Bosom Buddy: Kathy Najimy

CONTENTS

MAY 16, 2019

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Volume 26 Issue 3

BUOYANT BARD

Actor Edmund Lewis plays up the comedy — and charm — in Folger’s Love’s Labor’s Lost.

By Doug Rule

BOSOM BUDDY

Kathy Najimy has been a vital friend to the LGBTQ community in its fight for equality, gleefully entertaining us along the way.

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Interview by Randy Shulman

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HOT BUNCH

GALA’s Fame the Musical remembers the name of the game but makes scant magic.

By André Hereford

SPOTLIGHT: TOSCA AT THE KENNEDY CENTER p.7 OUT ON THE TOWN p.10 BUOYANT BARD: EDMUND LEWIS p.13 THE LIBRARY IS OPEN: DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR p.15 SCENE: SILVER PRIDE p.18 THE FEED: TRUMP OPPOSES EQUALITY p.19 THE FEED: MAGA ACTIVIST’S DERANGED DEMANDS p.19 THE FEED: ARTHUR’S ANIMATED GAY WEDDING p.20 COMMUNITY: CELEBRATING STRENGTH p.21 COMMUNITY CALENDAR p.21 SCENE: GMCW’S SPRING AFFAIR p.24 COVER STORY: KATHY NAJIMY p.26 FEATURE: CALL ON MAURICIO! P.32 GALLERY: MAY IS ALL ABOUT TRANS p.35 STAGE: FAME p.37 STAGE: SPUNK p.38 FILM: ALL IS TRUE p.39 NIGHTLIFE: UPROAR’S NICKS FLIX p.41 NIGHTLIFE LISTINGS p.42 NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS p.43 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 Bea Arthur Cover Photography Courtesy of Kathy Najimy 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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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

SCOTT SUCHMAN

Spotlight

M

Tosca

Y EARLIEST THEATER EXPERIENCES WERE seeing opera,” says Ethan McSweeny. “My family lived across from The Kennedy Center. My parents couldn't get a babysitter and the Bolshoi Opera was coming, so I squeezed into one of their seats. They were performing Boris Godunov. I was absolutely enthralled. I distinctly remember the last act — the company was about 400 strong. They flooded the stage and Boris rode out on a white horse. I recall thinking, ‘The circus has nothing on this.’”

Decades later, McSweeny, currently the head of the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va., is back at the Kennedy Center, this time making his grand opera directorial debut at The Washington Opera with Tosca, one of Puccini’s greatest works.

The production boasts a cast of nearly 100, a challenge McSweeny at first found daunting. “Because of the scale you very rarely get all of those people in the same room at the same time. You're left trying to create the piece imagining what the other group is going to be doing. Then that's magnified by about a million because you also only get a very

Keri Alkema as Tosca and Alan Held as Scarpia

few select runs with the orchestra. [It’s] like this incredible structure balanced on the head of a pin.

“It's my job to make it as immediate and exciting as possible,” he continues. “My conductor, Maestro Speranza Scappucci, who is a really dynamic, spectacular, young Italian conductor, and I both agreed that the proper pace for this is very, very fast in the music.... And Act Two of Tosca is about as action-packed as you get. What's amazing is that in the middle of all of this, Puccini drops in what is probably the most recognizable aria in all of opera, ‘Vissi D'Arte.’ When you do that act right, you get to that moment and suddenly everything stops, and we get to listen to the innermost thoughts of the character for about two and a half transcendent minutes. It's an act of genius on Puccini’s part.

“I may not be popular for saying this,” he concludes. “but if it were only about the singing, you could stay home and listen to a recording. It has to be about the live combination of the scenery, the singing, the acting, the lighting, the music — all balancing on the head of a pin in a most precarious Olympic-level endeavor, trying to get to a moment like landing on ‘Vissi D'Arte.’” —Randy Shulman

Tosca runs through May 25 in the Opera House. Pride Night Out, a performance in partnership with Capital Pride, is Wednesday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m., with an exclusive post-performance reception at the Watergate Hotel.

Tickets are $35 to $300. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Spotlight GOD OF CARNAGE

A playground altercation between two boys brings together two sets of uppermiddle-class Brooklyn parents for a meeting to resolve the matter in Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning play, a shrewd and vicious comedy. Shirley Serotsky directs the Keegan Theatre production starring the company’s artistic director Susan Rhea, Lolita Clayton, Vishwas, and DeJeanette Horne. To May 25. 1742 Church St. NW. Call 202-265-3767 or visit www.keegantheatre.com.

P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD

James Kirkwood, Jr.’s play was one of the first stage works to address gay themes. But it was also a flop in its original Broadway incarnation, and far overshadowed by its gay writer’s contribution to another, superior 1975 production that also tackled gay themes — the musical A Chorus Line. Virginia community theater company Dominion Stage revives the play about a man who catches a burglar in the act and proceeds to hold him hostage over a long New Year’s Eve. Weekends to May 18. Gunston Theatre Two, 2700 South Lang St. Arlington.

Tickets are $20. Call 571-DS-SHOWS or visit www.dominionstage.org.

THE CITY CHOIR OF WASHINGTON: BAROQUE & BEYOND

Artistic director Robert Shafer concludes the chorus’ 12th season with one of the most popular choral works ever written, Mozart’s immortal Requiem. The program also includes the baroque influences that shaped the masterpiece, including (excerpts from) Handel’s Messiah, Gabrieli’s Viva la musica, and Schütz’s Magnificat (Uppsala) — the latter a rarely heard piece for three choirs and orchestra. Soprano Crossley Danielle Hawn, mezzo-soprano Kristen Dubenion-Smith, tenor Norman Shankle, and bass Kerry Wilkerson are featured soloists. Sunday, May 19, at 5 p.m. National Presbyterian Church, 4101 Nebraska Ave. NW. Tickets are $15 to $59. Call 202-429-2121 or visit www.thecitychoirofwashington.org.

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Spotlight ABBARAMA

Josephine Forsman of the band Sahara Hotnights and Nathan Arling of Urge Overkill formed this modernized ABBA tribute act in 2017. Swedish singer Diana Ebe, U.K. singer Alison Garner, Chicago artist Evan Hand, and Swedish guitar player Adam Skeppar are the stars of the show, which aims, according to Garner, “to take the sound of ABBA into the new generation, adding a big electronic dance vibe to the already ultimate pop song along with visual art, fashion, and the style of ABBA.” To that end, they enlisted sound producer Greg Collins (U2, No Doubt) and art and video projection designer KII Arens (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry). Thursday, May 16. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 202-787-1000 or visit www.thehamiltondc.com.

JEFFREY ERNSTOFF

A jazz comedian who is also the former creative director of Radio City Music Hall offers a night of comical insider stories along with music in the oneman show Exactly 67 Minutes with an Unstable American Musician. The anecdotes range from working on Super Bowl Halftime shows with Michael Jackson and Gloria Estefan to off-the-wall gigs with many of the greatest jazz players in the world. Sunday, May 19, at 2 p.m. Drafthouse Comedy, 1100 13th St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $25. Call 202-750-6411 or visit www.drafthousecomedy.com.

POD TOURS AMERICA

Crooked Media presents another live showcase of its politically minded, progressive-bent podcast network featuring a quartet of funnymen, all former Obama White House staffers. The lineup includes Dan Pfeiffer as well as the three co-founders of Crooked Media: Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau, and Jon Lovett, the gay host of the hysterical podcast Lovett or Leave It. Expect, “A live, no-bullshit conversation about politics, the press, and the challenges posed by the Trump presidency.” Sunday, May 19. Doors at 5:30 p.m. The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. Tickets are $35 to $125. Call 202-888-0020 or visit www.theanthemdc.com.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Out On The Town

DANCE PLACE’S NEW RELEASES CHOREOGRAPHERS SHOWCASE

Dance Place’s annually curated showcase features some of the best new works by established and emerging area choreographers. Top billing goes to 2018 New Releases Commission recipient Jamal Abrams (pictured) and his new work meeting blue, an autobiographical solo focused on trauma — how to interrupt, accept, cleanse, then redirect into healing. The program also features: Kasi Aysola of the Bhanta Natyam-focused Prakriti Dance, performing Thillana; Da’Shown Rawls of RawArts Dance Company with Tie Me with Your Eyes, about the aftereffects of taking care of someone with schizophrenia; Bre Seals of The BREathe Dance Project and How We Got to Now; Robert Woofter of haus of bambi, a local movement-based company that produces “genderless and gendermore fantasies for stage and screen,” including the short film ayo sis, exploring queer worldmaking via euphoria and fantasy; and the duo Samantha Sobash and Lauren Sotolongo with Forbidden Fruit, a collaborative, multimedia performance. Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. Dance Place, 3225 Eighth St. NE. Tickets are $15 to $30. Call 202-269-1600 or visit www.danceplace.org.

Compiled by Doug Rule

FILM HIT & STAY

The AFI Silver Theatre presents a special anniversary screening of filmmakers Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk’s 2013 documentary profiling the Catonsville Nine, a ragtag group whose activism helped fan the flames of protests against the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968, in the Baltimore suburb of Catonsville, these nine Catholic activists entered a Selective Service office, dragged stacks of Draft Board records out into the parking lot and set them ablaze with homemade napalm.

The wave of similar protests they sparked helped move nonviolent antiwar resistance away from protest marches and toward direct action by ordinary citizens — and tapped into the increasingly antiwar zeitgeist. The filmmakers will

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be in attendance at a special screening at the AFI Silver Theatre along with special guest Les Bayless of the Silver Spring 3. Wednesday, May 22, at 7:15 p.m. 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $13 general admission. Call 301-495-6720 or visit www.afi.com/Silver.

THE CAMERAMAN

The way to her heart is via celluloid — at least in this silent Hollywood classic starring Buster Keaton as a photographer who tries his hand at making motion pictures in an attempt to woo a secretary for the newsreel department at MGM. Edward Sedgwick’s 1928 black-andwhite romantic drama is next up in the popular Capital Classics series at Landmark’s West End Cinema.

Wednesday, May 22, 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.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

WORKING WOMAN

A wife and mother of three young children returns to the workplace to make ends meet, only to struggle with escalating levels of sexual harassment from her boss in this powerful and timely tale from the feminist Israeli filmmaker Michal Aviad. Liron Ben Shlush stars as Orna, with Menashe Noy her harassing superior. Opens Friday, May 17. Landmark’s E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW. Call 202452-7672 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

STAGE INTO THE WOODS

HHHHH Somebody’s hauled a fabulous eight-piece orchestra into the enchanted forest of Ford’s Theatre’s production of Into the Woods, and the brilliant, Tony-winning score,

conducted by music director William Yanesh, sounds great. The mostly sharp delivery of director Peter Flynn’s talented cast can keep the listener hanging on every word of Stephen Sondheim’s winding lines. Ford’s production beautifully conveys the weight and lightness of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s journey into the woods, where characters forced to coerce, deceive, or steal from strangers can find whatever they believe might bring them happiness. To May 22.

511 10th St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $83. Call 888-616-0270 or visit www.fords.org. (André Hereford)

JUBILEE

Arena Stage presents a world-premiere a cappella-infused play written and directed by Tazewell Thompson and featuring spirituals including “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Dianne Adams

McDowell serves as music director and vocal arranger for this chronicle of the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers, an AfricanAmerican troupe who shattered racial barriers as they captivated royalty and commoners alike while travelling the globe. The 13-person cast includes Shaleah Adkisson, Joy Jones, Zonya Love, Sean-Maurice Lynch, and Jaysen Wright. To June 2. Kreeger Theater in the Mead Center for American Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $41 to $95.

Call 202-488-3300 or visit www. arenastage.org.

MARY STUART

Jason Loewith directs an Olney Theatre Center production of Friedrich Schiller’s bracing, 19th Century Shakespearean political drama about one of England’s most storied rivalries, that between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I. Catholic Mary is a threat to Protestant Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but her murder isn’t a clear or easy way to eliminate the threat — especially considering the fact that the two are cousins. In previews. To June 9. Theatre Lab, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, Md. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www.olneytheatre.org.

PINK MILK

Single Carrot Theatre, Baltimore’s adventurous, innovative, experiental professional company, offers another production of significant queer relevance, a play centered on the life of Alan Turing. Despite his achievements, the renowned codebreaker and father of the modern computer was persecuted for committing homosexual acts in his native U.K. in the decade after World War II, and sadly a decade before decriminalization could have helped avoid a tragic fate. In Pink Milk, Ariel Zetina, a Chicago-based Latinx trans female playwright and composer/DJ, weaves together electrifying music and surreal text to create a rich, strange fantasy about a genius who longed for connection in a world he couldn’t understand. Mohammad R. Suaidi leads a seven-person cast bringing to life a deeply human story of love, loss, creation, and destruction directed by queer theater artist Ben Kleymeyer. To May 19. 2600 N Howard St. Tickets are $25 to $29.

Call 443-844-9253 or visit www. singlecarrot.com.

RICHARD III

Synetic Theater presents its 14th “wordless Shakespeare,” an athletic, futuristic, cyberpunk adaptation of King Richard III’s Machiavellian rise to power, highlighting the terrifying extremes made possible through the abuse of modern technology. Synetic’s Paata Tsikurishvili directs Alex Mills in the title role, with Irina Tsikurishvili portray-

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ing Queen Elizabeth. The cast also includes Matt Stover, Maryam Najafzada, Thomas Beheler, Philip Fletcher, Jordan Clark Halsey, Aaron Kan, Tim Proudkii, Nutsa Tediashvili, Ana Tsikurishvili, and Scean Aaron. In previews. Opens Saturday, May 18. To June 16. 1800 South Bell St., Arlington. Call 800811-4111 or visit www.synetictheater.org.

