In a clever, blink-and-you-miss-it performing style, Amuse Bouche brings a unique craft to the University’s artistic community — long form improv. After a recent performance, members sat down to discuss improv, friendship and comedy.
As University students, new and old, return to Charlottesville, the University Programs Council, U.Va. Arts and the Charlottesville community offer numerous opportunities to reconnect with and explore the local arts scene after a summer away.
Performed in the Helms Theatre as part of the Virginia Theatre Festival, the play follows the romance between Jack Ludwig, a World War II military doctor, and Louise Rabiner, an aspiring actress.
It was at UVA that Matthew Steffens learned to be an artist, a citizen and a scholar. Now Steffens, fresh off his role as associate choreographer on the Tony-nominated revival of “Into the Woods,” is back at UVA to direct “Cabaret.”
The Virginia Theatre Festival has announced the full cast and creative team for its season-opening production of Cabaret. Set to open on July 7 in Culbreth Theatre at the University of Virginia, 'Cabaret' will be directed and choreographed by Matthew Steffens, who returns to VTF and to his alma mater fresh from the Broadway and touring smash hit revival of 'Into the Woods'. The award-winning musical features a book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and is based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood.
The Virginia Theatre Festival has announced that its upcoming production of Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, the heartwarming two-person play about a World War II courtship conducted entirely by mail, will star Suzannah Herschkowitz and Jordan Sobel. Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, which captures the story of the Tony Award-winning playwright’s own parents’ cross-country, pen-and-paper-powered love story, will be directed by Jeffrey Meanza. The show will open on Friday, July 21 at Helms Theatre.
The conversation with Tina Fey, moderated by President Jim Ryan, highlighted the importance of the arts at the University and in society.
For the second time in 10 years, Fey will return to Grounds on Sunday to participate in the President’s Speaker Series for the Arts, a series that featured Fey as the inaugural guest in 2013.
The Virginia Theatre Festival has made its first casting announcement for its upcoming 2023 season-opening production of Cabaret. Ainsley Seiger leads the cast as Sally Bowles. Seiger returns to the Virginia Theatre Festival stage after having been seen in 2018 productions of A Chorus Line and The Cocoanuts. Seiger is a graduate of UNCSA and became a series regular on NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime in early 2021, playing Detective Jet Slootmaekers.
Without ever having stepped foot on the University of Virginia’s Grounds before, Tina Fey nervously moved into Metcalf House, the dorm she would soon call home, in the fall of 1988. “I didn’t grow up in a world where people went on college tours,” Fey said. “You kind of looked at a paper catalog about colleges, and then you would try to get in somewhere.
The University Drama Department’s production of “Direct to You!” featured six plays directed by students as part of an advanced directing course in the drama department.
The UVA President’s Speaker Series for the Arts will present award-winning writer, actor, producer, and noted UVA alumnae Tina Fey on Sunday, April 23 at 3:00 PM at the John Paul Jones Arena. Fey, who inaugurated the series in 2013, will participate in an onstage conversation moderated by University of Virginia President Jim Ryan.
