Author: Maeve Hayden

Categories
Culture Living

Olivia Brown in the HotSeat

Olivia Brown. Supplied photo.

Charlottesville is full of smarty-pants who love to work their brains at trivia night. And you’re guaranteed to find a gathering nearly every night of the week, like Random Row’s Sunday evening battle of wits, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s Thursday night get-together for “Jeopardy!” wannabes, and Starr Hill Downtown’s Wednesday evening extravaganza, where host Olivia Brown quizzes crowds. Brown’s trivia journey began at World of Beer, where she helped keep score. She’s been at Starr Hill since 2021, and, fun fact, recently launched her own company, Trivia with Olivia, through which she hosts public and private events, virtual trivia, and offers DIY trivia packs. triviawitholivia.com

Name: Olivia Brown.

Age: 30.

Pronouns: She/her.

Hometown: Centreville, Virginia.

Job(s): Tour Guide at Monticello by day, trivia host and owner of Trivia with Olivia by night.

What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn: That people playing bar trivia will fight to the death over the most minute details, so watch out and make sure you do your research before writing a set of questions.

Favorite trivia fact: Pierre, South Dakota, is the only state capital in the United States that doesn’t share any letters with its state’s name.

What’s your best trivia category: I’ve done so many trivia categories over the years, but a couple I’ve really enjoyed are “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” rounds, and quirky things like “Living or Extinct?” where teams had to guess whether the animal I gave them still exists or not.

What’s the key to choosing the best trivia team name: A good pun can go a long way! And while inappropriate team names are usually quite funny, there is a line where you make trivia hosts not want to say things on the microphone.

Best part of living here: Seeing the mountains on the most casual drives, like to the gym or the grocery store.

Worst part of living here: My rent.

Favorite local restaurant: The Local in Belmont. I have never had a bad experience—it’s always impeccable.

Favorite local place: My bed, but if I can’t pick that I’d have to go with Mint Springs Valley Park.

Bodo’s order: I have celiac so I go one of two routes: BYO bagel and order plain cream cheese and lox, or the Turkey Cleo Salad and potato salad on the side.

What’s your comfort food: My dad’s spaghetti bolognese. Cooks three to four hours, and I’ve been eating it for as long as I can remember.

How do you take your coffee: With a splash of French vanilla creamer, hot or iced.

Who is your hero: Elie Wiesel and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are among my biggest heroes. People who represent my Jewish identity and did everything in their power to fight for themselves and for others.

Best advice you ever got: Since I was a child, my mom has told me: “There are always options.”

Proudest accomplishment: Officially registering my trivia company as an LLC was an extremely proud moment for me. I’m not one for big leaps of faith, but I finally put all that trust in myself and decided to do it!

Describe a perfect day: Somehow convincing my body to sleep past 8am, getting brunch (preferably with a kick-ass bloody mary), a hike with a view (preferably of mountains), dinner with my favorite people (preferably with an array of Mexican food), and a hot bath before bed (preferably with a book).

If you could be reincarnated as a person or thing, what would you be: I think I’d like to be a millennial’s house plant. Just put me in a nice sunny spot, doted on day in and out, happily growing.

If you had three wishes, what would you wish for: First and foremost, that celiac could be cured and I could eat gluten again. Second, I’d wish my family and friends never wanted for anything and got everything that made them happy. Third, a house full of rescue puppies because coming up with a third wish is hard and this seems like something everyone can get on board with.

Most embarrassing moment: When I was a preteen, I wanted to use a round brush to blow-dry my hair, but I had no idea what I was doing. I tried to do it and ended up getting the brush fully stuck to the top of my head. We thought we were going to have to cut my hair off at 9pm on a school night. My older brother figured out how to solve it, but refused to tell my mom and me until I agreed to make him sandwiches whenever he wanted. He mentioned we could remove the bristles with pliers and then the round brush would slide out. It worked and I spent the next decade of my life making sandwiches for him (he’s now married, so I’m off the hook).

Do you have any pets: I don’t, but I love to dogsit so I can get my fair share of dog serotonin in.

Favorite movie and/or show: The original Lion King will forever be my favorite movie, with Lord of the Rings: Return of the King coming in second.

