Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Theme

Arts, Music & Performance

Painters, potters, players, and bandleaders, from the Carolina Playmakers and Kay Kyser to the clubs of Carrboro.

In briefThe Carolina Playmakers began folk drama at Chapel Hill in 1918, Elizabeth Cotten wrote Freight Train in Carrboro, and the clubs of Chapel Hill and Carrboro made a music scene that reached the world through the Cat’s Cradle in the 1990s. The storylines follow the Playmakers and UNC Press, the local music scene and the Chapel Hill sound.

1,167 indexed works are connected with this theme. 13 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
Boys at a night rally, Chapel Hill, 1939.

Events and storylines

Named events and episodes the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro music sceneCat’s Cradle, the ArtsCenter, Merge Records, WXYC, Local 506 and the bands that came through them The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC PressFrederick Koch’s folk-play company of 1918 and the university press of 1922, the two institutions that made Chapel Hill a literary place The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990sThe club, the labels, and the bands that brought national attention to the Chapel Hill–Carrboro music scene

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Photographs & portraits 115Periodicals 81Histories 71Exhibition catalogs 33Biography 23other types 108

Period

18th century 4Revolution (1775–1783) 119th century 47Civil War (1861–1865) 420th century 127World War I era 5World War II era 721st century 9

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 635Chapel Hill 519Carrboro 338Orange County 131Hillsborough 19City of Durham (neighboring) 17

Widely held

PlayMakers Repertory Company: a history

2021

Fifty-year history of PlayMakers Repertory Company, the professional theater founded in 1975 by Tom Haas with Arthur Housman on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. Chapters by Bobbi Owen, Cecelia Moore and Gregory Kable follow the company leader by leader: Haas, David Rotenberg and Gregory Boyd, Milly S. Barranger and David Hammond, Joseph Haj and Vivienne Benesch. Appendices list productions, Department of Dramatic Art faculty, MFA graduates and administrators since 1975. Published by the department in 2021, 168 pages, online edition.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Theater.

NC Cardinal Duke NC State NCCU UNC Library of Congress Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small

Cook, John · 2009 · Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

John Cook's history of Merge Records, the independent label that Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk built in Chapel Hill. Chapters follow the label year by year from 1987 to 2009 and pause for profiles of Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Lambchop and the Arcade Fire, ending on how it managed to stay small. Advance reading copy of the first edition, published in Chapel Hill in 2009, 289 pages with twelve pages of plates.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Alternative rock music.

✓ Held at OCPL · 338.761 COOK UNC Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress

Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music

Menconi, David · 2020

David Menconi's history of popular music in North Carolina, from the working-class roots of the state's traditions to the Chapel Hill and Carrboro rock scene of recent decades. Menconi, who covered music for the Raleigh News and Observer for nearly thirty years, builds the book on interviews and reporting, and Black musicians' contributions run through it. First issued in print by UNC Press in 2020; this is the online edition, 329 pages with illustrations.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Music.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2022).

✓ Held at OCPL · 781.64 MENCONI Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU

The Ackland Art Museum: a handbook published in honor of the Museum's twenty-fifth anniversary (1958-1983)

Ackland Art Museum · 1983

A handbook to the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, published by the museum in 1983 for its twenty-fifth anniversary. It combines a catalog of the collection with a history of the museum, which opened in 1958. Includes a bibliography on pages xviii to xx. 170 pages with illustrations, 22 cm.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Ackland Art Museum.

NC Cardinal Duke NCCU CH Historical Society Library of Congress UNC

Woody Durham: A Tar Heel Voice

Durham, Woody; Lucas, Adam · 2012 · John F. Blair, Publisher

Memoir of Woody Durham, who called University of North Carolina football and basketball on the radio from 1971 until he retired in 2011, written with Adam Lucas. Four decades of Tar Heel games as heard from the broadcast booth. Subjects include radio broadcasters and sportscasters, North Carolina, biography.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Performing Arts.

✓ Held at OCPL Duke NC State NC Cardinal Library of Congress

The Forgotten First

Albright, Alex · 2013 · R.A. Fountain

Alex Albright's history of the B-1 band, the group of Black musicians drawn largely from students and graduates of North Carolina A&T who became the first Black sailors of the modern Navy to serve above the rank of messman, and the first of more than a hundred Black Navy bands in wartime. The band was posted to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, the book's Orange County link. Published by R.A. Fountain in 2013, 194 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African American musicians.

NC Cardinal UNC Durham Library of Congress
Show 2 more

Frederick Henry Koch

Selden, Samuel ; Sphangos, Mary Tom · 1954 · University of North Carolina Library

Brief biography of Frederick Henry Koch (1877-1944), founder of the Carolina Playmakers at the University of North Carolina, by Samuel Selden and Mary Tom Sphangos, with notes by Jonathan Daniels and others. It reprints Koch's own essay 'Folk playmaking' on pages 59 to 68. Published by the University of North Carolina Library in 1954, viii and 92 pages with illustrations and a portrait.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Carolina Playmakers.

