Dream Weaver: Composer Jimmy Lopez

March 7, 2019

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CONTENTS

STAR SEARCH

Top-notch college singers duke it out in the American Pops’ NextGen competition.

By Doug Rule

DREAM WEAVER Rising classical composer Jimmy López puts muscle behind his music.

Interview by André Hereford Photography by Todd Franson

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Volume 25 Issue 43

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WONDER WOMAN

A bridge to Avengers: Endgame, as well as an origin story, Captain Marvel is a joyous ride of female empowerment.

By Randy Shulman

SPOTLIGHT: PIZZERIA PARADISO p.7 OUT ON THE TOWN p.10 CHILLING BIG: JOE CALARCO’S SEPARATE ROOMS p.12 STAR SEARCH: AMERICAN POPS’ NEXTGEN p.16 THE FEED: GOODBYE, COBALT p.19 FORUM: SULTAN SHAKIR p.21 COMMUNITY: WALKERS WANTED p.23 COVER STORY: JIMMY LÓPEZ p.26 GALLERY: TODD FRANSON p.31 FILM: CAPTAIN MARVEL p.33 STAGE: OIL p.35 NIGHTLIFE p.37 SCENE: COBALT p.37 LISTINGS p.38 NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS p.39 SCENE: DIRTY GOOSE p.44 LAST WORD p.46 Real LGBTQ News and Entertainment since 1994

Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrator Scott G. Brooks Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Troy Petenbrink, Bailey Vogt, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla Patron Saint Samuel Barber Cover Photography Todd G. Franson Metro Weekly 1775 I St. NW, Suite 1150 Washington, DC 20006 202-638-6830 All material appearing in Metro Weekly is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publishers. Metro Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials submitted for publication. All such submissions are subject to editing and will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Metro Weekly is supported by many fine advertisers, but we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers, nor can we accept responsibility for materials provided by advertisers or their agents. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in Metro Weekly is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.

© 2019 Jansi LLC.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

REEMA DESAI

Spotlight

Pizzeria Paradiso: Women’s Day Fundraiser A LL FIVE PIZZERIA PARADISO LOCATIONS ARE honoring International Women’s Day on Friday, March 8, by donating 100% of the day’s sales of a special Virginia-themed pizza to She Should Run, a nonprofit promoting female leadership and encouraging women to run for office.

The fundraiser comes as part of the critically acclaimed, woman-owned local restaurant chain’s current promotion “United States of Pizza: Women’s Slice of the Pie,” a rotating weekly menu of state-themed pies honoring and highlighting elected female officials per state. The benefit pie for the southern commonwealth honors Congresswomen Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger, and Jennifer Wexton, with a heap of toppings including Virginia country ham, cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, collard greens, and onions.

The promotion will continue throughout the month with

pies honoring female politicos representing the states of Connecticut (a minimalist New Haven-style pizza of tomato sauce, mozzarella, and oregano) and Texas (a wild Chile Pizza featuring beef cooked in chile sauce, orange cheddar cheese, scallions, cilantro, and avocado). As an aside, it’s worth mentioning that Pizzeria Paradiso’s owner Ruth Gresser has been honored by the national restaurant industry’s leading arbiter, the James Beard Foundation, which announced last week that she is a semi-finalist as Outstanding Restaurateur for the 2019 James Beard Awards.

Pizzeria Paradiso locations are in Dupont Circle (2003 P St. NW), Georgetown (3282 M St. NW), Spring Valley (4850 Massachusetts Ave. NW), Old Town Alexandria (124 King St.), and Hyattsville (4800 Rhode Island Ave.). Visit www. eatyourpizza.com and @eatyourpizza on social media for more details about the promotion and each week’s menu.

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Spotlight ANDREW RANNELLS: TOO MUCH IS NOT ENOUGH

JAKE CHESSUM

Best known for originating the role of Elder Price in The Book of Mormon and for playing Elijah Krantz in HBO’s Girls, Rannells comes to town in support of his new memoir, Too Much Is Not Enough: A Memoir of Fumbling Toward Adulthood. The book chronicles a Midwestern boy’s experience of surviving bad auditions, bad relationships, and some really bad highlights as he chases his Broadway dream.

Rannells will be in conversation with David Litt, a former speechwriter for President Obama and author of Thanks, Obama.

Thursday, March 14, at 7 p.m. Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, 600 I St. NW. Tickets are $20, or $32 with one book, $45 with two tickets and one book. Call 202408-3100 or visit www.sixthandi.org.

CATHERINE HESS: A SINGULAR VISION OF OUTER CAPE COD

A plein air painter and creator of monotypes, Hess takes inspiration from the often dramatic and constantly changing light, clouds, winds, and tides on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. In this series of monotypes, presented by the Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, Hess aims to capture the effects of these changing conditions on colors, shapes, and shadows in the marshes, dunes, and shorelines of Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and the gay paradise of Provincetown. Opening Reception is Saturday, March 9, from 4 to 6 p.m. On exhibit to March 30. Park View Gallery, 2nd Floor of Arcade Building, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Maryland. Call 301-634-2222 or visit www.glenechopark.org.

ROOMFUL OF BLUES

An entity going on 50 years now, this horn-heavy, jumping, swinging, and rocking R&B/blues band from Rhode Island has twice won the Best Blues Band category in the DownBeat International Critics Poll. And no less than legendary Count Basie once called them “the hottest blues band I’ve ever heard” after a joint performance. The current lineup includes guitarist Chris Vachon as bandleader, tenor and alto saxophonist Rich Lataille, tenor and baritone saxophonist Mark Earley, trumpeter Doug Woolverton, vocalist Phil Pemberton, bassist John Turner, keyboardist Rusty Scott, and drummer Chris Anzalone. Vanessa Collier opens. Friday, March 8, at 8 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $17.75 to $27.75. Call 202-787-1000 or visit www.thehamiltondc.com.

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Spotlight CONFECTION

BRITTANY DILIBERTO

A rollicking rumination on opulence, inequity, and teeny-tiny desserts, this 45-minute immersive experience from Third Rail Projects includes exclusive access to the magnificent Paster and SedgwickBond Reading Rooms in the Folger Shakespeare Library. As the performance winds its way through massive and ornate spaces, theatergoers are invited to savor bite-sized delights designed by local pâtissiers. Presented in conjunction with the Folger’s current exhibition, First Chefs. To March 24. 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $40 to $60. Call 202544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.

WASHINGTON BACH CONSORT

Dana Marsh, the consort’s new artistic director, continues the spring season with the second of two Italian-influenced concerts that, as he puts it, “showcase Bach’s attempt to out-Italian the Italians.” Although Bach was never able to travel to Rome, he transcribed music by Vivaldi and other Italian opera masters as part of his own development as a composer. The soprano Laura Choi Stuart (pictured) joins the consort’s acclaimed chorus and orchestra to perform a program that includes Bach’s Non sa che sia dolore and Orchestral Suite No. 1, as well as Vivaldi’s Vengo a voi, luci adorate. Sunday, March 10, at 3 p.m. National Presbyterian Church, 4101 Nebraska Ave. NW. Tickets are $10 to $69. Call 202-429-2121 or visit www.bachconsort.org.

C. STANLEY

BLOOD AT THE ROOT

A black student disrupts the status quo at her high school merely by venturing into an area typically occupied by white students, unintentionally provoking an uptick in hate speech, violence, and chaos. Playwright Dominique Morisseau was inspired by the Jena Six, the black teenagers who were reflexively condemned and excessively charged after a 2006 altercation with a white student turned brutal in their Louisiana small-town. Directed by Raymond O. Caldwell, Theater Alliance’s production features choreography by Tiffany Quinn and an 11-person cast. To March 24.

Anacostia Playhouse, 2020 Shannon Place SE. Tickets are $40 to $50 and half-off during previews. Call 202-241-2539 or visit www.theateralliance.com.

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Out On The Town

Zilia Sanchez, Amazonas, 1978

ZILLA SÁNCHEZ: SOY ISLA (I AM AN ISLAND)

The Phillips Collection presents the first museum retrospective of this queer nonagenarian, showcasing the Cuban-born, Puerto Rican-based artist’s prolific yet largely unknown career through 60 works, including paintings, design sketches, illustrations, and sculptures. The exhibition includes many examples of Sánchez’s works on shaped canvas, often featuring recurring motifs, that evoke female body parts or feminine symbols, from pointed breasts and rounded torsos to the moon and mythological heroines. The exhibition title refers to Sánchez’s artistic individuality and independence — and in particular, the influence her sexuality and femininity has on her work — and how distinctly different it is compared to the male-dominated and male gaze-oriented work of her contemporaries, perhaps none more so than Pablo Picasso. Now through May 19. 1600 21st St. NW. Tickets are $12. Call 202-387-2151 x247 or visit www.phillipscollection.org.

Compiled by Doug Rule

FILM 2018: A SECOND LOOK

The AFI Silver Theatre returns a selection of last year’s most distinctive films to the big screen in time for awards season. The nearly two dozen films include Film Independent Spirit Award nominees Private Life and The Rider, plus Shoplifters, a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee from Japan, plus the sequels Mission: Impossible - Fallout and Paddington 2. The series continues to March 21. 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Call 301-495-6720 or visit www.afi.com/Silver.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS

After breaking box-office records last year that quickly positioned it as one of the most successful

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Asian-American-led studio movies of all time, Crazy Rich Asians gets a one-night-only return to the big screen in a co-presentation with the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival. A Q&A and discussion with screenwriter Adele Lim follows the screening. Thursday, March 14, at 7:15 p.m. AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $15 general admission. Call 301-495-6720 or visit www.afi.com/Silver.

DC INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL

Billed as the oldest of its kind in the nation’s capital, this year’s DC Independent Film Festival offers screenings of note for the LGBTQ community, including Dakota, a locally made feature by director Roberto Carmona about a talented young singer who aspires to stardom and features singer-songwriter Phoebe Ryan in her debut act-

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

ing role alongside Jake Etheridge from Nashville and D.C.’s multiple Helen Hayes Award-winning lesbian actress Holly Twyford, on Saturday, March 9. Additional films in the festival’s closing weekend: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, made with the late Le Guin’s participation over the course of a decade by director Arwen Curry, on Friday, March 8, Facing the Dragon, Sedika Mojadidi’s documentary following two prominent Afghan women as the international community withdraws from Afghanistan, threatening its fragile democracy, on Saturday, March 9, and the shorts program Animation is Art is Animation, on Sunday, March 10. The festival closes on Sunday, March 10, with Curtiz, Tamas Yvan Topolánszky’s drama about the making of the World War II-era classic Casablanca and the travails of its Hungarian director Michael Curtiz. Most directors

will be in attendance as well. Elihu Root Auditorium in the Carnegie Institution for Science, 1530 P St. NW. Individual tickets are $8 to $11 plus fees, or $14 plus fees for closing night film and party. For a full schedule and details, visit www.dciff-indie.org.

FREE SOLO

Over the next week, the Smithsonian’s American History Museum presents screenings of this year’s Oscar Winner for Best Documentary Feature, hailed as “a truly monumental moment in human achievement.” A National Geographic Documentary Film collaboration between filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi and her husband, photographer and mountaineer Jimmy Chin, Free Solo offers a stunning, intimate, and unflinching portrait of Alex Honnold as he climbs the face of the world’s most famous rock, the 3,000-foot

El Capitan in Yosemite. Fulfilling his lifelong dream, Honnold also became the first person ever to realize the feat as a “free solo climb” — without a rope or a safety net.

Obviously, don’t even think about trying this on your own — or watch it at home, alone, missing out on the full cinematic and heightened dramatic effect of seeing it on a big screen, in a big group. Now to March 14. Warner Bros. Theatre at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, 1300 Constitution Ave. NW. Tickets are $10.50 to $12. Call 202-633-1000 or visit www.si.edu/ imax.

RYAN MAXWELL

RBG

CHILLING BIG

Joe Calarco’s newest play is a love story that also happens to be gay.

J

OE CALARCO’S NEW PLAY SEPARATE ROOMS IS HARDLY YOUR TYPICAL gay love story. For one thing, the time-bending play begins after one of the lovers’ deaths. As portrayed by Alex Mills, the deceased “is in the play as a sort of witness to his friends, his family, and some strangers — [who] of course cannot see him,” says Calarco. “We get to know this group of friends and family. We see the uncovering of their relationships and what he meant to them.”

Separate Rooms further distinguishes itself from much of the gay canon in its approach to sexuality and identity. “No one's struggling with coming out,” Calarco says. “There's no complication with, ‘My friend's gay.’ In this show, it's just part of the world and who they are in that world. There are six other characters in the play who are straight, and we see those relationships, too. It's just about a group of people who are who they are, and who are living life, or trying, struggling, through a difficult evening.”

While it may touch on serious issues and difficult circumstances, Separate Rooms is not a drama, it’s a dramedy — and comedy is its animating force. “It's absolutely dealing with real stuff,” Calarco says, “[but] it's very, very funny — laugh-out-loud funny at times.... It’s very much a comedy.” In that sense, it’s in line with earlier works written by Calarco — from his all-male adaptation Shakespeare’s R & J to Walter Cronkite Is Dead. Both plays received acclaimed productions at Signature Theatre, where Calarco currently serves as Resident Director.