THE 39 STEPS

Rep Stage closes out its 26th season with a production of Patrick Barlow’s Tony-winning spoof of Hitchcock’s 1935 classic thriller.

A joy for anyone who loves the magic of theater, from virtuoso performances to inventive stagecraft, The 39 Steps features a cast of four portraying a multitude of characters in a madcap evening. Joseph W. Ritsch directs Robbie Gay as a man racing to solve a mystery and clear his name, aided and abetted

by Kathryn Tkel, Michael Wood, and Noah Israel. To May 19. The Horowitz Center’s Studio Theatre at Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia, Md. Tickets are $15 to $40. Call 443-518-1500 or visit www.repstage.org.

THE CHILDREN

David Muse directs Lucy Kirkwood’s taut and disquieting thriller, a hit in London and New York, about responsibility and reparation, and what one generation owes the next. Jeanne Paulsen and Richard Howard play a married pair of retired nuclear physicists whose peaceful existence in a remote cottage on the British coast is upended by a former colleague, played by Naomi Jacobson, who offers a proposal that threatens more than their marriage. To June 2. Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Call 202-332-3300 or visit www. studiotheatre.org.

THE ORESTEIA

Shakespeare Theatre Company’s longtime artistic director Michael Kahn goes out with a big Greek bang as he directs a world-premiere interpretation of Aeschylus’ potent trilogy of epic Greek tragedies.

Commissioned by the company and three years in the making, Ellen McLaughlin’s The Oresteia weaves together Aeschylus’ stories with stunning poetry. The production features Kelley Curran, Simone Warren, Kelcey Watson, Josiah Bania, Zoë Sophia Garcia, and Rad Pereira, plus an eight-person Chorus. To June 2. Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. Call 202-5471122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.

THE WHITE SNAKE

In Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of the ancient Chinese legend, a snake spirit transforms itself into a

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

woman in order to experience the human world, and in the process falls in love with a pharmacist’s assistant. Allison Arkell Stockman directs a production from her company Constellation Theatre that features live original music from multi-instrumentalist Tom Teasley and dulcimer virtuoso Chao Tian, plus a signature bold acting ensemble led by Eunice Bae, Momo Nakamura, and Jacob Yeh. To May 26. Source Theatre, 1835 14th St. NW. Tickets are $19 to $45. Call 202-204-7741 or visit www.constellationtheatre.org.

COMMUNITY AND COLLEGE STAGE OLIVER!

John Nunemaker directs a community stage production at Kensington Arts Theatre of Lionel Bart’s nearly 60-year-old take on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, a kind of imaginative, childlike fantasy of what it might be like to live in the netherworld. Paul Rossen serves as music director. Weekends to May 26. 3710 Mitchell St., Kensington, Md. Tickets are $19 to $27. Call 206-888-6642 or visit www.katonline.org.

THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION

Will Jarred directs a production from the community-oriented Little Theatre of Alexandria of Evan Smith’s theological comedy with a twist. The Savannah Disputation is a witty tale about the crisis of faith an odd-couple pair of sisters face courtesy of a young door-to-door evangelist. To May 18. 600 Wolfe St., Alexandria. Tickets are $21 to $24.

Call 703-683-0496 or visit www. thelittletheater.com.

THE THEATRE LAB HONORS ACTING CONSERVATORY SPRING SHOWCASE

The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts presents final project presentations by its 2019 honors acting students. The performances are at the school’s Woodward Hall, a block north of the Old Patent Office Building. The conservatory is a professional training program with courses taught by some of Washington’s leading theater professionals. The Spring Showcase features monologues, scenes, and movement pieces and features George K. Aaron, Marshall Hackett, Erica Irving, Randall Kish, Hannah MacIntyre, Sulmane Maigadi, Rachel Manu, Gabrielle Nutter, Chuck O’Toole, and Ania Osinski. is Monday, May 20, at 7:30 p.m.

733 8th St. NW. Free. Call 202-8240449 or visit www.theatrelab.org.

MUSIC BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: BRAHMS VIOLIN CONCERTO

The BSO Concertmaster Jonathan Carney takes center stage as the featured soloist performing a beloved Brahms masterwork, featuring some of the most beautiful melodies in classical music. Led by Peter Oundjian, this BSO program also includes Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11, perhaps the most poignant and powerful of the Russian’s 15 symphonies. Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Also Sunday, May 19, at 3 p.m. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore.

Tickets are $10 to $90. Call 410-7838000 or visit www.bsomusic.org.

BASIC BITCHES

A blistering punk Brooklyn-based duo of lead vocalist/guitarist Naomi and drummer/backup vocalist Krystal, Basic Bitches performs a D.C. concert as part of the newlyweds' May Honeymoon Tour.

The tour is in support of the new EP Relatable Content, with catchy songs taking on everything from patriarchal office politics to harassment to social anxiety — the latter courtesy of the amusing “Cat At The Party.” Friday, May 17, at 8 p.m. Slash Run, 201 Upshur St. NW. Tickets are $10. Call 202-838-9929 or visit www.slashrun.com.

CATHEDRAL CHORAL SOCIETY: GRANT US PEACE

Steven Fox wraps his premiere season as music director of this Washington National Cathedral organization by conducting Dona Nobis Pacem, a call for peace and reconciliation written by Vaughan Williams in response to his own personal anguish after having served in World War I. Also on the bill is Francis Poulenc’s joyful, radiant Gloria, which melds the sacred and profane in the composer’s signature style. The soprano Lauren Snouffer and baritone Jesse Blumberg are featured soloists. Sunday, May 19, at 4 p.m. Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Tickets are $47 to $81.50. Call 202-537-2228 or visit www.nationalcathedral.org.

EVGENY KISSIN

The Master Russian pianist offers an intimate solo recital, presented

by Washington Performing Arts, performing three Chopin Nocturnes, selections from Debussy’s Preludes, Book I, Scriabin’s Sonata No. 4, and Schumann’s Piano Sonata No. 3. Tuesday, May 21, 2019, 8 p.m.

Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda.

Tickets are $105 to $130. Call 301-5815100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

JONATHA BROOKE

In 2014, this folk-rock female singer-songwriter from Massachusetts debuted her one-woman musical My Mother Has Four Noses Off Broadway. Brooke has also co-written songs with Katy Perry as well as for four Disney films. And 20 years after she started her own independent label Bad Dog Records, Brooke is still writing and performing her own original tunes. She returns to the area for an Album Release Show celebrating her new EP Imposter.

Sunday, May 19. Doors at 5:30 p.m.

City Winery DC, 1350 Okie St. NE. Tickets are $25 to $35. Call 202-2502531 or visit www.citywinery.com.

The queer Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Aly Spaltro, who records as Lady Lamb, is currently on the Deep Love Tour in support of her new album Even in the Tremor. “The whole idea of this new album is the push and pull between calmness and chaos, joy and anxiety, self-loathing and selflove,” Spaltro says. She’ll be joined in concert by guitarist/pianist Alex Schaaf (Tallest Man on Earth), bassist/pianist Benjamin Lazar Davis (Okkervil River) — who also collaborated on the new album — and drummer Marian Li Pino (La Luz). Wednesday, May 22. Doors at 7 p.m. Rock and Roll Hotel, 1353 H St. NE. Tickets are $18. Call 202388-ROCK or visit www.rockandrollhoteldc.com.

NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: UNEXPECTED ITALY (I): LISZT & ROSSINI

Vocal soloists join the NSO to perform Rossini’s dramatic Stabat Mater as part of a remarkable Italian-themed program also including Liszt’s Dante Symphony — an innovative masterpiece inspired by the great Italian poet’s Divine Comedy. The symphony’s Italian music director Gianandrea Noseda leads the concert featuring soprano Erika Grimaldi, mezzo-soprano Chiara Amarù, tenor Michele Angelini, and bass-baritone Marko Mimica, plus the University of Maryland Concert Choir. Thursday, May 16, at 7 p.m., and Friday, May 17, at 8 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $15 to $89.

Call 202-467-4600 or visit www. kennedy-center.org.

NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT

Now in its 30th year, this concert on the U.S. Capitol grounds, airing live on PBS, features the National Symphony Orchestra led by Jack Everly performing patriotic classics.

Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds) and Gary Sinise (CSI: New York) co-host for the 14th year, and Colin Powell also returns for a special tribute to our men and women in uniform.

Other featured performers this year

BRITTANY DILIBERTO

LADY LAMB

BUOYANT BARD

Lewis (R)

Actor Edmund Lewis plays up the comedy — and charm — in Folger’s Love’s Labor’s Lost.

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OU CAN TELL FROM THE TITLE THAT LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST IS NOT GOING to end “happily ever after.” But far from being messy or depressing, actor Edmund Lewis finds this early William Shakespeare comedy to be refreshing and realistic.

“I think [Shakespeare] was trying to explore the idea of, sometimes it doesn't work out,” he says. “Sometimes you wind up with that person you're in love with. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have to wait. Sometimes your heart is broken. It's just a charming exploration of love in its many forms...and of wisdom. And how love can make us do these silly things when we're...not being completely honest with ourselves, or when we're following our heart rather than our mind.”

Lewis plays the clownish everyman Costard in what he calls “a really lovely, romantic, silly production” of the show at Folger Theatre. It marks the New York-based actor’s second gig in D.C., after appearing in last season’s St. Joan, also at the Folger. While in recent years the 49-year-old Lewis has been seen in classical productions — most by Shakespeare — none of it has been by design.

“Actually, Shakespeare was not something I have ever aimed to do,” he says. “It really wasn't something I had trained for or had a huge desire to do. It just kind of happened, and then my love for it developed.” In addition to increasing forays in film and TV, Lewis hopes to stretch himself with more contemporary stage works — and the out actor would be eager to finally get the chance to play a gay character. “I really haven't [played gay], but I would love to explore that and tell that story.”

For now, however, he’s enjoying treating Folger audiences to the Bard’s early battleof-the-sexes comedy, directed by Vivienne Benesch. “This one's always been considered one of his troubled plays, because there are certainly a couple of logic things that are strange,” he says. “And it's not a terribly plot-heavy comedy. I've seen a couple of different productions of it that haven't quite worked. I think this one gets pretty close to what it should be.

“I think Vivienne has done a really great job with it. And it's a really great cast, and so it kind of keeps things fun and buoyant. We've taken a somewhat difficult play and just made it hugely entertaining.” —Doug Rule Love’s Labor’s Lost runs to June 9 at the Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $42 to $79. Call 202-544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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include Sam Elliott — performing in tribute to the 7th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion — Patti LaBelle, Alison Krauss, Christopher Jackson, Dennis Haysbert, Justin Moore, and Gavin DeGraw. Sunday, May 26, at 8 p.m. U.S. Capitol Building, West Lawn. Free. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.pbs.org/memorialdayconcert.

PASSION PIT

Out frontman Michael Angelakos leads his electro-pop band in a 10th Anniversary concert marking the release of its breakthrough album Manners. The Beaches open.

Saturday, May 25. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. Tickets are $40 to $75. Call 202-888-0020 or visit www.theanthemdc.com.

SOUTHEAST PORCHFEST

First held in Takoma Park and Adams Morgan, the annual Porchfest moved to Southeast last year and is slated this year to become “the largest free outdoor music festival held east of the Anacostia River in D.C.” The 2019 Porchfest, offering a day of mini-concerts held on front porches and lawns, will be held in Hillcrest as a way to toast the 30th anniversary of that community. Organizers of the all-volunteer event anticipate more than 50 poets, singers, bands, DJs, and other artists participating this year, representing a variety of genres. There will also be roughly a dozen vendors and exhibitors on hand, including Candles

by Tiera, Fearless Threads, Sparkle

by Phaedra, Designs4U jewelry, Mexican food provider Fast & Saucy, and the Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs. Sunday, May 19, from 12 to 6 p.m. The kickoff is outside the Francis Gregory Library, 3660 Alabama Ave. SE. Visit www.porchfestdc.com.

THE CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY: FAURÉ’S REQUIEM

Artistic director and conductor Scott Tucker leads the chorus and 67-person orchestra through transcendent and rarely heard com-

positions and follows the musical lineage of four composers whose lives were linked during the early 20th Century: Gabriel Fauré, Camille Saint-Saëns, Florent Schmitt, and Lili Boulanger. The program features Fauré’s Requiem, the Fauré-influenced Psalm settings by Schmitt and Boulanger, and Saint-Saëns’ Sarabande Op. 93. In addition to a dedication to the Notre Dame Cathedral, the program offers solos for sopranos Laura Choi Stuart and Alexandria Shiner as well as acclaimed baritone Trevor Scheunemann. Sunday, May 19, at 5 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $15 to $69.

Call 202-467-4600 or visit www. kennedy-center.org.

THE CHUCK BROWN BAND

The godfather of go-go may have died in 2012, but his namesake band with its signature D.C. sound keeps go-going. The jazz festival staple and powerhouse ensemble of danceable funk and soul grooves next performs at the Hamilton in a concert featuring an opening set from the Let It Flow Band, another homegrown go-go band. Sunday, May 26. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $24.75 to $29.75.

Call 202-787-1000 or visit www.thehamiltondc.com.

