Interview: Dr. Dog’s dueling songwriters trade indie rock anthems

A lot of married couples could learn a thing or two from Dr. Dog’s Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken. The singer-songwriters have been making music together since eighth grade more than 20 years ago. The secret to staying together as long as they have? It’s the rock ‘n’ roll equivalent of never going to bed […]

A conversation with Hitchcock ingénue Tippi Hedren

Last year’s HBO film The Girl depicted the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, and his discovery of Tippi Hedren, who went under contract with Hitch in 1961 and starred in his films The Birds and Marnie. The movie revealed the director’s obsessive desire to control and seek favor from his “ice cool […]

ARTS Pick: David Lindsay-Abaire

Learn about life as a working playwright, lyricist, librettist, and screenwriter in an interactive Q&A session with Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire. Part of the UVA Drama Department’s Keenan Lecture Series, Lindsay-Abaire reflects on his 2011 Broadway play Good People, now in performance at Richmond’s Cadence Theatre Company, as well as his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2006 […]

VFF programmer Wesley Harris stays focused on film integrity

Program and operations manager Wesley Harris has served on the staff of the Virginia Film Festival since 2005. He started as an intern (for this writer) and was promoted to program coordinator while increasingly taking on more of the programming responsibilities. Along the way he helped refine the creative direction as the festival’s goals shifted […]

C’Ville Art Blog: A Studio Visit with Cynthia Burke

This week we share our studio visit with local artist Cynthia Burke. Cynthia Burke is a local artist who paints in a style similar to that of Alex Gross and Mark Ryden. We visited her in the studio at the McGuffey Art Center to find out more about her work and her artistic vision. Her studio is filled with inspirational […]

Johanna Leech builds a mini-museum of collectables that tell a local story

“I’m an artist…but I’d also identify myself as a collector,” said Johanna Leech. It is precisely this vocation that brings Leech to Charlottesville to participate in The Bridge PAI’s new artist-in-residence program. The 28-year-old native of Belfast, Northern Ireland has spent October scouring the area for kitsch objects, unusual stories, and local hearsay, myths and legends. […]

ARTS Pick: Off the Map

Professional rock climber Mark Synnott has spent a large portion of his life hanging by callused fingertips from some of the most remote cliffs and rock faces in the world. Off the Map features Synnott in the North Face Speaker Series telling personal stories about reaching incredible peaks, from glassy ice walls in the arctic […]

Album reviews: The Head and the Heart, Moby, The Avett Brothers

The Head and the Heart Let’s Be Still/Sub Pop The latest record from this folk/pop/rock band is a beauty. Thought-provoking, well- crafted with great melodies and variety, Let’s Be Still is easy to enjoy. “Another Story” is pleasing piano rock given greater power in lines like “tell you one thing/ain’t gonna change much/the sun still […]

Film review: Ridley Scott directs the grim, stylized thriller, The Counselor

Following a screening of The Counselor, one critic said: “It’s nasty film. Very well made…if that’s what you’re into.” Judging just from The Counselor’s plot (going into business with Mexican cartels), who wrote it (Cormac McCarthy), and its location (the Texas/Mexico border), there should be no mystery as to what you’re in for. But there […]

November First Fridays Guide

Angelo 220 E. Main St. “Recent Paintings by Michael Fitts” on scrap metal panels. 5-7:30pm. The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Virginia is for …” by Johanna Leech. 5-8pm. Boutique Boutique 411 E. Main St. Day of the Dead celebration and Mexican art. 5-8pm. Chroma Projects 418 E. Main St. “Known/Not Known,” with sculpture by […]