Actor, director, and producer Matthew Modine appears at the 37th annual Virginia Film Festival

Birdy, November 1, The Paramount Theater I Hope This Helps!, November 2, Violet Crown 3 From his first film, Baby It’s You, directed by John Sayles, to his recent role as Dr. Martin “Papa” Brenner in Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and a star turn in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Matthew Modine’s accomplishments in film, television, and on stage define the range […]

TechnoSonics Festival 2024

Electronic music and intermedia art collide at the annual TechnoSonics Festival. With the theme of immersion, the 2024 iteration explores aspects of the world that envelop minds, bodies, and spirits. Sounds that surround, and environments that encapsulate, are all fair game at events on UVA Grounds and at Visible Records. The featured work in electronic […]

Live Arts stages compelling he-said, she-said plays

We humans are social animals, which is one reason why theater endures as a way for people to share space and feel something together. In a time when our nation feels quite divided (ahem: understatement), any opportunity to learn from history and engage with challenging subjects in thought-provoking ways is a good opportunity. The current […]

Ailey II

Founded by pioneering choreographer Alvin Ailey in 1974, Ailey II has been pairing the talent of early-career dancers with emerging choreographers to shape the next generation of modern dance for the past 50 years. In Revelations, his seminal work, Ailey incorporates African American spirituals, song-sermons, gospel music, and holy blues to plumb the nadir of […]

An otherwise brilliant version of The Scottish Play

“We do it with the lights on,” says The American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse website about its use of “universal lighting.” So right up front you know that whatever you see in its elegant, woody environs will take place with the house lights aglow.  Understandably, in its staunch attempt to maintain historical accuracy wherever possible, […]

Live Arts Voyages season

The Voyages season is underway at Live Arts. Whether capturing the spirit of adventure, making way into the unknown, or steppingback in time, the 2024-25 lineup shares thematic elements related to trailblazing, travel, and trips near and far. On stage now, An Iliad and What the Constitution Means to Me embody very different voyages. The […]

23rd Annual Youth Film Festival

Take a seat in front of the silver screen for Light House Studio’s 23rd Annual Youth Film Festival. Student films created over the last year through Light House’s workshops, community partnerships, and Summer Film Academy are highlighted at the YFF, giving attendees a chance to see the public debuts of projects before they screen in […]

IX Art Park Foundation reports financial turnaround

One year after announcing a major restructuring of staffing and offerings due to a budget shortfall, the IX Art Park Foundation has found its footing financially, according to a September 3 press release. With the stabilization, the nonprofit hopes to bring back some offerings in the upcoming months, but it still needs community support. “We […]

Poet CAConrad falls in love with a new world

As a poet, CAConrad is cosmic, their work unrestrained by the page, poems existing as art objects, ecological elegies, ancient technologies. In 2022, they received the PEN Josephine Miles Award for Poetry as well as the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. We recently interviewed them about their new collection of poems, Listen to the Golden Boomerang […]