It’s one thing to hear the general news about state budget cuts in the midst of the national economic crisis. And it’s another thing entirely to absorb the specifics of what and who are affected. To help with the latter, Will Goldsmith takes a detailed look at what will happen if the state closes the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents (CCCA) in Staunton, a mental health facility for severely disturbed teens. Read the article and make sure to give us your comments.
Author: doug-nordfors
This was no ordinary Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce Annual Business Meeting. The luncheon, held today at the Holiday Inn on 29N, acknowledged the unprecedented dark national economic cloud by inviting Congressman Tom Perriello to explain what the federal government has been trying to do for us lately, while declaring that the results of the annual member economic survey about the state of the Charlottesville economy warrant a “glass half-full” mentality.
In a sober tone reminiscent of President Obama’s inauguration address, Perriello said that the country should expect “a continued period of pain and struggle,” noting double-digit unemployment in some southern Virginia counties.
“We’re bleeding jobs right now,” he said. “Before we start to heal, we need to stop the bleeding.”
He then went on to tout the practical, if not certain, hope embodied in the recently passed stimulus package, emphasizing its tax cuts for the middle class, its $2,500 tuition tax credit, and its plans for rebuilding an infrastructure that, he said, is “three generations out of date,” and doesn’t help the nation compete globally.
Finally, he spoke of how he hasn’t found Washington, D.C., to be a land of disillusionment. About the country’s economic woes, he said, “There’s a deep, deep desire to do something about it.” He also noted that when he’s met with officials on a local level, party affiliation and partisanship has not been an issue.
Bob Hodous, the Chamber’s vice chairman for Economic Vitality, initiated the “glass half-full” image for the state of the local economy, which was later seconded by Chairman Bryan Thomas.
The Chamber conducted a survey of local businesses, which only 7 percent returned, and its results were projected onto large screen. It indicated, for example, that less than a third of surveyed companies plan to add jobs during 2009. However, it also indicated that merely 8 percent of companies expect to eliminate between one and five jobs over the course of the year.
“There are a lot of positive signs,” Hodous said.
The last part of the luncheon was dedicated to giving out the annual award for corporate citizenship. This year’s recipient is Martin Horn of Martin Horn, Inc. General Contractors, whose projects have included the Jefferson Library and the Charlottesville Pavilion.
When the news broke that the Gravity Lounge is in financial trouble and might be closing, local music fans and many others were no doubt racked with two huge questions: Can our city, as cool and hip as it is, sustain a music venue that caters to brilliant but low-profile performers?; Is it our fault for not being supportive enough, or Gravity Lounge’s fault for running a weak business? Well, Brendan Fitzgerald steps in to provide some answers. Check out the story and don’t forget to give us your comments.
If Valentine’s Day seems to you, as it does to a lot of people, like a forced holiday, C-VILLE is here to help you dig deeper and muse on the diamond in the rough: it’s not a bad thing at all to take one day to celebrate how love in all shapes and sizes is ever present in our lives. Sarah Cramer, who founded Cramer Photography in Charlottesville in 2005, lends her talent to this week’s cover story. Her photographs of ordinary people beaming with joy and human connection will help you think about love in March, April and beyond, as well as February 14. Check out the feature [link] and don’t forget to give us your impressions.
When an event comes around once in a lifetime, it takes a while for the buzz to wear off. And so we offer five ways to keep reliving the hoopla surrounding the inauguration of the first African-American president of the United States, headed by Brendan Fitzgerald’s account of what it was like to actually be there in Washington, D.C., last Tuesday. Then the attention is turned to four very different celebrations in our own town: events at Ash Lawn and JPJ, a party hosted by Quality Community Council, and something called a “Dreams of Obama” workshop. Read the articles here, and be sure to give us your comments.
Because all the cool people are image conscious, we give you this year’s Design Annual, featuring Katherine Ludwig’s look at the eclectic magic of local design firm Alloy Workshop. Also, eight local designers tell us (not Oprah) their favorite things, and C-VILLE staffers reveal what designs have caught their eyes—everything from t-shirts to a juice bar. Plus, just two words: signage and towers. Read the article here, and make sure to give us your comments.
