ARTS Pick: Hedda Gabler

In Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen crafted a painfully real representation of the 19th-century angel in the house. Stripped of her individuality, Hedda is repressed by her roles as daughter and wife. The production channels themes of subtle misogyny through love, rage, and a gripping sense of cruelty that leaves Hedda and those around her to […]

ARTS Pick: I’m Not Running

London’s National Theatre Live broadcasts I’m Not Running, a new play from critically acclaimed playwright David Hare. The drama centers around Pauline Gibson (Siân Brooke, right), a doctor turned politician who has her life turned upside down after a run-in with a stalwart loyalist of the Labour Party, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. […]

The Hard Core: Charlottesville punk’s ongoing legacy

Before Charlottesville’s first hardcore punk band played Charlottesville’s first hardcore punk show, Lackey Die bass player Danny Collins had a prediction. “I think we’re gonna be the hottest thing that ever came out of this stinkin’ little town,” Collins said to one of his bandmates. It was 1983, and the band was about to take […]

Wild ride: Buckle up, The Falsies are back

It’s hard to decide what deserves your attention at a Falsies concert. Is it the music? The musicians themselves, constantly swapping guitars for saxophones, for drums, for keyboards? Or is it band founder Lance Brenner in his yellow chicken suit, gesticulating wildly while shoving a microphone into the beak to sing? Maybe you’re wondering how […]

Zyahna Bryant reclaims the work of black women activists in new book

Zyahna Bryant became an activist about three years before she wrote the petition to remove the Robert E. Lee statue and rename Lee Park in 2016. It was the day after George Zimmerman’s acquittal for second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, when Bryant, then age 12, organized her first protest. In […]

ARTS Pick: Jontavious Willis

Blues on the side: A gospel singer as a child, Jontavious Willis made a life-changing discovery around age 14 when he came across a YouTube video of Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man.” The Georgia native became an instant fan, and began his mastery of the Delta, Piedmont, and Texas blues, honing his chops as a fingerpicker, […]

ARTS Pick: Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia

World classical: Conductor Benjamin Rous leads the Charlottesville Symphony at the University of Virginia through a whirlwind of global experiences, beginning with the slow processional dance of Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, followed by Siempre Lunes, Siempre Marzo (Always Monday, Always March), a piece by Venezuelan American composer Reinaldo Moya based on Gabriel […]

ARTS Pick: A Tribute to Waltz

Waltz with me:Wes Swing says the intention behind his Fern Hill concert series is to present beautiful music in beautiful spaces, offering “qualities I’d like to see more of in the world of music.” His latest endeavor, A Tribute to Waltz, showcases the enchantment of the dance, and invites the audience to pair up, and […]