URBANARIAS: OPERA IMPROV

Acclaimed local contemporary opera company UrbanArias presents another installment in its novel gimmicky series adapted from the world of comedy in which professional opera singers perform mini-operas they create on the spot per audience suggestions, assisted by a professional pianist. The cast includes Melissa Wimbish, Britt Olsen-Ecker, Ian McEuen, Jeffrey Gates, accompanied by Tim McReynolds and UrbanArias founder Robert Wood. Sunday, May 19, at 6:30 p.m. Busboys & Poets, 4251 South Campbell Ave. in Arlington.

Tickets are $15. Call 703-379-9757 or visit www.urbanarias.org.

WHITE FORD BRONCO

Cheekily named after O.J. Simpson’s notorious failed getaway car, people just can’t seem to get enough of this local ’90s-era party band. Playing through that decade’s songbook in all styles of popular music is a five-member ensemble consisting of singer/guitarist Diego Valencia, singer Gretchen Gustafson, guitarists Ken Sigmund and McNasty, and drummer Max Shapiro. Local DJ Mathias opens, naturally enough, with an ‘all ‘90s set.” Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18. Doors at 10:30 p.m. U Street Music Hall, 1115A U St. NW. Tickets are $22 to $25. Call 202-588-1880 or visit www.ustreetmusichall.com.

WNO DOMINGO-CAFRITZ YOUNG ARTISTS: COMIC MASTERPIECES

A “lively night of comic chaos” — that is, works from beloved operatic comedies — is on the bill when aspiring opera stars from the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program take the stage at the Kennedy Center. The WNO Orchestra will accompany the singers as they perform the complete first act and closing fugue of Giuseppe Verdi’s final masterpiece Falstaff, among other comic gems.

Friday, May 24, at 7:30 p.m. Kennedy Center Opera House. Tickets are $15 to $35. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

DANCE BOWEN MCCAULEY DANCE COMPANY: SPRING PERFORMANCE

Lucy Bowen McCauley’s celebrated local contemporary dance company returns to the Kennedy Center for a mixed program including a world premiere from McCauley set to Igor Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne” from Pulcinella, played live by Arlington’s National Chamber Ensemble. The bill also includes: At the Seams, a new duet danced by Choreographer-in-Residence Ilana Goldman and Washington Ballet’s Sona Kharatian and performed to live music from composers/musicians Logan Castro on cello and Daniel Smith on piano; Lissajous, McCauley’s dance commissioned

by Drexel University with musical accompaniment by composer Dr. Jordan Alexander Key; and the return of McCauley’s Du Vent et des Vagues, set to Franz Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage performed by pianist Nikola Paskalov. Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m.

Terrace Theater. Tickets are $40 to $50. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

NFT DANCE & COMPANY: NOC-TURNE

The Atlas Performing Arts Center presents a contemporary dance company performing three new works all focused on fantasy and

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

inspired by the classical literary beginning, “It was a dark and stormy night...” An eclectic cast of dancers from area classical and contemporary dance companies will perform a mix of ballet, ballroom, and modern dance depicting fantastical scenes of romantic, comedic, and dreamy characters based on works by Edgar Allan Poe, Federico G. Lorca, and Hans Reudi Giger.

Sunday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. Lang Theatre, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $25. Call 202-399-7993 or visit www.atlasarts.org.

NOOTANA: HIDDEN TREASURES

The D.C.-based all-volunteer Indian classical ensemble music and dance ensemble, led by Rishi Das, explores the classical melodies and movements from the Indian Film Industry beyond the obvious aspects from Bollywood and today’s pop culture. Saturday, May 18, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, May 19, at 4 p.m.

Joe’s Movement Emporium, 3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier, Md. Tickets are $17 to $28. Call 301699-1819 or visit www.joesmovement.org.

COMEDY IMPROBABLE COMEDY: THE MOTHER OF ALL COMEDY SHOWS

Maryland-based presenting organization Improbable Comedy offers another showcase of talent from our own backyard, this time a celebration of female comics. Chanel Ali, Eryca Nolan, Michele Sometimes, Yasmin Elhady, and Abby Mello are part of the all-ladies lineup at the May show, which will also feature giveaways and beer from Silver Spring’s women- and LGBTQowned Denizens brewing. Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. Silver Spring Black Box Theatre, 8641 Colesville Road.

Tickets are $20 to $25. Call 301351-2096 or visit www.improbablecomedy.com.

ART & EXHIBITS CAROLINA MAYORGA: PINK RANCHOS AND OTHER EPHEMERAL ZIP CODES

The Colombian-American artist Mayorga spurred development of this multimedia project after a year of artistic investigation on issues of home and homelessness — colored by the artist’s infatuation with a certain red hue. By applying the pigment to new works of her own as well as others from the permanent collection of the Organization of American States’ Art Museum of the Americas, Mayorga offers her bicultural interpretations of those living in exile, displacement, dislocation, relocation, and eviction.

The artist puts a “pink” spin on works by Ignacio Iturria, Eduardo Giusiano, Ricardo Supisiche,

Rubens Gerchman, Amelia Peláez, Consuelo Gotay, Dora Ramírez, Roser Muntañola, and Roberto Matta. To May 19. 201 18th St. NW. Call 202-370-0147 or visit www.

AMAmuseum.org.

IN PEAK BLOOM: SEASONAL CELEBRATION

ArTecHouse celebrates spring and women in the arts and sciences with its annual cherry blossom-inspired exhibition featuring five interactive and immersive digital art installations inspired by the beautiful yet fleeting blossoms and all from women artists or women-led collectives. The Main Gallery features Hana Fubuki, Akiko Yamashita’s immersive installation developed with Sachiko Yamashita and Mikitype combining the woodblock print techniques of traditional Ukiyo-e art with 3D animations and interactive technology bringing the landscape to life.

Secondary galleries are set up with Lisa Park’s Blooming, powered by biometric sensors, Scenocosme’s Akousmaflore an interactive small garden composed of living musical plants that react to gentle contact by producing specific sounds, and Design Foundry’s Enchanted Garden (2019), composed of a mix of natural and recycled artistic mediums to serve as a respite. And as ever, the Mezzanine Bar becomes an AR Cocktail Bar with II Sakaba, serving blossom-inspired, AR-enhanced cocktails and mocktails. To May 27.

ArTecHouse, 1238 Maryland Ave. SW. Tickets range from $8 to $20. visit www.artechouse.com.

KALEIDOSCOPES: SPECTRUM

The Brewster Kaleidoscope Society returns to the Mansion at Strathmore with another juried exhibition showcasing the enchantment as well as the diversity of kaleidoscopes. Artists from around the world display custom-made kaleidoscopes or kaleidoscope-inspired works, varying in size from standalone sculptures to handheld and exquisite pieces of jewelry — but all of them employing “the magic of mirrors” to create a continually changing and endless display of two- and three-dimensional images. Through May 26. 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda.

Call 301-581-5100 or visit www. strathmore.org.

LIS ZADRAVEC: FROM THE ARTIST’S HAND

Zadravec’s colored pencil portraits capture both the human expressions of her subjects as well as their momentary spirit, rending texture and light with precision while maintaining a whisper of the pencil stroke to remind viewers of the artist’s hand. To May 26. Invitational Gallery, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

THE LIBRARY IS OPEN

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JaxKnife Complex becomes the latest Drag Queen Story Hour host to promote a love of books.

HAVE A REALLY BIG LOVE AND AFFINITY FOR THE BOOK THE RAINBOW Fish,” says JaxKnife Complex. “I fell in love with that book as a child because of the glittery front cover of it. I really like glittery things. I like looking shiny and pretty.

There’s another book, Just Add Glitter, which tells kids that if they’re ever feeling down or out, that they can talk about what’s making them feel that way, and if talking about it doesn’t fix it, you can just throw some glitter on it and make it look different. And that looking different is okay, and it’s supported, and your friend will probably like you even more if you’re glittery.”

It’s a lesson of tolerance — and love of glitter — that the local drag queen hopes to share when she takes center-stage at the Adams Morgan Community Center on May 19 for Drag Queen Story Hour.

“I think it’s just a really good opportunity for parents to show their kids that the world is a creative place, and it’s a place that doesn’t have barriers,” JaxKnife says. “It shows people that there are different types of lifestyles and different types of people in the world, and that it takes different people in the world to make the world go around.”

George Williams, a spokesman for the DC Public Library, which co-presents the event, says that Drag Queen Story Hour naturally complements the library’s “Sing, Talk and Read” initiative, which helps children develop early literacy skills.

“We partner with these events because of course we want to see people reading to kids,” says Williams. “We go all over the city to promote opportunities where people want to do that. This is an example of a group that wants to help, that is drawing in parents who are excited about reading to their kids, and getting kids excited about reading.”

Jesscia Bruce, community liaison for The LINE DC, which houses the Adams Morgan Community Center, says past iterations of Drag Queen Story Hour have been immensely popular, drawing sold-out crowds in February and March.

“Drag Queen Story Hour is a way to celebrate gender-fluidity and self-love, so a lot of the stories incorporated in it touch on those themes,” says Bruce. “The drag queens from the local Drag Queen Story Hour chapter come and present a story, and there’s singing and dancing. I think it engages the kids more.” —John Riley Drag Queen Story Hour is Sunday, May 19, from 10:30-11:30 a.m. at the Adams Morgan Community Center at the LINE Hotel DC, 1770 Euclid St. NW. Search Drag Queen Story Hour at www.eventbrite.com.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Center for the LGBT Community, all from Franson, Metro Weekly’s central portrait photographer for most of the past 23 years as well as the magazine’s longest-serving Art Director. Yet the focus is on artworks the professional photographer and graphic designer has created for other projects and pursuits, all of which are available for sale. The exhibition goes as far back as Franson’s 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 reborn and 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 Franson’s personal sensibility — perhaps none more so than Dancing Bear, a vividly colored image of a bustling amusement park at dusk foregrounded by a giantsized teddy bear wearing a propeller beanie. Ongoing. The Center Arts Gallery, 2000 14th St. NW. Call 202-682-2245 or visit www. thedccenter.org.

ZILLA SÁNCHEZ: SOY ISLA (I AM AN ISLAND)

MARYLAND LYRIC OPERA: AN EVENING OF VERDI

Excerpts from Il Trovatore, La Traviata, and Rigoletto — three of Verdi’s most celebrated operas — will be performed by featured vocalists Javier Arrey, Nayoung Ban, Marco Cammarota (pictured), Yongxi Chen, Daryl Freedman, and Raquel Gonzalez. They will be accompanied by the 50-member Maryland Lyric Opera Orchestra under the baton of Louis Salmeno. Saturday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 19, at 2 p.m. Kay Theatre in the Clarice at the University of Maryland, University Boulevard and Stadium Drive. College Park. Tickets are $25 to $60. Call 301-405ARTS or visit www.theclarice.umd.edu.

MASH UP: PYRAMID’S ANNUAL MEMBERS’ EXHIBITION

An unconventional spin on Pyramid Atlantic’s annual juried show, Mash Up is completely uncurated, allowing member artists to exhibit works of their choice provided they abide by the only restriction: that they are not larger than 30 inches on any side.

Over 80 artists, or about one third of the organization’s membership, responded, and the resulting show lives up to its title, offering a blend of styles, mediums, and price points, with all works “hung riotously” throughout the gallery. Prizes and bragging rights will be granted to works deemed “Founder’s Choice,” “Craftsmanship,” and “The Popular Vote.” To May 26. 4318 Gallatin St., Hyattsville, Md. Call 301-608-9101 or visit www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org.

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MICHELLE PETERSONALBANDOZ: NEW WORK

One of the most popular artists regularly presented by LGBTQ-run Long View Gallery, this Chicagobased lesbian artist creates large, hanging-wood sculptures made from reclaimed wood, often found in dumpsters and back alleys in revitalizing urban neighborhoods.

To May 26. 1234 9th St. NW. Call 202-232-4788 or visit longviewgallery.com.

TODD G. FRANSON

A few memorable photos that you may remember from covers of this very magazine — Jim Graham as Elizabeth Taylor’s Cleopatra, say, or the infamous Leather Kewpie for MAL — will be on display as part of the latest exhibition at the DC

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

The Phillips Collection presents the first museum retrospective of this queer nonagenarian, showcasing the Cuban-born, Puerto Ricanbased 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. To May 19. 1600 21st St. NW. Tickets are $12. Call 202-387-2151 x247 or visit www. phillipscollection.org.

FOOD & DINING HANK’S OYSTER BAR DUPONT CIRCLE: OYSTERFEST 12

“We wanted to do something for the community to bring people together,” Hank’s founder Jamie Leeds says about the origins of Oyster Fest, now in its 12th year at her original Dupont Circle location. “We thought we’d provide all-you-can-eat oysters, drink beer and just have a good time.”

And it has become such a draw,

the prospect of consuming copious amounts of premium draft beer and boozy beverages — everything from Hank’s Hops from Atlas Brewery to vodka spritzes to bubbly — plus fresh, fried and BBQ’d bivalves, popcorn shrimp and Old Bay fries, the line starts forming at breakfast and doesn’t let up until hours into the whole shucking sensation. And because this year’s event falls on the restaurant’s 14th anniversary, expect it to be even more of a, well, cluster-shuck. Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 1624 Q St. NW. Tickets are $135 for all-youcan-eat oysters and draft beer. Call 202-462-4265 or visit www.hanksoysterbar.com/dupont-circle.

