Join us for our June Critter Club series! Critter Club invites families into the woods, down to the water’s edge, and through different themed gardens to learn about some of the animals who call NBG home. Recommended for ages 6-12 with some chaperone assistance.
SERIES SCHEDULE
Tuesday, June 2 | Fireflies 101
Tuesday, June 9 | Garden Amphibians
Tuesday, June 16 | Nocturnal Pollinators
Tuesday, June 23 | Coastal VA Snakes
Tuesday, June 30 | Foxes 101
Join us for our June Critter Club series! Critter Club invites families into the woods, down to the water’s edge, and through different themed gardens to learn about some of the animals who call NBG home. Recommended for ages 6-12 with some chaperone assistance.
SERIES SCHEDULE
Tuesday, June 2 | Fireflies 101
Tuesday, June 9 | Garden Amphibians
Tuesday, June 16 | Nocturnal Pollinators
Tuesday, June 23 | Coastal VA Snakes
Tuesday, June 30 | Foxes 101
Join us for our Little Sprout Explorers June series! Each week you and your little ones will be introduced to nature and science concepts through crafts, hands-on exploration, walking tours, and a story time. Recommended for children ages 3-6 with significant chaperone assistance.
SERIES SCHEDULE
Monday, June 1 | Life in a Tree
Monday, June 8 | Slugs & Snails
Monday, June 15 | B is for Butterfly
Monday, June 22 | Winter in Australia
Monday, June 29 | Magnolias & Beetles
Paint a pollinator bath for your garden, then learn about the importance of supporting pollinators at home. Recommended for children ages 5-12 with some chaperone assistance. All attending adults and children are required to have a registered ticket.
Held at the Attucks Theater: 1010 Church Street, Norfolk, VA 23510
Experience an unforgettable afternoon at the Black Music & Art Celebration. Witness a legendary conversation between MadSkillz, the Grammy-winning rapper, wordsmith, and torchbearer for Hip-Hop culture, with Torae, songwriter and co-chair of the Black Music Collective. Feel the energy of live performances from the Bobby Blackhat Band, Hot Gumbo Brass Band, Shark City Drum and Dance Corp, Leviticus Gospel Choir, and FORTRESSES Band. Hear from Teens With a Purpose’s newly named Youth Poet Laureates, engage in Music & The Movement with Delegate Jackie Glass, and meet artists from the “Rhythm of the Stage” exhibition in a special conversation with curator Nyree Dowdy, podcaster Kayda Plus, and artist Briana Ariel. Go behind the scenes of today’s music industry with Creatives for Virginia, and explore artwork that reflects the depth, creativity, and influence of Black culture.
This dynamic, free event is a celebration designed to inspire, connect, and uplift. All of this unfolds at the historic Attucks Theatre, one of the nation’s oldest surviving theaters built, owned, and operated by African Americans. For generations, the Attucks has been a vital stage for Black performers and audiences, hosting legendary artists and serving as a cornerstone of cultural life in Norfolk. To gather here is to be part of that ongoing story—honoring a legacy of creativity, resilience, and community while shaping what comes next.
Whether you come for the performances, the conversations, or the sense of community, this is a moment you won’t want to miss. Join us as we honor the past, energize the present, and celebrate the future of Black artistry.
Presented in collaboration with the Chrysler Museum of Art, the City of Norfolk, Norfolk Arts, and Seven Venues.
Free, registration not required.
12 p.m.: Bobby Blackhat Band (mainstage)
12:15 p.m.: Curatorial and Artist Chat with Kayda Plus, Nyree Dowdy, and Briana Ariel (gallery)
12:45 p.m.: Hot Gumbo Brass Band (mainstage)
1 p.m.: Welcome from the NAACP and City Partners (mainstage)
1:15 p.m.: Shark City Drumline (mainstage) and Music & the Movement with Del. Jackie Glass (gallery)
2 p.m.: Leviticus Gospel Choir (mainstage)
2:15 p.m.: Creatives for Virginia Intro to Music Industry (gallery)
3 p.m. Black Music Collective’s Torae & Grammy Winner MadSkillz in conversation on Black music and Hip Hop
4 p.m. FORTRESSES Band
Saturday, May 23 at 7:30 PM | Onstage Seating for $25 or VIP (4-top table) for $160
This is not a typical concert and that is the point.
On May 23, Virginia Stage Company invites you onto the stage of the historic Wells Theatre for an intimate, up-close evening of original music featuring Lewis McGehee, Michael Lille, and Karl Werne.
With seating onstage, the distance between artist and audience disappears. You are not watching from afar. You are in the room where the music is being made. Expect stripped-down performances, personal storytelling, and songs shared the way they were meant to be heard.
Each songwriter brings a distinct voice and perspective, creating a night that moves between melody, memory, and meaning. This is a one-night-only experience designed for listeners who value connection over spectacle and authenticity over amplification.
If you love discovering music in its most honest form, this night is for you. Seating is limited, and once the stage is full, that is it.
Ryan Resilience Lab Tours
Are you curious about how we can live in harmony with nature and adapt to the challenges of climate change? Do you want to see how cutting-edge design and technology can create a resilient and sustainable urban coastal community? Do you want to learn more about the Elizabeth River Project and its vision for the future?
Join the Elizabeth River Project for a tour of our globally significant resilience model, the Ryan Resilience Lab. This state-of-the-art building showcases how we can protect both the ecosystem and humans as sea levels rise, incorporating replicable, environmentally sustainable design and construction.
