Most publicly litigated ongoing arts crisis
Virginia Rep’s financial woes
There have always been conflicts, crises, and outright scandals in the local theater world—it is a realm where drama flourishes, after all. Rarely, however, does the backstage scuttlebutt break out into the wider world. But shortly after new managing director Klaus Schuller arrived at Virginia Repertory Theatre last August, an approach of almost radical transparency took hold at Central Virginia’s largest theater company.
First there was the existential financial crisis last fall that kept Schuller and other Virginia Rep leaders responding regularly and in detail on social media, as well as holding public forums to explain their situation. The next act kicked off in February with the cancellation of “Fat Ham,” a co-production with Virginia Stage Company that ran in Norfolk but was shelved before its Richmond run. When the story broke, largely thanks to a YouTube video, the outcry was immediate and understandable.
Less expected were the detailed posts from Schuller on Facebook and Instagram in response. While the dialogue around the information provided has run from appreciative to incredulous, the fact that it was all out there for anyone to see was bracing.
Amidst the ongoing financial crisis, there is a palpable tension in the arts community as Virginia Rep has been a hub of artistic activity in Richmond for decades, providing what were formerly stable jobs for theater professionals who otherwise have to work itinerantly.
As the company preps their big summer musical, “Waitress,” many are on tenterhooks. However the story plays out, it seems likely that it will continue to be, surprisingly, all in public view.—D.T.
Best theater value
“Pay What You Can” nights
Getting butts in seats for live theater performances in the post-pandemic world has been an ongoing battle with the “Netflix and chill” impulse to stay home on the couch. Several theater companies have responded by expanding the number of “Pay What You Can” nights.
Such invitations to entice audience members have commonly been offered in the past for preview performances or dress rehearsals. But Firehouse Theatre, 5th Wall, Yes, And! Theatrical Company and others have recently scheduled multiple “PWYC” opportunities throughout the course of a production’s run.
“When examining barriers to participation [in theater], obviously the price of a ticket is a very real barrier,” says Nathaniel Shaw, producing artistic director at Firehouse. “Bringing that particular barrier down from time to time is a simple way to make sure the work is shared by as much of the community as possible.”
As someone who has evangelized about the quality of local theater for a long time, I personally welcome this development as a juicy bit of bait to draw in potential patrons who might think the only real theater in Richmond arrives in town in a national tour’s semi-truck. Like the samples they give away at Costco, what better way to convince people that theater is worth paying for than giving them a taste for free?—D.T.
Best show of solidarity in the local music scene
Support for Justin Golden’s cancer fight
Richmond-based songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist Justin Golden had some serious momentum coming into this year. In 2024, he shared two full-length albums in a new series called “Golden Country,” both made in collaboration with Vocal Rest Records house band Devil’s Coattails and designed to resurface dusty country and blues compositions. But production of the third installment was paused when Golden learned that, at the age of 34, he had been diagnosed with stage 4 of a rare cancer that normally presents in lifelong smokers.
The response throughout Richmond’s music community was swift and generous. So many of his peers were intent on performing to raise funds for Golden’s treatment that no one concert could suffice, thus Goldenfest was born. Since February, benefit shows under the Goldenfest banner have taken place at venues like Gallery5, Final Gravity Brewing Company and The Camel. Several local organizations have backed affiliated raffles, including WNRN, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Maymont, and multiple, educational-minded musicians have donated lessons as prizes. Plan 9 Music is donating profits from the sale of Golden’s 2022 album, “Hard Times and a Woman,” to Golden’s GoFundMe.
The fundraiser’s initial $75,000 goal was met and then some. After learning that extensive chemotherapy and regular visits with specialists in New York City would be required, Golden raised the goal to $100,000. He says he’s been “taking things day by day with treatment and regular life” and that he’s “been playing some tunes here and there.”
Until he’s back to performing publicly, you can bet that Richmonders will keep playing tunes in his honor. —D.J.
Best ways to get your Tiny Desk concert fix
If you’ve gone through all the Tiny Desk concerts you can find online and want something with a little more local flavor, Richmond has plenty of high-quality digital music experiences you can watch (and possibly attend). Check out this list.