Favorite book: Reading is my favorite hobby so this is almost an impossible question. Since I read it as a kid though, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has always been my answer.

What are you listening to right now: I just started The Office BFFs audiobook by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey.

Go-to karaoke song: I am an unapologetic Nickelback fan, and will always sing “Photograph” (an American classic).

Best Halloween costume you’ve worn: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with one of my best friends.

Who’d play you in a movie: I have been told before that I remind people of Mila Kunis, so I would be blessed to have her be me in a movie.

Celebrity crush: Henry Cavill, the big, muscly nerd of my dreams.

Most used app on your phone: Instagram. I’m a sucker for the doom scroll sometimes.

Last text you sent: Asking my family to pick my most embarrassing moment that was appropriate to publish where other people could read it … they collectively said they had nothing that was both embarrassing and publishable, so were not of much help.

Most used emoji: Crying with laughter face.

Subject that causes you to rant: The state of health care in the United States.

Best journey you ever went on: For my 30th birthday, I went with a few of my best friends out to Utah and we went to three national parks in five days and it was a deeply soul-invigorating trip to bring me into my third decade of life.

Next journey: While I’ve made it a goal of mine to visit all of the national parks, my next planned trip is to Mexico at the end of January. Need a few days away from the winter.

Favorite curse word: I try not to sometimes, but I curse like a sailor and the F-word is my most common expletive.

Hottest take: Hot dogs are sandwiches. Fight me.

What have you forgotten today: To take my reusable grocery bags out of the car.

Categories
Arts Culture

Page numbers

Karen Duncan Pape's "De-Circulated" is on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28. Pictured: "To Kill A Mockingbird." All images courtesy of the artist.

Landscape photographer Karen Duncan Pape turns her lens to the page in “De-Circulated,” an exhibition of reconstructed covers of banned books on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28.

“Growing up in Southwest Virginia, books were extremely important to me, as they exposed me to other worlds and broadened my perspective,” says Pape. “I was shocked to find that books I had read in AP English many years ago were being banned in America today, and I was upset that young people might lose access to literary tools that might help them develop critical and inquiring minds, or that might support them in their quest for self-understanding.”

Pape began checking out banned books from libraries and taking multiple exposure photographs of the covers, which she blended in post-processing to create new designs. Books like Lola at the Library, banned in Pennsylvania, The Hate U Give, and The Bluest Eye, both banned in multiple states, are refracted and reimagined into colorful new forms. The abstract photographs obliterate or obstruct the text—a reminder from Pape of the power of the written word, and what is lost when it’s eliminated.

“Relativity”
“Why We Can’t Wait”

Mystery vibes

Karen Duncan Pape: “‘Relativity’ ( above left) is taken from a book cover about Albert Einstein, all of whose work was burned in 1933 in Nazi Germany, simply because he was Jewish. The book cover itself is simple and sort of boring, gold and black, with a photograph of Einstein. As I was working on the piece, I thought about the mystery of Einstein’s work. He said ‘The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.’ The resulting blue piece speaks, I hope, of Einstein’s sense of mystery, and of something which we cannot see but can only sense. 

“‘Why We Can’t Wait’ by Martin Luther King, Jr. is another piece that brings me joy. This book was banned in South Africa at the height of apartheid. The image, with its elevating verticals and large WE, implies Dr. King’s idea that, now just as when he wrote this book, WE cannot wait, and WE together are responsible for moving humanity forward into a more balanced, peaceful, and loving state.”

Categories
Culture Food & Drink Knife & Fork

More than a beverage

Keep an eye on Corey Hoffman’s socials (@neonculturebrewing) for details on the upcoming tasting room at Murphy & Rude Malting Co. Photo by Tristan Williams.

All roads flow back to beer for Corey Hoffman, founder and head brewer at Neon Culture Brewing, a small-but-mighty start-up with big plans and singular suds. 

Hoffman’s history with beer as a drinker includes—like many of us—college-age encounters involving red Solo cups, ping-pong balls, and cold cans sipped at a bar. That all changed in 2017 when Hoffman’s brother asked a simple question that launched a career: Have you ever heard of homebrewing? 

