ARTS Pick: Karate Tango

PVCC’s theater and dance departments team up for the first time in a revamped production of local award-winning playwright Peter Ryan’s off-Broadway musical Karate Tango. The bold and witty plot weaves romance and show biz into a bittersweet exploration of marriage’s ups and downs. Choreographers Katharine Hall and Amanda Liscouski lead a cast of nearly […]

ARTS Pick: Holiday Burlesque

While the holiday season doesn’t necessarily conjure visions of scantily clad women doing the bump ‘n’ grind, Deanna Danger and her crew of vaudevillian and burlesque performers see no harm in weaving some risqué into your merry making. Performer, producer and instructor, Danger leads the second annual Holiday Burlesque—her personally crafted erotic comedy and dance […]

Film review: Horrible Bosses 2 falls back on the original

During one of the many minutes-long stretches of Horrible Bosses 2 that pass by without a single chuckle, your mind may start to wander as you realize how strangely and unintentionally meta it is that a movie about self-employment would become a victim of its own success. It’s as though the makers of the first […]

December First Fridays Guide

  First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. First Fridays: December 5, 2014. C’ville Arts 118 E. Main […]

ARTS Pick: Les Miserables

Matt Joslyn directs an extensive local cast in the much-loved musical Les Misérables. The epic story captures the plight of Parisian Jean Valjean and his niece Cosette in a quest for redemption that eventually leads to the June Rebellion in 1832. The original theatrical production of Victor Hugo’s famous novel spent 16 years on Broadway, […]

At the door: Daphne Maxwell Reid captures one side of wonder

When you view a photography exhibit that focuses exclusively on doors, you can’t help but feel a tinge of desperation to know what on earth is behind them. Artist Daphne Maxwell Reid makes no such offers in her current show at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. “Everybody starts with the same curiosity. Every […]

Stitchin’ time: New quilt exhibit at CitySpace

Entering the room, two sounds compete for your attention: the steady hum of sewing machines and a Destiny’s Child song amplified by unseen speakers. It’s Friday at Crescent Halls, a housing facility operated by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and that means that a group of local quilters is hard at work in the […]

ARTS Pick: Eliot Bronson

Eliot Bronson has been called “a folk singing wunderkind” who “can pull on your heartstrings like nobody’s business.” The Nashville singer-songwriter is touring in support of his latest self-titled album, recorded entirely in analog by acclaimed producer Dave Cobb. Bronson has received a number of esteemed songwriting awards such as first place at the Songwriter […]

ARTS Pick: Alessio Bax

Concert pianist Alessio Bax graduated with honors from his Italian hometown’s conservatory at the tender age of 14. He went on to study with some of the world’s most acclaimed classical musicians, played in revered halls around the globe and performed as a chamber musician alongside Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Andrés Díaz and […]

Album reviews: Foo Fighters, Larkin Poe, Project 86

Foo Fighters Sonic Highways/RCA Records At this point in its storied career the Foo Fighters have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they want, and Sonic Highways is the proof. It’s a concept record—each of the album’s eight songs is inspired by and recorded in a different American city—that doesn’t feel self-serving because it […]