Categories
UVA hires two offensive-minded coaches
After a 2008 season that gave new meaning to the word “uneven,” not to mention “maddening,” UVA football Head Coach Al Groh is adding some new blood to his staff.
A University press release the day before Christmas Eve officially announced that Gregg Brandon has replaced Groh’s son Mike as offensive coordinator, and that Latrell Scott will be the new wide receivers coach. The clear implication is that the team had a difficult time
|
What did Santa give the Cavalier football team for Christmas? Gregg Brandon, pictured, and Latrell Scott. |
competing at the highest level in the ACC when their offense sputtered as many times as it shone, choking at home against Miami, for instance, on the heels of pulling out a shocker at Georgia Tech.
Brandon is the former head coach of Bowling Green, a job he graduated to after coordinating a Falcons offense that averaged 500 yards and 40 points a game. While he had mixed success as a head coach, a poor offense was never the problem. On the wings of his signature spread offense, the Falcons averaged over 400 yards of offense per game four out of his six seasons at the helm.
Scott has strong Virginia ties. He was a wide receivers coach at Virginia Military Institute, and then the University of Richmond, before doing the same job for The University of Tennessee during the 2008 season.
If the message board of the UVA sports fan website, The Sabre, is any indication, reaction is clearly positive. One message gave a shout out to UVA Athletic Director Craig Littlepage for “showing signs” that he’s adaptable (no doubt referring to the tough decision to oust one Groh while sticking with his father), and another treated the new hires as great gifts: “Merry Christmas Hoos!!! Welcome Coach Scott and Brandon!”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
Categories
Live Arts' Demon Barber stays barbaric
Roughly 2 million years ago, the human brain underwent a tremendous growth spurt, and thus was born the potential for oddball ideas. Then, sometime in the late 1970s, Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim set to work turning Christopher Bond’s play about a morose, revengeful, murderous, cannibalistic barber into…a musical.
But damn if the creepy thing doesn’t work. Much of the credit goes to Sondheim’s music, which eschews every cliché while not quite sacrificing those by turns lovely and jaunty melodies that people demand of musicals. And then there’s the boatload of alluring, goth-flavored details that had Tim Burton of Beetlejuice and Batman fame salivating at the prospect of doing a film version of Sweeney.
Sorry, girls: In exchange for Johnny Depp, you get Doug Schneider. A veteran Charlottesville singer and actor, Schneider plays Sweeney Todd (a.k.a. Benjamin Barker), who in 1846 arrives back in London after being sentenced to exile in Australia by a corrupt judge, and confronts—to say the least—his past. The middle-aged Schneider, with his compact, sturdy frame and bald head, looks rather like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, sans nicks and cuts, yet with a steely visage that seems to express some sort of hidden physical affliction. Are we suggesting that Schneider also has Willis’ limited emotional range? Well, yes, but to be absolutely fair to Schneider, Sweeney Todd is no Hamlet. And Schneider’s talent kicks in when his singing is required. Plus, he has a knack for totally tuning in to his appointed choreography.
Schneider gets some solid help from the rest of the cast, including Lydia Underwood Horan, who works her tail off in her every scene as meat pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett, and Live Arts veteran Mark Valahovic, who is well cast as the corrupt judge’s cohort, Beadle Bamford.
Director John Gibson, along with costume designer Tricia Emlet and set designers Lian LaRussa (who by day is a C-VILLE graphic designer) and Michael Wenrich, also no doubt salivated at the prospect of working on Sweeney. Gibson’s recent productions of Macbeth and A Streetcar Named Desire, for instance, were laden with visual atmosphere, and Sweeney offers opportunities galore to do more of the same. Gibson’s lavish use of props and often multilayered staging (“Where should I focus my eyes?” you can almost hear the audience thinking) lend weight to the musical’s strangeness but don’t always clarify it or make it palatable. He comes dangerously close at times to assuming that everyone in the audience is a Sweeney connoisseur, or at least has studied a plot summary beforehand. As a result, the musical comes across as more complex and Brechtian than it has any right to be.
Moreover, one can’t help but get the impression that Gibson’s attention to the visual aspects came at the expense of other considerations—namely, the somewhat distracting fact that some of the all-American cast have English accents, and some don’t.
