Khalilah Jones in the HotSeat

Now in its fifth year of celebrating Black excellence in Charlottesville, the Soul of Cville festival returns with a week of engaging and exciting events throughout the city. Kicking off on August 10 with a free Soul Skate at McIntire Park and peaking with Soul of Cville at IX Art Park on August 16, the […]

Nici Cumpston OAM in the HotSeat

Hailing from the city of Adelaide in South Australia, Nici Cumpston OAM, the new director of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at UVA, is a Barkandji Aboriginal artist, curator, writer, and educator whose family is also of Afghan, Irish, and English descent. Barkandji are the river people who belong to the Barka, the Darling River […]

Jay Pun in the HotSeat

To say that Jay Pun is a busy guy is an understatement. The musician, restaurateur, educator, and father of two recently authored a children’s book, Som Tum and Sticky Rice, and co-founded VeryAsian VA, which in turn launched the VeryAsian VA Celebration. The fourth annual music event takes place on Friday, May 9, at Ting […]

Terrance Simien in the HotSeat

The eighth-generation Louisiana Creole musician Terrance Simien has been at the forefront of traditional zydeco music for more than four decades. The two-time Grammy Award-winner has dedicated his time to preserving the unique cultural expression of Creole sounds through concerts and education programs. Ahead of his performance with Zydeco Experience at Boogie on the Bayou, […]

Asked and answered

We’ll put just about anyone in The HotSeat—visiting performers, interesting professionals, local tastemakers—as long as they don’t mind answering a few of our hard-hitting questions (asking about a go-to Bodo’s order is the height of journalism, folks). Here are a few of our favorite answers from 2024.  Grad student/lecturer Chandler Jennings Most embarrassing moment: A […]

John Gibson in the HotSeat

No stranger to the stage, John Gibson worked at Live Arts for 18 years, from 1992 to 2010. During his run as executive and artistic director, Gibson introduced youth programs and new works, advocated for under- represented playwrights, and launched pay-what-you-can performances, among other initiatives. Since moving to Atlanta in 2011, Gibson has worked as […]

Ilya Tovbis in the HotSeat

Overseeing the programming of more than 120 films and nearly 100 guests as artistic director of the Virginia Film Festival, Ilya Tovbis knows how to curate a celebration of cinema. He’s worked with the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and the Mill Valley Film Festival (organized by the California […]

Brian Regan in the HotSeat

Visiting close to 100 cities each year on a nonstop theater tour, comedian Brian Regan has built a 30-plus-year career through lots of laughs. A co-star in three seasons of Peter Farrelly’s TV series “Loudermilk,” Regan has also starred in his own Netflix sketch comedy and stand-up series “Stand Up And Away! With Brian Regan.” […]

David Baldwin in the HotSeat

In 1948 Martin B. Hiden formed the Tuesday Evening Concert Group, with aid from Bard Hume of The Washington Post and Richard Bales of the National Gallery of Art. After establishing a connection with the National Music League—which included affiliation with six concert organizations in the DMV region—Hiden’s group disengaged from the affiliation, reforming as […]

Schuyler Fisk in the HotSeat

A multi-talented performer on musical stages and screens both big and small, Charlottesville’s Schuyler Fisk stars as Amanda Moore-Hillier in the Hallmark+ original series “The Chicken Sisters,” based off the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by KJ Dell’Antonia. The eight-episode family drama centers around four women at the heart of a […]