Month: October 2017

Categories
News

In brief: More white nationalists, more arrests and a drought warning

About 40-50 white nationalists attended the October 7 tiki torch flash mob, most wearing khakis and white colored shirts. Photo by Jalane Schmidt

 

They said they’d be back

UVA alumni/white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was maced by police the last time he was here August 12, showed up at Emancipation Park under cover of dark October 7 for a tiki-torch flash mob that police say started around 7:40pm, lasted approximately five to 10 minutes and consisted of about 40 to 50
people—most wearing what’s become the uniform of neo-Nazis, khakis and white collared shirts.

Witnesses identified his alt-right buddies Mike Enoch and Eli Mosley among the mix, but homegrown whites-righter and Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler, whose August event drew white supremacists from 35 states, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was nowhere to be found.

Counterprotest photo by Eze Amos

Activist Jalane Schmidt, who saw the flames as she was walking home from work, says the “goons” put out their torches and hopped into vans. Police say they followed them to make sure they left the city.

Then came the response. Dozens of UVA students, faculty and community members marched from Emancipation Park to Carr’s Hill, President Teresa Sullivan’s residence, to protest the return of the extreme right-wingers and ask the university’s leader to revoke Spencer’s diploma. Police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, and attendees dispersed without incident.

Quote of the Week:

“This is not business as usual or a classroom exercise where every threatening public utterance or assembly is met with ‘freedom of speech.’” —City Councilor Bob Fenwick, who calls the October 7 reappearance of white supremacists “a clear and present danger to the community.”

 

Buford lockdown

Days after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, terrified Buford Middle School seventh- and eighth-graders hid behind and under desks October 5 for part of the nearly hour-long incident, according to school officials. Police requested the lockdown because a person believed to be carrying a knife and involved in a rape was seen in the vicinity. Johnson Elementary also was on lockdown.

UVA protest. Photo: Rachel Coldren

Bicentennial arrests

UVA police arrested three student protesters for trespassing at the university’s bicentennial celebration October 6. As alumna Katie Couric was introducing the next act, they took the stage and unveiled a banner that read “200 years of white supremacy.” Hannah Russell-Hunter, Joshua Williams and Lossa Zenebe face Class 1 misdemeanors.

Spokeswoman departing

Miriam Dickler, city director of communications, will leave her nearly $91K a year job early in 2018 after five years. During the preparations for Unite the Right in August, Mayor Mike Signer accused her of bordering on “insubordination” for balking at working with a PR firm he wanted to hire. Dickler says she wants to “take some time and consider other opportunities and avenues.”

Arrests, white supremacy cont’d

Photo: © Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

An iconic photo from the deadly August 12 rally shows Deandre Harris on the ground in the Market Street Parking Garage, surrounded by a group of white men kicking and beating him. Now, someone has alleged that Harris started the fight, and city police have issued a warrant for his arrest for unlawful wounding.

Robo World

Paul Perrone and Governor McAuliffe. Staff photo

Perrone Robotics will invest $3.8 million in driverless car research in Crozet, which will create 127 jobs. An elected official-studded announcement October 6 drew Governor Terry McAuliffe, Congressman Tom Garrett and Delegate Steve Landes, as well as a quorum of Albemarle supervisors.

 

Shallow waters

The last time Charlottesville saw a major drought was in 2002, when water was so scarce that restaurants started using paper plates and plastic utensils instead of washing dishes. We’re not there yet, but the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority bumped its drought watch to a drought warning October 5, when water storage at the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir hit 42 percent capacity—which was 100 percent August 3. That’s 370 million gallons, down from 880 million two months ago, and now the city has spoken: Conservation is no longer voluntary.

Here’s how you can help:

  • Don’t serve water at your restaurant unless asked
  • Don’t water your plants or grass
  • Don’t wash your car
  • Don’t fill your swimming pool
  • Don’t run your fountain
  • Don’t wash your street, driveway or parking lot
Click to enlarge.
Categories
Arts

Emerging voices fill a DIY bill at the Jefferson

Alt-rock musician Julien Baker recorded her critically acclaimed debut, Sprained Ankle, at Richmond’s Spacebomb Studio. Her follow up, Turn Out The Lights, is due from Matador on October 27. Publicity photo

There’s no disputing that digital music and online platforms have radically changed how we listen to and discover music. The DIY scene has aced this technological inroad, benefiting from the access and control it gives to up-and-coming artists. Today’s unsigned musicians release their own music, book their own shows, eschew mainstream media and feel a tighter connection with fans. What follows is a look at two of those musicians, both of whom are appearing at the Jefferson this week.

