Preview: Live Arts’ latest show has dragging rights.

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Saturday 3/5

IX Farmer’s Market. Over 60 local vendors with fresh produce, prepared foods, artisan goods, and more. Free, 9am. IX Art Park, 522 Second St SE. ixartpark.org

etc.

Alternative Futures: Breaking News-Saturday Special Tour with Hannah Cattarin,

Assistant Curator. Employing literal plans for equity, as well as more abstracted approaches, the works presented in this series will highlight the myriad ways artists visualize a more equitable world. Free, 2pm. The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA, 155 Rugby Rd. uvafralinartmuseum.virginia.edu

Sunday 3/6

music

Brunch with Sammy. Brunch with Sammy Horn on piano. Free, 10am. The Pub at Lake Monticello, 51 Bunker Blvd., Palmyra. lmoa.org Sacred Music of Monticello. Featuring spirituals associated with Monticello and the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. $10-25, 7:30pm. Christ Episcopal Church, 120 W. High St. earlymusiccville.org Vincent Zorn. Enjoy brunch with live music. Free, noon. South and Central Latin Grill, Dairy Market. southandcentralgrill.com

dance

Salsa Class. Learn to salsa and strut your stuff. $6-8, 7pm. IX Art Park, 522 Second St SE. ixartpark.org

classes

Paint & Sip. Learn to paint a colorful country road using acrylic paints. $35, 2pm. Hazy Mountain Vineyards & Brewery, 8736 Dick Woods Rd., Afton. catelynkelseydesigns.com

etc.

2022 Banff Centre Mountain Film Festi-

val. Featuring short films that capture inspiring moments and thought-provoking action in mountain sports and culture from around the world. $25, 5pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net Waxworks scored by PRD Mais. The multigenre silent anthology with a fresh new score. $10, 4pm. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 5th Street Station. drafthouse.com

Monday 3/7

music

Baby Jo’s. Tunes from the seven-piece New Orleans-inspired boogie and blues band. Free, 6:30pm. The Whiskey Jar, 227 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. thewhiskeyjarcville.com Monday Music Series. Enjoy food and drink paired with live Latin music from Vincent Zorn, Berto & Vincent, or Beleza. Free, 7pm. South and Central Latin Grill, Dairy Market. southandcentralgrill.com

etc.

2022 Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival.

See listing for Sunday, March 6. $25, 6pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net Monday Night Trivia. Hosted by Brandon “The Trivia Guy” Hamilton. Free, 6pm. Prince Michel Vineyard & Tap 29 Brewery, 154 Winery Lane, Leon. princemichel.com The Asphalt Jungle. The ‘50s film stars Marilyn Monroe, Sterling Hayden, and Jean Hagen. Pay what you will, 2 and 7pm. Wayne Theatre, 521 W Main St, Waynesboro. waynetheatre.org

McBride in stride

Live Arts leans on experience for drag-show play and fundraiser

WILL KERNER

The Legend of Georgia McBride, Live Arts’ “celebration of divas and difference,” opens on March 4.

By Shea Gibbs

arts@c-ville.com

It’d be easy for a bunch of theater-minded folks to say to themselves, “I’m not part of the drag community, but I can put on a play about drag, no problem.”

That would be a trap, though, and one the Live Arts’ production team wants to avoid in its latest play, The Legend of Georgia McBride. The show, which tells the story of an Elvis impersonator who attempts to become a drag queen to make a living, opens at the Water Street theater on March 4.

“The biggest challenge we took on from the get-go was making sure we were stepping into this in an authentic way,” says director Perry Medlin, who’s helmed three shows for Live Arts and many others at Tandem Friends School, where he teaches theater and public speaking. “None of the company has had a great deal of experience in drag, so we wanted to make sure we were coming to this from a place where we were able to learn about what that culture involves and to honor it, not just imitate it.”

Enter Jason Elliott, a former drag queen and current model and public speaker. Live Arts and the Georgia McBride team recruited Elliott as a production consultant, and Medlin says Elliott’s ability to “take that world and put it onstage” has been critical to developing the show’s authenticity.

The Legend of Georgia McBride, written by Matthew Lopez and winner of multiple awards, will be the third show in Live Arts’ current six-play season. The company is trying not only to recover its stage legs post-pandemic, but also integrate a new artistic director’s vision. Susan Evans, who joined Live Arts last June, said presenting inclusive shows with a variety of perspectives would be central to her mission. “More voices need to be heard,” she told C-VILLE in October.

The show will feature five cast members changing in and out of more than 50 costumes. It lines up with the theme of the company’s annual fundraiser—this year, Elliott will host the fundraiser on March 20. Marketer and Design Coordinator Katie Rogers calls it a “big, boozy brunch and live drag show.”

The Legend of Georgia McBride will be the company’s annual mentor/apprentice show, too. Live Arts’s mentor/apprentice program has been giving high school students the chance to participate in community theater for at least a decade, according to Education Director Miller Susen. The program invites students to act as production team apprentices in one mainstage show per year, typically drawing eight to 10 student volunteers and assigning them to areas of their choosing. This year, six high schoolers will apprentice in stage management and scenic, props, lighting, sound, and costume design.

Susen says the mentor/apprentice program has brought countless students back to Live Arts over the years to volunteer on later productions, as well as helping push others on to drama school and even theater careers. That benefits Live Arts, but it’s also good for the theater community in general, according to Susen.

“We have a great group of apprentices on Georgia, and we are delighted to have people finding their way back to Live Arts,” she says. “It’s been a difficult time for theater, so that’s really important.”

What can folks who come to see The Legend of Georgia McBride expect? Medlin calls the show “a huge number with so many moving parts.” In addition to those 50-plus costumes, the production boasts extensive setwork, props, and technical lighting and sound—all great opportunities for those high school apprentices.

“The thing I love about this show is it is this great big drag extravaganza, but at its heart it is a story about somebody who wants to be better and meet the people around them,” Medlin says. “It’s that core of humanity amidst the feathers and the bangles…that make the show interesting for the audience.”

As the five Georgia McBride cast members—Brandon Bolick as the lead, plus Danait Haddish, Marc Schindler, Randy Risher, and Jude Hansen—move around the stage and (hopefully) perform without a hitch, Medlin says it’s important to remember just how many people are working behind the scenes to make it possible.

Oh, and he suggests remembering one more thing: “Don’t forget to tip your drag queens. They get mad when you don’t.”