Presidential Aspirations: Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is primed to put America to the test.

Are we ready for a gay President?

Interview by John Riley

ntial tions

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

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CONTENTS

MAN ERASED

Richard Yeagley’s new documentary provides a behind-the-scenes look at conversion therapy.

By John Riley

PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS

Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is primed to put America to the test. Are we ready for a gay President?

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Volume 25 Issue 40

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Interview by John Riley

DIE ANOTHER DAY

All aboard the wild carousel ride of Netflix’s boldly metaphysical Russian Doll.

By André Hereford

SPOTLIGHT: NEOARCTIC p.7 OUT ON THE TOWN p.10 BIG TOP: THE BIG APPLE CIRCUS p.12 BAR NONE: D.C. CENTER’S BEYOND BARS p.15 THE FEED: MAN ERASED p.19 COMMUNITY: NOMENCLATURE p.21 COVER STORY: PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRATIONS p.24 GALLERY: EYE TO I p.31 TELEVISION: RUSSIAN DOLL p.33 STAGE: NELL GWYNN p.35 STAGE: THE MASTER AND MARGARITA p.36 NIGHTLIFE p.37 SCENE: SCARLET’S BAKE SALE p.37 LISTINGS p.38 NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS p.39 PLAYLIST: DREW G. p.43 SCENE: TRADE p.44 LAST WORD p.46 Real LGBTQ News and Entertainment since 1994 Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrator Scott G. Brooks Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Troy Petenbrink, Bailey Vogt, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla Patron Saint Harvey Milk Cover Photography Pete for America Campaign 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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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

HOTEL PRO FORMA

Spotlight

T

NeoArctic

HE KENNEDY CENTER PRESENTS THE U.S. PREmiere of a daring, multi-genre, multimedia work that dramatizes for the stage a broad range of environmental issues, from climate change and soil erosion to urbanization and the digitalization of human life.

NeoArctic is a visual music performance that weaves in classical voice, electronica, dramatic staging, and movement, with the dynamic backdrop of photography from NASA, to explore “Nature’s Titanic” and the Anthropocene, a new

geological age characterized by the harsh impact of humanity on the ecosystem. The story of planet Earth and its future is told in English through 12 unique songs and soundscapes covering 12 different landscapes.

Kirsten Dehlholm, founder and artistic director of the Danish Hotel Pro Forma, leads this World Stages production featuring the 16-person Latvian Radio Choir performing music by Andy Stott and Krists Auznieks, with musical direction from Kaspars Putnins.

To Feb. 16. Terrace Theater. Tickets are $35 to $49. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Spotlight MY FAIR LADY

George Cukor’s 1964 film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, won eight Oscars — although its star, Audrey Hepburn, was completely slighted by the academy. Fathom Events returns the movie musical — featuring the standards “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” — to the big screen for two performances as part of its Big Screen Classics series. Fathom honors My Fair Lady’s 55th Anniversary with pre- and post-screening insights by TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz. Sunday, Feb. 17, at 1 and 5 p.m., and Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 3 and 7 p.m. Area theaters including Regal venues at Gallery Place (701 7th St. NW), Potomac Yards Stadium (3575 Jefferson Davis Highway), and Ballston Common (671 N. Glebe Road). Visit www.fathomevents.com.

LP

A few years removed from opening for Bryan Ferry and his Jazz Orchestra at the Lincoln Theatre, I.M.P. Productions presents a return engagement of the lesbian rocker Laura Pergolizzi, who goes simply by her initials. While her slightly snarled, full-throated voice eerily echoes Gwen Stefani’s, LP’s style is very rooted in the sincere and passionate style of arguably her two greatest influences, Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge.

Fun fact: LP co-wrote Rihanna’s “Cheers (Drink To That)” and Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful People,” both from 2010.)

LP tours in support of her new album, Heart to Mouth, which includes one candidly honest autobiographical track after another. Wednesday, Feb. 20. Doors at 7 p.m. 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. Tickets are $25. Call 202-265-0930 or visit www.930.com.

DC SHORTS: SHORTS & SWEETS

All the stages and shades of love will be explored through four “Shorts & Sweets” showcases, each running approximately 90 minutes in length and featuring shorts from around the world grouped around a particular theme — from “This Is Love” at 7 p.m. to “Love Hurts” at 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15, and from “Love Lies Bleeding” at 8 p.m. and “No Love Lost” at 10 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16. To sweeten the deal — literally — DC Shorts promises sweet treats at the screenings at the historic Miracle Theatre in Eastern Market, where wine and beer is also available if you wish. 535 8th St. SE. Tickets are $15 per showcase, or $45 for all four. Call 202-4003210 or visit www.sweets.dcshorts.com for more information and to see the full film lineup.

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Spotlight CYRANO

JOHNNY SHRYOCK.

An athletic, commedia dell’arte retelling of Edmond Rostand’s world-famous story that, in true Synetic Theater fashion, is also wordless — brought to the stage by Vato Tsikurishvili, the son of Synetic’s founders in his directorial debut. Cyrano revolves around the plight of Cyrano de Bergerac, a brilliant poet and soldier who decides to woo his beloved Roxane with the help of his charismatic and confident friend Christian. What could possibly go wrong? To March 10. 1800 South Bell St., Arlington. Tickets are $20. Call 800-811-4111 or visit www.synetictheater.org.

The captivating evolution of perfume bottles and accessories from the 18th through the mid-20th centuries is told through the display of nearly 150 pieces, those taken from Hillwood’s collection as well as from Givaudan, the Swiss manufacturer of fragrances and cosmetics. Complementing the exhibition are a “scented suite of workshops,” such as the Hands-on Workshop: Fragrant Floral Design in which participants will create an arrangement of blooms, offered on Saturday, Feb. 23, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Exhibition opens Saturday, Feb. 16. On display to June 9. Hillwood Estate, 4155 Linnean Ave. NW. Suggested donation is $18. Call 202-686-5807 or visit www.HillwoodMuseum.org.

Perfume Bottle and Case in the Shape of an Egg . Possibly Russia, 19th century. Gold, enamel

NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN

After wowing audiences performing with the Baltimore Symphony last season, the Armenian cellist and Tchaikovsky International Competition winner returns to perform English composer Edward Elgar’s beautiful and elegiac concerto. Associate conductor Nicholas Hersh leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an all-20th Century program also featuring Rondes de printemps from Claude Debussy’s Images and Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6, reminiscent of the Russian Soviet composer’s famous romantic ballet music. Thursday, Feb. 21, at 8 p.m. Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore. Also Sunday, Feb. 24, at 3 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Tickets are $25 to $90. Call 410-783-8000 or visit www.bsomusic.org.

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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COURTESY OF HILLWOOD MUSEUM & GARDENS - PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRIAN SEARBY

PERFUME & SEDUCTION

JAMIE JAMES MEDINA

Out On The Town

INTERPOL

Heralded as a vital part of New York City’s early 21st century rock renaissance, this Brooklyn trio is so steeped in British post-punk/new wave, they sound like the second coming of Joy Division. And that’s possibly truer two decades into their career as dark and dramatic rockers than ever, as captured on Interpol’s sixth studio album Marauder, which pounds as well as it pouts, and batters as well as it broods. Assisted by lead guitarist Daniel Kessler and drummer Sam Fogarino, Paul Banks has never been so upfront — not only by virtue of his frayed, earnest baritone that has always characterized the band, or that of his work as the band’s bassist ever since the departure earlier this decade of Carlos Dengler, but also through his songwriting, which is more autobiographical and less detached and evocative than ever. The indie psych-pop band Sunflower Bean, also from Brooklyn, opens. Friday, Feb. 15. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. Tickets are $40 to $55. Call 202-888-0020 or visit www.theanthemdc.com.

Compiled by Doug Rule

FILM 2018: A SECOND LOOK

The AFI Silver Theatre returns a selection of last year’s most distinctive films to the big screen in time for awards season. The nearly two dozen films includes Roma, No. 3 on Metro Weekly critic André Hereford’s year-end best list, which screens Saturday, Feb. 23, and Sunday, Feb. 24, at 4:20 p.m.

There’s also BlacKkKlansman, the comedy-drama that is — surprisingly — the first Best Picture and Best Director nominations for Spike Lee, on Saturday, Feb. 16, at 9:30 p.m., and Monday, Feb. 18, at 7:15 p.m.; the Bradley Cooper- and Lady Gaga-led A Star Is Born, on Friday, Feb. 22, at 4:20 p.m., as well as Saturday, Feb. 23, and Sunday, Feb. 24, at 11 a.m.; plus what is billed as the “deliciously dark flipside to A Star Is Born,” the Natalie Portman- and Jude Lawstarring Vox Lux, on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 9:20 p.m., and Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 9:45 p.m. The series con-

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tinues to March 21. 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Call 301-4956720 or visit www.afi.com/Silver.

CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE GOONIES

Through the series “The Film Music of Erich Korngold,” the Library of Congress honors one of the earliest and most influential composers in the history of Hollywood. Next up in the series is a double bill of two classic pirate films, released half a century apart. Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland star in Michael Curtiz’s Captain Blood, the 1935 film that made the two actors household names and solidified the swashbuckling genre. Based on a story written by Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner’s 1985 film The Goonies carries on the tradition established by Curtiz and Korngold, who heavily influenced the work of composer Dave Grusin. An hour before the double feature, Saturday, Feb. 23, at noon, comes a related lecture by Paul Sommerfeld of the Library’s Music Division. “In Search of Korngold” reviews the famous composer’s work and his lingering influence on composers from John Williams to the

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

late James Horner. Pickford Theater in the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE. Tickets are free but required for both the screening and the lecture. Call 202-707-5502 or visit www.loc.gov.

OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2019: DOCUMENTARY

At its West End Cinema, Landmark Theatres presents this year’s nominees in the Documentary Shorts category, which includes a Netflixreleased short highlighting medical practitioners helping to change perceptions about end-of-life care.

That film, End Game, is the latest from the gay, Oscar-winning duo of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet). The 143-minute program also includes Black Sheep by Ed Perkins and Jonathan Chinn from the U.K. and Period. End of Sentence. by Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton from India, plus Lifeboat by Skye Fitzgerald and Bryn Mooser and A Night at the Garden by Marshall Curry, both from the U.S. 2301 M St. NW. Call 202-534-1907 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

Carrie Fisher doesn’t likely spring to mind when thinking of Rob Reiner’s 1989 rom-com written by the late Nora Ephron. Instead, you probably think of Meg Ryan’s legendary dinner scene, in which she demonstrates to Billy Crystal her ability to fake an orgasm. (Fun fact: Reiner let his mother speak the film’s most famous line, “I’ll have what she’s having.”) But the late Fisher plays one of the pair’s best friends, and gets a return to the the big screen with the film as part of the Capital Classics series at Landmark’s West End Cinema. Wednesday, Feb. 20, 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 202534-1907 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

STAGE AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’

Joe Calarco directs Signature Theatre’s production of Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show, for which he con-

verted the Shirlington complex’s large Max Theatre into a 1930s-era Harlem nightclub in tribute. Iyona Blake, Kevin McAllister, and Nova Y. Payton lead an all-star cast performing the Waller-penned hits from the Tony-winning musical, including “The Joint Is Jumpin’,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” and “Handful of Keys.” Mark G. Meadows serves as musical director and onstage pianist, with choreography by Jared Grimes.

