Author: Kevin Lee

All it took was a little sex talk and everyone came running. Gulf City Lodge was packed with folks, many likely neophytes to its historic setting. The timeworn building on a downtown corner was perfect for the Downtown Business Alliance’s look at Mobile’s old red-light district. Azalea City native and Montgomery archivist Raven Christopher came armed with a video presentation and the acumen her evidence required. Christopher began with prostitution in the French colonial port town, then moved to 1888, when progressive reforms birthed a zone for the world’s oldest profession that lasted 30 years. Her exhaustive tales and...

What would you change in your life? What if those changes already exist, your choices were all different and everything that can happen does happen? For actors Paul Hurley and Christie Maturo, that becomes reality on Aug. 18. That’s when their performance of Nick Payne’s lauded stage play “Constellations” manifests onstage at the University of South Alabama’s Laidlaw Performing Arts Center. The exploration of love and free will amid a quantum multiverse of possibilities sold itself to their new production company. “This was one of the 10 most-produced plays in this country last year. I think a big part...

Shall we gather at the river … The beautiful, the beautiful river.” For jazz guitarist Russell Malone, who grew up on sanctified music, little could sound sweeter. That goes double when he is in the spotlight. Gulf Coast Ethnic and Heritage Jazz Festival marks its 19th rendition with a return to its riverside roots. The Aug. 12 centerpiece concert moves from the midst of downtown to the Mobile Convention Center. In traditional Azalea City style, the Excelsior Band’s 5 p.m. fanfare opens festivities and a heavyweight lineup as impressive as any the event has boasted. The hometown brass band...