The Ryan Resilience Lab is also the key anchor for the Eco-District, a collaborative effort to transform the northern part of Norfolk’s Colley Avenue near Knitting Mill Creek into an innovation corridor that fosters economic development, social equity, and environmental stewardship.
During the tour, you will get to see the inside and outside of the building, learn about its features and functions, and hear from our staff and volunteers about the organization’s work and goals.
The tours are free and open to the public, but space is limited and pre-registration is appreciated. Donations are always appreciated to support a healthy Elizabeth River. We look forward to seeing you soon!
If you cannot join us on our regular tour dates and times, or if you would like to arrange a special tour for your group, please reach out to Victoria Dunch at vdunch@elizabethriver.org.
There are Mountain Goats albums that emerge from historical deep dives, vividly rendered autobiography, liturgical exploration, and modern anthropological study. Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan came from a dream. In May 2023, John Darnielle took to his phone in the middle of the night to document a title from somewhere in his subconscious. Because this is the Mountain Goats—a band known for avoiding the easy route, always challenging themselves to push a step beyond—Darnielle not only decided to complete this mysterious project but also to deliver it as a full-on musical that stands as the most conceptually detailed and musically elaborate project in the band’s ever-expanding catalog.
“I loved musicals when I was a kid,” Darnielle explains, “but I hadn’t really indulged in them that much until the last 7 years or so. And then we did Jenny From Thebes, which I called a ‘fake musical’ a lot… But this one actually is going for it.”
Produced by the Mountain Goats’ multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, who also co-wrote several songs, the record is embracing, inviting, and overflowing with melody and orchestration that extends far beyond the boundaries of their past work. “My approach is more arrangement-based,” Douglas says of his role. “I’m trying to sculpt the shape of the songs with the layering of instruments that are suiting the song best… I am sometimes a bit of a maximalist with that stuff. Sometimes more is more!”
Drawing on the cryptic phrasing of its title, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan tells the story of a small crew shipwrecked on a desert island, where three surviving members—an unnamed narrator, Captain Peter Balkan, and Adam—are plagued by diminishing resources and apocalyptic visions. “The first thing you learn is how strong you can be if you have to,” Darnielle sings early in the album. “The next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night.”
These are tales of survival and desolation, brutality and tenderness, hard-earned wisdom and heaps of compassion, novelistic detail and shouted, wordless choruses that transcend language. In other words, these are Mountain Goats songs, further deepening a singular body of work now spanning over three decades. To match the conceptual heft of the narrative, the band’s core members—John Darnielle, Matt Douglas, and drummer Jon Wurster—are accompanied by new bassist Cameron Ralston and crucial appearances from Replacements legend Tommy Stinson, harpist Mikaela Davis, and musical theater royalty Lin-Manuel Miranda, a longtime friend whose background vocals lend the songs an additional dramatic punch.
For all the new ground the Mountain Goats cover, they still play to their strengths. There are belt-along anthems like “Armies of the Lord,” whose stately slow-build seems designed to get hearts racing during their famed live show. There’s poignant storytelling like the hushed “Peru,” whose pastoral imagery offers a rare moment of respite amid the destruction. For the diehards, there are also crucial references to the band’s back catalog: The boombox-era deep cut “Lady From Shanghai” gets a belated sequel that will make you reconsider the stakes of its previous entry (and admire just how virtuosic this band has become).
As the story evolves from its opening overture—the first instrumental track to ever appear on a Mountain Goats album—the band guides us through the journey’s humble beginnings and the ensuing chaos, disappearances, and acceptance of fate. Occasionally, the writing feels as formalist and poetic as Darnielle, a National Book Award-nominated novelist, has ever achieved: “Lightly row but this much I know/The first thing you learn will be the first thing to go,” he sings in the brisk, catchy “Cold at Night.” In “The Lady From Shanghai 2,” the band sets a sophisticated groove that makes the ambition of its narrator feel precarious, possibly doomed from the beginning. “When I was a young man I sought out the sky,” he sings uneasily. Even within the record’s tight, chronological frame, Darnielle leaves space for interpretation, questions that linger after the narrative is over.
“That’s something that I like,” he says. “Details that, generally speaking, only I will know about. So you try to let the music evoke that very personal thing without it being a confessional song.”
Working at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hudson, New York, the Mountain Goats have crafted a record that matches the emotional vulnerability of their previous career peaks while filling up a larger space than ever. The performances are so compelling that it may take a few listens to notice the surprising textures they weave in—synth, pedal steel, fretless bass—and the bold new chapter it marks in the band’s evolution. As he was writing, Darnielle envisioned a stage set with a few key props—parts of the ship, pieces of kelp—as each character delivered their songs in the forms of soliloquies. In the closing “Broken to Begin With,” one such character surveys his surroundings, not to lament his own bad fortune but to honor the fact that, even for a moment, this environment managed to shelter him at all. This may be like a bleak story to tell, a common thread of Mountain Goats concept albums all the way back to 2002’s breakthrough Tallahassee. But it speaks to a vision shared by the narrator and, increasingly, the restlessly creative trio presenting his tale: “Nothing’s ever promised to anyone,” Darnielle sings in “Fishing Boat.” “Everything you get is a gift.”
Cogans Pizza is proud to back the squad – and it’s time to show up loud vs Ristozi FC
Saturday, May 23 vs Alexandria Reds Wednesday, May 27 vs Hub City FC Saturday, June 13 vs Grove United Tuesday, June 16 vs DMV Elite FC Saturday, June 20
All home games kickoff at 7:30 PM at Powhatan Sports Complex (4251 Powhatan Ave, Norfolk, VA 23529)
COGANS PIZZA!
