Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, released in 1972, remains to this day the highest-selling live gospel album of all time, a stunning display of raw talent, passion, and emotion. Regardless of your beliefs, or lack of them, you can’t help but have a near religious experience while listening to Franklin’s interpretation of gospel classics “Mary Don’t […]
Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace, released in 1972, remains to this day the highest-selling live gospel album of all time, a stunning display of raw talent, passion, and emotion. Regardless of your beliefs, or lack of them, you can’t help but have a near religious experience while listening to Franklin’s interpretation of gospel classics “Mary Don’t […]
Milestone milieu: It’s been a tumultuous five years for Phosphorescent (née Matthew Houck, left). He fell in love, had two kids, moved to Nashville, and “somewhere along the way, he nearly died of meningitis.” This life-altering period also sourced his critically lauded new album, C’est La Vie, another set of tunes elevated by Houck’s signature […]
Unfolding history: Why did the traumatic events of August 2017 happen in the first place? Why did they happen here? Priyanka Shetty seeks answers to these questions in her new theater piece #charlottesville. Shetty crafted her script verbatim from conversations with Charlottesville residents who shared firsthand accounts about their experiences, and from the community’s response […]
Spelling bound: Contestants in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee process their dreams and self-doubts through song in this quirky, Tony Award-winning musical created by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin. The cast gives words new meaning as students, teachers, and townspeople belt out numbers such as “The Spelling Rules,” “My Unfortunate Erection/Distraction (Chip’s Lament),” […]
Backstage pass: Musically connected transformations are the theme at Hoot & Holler’s Soundtrack of My Life, an evening of storytelling that draws from personal experiences involving songs, concerts, and listening. Find out what happened at an after-hours hotel room party involving The Replacements and way too much tequila; hear how a banjo literally saved one […]
Kent Morris stands in the lobby of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection with a big grin on his face. He’s just in from a birding excursion through Charlottesville-area marshes, and swiping through photos on his phone: here’s a few of a bald eagle, and a few of its nest. Here’s one of a native bird […]
Many times, a film based on true events will inspire you to seek out the source material once it’s over. Not necessarily to test the movie for accuracy—facts are sometimes changed for clarity or artistic license—but as a way of further engaging with a story. Even a film à clef based on actual events but […]
Hosting an all-LGBTQ+ hip-hop showcase has been on Remy St. Clair’s mind for a while now. Over the past few years, while performing at various regional Pride events as rap duo Sons of Ichibei, St. Clair and Cullen “Fellowman” Wade kept hearing similar refrains from artists on these Pride bills: “We’d love to…but we don’t […]
There’s a lot of buzz about Shazam! for being the first DC Extended Universe movie that has a healthy sense of humor. Perhaps it’s a consequence of the audience’s exhaustion from grim years of Bats and Supes that the DCEU gives an individual filmmaker the freedom to do whatever he wants. DC initially tried to […]
After writer and UVA professor Sydney Blair died unexpectedly in December 2016 due to complications from pancreatitis, her children, Tom and Abbie Swanson, found a manuscript-in- progress titled Honorable Men: And Other Stories. When they revealed their discovery to their mother’s longtime friend, Sheila McMillen, she agreed to serve as editor to finish the work. […]