“At the time I was looking for something to pour myself into,” says Hoffman. “I was trying to get out of my mom’s house, as all millennials try to do after you’re there way longer than you’re supposed to be, so I bought this [homebrewing] kit on a whim.”

Hoffman’s first beer was pretty undrinkable, but the experience inspired him to start researching and learning more about what goes into brewing beer. As he delved deeper into the worlds of homebrewing and beermaking, it became abundantly clear to him just how white the brewing industry is.  

“When I started homebrewing I quickly realized there weren’t a lot of people that looked like me that were doing what I was doing,” Hoffman says. “I wondered in my mind, why don’t Black people like this beer? Why don’t I see a lot of Black homebrewers? It’s not that they don’t like it, it’s just that either you’re not exposed to it, or maybe the price point is too high, but mostly that it’s very intimidating walking into spaces when you don’t know anything about them.” 

“That was the catalyst for me starting my own thing,” Hoffman says. “I wanted to share what I was doing with people, but at the same time I wanted to change the perception of what craft beer is—who it’s for and what it’s about.” 

So Hoffman launched Neon Culture, a grassroots, community-organized brewery that keeps inclusivity, community, and collaboration at the heart of its mission. It’s also the first Black-owned brewery in Charlottesville. 

While many breweries today embrace a classic style, Neon Culture brings a different vibe into the local beerscape—one that embraces experimentation, unconventional ingredients, and welcomes seasoned hop-heads and beer newbies alike. 

“I think of all my brews as mixtapes,” says Hoffman, who is inspired by ’80s and ’90s aesthetics, including bright colors, vintage technology, and music. “We always have one or two beers that are on the normal side, and then there’s at least one with that Neon Culture vibe that’s a little different.”

Hoffman’s previous brews include Appetite for Inclusion, a hazy IPA made with Richmond homebrewer Rusty Barrel, HAZELWHAT?!, an imperial stout with hazelnuts, cacao nibs, and vanilla beans, and Summer at the Dreamhouse, a wheat beer that blends nostalgia with current pop culture and notes of grilled pineapples, mangoes, and habanero.

All of Neon Culture’s beers are brewed at and released in collaboration with Decipher Brewing, as Hoffman slowly works toward opening his own brewery. The next step in his journey—a small taproom and tasting bar in Murphy & Rude Malting Co.’s expanding space—is coming sometime this year. 

“I’m not in a rush,” says Hoffman, who is embracing every step of the process. “I’m trying to make a new culture around here.”

Categories
Knife & Fork Magazines

Supper’s ready

Greenwood Grocery’s new kitchen managers, Reggie Calhoun (pictured) and Nathan Hatfield, have launched Supper Club, a $45 dinner that feeds two people, with a menu that changes every two weeks. Photo: Eze Amos

There’s something special about family-owned establishments. The storied buildings contain years of history, the owners are always hard at work alongside employees, and regulars come back year after year for recipes that are passed down and tweaked through the generations. 

In Crozet, Greenwood Gourmet Grocery has been a roadside staple since 1999. Owners Nina Promisel and David Atwell built the shop on the foundations of a traditional fruit stand, and they’ve worked hard to build it into the sandwich and wine emporium that it is today. 

The shop is bustling year-round with Route 250 roadtrippers looking for a snack, and regulars who stop by to grab fresh bread from Albemarle Baking Co., local produce, or a cold can of craft beer. On the weekends, the kitchen churns out sandwiches like the Blue Slate (smoked turkey, havarti, lettuce, tomato, and ancho lime mayo) and Italian (soppressata and Genoa salami, provolone, diced peppers, lettuce, and housemade Italian vinaigrette) faster than you can count.

Promisel and Atwell’s kids, Zeke, Amos, and Ella, have been instrumental in Greenwood’s success over the years—one of them could usually be found manning the register, managing the kitchen, or moving one of the many impressively large pots that live outside. 

Nowadays, the kids aren’t working in the store as much, and an ever-growing customer base meant Promisel needed to bring in some extra hands. 

Reggie Calhoun and Nathan Hatfield joined the Greenwood team as kitchen managers at the beginning of the year, and they’re helping usher the store into a new chapter of culinary creativity. Their journey to the Greenwood kitchen is almost unbelievably coincidental. Some might chalk it up to fate.