ABOVE AND BEYOND ACLU 100-YEAR ANNIVERSARY POP-UP

The liberal bulwark the American Civil Liberties Union is readying an interactive exhibition that will travel around the country next year, marking the centennial of the organization’s founding. The #ACLU100 pop-up debut launches this weekend a block from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop. The exhibition features interactive experiences allowing visitors to engage in and explore some of the hot-button civil liberties battles that are at the heart of the organization, ranging from mass incarceration to immigration to voting rights. One highlight to come this Saturday, May 18, is a discussion spotlighting civil rights activists who have been denied their rights, presented as a learning opportunity for attendees. On Sunday, May 19, comes a panel discussion titled “The Power of the First Amendment in the Fight for Justice” with activists Rev. Grayland Hagler and Alexis McKenney and First Amendment expert Lee Rowland. There will also be musical performances throughout from D.C.’s Afro-Brazilian all-women percussion band Batalá, musician Michelle Blackwell, the Chuck Brown Band, Eastern High School Marching Band, and DJ Chandni. All that, plus free scoops of ice cream on Saturday, May 18, from official co-sponsor Ben & Jerry’s — while supplies last, that is (which won’t be long). Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 700 F St. NW. Tickets are free, but RSVP requested. Visit https://aclu100.org/location/washington-dc. l

Scene

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Silver Pride presented by Whitman-Walker & community, Friday, May 10, HRC Equality Center - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

theFeed

OPPOSING EQUALITY

HRC is “disgusted” that President Trump opposes the Equality Act. By John Riley

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RESIDENT DONALD TRUMP CAME OUT PUBLICLY against the Equality Act on Monday evening, prompting denunciations from LGBTQ rights groups as the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives prepares for a vote later this week.

A senior administration official told the press that the president, while opposing “discrimination of any kind,” also opposes the Equality Act, saying the bill — designed to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination — is “filled with poison pills.”

“The Trump administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all," the official told NBC News. "However, this bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights.”

The White House’s stated opposition is consistent with actions taken by the president and his administration since taking office. As president — and despite promises on the campaign trail that he would be a stronger LGBTQ advocate than Hillary Clinton — Trump has moved to curtail LGBTQ rights domestically, calling for a ban on transgender service members, withdrawing guidance allowing transgender students to be treated according to their gender identity, urging courts to rule that it is not illegal to fire LGBTQ employees based solely on their sexual orientation or gender identity, and issuing an exemption allowing health care workers to deny care to LGBTQ people.

Social conservatives, particularly Republicans in Congress, have come out in droves against the Equality Act, taking issue primarily with its protections for the transgender community and its explicit redefinition of various forms of anti-LGBTQ discrimination as sex discrimination under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.

They also object to provisions within the bill that prevent the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being

used to justify instances of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement denouncing Trump’s opposition.

“We’re disgusted, but certainly not surprised, by Donald Trump’s announcement that he opposes the Equality Act, which is supported by seven in ten Americans and more than two hundred major businesses,” HRC President Chad Griffin said in a statement. “By opposing this common sense civil rights legislation, Donald Trump is ensuring that LGBTQ people remain at risk of being fired or denied housing in a majority of states. The LGBTQ community, and all Americans for that matter, deserve a president with the courage and decency to sign this bill into law, and we will continue the urgent work to pass the Equality Act and replace Donald Trump with a pro-equality president who will sign it into law.”

If the Equality Act receives a House vote and passes, as expected, the prospects of the bill even receiving a hearing, let alone a floor vote, are less optimistic in a Republicanrun Senate, particularly under the leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). And, given Trump’s opposition, the likelihood of an LGBTQ rights bill being signed into law will not happen until Democrats gain control of the White House (and even then, probably not until the party gains a majority in the Senate).

Polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner on behalf of HRC has found that two-thirds of LGBTQ Americans have reported experiencing discrimination in their lives.

That same poll found that voters overwhelmingly supported passing a law to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, by a 69% to 27% margin. According to the poll, 80% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and even a majority of Republicans — 51% — support such protections.

Furthermore, 64% of voters said they would be less likely to support their member of Congress if they voted against the Equality Act. l

DERANGED DEMANDS

Republican activist demands to see Brian Sims “suck a d**k” to prove he’s gay. By Rhuaridh Marr

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REPUBLICAN RADIO HOST AND MAGA ACTIVist is demanding that Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims “prove” his sexuality by performing oral sex on a man. Brenden Dilley, host of The Dilley Show, said he

wanted to see Sims “suck a dick,” and claimed the openly gay politician was lying about his sexuality to “[provide] coverage for his behavior.”

“Brian Sims. Are you guys ready? This dude’s not fucking

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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theFeed gay,” Dilley said in a segment spotted by Right Wing Watch.

“Sims doesn’t like the dick.”

Dilley then claimed that “the rumor in Pennsylvania” is that “Sims pretends to be gay because it provides coverage for his behavior. Because he knows that anybody who goes against him can be accused of being called a bigot.” The MAGA activist again claimed that in political circles in Pennsylvania, “the rumor…is this motherfucker is straight.”

“Fuck that. I don’t think he’s gay. I don’t think he’s gay and I think we need to prove it,” Dilley continued.

Dilley then addressed a recent controversy embroiling Sims. The politician came under fire from conservatives for posting videos to social media of Sims confronting anti-abortion protesters outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, including offering money to those who could identify a mother and her teenage daughters who were protesting outside. Sims later apologized for being “aggressive” in the videos, but said he would “fiercely protect a woman’s right to make the best choices for her health & her body, unimpeded.”

Dilley said Sims “wanted to bring the fucking hate” on himself, before telling his viewers to “find me Sims’ girlfriend. This dude is not gay.” He then said that in order to prove Sims is gay, “we should demand to see him suck a dick.”

“You’re not gay dude. Suck a dick,” Dilley continued. “I don’t believe you. Nope. I think you’re just pretending to be gay. Suck a dick, dude. Suck a dick. A gay guy would do it. Go.” Sims, who was first elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2012, is a prominent LGBTQ activist.

Last month, he revealed on social media that he takes PrEP, and shut down those who would shame others for taking it. “‘Stigma’ is the thing our enemies want us to be stunted by,” Sims wrote. “It literally kills us. It’s stupid and we control our own fate. No shame in this game. Just Pride.”

In January, Sims highlighted the ineffectiveness of Facebook’s content review system, after he was temporarily banned from the social network after highlighting homophobia by sharing a post in which another user referred to him as a “faggot.”

And last year, Sims went viral after posting a photo of himself raising his middle finger to “officially welcome” anti-LGBTQ Vice President Mike Pence to Philadelphia.

“Vice President Mike Pence let me be the first person to officially welcome you to the City of Brotherly Love, and to my District in the State House,” he wrote. “To be clear, we’re a City of soaring diversity. We believe in the power of all people to live and to contribute: Black, Brown, Queer, Trans, Atheist, Immigrant, we want you and we’ll respect you.” l

ANIMATED WEDDING

Mr. Ratburn comes out and marries his boyfriend in long-running PBS Kids cartoon Arthur. By Rhuaridh Marr

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ONG-RUNNING PBS KIDS CARTOON ARTHUR HAS opened its 22nd season by revealing that Mr. Ratburn as gay. According to TVLine, the character — who teaches the titular 8-year-old aardvark Arthur and his friends — marries his partner in the episode, much to the surprise of the kids. The episode, “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone,”which aired Monday, May 13, saw Arthur and friends learn that Mr. Ratburn is engaged.

They then spot Ratburn having lunch with a woman, Patty (voiced by Jane Lynch), who tells him that he’s “too soft” and should “toughen up.” The kids believe that Patty is Ratburn’s fiance, and that she will make him miserable — which, in true childhood fashion, they realize will then make them miserable in school — and so decide to try and stop the wedding.

Of course, as you’ve probably guessed, when Arthur and co. show up to the wedding, they quickly discover how wrong they were — the woman is actually Mr. Ratburn’s sister.

“Then who is Mr. Ratburn marrying?” asks Arthur’s friend Muffy. Mr. Ratburn then walks down the aisle with his partner, Patrick. The children quickly realize how happy Mr. Ratburn is, and, rather than sabotage the big day, instead eat cake and mock the happy couple’s dancing.

Unfortunately, despite widespread praise for Mr.

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Ratburn’s nuptials on social media, it hasn’t stopped some from busting out their right-wing homophobia. Q. Allan Brocka, creator of Logo series Rick & Steve and the Eating Out films, collated a few responses in a tweet.

“Not a wonderful kind of day,” one user wrote in reference to Arthur‘s title song. “So I guess we are forcing this content to our children now,” said another. A third user took a giant, disgusting leap of imagination and tweeted, “Next season [Arthur’s younger sister] D.W. will have her first sexual experience with a 35 year old man!”

“Sure it’s ok to let a faggot come out of the closet but don’t [sic] you teach kids about God,” someone else wrote.

In his tweet, Brocka clapped back: “I mean, *somebody’s* got to teach your kids how not to be douche nozzles.”

The word “gay” is never used during the “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” — much like a 2005 episode of Arthur spin-off Postcards From Buster, which featured lesbian moms in Vermont, but didn’t use the word “lesbian.”

That didn’t stop it from being subject to conservative ire at the time, with PBS withdrawing the episode from airing after then Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings demanded PBS return the federal funds used to create the episode, claiming “many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode.” l

Community THURSDAY, May 16

National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Circle NW. For more info, call 202-930-1058 or visit www.dclambdasquares.org.

AGLA hosts a meeting of its MONTHLY BOOK CLUB at

Center Arts, in conjunction with AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, and Metro Weekly presents a screening of the movie TRANSMILITARY, a documentary about transgender military members struggling against the Trump administration’s ban on transgender service members. Cast talkback session to follow.

General admission $14. 7-9 p.m.

Landmark E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW. For more information, visit www.thedccenter. org/events/transmilitary.

The DC Center holds a meeting of its POLY DISCUSSION GROUP, for people interested in polyamory, non-monogamy or other nontraditional relationships. 7-8 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. Visit www. thedccenter.org.

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

DC LAMBDA SQUARES, D.C.’s

LGBTQ square-dancing group, features an opportunity to learn about and practice various forms of modern square dancing. No partner required. Please dress casually. 7:30-9:30 p.m.

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.

WARD MORRISON

Crystal Thai Restaurant to discuss Maurice by E.M. Forster.

Everyone welcome. Please RSVP in advance. You may also wish to optionally dine (separate checks) if you desire. 7:30 p.m. 4819 1st St. N., Arlington, Va. To RSVP or for more information, email info@agla.org.

THE DULLES TRIANGLES

CELEBRATING STRENGTH

Capital Trans Pride offers a day of workshops, seminars, and socializing for members of D.C.’s transgender community.

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F WE TAKE A STEP BACK, AND WE LOOK AT THE larger landscape right now, our community is being attacked on multiple fronts,” says Ian Brown, one of the executive producers of Capital Trans Pride. “So this is a time for us to stand up, show out, and be celebrated, affirmed, and supported, not only from those within our community, but those around us, too. That’s not something that we get on a daily basis.”

This year’s Capital Trans Pride celebration has moved to a new venue — the Eaton Hotel, which will house the bulk of the day’s activities. Each year, the event hosts a resource fair where local and national organizations that serve the transgender community will pass out informational pamphlets, prizes, and gift bags. The celebration also features guest speakers, workshops, seminars, and panel discussions, including a keynote address by Cecilia Gentili, an HIV advocate who works at the New York-based Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

Following the events at the Eaton, there will be a happy hour and musical and dance performances at Studio Theatre from 5 to 8 p.m. On Sunday evening, also at Studio, organizers will screen the film The Garden Left Behind, the story of an undocumented transwoman in New York and her relationship with her grandmother as she transitions.

“Capital Trans Pride is a place for us to celebrate, feel affirmed, and feel supported, not only by our community members, but our allies, people outside our community who are coming in to present an affirming space for us,” Brown says.

“I think one of the things that sets it apart is the fact that Trans Pride is an event created and hosted by trans people, for trans people,” says co-executive producer Monika Nemeth of the grassroots feel of the event. “We really want to make sure we are serving our community, and bringing the kinds of workshops that the community wants and serving their needs.” —John Riley Capital Trans Pride is Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Eaton Hotel, 1201 K St. NW. Admission is free and the event is open to the public. Happy hour and entertainment will follow from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Visit www.capitalpride.org/trans-pride-2019.

Northern Virginia social group meets for happy hour at Sheraton in Reston. All welcome. 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 2:30-5 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, May 17 GAY DISTRICT, a group for

GBTQQI men between the ages of 18-35, meets on the first and third Fridays of each month.

8:30-9:30 p.m. The DC Center.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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For more information, visit www. gaydistrict.org.

“May Is? All About Trans” presents a COMMUNITY MIXER at the Library of Congress. 6-9 p.m. 10 First St. SE, Thomas Jefferson B. For more information, www.mayistransdc.com.

The DC Center hosts an LGBTQ GAME NIGHT where participants can play board and card games and socialize with other people from across the LGBTQ spectrum. All welcome. 7-9 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. Visit www.thedccenter.org.

The DC Center is looking for volunteers for ASIAN PACIFIC ISLANDER PRIDE 2019 to represent The DC Center, share information about its programs, hand out flyers and buttons, and collect email addresses for contact lists.

There will be two shifts, one from 5:30-7 p.m. and another from 7-9 p.m. 5:30-9 p.m. Xfinity Store, 715 7th St. NW. For more information or to volunteer, email jules@thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events BET MISHPACHAH, founded by

members of the LGBT community, holds Friday evening Shabbat services in the DC Jewish Community Center’s Community Room. 8 p.m.

