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.

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After a week of negotiations, UVA alum Rick Carlisle reached a deal over the weekend to become the new head coach of the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA. Carlisle inked a four-year deal with the Mavs for a reported $17.5 million. The Mavericks will introduce Carlisle to the media at a press conference tomorrow.

Known for his playmaking ability and tenacious play, Carlisle was the on-court general for the 1984 Cavaliers squad that made it to the Final Four, the year after three-time Player of the Year Ralph Sampson graduated. That basketball intelligence allowed Carlisle to transition from a playing career with the Boston Celtics to the sidelines as a coach. Following a successful tenure as assistant to former Celtics teammate Larry Bird on the Indiana Pacers’ bench, Carlisle took over a struggling Detroit Pistons team in 2001.

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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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Jill Hartz, the ousted UVA University Art Museum director who was unceremoniously dumped in December from the job she’d held for 11 years, has been hired as executive director of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

“It’s an opportunity to direct a museum at the next level,” says Hartz. “It’s a step up in terms of what the museum has to offer– 23,000 square feet versus 6,000.” The Schnitzer boasts a bigger budget and staff, as well as a café, museum shop, and dedicated meeting room.

The Oregon museum has broad Asian and contemporary collections. “In the Asian art area, in particular, they want to bring their collection into the present with contemporary acquisitions and exhibitions,” says Hartz. “They want someone to move the museum forward. This is perfect for me. I like the challenge of strengthening the program and building a national reputation.”

Hartz came to UVA in 1994 as a trail-along spouse when her husband, Richard Herskowitz, was named program director of the Virginia Film Festival. They moved from Ithaca, New York, (more)

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After more than a decade at the mic at UVA football and men’s basketball games, Mac McDonald announced yesterday that he is resigning his post with the Virginia Sports Network as the Cavaliers’ radio play-by-play man.

“I now have an opportunity on a couple fronts to move forward in my career and pursue a couple goals that I have had for some time,” he says in a press release. “I will always treasure my time with the players, coaches and administration.”

This marks the second time McDonald has said goodbye to Charlottesville. The first was in 1985, when he went to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to call games for Wake Forest University. In 2006, he left the morning show with Jane Foy and the late Dick Mountjoy at Virginia Sports Network flagship station WINA-AM to focus on his UVA duties.

McDonald did not immediately return calls for comment, but his football broadcast partner Frank Quayle says the news took him aback.

“He sent me an e-mail yesterday and I was (more)

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After the Miami Dolphins passed on him with the first selection in the NFL Draft, Chris Long hoisted the jersey of the St. Louis Rams on stage at Radio City Music Hall, as the Rams used their second overall pick to take the fourth-year UVA defensive end.

Long is the highest Cavalier ever selected in the history of the NFL Draft in the Super Bowl era, and only the second highest after the Pittsburgh Steelers chose Wahoo running back Bill Dudley first overall in 1942. He is also the first Cavalier to be chosen in the first round of the draft since 2006, when the New York Jets chose offensive lineman D’Brickashaw Ferguson with the fourth overall pick.

Long’s pigskin legend father, Howie, accompanied his son backstage before the selection. After the Rams announced their pick, Long became only the fifth son of a Pro Football Hall of Famer to be drafted into the NFL.

3:52pm update: Long isn’t the only Wahoo of interest to teams picking in the top 10. ESPN has a camera trained on third-year guard Branden Albert, awaiting his NFL fate at home in Edgewood, Maryland. If Albert goes to the Jacksonville Jaguars (who traded up to get the Baltimore Ravens’ eighth-overall pick), the Cincinnati Bengals, or the New England Patriots, it will be the first time ever that two Cavaliers have been chosen in the top 10.

4:10pm update: The Patriots chose Tennessee linebacker Jerod Mayo at #10, so Cavalier history will have to wait another year. Still, if a team drafts Albert in the first round, it will be the first time two ‘Hoos have been chosen in the first round since 1997, when linebacker James Farrior went to the New York Jets as the eighth pick, and defensive end Jon Harris landed with the Philadelphia Eagles as the 25th selection.

4:41pm update: Branden Albert is a Kansas City Chief. The Chiefs chose the Cavalier offensive lineman with the 15th overall pick. Seeking to fill a porous offensive line, the Chiefs traded up for the 15th spot from the Detroit Lions.

