Granfalloon takes place across multiple weeks at multiple venues around the IU Campus, Bloomington, and Indianapolis. Below is a schedule of everything that’s going on during the festival. Please note that, while most festival events are free, some are ticketed.
Watch this space! More info and details to be announced over the coming weeks!
Performances @ 7:30pm
Gayle Karch Cook Center - 750 E Kirkwood Ave, Bloomington, IN
Free event!
Come experience a live stage reading of Slapstick by IU Theatre.
Slapstick or Lonesome No More brings Kurt Vonnegut’s surreal masterpiece to the stage in an absurd, hilarious, and deeply personal celebration of human connection. Part situational poetry and part comedy, the story follows the Swain twins - two geniuses written off as “idiots” - from their childhood in a Vermont mansion to the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. As Wilbur Swain navigates his journey from the abandoned Empire State Building to the Presidency and back again, he attempts to cure a crumbling America’s loneliness with a wild system of artificial extended families. This witty new adaption by IU Theatre Professor Grant Goodman tells a story about what it truly feels like to be human when the world is falling apart. The concert reading of the play, brought to life by students and faculty from IU Theatre & Dance, runs at The Cook Center May 6th and 7th at 7:30pm - presented as part of Granfalloon by the IU Arts and Humanities Council.
Performances @ 9pm, 18+
The Bishop Bar - 123 S Walnut St., Bloomington, IN
Free event!
Come experience a cabaret-style performance by IU Musical Theatre!
Switchyard Park | 1601 S. Rogers St., Bloomington, IN
Granfalloon Concert Series at Switchyard Park
WAXAHATCHEE
One of the hardest working singer-songwriters in the game is named Katie Crutchfield. She was born in Alabama, grew up near Waxahatchee Creek. Skipped town and struck out on her own as Waxahatchee. That was over a decade ago. Crutchfield says she never knew the road would lead her here, but after six critically acclaimed albums, she’s never felt more confident in herself as an artist. While her sound has evolved from lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country, her voice has always remained the same. Honest and close, poetic with Southern lilting. Much like Carson McCullers’s Mick Kelly, determined in her desires and convictions, ready to tell whoever will listen.
And after years of being sober and stable in Kansas City–after years of sacrificing herself to her work and the road–Crutchfield has arrived at her most potent songwriting yet. On her new album, Tigers Blood, Crutchfield emerges as a powerhouse–an ethnologist of the self–forever dedicated to revisiting her wins and losses. But now she’s arriving at revelations and she ain’t holding them back. Crutchfield says that she wrote most of the songs on ‘Tigers Blood’ during a “hot hand spell,” while on tour in the end of 2022. And when it came time to record, Crutchfield returned to her trusted producer Brad Cook, who brought her sound to a groundbreaking turning point on 2020’s Saint Cloud.
They hunkered down at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas–a border town known for cotton and pecans–and searched for another turn, waited for a sign. Initially, MJ Lenderman, Southern indie-rock wunderkind (much like Crutchfield when she started out) came to play electric guitar and sing on “Right Back To It.” But as soon as they tracked it, Cook told Lenderman he had to stay for the rest of the album. And he did.
“Right Back To It” is Tigers Blood's lead single. A nod to country duets like Gram and Emmylou, winding over a steadfast banjo from Phil Cook. Together, Crutchfield and Lenderman harmonize on the chorus: “I’ve been yours for so long/We come right back to it/I let my mind run wild/Don’t know why I do it/But you just settle in/Like a song with no end.” Crutchfield says it’s the first real love song she’s ever written.
The song “Bored” opens with blase drum beats from Spencer Tweedy that crash under Crutchfield as she throws her voice high: “I can get along/ My spine’s a rotted two by four/Barely hanging on/My benevolence just hits the floor.” Lenderman’s scuzzy riffs and Nick Bockrath’s climbing pedal steel add power to the album’s most ‘Southern Rock’ a la Drive-By Truckers moment.
