ARTS & LIVE PERFORMANCES
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISTS: THE WOMEN
Muscarelle Museum of Art, Ongoing, $12, Tickets
Drawn from the renowned Christian Levett Collection and the FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France, Abstract Expressionists: The Women will spotlight nearly fifty paintings created by thirty-two important women artists between 1936 and 1977. It underscores the critical contributions these artists made to the growth of Abstract Expressionism worldwide by studying the stylistic crosscurrents between women working not only in New York but also in California and Paris during the movement’s inception, peak years, and beyond.
The Muscarelle Museum of Art is located on the historic campus of William & Mary. The Museum’s permanent collection of nearly 8,000 objects is one of the oldest campus-based collections of art in the United States. The Museum serves as a working laboratory for the university, collaborating with faculty and staff in interdisciplinary ways and engaging students through internships, research and study. The Museum also serves as a dynamic resource for the wider community, hosting original and traveling exhibitions featuring artwork on loan and from the Museum’s own permanent collection.
EXHIBITION OF JONAS MEKAS STILL IMAGES AND FILM WORKS
Andrews Gallery, Ongoing, Free
This exhibition presents a focused selection of still images by Jonas Mekas, drawn from his lifelong practice of filming daily life. Known primarily for his diary films, Mekas also produced photographic images by isolating individual frames from his 16mm footage. These works preserve fleeting moments of intimacy, friendship, and observation, allowing time to pause within the flow of lived experience.
The exhibition brings together framed still images alongside film elements presented on continuous loops, inviting viewers to experience Mekas’s cinema through both stillness and movement. Faces, gestures, and fragments of everyday life emerge as quiet records of presence, memory, and attention. Throughout the month, additional screenings and public programs intersect with the exhibition, situating the presentation within a broader exploration of Mekas’s films and legacy.
For updated program information, screenings, and related events, visit MatneyGallery.com. This project is presented in conjunction with OUTPOST NYC DCG.
HANDMADE
Hart Gallery, Sadler Center, Ongoing, Free
Handmade is an art exhibition celebrating the process of making art by hand. Showcasing pieces created entirely by hand, the show focuses on what it means to be a human and create human work in our time. Featured pieces were created by current W&M students and Zara Fina Stasi, the show’s curator.
Zara Fina Stasi (W&M ‘12) is an artist and author based in Richmond, VA. Her work has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and U.S. News & World Report. She has been commissioned by the NYC Department of Transportation for public murals and has collaborated with the NBA, Cartier, and Anthropologie. Zara graduated Magna Cum Laude from William and Mary with a Bachelor of Arts in both Art and History. She is working on her first picture book and is represented by Red Fox Literary.
Zara Fina Stasi will also facilitate an Industry Summit workshop, Collage Your Creative Career.
PERFECT BROKEN
Thursday, March 19, 6:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theater, Free
Perfect Broken is a journey through time where material, light and movement carry the senses through a hybrid experience of performance, ritual and art installation. Two dancers explore an empty expanse of paper as the charcoal in their hands leaves a trace that reflects the arcs and sweeps of their movement. Inspired by the poetry of Wabi-Sabi, their skin begins to form a patina as the choreography leaves its mark as visual art on both the paper and the body. Paper sculptures in the landscape become tools for conversation and obfuscate the delineation between the two bodies as they search, scratch, smudge and find their way to each other.
Performed by Renata Sheppard (W&M ’04) and Emmanuel Mallette.
THE BEST MAN SHOW
Wednesday, March 18, 7:30 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theater, $12, Tickets
The Best Man Show is an interactive and darkly hilarious wedding reception where Mark Vigeant plays the Groom’s brother Paul, who has been asked to give the toast at an untraditional polyamorous commitment ceremony. It starts out fun and silly, with your typical masculine roasting and ribbing – and gradually devolves into a drunken chaotic mess where Paul tries to understand what it means to love, but can’t get over his own toxic masculinity to recognize his loneliness. Throughout the show, Mark recruits audience members to play various wedding guests.
