By Julia Stumbaugh On August 23, 2020 a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot a 29-year-old Black man named Jacob Blake in the back. In the days that followed, Charlottesville actor and director David Vaughn Straughn sat down to write a play. “I felt this anger and intolerance and frustration,” says Straughn. “I knew that was […]
By Julia Stumbaugh On August 23, 2020 a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot a 29-year-old Black man named Jacob Blake in the back. In the days that followed, Charlottesville actor and director David Vaughn Straughn sat down to write a play. “I felt this anger and intolerance and frustration,” says Straughn. “I knew that was […]
Two decades ago, Terésa Dowell-Vest embarked on a research project. After attending grad school in California, the actor and playwright set out to collect the oral histories of family and community members in her hometown of Charlottesville. The product of this research was 1999’s Vinegar Hill, a play named after the town’s once-thriving Black neighborhood. […]
As we adjust to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll likely turn to the arts—a favorite poem, a beloved album, a treasured painting—over and over in search of comfort and relief. Art, in all its forms, is a vital part not just of our personal lives but of our community. Social distancing measures and […]
Let’s pretend for a minute. It’s sometime in the not-too-distant future. Charlottesville is a thriving black kingdom, free of the white gaze and white corruption, and comprised of various hamlets, including Vinegar Hill, Starr Hill, and between them, Gospel Hill, the kingdom’s seat and center of spirituality. Such is the premise of Hambone, an original, […]
By Leslie M. Scott-Jones Walking into the downstage theater at Live Arts, the sounds are familiar. Vocal warm-ups have begun, and musical director Kristen Baltes shouts from the balcony that this is “real life,” signaling to the actors to fill the space with their voices (not easy to do in that room). Seated in the […]
She’d been here before. During a recent rehearsal of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, a feeling of recollection overcame Brenda Brown-Grooms as she recited her lines. She was in character as Bertha Holly, wife of Seth Holly and a boarding house matron who likes to bake biscuits, make coffee and care for her […]
Have you ever imagined watching a movie or stage play about your own life? Drama, humor and self-reflection are sure to combine when Playback Theater hosts a fundraiser for the Charlottesville Players Guild in which the actors connect with audience members, learn about their lives, then construct and perform improv scenes based on the details. […]