“When I first wrote [the play], it was sort of my Big Chill. It’s what happens when you head into your 30s: You and your college friends just start to splinter, as a group of people, who spent every waking moment together.” Roughly 15 years later, Calarco has revisited the work — originally named Party Talk — with major assist from Jordan Friend, founding artistic director of Silver Spring’s new 4615 Theatre, which is producing the work.

The production’s cast of nine actors include Mills, Stephen Russell Murray, and Reginald Richard, all gay. “As an out and proud gay playwright, to have three out and proud gay characters played by three out and proud gay actors is satisfying to me,” beams Calarco. —Doug Rule Separate Rooms runs to March 17 at the Highwood Theatre, 914 Silver Spring Ave., in Maryland. Tickets are $16.50. Call 301-928-2738 or visit www.4615theatre.com.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

As part of its monthly Cinema J series, Rockville’s Jewish Community Center next screens Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s entertaining and insightful Oscarnominated look at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In making the film, the greatest challenge might have been persuading the notoriously private Ginsburg to open up her personal life to public scrutiny.

“She held off giving us the main interview for two years,” West told Metro Weekly. “But we waited. We just kind of moved in closer and closer. And then we also got up the nerve to ask her if we could film in her gym. A few months later there we were, our eyes wide open, amazed to see that, in fact, her workout is as vigorous as had been advertised.” Wednesday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m. Kreeger Auditorium in the Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, 6125 Montrose Rd., Rockville. Tickets are $10 in advance, or $12 at the door. Call 301-881-0100 or visit www.benderjccgw.org. (AH)

CAMILLE

George Cukor’s 1936 romantic classic stars Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore.

Landmark’s West End Cinema returns the work to the big screen as part of its invaluable Capital Classics series. Wednesday, March 13, at 1:30, 4:30, and 7:30 p.m. 2301 M St. NW. Happy hour from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.50. Call 202-534-1907 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY

Documentaries focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict screen for free as part of Voices from the Holy Land series, now in its fifth year and sponsored by an interfaith coalition of more than 40 area organizations.

Thank God It’s Friday interviews residents in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh and those in the neighboring Israeli settlement of Halamish in an equal-time format over the course of a tense two years showing the day of rest turn into a day of unrest, and the waste of life that it brings. Following the screen-

for tackling taboo themes of censorship, immigration, and anti-Semitism — but especially for depicting romance blooming between two women. Eric Rosen directs a cast that includes Ben Cherry, Susan Lynskey, John Milosich, and Max Wolkowitz. To March 31. 700 North Calvert St., Baltimore. Tickets are $20 to $74. Call 410-332-0033 or visit www.centerstage.org.

MASTERPIECES OF THE ORAL AND INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY Holly Twyford, Felicia

APOLLO 11

NASA’s most celebrated mission, which took humankind to the moon 50 years ago, has never been seen as closely, in as much detail, and on as large a scale as it will be in IMAX over the next week at the National Air and Space Museum. Todd Douglas Miller crafted his documentary from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings. Rather than solely focusing on the two men who first walked the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 extends the lens to immerse viewers in the perspectives of the large, anxious team in Mission Control as well as the millions of spectators on the ground. Further enhanced by Matt Morton’s electronic score and Eric Milano’s sound design, seeing the documentary in IMAX is, as an NPR critic put it, “a singular and unforgettable experience.” And of course, you can visit the actual Apollo Lunar Module afterwards for free. Now to March 14. Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, Independence Ave at 6th St. SW. Tickets are $13.50 to $15. Call 202-633-2214 or visit www.airandspace.si.edu.

ing will be a moderated Q&A discussion. Sunday, March 10, at 2:30 p.m.

The Library in the Islamic Center of Maryland, 19411 Woodfield Road, Gaithersburg. Free. Call 240-9124976 or visit www.voicesfromtheholyhland.org.

WHAT HAPPENED 2 CHOCOLATE CITY?

D.C. was the first majority-black city in America, a fact that led to its nickname “Chocolate City.” But the once-mighty nickname has fallen out of common use in recent years in conjunction with the dramatic shift in the city’s racial demographics. Mignotae Kebede’s documentary examines how gentrification is changing black communities through the lenses of three generations of Washingtonians. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum hosts a screening of the film followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and guests.

Sunday, March 10, at 2 p.m. 1901 Fort Place, SE. Call 202-633-4820 or visit www.anacostia.si.edu.

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STAGE ADMISSIONS

Studio Theatre presents the latest work from the playwright responsible for Bad Jews, the most successful production in the company’s history. This time, Joshua Harmon has white liberals in his crosshairs, offering a no-holds-barred look at privilege, power, and the perils of whiteness, all set at a New Hampshire boarding school. Mike Donahue directs Meg Gibson and Kevin Kilner as a husband-and-wife duo who are the boarding school’s proudly progressive leaders. Yet their hard-fought, years-long work to diversify the school’s mostly white population runs somewhat counter to their own private efforts to get their son into an Ivy League university. With Sarah Marshall, Marni Penning, and Ephraim Birney. Extended to March 10.

Mead Theatre, 14th & P Streets NW. Call 202-332-3300 or visit www.studiotheatre.org.

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CYRANO

An athletic, commedia dell’arte retelling of Edmond Rostand’s world-famous story that, in true Synetic Theater fashion, is also wordless — brought to the stage

by Vato Tsikurishvili, the son of Synetic’s founders in his directorial debut. Cyrano revolves around the plight of Cyrano de Bergerac, a brilliant poet and soldier who decides to woo his beloved Roxane with the help of his charismatic and confident friend Christian. What could possibly go wrong? To March 10. 1800 South Bell St., Arlington.

Tickets are $20. Call 800-811-4111 or visit www.synetictheater.org.

INDECENT

A few months after its debut at Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage offers another chance to see the latest work by Paula Vogel, which tells the story of a group of artists who risked their careers to perform Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance on Broadway in 1923.

The work was deemed “indecent”

Curry, and Yesenia Iglesias star in Heather McDonald’s drama as three women trapped in a ravaged museum during a catastrophic hundred years war. Nadia Tass directs a world premiere at Signature Theatre that comes as part of the Heidi Thomas Writers’ Initiative, a multi-year commitment to presenting works by female playwrights with female directors. The play sees the three women, including an art restorer and her military captor, struggling for common shreds of humanity as they try to save a small symbol of beauty in their broken world. To April 7. The Ark Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Call 703-820-9771 or visit www.sigtheatre.org.

NEXT STOP: NORTH KOREA

A one-man show that promises to take theatergoers “as close as possible to North Korea without leaving their seats,” Next Stop: North Korea is based on playwright/performer John Feffer’s visits to and work in the Kim Jong Un-run communist country, exploring the challenges of doing good in a morally ambiguous environment. A foreign policy expert at the Institute for Policy Studies, Feffer has performed his previous one-man shows at Capital Fringe and other festivals, and also garnered a solo performance award from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2016. He’s directed in Next Stop: North Korea by established local theater artist Angela Kay Pirko of Nu Sass Productions.

Weekends to March 24. District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW. Tickets are $15 to $20.

Call 202-462-7833 or visit www. dcartscenter.org.

THE DOYLE AND DEBBIE SHOW / PUFFS

The eccentric Landless Theatre Company returns with two shows staged in repertory at the District of Columbia Arts Center. There’s Bruce Arnston’s parody The Doyle and Debbie Show, which simultaneously lampoons and idolizes country music’s tradition of iconic duos and their subsequent battle of the sexes, starring Andrew Lloyd Baughman and Karissa Swanigan-Upchurch and directed

by John Sadowsky (Gutenberg! The Musical!). And then there’s Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at

a Certain School of Magic & Magic, Matt Cox’s tale of those who just happened to attend Wizard School at the same time as a certain boy wizard, dedicated to “anyone who has never been destined to save the world.” To March 30. District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), 2438 18th St. NW. Call 202-4627833 or visit www.dcartscenter.org.

THE HEIRESS

Arena Stage’s Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko directs a new production, staged in the round, of this classic thriller suggested by the Henry James novel Washington Square and focused on a 19th-century young woman’s journey to find her voice. Laura C. Harris portrays Catherine Sloper while Jonathan David Martin is her possible suitor in a production also featuring Lise Bruneau, Lorene Chesley, Janet Hayatshahi, Nancy Robinette, Kimberly Schraf, James Whalen, and Nathan Whitmer. To March 10. In the round in the Fichandler Stage, Mead Center for American Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $40 to $95. Call 202-488-3300 or visit www.arenastage.org.

THUNDER KNOCKING ON THE DOOR

In honor of its 10th anniversary, Virginia’s Creative Cauldron revives Keith Glober’s humorous, crowd-pleasing musical featuring music and lyrics by Keb’ Mo’ and Anderson Edwards. Married local theater artists Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith direct Clifton Walker III as Marvell Thunder, a mysterious bluesman who challenges Glory Dupree (Shayla Simmons), the blind daughter of his guitar-playing rival Jaguar, to a “cutting contest,” with a Faustian bargain: If Thunder wins, he gets Jaguar’s guitar, but if Glory wins, she gets her sight back.

Host venue ArtSpace Falls Church is turned into a juke joint for the occasion, with Elisa Rossman serving as music director leading a fourpiece band. To March 10. 410 South Maple Ave., Falls Church. Tickets are $20 to $32. Call 703-436-9948 or visit www.creativecauldron.org.

MUSIC

CIRKUS CIRKÖR: LIMITS

A few years ago, a Swedish newspaper critic proclaimed Cirkus Cirkör the creator of a new genre: contemporary circus activism. As part of its World Stages series, the Kennedy Center welcomes the Swedish circus-inspired physical theater troupe to perform its latest work, conceived and directed by the company’s artistic director Tilde Björfors. The company’s athletic dancers move in sync, juggle, balance, contort, and fly in various ways through a maze of scenes and backdrops of projected images and videos, with a focus on upending perspectives, defying limits, and pushing past arbitrary divisions and boundaries that go against the natural human instinct to explore and move around. The performances come as part of The Human Journey collaboration with the National Geographic Society and the National Gallery of Art highlighting the powerful experiences of migration and exploration. Thursday, March 7, through Saturday, March 9, at 8 p.m. Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $19 to $85. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

ALICE SMITH

Soul-pop singer-songwriter Alice Smith is understated, sophisticated, and every bit as vocally talented as fellow four-octave ranger Christina Aguilera — except her music is better. Any moment now we should finally hear new music from Smith, with Mystery, a fulllength set of original compositions.

No doubt she’ll preview tracks from the album on tour, as well as perform from many of the phenomenal songs on her last album, the astonishing She, which charts the ups and downs and ins and outs of love,

even just friendship, with musical twists and lyrical turns as sharp and surprising as they come. Saturday, March 9. Doors at 6:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. Tickets are $35. Call 202-888-0050 or visit www.thelincolndc.com.

CATHEDRAL CHORAL SOCIETY: RACHMANINOFF LITURGY

Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, a glorious work for a cappella chorus that ranges from contemplation to celebration, gets

performed by the society, led by Steven Fox in his premiere season as music director, along with soloists Fotina Naumenko, soprano, and Marc Day, tenor. Sunday, March 17, at 4 p.m. Washington National Cathedral, Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Tickets are $25 to $81.50. Call 202-537-5510 or visit www.nationalcathedral.org.

DR. LONNIE SMITH TRIO

Perhaps the greatest living legend of the Hammond B-3 organ and also

a newly minted NEA Jazz Master, Lonnie Smith brings his trio to Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in a concert presented by Washington Performing Arts. Smith’s style juggles jazz, funk, hip-hop, and soul, and his career spans over 70 albums, including his latest, All In My Mind. Saturday, March 16, at 8 p.m. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

600 I St. NW. Tickets are $42.

Call 202-408-3100 or visit www. sixthandi.org.

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DANIEL SCHWARTZ

ELIOT SEPPA

STAR SEARCH

E

Top-notch college singers duke it out in the American Pops’ NextGen competition.

ARLIER THIS YEAR, LUKE FRAZIER, THE FOUNDING MUSIC DIRECTOR OF THE American Pops Orchestra, “hit the rails and the trails” across America. His goal was to audition hundreds of students for the organization’s NextGen singing competition, ultimately whittling them down to 30 semi-finalists. But things didn’t go quite according to plan.

“The talent pool is pretty unbelievable,” Frazier says. “We were only supposed to pick 30, but we just could not not take that 31st person.”

The chosen 31 will perform this Saturday, March 9, at the second annual “NextGen: Finding the Voices of Tomorrow,” co-presented by the Washington chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters. In addition to an audience vote to determine the winners, four judges will have their say: Michael Bobbitt of Adventure Theatre and Karma Camp of Signature Theatre, Charles McKay of the esteemed New York Festival of Song, and rising young stage actress Mary Michael Patterson (Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera).

In addition to cash prizes, the first- and second-place male and female winners are guaranteed one featured spot singing with the APO next season. Chances are, they’ll get multiple opportunities. “I keep using them for more and more things,” Frazier says of last year’s winners, Nia Savoy of Howard University and Evan LaChance of Catholic University.

