SOUTHEASTERN N.C. — Li’l Friday features dozens of ways for people to enjoy the weekend via theater, music, art, culinary happenings and more.
All events featured were scheduled as of Thursday; however, it’s wise to check in ahead of attending any one. Inclement weather, changes in schedules and unforeseen circumstances may shift for organizers at the last minute.
Thursday, July 31
Learn the Shim Sham!
Hannah Block USO/Community Arts Center, 120 S. Second St. • Admission: $10
If you love to swing, then you don’t want to miss the chance to learn a popular line dance created by Leonard Reed and Willie Bryant in the 1920s but made popular in swing dance circles in the 1980s by Frankie Manning — Lindy Hop icon.
The Shim Sham is basically a tap, jazz and Lindy Hop line-dance routine and is being taught by Cape Fear Swing Dance Society at the Hannah Block Historic USO-Community Arts Center at 7 p.m. No partner or experience is required and it will be taught to “Tain’t What You Do” by Jimmie Lunceford.
After the lesson, there will be an hour of social dancing.
OTHER THURSDAY EVENTS
Boardwalk Blast with Beatlesque — Carolina Beach will celebrate the sounds of Britain’s most popular Fab Four with Beatlesque as the live entertainment for Thursday’s Boardwalk Blast. The weekly event includes free music at the gazebo stage, located at the center of the Boardwalk, near the rides, beginning at 6:30 p.m. and fireworks at 9 p.m. It’s free.
[CANCELLED AFTER PRESS, RESCHEDULED TO AUG. 7] WECT Sounds of Summer — It’s the last show at Wrightsville Beach Park, hosted by local news outlet WECT. Island Time Band, a quartet that performs Jimmy Buffett tunes, is set to take the stage from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Food trucks including Nautical Bowls, Poor Piggy’s Food Truck, Cool Beans Wilmington also will be parked on site. Chairs and blankets welcome and bring your dancing shoes!
Bright Star Theater’s ‘Winnie the Pooh’ — At UNCW Seahawk Summer Fam is underway, a series for family-friendly entertainment. Showing at UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium is “Winnie the Pooh,” featuring Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger and Christopher Robin as they journey through Hundred Acre Wood. The play is based on A.A. Milne’s famed books, which has evolved into cartoons on film and television as well as video games and theme park attractions. The Bright Star show is appropriate for students in pre-K through fifth grade. Tickets are $5 here.
Friday, Aug. 1
‘Bye Bye Birdie‘
Thalian Hall, 310 Chestnut St. • Tickets: $24
Inspired by Elvis Presley’s fame and induction into the U.S. Army, “Bye Bye Birdie” will open at Thalian Hall this weekend.
From Opera House Theater Company’s apprentice program, the Broadway musical first opened in 1960 and has toured worldwide since, including numerous revivals and winning a Tony for Best Musical. It also spawned the 1963 film starring Dick Van Dyke, Ann-Margaret, Janet Leigh and Jesse Pearson.
The story follows Conrad Birdie, a rock-n-roll singer who enlists in the military, but not before releasing one last song. A group of teenagers in a small Ohio town, however, are reeling from the news. This includes Kim MacAfee who is going steady with Hugo Peabody and decides to quit the Conrad Birdie Fan Club to the shock of her friends. But she becomes wooed back when chosen as Birdie’s last kiss before deployment — a stunt his publicity team has cooked up to help infuse money into Birdie’s indebted label, Al-Mae-Lou Music. And one that Kim’s beau, Hugo, is none too happy about.
The show runs for one weekend only, Aug. 1-3, and tickets are $24 here.
OTHER FRIDAY EVENTS
‘Ding-a-Ling-Less’ — As part of Jengo’s Playhouse Summer Film Series, “Ding-a-Ling-Less” will be screening at 7:30 p.m. from filmmaker Onur Tukel (??). Tukel filmed the feature in Wilmington and released the indie flick in 2001. The story follows Jack Peterson, a birdhouse builder who erects large wooden creations throughout town, garnering a lot of attention. A friendly and attractive fella, Peterson seems to do well and have luck on his side, yet is actually incapable of intimacy and relationships due to his body disfiguration and is considering a medical procedure to reverse the condition. “With the help of his womanizing best friend Alan and an eccentric doctor named Skinner, Jack tries to win the heart of the girl next door and obtain the life he’s always wanted,” according to the film’s tagline. However, things don’t go quite as planned in this tragic comedy. Tukel will be at Jengo’s Playhouse for a question-and-answer after the film, which screened as part of the seventh Cucalorus Film Festival. Tickets are $10 here and the film starts at 7:30 p.m.
‘His Girl Friday’ — If throwing back to another era of film is more up your alley, then Thalian Hall’s new cinema series — featuring new releases, cult classics, family-friendly films and a vintage throwback — may be of interest. This week’s vintage feature is Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell’s “His Girl Friday.” In celebration of its 85th anniversary, the 1940 classic comedy follows a journalist, Russell, and her editor, Grant — also an ex-husband. The journalist’s assignment is to interview a man set to be hanged, but when she finds out his death is scheduled only to get votes, she helps him escape. Tickets to the film are $10 to $12 and it will screen on Thursday at 7:15 p.m., Friday at 1 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 2
Malik Elassal
Dead Crow Comedy Room, 511 N. Third St. • Tickets: $22-$33
Malik Elassal is a Lebanese-Canadian actor, writer and comedian who has appeared in Montreal’s Just for Laughs, where he was touted one of the New Faces in 2022. He currently stars in FX’s “Adults” about housemates in Queens, New York, which is executive produced by Nick Kroll.