To March 10. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Call 703-820-9771 or visit www.sigtheatre.org.

JULIANA CRAWFORD

ONCE

Monseu

BIG TOP

The Big Apple Circus showcases “thrilling skills” in new female-powered, animal-inclusive show.

E

VEN IN OUR POST-RINGLINGS BROS. WORLD RULED BY CIRQUE DU SOLEIL, some leading circus troupes still feature working animals. New York’s Big Apple Circus, for one. “When you see the animals in the ring, and when you see her with them, you definitely get the sense that these are important parts of her family,” says ringmaster Stephanie Monseu of her colleague Jenny Vibel.

We’re not talking exotic animals here — no big cats, elephants, or dolphins have been harmed in the making of the Big Apple Circus show. Vibel, the company’s animal handler, only works with mammals of the domesticated kind: specifically, rescue dogs as well as horses who have “retired from performing in other capacities.”

“Vibel is an incredibly humane and loving trainer who works with the animals to find out what they love to do naturally,” says Monseu. As it happens, horses have played a natural, pivotal part in the development of this whole genre of entertainment — right down to the name. “The word ‘circus’ [itself] refers to the circle that was measured out based on the smallest circumference that a galloping horse could run,” Monseu says. “The circus...evolved around horses. For the Big Apple Circus, it's thrilling to be able to keep that tradition alive.

“The ringmaster was traditionally the equestrian director, or somebody who trained and presented the horses,” she adds. In that regard, Monseu bucks tradition. She’s a self-described “art school dropout” who has focused her career doing pretty much everything in the circus arts except working with horses and other animals — from juggling to stilt-walking to flying trapeze.

Monseu is the fourth female ringmaster in the Big Apple Circus’ 41-year history. “Circus in general has a really long tradition of powerful women being in positions of creative responsibility,” she says. That holds true today with the company’s current show, which features an impressive number of female-led acts and is directed by several New York theater veterans.

“It really is Broadway under the big top,” Monseu says. “The production value is really high, the lighting is beautiful, the set is pristine, the band is phenomenal. And we have the full spectrum of thrilling skills,” from the eight-person trapeze act the Flying Tunizianis, to the “very unique horizontal juggling” ace Victor Moiseev, to comedic character clowns Mark Gindick and Adam Kuchler.

“There's something for everyone,” adds Monseu, who sees her job as helping audiences “suspend disbelief, and experience wonder in a way that we don't really do in our daily lives.”

—Doug Rule Performances run through March 24 at National Harbor, 238 Waterfront St., in Oxon Hill, Md. Tickets start at $15, or $25 for VIP access to the Mirror Room with special amenities, a specialty cocktail, popcorn, cotton candy, and welcome gift. Call 212-257-2330 or visit www.bigapplecircus.com.

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

One of those quiet, understated shows that will sneak up and surprise you, Once deservedly won a whopping eight Tony Awards in 2012. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova’s romantic folk rock score is what surprises you most about the show, featuring a book by celebrated Irish playwright Enda Walsh and based on John Carney’s small indie film from 2006. The focus is on a man and a woman who make hauntingly beautiful music — which is all the more powerful because their songs express their love for each other in a way that the two, each already in complicated relationships, never fully realize otherwise. Gregory Maheu and Malinda Kathleen Reese lead a large cast of actors playing their own instruments in an Olney Theatre Center production directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, with music director Christopher Youstra serving as the show’s emcee. To March 10. Mainstage, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, Md. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www.olneytheatre.org.

SHAME 2.0 (WITH COMMENTS FROM THE POPULACE)

The challenges that two actors — one Israeli, the other Palestinian — faced while staging the embattled world premiere of the play The Return is the central focus of a provocative theatrical interrogation of censorship, loyalty, intimidation, and resistance. Mosaic Theater’s Ari Roth leads an adaptation of this work of documentary theater by Einat Weizman with Morad Hassan that incorporates performance excerpts, the actors’ testimonies, social media messages, and telephoned threats. John Vreeke directs Colleen Delany, Lynette Rathnam, and Hassan in A world premiere workshop production, part of Mosaic’s 18th annual Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival. To Feb. 17. Lang Theatre in the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $15 to $35. Call 202399-7993 or visit www.atlasarts.org.

THE BROTHERS SIZE

Before he wrote the work that inspired the Oscar-winning film Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney

UNCLE VANYA: SCENES FROM COUNTRY LIFE

Animal Behaviour

OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2019: ANIMATION

At their best, short films are often regarded as the launching pads for the directing stars of tomorrow, allowing for a remarkable variety of inspiration and technique. Every year, the Academy Awards nominates a dozen or so shorts, and Landmark Theatres offers cineastes the chance to see the nominees, which screen in three separate programs. This year’s animated category includes Bao by Domee Shi and Becky Neimann-Cobb, Weekends by Trevor Jimenez, and One Small Step by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas, all from the U.S, plus Ireland’s Late Afternoon by Louise Bagnall and Nuria Gonzalez Blanco and Canada’s Animal Behaviour by Alison Snowden and David Fine. The program is rounded out with a couple of additional animated works. Now playing. Landmark’s E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW. Also Bethesda Row Cinema, 7235 Woodmont Ave. Call 202-4527672 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

offered this compelling story of family, devotion, and belonging, set deep in the Louisiana bayou.

Weaving in flights of poetry, music, and West African mythology, The Brothers Size focuses on the relationship between the hardworking and steady Ogun Size and his aimless younger brother, recently released from prison. Virginia’s 1st Stage offers a production starring Gary-Kayi Fletcher, Thony Mena, and Clayton Pelham, Jr., and directed by José Carrasquillo. The design team includes Giorgos Tsappas on sets, Moyenda Kulemeka on costumes, William K. D’Eugenio on lights, and Sarah O’Halloran on sound. To Feb. 24. 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Rd., Tysons. Tickets are $39. Call 703-854-1856 or visit www.1ststage.org.

THE DOYLE AND DEBBIE SHOW / PUFFS

The eccentric Landless Theatre Company returns with two shows staged in repertory at the District of Columbia Arts Center. There’s Bruce Arnston’s parody The Doyle and Debbie Show, which simultaneously lampoons and idolizes country music’s tradition of icon-

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ic duos and their subsequent battle of the sexes, starring Andrew Lloyd Baughman and Karissa Swanigan-Upchurch and directed

by John Sadowsky (Gutenberg! The Musical!). And then there’s Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic, Matt Cox’s tale of those who just happened to attend Wizard School at the same time as a certain boy wizard, dedicated to “anyone who has never been destined to save the world.” Performances of The Doyle and Debbie Show begin Friday, Feb. 15, while Puffs starts Friday, Feb. 22.

To March 30. District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), 2438 18th St. NW. Call 202-462-7833 or visit www.dcartscenter.org.

THE HEIRESS

Arena Stage’s Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko directs a new production, staged in the round, of this classic thriller suggested by the Henry James novel Washington Square and focused on a 19th-century young woman’s journey to find her voice. Laura C. Harris portrays Catherine Sloper while Jonathan David Martin is her possible suitor in a production

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

also featuring Lise Bruneau, Lorene Chesley, Janet Hayatshahi, Nancy Robinette, Kimberly Schraf, James Whalen, and Nathan Whitmer.

Opens Thursday, Feb. 14. To March 10. In the round in the Fichandler Stage, Mead Center for American Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Tickets are $40 to $95. Call 202-488-3300 or visit www.arenastage.org.

THREE SISTAHS

Chekhov meets gospel, rhythm & blues, bebop, and funk in a musical set at the height of the civil rights and anti-war movements 50 years ago. MetroStage presents its fourth revival of a show it calls an “iconic favorite” across its 35 seasons, this time with Roz White, KaraTameika Watkins, and Ayana Reed as the three strong women reflecting on their lives. Thomas W. Jones II returns to direct his own book and lyrics, with a story by Janet Pryce inspired by Chekhov. Music

by William Hubbard. To Feb. 24.

1201 North Royal St., Alexandria.

Tickets are $55. Call 800-494-8497 or visit metrostage.org.

Maryland’s rebellious classics-focused nonprofit theater troupe The Rude Mechanicals, a mix of professional and amateur artists, restages Anton Chekhov’s late 19th-century Russian classic in the 1930s early Dust Bowl era of the American West — more specifically, a small Russian immigrant community in Anton, Colorado.

As ever, the focus is on the spell cast by Professor Serebryakov and his beautiful and bored young wife Yelena in a return visit to the family estate, and all the chaos that ensues. Melissa Schick directs an original new translation of Uncle Vanya and a community theater production featuring Claudia Bach, Bill Bodie, Leah DeLano, Joshua Engel, Eric Honour, Erin Nealer, Moira Parham, and Nathan Rosen.

Performances are Friday, Feb. 15, Saturday, Feb. 16, Friday, Feb. 22, and Saturday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m.

West Arundel Creative Arts, 1788 Dorsey Rd., Hanover, Md. Tickets are $12 to $15. Visit www.rudemechanicals.com.

MUSIC 1964 THE TRIBUTE

A four-piece band with a self-titled PBS special to its credit and acclaim from Rolling Stone as “the best Beatles tribute ever,” the popular 1964 The Tribute returns as a Valentine treat to the vibe of the Fab Four’s early ’60s concerts, from the instruments to clothing to onstage banter. Thursday, Feb. 14, and Friday, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m.

The Barns at Wolf Trap, 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. Tickets are $38 to $42. Call 877-WOLFTRAP or visit wolftrap.org.

DISNEY’S DCAPPELLA

Modern a cappella versions of hits from classic and contemporary Disney films are on tap on the first North American tour of this group of seven vocalists put together by the Disney Music Group and Deke Sharon. Sometimes called “the father of contemporary a cappella,” Sharon was one of the leading forces behind NBC’s The Sing-Off reality competition show, which gave the world Pentatonix, and also served as arranger and music director of the Pitch Perfect franchise. (He’s said to be the inspiration for the character of Benji, portrayed by Ben Platt.) DCappella features soprano Morgan Keene, mezzo Shelley Regner (Ashley from Pitch Perfect), alto Sojourner Brown, tenor RJ Woessner, baritone Orlando Dixon, bass Joe Santoni, vocal percussionist Antonio Fernandez as vocal percussionist, bass Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 8 p.m. Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW. Tickets are $33 to $73 before fees, or $129 for the “‘Friend Like Me’ Meet & Greet Experience”

Anthony Oakes

Bar None

MsNyghtLyfe

Formerly incarcerated LGBT performers use their talents to tear down walls at Beyond Bars. By André Hereford

A

DDRESSING WHAT CONGRESSMAN HAKEEM Jeffries calls “the mass incarceration epidemic in America” has prompted action from every corner of the political and cultural landscape. In the ongoing conversation about prison reform, Jeffries has had to share space not only with the President but with Kim Kardashian-West.

While Kim’s helping free grandmothers, and Jeffries is co-sponsoring bipartisan reform bills, the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community is taking their own significant steps towards uplifting LGBTQ people who’ve been down the road of incarceration.