Frazier launched NextGen because he sensed a need. “There are actually a lot of classical [voice] competitions, but no competition that we know of that really does this with a professional orchestra to promote the singing of musical theater and American standards.” The response suggests he’s onto something. “The more schools that find out about this, the more want to participate,” he says.

This year, there are nine participating colleges, up from the original five, with Temple and George Mason universities among the new crop. And already queued up for the third NextGen: Carnegie Mellon University, home to a preeminent musical theater program.

Contestants, accompanied by APO’s live jazz quartet, can sing “any American popular song written before 1970.” In addition to the many expected aspiring musical theater stars, some contestants may dream of pursuing careers as jazz vocalists or cabaret artists, becoming the next Michael Bublé or Michael Feinstein, Esperanza Spalding or Nellie McKay. “It’s such a fun show because every singer comes out and they are already excellent singers,” Frazier says. “It’s kinda like picking the top of the top. [Plus] you can hear a lot of very different voices in a short amount of time.” —Doug Rule NextGen: Finding the Voices of Tomorrow is Saturday, March 9, at 8 p.m., in Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $20 to $30. Call 202-488-3300 or visit www.theamericanpops.org.

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A master of both the upright and electric bass, Seppa has worked as a sideman for many of the top jazz and R&B acts, including the Impressions, Raul Midón, Warren Wolf, and Sharon Clark. Seppa gets a chance to showcase his own jazz fusion sound, which draws from R&B, hip-hop, gospel, Latin, and African music, in two performances at the Mansion at Strathmore as part of a series featuring the 2019 class of the organization’s esteemed program Artists in Residence. Grammy-nominated Christylez Bacon, The Voice contestant Owen Danoff, and Princeand Stevie Wonder-collaborator Frédéric Yonnet are just three of the 80-plus young musicians who have been mentored through the program since 2005. Wednesday, March 13 and March 27, at 7:30 p.m. The Mansion, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. Tickets are $17. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www. strathmore.org.

FAIRFAX SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA W/BOWEN MCCAULEY DANCE COMPANY

The revered local contemporary dance company joins the Fairfax Symphony to perform the kinetic music of composer Erberk Eryilmaz — specifically, Eryilmaz’s Concerto for Clarinet and Imaginary Folk Dancers and Dances of the Yogurt Maker. The young clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski joins to perform Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto as well as Gershwin's Preludes for Clarinet and Strings. Christopher Zimmerman conducts. Saturday, March 9, at 8 p.m., starting with a pre-performance discussion with Zimmerman and special guests at 7 p.m. Concert Hall, George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. Tickets are $39 to $65. Call 888-945-2468 or visit cfa.gmu.edu.

JAMES BAY

The 28-year-old British singer-songwriter, in the jaunty folkpop mold of Ed Sheeran, finally comes to the U.S. in support of his second album, last year’s Electric Light, which was inspired by everyone from David Bowie to Frank Ocean. Noah Kahan opens. Friday, March 8. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. Tickets are $45 to $75. Call 202-888-0020 or visit www.theanthemdc.com.

READINGS DAVID THOMSON

A cinematic history of love and desire that doubles as a commentary on the culture of male supremacy that led to the rise and fall of Harvey Weinstein and others.

Thomson, a film critic and author of Moments That Made the Movies, focuses in detail on specific films for Sleeping with Strangers: How the

Poetry program. Monday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $15.

Call 202-544-4600 or visit www. folger.edu.

WOMEN AT WORK PODCAST LIVE

Amy Bernstein, Nicole Torres, and Amy Gallo, hosts of this award-winning podcast from the Harvard Business Review, will be joined by producer Amanda Kersey and expert guest Muriel Maignan Wilkins, managing partner and cofounder of Paravis Partners.

The live taping will talk about the rewards and risks of being in the spotlight at work, offering tips for making visibility for women less of a dilemma. Tuesday, March 12, at 7 p.m. Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, 600 I St. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-408-3100 or visit www.sixthandi.org.

YES SHE CAN: 10 STORIES OF HOPE & CHANGE FROM YOUNG FEMALE STAFFERS OF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE

DARIUS BOST

Bost, an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Utah, shines a light on D.C.’s gay black community in the ’80s and ’90s at the height of the AIDS and crack epidemics. A time of hardship as well as disparagement by the mainstream white culture, the era also fostered a spirit of unity and a remarkable body of literary work. Billed as a revelatory excavation of the art and activism of late 20th-century gay black men in D.C. and also NYC, Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance And The Politics Of Violence examines Melvin Dixon’s unpublished diary, Essex Hemphill’s poetry, the biography of Joseph Beam, and the performance and activism of the Other Collective. Monday, March 11, at 7 p.m. Politics and Prose at the Wharf, 70 District Square SW. Call 202-4883867 or visit www.politics-prose.com.

Movies Shaped Desire, illuminating the on- and off-screen sexuality of a wide range of actors, directors, and producers, from Rudolph Valentino to Jude Law, Jean Harlow to Nicole Kidman, showing their influence on private and public expressions of desire. Friday, March 8, at 7 p.m.

Politics & Prose at Union Market, 1270 5th St. NE. Call 202-544-4452 or visit www.politics-prose.com.

HATE AND ITS IMPACT: NAZI IDEOLOGY AND RACISM IN THE JIM CROW SOUTH

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presents the second panel discussion in a twopart series about the rising climate of hate and anti-semitism today, this round with a focus on the link between the racism of the Jim Crow South and the anti-semitism of Nazi Germany, as well as the lingering

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implications today. The panelists include professors Beverly Eileen Mitchell of Wesley Theological Seminary and James Whitman of Yale Law School, with the museum’s senior program curator Steven Luckert and moderator David Gregory of CNN. Tuesday March 12, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW. Free, but registration required. Call 202-488-0400 or visit www.ushmm.org.

SANDRA BEASLEY, SEAN HILL, AND ATSURO RILEY: VINEGAR AND CHAR

Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance is a culinary anthology of poems that delves into the shaping influence of history, culture, and identity — and celebrates the glory of food itself.

These three poets read from their work during this O.B. Hardison

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Cristin Dorgelo, a former chief of staff of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, moderates a discussion with a group of fellow female staffers from the Obama White House, based on their first-person essays published in Yes She Can. The essayists include: Jenna Brayton, Eleanor Celeste, Nita Contreras, Kalisha Dessources Figures, Molly Dillon, Andre R. Flores, Vivian P. Giraubard, Noemie C. Levy, Taylor Lustig, and Jaimie Woo. Saturday, March 9, at 11 a.m.

Kramerbooks, 1517 Connecticut Ave. NW. Call 202-387-1400 or visit www.kramers.com.

ART & EXHIBITS FUSE*: EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE

The first solo exhibition in the United States of fuse* highlights the evolution, over the past decade, of this Italian art studio’s practice, which focuses on exploring the expressive potential of emerging digital technologies. Some of fuse*’s most significant works to date are presented in four multimedia installations inviting audiences to experience different perceptions of reality and new perspectives designed to remind us that we are all part of something bigger; that we exist in a state of interconnectedness. The works in Everything in Existence are generated by software processing data in real time, whether the data is derived from interaction with the viewer (as in “Snowfall,” social networks (“Amygdala”), sound (“Clepsydra”), or the software itself (“Multiverse”). Through such generative technique, fuse* creates “living” art that changes before one’s eyes and rewards prolonged viewing and repeat visits — in a way

that also parallels the relationship between humans and the forces that push us towards the unknown. As always, ArTecHouse will be serving Augmented Reality Cocktails inspired by the exhibition during evening sessions. To March 10.

ArTecHouse, 1238 Maryland Ave. SW. Tickets for hourly timed-entry sessions are $12 to $20 for daytime or $20 for evening admission including access to After Hours cocktails, sold separately. Visit www.dc.artechouse.com.

REFRESH IX

The small, private LGBTQ-run Long View Gallery presents its ninth annual exhibition featuring new works by gallery favorites.

Represented this year are: Sondra N. Arkin, Eve Stockton, Cheryl Wassenaar, Lola, Kaori Takamura, Michael Crossett, Georgia Nassikas, and Ryan McCoy. Opening Reception is Thursday, March 7, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. On display through April 7. 1234 9th St. NW. Call 202-232-4788 or visit www. longviewgallery.com.

TO BE A WOMAN

The Korean Cultural Center displays works by 45 Korean-American artists to commemorate Women’s History Month — with an Opening Reception starting at 6 p.m. this Friday, March 8, also known as International Women’s Day. To Be A Woman, presented in collaboration with the Han-Mee Artist Association of Greater Washington, D.C., is a diverse exhibition of both traditional and contemporary art and craft that collectively expresses the artists’ experiences as women.

Each artist explores personal issues and challenges, particularly as immigrant women in the U.S., through everything from painting to calligraphy to metal craft. 2370 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Call 202939-5688 or visit www.koreaculturedc.org/en/ for more information or to RSVP for the reception.

ABOVE & BEYOND HATERS ROAST: THE SHADY TOUR 2019

More shade on stage, this year’s tour includes Monet X Change and Trinity The Tuck Taylor, the newly crowned dual winners of RuPaul Drag Race All Stars Season 4, along with the return of Jinkx Monsoon, Latrice Royale, and Thorgy Thor, plus Darienne Lake as show host.

Presented by Murray & Peter Productions. Friday, March 8, at 8 p.m. Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW. Tickets are officially sold out, but available on online resale sites such as VividSeats as low as $57 to $73, and all the way up to $462 for center orchestra. Call 202783-4000 or visit www.warnertheatredc.com. l

theFeed

FAREWELL, COBALT

After two decades, the 17th Street gay nightclub permanently closes. By John Riley

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.C. LOST YET ANOTHER LGBTQ NIGHTLIFE focused on martinis and cosmos. Our customers loved it.” venue on Tuesday with the announcement that Over the next 18 years, the bar evolved to meet its cusCobalt had closed its doors for good. Owner Eric tomers’ desires and new trends, including the addition of Little confirmed the news in a message posted to the club’s theme nights — from Latin nights to drag nights, and even Facebook page. a night for LGBTQ video gamers. But Little notes that two “It’s no secret that the building that housed Cobalt and factors were particularly influential in changing the nature the adjacent property recently sold,” Little wrote. “With of the gay bar industry and the need for LGBTQ-specific the combination of the sale of the buildings, the start of spaces: the rise of dating apps and greater acceptance of the demolition, costly infrastructure repairs and upgrades that LGBTQ community. we would need to shoulder to remain open for the short “The apps gave people a safe space to meet other people, remainder of our lease (without an opportunity to extend but they also took away the need to go out in order to meet the lease) along with a slow decline in Mr. or Ms. Right or Right Now,” sales we decided it was the right time Little said. “The growing acceptance to close the business to focus on our of LGBTQ people is obviously a huge other businesses and some personal step forward, but, again, it did change family needs.” the need for gay-specific bars.”

Even prior to Little’s announceLittle says changes in the indusment, speculation about the club’s fate try, as well as competition from other had swirled for weeks, and hit feverclubs, both gay and non-gay, led to pitch after a photo shared on Facebook a slow decline in sales. He points to showed the club’s main entrance door the spread of the LGBTQ population with a sign reading “CLOSED FOR beyond the Dupont Circle and 17th WATER PROLBEMS” (sic) posted on Street neighborhoods as a contributthe glass. ing factor.

The official announcement caused “When we first opened, most of shock and surprise on social media, the gay community was congregated with many expressing their dismay in a few key areas of the city, and that Cobalt didn’t host a final closing so the clubs were in those areas as party to let the community say goodwell. Now gay people live happily bye — like Town Danceboutique did and safely all over the DMV [region], when it closed its doors last summer. and that’s a great thing.”

“I’ve been in this industry for several Another factor in shuttering the years, and I learned from the founder club is that Cobalt, located on the of JR.’s that you just don’t mix closing corner of R and 17th Streets NW, parties and alcohol,” Little told Metro was not able to extend its current Weekly via email. “It’s just never a lease beyond March 2021, meaning good idea. It’s not safe. There are there was little sense in continually people that do it, and they’re very reinvesting in the space by spending — Jason Royce successful. And there are billions of large amounts of money to upgrade unsuccessful events like that. And I its facilities, lighting, HVAC system, just did not want to take that risk.” and roof.

With regard to the club’s 18-year history since a fire in “Maintaining a facility is very expensive,” Little said via 2000 forced a rebuild of the property, Little — who had orig- email. “Because we weren’t able to extend our lease, it didn’t inally planned to open a private club when he took over the make financial sense to keep investing that kind of money. It property — says he changed his concept during renovations, would be like renovating an apartment that you didn’t own coming up with an idea for a restaurant on the ground floor, when you knew you were moving in six months.” a cocktail lounge in the middle, and a dance club on the top According to Little, now that Cobalt has closed, the floor, all connected by a grand central staircase. building that housed the club will be redeveloped by its cur“Keeping the ‘dance’ vibe of pre-fire Cobalt was import- rent owners for residential use. Little, who also owns JR.’s ant, but so was creating something more upscale and loungey (although not the actual building it’s housed in), will turn with a better flow,” Little said. “When I launched in October his focus to that bar, where he’s worked since it opened in 2001, Cobalt had embossed, poker-style drink chips and August 1986, and to his family. He is currently figuring out

“My first circle of friends was made at Cobalt. I’d come down from Maryland, and drive two hours every single week.

