Style Weekly

On the afternoon of Saturday, Oct. 10, a long line of Richmond Folk Festival attendees ran up Brown’s Island Way on the hill behind the general admission lawn area of Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront. If you looked down into the bowl of the amphitheater, on a large video screen beside the stage, you could see the reason for the crowd: An image of Richmond-born neo-soul legend, D’Angelo, or Michael Eugene Archer, who died in 2025 from pancreatic cancer.

It all started with a turkey. Or, more accurately, it started with a metal sculpture topped with a stylized steel turkey. In July 1987, artist Lonnie Holley brought collector William “Bill” Arnett to visit Thornton Dial at the latter’s Alabama home. Obliging their request to see some of his artwork, Dial walked over to his great-aunt’s turkey coop next door and procured “Turkey Tower,” a piece made from leftover metal chair parts that he’d been storing alongside some fine feathered friends.

Those expecting green makeup, neck bolts and triumphant cries of “It’s Alive!” may be disappointed by Richmond Shakespeare’s rendering of “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” currently running at the Theatre Gym. But anyone who appreciates a complex tale full of moral ambiguity brought to life by a small but mighty cast, all of whom convincingly portray multiple – often wildly-contrasting – characters, will eat this play up like candy corn.

I’ve always been pretty ambitious. I like a full calendar, a deadline and a project with a clear finish line. Both of my parents are doctors and my brother is an attorney, so I grew up surrounded by people who worked hard to build meaningful, demanding careers. They never made me feel like I had to follow the same path, and they were incredibly supportive of whatever I chose to pursue. However, there was an assumption that I would take whatever talents I was given and make the most of them.

As a member of the Richmond Folk festival’s local programming committee, I’m aware that the first rule of the programming committee is that no one talks about the programming committee. So I hope I’m not violating terms and conditions when I reveal that many of the acts to be featured at this year’s 22nd edition of the festival completely stunned — gobsmacked is the ethnomusicological term, I think — the normally jaded, heard-it-all-before committee members.

It is my favorite time of year, of cider and spiced cake and rust-colored leaves and food festivals and parties and trips to cabins and horror movies around the clock, several concerning trips to cabins, as ghouls might grow restless should you watch less than several hundred hours of horror material this month of Bootober… I could get my think-piece on, wondering if the intensifying nostalgia industry is connected to the scariness of real life, a simple byproduct of my middle age or both or...

The Richmond Folk Festival is the city’s largest music event, typically drawing 200,000 attendees over its Friday night to Sunday sundown run. This year’s edition features over 30 performers on six stages spread out along and up the hill from the James River. Here are some tips for the newbies out there: Telling people where to go is like suggesting where to start at a massive self-serve smorgasbord. It depends on your taste, and there are no inherently bad choices.

In the final days leading up to the 2026 Richmond Folk Festival, slated for Oct. 9-11, head programmer Víctor Hernández-Sang had a problem. One of the featured musical artists, Lucibela, the celebrated singer from the Cape Verde islands, was forced to drop out of her current U.S. tour due to Visa issues. She couldn’t appear at the festival.

It was the summer of 1995 and the lyrics of D’Angelo’s debut single “Brown Sugar” blasted from the car stereos of Black folks riding a pop culture high. “Oh, Sugar when you close to me/ you love me right down to my knees/ And whenever you let me hit it/ Sweet like honey when it comes to me/ …. I want some of your brown sugar.” His melodies encapsulated the joy and sensuality of the Black experience that was hidden from the white gaze.

Hanover isn’t just the land of tomatoes. It’s also home to alpacas, berries, heirloom grains, meadows and flowers, and on Oct. 10, folks are encouraged to explore the county’s agricultural past and present at the inaugural Hanover Fields & Farms Tour. “This isn’t just a farm tour — it’s a choose-your-own adventure through Hanover County’s fields, fences, greenhouses and gathering places,” says Ann Glave, existing business and project manager for Hanover County Economic Development.