2026 PVDFest is the can’t-miss local event this weekend; one of the biggest fests of the year for our city-state. This year reprises last year’s footprint, encompassing Kennedy Plaza with three stages and reaching out...
Crook Point Brewing Company, 65 Massasoit Ave., East Providence; photo credit: Sean Carlson Over the past year, The Grind has gleamed as one of Rhode Island’s coffee gems. Set up at Crook Point Brewing Company (65...
Natasha Hodgson in the Broadway Company of Operation Mincemeat. Photo by Matt Crockett. The Tony Award® and Olivier Award®-winning musical launches the North American leg of its world tour at the Providence Performing Arts Center September...
Hunter Brown, Allie Seibold, and Seth Eliser in You've Still Got a Friend, playing at Bill Hanney's Theatre By The Sea from August 20 - September 13, 2026. Photo by Michael Derr Okee dokee folks… Tonight, at Theatre By The...
Photo by Steve Ahlquist. The unionized workers of the Community Libraries of Providence have been without a contract for two years now. Their patience, which had been wearing thin, was stretched to the breaking point by...
Photo: L-R: Pénélope Rose, Manya Glassman, Emeline Easton, and K. Elisa Garcia. by Mike Ryan. The Rhode Island International Film Festival, also known as Flickers, took place August 4 through August 9, bringing filmmakers, actors, industry...
I think museums and the culture around them have historically gotten a bad rap. When you think of museums, you might associate them with classism, inaccessibility, and wealthy donors and patrons. There’s also the issue...
As the leaves change to amber hues, so do fall beers. Our local brewers are excited about the opportunity to offer these loved styles of craft beer. If you are looking forward to cozy sweaters...
Illustration by Sadie Levine. 1. Adams Farm (pumpkins, hay rides, corn mazes) Plus: Variety fall farm stand 158 Burnt Swamp Road, Cumberland 401-714-4425 2. Appleland Orchard (apples) Plus: Cider, wine, and donuts 135 Smith Avenue, Greenville 401-949-3690 3. Barden Family Orchard (apples, pumpkins) Plus: Farmers...
Okee dokee folks… I just realized that I have been attending concerts for 50 years now. In that span of time I have seen countless shows. I honestly have no idea how many I have...
Moon Leone didn’t set out to make your run-of-the-mill pop songs. They build whole worlds, embodying different characters and using visuals to tell stories that ultimately help people heal from trauma. Performing as YourFriendM00n, they...
On August 12, Motif cohosted a forum on the Arts in Providence featuring Democratic Primary Mayoral candidates Brett Smiley and David Morales. In Providence, the real election typically happens in the primary. The winner will go...
Every election cycle, Motif brings you the candidates in their own words so you can try to compare apples to apples. It’s our way of contributing to the political process while not having the fact-checking...
Environmental Organizations Endorse Foulkes for Governor PROVIDENCE — The Providence Streets Coalition, a grassroots activist organization devoted to increasing funding, safety, and reliability in the state’s transit network, announced July 21 that it is backing former...
For the cover of Motif’s Fall Guide, painter and muralist Nicholas “Niko” Tolentino of Cranston drew inspiration from his childhood days, he relates in an interview at White Electric Coffee Co-Op in Providence. Roger Williams Park...
Centerville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket hosted its first live music event in August. It started big with the Island Roads Fest, featuring popular reggae/ rock bands including Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, Iration, Action Bronson, DENM, Bumpin...
Stepping into a tattoo convention without a tattoo or an array of piercings can be intimidating, like stepping into a gallery show without reading the title first. Aside from a pair of basic ear studs,...
August 12, 6:30 - 8:30 PM Southside Cultural Center - 393 Broad Street, Providence What do the candidates for Mayor of Providence have in mind for the future of arts engagement in the “Creative Capital”? Find...
Can art by Joey Visco Dogs and drafts? Is there any better way to celebrate yappy hour? If you are an animal and craft beer lover, this is an event you do not want to miss!...
Photo by Sindayiganza Photography. The FIFA World Cup tournament was full of thrills, drama, chaos, unity, and live television shots of devastated children in tears after their team lost a heartbreaking match. The final whistle brought...
Matthew Provençal as Thomas Andrews in ‘Titanic: The Broadway Musical’ at Bill Hanney's Theatre By The Sea July 23 – August 15, 2026. Photo by Mark Turek. The challenge to staging a production of “Titanic: The...
The Tattoo Awards featured a gallery wall populated by local artists. Here is a selection of the artwork on display! By Brianne Elizabeth @foxhallowart By Victori Leo Riel Grab Your Heart & Go by Allie Boyer @peaceflowercreations MONSTROELIZASUE by...