Julien Baker

There are generally two defining moments in a young music-lover’s life: when a family member, teacher or friend introduces her to an album, and when she discovers an artist on her own for the very first time. When we look outside of the mainstream, that feeling of discovery can be all the more formative because musical genres spawn scenes, which spawn communities.

Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, 22-year-old singer-songwriter Julien Baker found her musical lineage outside of the legacies and institutions of Stax, Sun Records and Beale Street. “In seventh grade, I started going to shows at the skate park, and the skate park was like the Mecca of alternative slash hardcore slash metalcore music,” she says. “Before then, the only alternative music that I had been made aware of was through VH1 and MTV.”

In the early 2000s, the skate park was booked by Smith7 Records, a collective promoting all-ages music. “I found out that they had shows at their house and that people who were not famous played those shows and it blew my mind,” Baker explains. “The shows that I had seen before then either were huge rock acts like Foo Fighters or something…[with] this separation between performer and audience that was kind of an unobtainable mystique.”

Julien Baker with Half Waif, Petal
The Jefferson Theater
October 15

Baker found her footing in the DIY community, playing house shows with her band Forrister. “I think what I crave and adore so much about performing live is the leveling that it does with everybody in the room,” she says.

Baker was still performing with Forrister when she joined the audio production program at Middle Tennessee State University and met Michael Hegner, who had an internship at Matthew E. White’s Spacebomb Studio in nearby Richmond, Virginia. Hegner invited her in to record some demos, and the result was her nine-song debut, Sprained Ankle, which was rereleased by 6131 Records after she shared it on her Bandcamp page. Sprained Ankle became one of the most lauded alternative records of 2015, and since then, Baker has gained a reputation as one of the most honest, heartfelt songwriters around.

“So many things that have happened positively in my musical career have been a result of people in my immediate community, you know, sphere, intervening and offering their resources, which I’m really aware of,” Baker says. “I never, ever want to perpetuate that mythos of the overnight success. There’s so many people who helped me get to where I am.”

Baker’s sophomore album, Turn Out The Lights, comes out at the end of the month and will be her first release on Matador Records. The collection of stunning songs woven with piano and strings marks a sonic growth from the sparse guitar recordings.

“I think the years of growing up and touring in a DIY band really humanized the idea of an audience to me because when there’s 20 people at a show, the person that’s buying your T-shirt is literally putting gas in your car,” Baker says. “… music and the experience of sharing music is the most important thing in the world to me.” —Desiré Moses

Half Waif

Nandi Rose Plunkett always seems to be seeking home in Half Waif, her synth-pop project. Her feelings about home, while on and off the road, are reoccurring themes that run through the lyrics and electronic melodies crafted on her recent album, form/a.

For Plunkett, being a musician and the daughter of a refugee—her mother’s family left Lahore after it became part of Pakistan and relocated to Uganda before dispersing to the U.S. and the U.K.—has led to reflection on a nomadic lifestyle.

“I think home has been such an important thing that I wanted to find and create in my life, so it’s interesting that I chose a career in which I am constantly on the road and away from home,” says Plunkett. “That probably intensifies my desire to make a home even more.”

Touring synth-pop musician Half Waif (Nandi Rose Plunkett) views the feminist battle from the stage. In a June interview with Esquire, she said: “I feel caught, against my will, in some idiotic pantomime of no progress. No, I am not someone’s girlfriend trying to sneak back into the green room before a show. Yes, I understand how my own gear works and have, in fact, built up the muscles to carry it. Don’t turn down my vocals in the mix. Don’t ignore me when you high-five my bandmates one by one. And don’t call me ‘The Girl.’” Publicity photo

For the past five months, Plunkett has been living in Chatham, New York, with her two bandmates while working on a new album that’s tentatively titled Lavender. She explains that being connected to nature is essential to her ability to thrive creatively.

“I feel like, for me, in order to create from a place of being deeply in touch with myself it helps to have quiet surroundings and an ecosystem that exists outside of myself,” says Plunkett.

Recently, after crossing the pond to England for her grandmother’s funeral, Plunkett was able to revisit the home that her grandmother lived in for the past 57 years.

