The kickoff event for Hopkinsville’s eighth Big Read will feature a free performance of “Bone Hill — The Concert” by musician Martha Redbone at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 9, at the Alhambra Theatre.
The show has a cast of eight actors and musicians. Inspired by Redbone’s family lineage in Eastern Kentucky, it is “an epic story of one woman’s return to her homeland on Black Mountain and the coal mines of Harlan County, Ky.,” organizers said in a press release from the Pennyroyal Arts Council.
“Martha Redbone gives voice to issues of social justice,” arts council executive director Margaret Prim said in the release. “With songs and storytelling that share her life experience as an Afro-Indigenous woman, she is prolific at connecting cultures and bridging traditions and we’re thrilled to have her new work on stage at the Alhambra Theatre.”
The book for this year’s Big Read is “There There,” the story of 12 Native Americans who travel to a powwow. It explores what belonging means for Native people, who often live between two worlds.
A debut novel by Tommy Orange, who is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, “There, There” received the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award and the American Book Award in 2019.
There are about 30 events and activities during Big Read through November.
The first 200 people who register online for the kickoff event will receive a copy of the book at the Alhambra for the Redbone kickoff event.
Partners with the Pennyroyal Arts Council in the Big Read are the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library, Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County, Hoptown Chronicle, Christian County Public Schools, Hopkinsville Community College, Human Rights Commission, Trail of Tears Heritage Center, Trail of Tears Association, Christian County Literacy Council, City of Hopkinsville, Christian County Visitors Center and Martin Farms. The corporate sponsor is Planters Bank.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
