Sing along as 40-plus Charlottesville kids perform with theater pros in Broadway at The Paramount. Guest actors include Jennifer DiNoia (currently Elphaba in Broadway’s Wicked), Tony Gonzalez (former dance captain for Mamma Mia!) and Matthew Steffens, a UVA graduate who has performed in everything from Broadway musicals to film and television (including an appearance on ABC’s “Black Box”).
Building a groove: Willie DE may be the hardest-working musician in local show biz. As a determined teen he formed his first band, The Wave, at age 13, and busked on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall and in the parking lots before UVA football games. Following his education in jazz guitar at VCU
Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell! (Universal) Lana Del Rey takes a turn at pillow- soft rock on NFR, the product of a partnership with Jack Antonoff—late of the annoyingly-named fun., and an erstwhile Taylor Swift and Lorde collaborator. The songs here are slow and subdued, dominated by
The first time Umphrey’s McGee played in Charlottesville—in 2002, upstairs at the old Starr Hill brewery on West Main Street—a few dozen people showed up. The band was in its barnstorming phase, with its six members, fresh out of college, charging around the country in a crowded van. The Starr
Behind the hits: Chart-topping songwriter Pat Alger says, “It never grows old hearing a great singer perform one of my songs.” Alger brought his skills to Nashville in the ‘80s, and made a name penning hits for others including Nanci Griffith and Garth Brooks. His songs have been performed by
Sweethearts of the road: It can be tough to stand out in the field of bluegrass with all the talented players currently on the road, but The Way Down Wanderers have found a sweet spot in the mix. The Peoria, Illinois, band relies on exceptional musicianship and a family-like bond with fans to
Roland Wiggins taught his first music lesson when he was in elementary school. He was about 10 years old, and his music teacher, Helen Derrick, had written a series of notes and chord intervals on the chalkboard. As the lesson progressed, Wiggins noticed that Derrick had made a mistake. “Excuse
One of the most refreshing things a film can do is focus on characters who need no introduction but have never been in the spotlight themselves. Strip clubs and strippers are everywhere in popular culture, but it’s hard to think of any film or series that fully appreciates and understands their
Sonia Nazario knew she wanted to be a journalist when she was a teenager. Growing up in Argentina in the 1970s, she witnessed the country’s “dirty war,” during which a terrorist military tortured and murdered 30,000 citizens. Nazario remembers asking her mother why the dead included reporters.
Humor mill: Stand-up comedian Tom Segura dishes out deadpan takes on everything from family matters—the key to marriage is “intimidation and fear;” his “stupid cousin” wants to invent a way to drive his car with a cell phone—to getting older and “confusing words like conscious and conscience.”
Lucky strike: North Carolina blacksmith Riley Baugus was a craftsman by day and a master musician by night, playing his self-made banjo with friends in old-time string bands, when he got the call from Hollywood. A friend assisting with music direction for Civil War epic Cold Mountain had
Digital strings: Reflecting on the 20 years since he co-founded the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, violinist Tim Summers hosts a discussion about the shifts that classical musicians and composers face in the digital age as streaming, electronic amplification, and computer-generated
Live cast: The popular podcast “Welcome to Night Vale” launched in 2012 as “A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overheard while we all pretend to sleep…” Now with millions of downloads, and four illustrated published volumes,
Escapism or activism? Should a work provide respite from pertinent problems, or is it art’s duty to provide commentary on these political and social issues? More and more, this seems to be the debate among artists and patrons. While it’s limiting to think that the two approaches are mutually
By Benjamen Noble When Rachel Monroe began writing Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, she had a driving question that fueled her—why are we, as a society, so enthralled by stories of true crime? “The book started with my own curiosity about myself, to be
The problem that has always plagued adaptations of Stephen King’s IT is that the two halves—kids and grown-ups—are not equally interesting. Nostalgic coming-of-age tales of scary monsters and friendship are inherently more engaging than 40-somethings with bad memories. Chapter One put us in the
Most people avert their eyes when the world gets messy: they scrunch uncooperative hair into the safety of ballcaps, kick dust bunnies conveniently under couches, and dunk ugly memories into their mental trashbins. It’s unusual to meet someone who sits down with disorder, shakes its hand, and
Bite-sized Shakespeare: An abridged version of the iconic Shakespeare comedy, Midsummer 90 drops the Night’s Dream and retains all the humor and wonder of the original script without sacrificing its spellbinding storytelling. By packing the fairies, magic, and fantastical animals into a
Rounding the corners: In the run-up to recording Interpol’s latest release, Marauder, drummer Sam Fogarino repeatedly asked himself: “How can I make shit swing?” The post-punk veterans were six albums and more than 15 years into their careers, yet had never strayed from the rock influences of
Brooklyn multimedia artist Tamara Santibañez, one of the seven featured in Second Street Gallery’s group show “Subculture Shock: Death, Punk, & the Occult in Contemporary Art,” was recently quoted in The New York Times about Latinx artists’ use of family history and heritage. She explained
Stephanie Nakasian grew up with the American songbook in her ear. You know the tunes: “Fly Me to the Moon,” “I Get A Kick Out of You,” and so many others. She sang them at home, and in choir, and played them on piano and violin, too. These melodies and lyrics were in her ear […]