
Virginia Stage Company 2025-26 season starting with jazz, ending with world premiere
Virginia Stage Company's recently announced 2025-26 season will be packed with variety — swinging jazz, holiday fun, mysteries and even a thriller — and culminates in a world premiere.
Each of the seven shows will be performed at the Wells Theatre in Norfolk.
Here is what the theater company has in store:
___
A tribute to the music of Fats Waller, the show features five performers swing dancing and singing humorous songs by the legendary jazz pianist. Part of Norfolk State University Theatre Company's professional series, it will be performed Sept. 3 through 21.
___
Playwright Kate Hamill's adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel 'Emma' is a comedy about the smart and energetic Emma Woodhouse, who prides herself on being an expert matchmaker. Oct. 22 through Nov. 9.
___
Combining characters from classic tales by Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes must come out of a self-imposed retirement to solve the mystery of the untimely death of Ebenezer Scrooge. Dec. 4 through 28.
___
A reimagining of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol,' the play follows Scrooge as he journeys through life alongside the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Dec. 4 through 28.
___
The play is a thriller that follows the plight of a blind woman who's threatened by criminals inside her Greenwich Village apartment. Jan. 28 through Feb. 15.
___
This reimagining of the biblical story of Joseph features the music of acclaimed composer Andrew Lloyd Weber. March 11 through 29.
___
Set in Harlem and involving two young friends who experience racial uprisings and heartbreak during the summer of 1943, this play will make its world premiere next spring in Norfolk. April 8 through 26.
Details: vastage.org, 757-627-1234
Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Verge
a day ago
- The Verge
Pokémon studio's action RPG Beast of Reincarnation launches in 2026
Game Freak, perhaps best known for its work on the Pokémon franchise, is working on a new action RPG called Beast of Reincarnation that will launch sometime in 2026. In the game, you play as Emma, who will be accompanied by a canine friend. 'Survive a journey across an ominous, ever-changing world where dangerous forests can erupt in the wasteland,' according to the description from a new trailer shown at the Xbox Games Showcase 2025. 'As Emma and Koo push deeper into the unknown, their bond strengthens—and with it, strange powers bloom.' The description also says the RPG is built around 'demanding, technical combat,' and based on the trailer, that sure appears to be the case — it looks thrilling.


Buzz Feed
a day ago
- Buzz Feed
Old-Fashioned Baby Names Showdown Quiz
For a while there, it seemed like EVERYONE was trying to come up with the most clever, new, unique baby name. Now, Oliver and Emma are back to being trendy. If only English authors of the 1800s could see us now! ✨ The 32 baby names in this quiz were popular in the 1920s. One hundred years later, do they deserve a second life? Sign up for a BuzzFeed Community account to make your own Showdown now!