She “had lavender in her garden and she would boil it on the stove to create a nice smell in the house,” recalls Plunkett. “It feels really good to be working on this now. Lavender has taken on an even greater meaning for me. It’s kind of a talisman and a connection to her.”

In addition to the coming album, Half Waif recently announced a vinyl reissue of Probable Depth, which debuted in May of last year and features the single “Turn Around.” Plunkett also released the nine-minute track “Dream Cycle” in tandem with the announcement. She describes the sprawling track, recorded back in 2014, as being a bundle of verses and choruses that have been stitched together.

“It kind of mimics the nature of dreams. You’re in one scenario and then suddenly you’re in another and you’re like ‘How did I get here?’ but somehow it still all makes sense within the scope of your dream.” —Anita Overcash

Categories
Arts

Live Arts weighs love and dysfunction in season opener

A Delicate Balance starring Jaime Virostko, Chris Baumer and Boomie Pedersen runs through November 11 at Live Arts. Photo by Martyn Kyle

This week Live Arts opens its season by inviting the public into an intimate theater in the round to observe the interior lives of family and friends in Edward Albee’s 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, A Delicate Balance. Director Fran Smith says it is an eloquent work that “centers around family dysfunction.”

The setting is Westchester County, 1966, inside the home of an upper-middle-class couple, Agnes (played by Boomie Pedersen) and Tobias (Chris Baumer). Also living in the house is Agnes’ alcoholic sister Claire (Jamie Virostko). As the play begins, their adult daughter Julia (Kiri Gardner) returns home when her fourth marriage ends, and their best friends, Harry (Tim Read) and Edna (Jane McDonald)—frightened by some unknown terror—ask to stay in the house.

A Delicate Balance
Live Arts
Through November 11

Tension builds even while humor ripples throughout as Harry and Edna take over Julia’s childhood bedroom, Claire addresses her alcoholism as she continues to drink, Agnes toys with the idea of the fragility of sanity (and, by extension, the functionality of her family) and Tobias finds himself lonely among the women.

“The thing that’s fun about the play,” Smith says, “is what if your neighbor came in and said, ‘Can I go to bed?’ It’s that kind of humor.” And, she says, “The juxtaposition of characters in this play is such that there’s wonderful theatrical tension with beautiful words.”

And while the play provides a snapshot of our culture 50 years ago, the family and social issues it addresses are still relevant today. “Times change, but people don’t,” Smith says. “Albee only changed two things in the rewrite before he died. Having just seen a reiteration of it he said, ‘It’s still timely’—and it is.”

It addresses addiction, the emotional labor of maintaining a household, the pressures of adulthood and the fear of aging. The bar from which the characters imbibe plays a big role, Smith says. “I think Claire drinks 15 drinks in 45 minutes,” she adds. And yet, she says, “As much as families have dysfunction, it does not deny that they love each other.”

The play also looks at fear through the mysterious terror that drives Harry and Edna to Agnes and Tobias’ house. Smith says, “Agnes defines it as a disease, a plague, so to speak… I think it’s a state of mind where you get to this point in your life where you have this house, you go to the club, and all of a sudden there’s nothing.” Smith theorizes that Harry and Edna’s terror may stem from a lack of self-awareness. “They don’t know who they are,” she says. “They don’t know what they are to each other.”

Smith, who moved to Charlottesville in 1987 and co-founded Live Arts in 1990, says she understands the play better now than she did 30 years ago. While she has also acted throughout her career she was drawn to directing because, as the six-foot-tall, oldest of five children, she’s “always been in a leadership position just naturally.” But it appeals to the former student of sculpting for another reason. “There’s a blocking component that is really kind of exciting for me, to be able to create beautiful pictures with human beings,” she says.

This production offered a particular challenge since it is done in the round, requiring “every movement to be accessible on all four sides.” She says her assistant director, Tim White, provides a balance (fitting for the play’s title) to her direction. “He’s the one who pays attention to what lines they’re saying where I’m more of a visual person,” she says. “So we’re a great team. I’m really grateful for all the talent I’m working with.”

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: The Crucible

Four County Players puts on Arthur Miller's award-winning play, The Crucible. Linda Hogan Photography

No one escapes suspicion in The Crucible when paranoia fuels charges of witchcraft, and Massachusetts Bay Colony citizens are pressured into false confessions. Arthur Miller’s award-winning play merges societal paranoia and the history of the Salem witch trials that began in 1692 and resulted in the execution of 20 people.

Through October 29. $15, times vary. Four County Players, 5256 Governor Barbour St., Barboursville. (540) 832-5355.

Categories
News

Land banking: Mystery of Waterhouse revealed

Architect Bill Atwood says he lost “a ton” of money on Waterhouse, which has two vacant top floors. Photo by Stephen Barling

The reason prime real estate continues to sit empty on the top two floors of architect Bill Atwood’s eight-story mixed-use Water Street building is a topic of frequent speculation for downtown real estate watchers.

Were the top floor units too expensive? Is the building structurally sound? Is it the $272,000 mechanic’s lien?

No, yes and no, he tells C-VILLE Weekly. Atwood says he’s kept a low profile lately, but the garrulous architect spills the beans on the project, while wondering why there’s so much interest.

“The recession killed me,” he declares. And with nine units left, he says, “To recapture maximum value, you land bank ’em.”

More than two years ago, the condos on the top three floors with expansive views went on the market as the priciest offerings downtown at the time, with a 3,600-square-foot unit listed for $1.6 million. And then —nothing, at least to those peering up from down below.

“They were the most expensive per-square-foot units because of the debt,” Atwood says. “It wasn’t what we wanted.”

Atwood’s long and winding road in developing the former Downtown Tire site began with his purchase of it from Oliver Kuttner in 2006 for $4.5 million, and plans that included a mostly residential Waterhouse “village.” When the Board of Architectural Review nixed those plans, next up was a nine-story building with condos and underground parking.

Bad timing. The market collapsed and, along with it, his bank, Lehman Brothers.

The plans shifted in 2010 when educational travel agency WorldStrides expressed interest in moving from Pantops to downtown. “We designed it for WorldStrides because we had no bank,” says Atwood. “They became our equity.”

The city offered tax increment financing, a performance agreement similar to what it’s offered John Dewberry to finish the Landmark. For Waterhouse, after an investment of $20 million and 200 jobs, the project got a rebate on real estate taxes that Atwood says went to pay for 100 parking spaces in the Water Street Garage.

In 2011, WorldStrides moved in and now occupies around 65,000 square feet with 450 employees, says Atwood. That’s when Atwood added the eighth floor, something he’s vowed he’ll never do again.

When asked if structural problems contributed to the continued vacancies of the unfinished units, Atwood bristles. “It’s steel and concrete and it’s the best building in town. There’s nothing wrong with it. I kind of resent that question.”

Nor is the mechanic’s lien filed by Abrahamse & Company against Waterhouse LLC and HHII LLC a factor, he says. HHII principal Loren Driscoll paid more than $1 million for two units on the sixth floor in 2014.

Atwood maintains that Abrahamse did work for Driscoll and that he’s only an intermediary in that. “We did her units,” says Atwood. “She was upset about it.” He says there’s a mechanics lien on both Waterhouse and HHII, and that there’s money to pay the $272K balance in an escrow account. “She needs to release it,” he says.

Driscoll’s attorney, David Thomas, disagrees. “The suit is principally between Abrahamse and Waterhouse,” and he says there was no contract between his client and Abrahamse.

The vacant top floors continue to draw a lot of interest, says Atwood, both as business and residential units, and he sounds unsure which direction he’ll ultimately go.

He insists he envisioned Waterhouse as workforce housing. “I made a lot of mistakes,” he says. “It’s really been a struggle. I may have gone too far with the office complex.”

As for the delay in filling the building, says Atwood, “We paused. It was smart to pause.”

He also notes that he built Waterhouse around the Downtown Tire building, while across Water Street, “low historic buildings” like the Clock Shop and Escafé are slated for demolition, as well as the not-so-historic ice park. “We kept the building,” he says.

“In the end, we lost control of the cost of the building,” says Atwood. “Waterhouse is a rescue mission. We’ve got to get it out of the weeds.”

In other Water Street development news, the new home of City Market, Keith Woodard’s West2nd L-shaped complex that will house retail, office, deluxe condos and parking, was supposed to break ground this summer. “We’re looking for a way to move forward,” says Woodard, who says he’s seeking a construction company.

“The plans are pretty much good to go,” he says.

