Creatures from the sky and the sea met Friday evening on the University of Virginia’s Grounds. Delia, a flying creature, and her aquatic companion Peri marched from Culbreth Theatre to the Rotunda and back as part of the annual Stan Winston and Steven Warner Festival of the Moving Creature.
When University of Virginia fourth-year student Molly Rathbun propped open the doors to Nau Hall on a rainy February morning, she wasn’t sure who would brave the weather for the event she created. By day’s end, Rathbun’s Deaf Literature Festival had welcomed more than 80 attendees, featured six authors in the Deaf community and hosted an open mic session.
Add three more University of Virginia faculty members to the list of American Academy of Arts & Sciences fellows. The prestigious honorary society and research center announced April 23 that biology professor Raymond Keller, music professor Nicole Mitchell Gantt and astronomy professor Roger Chevalier join this year’s 250-member class. The academy dates to the American Revolution, and fellowship is considered one of the highest academic honors for faculty.
The University’s arts scene is a thriving one with student-run theater productions and a cappella concerts, coupled with film screenings, gallery shows, comedy nights and literary journals. This is, in no small part, a result of the passionate student artists on and around Grounds who bring it to life — not just as performers or creators, but as writers, editors and commentators.
Don’t worry if you’re unsure about the three-ton limestone sculpture in the lower garden of Pavilion VI, why it’s there remains a mystery. The sculpture is the Merton Spire, a really big gift from Merton College, Oxford, that originally perched atop a chapel buttress. A plaque on the piece reads “A pinnacle of Merton College Chapel Tower, erected 1451, presented to the University of Virginia, 1927, by Merton College, Oxford.”
In the first episode of the Apple TV series, “The Studio,” Seth Rogen plays a Hollywood studio boss tasked with making a box-office hit and prestige film about the Kool-Aid Man. He recruits director Martin Scorsese to make the movie, only for the Oscar-winning director to become intent on making a movie about Jonestown, the cult settlement in Guyana where followers took their own lives drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.
As the academic year winds to a close, students begin to reap the fruits of their labors from the previous two semesters. Some students have particularly tangible, triumphant final projects — namely those who debuted their short films Monday night to a crowd of around one hundred attendees at the Ruth Caplin Theater during the Overcranked Student Film Festival.
Shakespeare's classic tragedy "Hamlet" is getting a fresh, funny, and modern twist with "Fat Ham," now playing at Austin Playhouse. This unique adaptation brings a queer perspective to the timeless tale, promising audiences a theatrical experience like no other. Cast members Marc and Yunina shared their excitement about the production, highlighting its innovative approach. "It's Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' but with a funny, modern, queer twist," they said, inviting theatergoers to witness this bold reimagining.
What does it mean to bring the world to UVA? In recent years, “curating” has become a hot-topic everywhere from museums and universities to fine-dining and social network influencers. As consumers, we can now select from a global array of options in every domain of life. While this has made us more attuned to the diversity of “world” experiences, it has also resulted in the inequalities that curator Geraldo Mosquero has identified, between “curated” and “curating” cultures. Bridging this divide has been a central question for Profs. Noel Lobley (music) and Henry Skerrritt (art history) as they developed the Co-Present Art Initiative with Xhosa artist Xolile ‘X’ Madinda in both Makhanda, South Africa and Charlottesville, Virginia.
he Virginia Theatre Festival has announced the cast and creative team for its upcoming production of playwright Lloyd Suh’s The Heart Sellers. The Heart Sellers will run from July 11-July 20 and will be directed by Desdemona Chiang, who returns to VTF, where she directed Harvey in 2018. Pulitzer Prize-finalist Lloyd Suh’s sweet, funny, and deeply moving play highlights the experiences of two 20-something immigrant women, one from the Philippines and one from South Korea, who meet, by chance, in a grocery store on Thanksgiving night. Set in 1973, eight years after the passing of the Hart-Celler Act, which abolished immigration quotas in America, the play finds Luna and Jane bonding over their common longing for the homes they left behind and the excitement for what lies ahead in a new land.
The Virginia Theatre Festival has announced the creative team for its season-ending production of Get Happy! A Celebration of the World’s Greatest Entertainer with Jenna Pastuszek. The show lives up to its name by taking audiences on a joy-filled journey powered by the songs of the legendary Judy Garland.
An internationally acclaimed composer, sound artist and ecoacoustician, Music professor Matthew Burtner has performed his work in concerts around the world and has had his music featured by organizations ranging from NASA, the U.S. State Department and National Geographic to the BBC and PBS NewsHour. Burtner is spending part of this summer teaching at UVA's Morven Farm as part of a sustainability-focused teaching, research and engagement program. This video offers a glimpse of a day with the Alaskan-born Burtner and his "Sound and Sustainability" students as they take their sound field kits to Morven's Japanese Garden and surrounding landscapes to record the musical sounds of nature.