Photo by Jess Lee Images. I met Lily Spencer in an acting class taught by Eric Lutes, whom many television fans will remember from the 1990s sitcom “Caroline in the City.” Eric, who now lives in...
Rachel WS. Favorite Animal/ Favorite Floral Tara D’Agostino – Iron Lion Tattoo By the numbers, Tara D’Agostino got her first tattoo at the age of 15, picked up her own tattoo machine at the age of 19, opened...
Photo by Jillian Clark. There’s no feeling quite like finally being able to fully step into your own, to truly embrace your whole self and carry yourself through the world with that mentality. Not an identity...
Kai Nanfelt. Okee dokee folks… Last weekend I went on a ten-hour, each way, road trip to play a show. The drive wasn’t so bad, but the music was horrible. As I have mentioned before, I...
Photo by Isaac Laliberte Wards 2, 9 and 12 all report the same. Mendez wins in each! It appeared that Providence was perfectly poised to usher-in its first female mayor in history. The polls were closed and...
“You’re late, Brother,” she said, hovering outside the weathered cottage near a pebbly beach, indistinguishable from the shadows cast by moonlight that hit the thick hydrangeas. It was late in the evening of a seawind-chilled...
It’s almost Cthulhu – pardon my hiccup, I meant, “election” – season again. And if the tactics of these times don’t make your head swim and your bowls ache, as if you were being eviscerated...
When cover artist Bob Eggleton of Warwick first got interested in art and started sketching nightmarish creatures, he recalls, an aunt asked him, “What’s drawing a monster gonna get you in life?” He’s spent the last...
Rhode Island is a decidedly blue state with a decades-long run of nearly every major statewide office, General Assembly, congressional delegation and presidential election favoring Democrats. Save for a couple of turn-of-the-century Republican governors and the two Chafees, Democrats have held — and continue to hold — a massive power bloc in the Ocean State. […]
Native America occupies a shady area in the mainstream national consciousness, but the indigenous people of the Americas have neither vanished nor must be seen as an intangible unknown forced to linger on the fringes of society. Rhode Island-based documentary filmmaker and founder of Providence Pictures, Gary Glassman, has long been interested in the wealth […]
What does it mean to be a Rhode Island candidate for office with the support of your political party? It depends on whether you are running for executive office or legislative office. It depends on whether you are running for state or federal office. It depends on whether you are campaigning in a primary or […]
Aries: Love and money — sometimes they work together and sometimes they don’t. This is one of those times when these issues do not run smoothly. Take the time to think it through and work it out. Passions run high and deep, conversations are intense. Things will not chill out easily. It’s complicated. Taurus: Interaction with […]
We’ve all seen the memes, and we’ve all made fun of the white girl in yoga pants sipping her Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. But let’s be honest: Most of us of still secretly love all things pumpkin, we just don’t want to be that person. So, I’ve done the *very difficult work* of investigating the […]
Referendum ballot questions rarely fail voter approval in Rhode Island, and they rarely attract much controversy or attention. Unlike many other states with initiative provisions that have allowed voters to bypass their legislatures to, for example, legalize recreational use of cannabis, RI has no mechanism for circumventing the General Assembly. As a result, almost all […]
You see them all over Rhode Island: white rectangular placards on metal poles — like bus stop signs — beside a highway, near a school, tucked between houses or in unexpected corners of land. They’re markers for historical cemeteries. And RI — a state of only 1,214 square miles — has more than 3,000. Pegee Malcolm, chairwoman […]
THU 18 Empty Bowls: A unique benefit for the RI Community Food Bank, fill a (locally made!!!) artisan bowl from food from almost three dozen local eateries. 5:30pm. Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, 60 Rhodes Pl, Cranston. emptybowls2018.brownpapertickets.com THU 18 – SAT 27 The Underland: TEN31’s immersive Halloween spookening. 10:31pm. TEN31 Productions, 249 Roosevelt Ave, Pawtucket. […]
Okee dokee folks… I had an opportunity to speak with John Lodge, bassist, singer and songwriter of the iconic band The Moody Blues. Lodge will be bringing his solo tour to the Greenwich Odeum on Sunday, October 21. The Moody Blues were formed in Birmingham, England in 1964, initially consisting of keyboardist Mike Pinder, multi-instrumentalist Ray Thomas, guitarist Denny […]
Ira Levin’s Deathtrap boasts the title of longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway. Granted, there are only a handful of works that fall into such an oxymoronic category, so perhaps this isn’t as impressive an accomplishment as it may sound. It’s not difficult to imagine why so few plays like this exist; it’s a genre that […]