Categories
Arts

Movie review: Victoria & Abdul chooses gags over substance

Judi Dench and Ali Fazal make an unlikely pair in Victoria & Abdul, a true story that suffers as a comedy. Courtesy Focus Features

The story of Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim—“the Munshi”—is one worth telling. Karim, a humble clerk in Agra, was invited to participate in a ceremony for the queen, which resulted in the initiation of a peculiar friendship that defied convention and stirred controversy among the Royal Court. All of the ingredients are there: class antagonism, racial divide, the relationship between rulers and their subjects, colonialism, you name it.

Why, then, did director Stephen Frears, a real talent and a solid intellect, make Victoria & Abdul a comedy? The massive failures in doing so are two-fold: First, there are no jokes, only reaction shots of snooty, scandalized aristocrats. If you’ve seen How High or Dunston Checks In, you already know these gags. The second is that all of the juicy storytelling bits that might have made this interesting are whittled away in favor of two-dimensional characters and unevenness in tone when Frears decides to get serious. Ultimately, it’s a pointless exercise in keeping talented performers employed between better projects.

Victoria & Abdul
PG-13, 112 minutes
Violet Crown Cinema

We meet Abdul (Ali Fazal) in Agra in 1887, where he works as a clerk in the local prison. There, he is invited to present a ceremonial coin to the queen (Judi Dench) as part of the Golden Jubilee festivities. He was chosen because he helped select carpets that were sent to the palace, and because he is tall and rather handsome. The other man sent with him, Mohammed (Adeel Akhtar), is shorter and stout, another thing that is meant to be funny. Upon arriving in England, they run through the ceremony: how to walk, how to bow, and under no circumstances are they to make direct eye contact. This being precisely the sort of movie that thinks doing something you’re told not to is unspeakably hilarious, Abdul and the queen lock eyes and the snobs are outraged. Victoria, on the other hand, is immediately fascinated by this striking presence, so she requests that he be her attendant for the duration of the jubilee.

Fazal and Dench have real chemistry, and it is easy to believe that their interest in one another is genuine, not simply one demanded by the script. Fazal is charming, optimistic, always light on his feet, and ought to appear in Western films more often. Dench delivers an airtight performance as usual, capturing the dignity of royalty against the indignity of being a monarch with no privacy and a continually shrinking role in government. The supporting cast is terrific as well, with Akhtar’s simmering anger toward the British Empire chief far underutilized. Eddie Izzard as Bertie—later known as King Edward, Victoria’s heir—cannot stand the insult of a commoner having a closer relationship with his mother than her own son. He is enjoyable, as always, in the role, but like anything else of quality in this film, the solid performance is reduced to one note.

The irony of Abdul leaving the employment of a prison to serve another who feels caged by her privilege is totally unexplored. Though Fazal is a joy to watch, his character has little depth beyond his optimism, and he’s strangely absent for what feels like half the film. Perhaps if we saw this from his perspective as often as hers, Victoria & Abdul might be something interesting. Instead, we are left with the same boring redundancy masquerading as sophistication that made the queen herself feel trapped.

Playing this week

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

American Made, Battle of the Sexes, Blade Runner 2049, Ghostbusters, IT, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Lego Ninjago Movie, My Little Pony: The Movie

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

American Assassin, American Made, A Question of Faith, Blade Runner 2049, Flatliners, Friend Request, Home Again, IT, Kingsman: The Golden Circle,The Lego Ninjago Movie, The Mountain Between Us, My Little Pony: The Movie, Spider-man: Homecoming, Stronger

Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

American Made, Battle of the Sexes, Blade Runner: 2049, The Fencer, IT, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, The Lego Ninjago Movie, The Mountain Between Us

Categories
Arts

Sharon Harrigan puts her heart on the page

Sharon Harrigan reads from her memoir, Playing with Dynamite, at New Dominion Bookshop on October 12. She will discuss the genre with Jennifer Niesslein at WriterHouse on November 2. Publicity photo

For most of her life, Sharon Harrigan has been haunted by questions surrounding her father’s death: He died in Michigan when she was 7, and the exact cause was shrouded in a fog. Her debut memoir, Playing with Dynamite, is about finding the courage to ask questions, to question her own memory and ultimately to question the stories we tell ourselves. But as she writes in the book, “It’s harder to untell than tell a story.” But this is what her memoir does. It pulls at the threads to unstitch a story she has told herself all of her life, and then stitches together a retelling.