“I was in D.C. up until five years ago,” says Hatfield. “I moved here and was working at Mount Ida until November of last year.” 

After leaving Mount Ida, Hatfield was hired at former West Main Street restaurant Little Star, where Calhoun had been working for four years. Before Hatfield’s first day of work, Little Star closed.

So the two went job hunting, and both landed at Greenwood. Hatfield started just after Christmas in 2022, and Calhoun soon joined him. 

“Nina asked if I would be okay if Reggie came on, I was like hell yeah,” says Hatfield. 

They’ve been tag-teaming Greenwood’s kitchen ever since. Their easy collaboration is obvious watching them move about the space, and their new items fit in perfectly alongside Promisel’s tried-and-true favorites. 

Calhoun’s pizza Sunday special is a big hit for customers looking to grab-and-go, and on the weekends, the limited Reggie Burger appears on the menu, featuring local in-house ground beef, housemade pickles, a relish spread, bacon, and havarti. 

One of their largest undertakings, though, is the Supper Club, a $45 dinner that feeds two people. The menu changes every two weeks, and you can add desserts, sides, and wine pairings. Calhoun and Hatfield collaborate on the menu, with Calhoun usually tackling the savory side and Hatfield making the breads and desserts.

Past Supper Clubs include the Greek Goodness dinner, which featured housemade pita and hummus, with grilled mushrooms and a black-eyed pea stew and a grilled half chicken with lemon, garlic, and za’atar. The Breakfast for Dinner meal had a bacon and potato tortilla española with tomato jam, biscuits, and house sausage gravy, chickpea cakes, and a panna cotta with granola and a fall fruit compote. 

“It’s going awesome. It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this,” says Promisel. “They’ve mastered the stuff that we are already doing and they’re building on it and enhancing it. It’s a great way for these guys to do more interesting and creative stuff than we can offer out of the deli case.”

Hiring two kitchen managers might seem unconventional, but Promisel says it’s been the best decision she’s made. 

“It wouldn’t have worked with other people,” she says. “But between their personalities it’s worked out beautifully and really well.”

The KMs have a ton of ideas up their sleeves that they can’t talk about yet, but in the meantime they’re enjoying sharing their ideas with the Greenwood community. 

“I’m mostly just trying to preserve [the legacy] and add my touches,” Hatfield says. “Nina is open to all of it. I know almost everyone who walks through that door has been here before and I want to make it a good experience for them.”

Categories
Knife & Fork Magazines

Dinner and a show

At the casual sister restaurant to Botanical Fare, Bar Botanical, expect bar food—and the occasional drag show. Supplied photo.

If it weren’t for the Blue Ridge Mountains, restaurateur Ryan Becklund might not have brought her downtown vegan eatery Botanical Fare to Charlottesville.

A seasoned food service worker with eight years under her belt, Becklund was working at a vegan restaurant with locations in Washington, D.C., and Virginia Beach when the pandemic began. 

“[The restaurant] was starting to grow and it became a much more full-time role for me,” says Becklund. “It was a career path that I wound up loving. And then COVID hit and it gave me time to reprioritize and think about what I really wanted to do long-term. I decided I wanted to do my own thing.”

Becklund had been vegan for years, so she knew she wanted her menu to be entirely plant-based. The challenge was deciding where to go. Becklund and her partner wanted to be on the East Coast, and eventually they were deciding between Charlottesville and Asheville. 

“The decision to come here was the mountains. That was a big draw,” says Becklund. “I could see in Charlottesville that there was a lack of a fully vegan place. There are some great options in a lot of the restaurants here, but I knew there wasn’t a fully vegan one. So I figured it might be a little easier to get in and hopefully excite all the customers here.”

After its March 2022 opening, Botanical Fare quickly solidified itself as one of the city’s most popular new joints, for vegans and carnivores alike. The Crunchy Cauliflower Bowl, a savory dish with sticky rice and garlic ginger cauliflower nugs, has a cult-like following, the seasonal specials are always worth a try, and every now and then the unsuspecting space is transformed into a drag venue. You never know when you’ll see queens dancing between the tables and showing off their moves on top of the coffee counter.

It’s no surprise that Botanical quickly outgrew its kitchen, so talk turned to expanding, and this past summer, its sister concept, Bar Botanical, opened in Crozet. 

