Family Sweet Dreams Festival This family-friendly event features activities including a craft tent, rock climbing wall, laser tag, inflatables and more. Saturday 7/23. Free, 9am-4pm. Stuarts Draft Park, 96 Edgewood Ln., Stuarts Draft. sweetdreamsday.com. Nonprofit Restaurant Week Enjoy specially designed menus in local restaurants, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. […]
Ash Lawn Opera heats up summer with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, the popular musical about love in the time of war. A story of how relationships between servicemen and civilians intermingle with issues of race, romance and enemy sides, the show was intentionally progressive and an immediate hit when it was first staged in […]
It’s 7pm on a Tuesday, and the Municipal Arts Center is filled with the sound of the Charlottesville Municipal Band filing into the large practice hall to prepare for another installment of its bi-weekly summer concert series. The evening resembles a family reunion: Musicians greet one other with smiles, pats on the back and familial […]
Acclaimed Peruvian guitarist and composer Santiago “Coco” Linares is known for his dexterity as a player and his musicianship in orchestral arrangement and direction. In the course of his 30-year career, Linares served as the musical director for the national Peruvian TV program “Mediodía Criollo,” worked with prominent singers including Eva Ayllón and Pepe Vásquez […]
The evolution of Ray LaMontagne has been fun to hear. From the sparse, husky folk of his early records to a recent 40-minute recording steeped in mythology, the spotlight-wary musician brings fans along as he pushes into new sonic territory. Produced by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and released as an album in March, Ouroboros […]
Modern-day ‘debtors’ prison’? The Legal Aid Justice Center sued the Department of Motor Vehicles July 6 in federal court in Charlottesville, claiming that suspending the licenses of nearly 1 million low-income Virginians for failure to pay unreasonable court costs and fines traps them in debt, makes it impossible for them to legally drive to work […]
Just before his wedding night, a 1920s playboy runs into a bit of a mess that results in bootleggers on his tail and chorus girls running around him. Nice Work If You Can Get It, written by Tony Award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro, includes everything he says is good about life: music, laughter and falling in […]
Ezra John got his musical start in Charlottesville in 2001, after deciding teaching music wasn’t going to fulfill the dreams he had for himself. Since then, he’s been entertaining in Atlanta and Pittsburgh, and sharing the stage with Gavin DeGraw, Kendrick Lamar and Daughtry, to name a few. He returns to tout his new EP, […]
The Maupintown Film Festival showcases works of historical, educational and social value that address the achievements and plight of the African-American community. Included in the 12-film lineup is local filmmaker (and founder of Maupintown Media) Lorenzo Dickerson’s documentary Anywhere But Here, which examines the cause and effect of mass incarceration, as well as his Color […]
Formerly of Whiskeytown and The Cardinals, alt-rocker Ryan Adams is better known for his solo career, which leans heavily on a driven blend of folk and Americana music. In 2015, he elevated his profile with a full-length cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989. He unplugged and reimagined each of the album’s glossy pop songs into a […]