ARTS Pick: Stanley Ann

Stanley Ann Dunham falls in love and marries a Kenyan student in the early ’60s. She struggles through a second marriage to a corrupt civil servant in Indonesia, and comes through it to work in anthropology and assist poverty-stricken women in third world countries. All the while she is raising the 44th President of the […]

ARTS Pick: Amy Schumer

Amy Schumer’s comedy is sweet like saccharine, and crude enough to shame a sailor. Leaving no taboo untouched, she charms her way through an act, oftentimes turning her most eviscerating jibes on herself resulting in some of her best material. Schumer’s rise into the upper echelon has been swift. She gave testimony at the roasts […]

ARTS Pick: 40 and Fabulous

Barboursville’s eminent regional theater, Four County Players, is celebrating four solid decades of musicals, contemporaries, classics, 10-minute festivals, and all the various and delightful manifestations of staged drama with a one-weekend-only celebratory blowout, 40 and Fabulous. They’re bringing in some local heavy hitters to re-live the thrills in a musical revue: Jane Scatena, Joncey Boggs, […]

ARTS Pick: Rhinoceros

Eugène Ionesco lived in France as World War II broke out. In the heart of Europe, he was able to observe firsthand the virtually unchecked spread of Fascism and Nazism among a seemingly reasonable population, and this sudden transformation had a deep effect on him. A generation of European artists saw the same, and from […]

ARTS Pick: Verbs & Vibes

Roscoe B is a decidedly forthright individual with an artisanal approach to telling it like it is. The Richmond native, born Douglas Powell and self-anointed Roscoe Burnems, looms as a local spoken-word giant, crushing open mic nights and blowing up poetry slams around the area for the last three years. As a card-carrying member of Slam […]

ARTS Pick: Vidur Kapur

There’s more to comedian Vidur Kapur than years of LGBT activism, various film appearances, contributions to books, nominations from entertainment and social progress groups galore. Raised in an upper middle-class household in New Delhi and an alumnus of the straight-laced London School of Economics, Kapur defies convention by merging the conflicting identities of a waggish foible-pointer-outer and sincere […]

At Madwoman, lunatics are running the asylum with love

If you’ve been on the Mall much recently, you’ve likely come across The Madwoman Project. It’s hard to miss. Fifteen minutes or so before the show gets started, a pink-haired girl (Opal Lechmanski) can be found methodically sweeping the square created by the Third Street intersection. The subtlety of her peculiarity, her cobbled-together skirt, her Sisyphean […]

ARTS Pick: King John

Here’s a neat idea: If your theater is running a modern classic and getting great turnout and lots of buzz, why not run the sequel? And heck, since the first cast was so good, just let them play the same roles in the sequel, and show them both in rep in case people didn’t see the […]

ARTS Pick: “If I Sing”

With more than 40 area theater productions under his belt, Doug Schneider can be called an institution. The UCLA-trained actor/singer/director/teacher is putting his star to good use as he mounts If I Sing, a two-night, showtune-studded cabaret featuring Greg Harris and the Tom Collins Trio, with all proceeds going to support Live Arts. Friday and […]