The Center’s Beyond Bars presents “a night of poetry and performance by formerly incarcerated LGBTQ folx,” hosted by Rayceen Pendarvis, and showcasing talents like singer Leadrew Nickens, poet MsNyghtLyfe, and comedian Anthony D. Oakes, among others.

Sarah Lawson, who focuses on individual therapy and social outreach programs at the Center, sees Beyond Bars as a vital platform for combating stigma and understanding the performers’ unique lived experience. “Whether we've been doing this kind of work or not, we all come to the table with a certain amount of assumptions,” says Lawson. “I think just humanizing people's experience is a great first step. Understanding people's stories and how many people have these stories is such an important step too.”

However, not every performer will include that part of their story in their act. “We wanted to keep this community-based and also don't want to exploit people's stories,” she says. “So we sort of said, if that's something you feel comfortable with, yes. And a lot of them actually have reflected to us that they're excited to

have the space in which that is valued, in which that is centered.

But we say to people you can or you don't have to. This is really about your story, whatever that looks like.”

Oakes’ story has led to gigs performing everywhere from D.C.’s Drafthouse and Comedy Loft, to the Broadway Comedy Club and the Greenwich Village Comedy Club in New York City.

It also includes a period of incarceration years in his past, but that, he says, “never really ends. You really go through it for the rest of your life.”

Like Lawson, Oakes acknowledges that stigma is the main burden in reentering life post-incarceration, and an added challenge to navigating the mostly straight space of stand-up. “And it's difficult mentally to go after your dream when also dealing with those types of barriers.”

Still, Oakes stays motivated by working steadily and honing his comedy craft, though he says he’s always been naturally funny. “My parents love me, [but] they’ve always told me, ‘Everything ain't funny.’ That was my thing growing up.

‘Everything is not funny.’ But I found the humor in everything, and people would love for me to be around them because I would make them laugh.”

It was the laughs he earned performing at his first comedy showcase four-and-a-half years ago that changed his life. “I had never done stand-up before, but [then] I told my first joke and got my first laugh,” he says, adding, “I had so many bad habits going on in my life. It was in that moment that I knew that all of that had to cease, and this is what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. In that moment. It was that magical. And that's when I knew.” l

Beyond Bars: A Night of Poetry and Performance takes place Wednesday, February 20, at Busboys and Poets, 2021 14th St. NW. The event is free to attend, though RSVP’s are requested. Visit www.thedccenter.org.

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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Songbook. An award-winning soprano hailed for her radiant, engaging, and effortless singing and the diversity of her repertoire, Lamoreaux will be accompanied by two local music educators and composers, guitarist Michael Bard and and pianist Andrew E. Simpson. Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. Dumbarton United Methodist Church, 31311 Dumbarton St. NW. Tickets are $39 to $42. Call 202333-7212 or visit www.dumbartonconcerts.org.

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND

DISNEY

It’s a crowded stage whenever the headline act is this Jacksonville, Florida-based blues/rock supergroup, with a large, 12-member ensemble formed from the merger of bands led by married couple Derek Trucks — formerly of the Allman Brothers Band — and Susan Tedeschi. It’ll be crowded all around at the Warner Theatre this weekend and next, when the Birchmere presents another fournight run that, just as with last year, is close to selling out. Tickets remain for only the Friday night shows, Feb. 15, and Feb. 22, at 8 p.m. Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW. Tickets are $67 to $123 before processing fees. Call 202-783-4000 or visit www.warnertheatredc.com.

DISNEY ON ICE: WORLDS OF ENCHANTMENT

Gather the family around, or at least the little tykes, who are sure to delight in seeing four favorite animated Pixar/Disney stories brought to ice this weekend at Capital One Arena.

In a production from Feld Entertainment, see Lightning McQueen and crew from Cars race around, explore the undersea kingdom with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, follow the daring adventure back to Andy’s room with Buzz, Woody, Jessie, and the Toy Story gang, and enter the wintry world of Arendelle with sisters Anna and Elsa and pals Olaf and Kristoff from Frozen. And don’t miss the mouse who started it all, with Mickey’s DanceAlong Pre-Show show. Performances are Thursday, Feb. 14, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 15, at 10:30 a.m., and 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 16, at 10:30 a.m., and 2:30 and 6:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 17, and Monday, Feb. 18, at 12:30 and 4:30 p.m. 601 F St. NW. Call 202-628-3200 or visit www.capitalonearena.com. including front-row seats. Call 202783-4000 or visit www.warnertheatredc.com.

MNEK

Two British girls can be heard raving about Zara Larsson’s “I’ll Never Forget You” as that international hit collaboration with the artist known as M-N-E-K plays in the background. And that serves as the perfect cue for the gay, black British artist to introduce himself.

“I’ve been in the background. I just stepped to the front now, so you can hear me out,” MNEK sings on “Background,” the second track of his stellar, incredibly au courant full-length debut Language.

Talk about overdue: Although only aged 24, MNEK has spent the better part of the past decade as a writer/producer for hire for pop stars and starlets, from Madonna and Beyonce to Little Mix and

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Dua Lipa. Language is as strong as you’d expect from that pedigree, featuring one standout song after another, from “Colour,” his uptempo duet with Hailee Steinfeld, to his latest single “Girlfriend,” in which he berates his lover on the DL: “Neither you nor your story is straight.” If only more people would give him a chance and his music a whirl — MNEK deserves to be every bit as much of a superstar as Troye Sivan and the ever-growing crop of young pop stars who live and sing openly and fully out. Raja Kumari opens. Wednesday, Feb. 20.

Doors at 6:30 p.m.. Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. Tickets are $17 to $19. Call 877-987-6487 or visit www.unionstage.com.

RAHSAAN PATTERSON

Named after ’60s jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the openly gay Patterson may be still best

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

known as “The Kid” from the popular ’80s television show Kids Incorporated — starring alongside Fergie, Mario Lopez, and pop singer Martika, who gave Patterson his start as a backup singer. But in recent decades Patterson has established himself as one of the sturdiest neo-soul singer-songwriters around, sometimes sounding like the original “Kid,” aka Prince, as on his stupendous release from 2011 Bleuphoria. Saturday, Feb. 16, at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. City Winery DC, 1350 Okie St. NE. Tickets are $50 to $68. Call 202-250-2531 or visit www.citywinery.com.

ROSA LAMOREAUX: A FEAST OF LOVE

The Washington Opera Society co-presents this Valentine’s Daythemed recital featuring courtly songs of the Elizabethan era as well as delights from the Great American

THE RON HOLLOWAY BAND BIG SAM’S FUNKY NATION

For the third year in a row the Hamilton Live! hosts concerts dubbed the official after-parties for two Tedeschi Trucks Band shows taking place around the corner at the Warner Theatre (see separate listing). First up, on Saturday, Feb. 16, is D.C.’s seven-piece “saxy funk machine” with soaring female vocals from Black Betty and Rachel Ann Morgan and led by namesake tenor saxophonist Ron Holloway, a member of the former Susan Tedeschi Band and a frequent guest of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, among many others. The following Saturday, Feb. 23, offers what some consider New Orleans’s “best kept secret,” the boisterous blend of funk, jazz, rock, and hip-hop known as the Funky Nation, a six-piece outfit led by “Big Sam” Williams, a former member of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band who had a recurring role on the HBO series Treme.

Doors for both shows at 11:30 p.m.

600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $10.

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

DANCE JANE FRANKLIN DANCE: SECOND GLANCE

A greater understanding of both visual art and dance is the ultimate aim of a new work of dance and movement from local choreographer Jane Franklin finding beauty in that which inspires a look back.

Developed in cooperation with local artist Fax Ayres and presented in conjunction with an exhibition of Ayres’s work from the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association (see more under Arts & Exhibits), Second Glance builds from the words Ayres uses to describe her process and her art and is set to music by Handel and Bach as recorded by US Army Band clarinetist Martin Gold. Excerpts from other recent repertory by the company will also be performed. Friday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m. 201 Prince St., Alexandria.

Tickets are $15. Call 703-548-0035 or visit www.nvfaa.org.

COMEDY AWKWARD SEX...AND THE CITY

Comedians from New York relive their most awkward sex/dating/ relationship moments on stage at this raunchy annual storytelling event, which returns to the Black Cat. Comedian and Towleroad columnist Bobby Hankinson will add his awkward gay tales on an otherwise all-female show featuring Jen Keefe, Anita Flores, and Karolena Theresa, with host Natalie Wall.

Saturday, Feb. 16. Doors at 8 p.m.

1811 14th St. NW. Tickets are $15.

Call 202-667-4490 or visit www. blackcatdc.com.

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BECOMING: THE COMEDY SHOW

Inspired by Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming, the bestselling book of 2018, Novel Comedy presents a program of stand-up, readings, and reminiscences about the “good ol’ days” of pre-Trump Washington. Area comedians will share stories about the Obamas and read excerpts from the book, as well as recount attempts to follow the former First Lady’s eating guidelines. The event is being advertised as “the next best thing to a Michelle Obama book tour.” Friday, Feb. 22.

Doors at 7:30 p.m. Solid State Books, 600 H St. NE. Tickets are $5 for a guaranteed seat. Call 897-4201 or visit www.solidstatebooksdc.com.

JOKES THAT GIVE BACK: CITY DOGS

Once a month at the comedy club a few blocks from Logan Circle comes a stand-up show featuring comics mostly drawn from around the region and all geared as a fundraiser for a different charity. Presented by comics Gigi Modrich and Andie Basto and hosted by Basto, the next event features Abby Mello, Allan Sidley, Anna Phillips, and Plain Ol DLo. And the beneficiary is City Dogs Rescue & City Kitties, which helps find forever homes for dogs and cats rescued from overcrowded and high-kill shelters — many, if

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

not most, of them on track to being euthanized for no reason other than lack of space. Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 7 p.m. Drafthouse Comedy, 1100 13th St. NW. Tickets are $10. Call 202-750-6411 or visit www.drafthousecomedy.com.

THE UNIFIED SCENE THEATER: FISH OUTTA WATER, FAUXCADEMY AWARDS

Bloomingdale’s small improvisational comedy organization offers a movie-focused program featuring two different casts of practiced improvisers a week before the 91st Academy Awards take place. On Saturday, Feb. 16, Unified presents the third annual Faux-Cademy Awards Show in which improvisers concoct an entire Oscars ceremony on the fly, all based on audience suggestions for who and what gets nominated, what wins, and who gets a lifetime achievement award. Organizers boast: “It will be intentionally disastrous as the Academy Awards are unintentionally disastrous — though much, much shorter.” That will be followed by the headline show Fish Outta Water, featuring a cast of improvisors who will act out scenes and classic movie narratives from films they haven’t seen or know little about. (The show is based on one in which Star Wars nerds are paired with unknowing, uncaring improvisors to act out famous scenes that go inevitably, and hilariously, awry.)

“Movie geeks of all stripes will love this,” Unified promises. Doors at 7:30 p.m. 80 T St. NW. Tickets are $12 in advance, or $15 at the door. visit www.unifiedscenetheater.com.

READINGS & LECTURES BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY: THE EMPIRE AND THE FIVE KINGS

Regarded as one of the West’s leading intellectuals, the renowned French philosopher, writer, and filmmaker Lévy returns with a new book whose full title is The Empire and the Five Kings: America’s Abdication and the Fate of the World. The five kings come from Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Sunni-radical Islamism, all of which are taking steps to assert power and influence and undermine the liberal values that have been a hallmark of Western civilization.

