The sixth annual Charlottesville Arts Festival returns with a weekend full of creativity, community, and connection. This year’s celebration features 50-plus fine artists and artisans, immersive art experiences, live music, hands-on workshops, and demos throughout the event. Musical acts on the outdoor stage include sets by Mike Perdue, Gina Sobel, and others. Varied performances by […]
A pair of plays from the United Kingdom theater scene, Godot is a Woman and Strategic Love Play, journey from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to downtown Charlottesville as part of Live Arts’ Fringe Favorites series. Fringe theater, which originated as the across-the-pond equivalent of New York’s off-Broadway scene, often consists of experimental and relatively low-cost […]
In culmination of an ambitious project that began at the end of January 2025 when a group of artists convened at Phaeton Gallery to work on creating a clothesline, “Weathering: The Endurance of the Ordinary” features the work of 10 women examining “the quiet resilience embedded in daily life and the subtle ways time and […]
Director Devynn Thomas brings a fresh take on one of the most frequently retold Greek myths with playwright Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. This reimagining breathes new life into the classic tale of Orpheus’ descent to the underworld, centering the plot around the perspective of its heroine. Employing contemporary characters and ingenious plot twists, the impactful story […]
Richmond-based mead the dear offers a cosmic-country sound steeped in old-time influences. The act functions as an outlet for songwriter Michael Hirsch to blend a bevy of interconnected inspirations—folk revival, traditional Appalachian arrangements, podunk country, summer-of-love psychedelia, and a little downtrodden rock ‘n’ roll. In a scene that’s seen its fair share of Americana mashup […]
Steep Canyon Rangers is back, and the group’s returning to a more focused sound. Touring to promote its 15th studio album—set to release May 22—the band of string pickers and strummers is returning to the bluegrass foundations that served as its genesis. After years of collaborations with acts like Paul McCartney, The Chicks, the Asheville […]
If you love the empanadas at Cumbre Bakery, try them all dressed up at the Downtown Mall’s newest fine dining restaurant, The Enemy. Opened in late April in York Place, this new creation from Cumbre founders Augusto Rodriguez Araoz and Juan Brandan sees their beloved bakery roots flexed into a full menu—while the original East […]
A B3 model Hammond organ from 1962, like the type Sam Fribush sets himself up behind, weighs upwards of 310 pounds—and that’s just the console unit alone. Throw the bench and a Leslie speaker in, and you’re easily crossing the 400-pound threshold. When your instrument of choice rivals the usual transportation concerns drummers contend with—their […]
Little Dancer: A New Musical, an original play written and produced by local daughter-father duo Olivia and Chris Colvin, is set for its stage debut. Inspired by the life of Marie van Goethem, the young ballerina who modeled for Edgar Degas’ famous sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–81), the performance imagines how van Goethem’s years […]
It took two years and four multi-day hospitalizations before Kenny Belew, 47, finally knew what left him writhing in pain, his gut raw and inflamed, his midsection almost comically distended. “I looked like I was pregnant,” says Belew, of Palmyra, recalling the moment just before he was carted off by ambulance for a nine-day hospital […]