Culture

• Woodruff Arts Center president and CEO Joe Bankoff will be honored in a private reception and program Wednesday evening at the Midtown center. Bankoff will be recognized by city and state politicians as well as Woodruff board leaders and division heads. Though he’s officially retiring from the Woodruff, the former senior partner with the law firm King & Spalding will lead Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs starting in September.

• Co-founders Jeremy Abernathy and Susannah Darrow have gone full-time with the Atlanta-based online visual arts magazine BurnawayA (www.burnaway.org). The move has come after Burnaway raised $20,000 to match a challenge grant from the Atlanta arts foundation Possible Futures. Abernathy, who serves as editor-in-chief, and executive director Darrow promise to present a series of public arts programs over the next year and to raise the pay of its freelance contributors. Burnaway also has moved its Â…

aWe wanted the season to have an ambitious scale and scope that speaks not only to the kind of work that has made the Express great,†artistic director Freddie Ashley said in a statement, “but also to the kind that will chart our course for the future.a

The lineup:

“Kiss of the Spider Woman†(Aug. 25-Oct. 7), the Terrence McNally musical.

“Wolves†(Nov. 10aDec. 2), a world premiere by Steve Yockey (â€Octopusâ€) billed as a “fairy tale for grown-ups†about a one-night stand that goes way wrong.

“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson†(Jan. 12aFeb. 17), a musical by Michael Friedman that reimagines our seventh president as a rock god who fights for the common man.

“Equus†(March 23-April 21), a revival of Peter Shaffer’s Tony-winning drama.

A Broadway comedy to be announced (May Â…

BOOKS Emory teaming with Decatur Book fest More than a dozen Emory University entities are joining forces to become a major sponsor of the AJC Decatur Book Festival. Those organizations include the Emory Libraries, including the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library and its Raymond Danowski Poetry Library; Arts at Emory with the Schwartz Center for Performing Â…

Highlights of the 27-concert series include a pre-festival “Classical Jazz†show with Gary Motley Trio featuring Veronica Tate on June 13 (a benefit for the fest) and a free picnic concert with the Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet (June 27); the Eroica Trio (July 27-30) and Linden (Aug. 3-6 and 10-12) and Attacca (Aug. 10-12) string quartets; Laura (violin) and Julie (cello) Albers (July 13-16); and former and current Atlantans including violinist William Preucil (July 6-9), trumpeter Christopher Martin (Aug. 12), the Vega Quartet (July 20-23), cellists …

With the Woodruff gift, the Botanical Garden has raised more than $18 million toward a $21 million first-phase goal for land, greenspace conservation, infrastructure and permanent endowment. The first phase of the 168-acre woodland will include a serpentine and wooded entry road, visitor center, a 2,000-seat amphitheater and some five acres of display gardens.

The amphitheater and visitor center will be named for Gainesville residents Doug and Kay Ivester, who recently made an undisclosed donation to the project, described in a release as a “similar gift†to the Woodruff’s. Ivester is a retired Coca-Cola CEO.

The land off Gainesville’s Cleveland Highway that was …

By Gina Webb

Sundays have turned sinister in rural Marshall, N.C., since pastor Carson Chambliss took over the local church 10 years ago. Newspapers taped over the windows conceal the services during which normally “God-fearing folks†who would never take risks have begun to test their faith in dangerous games.

But when two young brothers witness something they shouldn’t, and one dies under suspicious circumstances, the subsequent investigation turns up some ugly truths about what goes on behind the walls of “the simple concrete block building†where the boys’ mother has formed fierce attachments — especially to the scarred and charismatic preacher.

Nine-year-old Jess Hall and his brother Christopher, affectionately nicknamed “Stump, †are just boys being boys one afternoon during the summer of 1986, when they get caught spying on their mother. Jess runs to hide in the woods, but …