Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and several days before the first anniversary of last summer’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, UVA’s Heritage Theatre Festival unveiled its production of The Mountaintop, a play that reimagines the final hours of King’s life and celebrates the humanity of its hero. Written by Katori Hall […]
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. […]
In case you forgot why people still put on pants and leave the house in order to partake in live theater (as opposed to Netflix-ing their way to human-sized sinkholes on the couch), allow Live Arts’ production of Hand to God to spell it out for you. Full-frontal nudity! Cursing in church! Legit cigarette smoking! […]
Standing in The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA, surrounded by paintings from across the 19th and 20th centuries, you notice something about the passage of time in the museum’s current exhibition, “Feminine Likeness: Portraits of Women by American Artists, 1809-1950.” There’s a subtle shift as years slip by, a transformation in the representation of […]
When writer and Charlottesville resident Patricia Asuncion took to the streets of Washington, D.C., during the 2017 Women’s March, her protest felt eerily familiar. “When I was first divorced in the 1970s, I had no credit. I had no bank accounts. I had nothing in my name. I didn’t even have the first name Patricia. […]
After years spent living abroad and around the U.S., Annie Temmink thought something was missing from her native Charlottesville. “I miss really great dancing and really wild visual clothing and adornment,” she says. “They’re rich opportunities for people to have moments of unbridled, creative expression, and they’re really critical for connection, and happiness, and all […]
When I was a tween writing “X-Files” fan fiction, I never suspected my interest in storytelling would lead to an actual career as a writer. But then I enrolled in the creative writing program at a performing arts high school—and discovered my creative power. Dozens of local arts organizations offer Charlottesville children and teens opportunities […]