Let There Be Light
The City of Alexandria held its annual Holiday Tree Lighting in Market Square Nov. 29. Entertainment and a visit from Santa were part of the festivities that signaled the official start of the holiday season. For a complete schedule of holiday events, including free concerts to be held in Market Square, visit www.visitalexandriava.com.
Dancing into the Sunset
After 35 years, Kathy Harty Gray and her dance company are taking a bow.
Kathy Harty Gray's career may have started as a student at Julliard, but she and her students will celebrate her legacy in Alexandria.
Hollywood comes to Alexandria
Bringing a little taste of Hollywood to Old Town, the seventh annual Alexandria Film Festival kicks off Nov. 7.
It might be Patti North's favorite time of year, but it's certainly one of the most stressful. As chair of the Alexandria Film Festival, North has spent moths preparing for this year's event, pulling together movies ranging from a few minutes to an hour or more in length from around the world and helping to line up Q&A sessions with as many filmmakers as possible during the festivals' four-day run.
A Bike Trip Through History
The Center Hiking Club hosts this season’s final historic marker bicycle tour.
Now that last weekend's heat wave is over and things are back to feeling fall-like, it's time for the last historic marker bicycle tour of the season, led by Bernie Bern of the Center Hiking Club.
Review: A Stitch in Time
Powerful “Gee’s Bend” debuts at MetroStage.
It’s officially known as Boykin, Ala., with a population of 275. But the former slave plantation on the banks of the Alabama River gained prominence as Gee’s Bend, an isolated African American community known for the role its folk art quilts played in the struggle for Civil Rights.
Review: Mean Girls
"The Children’s Hour” at Port City Playhouse.
In 1809, a girls’ boarding school opened in Edinburgh, Scotland, closing a few months later amid rumors involving two of its teachers. The decades-long lawsuit that followed was the inspiration for playwright Lillian Hellman, who more than a century later penned the critically acclaimed “The Children’s Hour,” now playing at Port City Playhouse.
An Insider's Guide to the Arts in Northern Virginia
A selection of upcoming arts productions, happening right where you live.
There are more artists of every stripe making art in Northern Virginia than you may realize. Populating the bedroom communities, small towns, growing cities and metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Arlington and Alexandria are your pick of dance, theatre, choral, symphonic, visual and performance, music and fill-in-the-blank groups. Look beyond Wolf Trap and Jammin' Java to the Torpedo Art Factory, the Workhouse Arts Center, and smaller, quality groups like ArtSpace Herndon and McLean Project for the Arts to cast their creative spell (that's only to name a few). Delve in and, we dare you, let your stereotypes of an artless string of suburbs dissolve. In place you'll get something much better than stereotypes: some culture.
A Year in Fairfax County
A sampling of some of the cherished, annual events of the county.
Upcoming events in the county.
Resurrecting The Post for a New Era
The Post has two upcoming gigs in Vienna and Alexandria.
Don’t let the minor chords fool you: The Post is made up of happy people. The band, originally started by guitarist Kate Jarosik and singer/pianist Chelsea Bryan during their time at the University of Virginia, took a brief hiatus after graduation but has started up again with some new musicians in Northern Virginia. Fresh off a successful stint through a Battle of the Bands at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, The Post is getting ready for a show there next Wednesday, Aug. 28 and another at St. Elmo’s in Alexandria Sept. 20.
Wickedly Witty
Additional shows added for LTA’s ‘Avenue Q.’
They sing, they dance and — OMG — they even have sex. They’re the potty-mouthed puppets (and their human counterparts) of “Avenue Q,” the Tony Award-winning musical now playing at The Little Theatre of Alexandria.
Puppets for Puppies
LTA musical to benefit local animal charities.
With an abundant use of profanity and episodes of "full puppet nudity," the Tony Award-winning musical “Avenue Q” is not the usual fare from The Little Theatre of Alexandria. But when the storied theater company debuts the Sesame Street-style show July 27, each performance will serve as a fundraiser for several local animal charities.
Feeling Pretty Good
T.C. Williams grads hit the road for first tour out of the D.C. area.
A shared appreciation for the blues has morphed into an increasingly successful reggae band with enough popularity to literally take their show on the road. FeelFree, a group of five 20-something men from Alexandria, mostly T.C. Williams graduates, last week kicked off their first East Coast tour, which will take them from this area up to New York City and down to North Carolina, with a stop in Charlottesville along the way.
Piece of Cake
It was a party 264 years in the making as Alexandria celebrated its birthday July 13 with a day of fun and entertainment that culminated with a fireworks display over the Potomac River accompanied by the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra's playing of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
Alexandria Calendar
Summer Classes. Art at the Center, 2804 Sherwood Hall Lane. Children ages 6-10 can participate. Register at www.artatthecenter.org or 703-201-1250.
Developer Wants to Lease Public Land for Private Gain
Should Alexandria approve a 40-year lease for Hensley Park?
Should a stretch of public land in the Eisenhower Valley be transformed into a private sports complex?