Performing Arts

You don’t have to book an international flight or travel back in time to connect with cultural relevance—just buy a ticket to the ninth annual spring dance gala at PVCC.

A mass of jittery young actors crowded the stage on Thursday night, peppering drama teacher and theater director Madeline Michel with last minute concerns before rehearsing Monticello High School’s spring musical, In the Heights. Then the lights dimmed, the students found their stage marks, and the airy 850-seat auditorium filled with quiet anticipation.

Live Arts takes an ambitious foray into the comically dysfunctional dark side of a pill-popping, secret-keeping Midwestern family in its spring production of August: Osage County, under the direction of Fran Smith. This Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Tracy Letts gives an all-access peek (the set is a literal cross section of a three-story Oklahoma homestead) into the lives of the estranged Weston clan as they are forced to reunite after their father goes missing.

After nine years and an estimated $9 million renovation and expansion, the historic State Theatre of Culpeper has reopened its doors for a week-long 75th Anniversary Celebration and a future filled with renowned musicians, film, dance, and live theater.

Enjoy the verbal sparring and spirited courtship of Katharina and Petruchio as Four County Players closes its 40th anniversary season with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Comedy ensues when a determined suitor (Martyn Kyle) pursues a strong-willed and resistant maiden (a fiery Mendy St. Ours) and the couple engages in a battle of wills, […]

“‘Leapin’ lizards!’ You do not want to miss this show,” said MaryAnne Thorton, the director of The Black Box Players’ production of Annie, which will open tomorrow evening. Thorton has directed all of The Black Box Players’ shows since she founded the theater in 1986, and has also written scripts for several of its recent […]

Never was there a tale of more woe than that of Maria and her Tony. Broadway’s West Side Story travels south to the John Paul Jones Arena for one night only. Revel in the Bernstein and Sondheim score, the knife fights, and the love story as the Jets and the Sharks spar on the streets […]

Supporting cast If Cunningham is fierce and Morris is the good cop, Greg Thomas, director of the show’s pit orchestra, brings the levity. To ensure that only musicians can hear his direction during the show, Thomas speaks to the orchestra through a system of green garden hoses that they press to their ears. During rehearsals, […]

The Albemarle Players, C-VILLE’s Best Musical winners for two years running, are going for a trifecta this weekend when Hello, Dolly!, the Tony Award-winning musical based on Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, hits the stage. Originally called Dolly, A Damned Exasperating Woman, the show’s title was shortened when Broadway producer David Merrick heard Louis Armstrong’s version […]

In addition to flowering trees and early morning bird songs, spring is the time for a bounty of annual student concerts, exhibitions, and performances for the lucky public. PVCC’s spring dance concert, “Simplicity,” features original jazz, salsa, contemporary, and hip-hop choreography by students and faculty. It may be your only chance to catch a performance […]