“365” is a story of recognition told from a hard-won place of self-acceptance/forgiveness. Crutchfield initially started writing it for Wynonna Judd, with whom she has written and performed in the past, until the lyrics started hitting closer and closer to home. The writer Annie Ernaux says, “writing is to fight forgetting.” Like Lucinda Williams, Crutchfield’s lyrics are memoir. Throughout ‘Tigers Blood’ Crutchfield is addressing a “you,” but the ‘you’ in “365” evokes raw closeness, vulnerability. “Ya ain’t had much luck but grace is/In the eye of the beholder/And I had my own ideas but/I carried you on my shoulders, anyways.” “365” is essentially ‘Tigers Blood's aria about addiction, with little to no accompaniment to Crutchfield’s voice. Her backing band is hushed, as if the spotlight’s coming down on her, alone on the stage, giving her testimony. Crutchfield slings her voice with arresting precision, reaching its highest harmony on the whole album. “So when you kill, I kill/And when you ache, I ache/And we both haunt this old lifeless town/And when you fail, I fail/ When you fly, I fly/And it’s a long way to come back down.”
“365” circles back to the beginning of ‘Tigers Blood,’ where Crutchfield’s words ring clear as a bell. Album opener “3 Sisters” starts with Crutchfield singing over hymn-like piano chords: “I pick you up inside a hopeless prayer/I see you beholden to nothing/I make a living crying it ain’t fair/And not budging.” ‘Tigers Blood’ is Crutchfield at her most confident and resilient. Staring straight at the truth, forgiving but not forgetting, not batting an eye.
— Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
Kathleen Edwards
Celebrated as one of the forebears of modern alt-country and Americana music, Edwards is beloved by fans and fellow musicians, and praised by The New York Times for her, "droll, observant and unsparing tone that is all her own. In her best lines, Edwards has the conversational vernacular and emotional eloquence of a great short-story writer."
Since debuting in 2003, Edwards has released five albums, including 2020's Total Freedom -- her first after stepping away from music for almost a decade. Released to overwhelming acclaim with pieces at The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and more.Pitchfork called it, "a creative breakthrough, written solely for the thrill of discovery," whileRolling Stone declared it as, "devastatingly great." Most recently, Edwards released a covers EP featuring special guests Isbell, Bahamas and Daniel Tashian and including renditions of Isbell's "Traveling Alone," Bruce Springsteen's "Human Touch," The Flaming Lips' "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate," Tom Petty's "Crawling Back To You" and more. She has been nominated for multiple JUNO and Americana Awards and, in 2012, was awarded the SOCAN Songwriting Prize.
Switchyard Park | 1601 S. Rogers St., Bloomington, IN
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are pillars of the modern acoustic music world and their rich and remarkable careers span over twenty-five years. They have been hailed by Pitchfork as “modern masters of American folk” and “protectors of the American folk song” by Rolling Stone and the New York Times says “their combined voices operate beyond simple sonic harmony. There are emotional inquiries at play. If Welch’s voice delivers the good news or the hard news of the world, Rawlings’s voice comes underneath, asking how much deeper the sadness can go or what fresh heights the ecstatic can climb to.”
Their most recent 10th studio album, Woodland, won the 2025 Best Folk Album GRAMMY. Woodland was named for and recorded at Welch and Rawlings’ own Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, TN. Of the album and studio, Welch said, “Woodland is at the heart of everything we do and has been for the last twenty some years. The past four years were spent almost entirely within its walls, bringing it back to life after the 2020 tornado and making this record. The music is (songs are) a swirl of contradictions, emptiness, fullness, joy, grief, destruction, permanence. Now.” The new 10-song collection mingles full band tracks with intricate duet performances all tied together with the duo’s signature sound and lyricism and cements the pair’s iconoclastic position at the forefront of acoustic music.