Shockoe Sessions Live is a weekly concert series celebrating Richmond’s diverse music scene that broadcasts live on YouTube every Tuesday night from In Your Ear Studios. Tickets are available to be a part of the live studio audience and host Reese Williams brings her high energy enthusiasm to interviewing the bands. With an episode every week since starting in 2020, there is a huge backlog of performances to go through.
VCU’s Institute for Contemporary Art partnered with Overcoast Music + Sound to produce Intersection: Music and Storytelling on Broad and Belvidere, a taped concert series bringing two different bands together to perform a new musical arrangement along with storytellers and poets telling tales inspired by the music. [At press time, they had not booked the next artist, but the date for the concert should be July 11].
The Sunroom Live Sessions features intimate, concert-style videos in studio and backyard locations that capture performance magic of local artists like Deau Eyes, Palmyra, Butcher Brown, and Charles Owens Trio.
Also check out The Mix at Martin, a music video series created by The Martin Agency that shines a spotlight on the Richmond music community and features an intimate concert in front of a live audience. Current performances include rapper Nickelus F and bolero group Miramar.
If you’re looking for more hip-hop, there’s also Off Campus Music, a collection of performances on college campuses including Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Union, and Virginia State, and Booth the Streets, which showcases hip-hop artists performing in locations across the city.
And with Hourglass Sessions, no two performances are the same. Each artist shapes the vision and narrative for how they want the video to be presented, resulting in creative cinematic live performances. Current videos include acts such as Nate Smith, Illiterate Light, Flight Club and Mackenzie Roark. —A.C.
Best Yearbook For Music Lovers
The Richmond Chronicle
The Richmond music scene has plenty of examples of “most likely to succeed,” “most athletic,” and “class clown.” And if you’re an artist or supporter of local music, this is one yearbook you want to be included in. Photographer Miranda Jean documents Richmond music with a yearbook-style zine called The Richmond Chronicle featuring a look back at the past year of people involved with the local music scene, with headshots as well as photos, show posters, artwork, writing and more.
“I started this project to showcase not only artists and creators but also community organizers and folks that make things happen—owners of venues, bartenders, people that go to shows or go out and appreciate artists,” Jean says. “I think everyone deserves a record and proof that they were here, and they contributed to something outside and bigger than themselves.”
Jean sets up a free headshot photoshoot for anyone interested and accepts submissions for artwork or writing from the local music community. The 2024 Richmond Chronicle is out this summer. Make sure to get yours signed. —A.C.
Best book about Richmond’s hills, streams and rivers
“Nonesuch Place” by T. Tyler Potterfield
If there’s a quick way to summarize T. Tyler Potterfield’s 2009 book, it might be this: Space shapes place.
In this slim volume, Potterfield, a historian and city planner, gives the sweep of four centuries of Richmond’s development, explaining how the city’s hills, valleys and waterways charted the course for urban expansion. The book not only explains what makes these features of the landscape so important, but how the landscape was understood and appropriated during differing attitudes toward urban development.
Readers will learn that the designed landscape of Virginia’s Capitol Square was the first of its kind in America, how the Romantic era led to the creation of Hollywood Cemetery at its prominent location above the James River, and how wilderness and rural areas were converted into suburbs like Windsor Farms as the city rapidly expanded in the 20th century.
Sadly, Potterfield died in 2014 at the age of 55. Two years later, the T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge was opened in his honor. Commonly referred to as “the T. Pott,” the bridge allows pedestrians to traverse the James between Brown’s Island and Manchester. —R.G.
Best place to see cool music films
CinemaNiche
Studio Two Three | 109 W. 15th St.
Maybe communal moviegoing isn’t dead? Lately, we’ve seen a trend of diverse film series flowering up throughout the city. The folks behind CinemaNiche, co-founded and co-curated by Jeff Roll (treasurer), PJ Sykes (ticket sales, media and marketing) and Shane Brown (tech, projection and audio), are doing their part.
