John Porter

The name of Alligator recording artist Tommy Castro’s latest album is A Bluesman Comes To Town, and last night (April 5) he was the bluesman who rolled into Richmond’s Tin Pan with his group The Painkillers and special guest Deanna Bogart.

Henry and I hope you will join us this Saturday night, April 9th, at 9:00 for a special guitar slinging episode of Time For The Blues. We’ve got not one but two special segments dedicated to two of the best there ever were to strum a six string and we thing you’re really going to enjoy yourself.

I hope you will join us this Saturday night, April 2, at 9:00 on Time For The Blues as Henry Cook and I try to figure out What's Shakin'. Not as in “What’s going on” but as in this very cool disc that Mr. Cook found that has some very early Clapton that neither one of us had ever heard before.

Henry Cook and I hope you will join us for a very special Time For The Blues this Saturday night, March 26th, at 9:00 as we present music and conversation with one of the busiest blues performers around right now, Mr. Tommy Castro!

Time For The Blues is back like a bad penny but with some great music for your listening pleasure. Henry and I are glad to be back behind our respective microphones spinning records and telling some seriously bad jokes. It all takes place this Saturday night, March 19, beginning at 9:00 on VPM Music or stream live on vpm.org.

Starting off with the wonderful Jill-Bari Steinberg skittering around a rundown cold water flat and it only takes a second to realize that the Richmond Triangle Players have eschewed their frequent glitz and glamour opening production for a down and gritty powerful one that will leave an impression long after the final curtain.

Some theatre companies have the innate ability to take over an existing space and using all of their alchemical powers change it from a place of business to a place of spellbinding performance. Others, such as the brand new Illuminated Stage company are fortunate enough to be born into a new facility that seems to have all of the bells and whistles that a theatre family could want.

Some of the most exciting moments of Swift Creek Mill Theater’s production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, the musical comedy revue with book and lyrics by Joe Dipietro and music by Jimmy Roberts took place not on the stage, but in their spacious dining hall.

Director Morrie Piersol has beautifully blended all of these elements into a stunning production that should not be missed.

Richmond Triangle Players and director Melissa Rayford opened the holiday season with a lively and delightful presentation of Charles Busch’s Christmas gift to the theatre, Times Square Angel. The play has become a staple of the off-Broadway end of the year schedule with Busch himself leading a staged reading of the play every year since 2000.