I’d come every week, whether I had the flu, a broken ankle, snow — nothing could stop me.”

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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theFeed which promotions from Cobalt can be offered at JR.’s moving forward, but hasn’t made any final decisions.

In the Facebook post announcing the club’s closure, Little thanked the customers and staff who contributed to the club during its two-decade run, saying he was proud of Cobalt’s legacy and the people he worked with. Jason Royce, who started as a DJ at the club in 2001 and eventually worked as promotions manager and general manager until he left in 2008, says he’ll miss the camaraderie of the staff.

Royce, who was a customer prior to being an employee, says the thing that attracted him to Cobalt was their Tuesday Retro Night, which tended to bring in a younger crowd. For Royce, who was 16 at the time and managed to get in without being carded (in the club’s pre-Little iteration), Cobalt offered a chance for him to explore the gay

community and find his identity.

“That was the first club I ever went to when I was coming out,” he says. “My first circle of friends was made at Cobalt. I’d come down from Maryland, and drive two hours every single week. I’d come every week, whether I had the flu, a broken ankle, snow — nothing could stop me.”

Current General Manager Brian Blanchard, who has worked at the nightclub for the past decade, says staff began to sense the bar would eventually close after the building was sold last August. Nonetheless, Blanchard says that working at Cobalt has been “a blast.”

“It’s had its up and downs, but I’ve met so many amazing people — DJs, entertainers — and am still great friends with all of them. We’ve had amazing staff parties there as well,” he says. “It’s always been a fun time.” l

EMOJI-QUALITY

Interracial same-sex couple emojis will soon be available. By Rhuaridh Marr

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NTERRACIAL SAME-SEX COUPLE EMOJIS WILL soon be appearing on your phone, thanks to a newly released set of emoji standards. The Unicode Consortium, which manages and publishes the standard upon which all emoji are based, has released its v12.0 emoji characters, which include more options for couple emojis, allowing user-selectable skin tones for both samesex and opposite-sex couples.

In addition, the organization has also added options for gender-neutral couple emojis, simply title “people holding hands,” rather than “women holding hands” or “men holding hands.”

“The people holding hands emoji now have four combinations of gender and all the various combinations of skin tones, for a total of 71 new variants,” Unicode Consortium wrote on its blog. In total, there are now 230 emoji including variants for gender and skin tone.

The latest emoji release also includes a deaf person emoji, a blind person walking with a cane, and emojis for people in motorized and non-motorized wheelchairs.

Other new emoji include an otter, an ice cube, a ringed

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

planet, and a waffle emoji, among numerous others.

Dating app Tinder had previously launched a petition on Change.org to push for more diverse couple emojis, writing at the time: “While emojis for people of color and same-sex couples both became a reality in 2015, one group of people is still excluded from emoji representation: interracial couples. Isn’t time all love was represented?”

In a statement, Jenny Campbell, CMO of Tinder, said she “couldn’t be more proud” of the new emojis.

“Tinder advocates for the freedom of people to live how they want to live and love who they want to love,” Campbell said. “The success of our Interracial Couple Emoji campaign shows how powerful the voices are of the more than 50,000 people who joined our cause by signing our peti“We effected tion; together, we effected change change and and ensured visual ensured visual representation for interracial couples representation for around the world. interracial couples I couldn’t be more around the world. proud of this incredibly positive I couldn’t be more outcome.” proud of this The new emojis should start incredibly positive making their way outcome.” to Android and — Jenny Campbell iOS, as well as Windows, macOS, and social media platforms, later this year. (Windows users in Microsoft’s Insider Preview program should already have them, thanks to an update a few days ago.) l

Forum

UNDIAGNOSED False positive or negative? How a slight eye pain revealed an untreated syphilis diagnosis. By Sultan Shakir

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WO WEEKS AGO, I WAS ADMITTED TO GEORGE Washington University Hospital following three days of what I would describe as a slight pull behind my left eye and degenerating eyesight.

It wasn’t until after an emergency optometrist appointment, a five-hour visit to the emergency room, and an MRI that the optometrist diagnosed me with a papilledema, or a swollen nerve in the back of my eye.

The cause? Syphilis.

What followed was a four-night stay in the hospital, continued tests, more MRIs, a painful lumbar procedure where they pulled fluid out of my lower spine to rule out a multiple sclerosis diagnosis, and, now, two weeks of carrying around a backpack with a machine administering penicillin every four hours.

I consider myself well-informed on all facets of sexual health; arguably more than your Average Joe (or Jane). I’m an educated, 38-year-old, African-American, cisgender gay man, living in a metropolitan city with a supportive LGBTQ community and resources and services all around me. As the executive director of SMYAL — a local nonprofit supporting LGBTQ youth in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia areas — I lead a team of incredible professionals who educate and provide sexual health resources and services to this community.

And yet here I am, with a PICC line pumping antibiotics straight into my heart for the next two weeks because of undiagnosed, and thus untreated, syphilis.

Given the important work that SMYAL does on sexual health, STI prevention and education, I felt it was prudent to share my diagnosis and my experience in hopes of continuing to minimize any stigma, to also inform, and to ultimately push everyone to continue regular STI testing.

According to the CDC, syphilis rates in the Washington, D.C. area have increased every year since 2014 and more than doubled from 2016 to 2017. The majority of syphilis cases are gay and bisexual men and it can remain symptomless for prolonged periods of time until, like in my case, it goes untreated for months and results in a hospital visit

— or worse.

Just two months prior, my regular STI check-up came back negative — or so I thought. What was presented as a negative syphilis result in December turned out to actually be a “false positive.” During this process, I learned what exactly that means. A false positive diagnosis is common in the first 90 days of contracting syphilis. So, my syphilis went untreated for months with no signs of symptoms until my optometrist was sending me to the emergency room, “today, not tomorrow.”

I could have had it since October and, as the doctors explained, it could have crossed the blood and brain barrier. My mind was racing, I was sad. The more I would searched online, the more my concerns grew: Had it really reached my brain? Was it in the neurosyphilis stage? Will my eyesight ever return to normal?

Will this pain go away?

And for me, this couldn’t have happened at a more inconvenient time. I was in the midst of working on an important and rare grant for the organization and SMYAL’s quarterly board meeting fell right in the middle of my hospital stay.

But inconvenience is the least of anyone’s worries when it comes to this. Without treatment, syphilis can be life-threatening. It can permanently damage your brain, heart, and other organs.

As for me, the peripheral sight on the far edge of my left eye is all but gone and things get hazy as they come towards central vision. It’s unclear if my vision loss is reversible. In the meantime, I’ve decided to remain optimistic, stop searching online, and give a name to my new penicillin backpack: Deloris.

I share this not to only introduce you to Deloris, but to urge everyone to take control of their sexual health — regardless of age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, or relationship status. If you’re sexually active, in a monogamous relationship, open relationship or anywhere in between, your health is your responsibility.

The DC Health and Wellness Center, Planned Parenthood, Whitman-Walker Health, and others offer

“Here I am, with a PICC line pumping antibiotics straight into my heart because of undiagnosed, and thus untreated, syphilis.”

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Forum

“If you’re sexually active, in a monogamous relationship, or anywhere in between, your health is your responsibility.” on-site testing with same-day results. Take control by taking advantage of these resources.

The opinions expressed in Forum do not necessarily reflect those of Metro Weekly or its employees. Add your voice to Forum. Learn how at www.metroweekly.com/forum.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

TODD FRANSON

(This was adapted from the SMYAL website:) Sultan Shakir is the Executive Director of SMYAL (Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders), an organization that works to support and empower LGBTQ youth in the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Community THURSDAY, March 7 The DC Center holds a meeting of its ASIAN PACIFIC

ISLANDER QUEER SUPPORT GROUP. 7-8 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events COURTESY OF CHASE BREXTON HEALTH CARE

AIDS HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION offers free walk-

in HIV testing by appointment from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1-5 p.m. at its Blair Underwood Wellness Center, 2141 K St. NW, and its AHF Healthcare Center, 4302 St. Barnabas Rd., Suite B, Temple Hills, Md., and from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at its Benning Road location, 1647 Benning Rd. NE, Suite 300. For more information, visit www.hivcare.org.

2018 AIDS Walk

WALKERS WANTED

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Chase Brexton Health aims to raise at least $150,000 for HIV care at its annual Baltimore AIDS Walk and Music Festival.

’VE BEEN INVOLVED WITH THE BALTIMORE AIDS WALK EACH YEAR THAT WE’VE had the event,” says Aaron Cahall, communications manager for Charm City’s Chase Brexton Health Care. “It’s the only event of its type in Baltimore. It provides a venue for folks who want to do something to support HIV care and testing and prevention.”

The walk kicks off at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, June 9 (mark your calendars now), starting at Power Plant Live! and following a two-mile-long circuitous route around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and is open to anyone who registers — or starts a team of friends or co-workers to raise funds.

Following the walk, participants can enjoy lunch and a music festival featuring local performers.

This year, organizers have set a goal of raising $150,000, with proceeds directly benefiting Chase Brexton’s HIV outreach, prevention, and testing services — which, over the past 12 months, has provided over 3,100 HIV-positive individuals with medication assistance, case management services, and primary care. The 2019 walk is also the first to feature the Community Partner program, where other local nonprofits that offer HIV-related services can join the event and keep half of the funds they raise.

In addition, members of Chase Brexton’s Power Project Team, which deals with HIV testing and outreach, will be on hand to provide attendees with information about HIV and to spread awareness of the U=U Campaign, which promotes antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive individuals to help them achieve an undetectable viral load, meaning they effectively cannot transmit the virus to others.

Mindful that the walk may conflict with other events, particularly D.C.’s Capital Pride celebration, the Baltimore AIDS Walk allows people who can not attend in person to sign up, at a cost of $40, as a Virtual Walker instead. Virtual Walkers and in-person participants alike will be eligible for prizes ranging from T-shirts and water bottles to tickets to the music festival’s VIP station, depending on the amount they have raised or donated.

The music festival will feature three acts, including Davon Fleming, a former contestant on NBC’s The Voice. Other acts have yet to be announced.

“We think the music festival is going to be a really good addition,” says Cahall. “We want people to really participate, stick around, and figure out what they can do to help. Rather than just do a walk or run and go their own way, the festival is a chance to spread awareness around the event, why it’s important, and how it supports those in need.” —John Riley The Baltimore AIDS Walk and Music Festival is on Sunday, June 9, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Power Plant Live! (34 Market Pl., Baltimore). Parking is available at Pier V, 711 East Pratt St. To register, visit www.BaltimoreAIDSWalk.org.

ANDROMEDA TRANSCULTURAL HEALTH

offers free HIV testing and HIV services (by appointment). 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Decatur Center, 1400 Decatur St. NW. To arrange an appointment, call 202-291-4707, or visit www.andromedatransculturalhealth.org.

DC AQUATICS CLUB practice

session at Takoma Aquatic Center. 7:30-9 p.m. 300 Van Buren St. NW. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

DC FRONT RUNNERS run-

ning/walking/social club welcomes runners of all ability levels for exercise in a fun and supportive environment, with socializing afterward. Route distances vary. For meeting places and more information, visit www.dcfrontrunners.org.

DC LAMBDA SQUARES, D.C.’s

gay and lesbian square-dancing group, features mainstream through advanced square dancing at the National City Christian Church. Please dress casually. 7-9:30 p.m. 5 Thomas Circle NW. For more info, call 202-930-1058 or visit www. dclambdasquares.org.

DC SCANDALS RUGBY holds

practice. The team is always looking for new members.

All welcome. 7-9 p.m. Harry Thomas Recreation Center, 1743 Lincoln Rd. NE. For more information, visit www. scandalsrfc.org or dcscandals@ gmail.com.

THE DULLES TRIANGLES

Northern Virginia social group meets for happy hour at Sheraton in Reston. All wel-

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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come. 7-9 p.m. 11810 Sunrise Valley Drive, second-floor bar. For more information, visit www.dullestriangles.com.

HIV TESTING at Whitman-Walker

Health. 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2:305 p.m. at 1525 14th St. NW, and 9 a.m-12 p.m. and 2-5 p.m. at the Max Robinson Center, 2301 MLK Jr. Ave. SE. For an appointment, call 202-745-7000 or visit www.whitman-walker.org.

KARING WITH INDIVIDUALITY (K.I.) SERVICES, 20 S. Quaker

Lane, Suite 210, Alexandria, Va., offers $30 “rapid” HIV testing and counseling by appointment only. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Must schedule special appointment if seeking testing after 2 p.m. Call 703-823-4401.

METROHEALTH CENTER

offers free, rapid HIV testing.

Appointment needed. 1012 14th St. NW, Suite 700. To arrange an appointment, call 202-849-8029.

STI TESTING at Whitman-Walker

Health. 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-3 p.m. at both 1525 14th St. NW and the Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave. SE. Testing is intended for those without symptoms. For an appointment call 202-745-7000 or visit www. whitman-walker.org.

US HELPING US hosts a Narcotics

Anonymous Meeting. The group is independent of UHU. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 3636 Georgia Ave. NW. For more information, call 202-446-1100.