Welch and Rawlings continue to tour the world in support of their music while simultaneously writing and lending their talents to countless fellow artists’ projects. They are continuously working to release their acclaimed catalog on vinyl of the highest possible fidelity. The vinyl edition of the new album Woodland is mastered by David Rawlings directly from the original analog master tapes to his own custom lathe. Acony Records is proud to be partnering with the all-new Paramount Pressing & Plating in Denver, Colorado, a joint venture between Rawlings and esteemed plating craftsman Gary Salstrom, to produce superior vinyl records.
Switchyard Park | 601 S. Rogers St., Bloomington, IN 47403
The festival’s main stage concert series will move to Switchyard Park this year and expand into three summer concerts.
Lineups and guest artists will be announced in the coming weeks.
Event @ 6pm
Buskirk-Chumley Theater - 114 E Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN
Free Event!
As part of the Granfalloon Festival, we are hosting an evening celebrating comedy and scholarship hosted by Dwight Simmons!
Event begins at 6pm, and features a special after-hours comedic set by Dwight Simmons.
More about Dwight Simmons
Dwight’s debut comedy special, “Who’s The Master” debuted on YouTube in July of 2023. That same year, he was selected to the 10,000 Laughs, Milwaukee, Flyover and West-End Comedy Festivals. His self-produced album “Sip and Pass” reached #1 on the iTunes comedy charts, making it his second release to do so. He was listed as Indiana’s selection for Thrillist’s 50 Best Undiscovered Comics in the country. Dwight’s comedy has been featured on Kevin Hart’s LOL on Sirius XM and on the Bob and Tom show for which he is also a writer. He is a co-director of the Limestone Comedy Festival and the creator and host of the web series BrewTube Comedy. Be sure to check out his podcast Mat and Dwight Just might wherever music is available.
Featured Scholars…
Andrew Goldman on Piano
Brando Skyhorse on Richard Pryor
Julia Fox on Jon Oliver
Freya Thimpson on Milo Yiannopolous
Lisa Lenoir on Dick Gregory
Matthew R. Meier on Lenny Bruce
Alyson Melzer on Aristophanes
Chris DeSante on Steve Colbert
Jim Ansaldo on Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army
Olga Rodriguez-Ulloa on Luz Pazos
John King on Bill Hicks
IU Auditorium | 7pm
Ticketed Event (free for students, $25 GA)
Union Board, in collaboration with the IU Arts and Humanities Council, is excited to announce A Conversation with Caleb Hearon as part of the annual Granfalloon festival.
Caleb Hearon is a comedian, actor, and writer. His podcast So True is a breakout phenomenon with over one-million downloads within three months of launching. His debut comedy special, Model Comedian just released on HBO. He can be seen in Jurassic World Dominion, I Used To Be Funny opposite Rachel Sennott, and starring in Sweethearts opposite Kiernan Shipka. He can next be seen in the highly anticipated sequel to The Devil Wears Prada and Little Brother opposite John Cena.
A creator and writer, Caleb co-wrote and is currently set in the lead role of Trash Mountain. Caleb has been named both a Comic to Watch by Variety, a Comedian You Should and Will Know by Vulture, and he tours the country to sold out crowds.
Discussions @ 12:30pm and 4:30pm | 18+
Monroe County Public Library (Downtown) - 303 E. Kirkwood Ave
Free event!
Celebrate Bloomington's annual Granfalloon festival and discuss Slapstick, the featured Kurt Vonnegut novel. Registration is required, and the first 15 total registrants will receive a free copy of the book!
There are two times available to come and discuss Slapstick.
Register for the 12:30pm Discussion Here
Register for the 4:30pm Discussion Here
Book summary:
"Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all."
Screening at 8pm
Presented by Cicada Cinema
Upland Wood Shop (354 W 11th St)
FREE, but ticketed | All Ages
Screening @ 7pm
Indie to Indy Screening: IU Cinema and Indianapolis' Kan-Kan Cinema present this screening as part of the Granfalloon Film Series. The film will screen in both locations simultaneously.