1529 16th St. NW. For more information, visit www.betmish.org.

DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a prac-

tice session at Howard University.

6:30-8 p.m. Burr Gymnasium, 2400 6th St. NW. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

PROJECT STRIPES hosts LGBT-

affirming social group for ages 11-24. 4-6 p.m. 1419 Columbia Road NW. Contact Tamara, 202-3190422, www.layc-dc.org.

SMYAL’S REC NIGHT provides a

social atmosphere for LGBT and questioning youth, featuring dance parties, vogue nights, movies and games. 4-7 p.m. For more info, email rebecca.york@smyal.org.

SATURDAY, May 18 AGLA holds its MONTHLY BRUNCH at Freddie’s Beach Bar

on the third Saturday of the month.

Brunch is all you can eat for $9.99 per person. Attendees are encouraged to help AGLA with its ongoing service projects, including collecting travel-sized unused soaps, shampoos, and lotions for A-SPAN, which provides life-sustaining services for homeless people, and nonperishable food items for AFAC, a community organization providing nutritious food to those in need.

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

CAPITAL TRANS PRIDE brings

together members of the transgender community, allies, colleagues, family, and friends for a day of celebration, a resource fair, workshops, and panel discussions on issues important to the transgender community. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Eaton DC Hotel, 1201 K St. NW. Community happy hour and entertainment will follow from 5-8 p.m. at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Visit www.capitalpride.org/transpride-2019.

CHRYSALIS arts & culture group

holds bi-monthly potluck social on the roofdeck of a Kalorama co-op.

Plans for summertime museum visits and out-of-town excursions will be reviewed. All welcome. Doors open at 7 p.m. For food coordination and directions, contact Kevin, 571338-1433 or kgiles27@gmail.com.

KHUSH DC, a support group for

LGBTQ South Asians, hosts a meeting at The DC Center. 1:30-3 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www. facebook.com/khushdc.

“May Is? All About Trans,” in conjunction with Whitman-Walker Health, hosts a TRANS MIXER as part of the Trans Pride community happy hour social. 6-8 p.m. Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. For more information, www.mayistransdc.com.

The DC Center hosts a monthly LGBT ASYLEES SUPPORT MEETING AND DINNER for LGBT refugees and asylum seekers. 5-7 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www. thedccenter.org.

The DC Center hosts a meeting of its LGBTQ PEOPLE OF COLOR SUPPORT GROUP, facilitated by Dakia Davis. 1-3 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

SUNDAY, May 19 ADVENTURING outdoors group

hikes 8.5 moderate miles with 400 feet of elevation gain in the Patuxent Research Refuge near Fort Meade, Md. Bring beverages, snacks, bug spray, sturdy mud-worthy shoes, and about $5 for fees. No picnicking allowed within refuge. Late lunch elsewhere may follow hike. Carpool at 9:45 a.m. from the Greenbelt Metro Station. For more information, contact David, 240-938-0375, or visit www.adventuring.org.

“May Is? All About Trans,” presents its TWEET CHURCH SERVICE, an affirming event celebrating members of the transgender community. 11 a.m.-12 p.m.

Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I St. SW. For more information, www.mayistransdc.com.

Volunteers are needed to help prepare CASA RUBY’S MONTHLY DINNER. Held on the third Sunday of each month, in conjunction with The DC Center and Food Rescue DC, the event provides a hot meal to those housed at Casa Ruby. Homemade or store bought meals welcome. 7-8 p.m. Casa Ruby Shelter, 1216 Kennedy St. NW. For more information, contact lamar@ thedccenter.org, jon@thedccenter. org, or visit www.casaruby.org.

MONDAY, May 20 “May Is? All About Trans” presents its BLACK PRIDE KICKOFF PARTY, featuring a reception and cocktail hour. 5-7 p.m. Pepco Edison Place Gallery, 702 8th St. NW. For more information, visit www.mayistransdc.com.

“May Is? All About Trans,” in conjunction with Damien Ministries, presents FILLING THE GAP: A YOUTH SUMMIT, focusing on strengthening ties with older generations while delivering on the needs of transgender youth.

10 a.m.-3 p.m. Pepco Edison Place Gallery, 702 8th St. NW. For more information, visit www.mayistransdc.com.

The Metro D.C. chapter of PFLAG, a support group for parents, family members and allies of the LGBTQ community, holds its monthly meeting at The DC Center. 7-9 p.m.

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

Weekly Events DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a

practice session at Dunbar Aquatic Center. 7:30-9 p.m. 101 N St. NW. For more information, visit www. swimdcac.org.

DC’S DIFFERENT DRUMMERS

welcomes musicians of all abilities to join its Monday night rehearsals.

The group hosts marching/color guard, concert, and jazz ensembles, with performances year round.

Please contact Membership@ DCDD.org to inquire about joining one of the ensembles or visit www.

DCDD.org.

The DC Center hosts COFFEE

DROP-IN FOR THE SENIOR LGBT COMMUNITY. 10 a.m.-noon. 2000

14th St. NW. For more information, call 202-682-2245 or visit www. thedccenter.org.

US HELPING US hosts a black gay

men’s evening affinity group for GBT black men. Light refreshments provided. 7-9 p.m. 3636 Georgia Ave. NW. 202-446-1100.

WASHINGTON WETSKINS WATER POLO TEAM practices 7-9

p.m. Newcomers with at least basic swimming ability always welcome.

Takoma Aquatic Center, 300 Van Buren St. NW. For more information, contact Tom, 703-299-0504 or secretary@wetskins.org, or visit www.wetskins.org.

WHITMAN-WALKER HEALTH HIV/AIDS SUPPORT GROUP

for newly diagnosed individuals, meets 7 p.m. Registration required.

202-939-7671, hivsupport@whitman-walker.org.

TUESDAY, May 21 CENTER BI, a group of The DC

Center, hosts a monthly roundtable discussion around issues of bisexuality. 7-8 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. Visit www.thedccenter. org.

THE HEALTH WORKING GROUP

of The DC Center hosts a “Packing Party,” where volunteers assemble safe-sex kits of condoms and lube.

7-9 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events DC FRONT RUNNERS running/

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

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

WEDNESDAY, May 22 “May Is? All About Trans” presents its BRIDGING THE GAP: A

CONVERSATION BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY, where various issues will be discussed in the hope of finding common ground and fostering greater understanding. 6-8 p.m.

Pepco Edison Place Gallery, 702 8th St. NW. For more information, visit www.mayistransdc.com.

The DC Center’s HEALTH WORKING GROUP holds a meeting to discuss what can be done to support long-term survivors of HIV/AIDS. With advances in medicine, people with HIV/AIDS are now living longer, underscoring the importance of giving them the support and resources they need. 6:308 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www. thedccenter.org. l

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Scene

24

GMCW Spring Affair at the Ritz Carlton - Saturday, May 11 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Bosom Buddy Kathy Najimy has been a vital friend to the LGBTQ community in its fight for equality, gleefully entertaining us along the way.

K

Interview by Randy Shulman

ATHY NAJIMY ENJOYS PLAYING GAMES. LITERALLY. “For about three years, when I was living in San Diego,” she says of her early years trying to break into show business, “I paid the rent by going on Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, and The $10,000 Pyramid.”

Days later, of course, Najimy, beloved for her roles as Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act, part of a trio of witch siblings in Hocus Pocus, and as Peggy Hill in Mike Judge’s stunning, astonishingly heartfelt animated sitcom King of the Hill, appears on game shows as a celebrity star. Her favorite is Pyramid, which she calls “a brilliantly designed” game show, as winning it relies on talent. “There’s not a lot of luck,” she says. “It's heaven for me. Any time that they call me up to go do the $100,000 Pyramid — especially because I get to be around the really, really cute Michael Strahan — I say ‘Yes!’” If game shows are Najimy’s preferred form of celebrity leisure, then activism is her driving lifeforce.

A card-carrying, outspoken feminist (she’s pals with Gloria Steinem, who officiated her marriage to musician Dan Finnerty in 1998), Najimy has been aligned with nearly every liberal rights organization in modern history, from PETA and Planned Parenthood to HRC and PFLAG. Her passion for what she feels is right and good and just flows naturally and abundantly from her, and she speaks of change and justice with a ferocious, emphatic charge.

“I have been a feminist since I was 14 years old,” she says over the course of two phone conversations.

“And feminism dedicates itself to the equality and respect of all people.”

Najimy will appear as a special guest at this Saturday’s American Pops Orchestra concert, “I Am What I Am: The Music of Jerry Herman,” alongside Paige Davis of Trading Spaces, Broadway star Mauricio Martinez (see page 32), RuPaul’s Drag Race contender Alexis Michelle, Tracy Lynn Olivera, and Paul Roeckell, and was surprised when she got the call to appear.

“My agent got the request,” she says. “They said, ‘Does Kathy happen to be free on this weekend.’ And 26

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I was. And other than what's going on there right now with the administration, I love Washington, D.C. I said, ‘Listen you guys, despite what you think from a couple of old movies that I used to do, where I kind of pretend comedy sing, I don't really sing.’

And they said, ‘It's okay, don't worry. We'll make it work.’ They were just so adorable and so persistent and convincing that I said sure. I think it will be really fun.”

“It's so funny,” says APO’s founder and conductor, Luke Frazier. “She walked into the first rehearsal and said, ‘I'm not really a singer. I'm more of a talk-singer.’ We get done with rehearsal. I'm like, ‘No, Kathy. You can actually sing.’ She's just very modest about it.”

Frazier has chosen a few special numbers for Najimy — among them one of Herman’s greatest chestnuts: “Hello, Dolly!”

She’ll also sing “Bosom Buddies,” a raucous duet from Mame, with Davis and “The Man in the Moon” from the same show.

“So many of Jerry Herman's female leads are truly larger than life,” says Frazier. “They all have an element of comedy, but there's a lot of depth to them. Kathy has played so many roles where she shows off not only her comedic side, but as a person, there's so much depth in the causes she cares about. Since she spends so much of her time on activism, it's kind of that great duality. She brings so much to the roles.”

For her part, Najimy is thrilled to be a part of Saturday’s APO event. Each of APO’s shows are unique to their one evening, hand-crafted by Frazier to be eclectic, entertaining, musically invigorating, and fully adventurous. All the performers have a moment in the spotlight, culminating in a powerful all-handson-deck finale, and each APO show is calculated to evoke a wide range of emotional responses — from boisterous laughter to some serious heartstring-tugging.

“Every single APO show is original,” says Frazier. “We create them. They've never been done before. They're never performed again. It's one night. It's a special event. That's what makes us unique.”

Najimy, for her part, is up for the challenge. “I did a lot of musicals growing up — I did a lot in community theater,” she says. “I sung badly on purpose in Sister Act. And I sang backup for Bette in Hocus Pocus. But none of it was solo performer singing.”

Najimy, whose current projects include producing a documentary exploring why more than 50% of white women voted for Donald Trump, plans to incorporate some of her ideologies into the evening, but she won’t go into specifics. “I have about three songs,” she says, “and before each song, I'm going to talk a little bit about — not in a serious way — just where we are, that we're in D.C., and how close we are to the haunted house. And also how much women have come forward and made strides in the [House] last year, which is really heartening.

“Of course,” she adds, “I would have liked for us to take the Senate as well.”

METRO WEEKLY: You are a well-known, amazing advocate for

many issues, but specifically, with regard to the LGBTQ community, you took a stance for us as a celebrity long before many others.

You were one of the first. And I think that’s remarkable. You didn't have to do that. So the obvious question is, why?

KATHY NAJIMY: Well, I'll tell you. I'm a feminist. And as a feminist, I believe in equal rights, equality, and justice for all people.

So when there is a community of people who are being treated less than citizens because of who they love, that makes no sense to me. I believe everybody has the ability to love anybody. And I 28

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

feel like there's a spectrum between one and a hundred and we all fit somewhere there. Love is love, you know? And I believe that with all my heart. So I thought it was very unjust when I was a young activist in the '70s and '80s that anybody would be persecuted. That made no sense to me. I was happy to — and honored — to help any way that I could.

Also, in the ’80s, I was in college when the AIDS epidemic came to light. I've been sort of an ambassador for people with AIDS for many, many years. AIDS is the only disease where the people who have it are persecuted. If you have any other major disease, you're surrounded by love and doctors wanting to help. People with AIDS not only had found themselves with a life-threatening disease, but also with no support. And that broke my heart.

MW: It’s different now, though.

NAJIMY: Different, yes. But when we needed it not to be different, it wasn't. I mean, there's a lot of people living healthy lives with HIV/AIDS now, thank goodness, but we lost way too many for no reason other than homophobia and hate.

MW: Did you at all worry at all about what your outspokenness, especially in the early years, might do to your career?

NAJIMY: Oh, it certainly has harmed my career, but I don't care at all. I am an activist and human person first. Business is not everything, it’s not my life. There were certainly people — agents and such — who said if you speak out about this, then these people won't cast you. And I said I respect their choice not to cast me. That is their choice and that's fine. I don't wish to be cast by them. And I respect my choice to be an advocate and to speak out and do one of the things in my life that is most precious to me.

Certainly, there have been studios that have asked me not to talk about radical notions. It’s their right to ask me and my right to decide to. You should hear some of the requirements they make. But isn't it great to be a troublemaker? [Laughs.] It's so sexy! I love it.

