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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.” […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hailing from the Lone Star State, Robert Earl Keen has honed his craft as one of Texas’ most accomplished singer-songwriters over the past three decades. With 21 records and thousands of concerts on his resume, REK’s poetic musings delivered through Americana melodies have impacted audiences far and wide. We put the country-western crooner in the […]