Screenings are free but ticketed at both locations. You can reserve tickets through the links below.
IU Cinema - 1213 E 7th Street, Bloomington, IN
Reserve IU Cinema Tickets Here
Kan-Kan Cinema - 1258 Windsor Street, Indianapolis, IN
Screening @ 7pm
Indie to Indy Screening: IU Cinema and Indianapolis' Kan-Kan Cinema present this screening as part of the Granfalloon Film Series. The film will screen in both locations simultaneously.
Screenings are free but ticketed at both locations. You can reserve tickets through the links below.
IU Cinema - 1213 E 7th Street, Bloomington, IN
Reserve IU Cinema Tickets Here
Kan-Kan Cinema - 1258 Windsor Street, Indianapolis, IN
Screening @ Dusk
Bryan Park (outdoors) - 1001 S Henderson Street, Bloomington, IN
Bloomington Parks and Recreation presents Flow as part of the Granfalloon Film Series and the Movies in the Park Series.
This event is free and open to the public. More info can be found on the Parks and Recreation webpage.
Screening @ 7pm
Indie to Indy Screening: IU Cinema and Indianapolis' Kan-Kan Cinema present this screening as part of the Granfalloon Film Series. The film will screen in both locations simultaneously and include a live audience-to-audience component prior to the start of the film.
Screenings are free but ticketed at both locations. You can reserve tickets through the links below.
IU Cinema - 1213 E 7th Street, Bloomington, IN
Reserve IU Cinema Tickets Here
Kan-Kan Cinema - 1258 Windsor Street, Indianapolis, IN
Screening @ Dusk
Switchyard Park (outdoors)
Bloomington Parks and Recreation presents Shrek as part of the Granfalloon Film Series and the Movies in the Park Series.
This event is free and open to the public. More info can be found on the Parks and Recreation webpage.
OPEN APRIL 3, 2026 - JULY 3, 2026, MONDAY - FRIDAY 12-4 PM
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, April 3th | 5–8pm
Join us at the Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities for Lonesome No More!, a Granfalloon festival group art exhibition!
Lonesome No More! is an exhibition showcasing works by local artists in communication with the themes and ideas of the Granfalloon festival. This year’s festival will take place March – September 2026 and will align with Kurt Vonnegut’s 1976 novel Slapstick.
Featuring Works by: Jake Kujava, Allyn Boley, Graham Stewart, Isabella Arp, M. Griffin, Rebecca Ferdman, Katelyn Fry, Maxwell Fertik, Audrey Kaul, Simone Cabral Vilaca, Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo, George Drosis Logothetis Jr., Kate Dolk-Ellis, Ricardo Andres, Jim Christie, Nataliya Shulga, Oleksandr Kotlyarevskyy, Maximio Eslava, Bethany Habegger
OPEN APRIL 3, 2026 - JULY 3, 2026, MONDAY - FRIDAY 12-4 PM
ON VIEW: Mondays – Fridays | Noon to 4pm
OPENING: Friday, April 3rd | 5–8pm
Jack Wickes is a Vietnam War veteran who created Returning To The World to preserve stories worth telling and remembering. He interviewed and photographed 25 Vietnam veterans in Central Indiana. The presentation illuminates each man’s anticipation and reality of their homecoming, what they carried with them from Vietnam and their 50-year perspective.
This exhibition is part of the 2026 Granfalloon Festival.
On Wednesday, April 8, at 5:15 pm, join us for a thought-provoking conversation exploring the parallel homecomings of Vietnam War and Revolutionary War veterans. This event will be held in the Cook Center Grand Hall. More info can be found here.
Event @ 5:30-7:30pm
IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - 416 N Indiana Ave, Bloomington, IN
Free event!
Join us for Granfalloon at the Museum!
In conjunction with the Granfalloon Festival and the IU Arts & Humanities Councils, join us for an evening at the Museum celebrating creativity and personal expression of all kinds!
This event is free and open to all ages and abilities.