Reviewed in Educational Theatre Journal (1956).

Duke NC Cardinal Durham Library of Congress

Catalogue Of The Collection, The William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center

Hertzman, Gay Mahaffy · 1971 · Herzig Somerville Ltd.

Gay Mahaffy Hertzman's 1971 catalogue of the collection of the William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center, the university art museum in Chapel Hill now called the Ackland Art Museum, printed by Herzig Somerville. William Hayes Ackland (1855 to 1940) left the bequest that founded the museum.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Ackland Art Museum.

NC Cardinal CH Historical Society

Recently indexed: The 100 best art towns in America : a guide to galleries, museums, festivals, lodging, and dining (2005) · The 1986 Clef Hangers (1986) · 'Neath the oaks (1897) · The Ackland Art Center (1966) · [Ackland Art Museum website archives] · Ackland highlights (1978)

Search all 1,167 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.

  • Foundational · 708.156 MILLER Hillsborough Artists Cooperative and Skylight Gallery, 1990-2020 Miller, Jennifer E. · 2021

    Jennifer E. Miller's account of the Hillsborough Artists Cooperative and its Skylight Gallery across their first thirty years, 1990 to 2020. Topics include art in Hillsborough for that period and the history of both the cooperative and the gallery. Published in 2021, it records a local institution in the town's art scene that would otherwise leave little written trace.

  • Wider context · 738.097 HEW The Potter's Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery Hewitt, Mark · 2006

    Catalog of a North Carolina Museum of Art exhibition of the state's pottery, shown from October 2005 to March 2006. Mark Hewitt, the English-born potter who lives in Pittsboro, writes on the salt-glaze and alkaline-glaze traditions, their older sources and their twentieth-century course, and Nancy Sweezy profiles six working potters, among them Ben Owen III, Pam Owens and Hewitt himself. Color photographs by Jason Dowdle; 274 pages.

  • Wider context · 738.097 JAMES North Carolina Art Pottery: 1900-1960 : Identification & Value Guide : Seagrove, Catawba Valley, Pisgah Forest and More James, A. Everette · 2003

    North Carolina art pottery made from 1900 to 1960, pictured in color with market values, from the potteries of Seagrove, the Catawba Valley, Pisgah Forest and elsewhere, in a collector's guide by A. Everette James with Rodney Leftwich. Charlotte Brown wrote the foreword. Collector Books of Paducah, Kentucky, published it in 2003: 303 pages with maps and a bibliography.

Show 6 more
  • Wider context · NC 738.309 BROWN The Remarkable Potters of Seagrove: The Folk Pottery of A Legendary North Carolina Community Brown, Charlotte Vestal · 2006

    Seagrove, the Randolph County community where traditional pottery has been made for more than a century, and many of its best known potters are profiled by Charlotte Vestal Brown, who then directed North Carolina State University's Gallery of Art and Design. Lark Books published the book in 2006, illustrated in color throughout, with a bibliography and an index; 144 pages.

  • Wider context · NC 704 NINE Nine From North Carolina: An Exhibition of Women Artists 1989

    Catalog of a 1989 to 1990 traveling exhibition of nine North Carolina women artists, organized by the North Carolina State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts and curated by Christie Taylor. The artists are Clara Couch, Carolyn DeMeritt, Paula Garrett, Maud Gatewood, Gina Gilmour, Bryant Holsenbeck, Jan Brooks Loyd, Elizabeth Matheson and Patricia Rieger, with essays by Doris Betts, Jane Kessler and Caroline Hickman. It runs 49 pages with color plates.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORANGE Working for A Living: A Special Exhibit by the Orange County Historical Museum, March-December 2024 Orange County Historical Museum (N.C.) · 2024

    Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.

  • Start here · NC DVD BIO THOMPSON LIF The Life and Times of Joe Thompson 2004

    Joe Thompson, the African American fiddler from Orange County, is the subject of this 2004 production by Iris Thompson Chapman with Linda DiLorenzo, Alton Chewning and Calvin Allen. Topics include string band and folk music in North Carolina and Thompson's own life, 1918 to 2012. It is part of the library's Wall Local History Collection, and a note flags it as audio or visual special collections material.

  • Start here · NC BIO GREEN ADA Paul Green of Chapel Hill Adams, Agatha Boyd · 1951

    Biographical study of the playwright Paul Green by Agatha Boyd Adams, edited by Richard Walser and issued by the university library in 1951 in its Library Extension Publication series. Topics include his drama at Chapel Hill and his writing on slavery. A slim book of 116 pages with a portrait.

  • Foundational · NC 709.756 FOU Art in North Carolina: Episodes and Developments, 1585-1970 Foushee, Ola Maie · 1972

    Ola Maie Foushee's history of the arts in North Carolina from 1585 to 1970, printed in Chapel Hill by Heritage Printers in 1972; 238 pages with illustrations.