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
‘The Ritual' Review: Exorcisms Happen, Excitement Not So Much in Drab Horror Opus With Al Pacino
Not since Paul Schrader's ill-starred 'Exorcist' entry 'Dominion' in 2004 has an exorcism-centric thriller taken itself quite so seriously as 'The Ritual.' Based on a real-life case, like director David Midell's prior 'The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain,' this more fantastical drama is a relatively restrained effort less interested in standard horror effects than the events' psychological impact on their participants. Nonetheless, its integrity and able performers only do so much to elevate a reluctant genre movie that emerges as rather dreary — not unlike 'Dominion,' albeit minus theological discussions. With Al Pacino and Dan Stevens topping the cast, XYZ Films' release should lure in some genre fans. Still, their disappointment may be salved only by the thought that this is a definite genre improvement over the abysmal 'The Exorcist: Believer' from two years ago. Midell's feature is billed as being based on 'the true story that inspired 'The Exorcist,'' though William Peter Blatty's original novel was purportedly more influenced by a 14-year-old Maryland boy's alleged demonic possession in the '40s. Here, the source is accounts of Emma Schmidt, a middle-aged midwesterner who had already been tormented by inexplicable behaviors before being turned over to Catholic authorities in 1928 for emergency spiritual intervention. Because clergy involved documented the exorcisms (which took place over four months), her travails are still considered by believers as one of the strongest proofs for occult possession being an actual thing. More from Variety Spike Lee Says Denzel Washington Deserved Oscar for 'Malcolm X' Over Al Pacino: 'It's Like Basketball, Where the Ref Blows a Call' Al Pacino Joins Bobby Moresco-Directed Biopic 'Maserati: The Brothers' Al Pacino, Katie Holmes Getty Kidnapping Drama 'Captivated' Set for Imminent Rome Shoot as Producer Andrea Iervolino Boards (EXCLUSIVE) The movie's much younger version of Schmidt — played by Abigail Cowen, who's in her late twenties and could pass for a teen — arrives at St. Joseph's as a frail, frightened and passive presence. Nuns of the convent are tasked with her basic care, while parish priest Father Joseph Steiger (Stevens) is charged with keeping a written record of whatever occurs during her stay. All of them assume that Emma's true problem is psychiatric. They see little reason to keep her in restraints as recommended by Father Theophilus Riesinger (Pacino), the visiting Capuchin friar who'll perform 'sacred rites' of exorcism. That turns out to be a big mistake. Emma herself may be a harmless victim, but whatever's got hold of her is crafty, malicious and violent. It's soon terrorizing the novices, in addition to targeting skeptic Steiger and young Sister Rose (Ashley Greene) as weak links in the circle of faith. Enough havoc is wrought that the Mother Superior (Patricia Heaton) insists Emma be moved to the institution's basement. Yet wherever its permanent residents go, and however firmly secured their troubled guest is, these servants of the church sense a mocking, evil entity running loose. There's nothing here you haven't seen before: Furniture moves around on its own, lights flicker and go out. Emma's battered body shows evidence of cruel internal warfare, while the demon also inflicts grievous harm on others who foolishly get too close. That foul being knows things it shouldn't about our protagonists, imitating voices of dead loved ones to manipulate them. Through it all, Pacino's aged friar remains stoic — he's apparently been through the likes of this before. (The real Riesinger had indeed already attempted to exorcise Schmidt once, in 1912 Wisconsin.) You might expect 85-year-old Pacino to chew scenery in this lurid supernatural context. Instead, he wisely chooses to play his Bavarian-emigre figure as a man who endures outlandish, alarming phenomena by refusing to be ruffled, maintaining a demeanor of gentle authority and humor. The normally expert Stevens appears less assured than usual, as if fearful that he might have gotten himself into some real schlock. He hasn't, but 'The Ritual' sometimes makes you wish he had. It just isn't much fun, even as it lacks the gravitas needed to make a more deeply unsetting impression, as William Friedkin famously managed with 'The Exorcist' 52 years ago. Cowen, who bears passing resemblance to Ashley Bell of 'The Last Exorcism' (that film's costar, Patrick Fabian, plays a senior cleric here), provides a touchingly pathetic presence, whenever she's not a yelling, growling special effect. But neither the afflicted party or its afflicting demon are imbued with much personality by Midell and Enrico Natale's script. There are some creepy and scary moments, yet the whole feels uninspired — this director doesn't seem terribly committed to the mechanics of horror, while the milieu and characters don't come to vivid life in a way that reinforces 'Ritual's' stance as more of a strange-but-supposedly-true docudrama. Once the end credits roll, we're left with the odd sensation of still waiting for some cathartic climax. The Mississippi-shot production's physical modesty is apt enough for story purposes, though you might wish for a smidge more assertive style from Adam Biddle's cinematography and other craft departments. 'The Ritual' merits some appreciation for not being merely another cheesy exploitation of familiar themes. But that doesn't redeem the fact that, in the end, it's a bit of an earnest slog — an exorcism movie more tame than bedeviled. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade