Washington City Paper (January 30, 2015)

CITYPAPER Washington

food: local chocolate for chocolate city 21

Free Volume 35, no. 5 WashingtonCityPaPer.Com January 30–February 5, 2015

A WomAn’s PlAce When did d.C. politiCs break the gender barrier? longer ago than you might realize. 14 by sarah anne hughes PhotograPhs By Darrow MontgoMery

politics: More Jeff thoMpson Money trails 7

2 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

INSIDE 14 A WomAn’s plAce

Electing women may be new in other places, but it’s a tradition here in D.C.

By Sarah anne hugheS PhotograPhS By darrow montgomery

4 chAtter District line

7 Loose Lips: Jeff Thompson’s investment lesson 9 City Desk: Mapping where pedestrians and cyclists are struck in D.C. 10 Savage Love 12 Gear Prudence 20 Buy D.C.

D.c. FeeD

21 Young & Hungry: Cocoa goes local.

24 Grazer: Where to drink bone soup 24 Underserved: Diablo 14 at Eat the Rich 24 Are You Going to Eat That? Blood clams

Arts

27 Behind the Screens: An anonymous audience tweets its way onstage.

29 Arts Desk: Chocolate City finds a tiny new home.

30 Galleries: Capps on Jacob Lawrence’s “Struggle” series 31 Curtain Calls: Lapin on Arena Stage’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery

32 Short Subjects: Olszewski on Oscar-nominated shorts and Gittell on Mommy 33 Speed Reads: Dwyer on Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat

city list

35 City Lights: Don’t call Kaki King a guitarist.

35 Music 40 Theater 44 Film

Diversions 45 Crossword

45 clAssiFieDs

“ ” —Page 27

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 3

CHATTER

in which various tonys are debated

Call and Response Response Can we just say it again? We love that you loved

our Answers Issue! @ebnert has the right idea: “Live like a local and read @wcp’s “The Answers” issue,” while @ErinLauer summed up how we felt about working on the issue: “seriously, one of my favorite weeks of the year. So glad I’m not alone in wondering about many things.” But we want to assuage @Ombresque’s concerns, who tweeted “I know I’m late to the party, but: awesome.” Don’t worry, it was on newsstands all week, so there’s no such thing as late to this party. Washington City Paper is always a seven-day rager.

Regarding the actual questions themselves: nevermindtheend voiced an (apparently) popular opinion about the futility of using 311 to report needed repairs in the District: “It’s all well and good to tell people to use 311 to report pedestrian signals that are turned the wrong way, but the 311 system is handled very poorly.” Ah, so that’s why the public has taken to grouchily tweeting DDOT about busted lights.

But not everyone loved the questions, and that’s ok.

“Bruh, white folk really don’t have enough to worry about…” tweeted @HimDownstrz about our investigation into local archery laws and practice ranges. Noted.

vote for one of the Tonys (@gwennie_thepooh tweets “I love Tony’s on Kennedy Street. They are really nice and the food is delicious”), except… that’s a different Tony’s entirely. We know, it’s confusing. Kes voted for Tony’s, but not the new/old Tonys (did you catch that?)

“The simple fact is, Tony’s Breakfast is still better. It just is. I’ve tried both just to be fair, and new/old Tony’s Place just isn’t as good, service- or food-wise. Sorry new/old Tony’s, them’s the breaks.” @BryanWeaverDC helpfully let us know “my college girlfriend married one of the guys from Tony! Toni! Toné! - but I can’t remember which one.” Just to clarify: can’t remember which Tony (an on-theme problem) or which college girlfriend (a perhaps rarer, but no less real, problem)?

Finally, some resolutely practical advice from @Neil_Irwin for the Tonys: “Call Famous Ray in NY to arbitrate.” @Neil_Irwin, you’re the King Solomon of carryout disputes.

Are You Gonna Hate That?

There appears to be very little love for frozen yogurt among our readers, but Ms. Yuck already has her sights set on the next trend dessert she wants to beat a retreat: “I can’t wait for all the cupcakeries to go. If you stand in line for cupcakes, you really have a damn problem. Yuck.” Consider yourselves on notice, innumerable cupcake joints of D.C.

A Tale of Two Tonys. And then there’s the “tasty drama” (@spkr4thedead51’s term, not ours) going down between Tony’s Breakfast and Tony’s Place. There’s one

Department of Corrections. Thanks to eagle-eyed crossword fan Carolinda Hales for pointing out that the grid we printed last week didn’t match up with the clues. This week’s updated grid can be found on our Facebook page, or contact ehazzard@washingtoncitypaper.com to receive a copy via email.

