The Great Rotumpkin

Local artist Jeff Dobrow and The AV Company return for another year of The Great Rotumpkin, a ghoulish good time celebrating the spooky season. Skeletons, pumpkins, cauldrons, and more appear on the exterior of UVA’s Rotunda as projected vignettes, accompanied by haunting music, cycle through scenes that send shivers down the spine. This year, Kiki […]

C-VILLE Weekly’s annual two-sentence horror story contest

This Halloween, we asked you to submit your creepiest, spookiest, most nightmare-inducingest two-sentence horror stories and you delivered a collection nothing short of terrifying. One thing’s for sure: Kids make great fodder for scary tales (and mirrors, too!).  We gathered our 11 favorites, which will be performed by Live Arts actors on our social media […]

24 spooktacular activities for your pre-Hallow’s Eve to-do list

What do we always say? If you’ve got it, haunt it—and Charlottesville’s got “it” in spades, as long as “it” is a frightening amount of Halloween (and pre-Halloween) fun. You’ve got just over three weeks to drink in all the boos you can handle, and we’ve scared up the best options in (and out of, […]

PICK: Where’s Darryl?: A Mystery on Water

On the list: You cannot be an arts lover in Charlottesville without running across the work of Darryl Smith.  The always-smiling actor, singer, dancer, and box office manager with the patience of a saint, is a longtime fixture at Live Arts—and he’s missing! Where’s Darryl?: A Mystery on Water Street is a Halloween week challenge […]

PICK: Hallo-Queen

DragGing it out: Local drag legends are ready to go the social distance for a good time at Hallo-Queen, hosted by Arione DeCardenza. Dance and sing along to joyful hits and songs of the season with Sabrina Laurence (The Crayola Queen), Dezerayah D. Taylor, Crimsyn, Jayzeer Shanty, and London BaCall. Friday 10/30, 18-plus. Masks required. […]

In brief: UVA returns in spring, COVID hits Wintergreen, and more

Back again? After a semester that featured dorm lockdowns, gathering limits, maskless masses flooding bars, and more than a thousand positive tests among students, staff, and contract employees since August, UVA announced last week that students will return to Grounds in person for the spring semester. The university will essentially replicate its fall reopening plans […]

Fresh blood: An all-new Halloween sheds the plague of sequels

We’ve had Halloween sequels for decades. What’s different this time? The same thing that’s different in found footage, possession movies, even the Amityville franchise: fresh blood, literally and figuratively. For many of the slasher sequels and remakes of the ’80s and ’90s, it was difficult to tell what the filmmaker disliked more, the audience or […]

Magic bullet: Trademark issues halt Harry Potter event for a spell

By Natalie Jacobsen This year’s Halloween was supposed to mark the fourth, and predictably largest, Harry Potter festival Scottsville had ever hosted. But the magic was quelled with a phone call from Warner Bros. Entertainment citing trademark infringement. The town’s spellbinding transformation, including businesses and their owners, has transfixed children, students and adults alike. “Halloween […]

After solving this corn maze, you’ll be grinning from ear to ear

By Natalie Jacobsen “Go north!” “Aren’t we already?” Sunlight flickers in between towering stalks of corn, stifling heat lingers among the rows, and soft red dirt kicks up with every heart-pounding step. Dodging left, then making a 180-degree turn to the right while keeping a constant eye on the sun’s position and another on the […]