Lévy will be in conversation with Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at Brookings who served in the Reagan State Department, followed by a book signing. Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

600 I St. NW. Tickets are $15, or $30 including one book, or $42 with two tickets and one book. Call 202-4083100 or visit www.sixthandi.org. l

theFeed

MAN ERASED

Richard Yeagley’s new documentary provides a behind-the-scenes look at conversion therapy. By John Riley

R

ICHARD YEAGLEY CALLS HIS LATEST FILM A “tragic tale” of one man’s journey through conversion therapy. The Sunday Sessions, produced and directed by the local filmmaker, focuses on Nathan, a devout Catholic in his late 20s from Front Royal, Va., who is severely conflicted about his feelings of same-sex attraction.

The film follows Nathan as he seeks treatment from Christopher Doyle, a therapist and self-described former homosexual, best known for founding the International Healing Foundation, which promotes conversion therapy.

The documentary follows Nathan’s sessions with Doyle, as well as his relationships with his parents and his sisters, his acting work in local college theater productions, his interactions with fellow clients of Doyle who are also struggling with same-sex attraction, and his relationship with an out gay friend named Cameron, who is skeptical of Doyle’s methods and the efficacy of the therapy that Nathan is receiving. “[Nathan has] made his decision to continue to live and try to, I guess, remain celibate and repress his sexual feelings, and that’s the tragedy of it all,” says the Baltimore-based Yeagley. “I feel he’s bitter about everything.... He knows his decision is bullshit, but for whatever reason, religious dogma, religious ideology, his conservative Catholicism has won the day and has gotten the best of his heart and his head.”

It’s that choice to move forward with a “lie” — that Nathan is capable of changing his orientation and suppressing his desires — that many viewers may find unsettling.

But it’s also what separates The Sunday Sessions from other

recent, narrative films focusing on conversion therapy, such as Boy Erased or The Miseducation of Cameron Post, where audiences at least assume there will be a positive resolution to the protagonist’s struggle.

Another difference is that Yeagley, who has since become a skeptic of conversion therapy, doesn’t approach his film with the same heavy-handed messaging present in many “advocacy” films like Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, which took on the gun lobby, or Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, which warns viewers of the dangers of climate change. Instead, he calls The Sunday Sessions “completely observational.”

“The editorializing only comes in the form of the choices I make and what scenes I decide to show. I don't want to come at it with a heavy hand of, ‘You need to think this,’” he says. “I think the footage speaks for itself in that adhering to this kind of archaic philosophy of ‘Homosexuality is a sin’... is ultimately a waste of time for anyone. I think the main takeaway is that pushing this ideology, this idea of there is something wrong and it needs to be fixed, is fundamentally unsound, but that’s what conversion therapy enforces.”

The idea for The Sunday Sessions was sparked by a 2014 article in The Baltimore Sun chronicling Doyle’s fight against a proposed ban on youth conversion therapy in Washington, D.C. Although Yeagley had heard his sister, a member of the LGBTQ community, mention conversion therapy a number of years earlier, the concept didn’t stick.

“It was an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ kind of thing,” he says. “I live in Baltimore City, in a pretty progressive area.

My whole family is affirming, and my sister has never had

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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theFeed to deal with any type of oppression or rejection from family members. So my first thought when I read the article was, ‘Holy shit. This exists?’”

Yeagley believed that documenting a person’s journey through conversion therapy, and their struggle to reconcile their feelings, would make for compelling cinema.

“I am not religious, but seeing that struggle and seeing the convictions some people have to their ideologies and dogmas is a very fascinating topic,” he says. “That, just on a psychological level, was what drew me to the kind of inherent drama that I assumed would be part of the story.”

Yeagley reached out to Chris Doyle directly and asked if there were any patients he could shadow.

“The number one thing he asked me was what my sexual orientation was,” recalls Yeagley. “Once I told him I was straight, he seemed to be totally amenable to entertaining the idea of having me shoot.”

While Doyle didn’t outright reject the offer, he did tell Yeagley that it was unlikely any of his patients would allow themselves or their sessions to be filmed, because many feel a great degree of shame about their sexuality. But a week later, Doyle contacted Yeagley to tell him that Nathan had agreed to participate. The three men spoke on Skype, Yeagley pitched his ideas for the film, and Nathan and Doyle agreed — provided he didn’t interfere with the content of the sessions.

“From there, it was just maintaining the relationship, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible, and just remaining curious,” Yeagley says.

Most of the film’s action takes place in Nathan’s therapy sessions, where he is shown crying, shaking, ranting, and throwing ripped-up pages of books at inanimate objects that represent people in his life who have undermined his masculinity. The sessions — where viewers can almost see the physical manifestations of Nathan’s internal struggle — are some of the most raw, poignant, and striking scenes in the film, but also some of the most difficult to watch.

“It’s tough because it is unsettling,” Yeagley says. “It kind of needs to come with a trigger warning, ‘Look, if you haven't dealt with these issues of coming out, then...' It’s unsettling to see a man completely unraveling and questioning himself constantly. Filming it was emotionally taxing.”

From Yeagley’s perspective, the Nathan that viewers are introduced to at the beginning of the film is the truest version of his subject.

“When he is his true self, he’s a very intellectual guy, but he’s not so pompous, and he also can be very artistic. That is the version that he becomes when he’s with his friend Cameron. That’s the most perfect version of Nathan, and that’s the version that he's actually trying to suppress and repress, sadly,” says Yeagley, who notes that Nathan has since severed ties with Cameron and, as of last week, hadn’t talked to him in at least three years.

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

“That’s part of the cult-like element that exists within this type of therapy. It’s like, ‘Hey, these people don’t agree with us. You have to shut them out from your life. Any dissenting opinion needs to be gone, and he is gay-affirming.

That's a problem.’

“I went into this story not knowing what the outcome would be, but hoping Nathan would denounce this ‘therapy,’ separate himself from Chris Doyle, get back with his quasi-boyfriend Cameron, and live happily ever after. The humanist in me wants that expression at the end.

Obviously, that did not happen.”

Yeagley also realizes that, had he intervened to comfort or console Nathan, he not only would have broken the fourth wall and lost access to the therapy sessions, but increased Nathan’s resolve to continue the therapy.

“The more you try to tell Nathan what to do, the more he’s going to go against what you’re saying,” Yeagley says. “That’s his personality. He would've been so turned off by it and probably would’ve put his foot on the pedal and gone even harder.”

After watching Nathan’s struggle, Yeagley believes that “talk therapy,” like the kind provided by Doyle, can Yeagley be just as emotionally and psychologically harmful as more extreme conversion therapy techniques, such as electroshock therapy or forced vomiting.

“The whole basis of conversion therapy, and even just talk therapy, is ‘you’re ashamed to be gay, and you need to be changed, and I have a solution to try to change that,’” he says.

Yeagley finds one exchange between Doyle and Nathan to be particularly noteworthy. During a therapy session, Doyle admits that, even after undergoing therapy, Nathan will continue to struggle with same-sex attraction for the rest of his life.

“It was such a shocking moment to me,” says Yeagley.

“He says, ‘You will never rid yourself of your same-sex attractions. It will always be there.’ Basically, it is the admission of ‘you're never going to be straight. You can control your behavior and not act out on the guy that you find attractive or the boyfriend that you want to start dating, but that’s all you can hope for.’”

He continues: “I feel that was one of the more important moments in the film. It’s almost an admission on his part that you will not be able to convert your sexual orientation. You’re selling this therapy as converting someone, and you know you can’t. I find that it’s also kind of interesting, because so many of these ‘ex-gay’ conversion therapists of the past are now coming out, and saying, ‘This is completely B.S.’” l The Sunday Sessions screens on Sunday, Feb. 17 at Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave., Baltimore, MD. For more information on tickets, or to stream or buy the film, visit www. thesundaysessionsmovie.com.

Community

THURSDAY, FEB. 14

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.

Weekly Events AIDS HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION offers free

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

ANDROMEDA TRANSCULTURAL HEALTH

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

DC AQUATICS CLUB practice

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

DC FRONT RUNNERS run-

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

DC LAMBDA SQUARES, D.C.’s

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

DC SCANDALS RUGBY holds

practice. The team is always looking for new members.

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

THE DULLES TRIANGLES

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

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

NOMENCLATURE

The Virginia Equality Bar Association’s name and gender marker change clinics provide a crucial service.

I

DENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS ARE PEOPLE’S GATEway to access society,” says Bary Hausrath, clinical coordinator for the Virginia Equality Bar Association (VEBA). “When people don’t have identification that matches that, it can create major problems.

“If you can’t prove who you are, you’re probably going to have a pretty bad interaction with law enforcement if they pull you over to the side of the road, or if you’re an immigrant, with ICE. If you go to the bank and need to cash a check or withdraw money, how do you do that? How do you vote? All of these circumstances require identification that matches how a person presents and expresses themselves. So it’s a very big deal.”

Hausrath is one of several lawyers who, in 2014, helped start VEBA’s “ad hoc” name and gender marker change legal clinics, after attending Equality Virginia’s annual Transgender Information and Empowerment Summit (TIES) and realizing there were no clinics geared specifically toward Virginia residents, particularly those in the southern part of the state.

Since then, VEBA has held similar clinics at TIES conferences and at 16 other locations throughout Virginia, helping hundreds of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals update their vital records and identification documents. The clinic will next be held in Arlington on Feb. 16. Clients are encouraged to pre-register in advance, as they will be seen in the order that they registered — though no one will be turned away.

“We have more than 50 attorneys participating,” notes Hausrath. “We have so many slots, there’s no way we will have too many clients turn up.”

In addition to providing a necessary service, Hausrath has gotten joy out of helping transgender people change their IDs and records to reflect who they are.

“These little pieces of paper, these little pieces of plastic, can be tremendously significant for individuals,” he says. “One client, when he finally got his updated birth certificate back, said he finally had hope for the future. For somebody to say that this little document that we helped him get was going to provide that level of optimism for the future, that’s really a powerful statement.”

— John Riley The Virginia Equality Bar Association’s Northern Virginia Name and Gender Marker Change Legal Clinic is on Saturday, Feb. 16, from 2-5 p.m. at Hazel Hall, Room 120, at George Mason University’s Law School, 3301 Fairfax Dr., Arlington, Va. Clinic is free to attend. Pre-register via the portal at bit.ly/2WYgz23. For more information on the Virginia Equality Bar Association, visit www.vaequalitybar.org.

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, FEB. 15 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. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.gaydistrict.org.

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.

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 practice session at Howard University. 6:30-8 p.m. Burr

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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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, FEB. 16 ADVENTURING outdoors group

hosts a strenuous 11.5-mile hike in the northern section of Shenandoah National Park, with 1700 feet of elevation gain, near Washington, Va. Bring beverages, lunch, sturdy boots, layered clothing, and about $12 for fees. Carpool at 8:30 a.m. from the East Falls Church Metro Kiss & Ride lot. For more information, contact Peter, 202-302-9606, or visit www.adventuring.org.

