Mike Allen

Roanoke

Author and Blogger at Freelance

Minnesota-born Appalachian freelancer. Former editorial page editor/arts columnist/beat reporter for @RoanokeTimes—also chaired @TimeslandGuild a short while.

Featured in: Favicon

nytimes.com Favicon

businessinsider.com Favicon

mirror.co.uk Favicon

washingtonpost.com Favicon

yahoo.com

buzzfeed.com Favicon

wiley.com

insider.com Favicon

thehill.com Favicon

businessinsider.in + 71 more

Articles

Arts & Extras: Off the Rails Theatre celebrates 10 tenacious years

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Off the Rails Theatre specializes in bringing challenging, offbeat, off-the-wall play productions to Roanoke audiences.
Arts & Extras: Art as improvisation

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Visitors studying Joan Tanner’s drawings in a newly opened exhibition at the Taubman Museum of Art might wonder what they are supposed to represent. The colors and lines might call to mind a ship’s rigging, architectural plans or a crumbling portion of rock wall, but that’s not necessarily what the images mean. Most of the drawings share a title that provides the answer, or at least the closest thing to an answer Tanner will give: “donottellmewhereibelong,” and then a number.
Arts & Extras: Virginia Tech opens 3-show 'extravaganza' by Montgomery County artist

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Ray Kass casts a long shadow over the Southwest Virginia art scene in his role as founder of the Mountain Lake Workshop, a summer symposium that brought in major art-world luminaries such as John Cage, Cy Twombly and Howard Finster to work with community members on collaborative projects. More recently, he has helped strengthen the Taubman Museum of Art’s ties to the regional art scene as an adjunct curator.
Arts & Extras: Ferrum artist carves wood into 'irresistible' creations

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Jeff Crook isn’t a typical country whittler. When he finishes a walking staff with a wizard’s head, or a mushroom with a tiny door at its base where fairy folk might live, tasks that can take him years, the results look like psychedelic prog rock album cover art come to life. Roanoke County gallery owner Bill Jones, an advocate for Crook’s work, doesn’t think that what Crook does fits the definition of folk art. “I don’t see that it needs to have a name,” Jones said.
Arts & Extras: Coach and trolley museum seeks funds after fire

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

The Commonwealth Coach and Trolley Museum in Roanoke, devastated by a Nov. 1 fire, has launched a GoFundMe web page to raise money to help relocate and restore the few surviving buses in its collection. The page’s fundraising goal is $50,000. As of Thursday, the page had raised $1,175. The web address is www.gofundme.com/busfire. Bev Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation, said the $50,000 would be used to cover costs of moving and restoring the remaining vehicles.
Blacksburg native added glow to 'Coco'

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Blacksburg native Max Bickley can manipulate light. This superpower comes via his career as an animator working for Pixar Studios. Bickley, 31, worked as a lighting technical director on Pixar’s “Coco,” which won two Oscars last month, for best animated feature and best original song. In his Academy Award acceptance speech, “Coco” director Lee Unkrich thanked the people of Mexico and explained that the animated film had a purpose beyond simple entertainment.
Arts & Extras: Cathryn Hankla to present 2 latest poetry books at writers conference

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Cathryn Hankla’s poetry book “Galaxies” isn’t about astronomy, at least not in a literal sense. The poem “Some Assembly Required Galaxy” humorously projects difficult-to-decipher instructions onto life itself (“It’s not what you imagined, these / late nights of glue and limitation”). In “Lonely Horse Galaxy,” a father’s odd repeated phrase seems to comment obliquely on his daughter’s failed marriage.
Arts & Extras: Artist's books open feminist themes

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

A pioneering feminist artist and writer opened a solo show this week in the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University. A Kentucky native, Susan King is best known for her artists’ books, which are books, often handmade, that are intended to be viewed as art objects, akin to mixed-media collages. “She’s a fascinating artist,” said Wilson Museum director Jenine Culligan.
Arts & Extras: Nutcrackers galore

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

Roanoke Valley fans of “The Nutcracker” have a big holiday bonus in store — you can catch three versions of the traditional Christmas ballet over the next two weeks. The first one to cross the finish line by a mustachioed wooden nose is the Moscow Ballet’s 25th-anniversary tour of the “Great Russian Nutcracker,” which arrives Dec. 8 at Jefferson Center. The Moscow Ballet is celebrating 25 years of touring in North America by sending three companies to perform throughout the United States.
Arts & Extras: The butterflies decide

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Mike Allen

The reopening of the Science Museum of Western Virginia’s butterfly garden requires cooperation from a demographic not known for its team building prowess or communication skills. “If there is one thing that I have learned through this, it is that you cannot rush butterflies,” wrote Derek Kellogg, the museum’s scientific director. “They don’t seem to care too much about what I think they should be doing.