MW: You’re definitely my kind of troublemaker. We live in a country founded on different points of view. Yet, I often find myself feeling the opposing point of view is wrong.

NAJIMY: Yeah, but I respect their right to say it. I fight for their right to say what I don't believe in. I don't fight for their right to legislate against human conditions and human choices. But freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and we all don't have the same opinions.

MW: I look over your career and think how marvelous it’s been so far. One of my favorite shows you did was King of the Hill. Peggy Hill was just such a rich, full-bodied animated character, largely through your interpretation of her. The show poked fun at conservative values, but not in a mean way — it was more instructive.

Mike Judge found a way to appeal to both liberals and conservatives and provide insights.

NAJIMY: I've got to tell you — I've been on a lot of jobs and my thirteen seasons on King of the Hill were among my favorite. It's really hard to find integrity like that. Every single Monday on our doorstep came a script that was just so funny and so relevant and so brave. I loved the writing on King of the Hill. I also liked that it was very collaborative — we weren't separate from the writers. We were all at the table read together. We all got to put in our point of view. It was very respectful of the actors and what we wanted to bring to the characters. There was no preciousness about anything. And, to tell the truth, the greatest part is that there was no hair, no makeup, no line memorizing, no 6 a.m. calls. No wardrobe fittings. You just showed up for a couple of hours and recorded. It’s something I'm so proud of — I love King of the Hill. Every moment of it was just a joy and I'm a

complainer, so there you go. ally of the gay community, besides my political views, is that MW: One of your biggest hits was Hocus Pocus, which just cele- in community theater, you're usually surrounded by a lot of brated its 25th Anniversary. Disney made a big deal about it. Can gay men. Those were the guys I hung out with, those were my you briefly talk about your experience making it? friends. So being a part of the gay community was seamless for NAJIMY: I've made 30 films, and you never know which ones are me. All my friends came out to me. In fact, straight married men going to stick, which ones are going to become really popular. now will come out to me. I'm a gay magnet. People who want to You just sort of make them. So the experience of it was only be gay will come out to me. very singular to me because I had been a huge fan — like a crazy Also, I have to say something about being straight-identified sycophant fan — of Bette Midler's growing up. by being married — I do believe that there is a spectrum. A lot of I had all of her posters. I had all of her records. I had several people don't agree, but I believe there's a spectrum between one incidents where I would run backstage at the Hollywood Bowl and a hundred. And I don't believe anybody is anything. I believe with guards running after me, and opening all the rooms until I we have the ability to love who we choose, when we choose, and found her in the room. I had one where I found where she lived how we choose. And so, I think sometimes, straight people have in New York, when I visited New York in the ’70s, and left a mes- to act straighter than they are because they're afraid of political sage with her housekeeper. I even had one where I sang to her. homophobia. And gay people need to be really rooted in gayness MW: That’s something.

NAJIMY: Well, I worked for a singing telegram “I think sometimes, straight people have company in San Diego. So my boyfriend at the time, to act straighter than they are because Greg Barnes, who is now a big fancy Broadway costume designer, had designed costumes for a junior they're afraid of political homophobia. theater’s Alice in Wonderland. He gave me the “I’m late, I’m late” bunny costume. We took the bus up And the Hollywood Bowl where Bette was performing and I pretended to the officials that I had a singing telegram for her after the show. But it really was just from me.

So, I hopped backstage, and in all these pseudo-celebrities were in Bette’s room surrounding her. And I sang a song and handed her the telegram that said, "From Kathy." And she said, "Kathy? Kathy who?" And because it's been taken away for so long. When something is I said, "I don't know, but I love you, too!" And I hopped out and beyond your reach, and then it is in your reach, you really root fainted. down hard.

So for all of those experiences, plus more that we can't go into MW: It's more relevant today with the current administration. It’s today, getting a call from Jeffrey Katzenberg, after I did Sister scary.

Act, who said, "I want to offer you a role in a movie called Hocus NAJIMY: I'm scared. I’m scared-scared. The loss of Democracy is Pocus to play Bette Midler's sister" — that was really a full fate earth-shattering. turnaround. An interesting highlight of my life.

MW: But what do we do? How do we wake up from this? I'm lookMW: Did you ever reveal to Bette that the singing bunny was you? ing to you for all the answers.

NAJIMY: I didn't want to freak her out, so I would slowly let NAJIMY: I'll tell you exactly what I think we should do. I think her know things. Like, "Oh, you wore those shoes in Chicago in the reason that Trump is the President — God, I've never said March of '78. No, no, you didn't sing that at that concert. You that sentence before, that's eerie — I think that the reason he sang this other song." She would always sort of look at me side- won is because the Democratic Party and the Liberals were split. eyed until one day I said, "Remember that girl who ran backstage And I think we lost a lot with the anti-Hillary people. I was a and got pulled off by the guards?" And she said, "Yes." I go, "And Hillary devotee — I was actually a speaker for her. I would go then, remember that bunny?" And she said, "Yes." I said, "Well, and speak where she couldn't. That was such an honor.

I'm the bunny."

But I feel like the split, which I think is because of misogMW: What did she say? yny, led to Donald Trump's win. I think whoever wins the NAJIMY: I think it was just a very slow sort of like, "Oh God, I'm Democratic nomination, whoever it is, we must wholeheartedly making a movie with a crazy person" into very good castmates rally around that person. We must forget our differences of who and friends. our favorites were, because now this is serious business. Donald MW: What was it like working with her?

Trump is President. We can't pussyfoot around anymore. We NAJIMY: It was great. She's tough and she knows what she wants, can't go, “Oh, I don't like him or I don't like her.” Too f-ing bad. and so am I, and there was a lot involved in Hocus Pocus. There We have Donald Trump. That's our alternative. was dancing and singing and children and animals, and I mean, it I was at the Tribeca Film Festival’s events and someone asked was just flying, it was a lot, but it didn't do well the first weekend. who do you want and I went, “Whoever is going to be the candiIt didn't do well at all. It just took years and years, and slowly date, that's who I want.” And that's who we all should want. We started building an audience, generation after generation. have to all want the same person — any sort of a compassionate MW: And now it's a phenomenon. thinking person. Or else we’ll have another four years of Trump.

NAJIMY: Who knew?

So, you know, I'm going to rally around 100 percent, heart and MW: I will often ask this question of straight actors we speak with: soul, with whomever wins the nomination.

Do you remember the first time someone came out to you, and Now, I know who I would like to be nominated, but if that what was your response? doesn't happen, I'm not going to split the vote. I'm not going to NAJIMY: You know, I think one reason that I am effortlessly an not vote. I'll just support that person, because we don't have a

GAY PEOPLE NEED TO BE REALLY ROOTED IN GAYNESS BECAUSE IT'S BEEN TAKEN AWAY FOR SO LONG.”

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choice anymore. We're losing our rights — women are losing their right to reproductive choice. There's many states in the middle of the country where there are no reproductive rights now. It's happening. It's real.

MW: It’s horrible.

NAJIMY: Oh, it's horrible racism. It's horrible misogyny. It's horrible homophobia. It's horrible everything. It's anti-woman, antigay, anti-any kind of a brain. It's really bad. And lives are being lost and Trump is making decisions that will affect our children's children. There won't be a planet. So, whoever is the nominee, that's who I'm going to wave my flag for. Anybody but him.

MW: Who would be on your dream ticket, though? We've got so many amazing choices out there now. It's an amazing field in many respects.

NAJIMY: Who would I pick? Well, I want Hillary. But if I can't have Hillary, I love Kamala Harris. But honestly, it doesn't matter to me. Anybody but Trump.

NAJIMY: There have always been activists and nonactivists, but

at this point, there really is no choice. We know that, every day, we're waking up, and not only are opinions changing, but laws are changing — laws that govern us and our daughters and sons.

If you have any interest in the future beyond a year from now, just with climate change....

I mean, I'm so inspired by today’s high school students. This one girl that had just gotten an award here in New York said, "I take every Friday off and go sit in front of the UN." And they said, "Do your parents mind that you aren't going to school that day?"

And she said, "No, they understand. If I'm not an activist today, I won’t have a future."

The kinds of adjustments that are being made that affect our whole lives are devastating changes. I understand that everybody's different. I don't require everybody to be the same, but what I do require is that you open the paper and look on the internet and turn on the news, and see how, every single day, this isn't just happening. It was planned, and it is dangerous, and we are going to find ourselves in the same position “All these pseudo-celebrities were in as in The Handmaid's Tale.

Bette’s room surrounding her. I sang a Things are going to change in a way that you can't imagine, because we're ignoring and saying, "Well, I'm song and handed her a telegram that said, not a political person," or, "It doesn't affect me," or, "It's ‘From Kathy.’ And she said, too hard." And I get that it's too hard. It's too hard for ‘Kathy? Kathy who?’ me. I get that it's scary. It's too scary for me. Nobody wants to do this. We all thought it would be Hillary, and we'd be swimming in a lake and having picnics.

But it's real and it affects everyone, you and your kids, your nieces, your nephews, and just the future in general, people you're not even related to. It's the future of humanity. Democracy is being systemically [dismantled]. All the bolts are being loosened, all o God, it's so hard, because I don't know enough yet. Honestly, We can't be sure what they're finding out about Donald I'm not being coy because, obviously, I say what I think, but I Trump. We don't know how he got to be president. I mean, how haven't quite heard enough to claim my stake yet. I would love many presidents have had 17,000 investigations about them for it to be a woman. It's time for it to be a woman, but I want being crooked? I mean, there was Nixon, and a couple more, and whoever will win. certainly, first of all, I don't care what presidents have affairs MW: You’re currently producing a documentary about the 53% of with who. That's a personal choice between them and their wife white women who voted for Trump in 2016. or their husband. That is none of my business, and I don't judge NAJIMY: I am. At the end of this month, we're going to do our somebody on what they do in their personal life. I judge them first three days [of shooting]. They're the most important equa- on how they protect and rule our country and sisterhood and tion in the nightmare of the last two years. We can't dismiss brotherhood with the world, and this administration, more than them — they're either women who voted for Obama, or didn't any other administration — and there's been some pretty sad vote at all, who, in 2016, voted for Donald Trump. So we need to ones — is boasting about the illegal-ness of their affairs. I mean, honor them and find out why and what, and understand it, so it you can't not pay attention this time. doesn't happen again.

MW: I have to bring up one final thing before you go. You made a MW: It is a very perplexing statistic. We're all like, "How could any guest appearance at Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend here in 2009. woman vote for him?"

What do you remember about that experience?

NAJIMY: Every one of us producers [of the documentary] has a NAJIMY: I remember that I was a little bit surprised about how different theory. My theory is that it is because of self-misogyny. very, very polite and well behaved every single person at that When you're taught that you're not worthy — that you're not whole event was. I thought they were the sweetest, kindest, most worth as much [as men] — it seeps into your great-grandmother, considerate people. Not that I didn't think they would be, but and then down to your grandmother, and less to your mother, like it was very peaceful. It wasn't very raucous, you know what and less to you, but it's still there. And if you think you aren't I mean? Everyone was just really nice. The reason I was in D.C. worth as much, you're not going to vote for someone that you was for the Obama Inauguration. And the excitement was in the think isn't worthy. air, you know? And then, of course, I went home with a couple Other people think differently. Gloria [Steinem] thinks it's of leather queens. l because they vote the party line of their husband. I mean, we all have a different idea. The truth is that none of us can put Kathy Najimy will perform as a guest artist at the American Pops words in their mouth. We need to really find out and ask them Orchestra concert “I Am What I Am: The Music of Jerry Herman” and understand, so that we can move past this crazy nightmare. on Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. at the Fichandler Stage in the Mead MW: I want to bring it back to activism. What is the importance of Center for American Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $25 to $75. activism to you and why should we all remain vigilant?

Call 202-599-3865 or visit www.theamericanpopsorchestra.org.

AND I SAID, ‘I DON'T KNOW, BUT I LOVE YOU, TOO!’ AND I HOPPED OUT AND FAINTED.”

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Call On Mauricio!

On Your Feet! star Mauricio Martínez brings his voice and his truth to APO’s Jerry Herman tribute.

By André Hereford

I

N 2015, MAURICIO Martínez was facing the potentially make-or-break decision dreaded by scores of rising young artists in the entertainment industry. The Monterrey, Mexico-born actor and singer, who was gaining notice throughout Latin America for heartthrob TV and stage roles and for his ballad-heavy album Desde 1978, came under threat from a tabloid: come out as gay, or be outed.

The tabloid jab happened to coincide with the first anniversary of Martínez’s marriage to now-ex-husband Emilio Solís. “They thought that they had outed me,” says Martinez. “I took a day and I didn't say anything, and I got together with friends that worked at GLAAD, and I said, ‘How can I use this as sort of an example and not treat it as a media frenzy, and not make it about me?

How can I help a teenager that's coming out, or a teenager that's debating whether to commit suicide or not because he's being bullied in high school because he's gay?’”

An established talent south of the border, Martínez already had overcome tremendous obstacles through courage and perseverance. As a teenager he’d moved to New York City to study drama and musical theater, eventually relocating to Mexico City, where he earned roles onstage playing Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar. Then, as a young man, he was diagnosed 32

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

with prostate cancer.

Now a four-time cancer survivor, Martínez clearly has thrived by not backing down from a challenge. And he didn’t back down from the tabloids.