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, FEB. 17 ADVENTURING outdoors group and CHRYSALIS arts & culture

group co-sponsor guided walking tour of Gettysburg Battlefield, focusing on the Confederate attack on July 2, 1863, that resulted in a Rebel victory. Walk will cover 5-6 miles over rolling and sometimes muddy or icy terrain. Bring beverages, lunch, winter-worthy boots, layered clothing, and about $12 for fees, plus money for dinner in town afterwards. Carpool at 9:30 a.m. from the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro Station. For more information, contact Craig, 202-462-0535, or visit www.adventuring.org.

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@

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

thedccenter.org, jon@thedccenter. org, or visit casaruby.org.

Weekly Events LGBT-inclusive ALL SOULS

MEMORIAL EPISCOPAL CHURCH

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

DC FRONT RUNNERS running/

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

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

FAIRLINGTON UNITED METHODIST CHURCH is an open,

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

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

Hearing assistance. Visit www. quakersdc.org.

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

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

Join LINCOLN

CONGREGATIONAL TEMPLE – UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST for

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

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

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

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

ST. STEPHEN AND THE INCARNATION, an “interracial,

multi-ethnic Christian Community” offers services in English, 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and in Spanish at

5:15 p.m. 1525 Newton St. NW. For more info, call 202-232-0900 or visit www.saintstephensdc.org.

LGBT Clinic, Alexandria Health Department, 4480 King St. 703746-4986 or text 571-214-9617.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF SILVER SPRING

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS

MONDAY, FEB. 18

holds an LGBT-focused meeting every Tuesday, 7 p.m. at St. George’s Episcopal Church, 915 Oakland Ave., Arlington, just steps from Virginia Square Metro. Handicapped accessible.

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

HAPPY PRESIDENT’S DAY!

STI TESTING at Whitman-Walker

Note: With the exception of the monthly PFLAG meeting, The DC Center will be closed to the public due to the federal holiday, and will resume normal business hours on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

Health. 10 a.m.-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.

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.

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

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

TUESDAY, FEB. 19 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.

US HELPING US hosts a support

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

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

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

Weekly Events

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 20

DC AQUATICS CLUB practice

BOOKMEN DC, an informal men’s

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 running/

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

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

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

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

THE GAY MEN'S HEALTH COLLABORATIVE offers free

HIV testing and STI screening and treatment every Tuesday.

5-6:30 p.m. Rainbow Tuesday

gay-literature group, discusses From Macho to Mariposa: Gay Latino Fiction, edited by Charles Rice-Gonzalez and Charlie Vasquez, at The DC Center. All are welcome. 7:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.bookmendc. blogspot.com.

Join The DC Center, the DC AntiViolence Project and Center Arts for BEYOND BARS: POETRY AND

PERFORMANCE OF FORMERLY INCARCERATED LGBTQ FOLX,

a night of poetry, comedy, and performance art from those with lived experience, with an open mic session at the close of the event. The event will be hosted by Rayceen Pendarvis and will feature MsNyghtLyfe, Anthony D. Oakes, Leadrew Nickens, and more. Free to attend. 7-9 p.m. Busboys & Poets, 2021 14th St. NW. To RSVP or for more information, visit www.thedccenter.org/events/beyondbars-2. l

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

23

Presidential Aspirations INDIANA MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG IS PRIMED TO PUT AMERICA TO THE TEST. ARE WE READY FOR A GAY PRESIDENT?

W

HEN PETE BUTTIGIEG ANNOUNCED in December that he would not run for a third term as mayor of South Bend, Ind., it quickly became apparent his eyes were fixed on a bigger political prize. Rather than aim for a statewide office, however, Buttigieg had set his sights higher. Much higher. In January, he formed an exploratory committee to look into a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

Four years ago, the idea that Buttigieg — a gay, 37-year-old former Naval reservist, consultant, and mayor of a city of just over 100,000 residents — could be a candidate for the presidency would have been dismissed with derisive laughter from pundits on both sides of the political aisle. But Buttigeig’s supporters note that he has more government experience than the current Oval Office occupant, and a longer record of military service than any president since the recently departed George H.W. Bush “My background is certainly unconventional for this, but I think that could be an asset,” Buttigieg says. “I’m a mayor, so my understanding of government is formed from the on the ground level where you're solving problems, getting things done.

There's no one else to call sometimes, so you just have to find a solution.”

Were he to be elected, Buttigieg would become the youngest president ever to assume office. He would also become the first openly gay president, though he treats his sexual orientation as more of an afterthought, realizing that most voters don’t care so long as a candidate is talking about their needs and concerns.

“Being gay has had no bearing on my job performance in business, in the military, or in my current role as mayor,” Buttigieg wrote in a 2015 coming out essay for the South Bend Tribune. “It makes me no better or worse at handling a spreadsheet, a rifle, a committee meeting, or a hiring decision. It doesn’t change how residents can best judge my effectiveness in serving our city: by the progress of our neighborhoods, our economy, and our city services.”

Downplaying the importance of his sexuality is the same 24

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

reason why Buttigieg prefers to ignore Donald J. Trump, whom he considers a distraction that too many Democrats allow to sideline their message — especially when they try to respond to every insult or dig uttered by the president on Twitter.

“I think part of how we got here, part of why we have this president, was we had an election cycle where our candidate was talking about herself, or she was talking about him,” Buttigieg recently told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. “And a lot of people at home were saying, ‘Okay, but who’s talking about me?’”

Another aspect of Buttigieg’s campaign is his age, which not only colors his views on policy, but is a significant part of his pitch. As a millennial, Buttigieg sees his generation saddled with debt and a number of societal problems that are the direct result of bad or cautious policies promoted by previous generations.

As such, he’s promoting drastic changes in the political system, which range from his call to abolish the Electoral College to a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and from his support for a version of the “Green New Deal” to fight climate change, to offering people the choice to buy into Medicare as a “public option” on the Obamacare exchanges.

“Things are changing tectonically in our country, and we can’t just keep doing what we’ve been doing,” the presidential hopeful told CBS News earlier this month. “We can’t nibble around the edges of a system that no longer works.”

To be sure, Buttigieg faces an uphill battle in the primary, let alone the general election. He doesn’t have the name recognition of an Elizabeth Warren, a Kirsten Gillibrand, or a Kamala Harris, who have all been touted as presidential contenders since their ascensions to the U.S. Senate. He doesn’t have the legions of Twitter followers or shiny, poll-tested, squeaky-clean image of Cory Booker — which comes complete with an almost God-like mythology around how the former Newark, N.J., mayor used Twitter to stay on top of developments in the city and solve problems in real time, even rescuing a woman from a burning house before the Fire Department arrived. He doesn’t have loyal followers that mob him the way that people under 30 do when

PETE FOR AMERICA CAMPAIGN

Interview by John Riley

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

25

Bernie Sanders arrives at a rally or march. And he doesn’t charm swing voters with the kind of Devil-may-care, shoot-from-thehip, blunt-speaking style that only Joe Biden seems to be able to master, despite the former Vice President’s propensity for verbal gaffes.

Rather, Buttigieg’s image is somewhere at the intersection of Midwestern nice and Harvard and Rhodes Scholar-style brainiac. Mayor Pete, as he’s known back home, exudes a quiet confidence and a self-deprecating humor. He’s not one to put on airs or hog the spotlight — the polar opposite of a reality-star president who perfectly embodies a society where the Kardashians are royalty and everybody seems to be fighting to be the next viral YouTube or Instagram sensation.

In addition to appearances on the campaign trail, particularly in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Buttigieg has released Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future (Liveright, $27.95), which serves as an autobiographical introduction to voters outside of his native Indiana who are not political junkies. The book covers his journey away from and back to his home state as a college student and post-graduate professional, his unsuccessful campaign for state treasurer, his stint as South Bend mayor, his military service in Afghanistan, and his personal interactions with current Vice President and former Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

When it comes to assessing his fellow Democratic competitors, Buttigieg thinks the diversity of candidates who are either running or have launched exploratory committees reflects well on the party as an inclusive home for voters who have essentially been abandoned by the GOP. But he also warns that Democrats have to tread carefully in order to avoid being seen as excluding Americans who are not part of traditional Democratic constituencies.

“The current president and the politics around him have certainly done an effective job of wedging off different parts of the American people against each other,” he says. “But I think our job is to knit that back together in a stronger and richer fabric than we've ever had. All of us can play a role in that. A woman of color from the coast, or a young gay veteran from the Midwest who happens to be white. We all have something to offer.”

METRO WEEKLY: What’s the main reason that you are considering

a run for the presidency?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: The central reason is that America is in a major realignment, and we need fresh perspectives, including voices from a new generation that has a personal stake in the consequences of the decisions that are being made today. That goes for everything — from decisions around taxes and the bills that are being run up for our generation to pay in the future, to issues like climate change, which I think has risen to the level of a justice issue and a national emergency, and requires a greater sense of urgency in order to deal with it properly.

My orientation also is that of somebody working in the industrial Midwest, which is a part of the country that is really close to the center of gravity for the political conversation right now, because when it comes to many policies, the true test of them is whether they can benefit communities like mine.

MW: What misperceptions do you think people on the coasts have of those in middle America?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think we are often characterized, or even caricatured, as stagnant and backward-looking communities. What I witness [every day] is amazing resilience and creativity among residents in the so-called Rust Belt. We’re also characterized as aging communities, but one very exciting thing here has been 26

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

seeing a resurgence of young people staying or moving into the city, and a kind of partnership across generations to make sure that the future in the city is a good one.

I think that there’s some on the coast — and this is also part of the political calculus in the current White House — who believe we are a backward-looking people and that the way to our hearts is resentment. And I just don’t think that’s the real character of this region. That certainly hasn’t been the character in South Bend, as we've changed our trajectory from what was described as a “dying city” to one that is growing again. We’re facing our challenges in a very resilient way.

MW: Speaking as a Democrat, how do you think the Democratic Party viewed in middle America?

BUTTIGIEG: I think one of the biggest problems, recently, has been that we tend to be viewed as the defenders of the system.

There are a lot of broken features right now in our political system and our economic system. Especially in 2016, we came to look like what we were arguing was that the system was just fine. I think that’s one reason why there were a number of people who, in the end, narrowed their choices down to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

Democrats need to show that we have the political will and the policy creativity to make deep changes to improve our economy and to improve our politics. I think we’re beginning to see evidence of that, but it's going to take a very different style and substance in Democratic politics to really demonstrate how our leadership is better than what’s being offered by the other side.

MW: We hear a lot about internal fights in the Democratic Party between establishment and more progressive types. Where would you place yourself on the ideological spectrum?

BUTTIGIEG: I consider myself progressive. But I also think the left-center frame is beginning to outlive its usefulness, because sometimes we accept, at face value, terms that may not actually describe where the center is. A good example would be on something like background checks for guns, which is considered a “left” position. But it’s actually embraced by 90% of Americans, including a majority of gun owners, and even Republicans. So if you’re kind of strong on that issue, somebody might say you’re from the “left-wing,” when in fact you’re holding a position that most Americans are onboard with.

Similarly, with something like healthcare, we allowed the right to move the goalpost on what the center was. Single-payer or Medicare for All is effectively a centrist or compromise position, because the far-right position would be for it to be an all corporate free-for-all, like the Wild West, and the leftmost position would be nationalized medicine, where you have publicly-managed doctors and hospitals.

