Heritage Theater’s Harvey preserves humor and heart

Who, exactly, is Harvey? Although it’s a central question of this play of the same name, the latest from 2018’s Heritage Theater Festival, perhaps a better one to ask is, Who is Elwood P. Dowd? According to his sister Veta, Elwood is her “biggest heartache.” He is also jobless, a notorious drunk and best friends […]

Album reviews: Chromeo, Bebe Rexha, Dawes, Bodega and The Babe Rainbow

Chromeo Head Over Heels (Atlantic) Montreal’s gift to dancing frat bros returns with a phone book of guests, starting with DRAM, coming off like Biz Markie on “Must’ve Been” (as in “must’ve been high”). French Mon- tana and Stefflon Don follow up on “Don’t Sleep” and it’s clear Chromeo wants you to WOO PARTY! “Right […]

ARTS Pick: Harvey is a hare-brained tale

Harvey gained notoriety through the 1950 Jimmy Stewart film, but the unusual comedy was originally written and performed as a Broadway play. Elwood P. Dowd is the protagonist, whose best friend is also the title character—a 6’3″ rabbit that only he can see. Dowd’s overbearing sister Veta attempts to cure her sibling of his apparent […]

ARTS Pick: Kurt Vile brings the futuristic folk

Listening to the music of Kurt Vile and the Violators is a lot like taking a trip without a clear destination in mind. The hazy-voiced lead singer has been compared to Neil Young, and for good reason—his meandering tracks have similar brands of folk and rock, and the lyrics cover themes of self-discovery and introspection […]

ARTS Pick: Trey Anastasio Trio ready to jam out

If the Trey Anastasio Trio doesn’t ring a bell, Phish will connect the dots—and hopefully not just for the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after the band. Anastasio is a founding member of the jam-rock dynamo, and solo he’s dabbled in nearly every field of music, from playing in symphony orchestras to writing […]

ARTS Pick: Emma, the beloved misguided matchmaker

Though Jane Austen originally wrote Emma as a novel, the story feels like it was made for the stage. This famously witty comedy of manners focuses on the title character and her frustrating but hilarious attempts to play matchmaker in her friends’ lives, while romance for the hard-to-love Emma herself shows up in unexpected ways. Zoe […]

Les Yeux du Monde steers away from traditional media

On the second floor of Les Yeux du Monde, artist Russ Warren takes stock of his latest project. It’s a series of bulls drawn using livestock markers—paint sticks used to label cattle and farm animals. Gallery director Lyn Warren points out two piles of discarded chunks of the oil-based markers, fluorescent and accumulating on the […]

Movie review: Badassery undermines Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The U.S. government’s current definition of terrorism, according to Sicario: Day of the Soldado’s Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine), is the use of violence to achieve political ends. Riley says this to mercenary Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who has just come back from Somalia where he killed a man’s brother as an interrogation […]

First Fridays: July 6

About a decade ago, Rich Tarbell sold a guitar to pay for his first camera. Frustrated with his own music, Tarbell decided instead to document local music on film. And while live concert photography is fun, it all starts to look the same after a while, says Tarbell, who likes the behind-the-scenes stuff that most […]

Charlottesville Opera tells modern stories

Most of the time, when we talk about characters in books, in movies and plays, we talk about their arc—who the character is when the action begins and when it ends, and the curve followed in between. But opera singer Trevor Scheunemann knows it’s not always that simple. It’s especially not that simple for Count […]