Bar Botanical offers the same from-scratch, healthy vegan food that flagship regulars have come to know and love. 

“It’s very similar in terms of the style of food,” Becklund says. “We do a little more ‘bar-style’ food. In Botanical we don’t use meat substitutions, but we use some impossible meats in Bar Botanical. It’s a little more approachable, casual.”

Located in Piedmont Place’s coveted rooftop space, Bar Botanical serves up delectable dishes like loaded hash browns, popcorn chicken bites, and wonton nachos alongside craft cocktails, draft beers, and wine. 

Inclusivity is at the core of Botanical’s mission, so it was always the plan to bring the drag shows out to Crozet, and the performers have even more room to strut their stuff thanks to the larger space. In a small town with little to no nightlife, the drag shows have been a hit. 

Even without performances, diners can still enjoy dinner and a show thanks to the rooftop views, which perfectly capture the sun setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Categories
434 Magazines

True colors

Victoria Proscia guides clients to the colors and cuts that make their eyes pop and skin gleam. Supplied photo.

Have you ever walked into a closet full of clothes and walked out feeling like you have nothing to wear? Victoria Proscia knows that feeling. As a stylist with House of Colour, Proscia is a pro at finding the right colors and clothing cuts to enhance inner beauty. No more blindly shopping trends that just don’t feel quite right, instead Proscia guides clients to clothing staples they can mix and match, and to colors that make their eyes pop, skin gleam, and budget breathe a sigh of relief. 

434: What is color and style analysis?

Proscia: It’s a process that’s very clarifying to home in on your best wardrobe. There are always trends in the fashion industry, sometimes that can be cuts of clothing and sometimes that can be color. What’s really, really important for budget purposes is to know what colors actually look good on, not only from a confidence standpoint, but also a financial standpoint. There can be a lot of trends that are a bit more expensive and trends that simply just won’t work for you, so it’s nice to know where you live in terms of trends—what looks best on your body, but also what colors make you go bright and clear and approachable.

So what happens in a consult?

What happens typically during a person’s first color analysis appointment is they’ll walk in draped in both warm and cool colors. So we go over the color wheel and I give an overview of yellow-based colors and warm colors, and blue-based colors and cool colors. We drape [fabric swatches] of these warm and cool colors on you, and we go back and forth, seeing and rating the changes in your skin. From there, we get you to a season and a subseason. We have two warm seasons, autumn and spring, and we have two cool seasons, winter and summer. It really depends on if someone’s skin looks best in soft, blended colors or clear, bright colors.

And then in style analysis, we talk about everything and find your two clothing personality archetypes—dramatic, classic, natural, gamine, ingénue, or romantic.

What can the right colors do for a person?

Have you ever been told that you look tired? A lot of times you’re in a color that makes you actually go really tired or unhealthy. Sometimes it’ll bring out more of that yellow pigment in your skin or it will make you have too much pigment in your skin where you look really chilly. Does a color make you go crisp and clear and bright, or does it make you go kind of shadowed and you look like you didn’t get the full eight hours last night.

Does that mean you should throw out all the clothing in your closet?

One of the reasons people are afraid to get their colors done is they think I’m gonna tell them that certain colors don’t work and look bad, and that’s actually not the case at all. Most of us can’t leave our appointments and go home and restart [our closets]; our budgets are just not equipped for that. So during your color appointment we talk about how, if black is not in your palate, how do we make black work with your makeup or your best metal color? Black lives in one particular season, so if you don’t get that season, maybe we just encourage you to move black below the waist. I’m just here to introduce colors to you that look better than, maybe, what’s already in your closet, and I teach you how to organize your closet so that over time we can exchange some pieces for better-than colors.

What’s your own color and style personality?

I am a Jewel Winter, and a Natural Dramatic. I need texture, large-scale accessories, angular necklines, straight lapels. I can do some distressing in denim.

Categories
Culture Food & Drink

With a side of toffee sauce, please

Sip on bevvies like the Nor’Easter, Taugwalder, and Five Golden Rings at The Matterhorn Alpine Ski-Bar. Photo by Common House.

Our local eateries and bakeries are going all out for the holidays. Here are a few of our favorite cozy spots, jolly eats, and festive treats.

