Country legend Reba McEntire and pop chartbuster Kelly Clarkson announced yesterday that they will bring their double-billed “2 Worlds 2 Voices” tour to the John Paul Jones Arena on October 30. The show is being advertised not as a double bill, but it seems the two will be performing as a duo with “1 Stage, 1 Band” according to the announcement.

If the pairing of the 55-year-old Country Music Hall-of-Famer with the 26-year-old American Idol seems like an odd one, consider that the combo already has both a country and pop hit under its belt. When the two first teamed up to make a duet out of Clarkson’s hit “Because of You” in 2007, the song had a long residence on both the Billboard pop and country charts, and won the Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocal in February.

McEntire first (more)

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Since 1974, theater buffs have enjoyed Heritage Repertory Theatre’s professional summer offerings. No more. After a year off for parking deck construction at Culbreth Theatre, Heritage has been reborn as Heritage Theatre Festival.

“I think the idea of ‘Festival’ is more… festive,” explains artistic director Bob Chapel (pictured). “I thought it was good to have our name be what we do.”

Rotating repertory was on its way out by 2006. Before that, all four of the Culbreth shows during the Heritage Repertory season opened and kept coming back. “The last two weeks, we’d do a different play each night,” says Chapel. “As the shows got bigger, it began to break our back.”

In the summer of 2006, Heritage began to open and close shows without bringing them back. “It was kind of an experiment,” says Chapel. “We didn’t lose any audience.”

He’s gearing up to kick off the season June 19 with City of Angels. Heritage audiences will notice one other change besides the new moniker: the new parking garage that can hold more than 500 cars.

“We are the most accessible theater in town,” crows Chapel. “Twenty seconds, and you’re in the theater. And it’s free.” The parking, that is.
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Louisville rockers My Morning Jacket announced their biggest headlining tour ever yesterday, and it includes a date at the Charlottesville Pavilion on Tuesday, September 9 at 7pm. Tickets go on sale next Friday, May 16 at 10am.

With their distinct blend of country, blues, psychedelic, and prog-rock influences, the band has long been a favorite of college radio audiences and the jam band scene. The quintet was one of the first bands signed by Dave Matthews– Coran Capshaw owned ATO Records when they signed with the then-Charlottesville-based label in 2003.

Since that time, My Morning Jacket has slowly built a following with its reportedly epic live repertoire, headlining at clubs, opening for such bands as Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam, and becoming a mainstay at the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. They’ve also gotten a leg up from Hollywood, having been featured in (more)

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Less than a year ago, after a national search that produced 71 candidates, the Paramount Theater heralded new executive director Edward I. Rucker (pictured left with CNET founder Halsey Minor at the groundbreaking of the Landmark Hotel in March), a Charlottesville resident, as a man of “vision, enthusiasm, and experience.” The best person for the job, Paramount chair Gary Taylor said at a July 19, 2007 press conference introducing Rucker, was “right here.”

Well, Rucker’s not there anymore. He resigned May 2, Taylor confirms, less than 10 months after his arrival. His departure, after two weeks’ notice, creates a powerful sense of deja vu. Less than two years ago, in September 2006, the Paramount’s original executive director, Chad Hershner, who oversaw the 1931 theater’s nearly $16 million renovation and 2004 reopening, also suddenly resigned. Hershner, who resurfaced as vice president of advancement at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin, did not immediately return the Hook’s call.

Like Hershner’s, Rucker’s resignation “was definitely unexpected,” (more)

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Coming off the success of last year’s #1 album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Washington state indie-rockers Modest Mouse are coming to the Charlottesville Pavilion Sunday, June 29 at 7pm. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am.

Modest Mouse seemed like an overnight success when their hit single “Float On” snuck onto Top 40 radio and even American Idol in 2004, propelling the band’s album Good News for People Who Love Bad News to sell over a million copies. However, the group has been at it since 1993, when vocalist and rhythm guitarist Isaac Brock formed the band with bass player Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green and lifted the name from a Virginia Woolf short story.

Since then, the lineup around Brock, Judy, and Green has changed, but the hard-driving, literate rock core has stayed the same, although the sound is now augmented by former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who joined the band in 2006, and multi-instrumentalist and one-time member of Charlottesville’s (more)

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With last night’s conclusion of the HBO miniseries John Adams, so ended the latest on-screen portrayal of Thomas Jefferson. This time around, British actor Stephen Dillane (best known to American audiences for portraying Virginia Woolf’s husband in 2002’s The Hours) donned the red wig to play the aloof, enigmatic Jefferson, to Paul Giamatti’s driven, blunt Adams.

That got the Hook thinking, which other actors have attempted to play Shadwell’s favorite son? Of course, there was Nick Nolte’s much-panned turn in 1995’s Jefferson in Paris which focused on his extra-marital affair with slave Sally Hemings. The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Roger Ebert was puzzled by the performance, of which he wrote, “The Jefferson in this movie is such a remote figure that you wonder, by the movie’s end, if he actually knew he was having sex at the time.”

While Nolte’s portrait is the most well-known in recent history, an IMDB search reveals (more)

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What’s a nice Jewish boy doing hanging out with a bunch of gurus and other “consciousness-raisers”? You’ll find out and get a lot of laughs in the process by reading The 99th Monkey, a new memoir from a former Batesvillian and frequent Hook contributor whose credentials include a prize Hook short story, not to mention the prestigious Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel. Acclaimed in lit circles as the author of Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World That is Hearbroken (University of Tennessee Press), Eliezer Sobel now lives in Richmond. And his new book, a sort of comedic Tipping Point, is the laugh riot of the season. Hey, anyone sitting around naked and chanting in his quest for spiritual salvation gets our immediate vote, but even more mundane run-ins with “Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics and Other Consciousness-Raising Adventures” (the book’s subtitle) make this a hearty/breezy summer read.

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An English education major is carrying the ball for the University of Virginia in a national comedy competition, and fifth-year Kathleen O’Brien wants your vote.

UVA took down Georgia Washington University April 6 in Arlington, where judges picked O’Brien as the semi-finals winner for the Rooftop National College Comedy Competition.

“I’ve never done stand-up before,” confesses O’Brien. From doing improv with Bent Theater, “I’m used to performing,” she says. And from teaching, she’s used to being in front of a group of people. A friend suggested she try out for the Rooftop Comedy competition.

UVA’s team of eight comedians headed up to the Comedy Spot in Arlington. “I thought UVA had a really strong competition,” says O’Brien.

A panel of three judges kept if from being (more)

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