For the first time since 2019, Virginia’s longest-running professional summer theater company is returning to live performance.
The Virginia Theatre Festival – formerly known as the Heritage Theatre Festival – will literally and figuratively reopen its doors to the University of Virginia and local community with a season that includes a new adaptation of “Little Women,” along with “No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone,” an acclaimed one-woman show about the legendary singer and civil rights activist.
“Little Women,” Louisa May Alcott’s literary classic, will run July 15 to July 31 in the Ruth Caplin Theatre. It is scheduled for 17 performances, including four with socially distanced seating for audience members concerned about the resurgence of COVID-19.
“No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone,” written by North Carolina poet and playwright Howard L. Craft, opens Aug. 3 in Culbreth Theatre, with five performances scheduled. Yolanda Rabun will portray Simone, an important activist in the civil rights movement.
The season will also include a staged reading of a new play, with details forthcoming.