FRIDAY, March 8 GAMMA is a confidential, volun-

tary, peer-support group for men who are gay, bisexual, questioning and who are now or who have been in a relationship with a woman.

7:30-9:30 p.m. Luther Place Memorial Church, 1226 Vermont Ave NW. GAMMA meetings are also held in Vienna, Va., and in Frederick, Md. For more information, visit www.gammaindc.org.

WOMEN IN THEIR TWENTIES (AND THIRTIES), a social discus-

sion and activity group for queer women, meets at The DC Center on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Group social activity to follow the meeting. 8-9:30 p.m.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

SATURDAY, March 9 ADVENTURING outdoors group

takes a strenuous 10.5-mile hike with 2100 feet of elevation gain to dramatic overlooks on Massanutten Mountain near Luray, Va. Experienced hikers only. Bring beverages lunch, sturdy boots, and

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about $20 for fees. Carpool at 8:30 a.m. from the East Falls Church Metro Kiss & Ride lot. Contact Peter, 202-302-9606, or visit www. adventuring.org.

CHRYSALIS arts & culture group

holds its annual meeting over dinner at a restaurant near Dupont Circle. Plans for springtime museum visits and out-of-town excursions will be discussed. All are welcome. RSVP by Friday, Mar. 9. Contact Kevio, 571-338-1433, or kgiles27@gmail.com.

CENTER ARTS GALLERY holds

an opening reception of an exhibit featuring photos by Metro Weekly’s own Todd Franson. This show is a combination of portraits from Todd’s life experiences, memorable portraits from his time at Metro Weekly, and some of his college work from a series called “Wear and Tear: Inspired by Irving Penn,” newly reborn and printed on aluminum. Followed by a discussion with the artist. Light fare, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic beverages will be served. 7-9 p.m.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org/events/toddfransonartreception.

DC RAWHIDES LGBTQ COUNTRY WESTERN DANCING troupe

Weekly Events LGBT-inclusive ALL SOULS

MEMORIAL EPISCOPAL CHURCH

celebrates Low Mass at 8:30 a.m., High Mass at 11 a.m. 2300 Cathedral Ave. NW. 202-232-4244, www.allsoulsdc.org.

BETHEL CHURCH-DC progressive and radically inclusive church holds services at 11:30 a.m. 2217 Minnesota Ave. SE. 202-248-1895, www.betheldc.org.

DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a

practice session at Wilson Aquatic Center. 9:30-11 a.m. 4551 Fort Dr. NW. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

DC FRONT RUNNERS running/

walking/social club welcomes runners of all ability levels for exercise in a fun and supportive environment, with socializing afterward.

Route distances vary. For meeting places and more information, visit www.dcfrontrunners.org.

DIGNITYUSA offers Roman

Catholic Mass for the LGBT community. All welcome. Sign interpreted. 6 p.m. St. Margaret’s Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave. NW. For more information, visit www.dignitywashington.org.

INSTITUTE FOR SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT, God-centered

new age church & learning center.

Sunday Services and Workshops event. 5419 Sherier Place NW. Visit www.isd-dc.org.

Join LINCOLN

CONGREGATIONAL TEMPLE – UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST for

an inclusive, loving and progressive faith community every Sunday. 11 a.m. 1701 11th Street NW, near R in Shaw/Logan neighborhood. Visit www.lincolntemple.org.

LUTHERAN CHURCH OF REFORMATION invites all to

Sunday worship at 8:30 or 11 a.m.

Childcare is available at both services. Welcoming LGBT people for 25 years. 212 East Capitol St. NE. Visit www.reformationdc.org.

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA services at 11 a.m., led

by Rev. Emma Chattin. Children’s Sunday School, 11 a.m. 10383 Democracy Lane, Fairfax. For more info, call 703-691-0930 or visit www.mccnova.com.

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

services at 9 a.m. (ASL interpreted) and 11 a.m. Children's Sunday School at 11 a.m. 474 Ridge St. NW. For more info, call 202-638-7373 or visit www.mccdc.com.

holds lessons followed by open dance at Ziegfeld’s/Secrets. Dance lesson: Upstairs: Play that Sax, Downstairs: Caliente. Doors open at 7 p.m., lesson from 7-8 p.m.

Open dancing until 10:50 p.m. $5 Cover until 9 p.m., $10 after 9 p.m.

1824 Half St. SW. For more information, visit www.dcrawhides. com.

FAIRLINGTON UNITED METHODIST CHURCH is an open,

The DC Center hosts a monthly meeting of UNIVERSAL PRIDE, a group to support and empower LGBTQIA people with disabilities, offer perspectives on dating and relationships, and create greater access in public spaces for LGBTQIA PWDs. 1-2:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, contact Andy Arias, andyarias09@gmail.com.

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

RIVERSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH,

welcomes all to 10:30 a.m. service, 945 G St. NW. For more info, visit www.firstuccdc.org or call 202628-4317.

a Christ-centered, interracial, welcoming-and-affirming church, offers service at 10 a.m. 680 I St. SW. For more info, call 202-5544330 or visit www.riversidedc.org.

FRIENDS MEETING OF WASHINGTON meets for worship,

ST. STEPHEN AND THE INCARNATION, an “interracial,

SUNDAY, March 10 ADVENTURING outdoors group and CHRYSALIS arts & culture

group co-sponsor a guided walking tour through the southern section of the Gettysburg Battlefield in southern Pennsylvania. Easy walk should not exceed 6 miles over rolling/muddy and/or icy terrain.

Bring beverages, lunch, winter-worthy boots, layered clothing, and about $12 for fees. Dinner in Gettysburg before returning home. Carpool at 9:30 a.m. from the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro Station. For more info, contact Craig, 202-462-0535, or visit www. adventuring.org.

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

inclusive church. All welcome, including the LGBTQ community. Member of the Reconciling Ministries Network. Services at 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. 3900 King Street, Alexandria, Va. 703-6718557. For more info, visit www. fairlingtonumc.org.

10:30 a.m., 2111 Florida Ave. NW, Quaker House Living Room (next to Meeting House on Decatur Place), 2nd floor. Special welcome to lesbians and gays. Handicapped accessible from Phelps Place gate.

Hearing assistance. Visit www. quakersdc.org.

HOPE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST welcomes GLBT commu-

NATIONAL CITY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, inclusive church with

GLBT fellowship, offers gospel worship, 8:30 a.m., and traditional worship, 11 a.m. 5 Thomas Circle NW. For more info, call 202-232-0323 or visit www.nationalcitycc.org.

multi-ethnic Christian Community” offers services in English, 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and in Spanish at 5:15 p.m. 1525 Newton St. NW. For more info, call 202-232-0900 or visit www.saintstephensdc.org.

UNITARIAN CHURCH OF ARLINGTON, an LGBTQ welcom-

nity for worship. 10:30 a.m., 6130 Old Telegraph Road, Alexandria.

Visit www.hopeucc.org.

ing-and-affirming congregation, offers services at 10 a.m. Virginia Rainbow UU Ministry. 4444 Arlington Blvd. For more info, visit www.uucava.org.

HSV-2 SOCIAL AND SUPPORT GROUP for gay men living in the

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF SILVER SPRING

DC metro area. This group will be meeting once a month. For information on location and time, visit www.H2gether.com.

invites LGBTQ families and individuals of all creeds and cultures to join the church. Services 9:15 and 11:15 a.m. 10309 New Hampshire Ave. For more info, visit www.uucss.org.

UNIVERSALIST NATIONAL MEMORIAL CHURCH, a welcom-

ing and inclusive church. GLBT Interweave social/service group meets monthly. Services at 11 a.m., Romanesque sanctuary. 1810 16th St. NW. For more info, call 202-3873411 or visit www.universalist.org.

Monday, March 11 The DC Center holds a roundtable discussion as part of its COMING OUT DISCUSSION GROUP for those navigating issues associated with coming out and personal identity. 7-8:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

The DC Center’s YOUTH WORKING GROUP meets on the second Monday of each month to discuss issues important to LGBTQ youth. 6-7 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

TUESDAY, March 12 The DC Center is seeking volunteers to cook and serve a monthly meal for LGBTQ homeless youth at the WANDA ALSTON HOUSE on the second Tuesday of each month.

For more information, contact the support desk at The DC Center at supportdesk@thedccenter.org.

The DC Center’s TRANS SUPPORT GROUP provides a space to talk for transgender people and those who identify outside of the gender binary. 7-9 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events DC AQUATICS CLUB practice

session at Takoma Aquatic Center.

7:30-9 p.m. 300 Van Buren St. NW. For more information, visit www. swimdcac.org.

DC SCANDALS RUGBY holds practice. The team is always looking for new members. All welcome.

7-9 p.m. Harry Thomas Recreation Center, 1743 Lincoln Rd. NE. For more information, visit www. scandalsrfc.org or dcscandals@ gmail.com.

THE GAY MEN'S HEALTH COLLABORATIVE offers free

HIV testing and STI screening and treatment every Tuesday.

5-6:30 p.m. Rainbow Tuesday LGBT Clinic, Alexandria Health Department, 4480 King St. 703746-4986 or text 571-214-9617.

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS

holds an LGBT-focused meeting every Tuesday, 7 p.m. at St. George’s Episcopal Church, 915 Oakland Ave., Arlington,

just steps from Virginia Square Metro. Handicapped accessible.

Newcomers welcome. For more info, call Dick, 703-521-1999 or email liveandletliveoa@gmail.com.

Support group for LGBTQ youth ages 13-21 meets at SMYAL. 5-6:30 p.m. 410 7th St. SE. For more information, contact Rebecca York, 202-567-3165, or rebecca.york@ smyal.org.

US HELPING US hosts a support

group for black gay men 40 and older. 7-9 p.m., 3636 Georgia Ave. NW. Call 202-446-1100.

Whitman-Walker Health holds its weekly GAY MEN’S HEALTH AND WELLNESS/STD CLINIC. Patients are seen on walk-in basis. No-cost screening for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. Hepatitis and herpes testing available for fee.

Testing starts at 6 p.m, but should arrive early to ensure a spot. 1525 14th St. NW. For more information, visit www.whitman-walker.org.

WEDNESDAY, March 13 BIG GAY BOOK GROUP, will meet

to discuss No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal, and Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody by Melissa M. Wilcox. Newcomers welcome. 7 p.m. 1155 F St. NW, Suite 200. Near the Metro Center Metro Station.

For more information and to RSVP, send an email to biggaybookgroup@hotmail.com.

Center Latinx hosts a meeting of the LATINX LGBTQI COALITION to discuss upcoming plans and issues important to the community.

7-8:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, contact Danny at 202-682-2245 or danny. mendoza@thedccenter.org.

JOB CLUB, a weekly support pro-

gram for job entrants and seekers, meets at The DC Center, and will take headshots for resumes and CVs. Please dress professionally.

6-7:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more info, visit www.centercareers.org.

LAMBDA BRIDGE CLUB meets at

the Dignity Center, across from the Marine Barracks, for Duplicate Bridge. No reservations needed.

Newcomers welcome. 7:30 p.m. 721 8th St. SE. Call 202-841-0279 if you need a partner.

The DC Center hosts a GET

EMPOWERED! SELF-DEFENSE WORKSHOP on how to defend

yourself if you are verbally or physically harassed. Open to women, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people ages 16 and up. 6:308 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

To register, or for more information, visit www.defendyourself.org. l

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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a e r m D a We ver Rising classical composer Jimmy López puts muscle behind his music.

A

SKED HOW HE MIGHT DESCRIBE THE prevalent style of his growing body of work, Peruvian-American composer Jimmy López hesitates, smiling, before he responds.

“Let me put it this way,” he says. “I used to refer to my music as eclectic, but I think that was because I like embracing different styles and incorporating them.”

López’s work, including his symphonic poem América Salvaje and the opera Bel Canto, with libretto by Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, boasts a distinctively robust sound that’s earned him plaudits and performances worldwide. His pieces have been described by critics as fierce, innovative, and symphonically dynamic. “I've lately been called a maximalist by two reviewers,” says the 40-year-old, “and I actually kind of like the ring of it.”

Visiting D.C. to discuss the upcoming premiere of his latest orchestral piece — the oratorio Dreamers, co-commissioned by Washington Performing Arts — López says that, like most composers, he actually shies away from pinning labels on his art. Also, as a self-proclaimed cosmopolitan person — he grew up in Lima, Peru, before leaving to study music in Helsinki, in Paris, and at UC-Berkeley, where he met his Brazilian husband, Heleno — he recognizes a wealth of influences in his compositions.

“Every place I've lived has influenced my sound world,” says López. “You can say that you can hear my Peruvian roots and my Latin American origin, but you can also hear, let’s say, the expansion and the love of form that composers like Sibelius in Finland have. So, I think that that's a test more for music critics and viewers to define what I do.”

Some critics have defined López’s music as sounding more masculine, whatever one perceives that to mean. “Perhaps I like more the word ‘muscular,’ in that strength can be associated to both sexes. I prefer not to think in terms of masculine or feminine, but as in binary terms. We live in a world where there is light and darkness, there is love and hate, there is cold and 26

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Interview by André Hereford Photographed by Todd Franson

at The Line Hotel in Adams Morgan

heat. So, I like to see it in those ways, but as universal archetypal principles.”