And a blend of those, or a compromise system, is a system where you have private providers, with a public payer, or private doctors with public insurance. And that’s what we’re talking about now in the Democratic Party. So some in the media or in the political space might characterize that as a left position, but in many ways, it's actually a compromise.

MW: Do you support a Medicare for All system?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. I think the best approach to get there is to start with what I could call “Medicare for All if you want it.” So taking a version of Medicare and making it available as a public option on the exchanges. If people like me are right that this is a better way to go, then more and more people will buy into it, and it will almost automatically become the main or the preferred payer in the U.S. system.

MW: Some people, particularly in your party, say that the biggest problem is money in politics. What’s your position on that?

think that Citizens United was a disaster for U.S. politics. I think it has called our democracy into question, because effectively it has come to mean that dollars can vote, and, in some respects, have more rights than people do.

It may not be possible to remedy that without constitutional action, but I think we should contemplate that because I think our democracy’s worth it.

MW: Let's focus on you for a moment. You were born and raised in South Bend.

BUTTIGIEG: That’s right.

MW: What was life like for you, growing up there?

BUTTIGIEG: I grew up in working- and middle-class neighborhoods in South Bend. South Bend's a really great place to grow up. It wasn’t until I left and moved away that I came back and then realized how striking the presence of the vacant and abandoned houses and abandoned factories was.

When I was growing up, that was just part of the scenery, and it didn’t really diminish my enjoyment of living here.

But I also grew up feeling that all the action must be somewhere else, and so I wanted to get away. When I did, that was when I began to feel a little more aware of having been changed by South Bend, and caring about Indiana a little more. It’s a story that I’m telling in this book that we’ve got coming out, called Shortest Way Home, where I try to explain a little more what the neighborhoods and the community were like when I grew up, and how I found my way to realizing that this is where I actually belonged.

MW: What were you like as a child? Were you the smart one, the athletic one, or something else?

BUTTIGIEG: I definitely wasn't the athletic one. I was always good in school. I was pretty bookish, a little bit nerdy, liked to watch Star Trek every day after school, and I’d probably say a little awkward, too. It wasn’t until later that I would have pictured being in a role like I'm in now. I probably started out more interested in sciences, and then later on became more of a humanities guy.

MW: Why did you decide to enlist in the military?

BUTTIGIEG: It’s something that was on my mind for years, and there was a family tradition of military service on my mother’s side. I always wanted to find some way to play a role, but I’d also always found a reason not to, and kind of dragged my feet on it.

The thing that really put me over the edge, actually, was when I was in Iowa in 2008. I was in rural Iowa, in some low-income communities, knocking on doors for Obama. And there were a striking number of very young men I met in these small towns — they almost seemed like kids to me — who were getting ready to go to basic training or otherwise made it clear they were headed into the military. And I started thinking about the contrast between times in history that I have studied, like when

a young John F. Kennedy would go in the military, and it would be the environment where he would be put on equal terms with people with very different backgrounds and very different economic status than his.

And thinking about my own experience, and the fact that I couldn’t think of more than three or four people who I had known at Harvard who were going to be serving, it made me realize that I might be part of the problem if I weren’t serving. If I wasn’t going to make a career of it, I thought I should at least join the reserves so that I was just as liable to be called up as some other people, many of them from backgrounds that were more rural or more working-class than the life I was now living as a young professional in the city.

“The main things we’ve seen conservatives do is try to persuade us that tax cuts pay for themselves, insist we do nothing about climate change, convince us to enter into conflicts like the war in Iraq, AND MAKE SURE PEOPLE LIKE ME COULDN’T GET MARRIED.”

Buttigieg and husband Chasten

MW: When did you first realize that you were gay?

BUTTIGIEG: In hindsight, it wasn’t that hard to figure out by the

time I was 12, but I was well into my 20s before I was really able to acknowledge or come to terms with it.

MW: What was your coming out like?

BUTTIGIEG: Coming out was a real struggle, especially because by the time I was starting to think about coming out, there were two parts of my professional life. One of them had to do with being in public service and public office, and the other had to do with being in the military, neither of which was an LGBTfriendly environment at the time.

But I also realized as I grew older that I wasn’t going to change, I wasn’t getting any younger, that I wanted to have a life, and the thing that really sealed it for me was when I deployed to Afghanistan. I think something about that experience and having my life on the line, and realizing that you live and die as one person, made me come home determined that I was going to do this sooner rather than later.

Within a year of that, I had figured out a way to come out and did it publicly, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from people around me here in Indiana, but I found that most people in the community embraced me and supported me just as before.

MW: You ultimately came out publicly in the middle of an election.

BUTTIGIEG: Yeah. The timing was a little bit inconvenient, but FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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PETE FOR AMERICA CAMPAIGN

BUTTIGIEG: We're not accepting corporate PAC money, and I

it turned out to be a blessing, because it gave voters a chance to demonstrate that they were not going to hold my sexual orientation against me. When I did get reelected with 80% of the vote, I think it was an indication that South Bend is going to rate you based on the job you do, and not be distracted by something like sexual orientation.

MW: Do you think that holds true for the rest of Indiana, or in states politically similar to it? Is being an openly LGBTQ person a disqualifier?

BUTTIGIEG: I hope not. And if it was in the past, I think that’s changing. One thing we observed here in Indiana was when Pence attempted to pass this so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blowback didn't just come from the LGBTQ community or, for that matter, from the left. It was an alliance of Republicans and Democrats, mayors from both parties, a lot of business leaders who all pushed back on that and said, “That's not who we are and we don't want to live in a state that is getting a reputation for being anti-gay.” I think that was a really encouraging sign, though it doesn’t mean that it’s easy.

I hear all the time from people in rural and conservative communities in Indiana, especially young people who are still finding it a real struggle to come out, or if they are out, to be accepted. But I do think that even in a very conservative state like Indiana, things are moving in the right direction.

MW: You're now traveling and trying to improve your name recognition, especially compared with some of your fellow Democrats.

What’s the campaign trail like?

BUTTIGIEG: First of all, we’re leveraging social media to make sure that we can reach people, even those in very different geographies or from different walks of life than those who will run into me naturally [on the campaign trail]. We're launching a national book tour that will have us traveling from coast to coast, and with that come more media opportunities. I’ll be on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and I have other opportunities to get known.

The other thing that we’re really relying on is the dynamic of early states, where voters take a much closer look at people.

You get to a place like Iowa, where we just had our first visit since launching the exploratory committee, and lots of people — lots more than I expected — came out to see me and ask me questions, to get to know me. You can tell the voters there take their privileged position very seriously, as far as being an early voting state.

A good performance in those early states then gets you onto the map for more of the national conversation, and, in particular, because of some changes to the primary schedule, it is going to become a national race more quickly than it has in the past.

MW: Do you feel that being a white cisgender man is a detriment in the Democratic Party, because you appear to be part of the status quo and don’t provide enough of a contrast with the current president?

BUTTIGIEG: I can’t think of a person more different than the current president than I am. But look, everybody brings their own background and their own style into this conversation, and I think that’s very healthy. I think the historic diversity of the emerging Democratic field is something that reflects well in our party and it reflects well on our country.

I also think the right kind of politics will be one that knits people together across some of these divides. I think the sense of belonging that animates the desire of a trans woman of color to be treated fairly is not that fundamentally different from the desire for belonging that impacts a white, blue-collar auto worker who has been disrupted economically and is trying to figure out where he fits in this economy and this community going 28

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

forward.

MW: You recently told Jake Tapper on CNN that the word “socialism” has lost its power as an attack on certain policies being promoted by the Democratic Party. There’s since been major criticism of you by right-wing sites, who are twisting your words to claim you are speaking kindly of or praising socialism. Are you saying that once everything is categorized as “socialist,” it loses its sting?

BUTTIGIEG: I think that's right. I mean, it’s like “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” right? Everything is socialism and nothing is socialism. Not only is this evidence of the way that they’ve used the word “socialist” since the 1990s, in the sense that “socialist” means anything Republicans don’t like, but it shows that they aren’t really looking at the content of ideas. They can’t even look at the difference between people who call themselves socialists.

To them, there’s no distinction between the Maduro regime in Venezuela and Sweden.

I think we need to just have a more adult conversation. And the point I was trying to make on CNN was just that: the days have ended where they could use that word to kill the debate about a policy. When we’re debating a policy, we should debate whether it’s a good one, not what label attaches to it.

MW: Why do you think that millennials or people from younger generations are more immune to that word? What has made it different from our parents or our grandparents?

BUTTIGIEG: I think we weren’t politically aware in a time when socialism was conflated with communism, and communism meant the Soviet experience, right? We didn’t see that. It was much easier when people were looking with horror at what was going on in the Soviet Union to think that anything with a wisp of socialism was something they just didn’t want to touch.

I think the other thing is that our generation has had reasons to be more skeptical of conservatism. In our lifetimes, the main things we've seen conservatives do is try to persuade us that tax cuts pay for themselves, insist that we do nothing about climate change, convince us to enter into conflicts like the war in Iraq, and make sure people like me couldn't get married. So just the practical record of the conservative movement, for anybody who's our age or younger, looks a little different than it must look to somebody who came of age in the ’80s or in the ’60s.

MW: How much more seriously do Democrats and the left need to start taking the role of a president in appointing justices, not just to the Supreme Court, but to the federal bench?

BUTTIGIEG: I think it’s incredibly important because, as the hard right gets further and further out of step with the American mainstream — even as legislative bodies catch up to where the American people actually are politically — the only place they can have a sort of rear guard action will be through the judiciary, trying to overrule what legislatures elected by the American people decide to do.

MW: And how do you engage people on that?

BUTTIGIEG: I think we just have to remind people of the rights that are at stake. And as somebody whose marriage exists as a function of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court, I think I’m in a position to help make that case. l For more information on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, visit www.peteforamerica.com.

Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future is available at KramerBooks (1517 Connecticut Ave. NW), Politics and Prose (5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; 70 District Square SW; and Union Market). Metro Weekly recommends you support these local bookstores.

Gallery

Clockwise from top left: James Amos Porter, Andy Warhol, Lucas Samaras, Berenice Abbott, Thomas Hart Benton, Lucy May Stanton

Eye To I:

Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today

D

ESPITE ITS TITLE, THIS IS NOT AN EXHIbition celebrating the everyday selfie but rather notable, high-quality self-portraits from American artists drawn primarily from the National Portrait Gallery’s vast collection — and the concluding exhibition in the Smithsonian museum’s series celebrating its 50th anniversary. Elaine de Kooning,

Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Diego Rivera, Roger Shimomura, and Martin Wong are among the artists represented in this display of more than 75 works examining the range of ways artists have chosen to portray themselves. On display through Aug. 18. The National Portrait Gallery is at 8th and F Streets NW, near Gallery Place Metro. Call 202-633-8300 or visit www.npg.si.edu.

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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NETFLIX

Television

Die Another Day

All aboard the wild carousel ride of Netflix’s boldly metaphysical Russian Doll. By André Hereford

T

HE NEW NETFLIX SERIES RUSSIAN DOLL (HHHHH) IS UNDENIABLY a lot to take, so come prepared for a dizzying trip. The eight-episode dramedy from co-creators Leslye Headland (Bachelorette), Natasha Lyonne, and Amy Poehler does offer its share of zinging dialogue and breezily droll humor. And the show’s lead, Lyonne — a galvanizing force as software engineer Nadia Vulvukov — is surrounded by a pitch-perfect cast, including effervescent stage and screen legend Elizabeth Ashley as Nadia’s loving guardian, Ruth.

