By Graham Schiltz Ten days after their first meeting, the cast members of Million Dollar Quartet are attending their first start-to-finish rehearsal. It’s described to me as a “stumble through,” but, to an outsider, that doesn’t seem to give the people on stage enough credit. There’s a buzz of excitement as actors fill the room […]
By Graham Schiltz Ten days after their first meeting, the cast members of Million Dollar Quartet are attending their first start-to-finish rehearsal. It’s described to me as a “stumble through,” but, to an outsider, that doesn’t seem to give the people on stage enough credit. There’s a buzz of excitement as actors fill the room […]
High notes: Four opera vocalists, including two members of New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Opera, kick off Charlottesville Opera’s summer season with Encore!, in celebration of the opera’s 10th year at the venue. Backed by a live orchestra, the greatest hits show features an eclectic mix of favorites from iconic composers like Mozart, Verdi, and Bernstein. […]
Hot and humored: For more than 35 years, Southern Culture on the Skids has been playing what guitarist and singer Rick Miller calls “Americana from the wrong side of the tracks.“ The Chapel Hill, North Carolina band just might have more fun than its audience while jamming out surf, rockabilly, and R&B tunes from albums […]
Tropical inland: Party like it’s sunny Santa Monica in a flashback to the origins of fitness culture at Charlottesville’s IX Beach Club. Muscle Beach is the theme at this week’s local gathering, recreated with weight training and a pose-off to flaunt your hard bod. The work-out and splash-about opportunities come complete with a rocking run-through […]
Ethan McSweeny is fond of automotive idioms. “I’m firing on all cylinders,” he says when asked about his work with the American Shakespeare Center, where he has been the artistic director for close to a year. It’s like “trying to tinker on the engine of your car while you’re driving—this thing never gets up on […]
Somehow, against all odds and conventional wisdom of movie sequels and their diminishing returns, the Toy Story series just keeps getting it right. The mere fact that there is a conversation about which is the best one shows just how successful it is. No one says the same about Incredibles 2, Monsters University, or Cars […]
Local poet and pediatrician Irène Mathieu has been a storyteller for as long as she can remember. Before she learned to write, she would observe her mother and narrate everything she did. “She found it super annoying,” Mathieu says with a laugh. Mathieu, who lived in Charlottesville for parts of her childhood, returned last July […]
The trope of “John Shaft is a dirty old man” is barely enough material to build a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, let alone an entire movie. Yet here we are, the fifth entry in a once-breakthrough series (the third to be titled simply Shaft), and the most we can muster is a sometimes tolerable but […]
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 […]
Thomas Dean takes unusual pleasure in digging through crates of junky records. It’s partly the aroma of acidic paper inserts mingling with that of musty cardboard sleeves. It’s partly weirdo cover art, bonkers band names, and eyebrow-raising (or head-shaking) album titles. But mostly, it’s the music. Dean loves the thrill of sliding a random slab […]