Bit Brigade

Old-school button-mashers and new-gen emulator kids alike can get behind Bit Brigade, musical purveyors of driving NES game soundtrack covers. They’ve powered up 8-bit classics into rockin’ renditions for more than 10 years, and they’re marching into town to boost your HP with full versions of “The Legend of Zelda” and “Castlevania.” The concert doubles […]

Mentor and student unite in artistic dialogue at Les Yeux du Monde

Artists Isabelle Abbot and Barbara Campbell Thomas met when Abbot was a student in the MFA program at UNC Greensboro where Thomas was a professor. Thomas became an important mentor to Abbot, helping her achieve a looser, freer painting style and chairing her thesis committee. “Influence + Conversation” at Les Yeux du Monde reunites the […]

Robert Earl Keen in the HotSeat

Hailing from the Lone Star State, Robert Earl Keen has honed his craft as one of Texas’ most accomplished singer-songwriters over the past three decades. With 21 records and thousands of concerts on his resume, REK’s poetic musings delivered through Americana melodies have impacted audiences far and wide. We put the country-western crooner in the […]

“Beauty and the Beast JR.”

DMR Adventures, a performing arts center for kids, has been making magic since 2009. This summer’s production of Beauty and the Beast JR. features 80 children performing in a downsized adaptation of the fan favorite Disney Princess movie. Join the French soirée to sing “Be Our Guest” along with lively Lumiere and timely Cogsworth, and […]

Brett Dennen

A soulful folk pop artist from Northern California, Brett Dennen began his musical journey as a youth at Camp Jack Hazard. He now shares his passion for song and conservation during his own outdoor weekend retreat (Camp Dennen), among other initiatives. Inspired by ’70s icons Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Paul Simon for their melodic […]

The Mountain Goats with Field Medic

The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle may have published several novels, served on the board of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL), hosted a podcast about his music, and acted in an episode of “Poker Face,” but none of these achievements compare to his stature as a singer-songwriter.  The New Yorker called Darnielle music’s “best non […]

Writerly family produces another author

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—or, in this case, the trees. Henry Alexander Wiencek has followed in the footsteps of his parents, Charlottesville writers and historians Donna Lucey and Henry Wiencek, with his own book, Oil Cities: The Making of North Louisiana’s Boomtowns, 1901-1930, published by the University of Texas Press in May. […]

August Exhibitions

The Center at Belvedere 540 Belvedere Blvd. Photographs by Ray Mishler, mixed-media works by Renee Blue O’Connell, and oil paintings by Barbara Trovillo. Through August 30. Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Bellair: Making Visible the Invisible,” plein air landscape paintings of a local farm over the course of a year by Raymond […]

“The 39 Steps”

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller The 39 Steps, based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel, brought the director international recognition and launched his Hollywood career with its themes of love, death, and crime intertwining in a frenzied plot that moves at the speed of a bullet train. Heritage Theatre’s production of the hilariously suspenseful whodunit will leave […]

Shrek Rave

Grab your ogre ears, green glow sticks, and Lord Farquaad cape for the Shrek Rave. If you let out a hoot and holler for the Shrek 5 movie announcement, this party is for you and your fellow swamp-dwellers. Be the shooting star that breaks the mold in a glittering set with DJ mixes that allow […]