Try this

For cozy mountain vibes, head to The Matterhorn, a tented alpine ski-bar atop Common House. The festive decor, crackling fireplaces, and themed cocktails will have you feeling like you’re sitting slope side. Hunker down with the Matador, a warm concoction of hot chocolate, reposado, and ancho chile liqueur topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, or get wild and throw back a couple of shotskis. 

The halls are decked with tinsel and lights galore at the Jingle Bell Bar. Located inside Quirk Hotel’s Bobboo Bar, the holiday pop-up includes a special drink menu and decadent charcuterie boards. The Vixon, Comet & Cupid or John McClane is sure to wet the whistle of any whiskey lover. 

At The Forum Hotel, sit down for breakfast with Santa Claus at Birch & Bloom, or head over to The Case Study Chalet & Lounge for warm fondue and grown-up bevvies. Dip your choice of fresh fruits, sweets cakes, or crisp veggies in bubbling chocolate or cheese, and grab a specialty cocktail crafted by the bartender, Eric. 

Don your ugly sweaters or best Clark Griswold cosplay for a funky family Christmas at Flying Fox Winery and Vineyard. The tasting room is transformed with floor-to-ceiling wrapping paper, ornaments, and cheeky cocktails and mocktails. 

Sleigh sips

Get your nog fix at The Alley Light. Bartender Micah LeMon has been whipping up batches of the French eatery’s famous eggnog spiked with Jamaican rum, which you can score by the glass or in a limited run of 10 quarts.

We’re dreaming of Zocalo’s White Xmas Margarita, a frosty mixture of tequila, triple sec, coconut milk, lime simple, cranberries, and rosemary. The downtown joint’s wintery mixed-drink menu offers four cocktails and two mocktails, including the decadent Chocolate Strawberry Martini, with crème de cacao, rumchata, Baileys, vodka, and strawberry purée. 

Warm up your grinchy heart with some hot mulled cider. Potter’s Craft Cider’s packs a flavorful punch with fortified cider, fresh apple juice, cinnamon, allspice, clove, and ginger. 

Something sweet

Make a date with MarieBette’s sticky toffee date pudding—it’s seriously one of the best bites in town. Moist sponge cake envelopes layers of finely chopped dates, all smothered in a rich toffee sauce. The bakery’s freezers are also stocked with ice cream cakes as part of a new cold collab with SugarBear. Snag an eggnog, gingerbread, or peppermint stick cake, and keep on the lookout for new flavors later. 

Christmas-day dessert is easy with Albemarle Baking Company’s holiday menu. Stock up on the rich but airy panettone, a sugar-covered loaf of stollen, a box of traditional läckerli, or an assortment of gingerbread people. 

Iron Paffle’s crispy latke waffles are here for a limited time, and can be made vegan or gluten free.

Categories
Arts Culture

Mary’s Christmas

From left to right, Evelyn Garey, Austen Weathersby, Ella Caplin, and N. Adora Txakeeyang bring the iconic Bennet sisters to life in Live Arts’ Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, on stage through December 17. Photo by Will Kerner.

Family gatherings during the holiday season are a universally acknowledged experience. You know, the simultaneous dread and excitement, dodging probing questions about your love life, gossiping about family members who’re in the other room, rehashing old dramas, and adding fire to new feuds. 

In Live Arts’ holiday offering, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, characters new and beloved navigate the most joyous time of the year. Set in England in 1815, two years after Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the romantic comedy sees four of the five Bennet sisters gather at Lizzy and Darcy’s mansion to celebrate Christmas. 

With Jane and Bingley expecting, Lizzy and Darcy having tied the knot, and Lydia still married to the diabolical Mr. Wickham, it’s middle-sister Mary’s time to step into the spotlight, and perhaps find love after the arrival of an unexpected gentleman. 

Marianne Kubik was brought on to direct the play, which calls for knowledge of period movement and dialect. A UVA professor of movement and acting and a Jane-ite herself, Kubik is no stranger to Austen’s characters—in 2022, she directed Kate Hamill’s Sense and Sensibility for UVA Drama. Kubik is a longtime Live Arts collaborator, but Miss Bennet marks her first time directing for the community theater.