Screening movies at Studio Two Three, the trio has drawn crowds for several interesting music documentaries, including the generative doc “Eno” (no two screenings are the same thanks to editing software), “Sisters with Transistors” about female pioneers in electronic music, and the band documentary, “Mogwai: If the Stars Had a Sound.” Possibly next? The new Butthole Surfers documentary, “The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt,” that debuted at South by Southwest. “As soon as they land a distributor, we’re going to try to bring it to RVA, assuming they aren’t selling to a streaming service,” Roll says.
He explains that CinemaNiche started out with music documentaries because they’re music lovers, and because many interesting docs are getting passed over, even by local film fests. But that’s not all they show. Their Halloween programming featured the 1967 cult classic “Spider Baby” with a live performance from dark garage band, Blood Ponies; and Roll says they’re open to more local filmmakers. So far, the project has been an inspirational success: Since Brown and Roll built the screening space, with an ongoing agreement through Studio Two Three, three other film collectives have used the space and equipment.
“The Richmond audience wants a better variety of cinema that the commercial cinemas aren’t willing to risk,” says Roll, who spent 15 years working with the James River Film Society. “[Cinemas] were in trouble before the pandemic with the rise of streaming. They aren’t interested in arthouse film series. They aren’t interested in ‘niche audiences,’ therefore we are CinemaNiche.”—B.B.
Tribute band that should play more often
Get Behind the Mule: Roger Carroll plays Tom Waits
There is no better person on the scene to cover the polished poetry and gravely delivery of Tom Waits than equally gruff Roger Carroll. The saxophonist/vocalist is a longtime local favorite with a weekly Sunday jazz brunch at the Savory Grain, and a number of standing monthly gigs; he is developing material for his Sonic Liberation Orchestra, focusing on post-bop jazz from the late-20th century. The rhythmic core of that group, bassist Adam Hopkins and drummer Scott Clark, are also in the Waits project, along with pianist Anthony Dowd, guitarist Gary Kalar, and percussionist Pippin Barnett.
Like Waits’ bands, Carroll’s is stuffed with adventurous players. They’ve booked their next performance for June 27 at Révéler Experiences in Carytown. There is a deep set of songs to choose from considering Waits’ first album was in 1973. “So far, we’ve covered a lot of his early era,” Carroll says. “This time it might be fun to get to some of his later, more avant-garde stuff.”
Renowned musicians, from Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle to Solomon Burke and many others, have covered Waits material in the past. But few have tried to cover it like this Richmond band, on its own gritty ground. —P.M.
Best Venue Where Anything Can Happen
Révéler Experiences
3108 W. Cary St.
There is no way to keep a secret as good as Révéler. The Carytown jewel box venue regularly sells out its hundred seats, whatever the genre of performance may be. In the past months there have been cumbia groups from South America, bands from Senegal and Congo; singer-songwriter Steve Bassett led an all-star residency leading up to Mardi Gras. There’s also a jazz jam session every Sunday, and a funk and blues one every Wednesday. Nationally famous artists stop by. So do any number of great local bands, like Plunky and the Oneness of Juju, Miramar and Villages.
The back of the space is an entirely different, equally multi-colored universe. A political candidate may be giving a speech from the stage while a D&D dungeon master holds sway. Before every set, host Tom Illmensee introduces the venue staff and gently but firmly lays out the idealistic ground rules—embracing courtesy, openness and inclusion—which serves as incantation, banishing the divisive politics of the outside world. Amid the fairy lights, gilded skeletons, and good people listening to a kaleidoscope of musical artistry, the bustling world outside the door seems, for a brief time, far away. —P.M.
Readers’ Choice
Visual Artist
1st
Hamilton Glass
2nd
Justice Dwight
3rd
Mickael Broth (Night Owl)
