Charlottesville native Henry Hoke remembers writing stories and poems while a student at Venable Elementary. “I think I always made things up,” he says. “I always came from places of imagination.” He left the city at age 18 to study film at NYU. After living in the world of film, first in New York and […]
The drag showcase Haus of Belle offers queens, kings and femme fatales primping, preening and performing in high style. Directed by Dreama Belle, the lineup features Beverly Bouver, Bunny Nicole, Ro’Three, Ivy Dripp, Jason Cox and Latashiya Shade in addition to headliner Bert Darling, who promises on his Facebook page: “I’ll be pulling out new […]
Local singer-songwriter Kat Somers has been performing and writing music since sixth grade. Her earnest, original tunes float on sunny melodies, acoustic picking and lyrics sung from the gut in a voice that powers its message through. The recent college grad embarks on a busy summer schedule that finds her booked throughout the region, thanks […]
On a warm Monday evening, the four members of Breakers sit comfortably on wicker couches under a covered porch in Belmont. In the glow of multicolored Christmas lights, they share beers and take turns snuggling Batman, drummer Vicente Arroyo’s dog, clad in a red, yellow and green collar, in their post-practice ritual. It’s where they […]
When a movie crash lands due to its own misguidedness, the common question is, “What were the filmmakers thinking?” In the case of Alien: Covenant, we know exactly what Ridley Scott was thinking because he won’t stop broadcasting the film’s metaphors or applauding the foreshadowing long enough to let it tell a worthwhile story. If […]
Future Islands has come a long way since its first show in 2006 at an anti-Valentine’s Day party in Greenville, North Carolina. Now based in Baltimore, the indie synth-pop group—composed of frontman Samuel T. Herring, bassist/guitarist William Cashion and keyboardist Gerrit Welmers—has busied itself touring the world and selling out countless gigs, including a show […]
In Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), literature scholar and self-described old maid Constance Ledbelly has reason to believe that two of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet, were not originally written as tragedies at all. Too timid to show her skeptical boss her findings, Constance withdraws into her subconscious mind and the two […]
Devon Sproule The Gold String (Tin Angel) After time in Texas and England, Devon Sproule’s return to central Virginia was rightly celebrated by local fans of the Canada-born, Twin Oaks-raised singer-songwriter. On The Gold String, Sproule weaves stories rich with touching details (“Here we are, curled in the dark / The last two spoons left […]
Some scour the beach for shells, Charlie Mars went looking for songs. Called to the ocean on his latest album, Beach Town, Mars takes inspiration from the Gulf Coast in depicting salty characters, lost lovers and a search for redemption along the sandy fringes of our Southern border. His songwriting carries such vivid themes that the […]
With an open script and generic name, [title of show], the “musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical,” by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, has become a work-in-progress with each production crew adding updates and changes based on its experience. The one-act play takes a comical look at the […]