Kubik went through multiple rounds of casting and callbacks to ensure she found the perfect actors and partnerships. 

“I did my best to consciously put aside the characters that I know from Pride and Prejudice because this isn’t the novel, it’s a complete imagining of a previously imagined story,” says Kubik. “I wanted to look at the humans who were coming in to audition, and think about who might pair well with whom.” 

“It was worth spending all that time on callbacks because the cast really has bonded,” Kubik says. “They seem to enjoy each other’s company, and they certainly enjoy each other’s company and work on stage, and that shows.”

To play Mary, the iconic and curious black sheep of the Bennet family, Kubik cast Austen Weathersby—whose namesake is none other than Jane Austen. Benedict Burgess tackles the role of her potential paramour, Arthur de Bourgh.

Chemistry came naturally for the two actors, who first met at Live Arts 15 years ago, and grew up attending the theater’s camps and workshops.

“This whole show is a bit of a family reunion for me,” says Burgess. “I remember the very first scene that Austen and I did together, I thought she was absolutely fantastic. It’s a scene where Mary is tearing Arthur a new one verbally and she was so good, I just kept breaking. It wasn’t very professional but it was really fun.”

Embodying characters who exist in another time period can be a challenge. Weathersby and Burgess relied on their own lived experiences, and their interactions as scene partners, to find their characters’ motives and mindsets. 

“Mary is very different in this play than the person she is in Pride and Prejudice,” says Weathersby. “She’s grown a lot and developed a lot and is really finding herself. A lot of my process was going to the script and picking out specific things that I could relate to myself and things that I could research, like her interests in music, science, travel, and really try to dig into those and discover what she loves about those things.”

Arthur de Bourgh is an entirely original character, created by Miss Bennet writers Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, so Burgess couldn’t reference the original book or any other versions for inspiration. 

“A lot of the stuff that I put into Arthur, I put in from myself because I feel a lot like him at times,” says Burgess. “He’s someone who’s kind of awkward and shy, but who still feels things very keenly and deeply and wants to express it, even if he doesn’t always have the right words for it.”

“Mary and Arthur are very different from Lizzy and Darcy and Jane and Bingley, and yet just as romantic,” Burgess continues. “They have these just absolutely passionate ideas about who they are and what the world is and what they want out of life. I think that’s going to be a very nice treat because it’s still a romance, but it allows you to see a very different kind of romantic hero.”

Immersion in Mary and Arthur’s world is made easier for Weathersby and Burgess thanks to scenic designer Kerry Moran’s gorgeous yet homely interpretation of Pemberley, and costume designer Megan Hillary’s elegant empire-waist gowns and well-fitted waistcoats. 

Much like its unofficial prequel, Miss Bennet retains Austen’s signature relatability and commentary on marriage and a woman’s place, while also giving audiences new characters to root for.

“There’s a warmth to the whole piece that I really appreciate, especially for this time of year, and I appreciated how it all relates to a lot of the emotions that we feel today,” says Weathersby. “I think that’s a hallmark of Jane Austen’s work—it’s extremely relatable even though it’s a completely different time period with different social rules. I think this play reflects that just as beautifully.”

Categories
News

The Big Picture

Photo by Stephen Barling.

The Oatmeal lineage has been felled. Every year, Charlottesville residents vote on what to name the city’s Christmas tree. In 2021, we were all taken by surprise when Oatmeal was deemed the winner—the name derives from “Frosty the Snowman,” with Oatmeal
being a suggested name for the magical snowman. Some loved it, some hated it, but Oatmeal’s pollen reigned supreme the following year, when C’ville’s tree was dubbed Son of Oatmeal. Charlottesville’s Grand Illumination was last Friday, December 1, and many
hoped Oatmeal the Third would carry on the legacy. Alas, with a hearty yippee-ki-yay, Oatmeal the Third was bested—by one vote—by none other than Spruce Willis. Spruce Willis is currently standing tall outside the Ting Pavilion, and is lit with over 20,000 LED lights.

Categories
Culture Living

Courteney Stuart in the HotSeat

Courteney Stuart. Supplied photo.

