Join Us in February for Live Music, Films and In-depth Conversations!
In February, The Cary celebrates Black History and African American Appreciation Month focusing on “the brilliance of resilience.” This year’s observance focuses on the remarkable strength, creativity, and enduring spirit that have profoundly influenced Black history, culture, and community.
Saturday, February 14, 2026 – 7:30PM
Live Music: Sisters in the Name of Song
Featuring songs from Nina Simone, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Roberta Flack, Carole King, Karen Carpenter and more, these female song stylists blend their voices in harmony and a common heart for singing and serving their audience with love! Each solo performers in their own right, these women combine their vocal talents, songwriting sensibilities and infectious stage presence to create a one-of-a-kind evening of music with a message of hope for all!
Carrie Marshall
With a style rooted in jazz phrasing and soulful, organic instrumentation, Carrie Marshall performs a genre-bending blend of pop, soul, folk and jazz with strong singer- songwriter sensibilities. Known for expressive, warm vocals, piano-driven melodies and emotionally rich storytelling, Carrie curates several shows and is known for her authentic connection with broad audiences. An award-wining songwriter, Carrie has been named “Top Charlotte Vocalist”, has won NC Songwriter of the Year and was a top 10 UK songwriting finalist. She won Best Supporting Actress from the Love International Film Festival for the feature film, “Changeover” and was also nominated twice for Best Musical Score. Carrie’s passion is bringing hope and light to others through her songs and uplifting shows.
Lydia Salett Dudley
Lydia Salett Dudley is a jazz pianist, singer, composer and arranger in Raleigh, NC. She received her Graduate degree from North Carolina Central University in Jazz Composition. In 2011 her passion for music education eventually led her to start The Salett Art Center, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide music enrichment for underserved youth. She has performed for many occasions and shared the stage with several national and international artists. She is the bandleader of the group “Lydia Salett Dudley & Jazz Xpressions ”. This group’s music is rooted in jazz with a contemporary flair. The latest project “Rise Up”, released in October 2023, was funded by a female-led ensemble grant from Chamber Music America of NY.
Laurelyn Dossett
Singer/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett lives and writes in Stokes County, NC. Her songs have appeared in film and television (Hell on Wheels, Ain’t In it for My Health) and have been recorded by many artists including Grammy-winning Levon Helm (Anna Lee) and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Leaving Eden). She is currently finishing an album of new songs, with M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger producing. She has written the music and lyrics and served as music director for seven plays, staged at Triad Stage and Playmaker’s Repertory. Her song cycle, The Gathering: A Winter’s Tale in Six Songs was commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony and premiered in Raleigh in 2011. Laurelyn teaches songwriting at the UNC-Greensboro School of Music. She is the recipient of the NC Arts Council Fellowship in Songwriting, the Betty Cone Medal of Arts, and a Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellowship.
Sunday, February 15, 2026 – 12:00PM
A Raisin in the Sun (NR) 1961
This lauded drama follows the Youngers, an African-American family living together in an apartment in Chicago. Following the death of their patriarch, they try to determine what to do with the substantial insurance payment they’ll soon receive. Opinions on what to do with the money vary. Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier) wants to make a business investment, while his mother, Lena (Claudia McNeil), is intent on buying a house for them all to live in — two differing views of the American Dream.
Thursday, February 19, 2026 – 7:00PM
The Color Purple (PG-13)
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie’s abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing “Mister” Albert Johnson (Danny Glover), things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa. Based on the novel by Alice Walker.
Saturday, February 21, 2026 – 11:00AM
Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts (NR)
This illuminating documentary explores the life of a unique American artist, a man with a remarkable and unlikely biography. Bill Traylor was born into slavery in 1853 on a cotton plantation in rural Alabama. After the Civil War, Traylor continued to farm the land as a sharecropper until the late 1920s. Aging and alone, he moved to Montgomery and worked odd jobs in the thriving segregated black neighborhood. A decade later, in his late 80s, Traylor became homeless and started to draw and paint, both memories from plantation days and scenes of a radically changing urban culture.
Having witnessed profound social and political change during a life spanning slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, and the Great Migration, Traylor devised his own visual language to translate an oral culture into something original, powerful, and culturally rooted. He made well over a thousand drawings and paintings between 1939-1942. This colorful, strikingly modernist work eventually led him to be recognized as one of America’s greatest self-taught artists and the subject of a Smithsonian retrospective.
Using historical and cultural context, Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts brings the spirit and mystery of Traylor’s incomparable art to life. Making dramatic and surprising use of tap dance and evocative period music, the film balances archival photographs and footage, insightful perspectives from his descendents, and Traylor’s striking drawings and paintings to reveal one of America’s most prominent artists to a wide audience.
Saturday, February 21, 2026 – 1:00PM
Art Class: Inspired by Bill Traylor
Join us as we take a closer look at the meaningful work of Bill Traylor. We will study his drawings and paintings, discussing his use of simple figures to depict memories and tell important stories. We will then create our own paintings on cardboard in the style of Bill Traylor. Materials provided.
Instructor: Brittney Soderman | Class Duration: 90 minutes
Sunday, February 22, 2026 – 3:00PM
Dancing with the Devil: A Conversation with Mark Curry
Mark Curry is an American rapper who signed with Bad Boy Records in 1997 and rose to prominence as part of the label’s golden era. He is best known for his appearance on the iconic hit “Bad Boy for Life” alongside Sean “Puffy” Combs and Black Rob, and for his contributions to several major Bad Boy projects before departing the label in 2005.
Dancing with the Devil: A Conversation with Mark Curry is an intimate, unfiltered fireside chat with the former Bad Boy recording artist as he reflects on his decade inside the music industry. Curry will speak candidly about working with Sean “Puffy” Combs, the realities of how major record labels operate, and the darker, often unseen side of the business. He will also discuss his memoir Dancing with the Devil and his involvement in the Netflix documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning.
The evening will conclude with an audience Q&A, followed by a book signing and meet & greet. Hosted by Kenia Thompson of Black Issues Forum.
