ARTS Pick: Spamalot

Got wit? What happens when Camelot’s King Arthur and his knights get goofy, ridiculous, and even a bit nutty? You get Spamalot, the musical-comedy that swept the Tonys in 2005. The play is an adaptation of the comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which King Arthur recruits a band of disorganized misfit […]

ARTS Pick: Akhnaten

Ancient outlier: Phillip Glass’ mystical, trance-like opera Akhnaten transcends time to explore the life and psyche of the 13th-century B.C. pharaoh of ancient Egypt. The Met Live in HD’s premiere illuminates the fundamental ways that Akhnaten tried to change the way his people thought about their gods and spirituality by using creative lighting, soaring orchestral […]

Album reviews: Miranda Lambert, Andy Aylward, Gene Clark, and Homeboy Sandman

Miranda Lambert Wildcard (Sony) Glowing with sanitized professionalism, performed hot messiness, and branded shout outs from Patron to Tide sticks, Wildcard is textbook pop country. And after “divorce album” The Weight of These Wings, it’s party time, as Jay Joyce’s production insists–Wildcard is engineered for loudness, and even the acoustic passages are compressed to 11. […]

Serving truth: The Report delivers through strong performances

Investigative thriller The Report cares so passionately for its subject matter that it could almost be considered a new work of journalism, rather than a docudrama. Director Scott Z. Burns has written and produced several films on the theme of speaking truth to power using any means available, whether it’s with a wire (The Informant!), […]

Game winner: UVA Drama’s She Kills Monsters uses family, grief, and fantasy to tell a coming-of-age story about acceptance

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 […]

The path to meaning: Gregory Orr’s The Blessing gets a second chance

By Cortney Phillips Meriwether When Gregory Orr first published The Blessing in 2002, he did so after years of reluctance. The memoir, which begins with a 12-year-old Orr accidentally shooting and killing his younger brother on a hunting trip, was understandably difficult to write. Yet, through the encouragement of his wife, he did write it—and […]

Dreadfully good: Doctor Sleep will keep you up at night

The best thing you can do with a Stanley Kubrick sequel is to make it as un-Kubrick as possible. Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, adapted from Stephen King’s follow-up to The Shining, has about much interest in recreating its predecessor as its lead character, grown-up Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), has in revisiting those events. When the […]

ARTS Pick: Tigers Be Still

Rescue zoo: Sherry Wickman is on the way to achieving her professional dreams when she moves back home and faces a fruitless job search and the family dynamics that set her on the path to becoming a therapist. Relatives retreat into their anxiety and, as they struggle, a tiger escapes from the zoo, prowling freely […]

ARTS Pick: United Nations of Comedy

Laughing all the way: As a shy kid growing up in Washington, D.C., United Nations of Comedy headliner Jay Phillips would watch “Saturday Night Live” and “An Evening at the Improv,” and play his mom’s comedy records on repeat, learning from the greats before he put his own routine on stage. He drew laughs at […]