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In the market for a new home? Don't miss the Open House guide in the paper Saturday and Sunday.
Star City Playhouse does commendable ‘Menagerie’
A highlight of the current Star City Playhouse production of “The Glass Menagerie” takes place before the show even begins. It’s the brief speech that director Marlow Ferguson delivers before turning the stage over to his actors. Ferguson doesn’t use those few moments merely to hype future shows, point out the exits and admonish patrons to squelch their cellphones. Instead, he speaks informatively about the life of the playwright, the
Out & about: Washington & Lee University performs "Taking Flight"
Washington and Lee University dance students will be bouncing off the walls on Wednesday and Thursday. They’ll swing, spin and flip, too. Those with memories long enough to recall when W&L Artistic Director and Dance Professor Jenefer Davies was director of Roanoke Ballet Theatre might experience some deja vu at these outdoor performances by W&L Repertory Dance Company, called “Taking Flight.” Music and props will augment the artistic acrobatics. Davies
Theater review: ‘Too Soon for Daisies’ is a hoot
It’s a risky choice when a community theater stages a comedy that requires a glossary in the playbill to help the audience understand the jokes. Yet Attic Productions takes that risk in its latest production, “Too Soon for Daisies,” a dark British comedy-thriller penned by William Dinner and William Morum, and pulls it off thanks to enthusiastic direction and a talented cast. The setting is Trotley, a small seaside village
Center for the Arts inaugurates new home with variety of acts
The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will open its first full season in its new home with a performance by a legendary American composer, end with a multimedia theater performance for children by an Italian troupe, and in between will host professional dance companies, experimental plays, a popular NPR host, a bluegrass festival and even a Pops performance by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. Executive director Ruth Waalkes has
Love's labor emerges at Center in the Square
Aquariums, iPads and flat screen televisions. Chandeliers and sculpted ceilings. Floor tiles arranged to make the shape of a giant butterfly. A skylight with colored glass in irregular shapes that seems to match the late Dorothy Gillespie’s aluminum sculptures ascending toward it. There’s no question that more than $27 million in renovations has transformed Center in the Square. At a Tuesday morning news conference, Center President and General Manager Jim
Roanoke Symphony 'Appalachian Spring' program showcases virtuosity
The Roanoke Symphony presented a program of mainly American works Sunday afternoon in Shaftman Performance Hall at Jefferson Center to an almost sold-out house of 800. Maestro David Stewart Wiley led a smaller ensemble of 13 players in a varied and pleasing program, dominated by the works of Aaron Copland. The concert began with solo "fiddling" from Akemi Takayama as a lead-in to the familiar "Hoe-Down" from Copland's ballet "Rodeo,"
Va. Tech architecture students create installation at Smithsonian
A Virginia Tech architecture professor and her students created a technologically interactive art installation modelled on Japanese lanterns at the Smithsonian. Part of a series called “The Lantern Field,” the installation consisted of swaths of paper folded into flowery shapes hung from bamboo poles. Motion sensors caused the lighting to change colors and electronic bamboo chime sounds to change rhythm as people moved through the space beneath the “lanterns.” “The
Center in the Square taking on more life with aquarium
Center in the Square’s makeover for more than $27 million has nearly reached its end. In September 2009, Center launched a capital campaign for $9 million, with plans to pay for the rest of the improvements to both its buildings with $18 million in tax credits. Center’s building on Church Avenue was closed for renovations from October 2010 to October 2011, while improvements to its building on Campbell Avenue began
'The Pirates of Penzance' blends music, comedy
Friday night's sold-out Jefferson Center audience lavished laughter and applause on Opera Roanoke's production of "The Pirates of Penzance." Created by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, "Pirates" opened at London's Opera Comique in April 1880. The show is known as a "Savoy Opera," after the Savoy Theatre where later Gilbert and Sullivan hits were first performed. Gilbert created a saucy, satiric libretto, for which Sullivan composed music occasionally as
Downtown gallery hosts French installation artist
A French artist visiting through an arrangement with Roanoke Valley Sister Cities will take part in Roanoke’s Art by Night studio tour from 5 to 9 p.m. this Friday. Cornelia Marin of Saint-Lo in Normandy, France, just arrived in town Saturday. The Roanoke-Saint-Lo Sister City committee received a Mini-Arts and Cultural Plan Implementation Grant from Roanoke and the Foundation for Roanoke Valley to help fund Marin’s trip. This is Marin’s
Mill Mountain Theatre's ‘The Marvelous Wonderettes’ a musical delight
Shake and shimmy your way down a musical memory lane with the newest production at Mill Mountain Theatre, “The Marvelous Wonderettes.” The musical opened to a nearly sold-out theater on Wednesday, and the lighthearted show filled the stage with plenty of favorite old songs and laughs. The show kicks off Mill Mountain Theatre’s first full season since 2009. “Wonderettes” is the nonprofit’s first Equity production since “Greater Tuna” in 2012,
In collection, W&L talk, Cheech Marin champions Chicano art
Comedian Cheech Marin is a serious art collector. Though most recognize him as half of the stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong, he’s demonstrated over the years through dramatic roles on shows like “Nash Bridges,” “Judging Amy” and “Lost” that there are dimensions to his art beyond raunchy humor. As an aficionado of the Chicano art movement and a promoter of Mexican American artists, he’s as earnest as a college
Grandin festival celebrates films
The Grandin Theatre wanted to showcase its new digital projection equipment in a special way. “It was just the right time to do a film festival,” said executive director Kathy Chittum. The landmark Roanoke theater in the Grandin Court neighborhood has never held one before, she said. The theater had a scare when the digital projectors Chittum hoped to have in place by April 2 wound up on back order.
