Writer and performer Ann Randolph has lived an amazing life. In college, rather than paying to live in a dorm, she lived in the schizophrenic unit of a state mental hospital in exchange for writing plays with patients. She worked the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter for minimum wage for 10 years. And she […]
Writer and performer Ann Randolph has lived an amazing life. In college, rather than paying to live in a dorm, she lived in the schizophrenic unit of a state mental hospital in exchange for writing plays with patients. She worked the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter for minimum wage for 10 years. And she […]
Standing at a waist-high, cork-topped work table in her West Main Street design studio, Kim “Kylla” Dylla measures an arm’s length of white thread and uses her teeth to snip it from the spool. She pinches a curved sewing needle between her silver-ringed forefinger and thumb and slides the thread through the needle’s narrow eye […]
Mavis Staples If All I Was Was Black (Anti-Records) I haven’t been checking out the Jeff Tweedy- Mavis Staples collaborations of the last few years—apparently, I have been a fool. If All I Was Was Black is a nearly-miraculous alchemy of Staples’ gospel-soul and everything Tweedy throws at her. The swampy opener “Little Bit” includes […]
Deirdra McAfee and BettyJoyce Nash first met 10 years ago as teacher and student (respectively) in a creative writing class in Richmond, where they both lived at the time. Nash, a journalist who had recently turned to fiction, was surprised when a gun turned up in a story she was writing. “My palms got sweaty, […]
First Fridays: December 1 “Every artist starts with something inside themselves that feels true to them,” says sculptor and installation artist Ivy Naté. “I’m not sure what came first for me…balancing chaos and order, or reinventing the obvious.” “I feel lucky that at times I am able to take some abstract shit in my head, interpret […]
Before you ask, yes, you will cry at Coco. No matter how many Pixar movies you’ve seen, no matter how much tolerance you’ve built up to their brand of touching sincerity, and no matter how far into this particular outing you get without shedding a tear, you will have a small puddle at the bottom […]
Kamasi Washington has played alongside some of the biggest names in hip-hop, funk, jazz and soul—Lauryn Hill, Nas, Chaka Khan, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat and Raphael Saadiq among them. But after turning heads with his playing and arrangements on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly in 2015, and releasing his three-disc, three-hour debut album (aptly titled […]
After leaving the popular Celtic folk band Solas, John Doyle was in high demand on the music scene. Brought up in a musical family, Doyle gained prominence through his signature sound on guitar as well as his heartfelt vocals and commanding performances. His Irish heritage is evident in his writing, which focuses on the stories […]
Everyone loves the classic holiday stories, but, let’s be honest, we’ve seen it all—Christmas past, present and future. Instead of choosing one, the creators of Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some!) perform every yuletide tale they can muster, flying through costumes and carols, while managing to mix in international holiday traditions and seasonal […]
Returning for the sixth installment of his annual Christmas tour, Robert Earl Keen has always had a special place for the holidays in his Americana-infused heart. Since 1984, Keen has crafted 19 albums, among them his holiday fan-favorite, Merry Christmas from the Family. He pours his energy, hilarious anecdotes and incredible music into a magical […]