She began by talking to her family about her father. “The first thing I found out is that my brother and I remembered things very differently,” says Harrigan. “That was kind of the impetus for the book.” She wondered, “how does the way that we block memories, even as small children, not knowing what we’re doing—maybe as a coping mechanism—how does that change our ideas and memories?”

Given this premise, Harrigan structures the memoir as a journey of discovery as she sifts through her family’s collective memory. The reader perches like a fly on the wall as she moves from Michigan to New York to Paris to Charlottesville. She realized, she says, “I had to make my search, my quest, visible.”

This requires a certain amount of vulnerability that, perhaps, fiction does not. “I think there’s a reason that a lot of people who eventually come out with a memoir start by telling the story in a different genre,” says Harrigan. “It is very hard to be that naked on the page.” She, in fact, did first attempt to write her family’s story as a novel. But, she says, “I was still obsessed with my father’s story and I realized that to go deep enough I actually had to tell the truth.”

Piece by piece, memory by memory, she reconstructs her father on the page. The resultant man is someone who adapts to life with only one hand after a dynamite accident, who feels compelled to perpetually prove himself and remains a risk-taker, a characteristic that pushes him to drive in dense fog where his life is cut short. Yet he is not the only one in the story who takes risks. Harrigan explains that the jacket design of her book—the cursive text of the title igniting an explosion—is “supposed to show that it’s the words themselves that are the fuse. That the person playing with dynamite is not only my father but me, the writer. Writing our stories is inherently taking a big risk.”

In writing memoir, Harrigan sees the risk from potential judgment by others or causing harm to people she loves. The self-examination and introspection required also left her open to self-judgment. There is a moment in the book when she realizes that one of the stories she told herself was that her brother was the kind of kid who got bullied, rather than considering the possibility that her father could be a bully and she, herself, a victim, too. She recognizes how victimhood in our culture can be this monolithic thing that doesn’t allow for complexity, for strength. She writes, “We tell ourselves stories, sometimes, at the expense of others.”

And as much as the book is about her father, in her journey she learns more about her mother, too. “I realized at a certain point that I went looking for my father and found my mother,” she says. “I started with a lot of questions and some of them I don’t have definitive answers for, but some of them I feel like I do.” More importantly, she is no longer afraid to ask.

Categories
Living

Tavola’s Michael Keaveny guides young talent in honing their skills

Pappardelle bolognese, grilled swordfish and chitarra-cut spaghetti with jumbo lump crab at Tavola. Photos by Tom McGovern

“Cooking is a young person’s game.” I’ve heard it more than once. As chefs grow older, the daily grind leaves many looking to continue their careers outside a restaurant kitchen. Never easy, the transition can be especially tough for chef-owners, who must entrust someone else at the helm.

Consider Michael Keaveny of the Belmont Italian restaurant, Tavola. When Keaveny opened Tavola in 2009 with his wife, Tami (C-VILLE’s arts editor), the lifelong chef ran the kitchen. His food was outstanding. In 2011 though, the father of two was ready to step back. “Pushing 50, it would’ve been tough to continue in that role for much longer,” says Keaveny. But Tavola after 2011 has been every bit as good as Tavola before 2011. So, how has Keaveny pulled it off?

“I try to make it advantageous for young chefs to come in, learn and better themselves,” says Tavola owner Michael Keaveny. Photo by Eze Amos

Initially, preparation eased the transition. Keaveny had been grooming his sous chef, Loren Mendosa, for the role. With Mendosa’s talent and training, regulars barely noticed a difference.

But, when Mendosa left in 2014 to help launch Lampo, Keaveny found himself with a new challenge: hiring and retaining a talented head chef from outside Tavola who would be willing to cook someone else’s food. Tavola’s dishes are largely Keaveny’s recipes, and their consistent execution has been key to the restaurant’s success. “An established chef who wants to come in and do his own menu is never going to work out at Tavola,” admits Keaveny.

The ones Keaveny has hired sure have worked out. Most recently, Caleb Warr was named the area’s Best Chef by C-VILLE Weekly readers. When Warr left town this summer, Keaveny hired C&O chef de cuisine Dylan Allwood, who took over in July. And, as Mendosa and I learned during a recent dinner at Tavola, the kitchen hasn’t missed a beat under Allwood, continuing the restaurant’s success from one chef to the next.

