeared within that fictional universe, he’d have to agree (and possibly lend some backing vocals on that track). His 1891 play of the same name featured Austrian teens discovering their universal yet not-to-be acknowledged desires in fin de siècle Vienna. The original play dealt with such taboo issues as masturbation, rape and bondage, and was banned by Germany for nearly a century following publication. The 2007 musical, with songs by Duncan Sheik, won eight Tony Awards and launched the career of Lea Michele (Glee‘s resident goody-two-shoes, Rachel Berry) when she originated the lead female role of Wendla. Travel back to your youth and relive that awkward, frustrating first flush of sexual explorationbut be glad you’re not a 19th-century Austrian. Performances run through March 7; tickets are $25-$70. Visit www.dpacnc.com.Sarah Ewald
Durham
Dead Line and Prisoners in Time
Griffith Film Theater, Duke CampusAfter 25 years at Duke University, writer and professor Ariel Dorfman is being honored by the university’s Screen/Society with a film series titled Stories From Beyond the Dark: The Films of Ariel Dorfman. Tonight’s program offers Dead Line and Prisoners in Time, both of which are examples of Dorfman’s unnerving oeuvre. The former is a half-hour film inspired by Dorfman’s poems collected in Last Waltz in Santiago and In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land. Featuring the voices of Emma Thompson, Bono and Harold Pinter, it follows an Iraqi exile as he searches for a magical phone booth in London that would enable him to contact his native land. The latter is a teleplay that he co-wrote with his son Rodrigo, and stars John Hurt as Eric Lomax, a British soldier suffering from PTSD who is on a quest for revenge against his Japanese torturer. Following the films, Dorfman and his son will answer questions in a brief Q-and-A. The free screenings begin at 7 p.m. Visit www.fvd.aas.duke.edu/screensociety. Belem Destefani