Mark Vigeant is a high-energy, wildly inventive performer who blends clown, improv, and tech wizardry into unforgettable live shows. He’s currently touring his award-winning solo shows The Best Man Show and OUT THERE, around the globe, the former of which will be coming to Dropout.tv this year.
VENISON
Saturday, March 21, 11:00 AM, PBK Hall Studio Theatre, Free
When Tristan is forced to leave the UK, move back in with his conservative parents in rural Virginia, and start working for the family well-drilling company, he thinks his life is over. But then he meets Kyle, a young, ambitious reporter. The two quickly fall in love, but Kyle's success at work starts to have unintended consequences. When the two become trapped in a cabin in the woods, they must confront the fault lines in their relationship. A queer drama with touches of horror, Venison examines competitiveness, ambition, and queer masculinity. This performance will be a script-read of the play performed by W&M student actors.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Christopher Adams (W&M ’08) is a British-American playwright and screenwriter based in London. His plays include Tumulus, Antigone, and Cooked. His play Venison won the Carlo Annoni International Playwriting Prize (2025). His screen projects have been developed by FilmNation and Hirsch Giovanni. He is currently on attachment at the National Theatre of Great Britain. In his academic life, Christopher holds a PhD from the Institute of English Studies, University of London. He was a US Fulbright Scholar in China (2011-2012).
Christopher Adams will also facilitate an Industry Summit workshop, So You Want To Get Into Playwriting?
JENNY HAGEL GIVES ADVICE
Saturday, March 21, 3:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theatre, $12 General Admission, $25 VIP Meet & Greet, Tickets
Jenny Hagel loves two things: comedy and telling people what to do. And in her live show, she gets to do both at the same time.
She invites audience members to submit written questions about their relationships, careers, and families. Then Jenny and a special guest give their best, most professional (not professional at all) life advice. At the end of the show, Jenny invites a real live therapist on stage to tell her and her guest star if they did a good job - or if the audience should totally ignore all of the advice they just heard.
This performance is more than just a comedy show - it's a hilarious, interactive way to watch a skilled comedian fix and/or ruin a bunch of strangers' lives.
Jenny Hagel (W&M ’98) is an Emmy-nominated TV writer and comedy performer in New York City. She is currently a writer/performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she created the recurring segment "Jokes Seth Can't Tell." Jenny also served as Head Writer/Executive Producer of The Amber Ruffin Show. She has been nominated for two GLAAD Awards for her work addressing LGBTQ issues on TV. Her debut essay collection, Advice No One Asked For, is available for pre-sale now wherever books are sold.
Jenny Hagel will also facilitate an Industry Summit workshop, Comedy Writing Q&A.
PROJECT: A PERFORMANCE-LECTURE ON THE MENTAL ARCHITECTURE OF MAGIC
Sunday, March 22, 2:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theatre, $16, Tickets
A performance-lecture led by artist and magician Jeanette Andrews. Magic performance combines with live-drawn overhead projections and philosophical conversation to investigate how and why we perceive and believe.
Andrews creates interactive, surreal performance vignettes utilizing elegant, yet common items combined with sleight of hand causing viewers to question the dynamic nature of perception. This program combines interactive magic with Andrews' structural analysis of the scientific, social and philosophical underpinnings of why we believe in the seemingly impossible.
Jeanette Andrews is a magician, artist, and speaker and is hailed as one of the most innovative illusionists in the world today. Her work bridges the worlds of illusion, installation, and conceptual art, creating interactive vignettes and surreal, multisensory experiences that investigate perception, cognition, and the seemingly impossible. She invites audiences to co-create her illusory performances which function as live thought experiments. She has presented numerous commissioned works with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Boca Raton Museum of Art, as well as for the Quebec City Biennial. Andrews has also held residencies with the Institute for Art and Olfaction in LA, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston, and is a former National Arts Club Artist Fellow and Affiliate of metaLAB at Harvard. She was a 2024-2025 Visiting Artist for the Center for Art, Science and Technology at MIT. She is the current Visiting Artist for the Arts Institute at Brown University.