Elassal, who said he has dropped out of college twice, talks in his standup about being an “intro Muslim” to many, the first many see that isn’t on the news.
“There is always a lineup of small-town dudes after the show; they want to take their first crack at talking to a Muslim. It’s just a bunch of small-town guys walking up to me saying, ‘Hey, man … 9/11 … anyways, funny stuff tonight, man. Thanks for coming out.’ Just because the guys that did 9/11 were Muslim doesn’t mean they were following the rules. Like, you’re not supposed to do that. It doesn’t say that anywhere in the Qu’ran. It says to spread peace and love at every opportunity. It doesn’t say spread peace and love, but if that doesn’t work, take to the skies.”
Elassal will perform four shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $22 to $33 here.
OTHER SATURDAY EVENTS
Port City Rock Jam — Bowstring Brewyard is hosting a day of live music, featuring 12 bands on two stages, benefitting two charities. Port City Rock Jam was founded by the band members of RuKus to celebrate the local music scene and bring together a day of jams in a family-friendly environment. Doors are at 10 a.m. with music kicking off at 11 a.m. and lasting until midnight. In addition to RuKus, the lineup includes the funk-rock-bluegrass fusion of The King Thieves, rock and psychedelic electro pop of Keith Allen Circus, psychedelic country artist Dickey Hazel, funky jamband sounds of Dubtown Cosmonauts, dynamic rockers Hatch Brothers, soulful hip-hop of Oc3ans, rock band The Queen’s Giant, singer-songwriter Delia Stanley, electronic dance-bluegrass-jamband Spacefolks, and surf-reggae-funk rockers Selah Dubb. Vendors will be set up throughout the day as well and partial proceeds go to Play It Forward Wilmington and Cape Fear River Watch. Tickets are $20 here.
Henry Cho — Wilson Center will welcome the stand-up of Henry Cho on Saturday at 8 p.m. The Tennessee-born comedian is one of the few inducted into The Grand Ole Opry and often discusses his childhood experience of being an Asian-American — Cho’s of Korean descent — raised in the South. “I’m an Asian with a Southern accent,” he has said. “To a lot of people, that right there is funny.” He’s been hailed for his clean routines and has appeared on shows throughout his four-decade career, including “Designing Women” and “The Arsenio Hall Show” from the ‘80s and ‘90s and most recently on late shows on NBC and CBS. He also released “What’s That Clickin Noise?” on Comedy Central, later re-released on Netflix. His latest tour is called “Empty Nest,” making stops nationwide including recently in Lexington. There, Cho told the crowd: “My wife and I got into a little discussion the other day because she said: ‘95% of plane crashes happen on takeoffs or landings.’ And I said, ‘Nope, 100% on landing.’ [Pause, laughter] And she argued for 30 minutes. Until she got it.’” Tickets start at $37.
Summer Pop Culture Expo — The Elks Lodge is hosting an event celebrating pop culture. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 5102 Oleander Dr., Cape Fear Pop Culture Fest is underway. It will have collectible comics, Legos, vintage toys, movies and vinyl, nerdy crafts, Pokemon cards, anime and local artists and more from over 50 vendors. There is a $5 admission, though kids 12 and under are admitted free.
Jay Killman Trio — Live at Ted’s is hosting a jazz virtuoso taking on the sounds of jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, a key figure in the development of bebop, this weekend. Jay Killman Trio, featuring Killman on guitar, Jon Hill on drums and Chris Mills on bass, perform from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the listening room. A professional musician, composer, arranger and teacher, Killman has taken the stage with many greats, including Branford Marsalis, Keith Ganz, and Joey Calderrazo. He also has released four albums of original music and is an adjunct professor at UNCW. Tickets to his show are $20 here.
Sunday, Aug. 3
Drive-By Truckers
Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, 1941 Amphitheatre Dr. • Tickets: $52
Athens’ Americana rockers will descend on Greenfield Lake Amphitheater stage on Sunday.
Best known for drawing in audiences and music lovers due to their hefty touring schedule, DBT is no stranger to Wilmington. The band has performed at GLA numerous times in the last decade.
The band released its 14th studio album, “Welcome 2 Club XIII,” in 2022 — an album frontman Patterson Hood called character-driven, representative of band members or family and close friends from DBT’s early days when they went by the name Adam’s House Cat. It also pays homage to the “Muscle Shoals honky-tonk,” a place Patterson and founding member Mike Cooley got their start. The album features contributions from Mike Mills (R.E.M.) and country songstress Margo Price.
The group — also consisting of Brad Morgan, Jay Gonzalez and Matt Patton — is touring with Deertick and Thelma and the Sleeze. The latter is an all-female, all punk trio act, while Deertick is an American rock-folk act known for high energy and unique blending of musical genres. Deertick has released nine albums since 2007, including 2024’s “Contractual Obligations.”
Concert tickets are $52 here.
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