| Sat, 21 Jul, 8 PM Sun, 22 Jul |
Theater – “Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales” written & performed by Denise Stewart A return engagement of this hilarious and fearless performer. If you missed the show earlier this year, catch it now! Denise Stewart’s one-woman storytelling show explores the author’s strange southern childhood. With the help of her alter ego, Dirty Barbie, Denise puts the “fun” back in “dysfunctional” as she spins tales on scarlet fever, scotch over ice, and what happens when girls gone wild grow older and wiser. Audience reaction to the premiere in North Carolina: “Worked the gift shop tonight during the first performance of the show. I sat in the gift shop, and could hear people laughing, laughing, laughing. Everyone I spoke to as they left said it was great…” from the Looking Glass Artist Collective blog “Dear Denise (Denise Laughlin Stewart), I saw Dirty Barbie last night and loved it! To invite an audience to see you perform your own life on stage is remarkable. Your talent, as a performer and writer, makes for an engaging, entertaining evening.Your energy and generosity with your audience is awesome! …” Sam Post |
$15 w/ RSVP $20 at door |
Welcome to Culture Nuts
It is a steamy, sticky summer day here in central Virginia, a place where, despite the ridiculous humidity, is teaming with interesting people, places and cool things to do. Just from my perch on my penthouse balcony I can see a vineyard where you can pick your own fruit three seasons out of the year, miles of hiking trails and for all practicality, the home of one of America’s most famous sons, Thomas Jefferson.
This weekend alone I am slated to see a musical and an opera and chatted this morning with a local actress who will be making her Off-Broadway debut tomorrow night in her own one woman show, DIRTY BARBIE: AND OTHER GIRLHOOD TALES.
Though I have spent the bulk of my life less than 70 miles away, I really didn’t know this area and am excited nearly every day by some new discovery.
About six years ago I started writing theatre reviews for STYLE WEEKLY, a fantastic news, arts and culture publication in Richmond, Virginia that earns loads of accolades from the Virginia Press Association every year for Arts & Culture coverage. I quickly came to understand the frustrations of space to advertising dollar ratios that limited coverage of deserving productions whether it was a pre-story or a review things just weren’t getting covered in the paper or website to satisfaction. In an effort to fill that void Dave Timberline started a blog to cover events happening in the theater world now called Dave’s Theater Blog . (Dave graciously allowed me to be a contributor for a while but brand confusion -we both wrote for STYLE- put an end to that after about a year.)
Fast forward to August of 2011: I moved to Charlottesville and quickly began writing A&C stories for a similar publication,C-VILLE WEEKLY. I was instantly astounded at the high quality of performing arts in the area and equally quickly again frustrated by the dollars to space issue concerning A&C coverage. So many performances just fell through the lack-of-space-cracks. It was heartbreaking. I mulled over a way to bring more A&C stories to the public and inspired by Dave, decided to start this Culture Nuts, a blog to cover those A&C stories that the paper simply can’t fit in and to share in my exploration of life in the area (and sometimes other places).
Central Virginia is teaming with Arts & Culture and I it is my goal to share that with the world.
The Culture Maven,
Mary Burruss
Culture Nuts 