In the chronology

Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 148, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 148 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. A sacred music society forms and an organ is ordered for the university chapel

    Founding or opening · Person Hall

    The Raleigh Register reported a new society for the study of sacred music at the university and an organ, paid for by private gifts, already built in New York. The trustees later paid $50 to bring it to Chapel Hill.

    Subject: Person Hall

  2. Elizabeth Cotten composes Freight Train

    Publication, speech or performance · Carrboro

    At about age eleven, growing up near the railroad tracks in the settlement that became Carrboro, Elizabeth Cotten wrote "Freight Train." She played a right-handed guitar upside down, and the song became a folk standard after Folkways released her recording in 1958.

  3. The Carolina Playmakers are organized

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Frederick H. Koch

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  4. Paul John Weaver is hired as the University's first director of music

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Chase completed the hiring, begun by Graham, of Weaver of St. Louis as the first director of music, a full professor at $2,750. Chase asked him to take music education out to the state's schools, as Frederick Koch was doing with drama.

    People: Harry Woodburn Chase

  5. Paul Green wins the Pulitzer Prize for In Abraham’s Bosom

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Paul Green received the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for In Abraham’s Bosom.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Paul Green

  6. The Carolina Playmakers stage a Shaw-Henderson Festival

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    The Carolina Playmakers held a Shaw-Henderson Festival in Chapel Hill honoring Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw's authorized biographer. It featured Shaw's You Never Can Tell, the play whose 1903 amateur performance had first drawn Henderson to Shaw.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  7. The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center.

    Part of The Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, 1942–1945 · 10 events

    Subject: Hargraves Community Center · Navy Pre-Flight School

  8. The Pick Theatre on East Franklin Street closes

    Closing or ending · Pick Theatre, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The Pick Theatre shut its doors in 1946. Its building was later remodeled for J. B. Robbins's House of Fashion, a clothing store that ran until 1969.

  9. Portrait painter Clement Strudwick dies and is buried in Hillsborough

    Life event · Hillsborough

    Clement Read Strudwick, who had painted in a workshop behind his parents' Hillsborough home, died on February 26, 1958. His funeral was held in the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church and he was buried in the Hillsborough cemetery.

    Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

  10. Marinda Dunnigan McPherson is recorded singing songs she learned from her family

    Publication, speech or performance · Hillsborough

    McKellar Israel recorded McPherson in the fall of 1972 and the fall of 1973, singing children's games, play party songs and spirituals she learned from family members, among them songs she first recalled hearing her grandmother Marinda Hart sing about 1920. Israel also interviewed her and her husband David McPherson about community events and history.

  11. Superchunk releases its first album

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    The Chapel Hill band, whose early singles had launched Merge Records, issued its self-titled debut album on Matador; Merge put out the band's later albums from Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

    People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

  12. WXYC makes the first internet radio simulcast

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    WXYC streamed its radio broadcast over the internet on November 7, 1994.

  13. Chapel Hill Museum is organized in the former town library

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    In 1995 a museum study committee proposed a town museum for the former public library at 523 East Franklin Street, and in November the town council agreed to negotiate a rent-free lease with Chapel Hill Museum Inc. The nonprofit museum opened its first exhibit to the public in February 1998.

    Subject: Chapel Hill Museum · Chapel Hill Public Library

  14. The Sonja Haynes Stone Center celebrates its grand opening

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    After more than a decade of organizing, the freestanding Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History opened in Coker Woods with a four-day celebration. A Friday candlelight procession from the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery preceded Saturday's dedication by Chancellor James Moeser before more than 500 guests.

    Part of The movement for a freestanding Black Cultural Center, 1991–1993

    People: Sonja Haynes Stone

    Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center) · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

  15. Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building

    Publication, speech or performance · Carrboro

    At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations.

    People: Lydia Lavelle

    Subject: Cat’s Cradle · The ArtsCenter

  16. Merge Records marks 35 years with four shows at Cat's Cradle

    Naming or commemoration · Carrboro

    Merge celebrated its 35th anniversary with four shows at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, the club that had held its earlier anniversary festivals, in the same year the label was named to the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

    People: Mac McCaughan

    Subject: Cat’s Cradle

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 26 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

  • Cat’s Cradle Businesses, mills and venues · Carrboro · 19 events here
  • Carolina Playmakers University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 13 events here
  • Memorial Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
  • Ackland Art Museum University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
  • Hill Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
  • Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
  • Chapel Hill Museum Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
  • Forest Theatre University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
  • Gerrard Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
  • Person Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
  • Pickwick Theatre Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
  • The ArtsCenter Libraries, museums and media · Carrboro · 3 events here
Show 23 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 6

Background from selected state and local sources

Show all 6

Search beyond the index 7

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Show all 7

Ask locally 7

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

Show all 7

Additional research sources

Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.

Related themes

UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Libraries, Archives & Public Memory →Literature & Publishing →

Picture: Farm Security Administration photographs, Library of Congress; public domain. Image credits →

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026