But really, there’s not a whole lot to complain about. Compared to the conservative approach to musicals at UVA’s Heritage Theatre Festival over the years, it’s a relief to have a director who’s in your face, taking chances, and gunning more than aiming to please.
Let’s call this one pretty close to a bull’s-eye.
Categories
Live Arts' Demon Barber stays barbaric
Roughly 2 million years ago, the human brain underwent a tremendous growth spurt, and thus was born the potential for oddball ideas. Then, sometime in the late 1970s, Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim set to work turning Christopher Bond’s play about a morose, revengeful, murderous, cannibalistic barber into…a musical.
But damn if the creepy thing doesn’t work. Much of the credit goes to Sondheim’s music, which eschews every cliché while not quite sacrificing those by turns lovely and jaunty melodies that people demand of musicals. And then there’s the boatload of alluring,
|
A sharp couple: Mrs. Lovett (Lydia Horan) |
goth-flavored details that had Tim Burton of Beetlejuice and Batman fame salivating at the prospect of doing a film version of Sweeney.
Sorry, girls: In exchange for Johnny Depp, you get Doug Schneider. A veteran Charlottesville singer and actor, Schneider plays Sweeney Todd (a.k.a. Benjamin Barker), who in 1846 arrives back in London after being sentenced to exile in Australia by a corrupt judge, and confronts—to say the least—his past. The middle-aged Schneider, with his compact, sturdy frame and bald head, looks rather like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, sans nicks and cuts, yet with a steely visage that seems to express some sort of hidden physical affliction. Are we suggesting that Schneider also has Willis’ limited emotional range? Well, yes, but to be absolutely fair to Schneider, Sweeney Todd is no Hamlet. And Schneider’s talent kicks in when his singing is required. Plus, he has a knack for totally tuning in to his appointed choreography.
Schneider gets some solid help from the rest of the cast, including Lydia Underwood Horan, who works her tail off in her every scene as meat pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett, and Live Arts veteran Mark Valahovic, who is well cast as the corrupt judge’s cohort, Beadle Bamford.
Director John Gibson, along with costume designer Tricia Emlet and set designers Lian LaRussa (who by day is a C-VILLE graphic designer) and Michael Wenrich, also no doubt salivated at the prospect of working on Sweeney. Gibson’s recent productions of Macbeth and A Streetcar Named Desire, for instance, were laden with visual atmosphere, and Sweeney offers opportunities galore to do more of the same. Gibson’s lavish use of props and often multilayered staging (“Where should I focus my eyes?” you can almost hear the audience thinking) lend weight to the musical’s strangeness but don’t always clarify it or make it palatable. He comes dangerously close at times to assuming that everyone in the audience is a Sweeney connoisseur, or at least has studied a plot summary beforehand. As a result, the musical comes across as more complex and Brechtian than it has any right to be.
Moreover, one can’t help but get the impression that Gibson’s attention to the visual aspects came at the expense of other considerations—namely, the somewhat distracting fact that some of the all-American cast have English accents, and some don’t.
But really, there’s not a whole lot to complain about. Compared to the conservative approach to musicals at UVA’s Heritage Theatre Festival over the years, it’s a relief to have a director who’s in your face, taking chances, and gunning more than aiming to please.
Let’s call this one pretty close to a bull’s-eye.
On npr.org today, a Charlottesville-based Web business is highlighted as an example of how to survive the economic downtown.
Along with a business school classmate, 33 year-old Adam Healey founded the hotel search engine VibeAgent.com, which currently has 16 employees, two years ago. It consolidates rates and availability from scores of travel sites, and simplifies the process of finding a hotel in Prague or London or wherever.
To put it simply, Healey and company caught a break. Before the economic downturn hit, they, as npr.org says, "wrapped up a $3 million round of financing."
When asked by npr whether receiving such financing in the current economic climate would be more difficult, his answer was unequivicol: "Absolutely, it would be harder today."
On another note, VibeAgent’s plans for expansion have been tabled for now, and they’re just concentrating on making a profit.
"You know, last week we had a budget in place, which was focused on going out and raising another round of capital in 12 months," Healey told npr. "Today, that’s not what we’re going to do."