“I sat down with a dear friend of mine, and I wrote this letter that then became a sort of a press release, but very heartfelt, where I said, ‘Listen I never said publicly that I was gay, and I didn't sell my wedding to a magazine or to a TV network — that is very common in Mexico that they do that and get paid for it — because it truly has nothing to do with my life as an artist, as an actor, or as a singer in either theater, television or film or music. The day that the sexual preference of a public figure is not the reason for a headline, or a cover of a magazine or a newspaper, when that day arrives, we'll be so advanced as far as humanity, as far as countries go.’ So the press went nuts with it, and I've been shown, honestly, nothing but respect from that day forward.”

Many of those days and nights going forward Martínez has spent onstage performing his breakout English language role as Miami Sound Machine maestro Emilio Estefan, in the acclaimed stage musical On Your Feet!

Brought in to audition for the role by a casting director who found Martínez’s website via social media, the actor had to pass a steeper test to book the part. “I didn't even know what On Your

Feet! was,” admits Martínez. So he did his research on the Tonynominated jukebox musical about the lives, career, and marriage of legendary Latin-pop power couple Gloria and Emilio Estefan, and then headed to New York for the audition.

“The casting director looked at me and said, ‘Well, just so you know, in the room are Alex Dinelaris, who wrote the book, Jerry Mitchell, who's the director, and Sergio Trujillo, who's the choreographer.’ And my mind just went: Academy Award, Tony, Olivier. So, I was like, ‘Okay, no pressure. No pressure.’ And then he said, ‘Oh, and there's also Gloria and Emilio.’ I just lost it. I walked in, and shook Emilio's hand, and I looked at Gloria, directly into her eyes, because I was so nervous. I basically, sang to her the whole time. I said, ‘What the hell, if I'm auditioning to play her husband, I might as well look at her, straight into her eyes.’ So that's what I did, and it worked. At least it moved Gloria at the audition.”

Offered the opportunity to step into the part originally created by Josh Segarra, Martínez made his Broadway debut in 2017, then went on tour with the show for nearly a year-and-ahalf, opposite Christie Prades as Gloria. He was the third actor to assume the role on Broadway, and credits director Mitchell, choreographer Trujillo, and the play’s associate director Andy Señor with helping him make the part his own.

“I didn't want to copy anyone,” says Martínez, noting one other inside source of inspiration for his portrayal. “Getting to know Emilio, and getting to travel with him, and spend time with him at the studio, at restaurants, at his home, and in hotels, in theaters, and cars, it was amazing. I was like a sponge. And he is a very, very funny guy, when you talk to him. He has this very thick accent, which Gloria always makes light fun of, in a very beautiful and loving way. And the more I knew him, the more I would put in. His laugh, the way he speaks, the way he moves.

Every time, with respect. Never wanting to be just funny. Just being him, being honest. He is a naturally very funny man. So, he brought that out of me, and it was great.”

Martínez said goodbye to the tour earlier this year, and is back in the recording studio working on a new album, while waiting to hear about a potential third season for his Emmywinning NBC Universo dramedy, El Vato, in which he costars as uber-macho pop idol Marcos Gutiérrez.

To the benefit of fans in D.C. who would like to see him live, Martínez will join conductor Luke Frazier and the American Pops Orchestra at Arena Stage this Saturday, along with special guests Kathy Najimy, Trading Spaces’s Paige Davis, and RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Alexis Michelle, among others, for I Am What I Am: A Tribute to Jerry Herman.

Calling theater his first love, Martínez recalls growing up listening to his mother’s Broadway cast albums, including Hello, Dolly!, Herman’s landmark hit. “The minute I told my mom that I was going to do ‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes,’ she literally started singing with me, without even knowing the words,” says Martínez. “Interestingly enough, right now two of the biggest musicals playing in Mexico City are Hello, Dolly! and La Cage Aux Folles.

“So, I'm very excited and honored to be a part of this celebration, this tribute to a wonderful man who I'm a huge fan of, and I get to share the stage with some amazing talents. Just the song ‘I Am What I Am’ — that's such an anthem as to how one should live and lead their life. I am what I am, period.” l APO’s I Am What I Am: The Music of Jerry Herman is Saturday, May 18, at Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $25 to $75.

Visit www.theamericanpops.org.

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Gallery

Clockwise from top left: Ahanu (they/them) - We Still Feel, Dorian Blue, of Blueboy Photography (they/them & he/him) - Displaced, Edith Flores (they/them) - Bloom | Florecer, and Holy | Santx, Kay Wrenn (they/them & he/him) - The Land Between

T

HIS YEAR’S MONTH OF PROGRAMMING CELEbrating D.C.’s transgender community, launched by Trans Pride founder SaVanna Wanzer, introduces an exhibition featuring 30 pieces of art from a diverse and talented group of 15 area artists identifying as transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, Two-Spirit, and/or agender. The show features works by Alex Ramirez, Ameirah Neal, Autumn

May Is All About Trans: Art Exhibition Towne, Dorian Blue, Edith Flores, Kay Wrenn, Sir Max Even, Molly Stratton, Nona Conner, Star Bennett from Check It Enterprises, and Zayn Thiam, plus Ahanu, Alexa Elizabeth Rodriguez, Kariwase Duprey, and Xemi Tapepechul from the Nelwat Ishkamewe Two-Spirit Art Collective. On display through June 14. Westminster Presbyterian, 400 I St. SW. Call 202-484-7700 or visit www.mayistransdc.com. —Doug Rule MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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STAN WEINSTEIN

Stage

Hot Bunch

P

GALA’s Fame the Musical remembers the name of the game but makes scant magic. By André Hereford

RECEDING THE RECENT, SLIGHTLY RANDOM CROP OF SCREEN-TOstage adaptations — be they Groundhog Day or Mean Girls — Fame the Musical ( ) hails from an era, 30 years ago, when musical adaptations made a certain kind of sense. Alan Parker’s Oscar-winning 1980 movie about talented, hyper-emotional, horny New York City high schoolers learning drama, dance, and music cast a perfect mold for theatrical reinvention.

That this late-’80s stage reinvention of Fame barely includes any of the film’s memorable award-winning music never made much sense. But that matter presumably was settled long ago and far away by expensive legal representatives.

Instead, Fame the Musical’s creator David De Silva lashed an episodic book by José Fernandez, loosely based on the movie, to a score composed by Steve Margoshes, with lyrics by Jacques Levy.

One might hope that these original elements convey the heat and hardness of raging young artists thrown together at the midtown High School of the Performing Arts in Ed Koch’s New York. And certainly, the magnetic energy and appeal harnessed by director-choreographer Luis Salgado and his estimable cast in GALA Hispanic Theatre’s production creates strong connections. But not even the best efforts of Salgado’s multi-talented ensemble, nor those of music director Walter “Bobby” McCoy and some fine musicians, can spin Margoshes and Levy’s songs into much more than hummable plot conveyances.

For that matter, the best efforts of the cast don’t really come through in the singing anyway, except for Tanya De León, exceptional as shy, smitten acting student Serena.

Rather, it’s the ensemble’s dancing and emoting that radiate a spirit of promise and

abandon, down to the minute beats and gestures tucked between the full-on dance numbers. In the opener “Hard Work,” or merely in sarcastic asides, Salgado and cast speak as much through the characters’ body language, accented by Robert Croghan’s effective costumes, as they do through the script by Fernandez.

For this production, the script has been adapted by Salgado and his production associates into a hybrid of Spanish and English (all super-titled above the stage). The kids and their teachers slip easily between both tongues, registering a profound and accurate representation of today’s American high school. The interweaving storylines don’t land anywhere more profound than that, though.

Following the film’s formula, the show gathers similar threads of a boisterous comedian experiencing an identity crisis, a dedicated musician-composer caught between dueling classical and commercial urges, and an interracial romance between an upper-class white ballerina and a streetwise black hip-hop dancer.

The brother, named Leroy in the movie, makes the big leap to being named Tyrone (Romainson Romain) for the musical, but he’s still illiterate, so, rejoice, that much hasn’t changed. Well, he raps in the musical, in a number called “Tyrone’s Rap,”

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

37

which definitely sounds like rap composed by showtune writers.

“Reggie Jackson, Jesse Jackson/Michael and Mahalia Jackson/ What’s that got to do with me?” Good question, Tyrone.

It can’t be overlooked that one marvelous quality of the movie Fame is that the music and performances created by Leroy and his fellow arts school kids actually sounded, looked, and seemed like the art those kids would make. But in the stage show, the characters sing songs that sound written by someone else, and not by the great Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, who wrote the unforgettable title song.

Thankfully, “Fame” the song made it into Fame the Musical, and it’s a delight to hear it belted by the whole cast. Altogether

they are so much more engaging than the paltry plotlines the script doles out, or the one-trait characters they’re playing. In particular, Rafael Beato, as the conflicted comedian Joe Vegas, and De León as lovestruck Serena, create characters who amount to more than just a bag of ticks.

It’s a pity the script doesn’t even grant Joe a thoughtful resolution to his plot — but that doesn’t dampen the performer’s charisma, a shared trait among several members of a joyous, hard-working company. Salgado occasionally seems challenged to focus that abundant, collective energy as it overflows the limits of this merely decent musical with the name we all remember. l

CHRISTOPHER MUELLER

Fame the Musical runs until June 9 at GALA Theatre, 3333 14th St. NW. Tickets are $65.

Call 202-234-7174 or visit www.galatheatre.org.

Nuanced Portraits Signature’s sublime Spunk magnificently winds its way through three Zora Neale Hurston short stories. By André Hereford

T

HE PUBLICATION LAST YEAR OF ZORA NEALE HURSTON’S BARRACOON: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” has helped stir a Zora pop culture revival that’s beautifully reflected in Signature Theatre’s sublime production of Spunk (HHHHH). The play, an anthology of three Hurston short stories, bears not just the Harlem Renaissance writer’s radical authorial touch, but also that of playwright George C. Wolfe (Shuffle Along, The Wild Party), an artist with a knack for synthesizing moving entertainment from disparate elements of African-American life.

In Spunk, Wolfe and composer Chic Street Man connect the three unrelated tales via Hurston’s rich prose and a strain of music — the blues — that courses through all

the lives depicted from one story to the next. Sung and narrated by a knowing Blues Speak Woman (Iyona Blake) and humble Guitar Man (Jonathan MosleyPerry), the songs and stories — “Sweat,” “Story in Harlem Slang,” and “The Gilded Six-Bits” — form a nuanced portrait of no-good brothers and long-suffering sisters, from the swingin’ streets of ’40s Harlem to the sultry backroads of Central Florida, circa 1926.

Director Timothy Douglas and the cast who enact those stories take us there, with no fuss or frou-frou, inside Luciana Stecconi’s minimal slat-wood set, suggesting the walls of what could be a church or a juke joint. The characters get involved in business both holy and hell-raising, so the show definitely sets foot in both places.

And the tight six-person ensemble sets just about every foot right in delivering the play’s moments of folksy humor, or knife-edge suspense. A standout in the sizzling sextet, Blake carries these Spunkdified, pre-Civil Rights rhythm and blues in her wonderful voice and carriage, while KenYatta Rogers, in multiple roles, shifts smoothly from twanging villain to slanging swell with style.

Ines Nassara forgoes the Florida twang for her put-upon washerwoman Delia in “Sweat,” but she and Rogers still find something potent in that tale of female empowerment. Nassara and Drew Drake, in the third tale, “The Gilded Six-Bits,” conjure something equally powerful in their depiction of a deep love complicated by lust. And in “Story in Harlem Slang,” Drake, Rogers, and Marty Austin Lamar turn lust and trash talk into the play’s comic highlight, giving vivid life to the risk-takers and heartbreakers of Zora’s imagination. l

Spunk runs through June 23 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Avenue, in Arlington.

Tickets are $40 to $103. Call 703-820-9771, or visit www.sigtheatre.org.

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Movies

Will and Grace

Scandal intrudes on William Shakespeare’s peaceful retirement in Kenneth Branagh’s bold biopic All Is True. By André Hereford

J

UST TO BASK IN THE LUSH TONES OF SIR IAN MCKELLEN RECITING Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29 might be enough to coax certain connoisseurs to see All Is True (HHHHH), actor-director Kenneth Branagh’s biography of the Bard’s last days. Fortunately, Branagh and screenwriter Ben Elton have gone to the trouble of inventing an intriguing narrative premise to supply dramatic context for such moving poetry. The film finds William Shakespeare (Branagh) in 1613, devastated after his Globe Theatre burned down in London, attempting to retire quietly to his country manor in hometown Stratford-upon-Avon.

Will, wealthy and just shy of 50, might like to while away his salad days drinking ale on a hillside, or watching swans drift across a pond, but instead a host of family secrets and scandals, along with his own selfish behavior, come back to haunt him. Guilt is the emotion that nags at him most urgently, and drives the movie’s plot most forcefully.

Will was away in London when his eleven-year old son, Hamnet (Sam Ellis), died seventeen years prior, and neither Will’s wife Anne (Dame Judi Dench), nor his daughter Judith (Kathryn Wilder), Hamnet’s twin, are apt to let him forget it.

Will’s elder daughter Susannah (Lydia Wilson) is more welcoming of his return, and more forgiving of his faults. Though Susannah might just be consumed by her own guilt, as she’s accused publicly of cheating on her Puritan physician husband John Hall (Hadley Fraser). Protecting her honor, Hall sues the accuser for slander, just one of the actual and figurative trials that divert Shakespeare’s focus away from his avowed task of peacefully planting a garden in Hamnet’s memory.

Quite often, the film resorts to simply strolling down Shakespeare’s memory lane.