López, with librettist Cruz, explores the light and darkness, love and hate, and strength and weakness in men, women, and children in the charged oratorio Dreamers, which centers on the fictional immigration and citizenship stories of several so-called “DREAMers.” The collaborators based the piece on testimony they collected from individuals and families affected by the DREAMers movement, and López hopes that Cruz’s powerful words and the muscular sound of his music can make an impact on how people perceive this human struggle.

METRO WEEKLY: I know you play piano, but what other instru-

ments can you play?

JIMMY LÓPEZ: I do play the piano, because that was my initial instrument that got me into music in the first place. I did play trumpet for a number of years. And I played around with the clarinet and the violin. I just learned them enough for me to understand the mechanics as a composer. And I have conducted as well. But I think my performing days were over in my mid20s, and I, ever since, have devoted fully to writing.

MW: When did you realize that you're a composer more so than a performer?

LÓPEZ: The decision to be a composer was an early one, actually.

When I was 16, I knew that that was my main gift, and that's what I wanted to focus on. The decision to stop performing came when I realized that the life of a performer is very demanding in different ways, in terms of preparing for a performance. It's an all-day preparation, it's a whole mindset. There's a physical aspect of it, of training and rehearsing, which demands many hours of your day. And in my case, I felt that those hours were better spent just writing music, which is my ultimate, true passion.

I keep saying that especially composition, but music in general, does choose you instead of you choosing it. I started when I was five, playing the piano, but not seriously. And I think

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

27

when I was 12 years old, and I first had contact with classical music, and Bach especially. That's when my whole imagination got lit and sparked. And that's when I realized that I wanted to follow that path.

At around 16, I realized that I was not very good at actually practicing, because when I was playing a sonata by Mozart or Beethoven or whatever it was, I would always wonder, what if I changed this or that? I wasn't very interested in just repeating the same piece over and over again, I was more interested in changing it. Because all those works are kind of ossified, they've been in the repertoire for so long. Once, they were new works, and at some point they were half-written. So I would challenge myself to see, "Oh, what would a sonata look like? What would Mozart do?" I would stop on a new piece that I didn't know at some point and I would think, "What if I try to continue this piece? What would I do?" And those challenges actually were more fascinating to me than the act of practicing.

MW: And what was it about Bach that sparked your imagination?

LÓPEZ: Oh, Bach... In retrospect, I didn't know that back then, when I was 12, because I had no knowledge of music theory.

But in retrospect, polyphony was truly the thing that pulled me away. The thing that, it forces your brain to listen to simultaneous melodies, and then they all have to vertically also make sense. So the excitement that the vertical harmonies, as a result of horizontal movement, make — that was very mind-boggling to me.

MW: That’s getting into music theory. Do you have to talk differently about music to people who are not well-versed in it?

LÓPEZ: Well, yeah, you have to learn how to communicate in terms that are not technical. And that is true for every profession. For example, I love physics, all science in general, but when I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, I was blown away not only by the content itself, but by the fact that he was able to explain all of this to me without a single formula.

So, I think in every art and every craft, we have to learn how to express ourselves in general terms, in universal terms.

MW: Are you from a musical family?

LÓPEZ: No, not at all. My father was an architect, my mom is now a retired elementary school teacher, and my sister is a biologist.

My grandmother, who I never met, I was told played the piano.

But no one in the serious business of being a musician. So that was actually a big shock for my family.

MW: What music were you listening to at home and with your friends?

LÓPEZ: Between the ages of five and 12, I was listening to just top 20, just pop music, which is what my sister used to play at home. And perhaps the music that my parents like. My dad likes musicals, like Grease and Guys and Dolls, stuff like that. And my mom liked boleros. So, all of that was around me. Also, what you are exposed to at school. But then there was a big shift, when 28

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

I discovered this other kind of music that would seem so foreign to me and so strikingly different — MW: Classical music.

LÓPEZ: Classical music, yeah.

MW: Did hearing music in your head as a composer make you feel different from your peers?

LÓPEZ: There is an element of that, especially growing up in South America. Classical music — we have orchestras and lots of music festivals, but they are really a very small part of the musical life of my country. So I did feel in the minority, and I was really odd in that sense that no one else in school except like, only one kid out of 150 in my class, could actually really relate to and understand what I was talking about. So, yeah, it made me feel a little outside from the rest. But, I just got up the courage to pursue it because I realized that made me happy and that's what really mattered.

MW: That feeling of differentness, does that relate at all to the feeling of differentness that might come with being gay?

LÓPEZ: Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been different for a long time in my life. I think, not only that, but when I went to Finland, for example, in the year 2000, I was 21, I felt very different right from the start, because everybody looks different. And they looked at me as something that was really, really exotic. And of course, being gay — I didn't open up until my mid-20s and so I spent many years pretending that I was who I wasn't. Or even trying to understand who I was myself, you know? So all those struggles happened at the same time. But interestingly enough, music was a vehicle to channel all those frustrations and to face those challenges.

MW: Do you think your point of view as a gay man affects your approach to making music?

LÓPEZ: That is hard to tell. I mean, I think that everything in life makes its way into your art in one way or the other. Gay men and gay women have, in a way, influenced art in so many different ways. You look at the percentage of the population that we are and the influence that we actually have in the arts, it's quite astounding. So there is a certain sensitivity that gay people share, I think, that makes us more inclined towards expressing ourselves artistically than in other ways. And I think that on its own is actually quite special. Whether my music would sound differently if I were straight or not, that is a different question.

But I think there is a lot of masculinity and femininity as well in my music. I think the whole spectrum is present. And I think that is independent of your sexual orientation. I don't think that my art is necessarily influenced by my sexuality, but my place in the arts is.

MW: Your Peruvian culture and Latin American culture have been expressed through your music. As in your use of the pututo, which sounds like a funny word but is an important instrument.

LÓPEZ: Yeah, that is the word that the Andean people gave to the conch shell, which is a traditional instrument that has been used for a millennium, famously by the Incas to call for import-

ant occasions like religious ceremonies. They would go atop a mountain, and they would blow the pututo as hard as they could.

The sound was so strong that it would travel for miles on end, and then people would hear it. And when people would hear it, they would gather.

The first time I used it was in a piece called América Salvaje that was commissioned by the then-Minister of Education in Peru to open the new building of the National Library. It was an occasion of importance, so I felt, well, since we're trying to go back to our roots. I chose a poem to make a literary connection with the opening of the library. And that poem talks about a remote America — the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans, basically. I wanted to paint that landscape. I wondered, how would that landscape sound? And so for the first few minutes of my piece, there are no western instruments in there.

It's just those, opening with the pututos, the conch shells, going to the ocarinas and bear whistles.

MW: Let's talk about Dreamers. How did you get started composing the piece?

LÓPEZ: Before I wrote a single note, there was a lot of research.

The decision to write about DREAMers was made by the couple of guidelines that I had, [wanting] to have a work that would be relevant to the Hewlett Foundation. They are the main sponsors of the piece. So, in their guidelines, there was this desire to create something that would be relevant to our day and something that would be also important and relevant to the city of Berkeley or the Bay Area at large. When I did my research about Berkeley, one of the most salient things that I found is that Berkeley is the original sanctuary city. It was the first sanctuary city in the United States. Back then it was not associated with immigration, though. In the '70s, it was more about sailors who were dissidents of the Vietnam War. So people were allowed their own mind, and Berkeley has also been at the forefront of social justice. And so I realized, since that concept has now been extended to the whole idea of sanctuary cities and immigration, and that is very current, I decided I'm gonna focus on that. Now, UC Berkeley happens to have a large population of DREAMers.

Around 500 of them. They are a very well-led group and they are all in constant communication. And through Cal Performances, I was able to access them and have interviews with a few of them who were willing to come forth and share their experiences.

So, even before I wrote a single note, what we did was just interviews. I interviewed many people myself, and then Nilo Cruz joined me later on and we had a second round of interviews. And all those interviews and all the research we did was the basis for the libretto. Nilo started working on the libretto and he started to send me some of the drafts. Of course, I would get back to him with comments or for additions or other things. And then I started to write the music. And really my task, the way I've seen it, is just to create an emotional frame for Nilo's words and for the message that they carry.

MW: Since it's an oratorio for a soprano with chorus, how did you decide to focus the different stories you heard into just one voice?

LÓPEZ: That was an interesting decision because I had initially juggled with the idea of having many singers, as most oratorios do. Because they tell stories. And at some point, I realized that I think it would be more laser-focused if we have a single voice on stage. Not that the message would be diluted if you have too many, but this was not really, let's say, a story literally speaking, with a beginning and an end, like the Nativity story of Handel’s Messiah, with characters and so forth. This is a little more abstract. It's still a story, but there are many stories that are being told and they are not told chronologically. There is a whole arc

to the piece, but I felt that Nilo has used so many different devices. Ana Mariá Martínez, who is in the main role, she at times becomes a DREAMer herself. At times she's a narrator. At times she narrates in third person or second or first. And the chorus does the same, so all these different devices give you different focuses. And also there are moments, for example, where the chorus supports the main role but also is against the main role.

And so that opposition between a single individual and a mass of 80 people is also very powerful, so I went after that.

MW: Is that mass of 80 people meant to be the government, the nation? Is it one against many?

LÓPEZ: It takes on different roles. We've never made a direct allusion to the government, or partisanship and all that, because I felt that will actually distract from the human message in it.

But it's basically, yes, those who are opposed, because there are very opposing views when it comes to this. But it's important to understand that there are many voices. So the chorus at times can be a very powerful vehicle to voice that, and to graphically depict how intimidating it can be to be alone in this fight.

MW: That brings to mind the idea of families being separated. Does the piece deal with that at all?

LÓPEZ: Yes. And actually, that was one of the most pivotal moments in the piece for me. There are six movements in the

“GAY MEN AND GAY WOMEN HAVE INFLUENCED ART IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. You look at the percentage of the population that we are and the influence that we actually have in the arts, it’s quite astounding.” piece and the third is called “Children.” And it was rather short.

It wasn't meant to be the main movement or anything like that, but then as I got the libretto and started working on it, then the issue of child separation started to come in the news. And I could just not remain indifferent to that. So I told Nilo, "Nilo, actually I need like 10 more verses." And then I was like, "No, actually, I need 20. No, give me three or four times what you gave me.

We need to make this important. It has to be." So I think it has now become the most important movement in the piece, or the central movement in the piece, the heart of the piece. And yes, we deal with it and we always focus on trying to understand and just creating empathy. I think everyone could relate to being separated from one's mother when you're a child and you have no one else around you. It must be the most frightening, terrifying thing that you've ever been through. And so I'm trying to depict that in the music and through Nilo’s words.

MW: What does that sound like, musically?

LÓPEZ: Overwhelming, I think. Particularly, dissonance. Perhaps muscular. [Laughs.] I've used every device I can to make you also navigate between the extreme emotions that that can actually produce.

MW: What do you hope that the audience learns about the DREAMer experience?

LÓPEZ: First of all, for those who are not very aware of the discussion, to just go and inform themselves. Second, for people to really understand the DREAMers are not just like a block of people. Because we tend to put labels on people to either differentiate them from us as the others, or for our comfort, to not MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

29

create empathy. I'm trying to create empathy. And when I was interviewing those DREAMers, I realized, oh my goodness, the experiences are so vastly different. Some of them, for example, have siblings who were born in the United States, so [their siblings] have all the privileges, but they don't. Some of them only found out when they were applying for college. And so they were kept in the dark all their lives by their family who didn't share this information with them and all of a sudden, their dreams are shattered and they enter a period of depression.

Others are fleeing war, some are fleeing the drug trade. Some are fleeing violence at home or just extreme poverty. Some of them came when they were babies, some of them came when they were twelve and they had a formed identity. So, we can talk about DREAMers, but in reality, those are human beings who have vastly different stories. And finally, just to really understand that they are Americans, whether people want to face it or not. Whether they are given the legality or not, whether they are documented or not, they are Americans. So we have to deal with that.

MW: You talk about emphasizing the human story. A lot of people will see this as something that you can't divorce from politics. How would you respond to somebody who says, "Keep politics out of music. I just want to hear beauty and light.”

LÓPEZ: What I would say is, you might think this is politics, but this is a history of humanity. This is not the first time this has happened. It is not the last time it will, regrettably. Now what I love about Nilo's libretto is that is goes back to the beginning of time, when people were just wanting to migrate. He has this Biblical opening that talks about the longest journey, when humans just started to migrate, and when there were no boundaries. And this is really something that's been inherent in humanity, the desire to move, to go elsewhere, to explore, and to mingle.

MW: Not even just humanity. Animals in general.

LÓPEZ: Well, there you go. It's just part of nature. So trying to stop that artificially by creating borders is just not gonna work.

MW: Dreamers was a commissioned work. What is the competition like for getting commissions? How does this business work?