But the show is heavily preoccupied with the mortality of young, seemingly vital Nadia, who dies again and again, once, twice, or multiple times per half-hour episode.

Nadia’s deaths often come with a blunt punch of karmic comedy, but even the biggest laughs serve mostly to light the path she follows into the dimensional abyss.

Stuck in her own resetting time-loop, she’s forced to examine the choices that have led her brief but troubled life to its end. It sounds bleak, and it can feel that way, and yet Russian Doll is well worth taking the plunge with Nadia down that cosmic whirlpool.

Of course, Nadia’s a lot to take, too, but she seems to have made peace with that, describing herself as a “very tough lady who looks like if Andrew Dice Clay and the little girl from Brave made a baby.” She’s emerged from a rough childhood into a stable enough life to have friends like Maxine (Greta Lee) and Lizzie (Rebecca Henderson), who will throw her a blowout 36th birthday party in Maxine’s fabulous East Village apartment. And Nadia’s got enough game to leave the party with an eager hookup, Mike (Jeremy Bobb), even though the encounter leaves her feeling empty afterward.

Oh, and she keeps dying, returning to the exact moment we first met her, in the bathroom at her birthday party. Every time, a moment after lights out, she’s back in the bathroom of Maxine’s apartment, possessed of whatever knowledge she gained in her previous turn on her own Groundhog Day merry-go-round.

But she has no clue what’s happening to her. Is it mystical? Has she found herself in

the afterlife, or living out an alternate reality? No one but her seems to be conscious that anything’s amiss. The fantastic second episode, written by Lyonne and Poehler, swerves towards Nadia’s distressed attempts to figure out whether she might be experiencing a mental breakdown. Or, maybe she’s caught in a downward spiral akin to an addict’s multiple recurring deaths along the way to rock bottom?

Nadia attacks the mystery with the tenacity of a metaphysical Columbo, gathering clues on each trip. Throughout, the writing stays as sharp as Lyonne’s delivery, highlighted by amusing turns of phrase, particularly from Nadia, Maxine, and Lizzie, who, in whichever reality, always hooks up with one or more women at the party.

The respective episode directors, including Headland, Jamie Babbitt (But I’m a Cheerleader, Gilmore Girls), and Lyonne, who helmed the series finale, keep the scene-by-scene pacing relatively brisk, although, as is the case with lots of series in the binge-worthy TV era, the show’s narrative evolves at a deliberate pace. That doesn’t mean things don’t at times change suddenly. Episode three concludes with a jaw-dropping revelation that completely alters the urgency of Nadia’s plight and the mood of the series going forward. And, to the creative team’s credit, that recalibration isn’t the show’s last jaw-dropping surprise.

But don’t be surprised when Russian

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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NETFLIX

Doll waxes philosophical. Nadia, and the audience, too, can marvel at how the behavior of some of her friends and loved ones always repeats itself, regardless of anything she might do. Then, others’ actions fluctuate wildly, unpredictably, depending on what Nadia might do. Her time-loop repeats and repeats itself, but, especially after she bumps into a stranger (Charlie Barnett) who possibly can help her understand her story, no loop is ever

the same.

Some of Nadia’s random deaths are the same, though, which amounts to a wicked punchline in the joke of her existence. She tries to maintain her good humor as she suffers through death after death, and she even starts to learn from her mistakes. Like so many stranded souls, she just keeps on doggedly pursuing the answers that might finally let her in on the joke. l

Russian Doll is now available for streaming on Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com.

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

BRITTANY DILIBERTO

Stage

Negative Nelly

Alison Luff delivers a star turn as Nell Gwynn, but the gender politics feel stuck in the 1600s. By Kate Wingfield

T

HE TIMES ARE COMPLICATED, AND JESSICA SWALE’S NELL GWYNN (HHHHH), though cheerful and entertaining, has a tin ear when it comes to the gender political conversation.

In the program notes of the Folger’s new production, Swale says she set out to pay “entertaining homage” and create something “fun” in the life of Gwynn, a 1600s London commoner who went from orange-seller to star of the stage to mistress of King Charles II. But in striving for this lightheartedness, Swale shows a woeful lack of imagination, delivering another in a long, stale line of plucky, wholesomely sexy heroines who dare to say Boo! to powerful men.

In this era in which women are finally being heard on how it truly sucks to be valued only for youth, beauty, and fruitiness, this is the kind of outmoded cliché that is truly depressing. Just look at the message: it’s all still about being the prettiest woman in the room. Or, put another way, assertiveness is grade-A fabulous — as long as the woman exerting is “hot.”

Case in point is Swale’s idea of a good joke. When Gwynn refuses to obey her new boyfriend King Charles, he has a mock fit of temper, decrying in disbelief, “but I’m the king of England!” This isn’t about women standing up to power, it’s about women using the only power men give them: her stubbornness is adorable because she is cute and sexy and the star of his — and London’s — show. Let’s be abundantly real: Gwynn's mother wants power too, but she is old and unwanted and so she dies drunk and penniless in a pond.

If Swale does deliver some tongue-in-cheek moments, they never extend to Gwynn’s sex appeal. When Charles Hart, the actor who notices her selling oranges in the pit, offers her a lesson in acting, her chops are quickly revealed. It’s all quite clever until she does her “sexy” and suddenly it’s as if the room has broken out in a sweat. Like every such moment, half the audience will be enjoying the titillation and the other half will be

experiencing a collective, fiction-busting eye roll. Why are we still sending the message that to be entertaining, our females have to be seat-squirmingly sexy? In the absence of any visible irony in such key moments, Swale’s attempts elsewhere to give this Gwynn some 21st-century-style potted feminist comment is almost laughable.

And then there is the even bigger picture: what does this interpretation of Gwynn tell actors? Be an actor and be as bold as can be, but, by golly, you better be able to turn on that sexy minx or forget it. It’s the same reality women face elsewhere in life, despite all the economic and social empowerment. And it brings into focus that contradiction so many women struggle with daily: on the one hand, society tells them that sexy equals powerful, while on the other it invites disrespect and danger. And then there are all the women on the outside looking in, the ones who can’t or won’t barter “sexy” at all.

Of course, there can be little doubt that the real Gwynn used everything she had to get by, simply as a matter of survival.

If the historical hints of her life are even half right, an innate bawdy humor and sexiness served her incredibly well. But she must have known full well that it was only going to last as long as she could please and entertain monied men (at least until she forged her surprisingly strong bond with the king). She would have been

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surrounded by women for whom child-bearing, venereal disease (and other ill health), and simply aging itself would have meant the end of any kind of income. To use one’s youth and beauty was to be slave to it. Swale may make some token reference to this, but not with any insight, let alone wit.

Surely there was a way to create a fun, female lead, historical or otherwise, who wasn’t fed through such a traditional, dull filter? Even the Folger program makes mention of a tunnel that allowed the king to meet Gwynn to play cards, among other pursuits — where was that fun, enduring friendship? Swale actually does buck convention with a c*nt joke and a (failed) attempt at scatological humor, seeing the edgy humor and value in such transgressions, but she simply never sees it through.

Unfortunately, all of this rather rains on the parade of the very talented Alison Luff, for whom this is truly a star vehicle.

Giving Gwynn a fresh-faced, musical-theater magic, she plays every minute for keeps and offers a completely, unexpectedly gorgeous singing voice. She is deeply fun to watch, even if her boob-top display threatens to steal the show. The other standouts here are Quinn Franzen who gives his Mr. Hart much pres-

ence and some subtle humor and R.J. Foster as King Charles II, who delivers the perfect blend of arch entitlement and vulnerability, while offering some excellent comic timing. Finally, Nigel Gore offers some cleverly dry delivery in his theater director Thomas Killigrew and Regina Aquino nails it with her rivalrous mistresses Lady Castlemaine and Louise de Keroualle.

If they bring much energy, some of the other players — as well as the leads — are never quite as funny as they should be for the simple reason that Swale’s wittier moments are largely overshadowed by her love of slapstick and a heavy-handed Pantomime-style humor. As always, the bar for scathing, historically-based humor begins and ends with (any season but the first of) Richard Curtis and Ben Elton’s Blackadder — where modern irony meets history in a way that would have served Nell Gwynn well.

There is no doubt that this lively and intimate production will be a crowd-pleaser for a particular subset: literary types who go all gooey for musical-theater. But when it comes to anyone sensitive to gender politics, Nell Gwynn will — no pun intended — rub very much the wrong way. l

DJ COREY

Nell Gwynn runs to March 10 at the Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $42 to $79.

Call 202-544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.

Muddled in Moscow Constellation’s The Master and Margarita is overstuffed and undercooked. By André Hereford

A

MONG THE MANY FILM, STAGE, AND TELEVISION VARIATIONS spawned by Mikhail Bulgakov’s darkly allegorical, Stalin-era novel The Master and Margarita, the 2004 stage adaptation by Edward Kemp appears to be a bullet-point reduction of the tale.

That’s the impression left by Allison Arkell Stockman’s new production of The Master and Margarita (HHHHH) at Constellation Theatre. The hectic staging ushers along a winding plot, but without much involving the audience in the supernatural journey of Muscovite author the Master (Alexander Strain) and his devoted lover Margarita (Amanda Forstrom).

The pair’s destinies are shaped by demonic intervention, as Satan appears in 1930s Moscow in the form of Woland (Scott Ward Abernethy), a dapper professor of black magic. Attended by his minions Azazello (McLean Fletcher), Behemoth (Louis E. Davis), and Fagott (Dallas Tolentino), Woland wreaks havoc in the lives of the city’s art-

ists and literati, specifically those involved in rehearsals for the Master’s historical play about Pontius Pilate (Jesse Terrill) pondering the fate of Yeshua Ha-Nozri.

Alternating between Moscow and ancient Yershalaim, between Stalin’s Russia and Pilate’s court, the play and the play within the play both address repression and resistance. Yet, the thrust of Bulgakov’s subversive commentary gets lost in the pileup of shifting scenes, stilted language, and uneven acting throughout the large ensemble, including Strain’s rather ho-hum hero.

For her part, Forstrom is a compelling Margarita, registering a depth of devotion to the Master and his art that practically on its own sustains an interest in their relationship. Meanwhile, Abernethy and Fletcher’s fiendish turns as Woland and his fanged henchwoman, Azazello, maintain some interest in the play’s seemingly one-sided battle between the forces of oppression and freedom. And the battleground supplied by scenic and lighting designer A.J. Guban is especially eye-catching, all expressionistic, sharp angles and deep shadows, contrasted nicely by Erik Teague’s romantic costumes.

These elements of the production combine for fleeting highs that stir the imagination, like the macabre full moon ball that Woland hosts in hell. But such peaks are too few and far between in the play’s rambling slog through this Russian garden of good and evil. l

The Master and Margarita runs until March 03 at Source Theatre, 1835 14th St. NW. Tickets are $19 to $45.