If you’ve read or watched local news over the last 25 years, you’ve probably come across Courteney Stuart’s name. An investigative journalist who covers everything from murder and sexual assault to prison reform and immigration, Stuart has been a reporter at several news outlets, including Style Weekly, The Hook, CBS19, and C-VILLE Weekly. She currently hosts “Charlottesville Right Now” on WINA, and recently wrapped her podcast Small Town Big Crime with co-producer Rachel Ryan. The first season dives into the 1985 Bedford County murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom, and convicted killer Jens Soering’s claims of innocence. Stuart and Ryan’s reporting was also featured in the new top-rated, bingeable Netflix docu-series, “Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom.” @stuartandryan

Name: Courteney Stuart.

Age: 52.

Pronouns: She/her.

Hometown: Sherborn, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia.

Jobs: Investigative reporter/radio host/podcaster.

What’s something about your job that people would be surprised to learn: How much time it takes to deeply investigate and report a story. It can sometimes be years!

What’s the story that got away: Years ago there was one story tip about buried bodies that I just couldn’t confirm. But the untold stories that truly haunt me are the current ones I don’t have the bandwidth to investigate. Almost every week I get a worthy tip, and not only do I not have the time to do it, all the other reporters in town are also stretched too thin to take many of them on. We need more local journalists digging and telling the stories of our community!

What was the experience like participating in the documentary: Long and fascinating. We did our first interviews in 2021. I loved experiencing part of how a docuseries like that comes together.

You’ve researched the Soering/Haysom case for three years, what did you learn that surprised you the most during the process: That every time we thought we were done, there was a new twist to investigate.

Hardest part of podcasting: Getting your work to a broad audience without a marketing budget or production company behind you.

Do you have any future podcasting plans: Rachel and I have projects in the works. Some podcasts, some written work, and hopefully some work in the documentary film space.

Favorite restaurant: Too many. Lampo, Smyrna, and Tavola immediately come to mind.

Bodo’s order: Caesar salad and an everything bagel.

What’s your comfort food: Nick’s Ice Cream. (The whole pint for less than 350 calories!)

Who is your hero: I fangirl over badass female journalists like CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward. When she knocked on the door of the Russian military agent suspected of attempting to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny, I almost passed out from admiration.

Best advice you ever got: Stay in one place long enough, and the great stories will come to you.

Proudest accomplishment: Being a journalist in Charlottesville for 25 years. It’s truly been an honor to have people trust me with their stories.

Describe a perfect day: Up at 5am, coffee first, Crossfit second, super productive writing all morning followed by shopping in the afternoon with an unlimited budget (ha!), dinner and a drink at a great restaurant with friends (and I’m wearing what I just purchased), and unwinding at the end with the latest episode of my favorite show.

If you could be reincarnated as a person or thing, what would you be: A dolphin in an area of the world without tuna fishing.

If you had three wishes, what would you wish for: Three more wishes.

Most embarrassing moment: Diving behind the CBS19 News anchors in a desperate attempt to hide myself as the six o’clock news opened during my first weeks on TV. And there were many, many more such hilariously mortifying mishaps on display during that time.

Do you have any pets: A 13-year-old chocolate lab named Luke.

Favorite movie and/or show: “The Morning Show.”

Favorite book: One I really loved was Geraldine Brooks’ March.

What are you listening to right now: Brandi Carlile.

Go-to karaoke song: Unfortunately, I seem to think I can sing Brandi Carlile songs after a few drinks. A tip to my future self: You can’t.

Best Halloween costume you’ve worn: A corpse being eaten by a flock of vultures (all thanks to my siblings for their cooperation in that ill-advised event).

Who’d play you in a movie: Pamela Adlon (from “Better Things”).

Celebrity crush: Graham McTavish (Dougal MacKenzie in “Outlander”).

Most used app on your phone: Ugh. Instagram? Facebook? TikTok? 

Last text you sent: “Your ladies make beautiful eggs.”

Most used emoji: Crying laughing.

Subject that causes you to rant: The ongoing assault on women’s bodily autonomy.

Best journey you ever went on: Literal: Ghana in 2018. Figurative: Deep into my own psyche.

Next journey: Germany and Italy!

Favorite word: I really like saying “undulate.”

Hottest take: Camping is terrible.

What have you forgotten today: I haven’t remembered it yet.