LÓPEZ: It is difficult, it is hard, and I consider myself fortunate to be able to create works at this scale. But it didn't start like that. I mean, I think the first time that I was performing at a professional orchestra in a concert, they played a four-and-a-half-minute piece. That's all the time that I was given. But, whoever listened to that, it either captured your attention, or it didn’t. And then I was commissioned to do a 10-minute piece probably four years later or so, and after that people said, "Oh, this composer is interesting. Some talent to watch," so to say. And then the piece started to travel in terms of chamber orchestra or orchestra, and then someone decided to bet on me with a larger piece. And then I wrote a 16-minute piece, and then a 20-minute piece, and then a 30-minute piece, until someone in Spain, in the National Orchestra of Spain, decided to commission my first symphony, or my first opera, with Renée Fleming and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

You have to prove yourself every step of the way, and every single piece you write is important because they are gonna judge you by whatever they listen to. You only have one chance. Aside from being good at your craft and really cultivating that, you also have to be able to put yourself out there. Doing that means, in the case of a composer, you need to make your music. You have to have it played and you have to have it recorded, even if not commercially. Now I can, because I have the resources and the possibility to do that, but in the past, I would just try to create archival recordings. Because, if you lose the opportunity to 30

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

record a piece, which might not get played again in who knows how long, then you're no longer able to propose it to someone else for programming. And then when someone didn't want to play my piece, I would gather the musicians myself and just make it happen. You have to make things happen for yourself.

You have to have your music out there, recorded. You have to have a website, you have to have social media. You have to email people, you have to attend concerts, be seen. It is all part of the business. It is also about projecting an image. Unfortunately, the decisions are not always made on artistic merit. And also, you have to be nice to work with. You have to be a nice person, because people will not work with you even if you're a genius, if you're a horrible person.

MW: It seems there’s a common idea that it's the other way. That you can be really awful as long as you are some sort of genius.

LÓPEZ: Well, I don't know. I haven't got to the point that I can afford to be awful, nor do I want to. But honestly, I think the better way is always to have the utmost respect for people and to be kind and nice to everyone that comes your way, especially the people who believe in your music.

MW: What's the challenge of getting classical music heard outside of concert halls? How, as a contemporary composer, do you get heard past all the Bachs and Beethovens?

LÓPEZ: You know, if I had the answer, I would probably be somewhere else right now. But I am in search of it, I can tell you that. Maybe one day I'll have it. But I can tell you that the whole industry is collectively looking for that, as a matter of fact. That's why orchestras are working on outreach programs. Right now, I'm in Houston, as composer-in-residence, and we're working on beautiful projects that involve the community. To bring music outside of the concert hall, to different venues. That's why you have projects like SoundBox in San Francisco. It's a completely different venue, but people can sit, drink, snack or something, and listen to music as well. That's why you have the orchestras trying to vary their programming or doing live performances of film music. Where people who are not interested in classical music but love film can just go to the concert halls as a way for their first entry.

MW: You have a bunch of commissions lined up. What's next?

LÓPEZ: Right now I'm going to work as composer-in-residence with Houston Symphony, I'm writing a symphony. So that's my second large project.

MW: This will be symphony number two?

LÓPEZ: Correct. Symphony number two.

MW: How many symphonies do you have in you? Does a composer have any idea how many they might write?

LÓPEZ: No, but I do want to write a few. I've been an orchestral composer for, I think, most of my life, and so that medium is very close to me and I feel I love all the orchestra colors and I love to express myself through the orchestra. And calling a work a symphony does carry a certain historical weight, but I admire the symphonies of the past. And so, the whole idea of the symphony as a self-contained universe that is born out of a single cell, that's kind of my conception of what a symphony is. So, I love creating that, because it is almost an exercise in philosophy. It is extremely challenging, but I like those kind of challenges. So, I don't know. I definitely want to write a few more. I can tell you that. l Dreamers simulcast performance of the world premiere from Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley screens live on Sunday, March 16, 6 p.m. at Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Call 202-785-9727 or visit www.washingtonperformingarts.org.

Gallery

A

Todd G. Franson 2019

FEW MEMORABLE PHOTOS THAT YOU MAY remember from covers of this magazine — Jim Graham as Cleopatra or the infamous Leather Kewpie — will be on display as part of the latest exhibition at the DC Center for the LGBT Community, all by Todd Franson, Metro Weekly’s chief portrait photographer for the past 24 years, as well as the magazine’s longest-serving Art Director. Yet the focus of this exhibit is on artworks Franson has created for other projects and pursuits, going back as far back as his days as a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, with four stylized gloves

from the series “Wear & Tear: Inspired by Irving Penn,” newly printed on aluminum. A more recent passion of Franson’s has been capturing artistic shots of foliage, blooms, and landscapes at the National Arboretum. And then there are the dazzling and quirky photographs that come closest to conveying his personal sensibility, none more so than “Dancing Bear,” a vibrant image of a bustling amusement park at dusk. The opening reception, with artist talk over light food and drink, is this Saturday, March 9, at 7 p.m. The Center Arts Gallery is inside the Reeves Center at 2000 14th St. NW. Call 202-682-2245 or visit www.thedccenter.org. l MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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MARVEL / DISNEY

Movies

Wonder Woman

A bridge to Avengers: Endgame, as well as an origin story, Captain Marvel is a joyous ride of female empowerment. By Randy Shulman

F

ORGET CAPTAIN MARVEL. FORGET THE AVENGERS. FORGET EVERY other superhero parked out there in both Marvel and D.C. Universes. It’s now all about Goose the cat. The orange tabby steals — no, dominates — every second he occupies in Captain Marvel (HHHHH), with a performance that is by turns whimsical, ferocious, and (god, forgive me) purr-fectly nuanced. He’s the movie’s greatest joy.

Marvel fans already know why Goose (renamed from Chewie in the comics) is vital to the Captain Marvel story, but I went into Captain Marvel pretty much a neophyte and had no idea. Suffice it to say, whenever the cat took center stage, I became deliriously elated. It’s not going out on a limb to say Goose is reason enough to see the movie, probably multiple times. But there are other joys in Captain Marvel. In fact, an abundance of them.

One of them is Brie Larson, whose take on the title character is powerful, emotionally rich, and frequently funny. The movie may be yet another origin story, but directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have cleverly assembled it in a non-linear manner to give it distinction. It has cookie-cutter elements, sure, but they’re jumbled up. And that helps.

As the pieces of the puzzle come together, and a greater picture becomes clear, Captain Marvel goes from standard issue to something exhilarating. It erupts, volcanically, delivering a final third with remarkable punch and deft cinematic poise.

On the Marvel scale of things, Captain Marvel is akin to Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, balancing heart-thumping action with coy playfulness. Yet it also contains a hint of the social gravity that made Black Panther a potent experience. Captain Marvel is, at its core, about female empowerment. It’s about a character finding her true purpose in the universe, a coming-into-being story that will, without doubt, service several sequels, and whose title character will undoubtedly play a significant role in the upcoming finale to Marvel’s massive 22-arc film series, Avengers: Endgame.

Captain Marvel is by no means perfect. The early action scenes are a bit too runof-the-mill and sloppily executed. They lack thrill. At one point, Boden and Fleck crib

shamelessly from Star Wars, and there are times the film feels like an unnatural hybrid of a police procedural and an otherworldly sci-fi space adventure. The feeling is odder than most films of this type produce, and while it doesn’t exactly bore you, it doesn’t immediately draw you in.

That comes later.

Part of the reason for this is the structure: the first half of the movie is deliberately obfuscating, taking the point of view of Vers (Larson), member of a Kree special force fighting an intergalactic war with a shape-shifting species known as the Skrulls. When Vers is captured by the Skrulls, they probe her memory, opening up a flood of questions for a woman who has no cogent memory of her past life.

Those questions are answered when Vers finds herself on Earth in the 1990s, and joins forces with a pre-Avengers, pre-eyepatch Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, digitally de-aged in an extremely convincing bit of movie magic).

A few well-placed revelations push the narrative forward into truly interesting territory, little of which I’ll reveal here, but some of which has to do with the Skrull general Talos (Ben Mendelsohn, who, beneath a sheath of green latex, gives a fully-weighted, deeply felt performance). As the story progresses, it attains an astonishing amount of heart, and the character of Vers — aka Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel — attains soul, even if it’s soul accompanied by a vibrant, blazing

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MARVEL / DISNEY

glow and fists that produce photon blasts that can take down a star cruiser.

Larson is perfect for the role, providing the right blend of vulnerability, playfulness, and tough warrior spirit to bring the character fully to life. Any naysayers can go — well, I’ll be polite.

Let’s just say she’s way beyond awesome. Jackson, who is clearly having the time of his life here, shares a spry chemistry with Larson, and their banter often feels as though it had been lifted from a Howard Hawks ’40s screwball. (The humor extends to the Skrulls as well, who tend to shrug sheepishly when screw-

ing something up, and, of course, there’s that incredibly wonderful darn cat.)

The cast is rounded out by Jude Law, who plays a mentor to Vers, and a supremely sublime Annette Bening as the Supreme Intelligence, the A.I. leader of the Krees. A de-aged Clark Gregg makes a brief but consequential appearance as Agent Coulson, and the ’90s are both celebrated through nostalgic throwbacks to brands like Blockbuster and Radio Shack and relentlessly harpooned (think absurdly slow dial-up modems).

The soundtrack is also a comforting Spotify playlist of ’90s hits.

Anyone who saw The Avengers: Infinity War will recognize a central device in the movie, a pager used by Fury in that film’s post-credit scene. The set-up is extended here in a post-credits scene (one of two) that you really ought to stick around for.

Ultimately, Captain Marvel is a bridge movie to Avengers: Endgame, as well as an origin story. But, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, and Ant-Man, it stands triumphantly on its own, and will make you leave the theater satisfied and smiling broadly. Not to mention ready to visit your nearest animal shelter to adopt a cat. l

Captain Marvel is rated PG-13 and opens Friday, March 8, everywhere.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

TERESA CASTRACANE

Stage

Crude Drama

Olney’s Oil simmers and simmers without ever reaching a proper boiling point. By André Hereford

S

OMETIMES NO MATTER HOW CAREFULLY THE POT GETS STIRRED, ingredients just don’t coalesce into a fully pleasing whole. That’s the case with Tracy Brigden’s staging of Ella Hickson’s Oil (HHHHH) at Olney Theatre. Or perhaps it’s an issue with Hickson’s play.

First performed in 2016 at London’s Almeida Theatre, Oil ambitiously combines elements of kitchen sink drama, feminist social history, and science fiction to tell a story spanning 160 years of humanity’s unabated dependence on petroleum.

Or, rather, the unfolding chronicle of how oil shaped the world serves as the mere skeleton upon which Hickson hangs the more predominant tale of mother May (Catherine Eaton) and daughter Amy (Megan Graves). The characters’ individual and mutual journeys, shaped by sex and gender politics, class, colonial power, and the advent of petroleum-powered technology, are depicted via a different May and Amy playing out scenes of their family drama across vastly different eras and locations.

Leaping through decades from May’s candlelit drudgery on a farm in late-19th-century Cornwall, to her servitude at a British colonial outpost in 1908 Tehran, to 1970 London, where she runs a corporate drilling investment firm while raising her rebellious teen Amy, Oil attempts to magnify mother and child to epic proportions. They are woman, the clarion voices of progress alongside the ebbs and flows of crude.

Although, so much of what concerns them and their families and their squabbles might just as easily relate to some other product. Oil could be Coffee, or Sugar, or any number of other influential commodities, for all that oil winds up actually having to do with the power dynamic between mother and daughter.

Hickson peppers scenes with details, like a mention of those new-fangled motor

cars, that do plot the historical importance of petroleum to empires and households.

Points are relayed or reiterated via video projections and sober narration by a number of characters. One projected interlude introduces the gas-guzzling machines of industrial warfare. But, for all the sounding off on the modern age of oil, on capitalism and the environment, it’s May and Amy’s relationship that emerges as Oil’s true subject matter. Fossil fuel seems to be just the juicy hot topic baiting the hook for a fairly mundane mother-daughter drama.

Eaton and Graves’ performances in the roles at least elevate the struggle between chilly, pragmatic mom May and her headstrong, free-spirited chip off the old block.

In particular, Part Four of the play, set in near-future Baghdad, allows Graves the space in a lengthy, well-written monologue to bring the play’s many shifting layers into focus in one piercing expression of Amy’s anger and determination.

As good as Graves is, though, the scene might leave some wondering what on earth this second act moment has to do with the play’s earlier scene of kerosene entrepreneur Whitcomb (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh) trying to buy the Cornwall farm out from under May’s recalcitrant husband, Joss (Chris Genebach). Yes, there’s the consistent presence of black gold in the back-

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ground, or on the periphery, of each story, but what Amy’s shouting her heart out about in the Iraqi desert seems worlds apart from Joss and May and Whitcomb back in Cornwall.

Brigden teases out that first scene on the farm at the pace of a cold country night in the dark times before electricity. The 90-minute first act does not fly by, but thankfully, the pace picks up with the plot’s trip to Tehran, featuring Christopher McLinden’s charged turn as Officer Samuel, a British envoy

tasked with persuading the Persians to sell off more and more of their petroleum to the empire.