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Despite the speculation of some experts, it turns out Virginia football standout Chris Long will not be the first selection in Saturday’s NFL Draft. Today, the Miami Dolphins reached a six-year, $30 million deal with Michigan offensive lineman Jake Long (no relation to the UVA defensive end), thus ending the mystery about whom the Dolphins would choose with the first overall pick. Some had guessed that the Cavalier would go to Miami because of UVA coach Al Groh’s close ties with Dolphins head of football operations Bill Parcells.

That means that with the second overall pick, the St. Louis Rams are unofficially on the clock to determine if they, too, will opt to go Long by choosing the 6′ 4″, 285-pound Charlottesvillian. Should the Rams pass on Long, then he could be hoisting the jersey of either the Atlanta Falcons, the Oakland Raiders (for whom his father Howie played for 12 seasons), or the Kansas City Chiefs, in that order. Rounding out the top 10 picks in the draft are the New York Jets, the New England Patriots, the Baltimore Ravens, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the New Orleans Saints.

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Today, at the University of Virginia, Governor Tim Kaine (D) put to rest any speculation that he would forgo his last year as governor in order to serve in Barack Obama’s White House, should the Illinois senator be successful in his presidential bid.

“You’re not going to see me leave,” he told reporters, “I’ll be Governor of Virginia through January of 2010. Maybe after I’m governor I’ll be able to help him.”

Since being the first governor outside of Illinois to endorse Obama in February 2007, pundits have bandied about Kaine’s name as a possible vice presidential candidate to share the ticket with Obama, or the possibility that Obama would appoint the governor to his cabinet.

Kaine’s longtime support of Obama was very much on the minds of Larry Sabato’s Introduction to American Politics class when engaging him in a Q&A following his brief 15-minute lecture. Students pressed the governor on the issues where he differs from his presidential contender of choice such as partial birth abortion (Kaine supports outlawing it, Obama voted against such a ban), and the death penalty (Kaine opposes it, Obama supports it).

While acknowledging their differences of opinion, Kaine emphasized that their disagreement is exemplary of why he supports Obama’s candidacy in the first place. “The strategy of Obama is finding common ground, and finding creative ways to make advances,” he said. “On just about every major initiative of his in the Illinois state senate and in the U.S. Senate, he’s had a Republican co-patron. He’s a uniter by nature.”

Kaine just returned from Pennsylvania, where he campaigned door to door for Obama in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. Asked about how Obama’s recent comment about how small town Americans are “bitter” and “cling to guns and religion,” Kaine said it seemed the issue was getting more plan in the media than on the ground. “Not one person brought it up,” Kaine said. “Whether they support him or not, they know that this is a guy who knows what it’s like to face tough straits.”

Still, Kaine does not forecast an Obama victory in Pennsylvania tomorrow. “[Sen. Hillary Clinton] will probably win,” he said, “but if we can finish within a single digit margin, that would be a positive outcome.

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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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Thirty-seven years after he last stood in front of a UVA Law School class as a professor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia returned to the school to deliver a lecture on the topic of Thomas Jefferson’s concept of a “wall of separation” between church and state.

In relating his legal philosophy on the matter– well known to the 400 students and faculty in attendance and the 100 or so outside Caplin Auditorium who couldn’t get in– Scalia said he didn’t believe Jefferson intended government to “favor or disfavor religion, nor banish it from the public forum.” Nor does Scalia believe his view is as far from Jefferson’s as some scholars have argued. “I have been a centrist jurist,” he said, before adding with a smirk, “at least, by my standards.”

Over the next 30 minutes, the 21-year veteran of the nation’s highest court explained that while the text of the Constitution is most important in deciding any case, second-most important is what Scalia called “accepted constitutional tradition,” such as allowing the mint to put “In God We Trust” on currency, or allowing a prayer to open a legislative session, rather than (more)

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Fifteen days before UVA defensive end Chris Long learns his professional football fate when the NFL Draft gets under way, Sports Illustrated predicts he will be chosen first overall by the Miami Dolphins. “He may not have the upside potential of [Ohio State defensive end Vernon] Gholston, or [Louisiana State defensive tackle Glenn] Dorsey,” writes SI’s Don Banks, “but he has the track record, he has the bloodlines, and he has the stamp of approval from Virginia’s Al Groh, a longtime [Dolphins director of football operations Bill] Parcells ally.”

The magazine also forecasts that Long won’t be the only Cavalier taken early, as they have offensive tackle Branden Albert going to the Denver Broncos as the 12th overall pick. “NFL scouts love Albert,” writes Banks, “and believe the ex-Cavalier can handle the transition to tackle as a pro.”

If Long and Albert each get drafted in the first round– as most experts think they will– it will be (more)

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