The year is 1995, “Friends” is all the rage, and Tilly Evans is “the most uncommon form of nerd in the world”—a girl-nerd who loves Dungeons & Dragons. So begins She Kills Monsters, the 2011 comedy-drama by Qui Nguyen. Known for his innovative use of pop culture, stage violence, puppetry, and multimedia, Nguyen transports us […]
A little boy stares into a river while ghostly shadows move through the current. The long, lithe bodies could be lost souls or river spirits, past lives or unspoken dreams, but whatever life force they represent, they’re rushing onward away from the boy—and away from you, the passive observer. The headline reads, “What we do […]
When it comes to creating a feature-length movie on the silver screen, animation studios like Pixar deploy millions of dollars and hundreds of people to make the magic happen. Well buckle up, Hollywood, because one local teen did it right from his basement studio in Louisa. Fourteen-year-old homeschooler Jack Buckley created what he believes to […]
If you’ve seen a parade of 8-foot-tall ants climbing the side of a building, a life-sized foam replica of Stonehenge, or a T-Rex lunging through the trees with a Union soldier in its mouth, then you know the work of Mark Cline. Dubbed “Virginia’s Roadside Attraction King” by Atlas Obscura, Cline has spent decades building […]
After months of involvement with SURJ and Charlottesville Resistance Choir, author Adam Nemett saw the statue debate become a community catalyst during the events of August 11 and 12, 2017. “I have tremendous respect for the anti-racist and anti-fascist heroes that were out there on the streets putting their bodies on the line to protect […]
As a child, Kyle Dargan began writing rhymes largely as a matter of convenience. “If you wanted to make music, especially back in the ’90s, you needed somebody with a studio and recording equipment,” he says. “But you could write [hip-hop lyrics] at home, on the bus, in a notebook, and share with people and […]
When it comes to visual art (paintings in particular), you can’t throw a rock without hitting a pastoral fantasy. Which may be why local artists Jeremy and Allyson Taylor’s reverence for nature comes as such a surprise. “I definitely go to the grotesque,” Allyson says, “because I find it really beautiful and interesting. And sometimes disgusting and […]
In the wake of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Amanda Korman knew what she needed to do. Sing. At a local vigil, Korman sang songs of solidarity, mourning and protest alongside fellow members of the Charlottesville Women’s Choir “to say we do not want this violence in our country. We want […]
When you imagine a mother, what do you picture? A woman up to her elbows in soapy dishwasher with a baby strapped to her chest or a toddler clinging to her ankle? A woman who wheels and deals like a boss until she sprints off to daycare? Or do you think of your own mother? […]
As a kid in grade school, Angie Hogan began writing poetry for the same reason her peers wrote in a diary or passed notes in class: She wanted privacy. “I felt the need to express myself, but I didn’t want to express myself straightforwardly,” she says. “I was definitely writing things that were extreme metaphors. […]