Lexington/Rockbridge art tour expanding in its 2nd year
The Lexington/Rockbridge Studio Tour has added a few more artists and a bit of barbecue to its second go-round. The free self-guided tour features 11 studios along a 20-mile loop. Participating guest artists from North Carolina, West Virginia, New Mexico and several cities around Virginia bring the total number of exhibiting artists to 36. The tour hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and April 21. Artist Susan Harb,
Children’s Choir to leave Roanoke College
After 26 years, the Roanoke College Children’s Choir is leaving its nest and setting out on its own. Kimberly Davidson, 54, has directed the choir since founding it in 1987. Tuesday, she told parents that the choir will leave Roanoke College to become an independent nonprofit called the Roanoke Valley Children’s Choir. “We’ll be more community-centered and -based,” Davidson said Thursday. Because the choir is self-governing and financially self-sustaining, it
Showtimers cast, direction make ‘I Love You’ a standout
In a time when everything else seems to change by the hour, the dynamics of romance remain the same: sometimes blissful, sometimes vexing and always as mysterious as the innards of an iPad. We are reminded of this in the first-rate Showtimers production of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” In two hours of clever lyrics and catchy tunes, the popular musical comedy comments sharply but good-naturedly on the
RSO concert serves hearty helping of Beethoven
The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Roanoke Symphony Chorus, the Liberty University Concert Choir and the Southern Virginia University Concert Chorale performed at the Performing Arts Theatre on Monday night. Maestro David Stewart Wiley conducted and played the piano in an all-Beethoven program to an audience of more than 1,500 people. The evening began with a riveting rendition of the Seventh Symphony. The mesmerizing introduction, featuring the fine woodwind section, set
Photographer flirts with alchemy, suppressed Victorian desires
Black and white or sepia, presented inside oval mattes that appear yellowed with age, Dan Estabrook’s photographic prints look so much like 19th-century artifacts that it’s easy to mistake them for old photos at first glance. Yet a closer look reveals tell tale details. A man shown in silhouette in an image called “Loss of Appetite” has a digestive tract shaped like a hangman’s noose. Another called “Shortness of Breath”
To fete its 60th anniversary, RSO joins the downtown ‘renaissance’
The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra turns 60 today. The symphony’s gift to itself — a new downtown presence. The symphony will officially celebrate its 60th anniversary when it kicks off its 2013-14 season in October. But the actual anniversary of RSO’s first concert is today. On March 31, 1953, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra held its debut concert in the Jefferson High School Auditorium, starting the performance with Dvorak’s “New World Symphony”
Easter eggs from Ukraine, with love
Each student who arrived at Madonna House in Roanoke on March 9 seated herself in front of a seemingly random collection of objects: a half-burned candle, the lid of a milk jug, a rubber band, matches, a funny little tool and a lump of black beeswax. To the uninitiated, it looked as if someone had dumped out the kitchen junk drawer at each place setting on the newspaper-covered tables. But
1. Salem man arrested on child porn charges
2. Friday morning Roanoke County fire investigated as arson
3. Retiring Virginia Tech President Charles Steger sends off graduates
4. Virginia Tech's smallest academic college grabs biggest raves heading to today's graduation
5. Roanoke police investigate Thursday convenience store robbery
6. Franklin County schools chairman reconsiders resignation
7. Hollins University custodian shows persistence in earning her degree
8. Group to honor true child of Confederacy
9. Photo, social feed: Virginia Tech graduation
10. Roanoke radio station WRIS to get new owner
THE ROANOKE TIMES
