PERFORMING ARTS




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Peter Cochrane | Where the Image Hesitates and the Self Disappears

"You have to be delusional to be an artist." That’s how Peter Cochrane closes our conversation. We’re sitting across from each other in a quiet Richmond studio, the air thick with pollen and thought. The line lands not as a punchline but as a thesis offered without...

The Pressure to Mean Something: Inside the VCUarts’ MFA Exhibition

If you walk into the 2025 VCUarts MFA Thesis Exhibition expecting a finale or a big conclusion, prepare to encounter something else—something quieter and less resolved. A residue. A gesture mid-motion. An echo. When I walked into the opening reception on April 11, I...

The Big Dipper Summit | Where Business and Culture Actually Collide

The Big Dipper Innovation Summit kicked off today, and if you’re not here yet, well, you’re already behind. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill business event—it’s where culture and business smash together in ways that actually mean something. Skeptical? We get it. But...

West Side Story is a Triple Threat

Virginia Rep brought to life the memorable work of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, and Jerome Robbins in the classic production of West Side Story. Direction by Nathaniel Shaw perfectly intertwined the many moving parts and production elements vital to a production like this. Shaw captured the energy, drive, and conflict....

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Review: Quill’s Romeo and Juliet

Part of the beauty of William Shakespeare’s work is how timeless it is. The seemingly unrealistic, dramatic, even chimerical stories with his colorful characters have been told for centuries, and yet offer lessons and hypothetical situations that could easily occur within our world. One of Shakespeare’s most beloved, and arguably overdone...

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‘Preludes’ Musical Premieres at Firehouse Theatre Wednesday

Firehouse Theatre's latest production of “Preludes” is a trippy musical fantasia that takes viewers on a journey through 19th Century Russian history to dive deep into the music and mind of suffering Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the three-year writer's block, hypnotherapy, and psychological collapse that befalls him after his...

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