Theater Company
1st
Richmond Triangle Players
1300 Altamont Ave.
2nd
Firehouse Theatre
1609 W Broad St.
3rd
Richmond Shakespeare
Varies by show. See website
4th
5th Wall Theatre
Varies by show. See website
Singer/Songwriter
1st
Deau Eyes (Ali Thibodeau)
2nd
Justin Golden
3rd
Erin Lunsford
Reggae Artist Or Group
1st
Mighty Joshua
2nd
Unity Sound Reggae Band
Radio Show
1st
“Global A Go-Go” on WRIR-LP 97.3 FM
2nd
“Open Source” on WRIR
3rd
“The Loblolly Pine Show” on WDCE 90.1 FM
4th
“What the Fontaine?” on WRIR
Rock Band
1st
Los Hermanos Alacranes
2nd
Rikki Rakki
3rd
Dead Billionaires
4th
Doll Baby
R&B/Soul Artist or Group
1st
Desiree Roots
2nd
Ms. Jaylin Brown
3rd
Rodney Stith
4th
Kaay Taurus
Punk or Experimental Group
1st
GirlSpit
2nd
Black Button
3rd
Hard Copy
4th
Outer World
Public Art
1st
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)
200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd.
2nd
Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU
601 W Broad St.
3rd
Circle Center mural “Age and Grace”
4900 W Marshall St
Poet
1st
Roscoe Burnems
2nd
Hope Whitby
3rd
Nicole McKinney (Nicolewrites_wbm)
4th
Ron Smith
Podcast
1st
“RVA’s Got Issues” (VPM)
2nd
“Eat It Virginia!” (WTVR)
3rd
“Drinks in the Library”
Outdoor Festival
1st
Richmond Folk Festival
2nd
Henrico County’s Juneteenth Celebration
3rd
Dominion Energy Riverrock
Music Venue
1st
The National
708 E Broad St.
2nd
Révéler Experiences
3108 W Cary St.
3rd
The Camel
1621 W Broad St.
4th
The Broadberry
2729 W Broad St.
Museum
1st
VMFA
200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd.
2nd
Virginia Museum of History & Culture
428 N Arthur Ashe Blvd.
3rd
The Poe Museum
1914 E Main St
4th
The Valentine
1015 E Clay St.
Mural
1st
Mending Walls RVA (nonprofit)
2nd
Richmond SPCA murals by Nils Westergard
3rd
“Opossum” by Nils Westergard
Movie Theater
1st
The Byrd Theatre
2908 W Cary St.
2nd
BTM Movieland at Boulevard Square
1301 N Arthur Ashe Blvd.
3rd
Ashland Theatre
205 England St., Ashland
Metal or Thrash Band
1st
Gwar
2nd
Battlemaster
Jazz Artist or Group
1st
Desiree Roots
2nd
James “Plunky” Branch & Oneness
3rd
Charles Owens
4th
Roger Carroll
Jam Band
1st
Suggesting Rhythm
2nd
Craigslist Jerry
3rd
Dan & the Fam
Independent Art Gallery
1st
Gallery5
200 W Marshall St.
2nd
Crossroads Art Center
2016 Staples Mill Rd.
3rd
Art 180
114 W Marshall St.
— TIED —
3rd
1708 Gallery
319 W Broad St.
Hip-Hop Artist or Group
1st
Ant The Symbol
2nd
Mocha Bear
3rd
Radio B
— TIED —
3rd
Nickelus F
Global Music
1st
Afro-Zen Allstars
2nd
Miramar
3rd
Kadencia Orchestra
Filmmaker
1st
Justin Black
2nd
Melissa Lesh
3rd
Jim Stramel
Film Festival
1st
Richmond International Film Festival
2nd
Afrikana Film Festival
3rd
James River Film Festival
Dance Company
1st
Richmond Ballet
2nd
Dogwood Dance Project
3rd
Conflux Dance Theater
Comedy Club
1st
Richmond Funny Bone Comedy Club & Restaurant
11800 W Broad St #1090
2nd
Bridge 9 Theater
3rd
CSz Richmond Theater (Comedy Sportz)
8906-H W Broad St.
Concert Series
1st
Friday Cheers
Brown’s Island
2nd
Shockoe Sessions Live!
1813 E Broad St.
3rd
Atlantic Union Bank After Hours
39 Meadow Farm Rd., Doswell
Author
1st
Harry Kollatz, Jr
2nd
Sadeqa Johnson
3rd
Rachel Beanland
Actor
1st
Susan Sanford
2nd
Lucretia M. Anderson
3rd
Adam Turck
View the winners in each of the following categories:
