PICK: Like Water For Chocolate

Hot chocolate: Food nourishes the magical realism in the 1992 international sensation Like Water For Chocolate. When Tita is forbidden from marrying her true love Pedro due to her place in the family lineage, he marries her older sister. Tita becomes a cook, and channels her undying passion for her brother-in-law into meals with special […]

Baby bonding

The world is always changing, and the stories we tell need to change with it. While the circumstances in Together Together might feel like a modern phenomenon, the emotions and connections within it are timeless. The film begins with Anna (Patti Harrison) meeting Matt (Ed Helms) for the first time. This is not your typical […]

Home stage

By Haines Eason Working from home. Telehealth. Online shopping. Which pandemic trends will remain, and which will fade? Charlottesville native Kate Lambert, a comedian whose resume includes The Second City and Chicago Improv act The Katydids (which sold the hit “Teachers” to TV Land), is part of something that producer Jill Paiz-Bourque of the livestream […]

PICK: And the VIII Journeyed

Journey by foot: Keith Lee now calls central Virginia home, but his teaching and choreography work began at New York’s storied High School of Performing Arts, and was followed by decades of dance artistry everywhere from the American Ballet Theatre to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As artist laureate, resident choreographer, and director of diversity […]

PICK: New Works Festival

Take a listen: With a pivot to podcasts, UVA Drama’s New Works Festival is all ears this year. The fifth annual student-run fest offers five short audio pieces (including one musical), which will be streamed on WTJU. Faculty mentors Dave Dalton and Doug Grissom realized audio dramas were a creative solution to replace the currently […]

PICK: Festy

Fest in place: With the announcement of its 2021 season, Festy takes a big leap forward by staying seated. Instead of the multi-day jam-out camp-out that’s fueled past Festys, this year’s event sticks with its COVID-inspired model of single shows (in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) and VIP-style pod seating. Well suited to the […]

PICK: See About the Girls

Bringing down the house : Amiri Baraka’s 1964 play The Slave takes place during a race war and ends with a deadly house collapse. As final as that sounds, local playwright and vocalist Ti Ames (right) continues the story: See About the Girls is set 14 years later, and imagines that Walker Vessel’s biracial daughters […]

PICK: God of Carnage and The Death of the Author

Double whammy: UVA Drama doubles down on a pandemic-restricted season with Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage (translated by Christopher Hampton) and Steven Drukman’s The Death of the Author. The companion plays, which introduce the university’s new MFA Acting Company, observe chain reactions as characters argue over what is right, what is wrong, and what must […]

PICK: Looking Inward

Getting personal: What is it about a work of art that draws us in? See for yourself during Looking Inward, the latest installment in The Fralin from Home series. Docent June Heintz hosts an hour-long exploration of Kawase Hasui’s “Pavilion with Pagoda,” complete with mindfulness practices, slow looking, and contextual information. Registration required at museumoutreach@virginia.edu […]

PICK: The Great Debaters

Smart moves: Set in 1930s Texas during the Jim Crow era, the story of The Great Debaters was brought to national attention in a 1997 American Legacy magazine article. It became a passion project for Denzel Washington, who directed and starred in the 2007 film, inspired by the experiences of the all-Black Wiley College debate […]