Here, Hickson locates a moment pivotal to both the title subject and to the true subjects, May and Amy. Too rarely do those thematic stars align in this loose exploration of human progress and man’s exploitation of a finite resource. The playwright’s pot simmers and simmers, but without reaching a proper boiling point. l

Oil runs through March 31 at the Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, Maryland. Tickets are $40 to $84.

Call 301-924-3400, or visit www.olneytheatre.org.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

NightLife Photography by Ward Morrison

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Scene

Cobalt - Thursday, February 28 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

DrinksDragDJsEtc...

Thursday, March 7

$4 (7-8pm) • $15 Buckets of Beer all night • Sports Leagues Night

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Gong Karaoke Contest, 8pm • Hosted by Labella Mafia and DeeDee Amor Dior GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Shirtless Thursday, 10-11pm • Men in Underwear Drink Free, 12-12:30am • DJs BacK2bACk NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm),

PITCHERS Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Bottles of Wine, 5pm-close

TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 Rail and Domestic • $5 Svedka, all flavors all night long • Jockstraps and Jerseys Bar Night, 10pm-2am • Featuring DJ Theo Storm • $5 Cover

ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS All male, nude dancers • Open Dancers Audition • Urban House Music by DJ Tim-e • 9pm • Cover 21+

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Open 3pm • Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Weekend Kickoff Dance Party, with Nellie’s DJs spinning bubbly pop music all night

Friday, March 8 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-3am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm

Destinations A LEAGUE OF HER OWN 2317 18th St. NW 202-733-2568 www.facebook.com/alohodc AVALON SATURDAYS Soundcheck 1420 K St. NW 202-789-5429 www.facebook.com/ AvalonSaturdaysDC 38

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

NUMBER NINE Open 5pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover • Friday Night Piano with Chris, 7:30pm • Rotating DJs, 9:30pm PITCHERS Open 5pm-3am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games

• Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am • Visit pitchersbardc.com SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 • Otter Happy Hour with guest DJs, 5-11pm ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets, 9pm • Guest dancers • Rotating DJs • Kristina Kelly’s Diva Fev-ah Drag Show • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:30pm

and 1:45am • DJ Don T. in Ziegfeld’s • Cover 21+

Saturday, March 9 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-3am • Video Games • Live televised sports AVALON SATURDAYS Robyn concert after-party • DJ Honey • Robyn Drag

by Tatianna, Brooklyn Heights, Ba'Naka, Sasha, Iyana, Bambi • Brooklyn Heights and Ba’Naka birthday celebrations • $4 Absolut drinks from 10-11pm • General admission $15 FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Saturday Breakfast Buffet, 10am-3pm • $14.99 with one glass of champagne

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR 555 23rd St. S. Arlington, Va. 703-685-0555

NUMBER NINE 1435 P St. NW 202-986-0999 www.numberninedc.com

GREEN LANTERN 1335 Green Ct. NW 202-347-4533 www.greenlanterndc.com

PITCHERS 2317 18th St. NW 202-733-2568 www.pitchersbardc.com

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR 900 U St. NW 202-332-6355 www.nelliessportsbar.com

SHAW’S TAVERN 520 Florida Ave. NW 202-518-4092 www.shawstavern.com

NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS Compiled by Doug Rule

or coffee, soda or juice • Additional champagne $2 per glass • Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Freddie’s Follies Drag Show, hosted by Miss Destiny B. Childs, 8-10pm • Karaoke, 10pm-close

NUMBER NINE Doors open 2pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • Pop Tarts, featuring DJs BacK2bACk, 9:30pm

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $5 Bacardi, all flavors, all night long • Freeballers Party, 10pm-close • Clothes check available • $5 Fireball, $5 Margaritas, $8 Long Islands • No Cover

PITCHERS Open Noon-3am • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am • Visit pitchersbardc.com

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Drag Brunch, hosted

by Chanel Devereaux, 10:30am-12:30pm and 1-3pm • Tickets on sale at nelliessportsbar.com • House Rail Drinks, Zing Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-3am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs

SHAW’S TAVERN Brunch with $15 Bottomless Mimosas, 10am-3pm • Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers TRADE Doors open 2pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink

TRADE 1410 14th St. NW 202-986-1094 www.tradebardc.com ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS 1824 Half St. SW 202-863-0670 www.ziegfelds.com

HARDER DC: DJS BUDINO, ERIC BLOOM, STRIKESTONE! D.C. becomes the fourth American city to get Harder — following Chicago and San Francisco after the party’s Brooklyn home base. DJ/promoter Eric Bloom describes his party as a “sexy underground-branded queer party” that is open and welcoming to all genders and orientations. Bloom will serve as warm-up act for the headliner Budino from Berlin, where she’s one of the regulars at CockTail d’Amore, the infamous, anything-goes, all-weekend queer bacchanalia. Harder kicks off with a sure-to-be sharp and eclectic set from one of the most versatile and in-demand DJs in gay D.C. today, StrikeStone! Meanwhile, a quintet of the hippest drag queens in gay D.C. today — Pussy Noir, Jane Saw, KC Cambrel, Bombalicious Eklaver, and Sippi — serve as the party’s hostesses. Two pinup-caliber local bears, Matt Schwarz and Chuck Wagner, will also be on hand, likely to enforce the party’s stated plea asking patrons to refrain from picture-taking and phone-usage, especially on the dance floor, “so everyone can have a full and true underground experience.” Friday, March 8, starting at 10 p.m. UHall, at 1115A U St. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-5881880 or visit www.ustreetmusichall.com.

KICKS & GIGGLES: HONEYYY! AN UNOFFICIAL ROBYN CONCERT AFTERPARTY Every second Saturday at the Looking Glass Lounge in Petworth comes “a dancey anecdote to Saturday’s usual heteronormativity.” This monthly queer dance party, hosted by DJs Ben Norman and Phil Reese, is always a dance-pop lover’s delight — as well as sharp shoe enthusiasts, with each edition offering a Kicks contest garnering a $25 gift certificate from the venue for the person wearing the kickiest kicks clicking the most with the (voting) crowd. The March edition promises to be the best yet, at least for those of us who love to dance to the beat of a certain Swedish pop star extraordinaire, maybe even while wearing flamboyant, fashion-forward platform shoes or boots just like her. Who’s that girl? None other than the woman born Robin Miriam Carlsson. Earlier that night, as every gay in the village knows, Robyn will perform a sold-out, one-night-only show at The Anthem. Afterwards, say “Konichiwa Bitches” and make the pilgrimmage with your fellow queens north via Metro’s Green Line. At the rainbow’s end, come get your honey. Saturday, March 9, starting at 11 p.m.; kitchen serves food until 1 a.m. Looking Glass Lounge is at 3634 Georgia Ave. NW. No Cover. Call 202-722-7669 or visit www.facebook. com/LookingGlassLng. FLASHY SUNDAZE This Sunday, March 10, the team behind the popular holiday-weekend party Flashy Sundays hosts a special non-holiday, non-late-night bash — essentially, a tea dance — and all for free. Taking place from 4 to 10 p.m. on the retractable rooftop level of Flash, Flashy Sundaze is ostensibly a celebration of Daylight Savings Time and the first late sunset of the season. Yet DJs TWiN and Sean Morris also conceived of the party as a savvy way to put daylight between what happened at the January holiday party and what they vow won’t happen at a holiday party going forward — specifically, excessive coatcheck wait times and insufficient heat on the enclosed rooftop, both of which Flash “[has] promised to work closely with us to prevent...from happening again.” Shortly after the January party, Flashy Sundaze was announced “as a way of showing our appreciation and to make up for some of the issues last weekend.” Who says nothing good ever comes from PR? Flash is at 645 Florida Ave. NW. No Cover. Call 202-827-8791 or visit www.flashdc.com. l MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 2-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS DC Rawhides LGBTQ Country Western Dancing Lessons: Play that Sax upstairs, Caliente downstairs. Doors open at 7pm, lesson from 7-8pm • Open Dance until 10:50pm • $5 Cover until 9pm, $10 after 9pm • Men of Secrets, 9pm-4am • Guest dancers • Ladies of Illusion Drag Show with host Ella Fitzgerald • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:30pm and 1:45am • DJ Don T. in Ziegfeld’s • DJ Steve Henderson in Secrets • Cover 21+

Sunday, March 10 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-12am • $4 Smirnoff and Domestic Cans • Video Games • Live televised sports

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Ella’s Sunday Drag Brunch, 10am-3pm • $24.99 with four glasses of champagne or mimosas, 1 Bloody Mary, or coffee, soda or juice • Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Piano Bar with John Flynn, 6-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Karaoke with Kevin downstairs, 9:30pm-close NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Drag Brunch, hosted

by Chanel Devereaux, 10:30am-12:30pm and 1-3pm • Tickets on sale at nelliessportsbar.com • House Rail Drinks, Zing Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-1am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • Multiple TVs showing movies, shows, sports • Expanded craft beer selection • Pop Goes the World with Wes Della Volla at 9:30pm • No Cover

PITCHERS Open Noon-2am • $4 Smirnoff, includes flavored, $4 Coors Light or $4 Miller Lites, 2-9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com

Monday, March 11

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Dinner-n-Drag with Miss Kristina Kelly, 8pm • For reservations, email shawsdinnerdragshow@ gmail.com

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long • Singing with the Sisters: Open Mic Karaoke Night with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, 9:30pm-close

TRADE Doors open 2pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 2-10pm • Beer and wine only $4

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Singles Night • Half-Priced Pasta Dishes • Karaoke, 9pm

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Half-Priced Burgers • Paint Nite, 7pm • PokerFace Poker, 8pm • Dart Boards • Ping Pong Madness, featuring 2 PingPong Tables

Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Shaw ’Nuff Trivia, with Jeremy, 7:30pm

Beer $15 • Drag Bingo with Sasha Adams and Brooklyn Heights, 7-9pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close

TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4

NUMBER NINE Open at 5pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

Tuesday, March 12 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Taco Tuesday • Karaoke, 9pm

NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of

PITCHERS Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Burgers and Pizzas, 5-10pm • DC Bocce, Second Floor, 6:30pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4

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Wednesday, March 13 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • $6 Burgers • Beach Blanket Drag Bingo Night, hosted

by Ms. Regina Jozet Adams, 8pm • Bingo prizes • Karaoke, 10pm-1am GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4pm-9pm • Bear Yoga with Greg Leo, 6:30-7:30pm • $10 per class • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long

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NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR SmartAss Trivia Night, 8-10pm • Prizes include bar tabs and tickets to shows at the 9:30 Club • $15 Buckets of Beer for SmartAss Teams only • Absolutely Snatched Drag Show, hosted by Brooklyn Heights, 9pm • Tickets available at nelliessportsbar.com NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover PITCHERS Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Cocu Social: Pasta-Making Class, Second Floor, 6:30pm • Piano Bar with Jill, 8pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Thursday, March 14 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Shirtless Thursday, 10-11pm • Men in Underwear Drink Free, 12-12:30am • DJs BacK2bACk

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • $15 Buckets of Beer all night • Sports Leagues Night NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover PITCHERS Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Bottles of Wine, 5pm-close TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS All male, nude dancers • Open Dancers Audition • Urban House Music by DJ Tim-e • 9pm • Cover 21+ l

Scene

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Dirty Goose - Saturday, February 23 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“Until somebody can show me some proof otherwise, I’m going with him.”

— QUEEN LATIFAH, speaking to Yahoo! News about the allegations against Jussie Smollett that he staged an anti-gay attack against himself. “[The] guy I’ve seen has always been someone who cares about people, who cares about others, and who’s very kind and who’s always been cool and sweet,” she continued. “And that’s just the guy I know. So until I can see some definitive proof, which I haven’t seen yet, then, you know, I gotta go with him until I see otherwise.”

“He’d actually have to spend a week with me and see me as an actual person.”

— TAN FRANCE, co-star of Netflix’s Queer Eye, speaking on BBC Radio 4 about whether he would have Donald Trump on the makeover show. “The short answer is no,” France said, adding he couldn’t “care less about [Trump’s] appearance.”

“This mean-spirited law won’t make anyone safe and may in fact make it more likely that transgender people will face harassment and discrimination. ” — HEDY WEINBERG, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Commission of Tennessee, speaking to Bustle about a proposed bill in the state that would change indecent exposure statutes to include “if the offender is a member of the opposite sex than the sex designated for use — specifically noting that “gender dysphoria” is not a valid defense. Weinberg said it would make being transgender in the state a “crime.”

“That does not mean that we glorify homosexuals’ repugnant practices of frequent anal intercourse, nor should we consider them brave for coming out of the closet. ” — MARC SHORT, newly appointed chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, in a 1992 column for The Spectator, a conservative, student-run publication at Washington & Lee University. The Daily Beast unearthed the column, which disparages people living with HIV/AIDS and blames the “perverted lifestyles” of gay people for exacerbating the spread of the disease.

“I was devastated. It still hurts.

I mean, I really loved him. I don’t have a punchline for that one. ”

— KATHY GRIFFIN, speaking with Variety about the end of her friendship with CNN host Anderson Cooper. Griffin and Cooper were close friends, as well as co-hosts of the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage, until the publication of the infamous “Trump head” photo in 2017. Cooper condemned Griffin on Twitter at the time without contacting the comedian first, something she considered unforgivably hurtful.

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MARCH 7, 2019 • METROWEEKLY