Seeing the divine

“A few months before she passed, my mom told me she’d had a dream that she was supposed to have a show called ‘Turn on the Light!’ It would be in January of the new year, manifesting our emergence from COVID and hope for our brighter future, and she would ask each artist she represented […]

A part to play

The Charlottesville Players Guild will perform its 2022-23 season entirely in the round, with the stage completely surrounded by audience members who are not considered observers, but rather part of the production. That’s the aesthetic Leslie M. Scott-Jones, associate curator of education and public programs at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and artistic […]

Pick: It Shoulda Been You

I OBJECT!: Bridezillas, groomzillas, there’s nothing like good ol’ fashioned wedding drama to anchor a comedy plot. Get your fix at Four County Player’s It Shoulda Been You, a musical that takes place over the course of a wedding day where everything that can go wrong, does. The 90-minute show from central Virginia’s longest continuously […]

Pick: Chocolate Chowdown

Sweet tooth: A sweet evening awaits at PVCC’s Annual Student Exhibition and Eighth Annual Chocolate Chowdown. Sample from a lavish spread of decadent chocolate treats as you peruse a diverse display of student art, including paintings, drawings, ceramics, graphic design pieces, sculptures, and other digital media. Stop by the “color-in” tables to add your own […]

Pick: Shovels & Rope

Domino effect: After months of nonstop touring, Americana folk act Shovels & Rope was ready to slow things down on its latest album, Manticore. Then COVID-19 stalled the music industry, and the husband-and-wife duo decided to revisit and expand the songs that were originally intended to include nothing but acoustic guitar and piano. The result […]

Playing their part

By Dave Cantor Early in Garcia Peoples’ run, there was a four-year break between albums. It’s an almost unthinkable span of time in the digital age, but it was spent devising material for a clutch of future albums that includes five studio efforts and several live recordings. It’s an avalanche of music, one that revels […]

I, robot

Whether you love or hate Andy Warhol’s work, his impact on the arts as a provocateur, businessman, and impresario is immeasurable. Andrew Rossi’s six-part Netflix series “The Andy Warhol Diaries” sets out to pierce the façade its subject presented to the media. The series gives a fairly nuanced portrait of the godfather of pop art […]

Pick: Jazz on the Fly!

Letting it fly: Jazz on the Fly! is a two-concert mini-fest that promises to be a “celebration of the return of live jazz to UVA.” Friday’s Free Bridge & Faculty show features the quintet of Jeff Decker (sax), John D’earth (trumpet), Peter Spaar (bass), and Robert Jospe (drums and percussion), along with “old friend” Calvin […]

Pick: Late Night Comedy in the Orchard

For sips and giggles: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other cider…there’s more where that came from at Late Night Comedy in the Orchard. The laugh-filled evening features a lineup of comedians from Herron Comedy that will have you chuckling and chortling while you sip on cider (no spit-takes allowed). […]

Pick: The Magnetic Fields

A way with numbers: Cult phenomenon The Magnetic Fields have been breaking the mold for three decades with records like 69 Love Songs, consisting of tracks that range from 27 seconds to five minutes, and 50 Song Memoir, which chronicles lead singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt’s first 50 years of life with one song per year. Merritt, […]