Vital to this, says Mendosa, is excellent training. “Tavola has done a great job of bringing staff along at their own pace and training properly,” he says. “Not every kitchen has that in mind or the luxury of the time to train.” Allwood has noticed this already. In just three months, “Michael’s experience and knowledge have helped me improve as a chef,” he says. Keaveny does much of the training himself, still spending more than 15 hours a week in the kitchen. “I try to make it advantageous for young chefs to come in, learn and better themselves,” Keaveny says.

That shows in Tavola’s classics, which Allwood’s kitchen already has down. Case in point is the cozzi ai ferri e pane that began our meal. Mussels are skillet-roasted in butter and garlic, and then served in the skillet with slices of Albemarle Baking Company baguette to soak up the briny sauce. Like many of Tavola’s dishes, Mendosa says, the mussels dish resonates because it’s simply prepared but boasts a bold flavor profile.

Allwood’s go-to among the Tavola classics is linguine alla carbonara. “Comfort food,” he says of the pasta tossed with housemade sausage, Olli pancetta, egg, Pecorino Romano, onion and black pepper. For purists who quibble that sausage does not belong in true carbonara, I have advice: Taste it. This is the way Keaveny learned it at the legendary Connecticut restaurant Carbone’s, and there’s a reason chefs and regulars swoon over it. “I love the way the salty pork and sausage work with the egg sauce and a healthy dose of black pepper,” Allwood says.

Dylan Allwood joined Tavola as executive chef in July. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen

Mendosa meanwhile is partial to the bucatini all’amatriciana, which we polished off quickly. Like spaghetti but thicker and hollowed out, bucatini is tossed with marinara, Calabrian chili, onion, Olli pancetta and Grana Padano cheese. “Again, simple, so it has to hit on all the little details,” Mendosa says.

Another key to retaining good chefs is providing an outlet beyond rote replication of recipes: the blackboard menu of specials. “That’s the chef’s playground,” Keaveny says, dating back to Mendosa’s days. “The freedom to create within the realm of the specials gives plenty of creative outlet for most chefs,” Mendosa says. And, it also rewards Tavola’s guests. Among all of the dishes Mendosa and I shared, Allwood’s special entrata was our favorite: chitarra-cut spaghetti with jumbo lump crab, Calabrian chilies, basil and lobster brodo. The squared shape and texture of chitarra pasta enabled the luscious sauce to adhere to it, all the better to savor it. “Fantastic,” Mendosa said. “Rich and buttery, but still light enough to leave you feeling satisfied but not overwhelmed.”

Tavola is one of Charlottesville’s most beloved restaurants. The main reasons for that, Mendosa says, are the quality of ingredients and consistency in preparing them. For the latter, since stepping down as head chef six years ago, Keaveny has relied upon a series of excellent young chefs to fill that role. He’s found another one in Allwood.

“Dylan is doing an incredible job,” Keaveny says. “His food has fit in perfectly with what Tavola does/is.”

Categories
Arts

ARTS Pick: St. Nicholas

Michael McGee stars in Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas, a one-man show about a jaded theater critic who’s obsession with an actress leads him into the cold, soulless world of vampires who challenge his selfish ways. Publicity photo

Michael McGee stars in Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas, a one-man show about a jaded theater critic who’s obsession with an actress leads him into the cold, soulless world of vampires who challenge his selfish ways. The Los Angeles Times says McGee, who initally performed the play on the West Coast, uses “perfectly inflected cadences [to] sweep us up in McPherson’s signature combination of Irish gift for gab and intricate, tightly paced narrative form.” The role also earned McGee a nomination for an LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Solo Performance.

Friday, October 13. $10-15, 8pm. Gorilla Theater Productions, 1717 Allied Ln., Ste B. gorillatheaterproductions.com

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Arts

ARTS Pick: Beppe Gambetta

Beppe Gambetta plays Friday, October 13, as part of The Prism at C'ville Coffee. Publicity photo

Known for a smile as disarming as his talent, Italian flatpicker Beppe Gambetta plays acoustic arrangements in four languages—English, German, Italian and the provincial dialect of Genovese—on his 13th release, Short Stories. In his original compositions, the guitarist makes his affection for traditional folk music clear, and holds “America in his heart, and his roots in the sun and the olive trees of the Mediterranean sea.”

Friday, October 13. $16-18, 6:30pm. The Prism at C’ville Coffee, 1301 Harris St. prismcoffeehouse.org