Call 202-204-7741, or visit www.constellationtheatre.org.

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NightLife Photography by Ward Morrison

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Scene

Scarlet’s Bake Sale at the DC Eagle - Sunday, Feb. 10 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

DrinksDragDJsEtc...

Thursday, February 14 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Valentine’s Day Love Ballads, with Cathy Gorman, 6-9pm • Karaoke, 9pm GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Shirtless Thursday, 10-11pm • Men in Underwear Drink Free, 12-12:30am • DJs BacK2bACk

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

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • HalfPriced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Bottles of Wine, 5pm-close • Jukebox Ginger Live Band for Valentine’s Day, 8-11pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS All male, nude dancers • Open Dancers Audition • Urban House Music by DJ Tim-e • 9pm • Cover 21+

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

Friday, February 15 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, 9pm-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 NUMBER NINE Open 5pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover • Friday Night Piano with Chris, 7:30pm • Rotating DJs, 9:30pm PITCHERS Open 5pm-3am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am • Visit pitchersbardc.com

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 • Otter Happy Hour with guest DJs, 5-11pm ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets, 9pm • Guest dancers • Rotating DJs • Kristina Kelly’s Diva Fev-ah Drag Show • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:30pm and 1:45am • DJ Don T. in Ziegfeld’s • Cover 21+

NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS Compiled by Doug Rule SECRETS’ 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY As hard as it is to believe, this month marks a full decade since Ziegfeld’s/ Secrets reopened in a large, two-story complex on the outskirts of Southwest, with the Ladies of Illusion downstairs and fully exposed go-go boys upstairs. This Saturday, Feb. 16, starting at 9 p.m., the entertainment complex will celebrate 10 years of fun and excitement, all soundtracked by diva club hits from today and yesterday spun by one of Secrets’ founding resident DJs, tim e. The house’s grand dame, Ella Fitzgerald, will be on hand for the occasion, as will special guest La Troya Nichole. Meanwhile, upstairs is much eye candy and (beef)cake as you can handle. Ziegfeld’s is at 1024 Half St. SW. Call 202-863-0607 or visit www.secretsdc.com.

Saturday, February 16 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-3am • Video Games • Live televised sports AVALON SATURDAYS @Sound Check 1420 K St. NW Dougie Meyer and Dirty Pop present the White Party, 10pm-close • Music

by DJ Drew G • General admission $15 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 Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-3am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs 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

DC EAGLE’S BIRDS OF PREY WITH DELTA WORK Last year, the mighty big bird Ba’Naka fluttered her wings far and wide upon losing her old Town Danceboutique perch, building a nest in Exile at the DC Eagle. There, Ba’Naka leads a show every Friday night at 10:30 p.m. featuring Brooklyn Heights, Iyana Deschanel, Sasha Adams Sanchez, Crystal Edge, Katrina Colby, Evon Michelle, and Alicia Love. Joining the flock for a special Valentine’s treat this Friday, Feb. 15, is Delta Work. A contestant from season three of RuPaul’s Drag Race who is now part of the show’s design team, Work’s hairstyling even garnered an Emmy last year. DJ Icy Funk will serve beats in between the performances. After the show, stay for the 18-and-up Sashay dance party featuring go-go dancer Trevor, plus extended alcohol service until 4 a.m., courtesy of the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. The Eagle is at 3701 Benning Rd. NE. Tickets are $10, or $15 with a Meet & Greet with Work at 9:30 p.m. Call 202-347-6025 or visit www.dceagle.com.

FLASHY SUNDAYS: A VALENTINE’S CARNIVAL After celebrating its 5th anniversary this past fall in the still hip, still sharply designed jewelbox of a nightclub, the popular holiday Sundays party thrown

by DJs Sean Morris and Kurt “TWiN” Graves returns to spin more love, plus a few surprises, for a Valentine-themed carnival bacchanal this Sunday, Feb. 17. It all starts heating up at 10 p.m. Flash is at 645 Florida Ave. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-827-8791 or visit www.flashdc.com.

MADONNA LOVE 2: VIDEO PARTY WITH DJ TRAVIS ISLAND The best and most ambitious video jockeys do twice as much work as their strictly audio counterparts, and for a fraction of the fame. Which is why you may not know the name VJ Tre, although you certainly know his work if you ever set foot in Omega, where he mixed and played music videos for a dozen years before the ultimate video bar shuttered in 2012. These days, Tre has worked to boost recognition of his craft by adopting a different, telling alias, DJ Travis Island. For the past year the Saturday night regular at Uproar has presented a number of video parties, each devoted to a different gay-favorite pop diva, from Stevie Nicks to Kylie Minogue to of course the Queen of Pop herself. Expect music videos and specially edited montages featuring the Material Girl Gone Wild all night long. Saturday, Feb. 16, starting at 10 p.m.

Uproar is at 639 Florida Ave NW. Call 202-462-4464 or visit facebook.com/ uproarloungedc.

BLOWOUT: A BRAND SPANKIN’ INCLUSIVE DANCE PARTY Bombalicious Eklaver launches an all-inclusive, LGBTQ-focused monthly dance party at Adams Morgan’s Songbyrd Music House. DJs Electrox and Juba will work to get people dancing in the intimate, subterranean space during the inaugural Blowout, at which Eklaver and fellow drag acts Pussy Noir, Majic Dyke, and Sigma Fraud will perform. The party starts at 11 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16 and will also feature male and female go-go dancers.

Songbyrd is at 2477 18th St. NW. Tickets are $7 to $10. Call 202-450-2917 or visit www.blowoutdc.eventbrite.com. l FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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PITCHERS Open Noon-3am • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am • Visit pitchersbardc.com 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 Capital • Hosted by Dona Slash • Resident Cast: JaxKnife Complex, Salvadora Dali, and Jane Saw • Special guests • Music by The Barber Streisand ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets, 9pm-4am • Guest dancers • Ladies of Illusion Drag Show with host Ella Fitzgerald • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:30pm and 1:45am • DJ Don T. in Ziegfeld’s • DJ Steve Henderson in Secrets • Cover 21+

Sunday, February 17

Goes the World with Wes Della Volla at 9:30pm • No Cover

Monday, February 18

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

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

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

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

by Chanel Devereaux, 10:30am-12:30pm and 1-3pm • Tickets on sale at nelliessportsbar.com • House Rail Drinks, Zing Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-1am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • Multiple TVs showing movies, shows, sports • Expanded craft beer selection • Pop

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Dinner-n-Drag with Miss Kristina Kelly, 8pm • For reservations, email shawsdinnerdragshow@ gmail.com 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 • CHURCH: A Church-themed Dance Party featuring House Music and Pop-Up Performances, 9pm • Music by WesstheDJ, Jesse Jackson, and special guests • Special guest hosts and performers

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, February 19 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 • Visit pitchersbardc.com SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Burgers and Pizzas, 5-10pm • DC Bocce, Second Floor, 6:30pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • Huge Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass served in a huge glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $4 • Sissy That Tuesday: A Monthly Cabaret, 8pm-close • Hosted by Pussy Noir with special guests • Music by WesstheDJ

Wednesday, February 20 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

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Playlist

DREW G. THANK YOU NEXT DREW G./DIRTY POP REMIX

Ariana Grande

SWEET BUT PYSCHO DIRTY DISCO REMIX

Ava Max

YOUNGBLOOD DREW G./DIRTY POP REMIX

5 Seconds of Summer

GET THIS PARTY STARTED ADRIAN LAGUNAS REMIX

Pink

ELECTRICITY BK REMIX

Dua Lupa 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 nelliessportsbar.com NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

PITCHERS Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com

Thursday, February 21 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

PITCHERS Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Visit pitchersbardc.com

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Piano Bar with Jill, 8pm

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Gong Karaoke Contest, 8-10pm • Win Prizes for Best Performance • Hosted

by Labella Mafia and DeeDee Amor Dior • Open Karaoke, 10pm-close

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

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 Beer all night • Sports Leagues Night NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

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

TOXIC EXCLUSIVE REMIX

Britney Spears

I TURN TO YOU DANI TORO & LEO BLANCO REMIX

Mel C.

SHALLOW DREW G. / DIRTY POP REMIX

Lady Gaga

REWRITE THE STARS Enrico Meloni

CALL MY LIFE Blair St. Clair

I LIKE IT BRIAN CUA REMIX

Cardi B. San Diego-based DJ Drew G has remixed everyone from Gaga to Madonna to Beyonce.

He’ll spin on Feb. 16 at the White Party at Avalon Saturdays at Sound Check in Washington, D.C. Check out his tour schedule at www.officialdirtypop.com/gigs. Follow on Facebook at djdrewg and on Instagram at whothefuckisdrewg.

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Scene

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Valentine’s Slay My Name with KC B. Yoncé at Trade - Sunday, February 10 Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY

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LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“With a G-string and a strobe light, he could make as much as $1,000 on a good night. ” —New York Times journalist JACOB BERNSTEIN, in a feature exploring OnlyFans, a service that allows people to subscribe to and interact with specific individuals and access their pornographic photos and videos. Discussing online personality Matthew Camp, Bernstein revealed that the Instagram model makes more than $10,000 a month, through what Camp calls a “more intimate experience” than watching porn. “[Subscribers] want a boyfriend experience,” Camp said. “They want to fantasize about someone that they want to have sex with and not feel disgusted by it.”

“It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which ‘hates a certain group of people’ and is ‘infamously anti-LGBTQ.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.

”

— CHRIS PRATT, in an Instagram story defending against an accusation from Ellen Page that his church — Zoe Church in Los Angeles — is anti-LGBTQ. Zoe Church has been closely linked with anti-gay pastor Brian Houston, who “holds to traditional Christian thought on gay lifestyles and gay marriage.” Pratt said his church offered love and support during his divorce, something they have done “on countless occasions regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender.”

“Over there, everybody is controlled by the homosexual community.”

—New York City council member RUBEN DIAZ SR., speaking to radio show El Desahogo about the NYC council. Diaz Sr. claimed the council is “controlled” by gay people, citing openly gay council member Corey Johnson — elected last year — as an example.

Despite widespread criticism, he refused to apologize, tweeting: “What’s homophobic about saying that the gay community controls the nyc [sic] city council? I’m giving them credit for the power and influence they have.”

“I’m still confused as to what woman-ness and man-ness is, so I don’t know why we’d be teaching that to someone in the fourth grade. ” —South Dakota State REP. TOM PISCHKE (R-Dell Rapids), in a hearing explaining his sponsorship of an anti-transgender bill that prohibits “certain gender dysphoria instruction in public schools” for students in K-7 grades. Lawmakers in the House passed the bill — which was co-sponsored entirely by Republicans — on Tuesday, Feb. 12. HRC said the bill sends the message that LGBTQ youth are “less than their peers.”

“The LGBTQ is a modern day version of the Ku Klux Klan, without wearing hoods with their antics of hate. ” —West Virginia state Delegate ERIC PORTERFIELD, in an interview with the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Porterfield called gay people a “terrorist group” during the interview, which took place after he used “faggot” during an anti-gay rant at a committee meeting.

That meeting was intended to discuss legislation that would have legalized discrimination against LGBTQ people, which Porterfield unsurprisingly supports.

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FEBRUARY 14, 2019 • METROWEEKLY