ARTS

In addition to being recognized among towns that are most walkable, best places to retire, healthiest, and smartest, Charlottesville is known for its arts scene. And no wonder.

Arts-focused events crowd the calendar. The Charlottesville Mural Project. Virginia Festival of the Book. First Fridays. Stan Winston’s Festival of the Moving Creature. Tom Tom Founders Festival. The Virginia Film Festival. LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. Stop us already.

Last year, the Piedmont Council for the Arts, a local nonprofit that offers free promotional support to local artists and arts organizations, released the results of a study assessing the economic impact of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations and their audiences. More than 100 local artists and art-lovers were surveyed, and PCA came to an important and enlightening conclusion: Even in a recession, the arts are more than just a luxury. They’re a valuable commodity. Charlottesville’s economy gets $114.4 million from the arts each year—not too shabby for a little ole town in Central Virginia.

Jody Kielbasa
Topping the arts list once again, Jody Kielbasa has even more decorations on his lapel than he did this time last year. Already well-known for growing and developing the Virginia Film Festival during the five years he’s spent in the Charlottesville arts scene, drawing on his prior experience with the Sarasota Film Festival to give it more of a community focus, Kielbasa took on the role of vice-provost for the arts at UVA earlier this year.

It’s a five-year term, but don’t worry—while overseeing arts consultation, fundraising, and initiating new collaborations across disciplines at the University—he’ll still serve as director of the film festival. Now the man in charge of one of the town’s most successful art brands has access to all of the University’s major philanthropic players.

Jon Parrish Peede
Scandal and turmoil hit the Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR) in 2010 when managing editor Kevin Morrissey committed suicide, and the bigwigs have been doing everything in their power to get the magazine back in the spotlight for the right reasons.

Jon Parrish Peede was hired as the VQR’s first ever publisher in December 2011, to manage the magazine’s business matters, expand its reach, improve funding, and oversee personnel matters. Before coming to Charlottesville he served as director of liteature at the National Endowment for the Arts, overseeing a hefty chunk of change in fiction grants and developing projects like Operation Homecoming, the largest literary archive of U.S. troop writing from Iraq and Afghanistan. Since his arrival in Charlottesville, VQR has broadened its range of thematic subjects and landed famous writers like Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout. He also hired W. Ralph Eubanks—the magazine’s first African-American managing editor and former director of publishing at the Library of Congress—who came on board June 3, just in time to oversee the magazine’s fall 2013 issue.

Matt Joslyn
Ohio native Matt Joslyn took the reins at Live Arts as executive director four years ago after stints with the State Theater of Ithaca and the Mansfield Renaissance Theater. Since then, he has pushed a vision to keep his local theater relevant by strengthening its programming and community partnerships. Insiders say the Live Arts front office has never run better. With a board that reads like a who’s who in local arts philanthropy, an organization that manages just under $850,000 in annual revenues, and a theater community that furnishes around 750 volunteers each year, Joslyn means business.

Speaking of business, Live Arts hired Julie Hamberg as its newest artistic director. In addition to serving as the liaison with volunteers, staff, and the board, Hamberg’s charged with setting the tone for the theater’s creative vision, choosing The Vibrator Play as the first show she directed in Charlottesville. Just one more reason the 25-year-old nonprofit has been creating quite a bit of buzz lately.

Erica Arvold
When Erica Arvold arrived in Charlottesville after years in Los Angeles as a film producer, casting director, and industry educator, she was afraid she’d have to move on from her career in the movie biz. But instead, she started Erica Arvold Casting, a full service casting company based right here in Charlottesville that casts for everything from television and theater to commercial and voiceover.

Last year alone, Arvold was responsible for casting hundreds of extras and principals who appeared in Steven Spielberg’s historical drama Lincoln, which hit the big screen in October, 2012. On a roll with the presidential theme, Arvold cast the 2013 TV films “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.” She’s also produced her own independent film, House Hunting, which was shown at Kielbasa’s film festival last year.

Maureen Lovett
A member of the new generation of arts players in town, Maureen Lovett is the brain power behind more than one creative project. She’s the executive director of the New City Arts Initiative, a faith-based public charity that uses art to rejuvenate and renew the city, both in public and in people’s homes. In addition to nurturing conversations and a sense of community in the art world, the group also maintains and curates spaces in the area to house artists and their creations. Under Lovett’s leadership, the nonprofit has teamed up with local groups like Trinity Presbyterian Church to host talks and showcase art.

She’s also one of the creators of SOUP, a series of public dinners that double as a forum to fund the work of local artists. The meals include a bowl of soup, salad, bread, and pie for $10, with entertainment from a few local artists in need of funding. At the end of the night, guests vote on which project will receive the dinner’s proceeds.

Silver screens
As much as we all love to support our local filmmakers, it would appear that we also love the glitz and glam of new theaters, and the convenience of cheap ones.

Bantam Theater, a microcinema for both local and global independent films, opened earlier this year in the Michie Building—just a couple months after the grand opening of Charlottesville’s first IMAX theater, the Regal Stonefield 14 in The Shops at Stonefield, which offers 3D movies, more screens than you need, and midnight premieres. Shortly after the IMAX came to town, neighboring theater Carmike Cinemas became the the hot spot for a cheap night out, charging only $1.50 for second-run movies like Quartet, The Croods, and Olympus Has Fallen.

Meanwhile, the Regal Cinemas Downtown shifted its focus to artsier flicks and Vinegar Hill Theatre, the city’s original art house theater, went digital. Pass the popcorn.