He and other characters traipse around bucolic Stratford paging through famil-

ial history or hashing out old arguments.

The crisp, if staid, cinematography should greatly please fans of English country gardens, as the camera meanders through flower beds, woods, and hedges. The writing, meanwhile, strays into obviousness, especially in limning the conflict between Will and his sexist son-in-law Hall, or with his bitter daughter Judith.

Judith beats up herself and everyone else for her being the twin who survived.

Newcomer Wilder at first seems to be overplaying the character’s spitefulness, but eventually the plot catches up to her. All the emotion she’s been building pays off in a stunning scene involving the destruction by fire of another artifact that Shakespeare cherishes.

McKellen, portraying Shakespeare’s well-bred London chum Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, is afforded only one scene to register a buildup and stunning payoff, and he nails it.

The Earl ventures out to Stratford hoping to lure his friend back to London, engaging Will in a tête-à-tête that’s both tense and tenderly loving. The movie plainly alludes to a longstanding romantic, if not necessarily carnal, passion between the two men, without making any further suggestions about Will’s sexuality. The scene really says more about aging, with

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Wriothesley relishing the fact that his youthful beauty, now faded, might live on forever in the glow of Sonnet 29.

Shakespeare did, in fact, dedicate poetry to Wriothesley, as he also is believed to have written romantic Sonnet 145 for his wife Anne. Depicted in All Is True as an uneducated but not foolish woman, Anne, eight years Will’s senior, loves her husband, but feels he abandoned their family and their marriage to go off and become the great William Shakespeare. Dench perhaps does the most subtle work here, as Anne attempts to

dismiss her pain, yet can’t help holding her heretofore absentee husband accountable for much of it. Again, the writing’s not subtle but the acting is, including Branagh’s lead turn, which draws a three-dimensional portrait of a towering figure.

All Is True doesn’t answer every question it raises about Shakespeare, but it speculates persuasively about the psychology motivating many of his choices both on the page and late in life. In several cases, Branagh and Elton appear to have decided that, despite attempts to consider the man’s words or work through a modern lens, he can only be judged as a product of his time. For example, he likely did invest greater hopes in having a son who might follow in his footsteps than a daughter who would pick up his pen.

And maybe, as shown here, he’d be the sort to try frightening an enemy by threatening to call in a terrifying African he knows to, essentially, come and kick the guy’s ass. If that is something Shakespeare would have done in 1613, it’s confounding still that Branagh and Elton would try it in 2019, even as a joke. Certainly the moment complicates their already complicated chronicle of the most celebrated writer of all time. l

All Is True is rated PG-13, and opens May 17 at Landmark’s E Street and Bethesda Row Cinemas.

Visit www.landmarktheatres.com/washington-d-c.

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

NightLife Photography by Ward Morrison

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

41

Scene

Nicks Flix at Uproar - Saturday, May 11 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

DrinksDragDJsEtc...

Thursday, May 16 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 Bud Products 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 • Thirst Trap Thursdays, hosted by Venus Valhalla, 11pm-12:30am • Featuring a Rotating Cast of Drag Performers • Dancing until 1:30am

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, 9pm-close • “New Meat” Open Dancers Audition • Music by DJ Don T. • Cover 21+

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 42

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Friday, May 17 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 GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 Rail and Domestic • $5 Svedka, all flavors all night long • Rough House: Hands On, Lights Off, 10pm-close • Featuring DJ Lemz • $5 Cover (includes clothes check)

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

Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Capital Laughs Comedy Show, Second Floor, 7:30pm

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

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

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

ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets, 9pm • Guest dancers • Rotating DJs • Kristina Kelly’s Diva Fev-ah Drag Show • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:45pm • Music by DJ Jeff Eletto • Cover 21+

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

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR 555 23rd St. S. Arlington, Va. 703-685-0555 www.freddiesbeachbar.com GREEN LANTERN 1335 Green Ct. NW 202-347-4533 www.greenlanterndc.com

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR 900 U St. NW 202-332-6355 www.nelliessportsbar.com NUMBER NINE 1435 P St. NW 202-986-0999 www.numberninedc.com PITCHERS 2317 18th St. NW 202-733-2568 www.pitchersbardc.com

NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS Compiled by Doug Rule SLEAZE PRESENTS HANNAH HOLLAND Jane Saw is the host and Lemz and Keenan Orr will be spinning as resident DJs — but otherwise this is not like the usual Sleaze party. For starters, it’s taking place on a Friday night — May 17 — and not Thursday. It’s also at DC9, and not Wonderland Ballroom (or U Street Music Hall). This special Sleaze is intended as a showcase for London-based DJ/producer Hannah Holland. A frequent resident DJ at The Carry Nation’s Good Room parties in New York and also the Panorama Bar at the infamous Berlin all-hours hotspot Berghain, Holland headlines the party after Lemz and Orr set the right dark disco tone, getting the crowd good and sweaty. The party is 21 and up and starts at 11 p.m. DC9 is at 1940 9th St. NW. Tickets are $10 to $15. Call 202-483-5000 or www.dcnine.com.

Saturday, May 18 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-3am • Video Games • Live televised sports AVALON SATURDAYS @Soundcheck 1420 K St. NW LGBTQ Dance Party, 10pm-close • $10 Cover before 11pm • General admission $15 • Drink specials • Drag Show, 10:30-11:30pm, hosted

by Ba’Naka and featuring Kristina Kelly, Deja Diamond, and Anastasia Dior • Open Bar on Tito’s and Jameson, 11pm-midnight • Visit www.dougiemeyerpresents.com

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Saturday Breakfast Buffet, 10am-3pm • $14.99 with one glass of champagne 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 GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $5 Bacardi, all flavors, all night long • The Bear Cave: Retro to Electro, 9pm-close • Featuring DJ Popperz • No Cover 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

SHAW’S TAVERN 520 Florida Ave. NW 202-518-4092 www.shawstavern.com TRADE 1410 14th St. NW 202-986-1094 www.tradebardc.com ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS 1824 Half St. SW 202-863-0670 www.ziegfelds.com

THE BEAR CAVE: #EROTIC Bears Can Party comes out of hibernation and offers another tour of the Bear Cave at Green Lantern. Pup Kalb Indigo is the “GoGo Pup” and host and Jeffrey Elettø spins, under his alias DJ Popperz, a mix of “retro/club/ hip-hop/Latin & Britney.” Naturally, the “Beartenders” will be slinging drinks from the full bar as well as $5 signature drinks with names like “The ManBearPig,” “Bear Cum,” and “The Honey Pot.” “Jump into the fog and have some fun,” whether you opt to dress up in leather, strip down to your jock or underwear, or just wander in your regular garb. The party, hosted by 495 Bears, and for those 21 and over, starts at 9 p.m. this Saturday, May 18. Green Lantern is at 1335 Green Ct. NW. No cover. Call 202-3474533 or visit www.greenlanterndc.com.

GAY/BASH: PAGEANT NIGHT II In the past couple of years Josh Vogelsong’s monthly alternative drag-focused party has helped spawn a coterie of monthly alternative drag-focused events at Trade, including Pussy Noir’s Sissy That Tuesday and KC B. Yoncé’s Slay My Name. “People show up in looks, everybody comes dressed up,” Vogelsong says about Gay/Bash, the spunkiest of the bunch. “Everybody gets crazy during the show. You can just spray beer on the crowd, and they'd cheer and love it. It's wild.” For the May iteration, the theme is pageantry, with shows from Ana Latour, Jane Saw, Sippi, Brooklyn Heights, and, last but not least, Donna Slash, Vogelsong’s other-persona. Jams from the Barber Streisand, with Connor serving as “Stage boy.” Saturday, May 18. Doors at 10 p.m., with shows at 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. Trade is at 1410 14th St. NW. Call 202-986-1094 or visit www.facebook.com/gaybashdc.

REPUBLIC RESTORATIVES: ANNIVERSARY NO. 3 Initially refused loans, Pia Carusone and Rachel Gardner turned to Indiegogo to become, in effect, “the largest crowdfunded distillery in U.S. history.” Explicitly women- and queer-owned and operated, Republic Restoratives Distillery and Craft Cocktail Bar, located in the distilling-rich Ivy City neighborhood, will celebrate its first three years in business as well as toast all those who helped it get to where it is today. There will be grub from New Standard Sandwich as well as Reverie, a special anniversary-only screen printed t-shirt, and, of course, fancy cocktails made with Republic spirits, which range from Civic Vodka to Rodham Rye. The party is set for this Sunday, May 19, from noon to 6 p.m. Republic Restoratives is at 1369 New York Ave. NE. Tickets are free but RSVP recommended.

Call 202-733-3996 or visit www.republicrestoratives.com. l

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Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-3am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs playing pop music all night NUMBER NINE Doors open 2pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • THIRSTY, featuring DJ Chord Bezerra, 9:30pm PITCHERS Open Noon-3am • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am

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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 normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 2-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 • Gay Bash: The Alt Dance Party and Home for Unconventional Drag in the Nation’s Capitol, 10pm • Hosted by Donna Slash • Resident cast: JaxKnife Complex, Salvadora Dali, Jane Saw, and special guests • Music by The Barber Streisand

ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets upstairs, 9pm-close • Guest dancers • Ladies of Illusion Drag Show with host Ella Fitzgerald in Ziegfeld’s • Doors open at 9pm, Show at 11:45pm • Music by DJ Don T. • Cover 21+

Sunday, May 19 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-12am • $4 Smirnoff and Domestic Cans • Video Games • Live televised sports

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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 • 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 • All Day Happy Hour • 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

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 • Peace, Love, & Harmonies: The Musical Road to Woodstock, 7:30pm • Tickets available via www. eventbrite.com

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

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

Monday, May 20 FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Singles Night • Half-Priced Pasta Dishes • Karaoke, 9pm 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 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 NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover 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 • Shaw ’Nuff Trivia, with Jeremy, 7:30pm

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

Tuesday, May 21 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 GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer $15 • Drag Bingo with Sasha Adams and Brooklyn Heights, 7-9pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close NUMBER NINE Open at 5pm • 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 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 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 • Sissy That Tuesday: A Monthly Cabaret hosted

by Pussy Noir with special guests, 8pm • Music by WesstheDJ

Wednesday, May 22 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 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 www.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 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 • 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

Thursday, May 23 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

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 • Thirst Trap Thursdays, hosted by Venus Valhalla, 11pm-12:30am • Featuring a Rotating Cast of Drag Performers • Dancing until 1:30am 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

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Shirtless Thursday, 10-11pm • Men in Underwear Drink Free, 12-12:30am • DJs BacK2bACk

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

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • $15 Buckets of Bud Products all night • Sports Leagues Night

ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS All male, nude dancers, 9pm-close • “New Meat” Open Dancers Audition • Music by DJ Don T. • Cover 21+ l

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

MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“I’m standing here not just as a politician, but as a loving husband, saying thank you, thank you, thank you for the fight to bring us that freedom.”

— Mayor PETE BUTTIGIEG, speaking at a Human Rights Campaign Dinner in Las Vegas, acknowledging the LGBTQ activists who fought for the freedoms that have allowed him to run for president. “I want to reflect on what a remarkable spring Chasten and I are having, and what a testament it is to what can happen in this country of ours,” he said. “If you had gone back in time 20 years ago, to find me as an awkward teenager, and told him what 2019 was going to look like, he would not have believed you.”

“Once again, he’s bucking the Democratic Party to stand against equality, something he’s done consistently throughout his 14 years in Congress. ” — MARIE NEWMAN, who challenged Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) for his House seat in 2018 and intends to do so again in 2020, responding to news that Lipinski will be the only Democrat in the House of Representatives to vote against the pro-LGBTQ Equality Act. Lipinski told Roll Call that he believes the bill, which protects LGBTQ people against discrimination, could “potentially have damaging and unforeseen consequences for Americans’ religious freedom.”

“The rawness of that experience, the fear of that experience, but also the joy of the experience of Elton’s first kiss….

It’s electric! It’s exciting! ” — RICHARD MADDEN, who plays Elton John’s boyfriend/manager John Reid in upcoming biopic Rocketman, speaking to British tabloid The Sun about filming sex scenes with Taron Egerton — who plays Elton. Despite saying they are “never fun to shoot,” Madden agreed to film sex scenes for Rocketman because “[it’s] is the first time Elton ever had sex with anyone so that’s why it’s a relevant scene, in terms of his progression.... It’s as true to fact as we could be with where it happened, how it happened, and when it happened.”

“If you have a mission statement that indicates that you value inclusivity and diversity, then you should be making your business decisions based on that.”

— THOMAS GUTIERREZ, vice-chair of California Polytechnic State University’s Academic Senate, in a statement outlining why the Senate introduced and then overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution to remove Chick-fil-A from campus. The university’s College of Liberal Arts recommended that Cal Poly “sever ties with Chick-fil-A and terminate the contract with the on-campus franchise. And be mindful of the practices and donation patterns of its business partners, and that said partners are held to the same high diversity and inclusion standards as the rest of the campus community.”

“In the current increasingly polarised social and political climate, laws and policies are often the last lines of defense for LGBTI communities.”

— EVELYNE PARADIS, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group ILGA-Europe, in a statement after the organization’s annual Rainbow Europe Map and Index — which shows the state of LGBTQ rights across the continent — found equality advances were stagnating or regressing for the first time in ten years. Paradis added: “We need national and European decision-makers to redouble efforts to secure equality in law and in practice for LGBTI people.”

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MAY 16, 2019 • METROWEEKLY