Richmond metal band GWAR says the Secret Service contacted the group following a recent performance at the Vans Warped Tour in Washington, D.C., that featured the mock execution of a Donald Trump effigy. Video of the performance, which showed band members...
This Friday, March 27, a different sort of experimental prompt video event will showcase a collection of work made for Homegrown Stories. In the early days of RVA Magazine, that space existed through Project Resolution, a monthly prompt-based series that gave new filmmakers a place to show work and get real critique. Around 2005, it was one of...
There’s a moment during a Babe Improv set where you realize two things at once. First, they have no idea what they’re about to do next. Second, it’s all going to work out somehow. That tightrope is what makes it work, and when you have two people this in sync, it turns into something genuinely laugh-out-loud entertaining. Richmond duo Babe...
Walking into this exhibit, it’s hard not to think about the moment it’s opening into. Immigration isn’t some abstract issue right now. It’s at the center of national conversation again, shaping policy, headlines, and how people talk about who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s one of those topics that gets reduced quickly, turned into something...
Every year around this time, Richmond slips a little. It starts small and you catch it out of the corner of your eye. Someone in armor pumping gas. A Jedi standing at the crosswalk on Broad, waiting for the light like everyone else. A guy in full wizard robes standing in line at 7-Eleven like this is all perfectly normal behavior. What used to...
The ceilings were all collapsing. The moldering roof was seeping through to the drywall and paint inside. What was once a small emerald speck of mold above the shower had turned into a fuzzy kaleidoscope of blacks and pinks and grays and greens that coated the entire top of the room and filled it with a smell so pungent that I couldn’t spend more...
I am prone to hyperbole. While my enthusiasm for local theatre runs hot, believe me when I tell you Primary Trust is the best production I have ever seen in Richmond. I mean that. It’s perfect. On every level. In every performance. Pacing, set design, lighting, sound design, hell - even the costuming was impeccable. Every single aspect of this...
A mural in Richmond’s Northside has sparked a complex debate about public art, race, and neighborhood change, with artists, community leaders, and residents weighing in on how public art intersects with neighborhood history. The mural, painted by artist Lauren YS, depicts a woman holding a slice of watermelon with seeds spelling out “Free...
Recently I sat down with Richmond-based artist Cameron Wilson Ritcher at his studio across from the public library on Hull Street in historic Manchester. We talked about his life as an artist and the assemblaged, surreal, almost divine inspirations that shape his work. His practice feels like a product of risking absurdity now and then,...
When I called Nicolás Aguilar earlier this week, he was standing on a Richmond street corner waiting to meet a few of the men who appear in his new exhibition at Art Brigade inside Health Brigade. They were planning to attend the opening together later that evening, a small but meaningful reversal. He had spent years sitting with them in their...