puBLIsHEr: Amy Austin EDITOr: mike mAdden MANAGING EDITOrs: emily Q. HAzzArd, sArAH Anne HugHes ArTs EDITOr: CHristinA CAuteruCCi FOOD EDITOr: JessiCA sidmAn CITY LIGHTs EDITOr: CAroline Jones sTAFF WrITErs: Will sommer, AAron Wiener sTAFF pHOTOGrApHEr: dArroW montgomery CONTrIBuTOrs: JoHn Anderson, mArtin AustermuHle, eriCA BruCe, sopHiA BusHong, kriston CApps, Jeffry Cudlin, mAtt dunn, deAn essner, JonAtHAn l. fisCHer, noAH gittell, sArAH godfrey, trey grAHAm, louis JACoBson, steve kiviAt, CHris klimek, AndreW lApin, ryAn little, CHristine mACdonAld, dAve mCkennA, BoB mondello, mArCus J. moore, Justin moyer, triCiA olszeWski, mike pAArlBerg, tim regAn, reBeCCA J. ritzel, Ally sCHWeitzer, tAmmy tuCk, Joe WArminsky, miCHAel J. West, BrAndon Wu INTErNs: JAmes ConstAnt, morgAn Hines ONLINE DEvELOpEr: zACH rAusnitz DIGITAL sALEs MANAGEr: sArA diCk BusINEss DEvELOpMENT AssOCIATE: kevin provAnCe sALEs MANAGEr: niCHolAs diBlAsio sENIOr ACCOuNT ExECuTIvEs: melAnie BABB, Joe HiCkling, AliCiA merritt ACCOuNT ExECuTIvEs: lindsAy BoWermAn, CHelseA estes, mArk kulkosky MArkETING AND prOMOTIONs MANAGEr: stepHen BAll sALEs EvENTs MANAGEr: HeAtHer mCAndreWs sALEs AND MArkETING AssOCIATE: CHloe fedynA CrEATIvE DIrECTOr: JAndos rotHstein ArT DIrECTOr: lAuren HenegHAn CrEATIvE sErvICEs MANAGEr: BrAndon yAtes GrApHIC DEsIGNEr: lisA deloACH OpErATIONs DIrECTOr: Jeff BosWell sENIOr AD COOrDINATOr: JAne mArtinACHe DIGITAL AD Ops spECIALIsT: lori Holtz INFOrMATION TECHNOLOGY DIrECTOr: Jim gumm SouthComm: CHIEF ExECuTIvE OFFICEr: CHris ferrell INTErIM CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICEr: glynn riddle CONTrOLLEr: todd pAtton CHIEF MArkETING OFFICEr: susAn torregrossA CrEATIvE DIrECTOr: HeAtHer pierCe DIrECTOr OF CONTENT/ONLINE DEvELOpMENT: pAtriCk rAins CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICEr: mAtt loCke CHIEF OpErATING OFFICEr/GrOup puBLIsHEr: eriC norWood DIrECTOr OF DIGITAL sALEs AND MArkETING: dAvid WAlker LOCAL ADvErTIsING: Washington city paper, (202) 332-2100, Ads@WAsHingtonCitypAper.Com vOL. 35, NO. 5 JANuArY 30-FEBruArY 5 2015 Washington city paper is puBlisHed every Week And is loCAted At 1400 eye st. nW, suite 900, WAsHington, d.C. 20005. CAlendAr suBmissions Are WelComed; tHey must Be reCeived 10 dAys Before puBliCAtion. u.s. suBsCriptions Are AvAilABle for $250 per yeAr. issue Will Arrive severAl dAys After puBliCAtion. BACk issues of tHe pAst five Weeks Are AvAilABle At tHe offiCe for $1 ($5 for older issues).

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Loose Lips

Million Dollar Gravy Jeff Thompson put big money into a school run by a former health official’s wife Jeff Thompson in 2015 isn’t much to envy. The one-time Wilson Building puppetmaster piles up legal fees while he waits to testify in a possible criminal case against former Mayor Vince Gray. After that, if he’s lucky, he’ll be under house arrest for half a year.

Once at the top of a network of illegal straw donors spread across the country, he now has to ask a federal judge for permission to leave the D.C. area. The man once nicknamed “the Governor” now barely rates above dog catcher.

Jeff Thompson in 2006, though—that guy had it made. Thompson’s D.C. Chartered Health Plan held a city Medicaid contract worth hundreds of millions. Adrian Fenty, the mayor who would give him the most trouble with that contract, wasn’t in office yet. And Thompson had just started a string of illegal “shadow campaigns” in District politics that would go undiscovered for years.

But District pols weren’t the only beneficiaries of Thompson’s largesse that year.

2006 was also the year that, according to documents uncovered by LL, Thompson made an unusual investment—or a gift, depending on whom you believe now—worth more than $1 million in a Brookland private school.

Thompson’s dip into pedagogy had a connection to the District government: The school was controlled by the wife of a former top District health official who played a role in Thompson’s success. Some of the school’s funds, in Thompson’s telling, went to buying trips and a car for that official’s wife.

In 2000, Thompson, already a successful accountant, bought Chartered at a bargain for $4 million. But before he could take con-

Darrow Montgomery

By Will Sommer

Investment Lesson: Thompson is now trying to recover some cash. trol of the company that would make him even richer, the District’s Department of Health needed to approve the purchase.

Enter Ivan Walks, DOH director under then-Mayor Anthony Williams. “I just had to kind of make sure the health department signed off when it needed to sign off,” Walks tells LL. Walks’ tenure at DOH helped Thompson in other ways, too. Walks’ online biogra-

phy describes him as “intimately involved” in starting the D.C. Healthcare Alliance, a program that extended health coverage for low-income residents and involved Chartered. A few years after Thompson bought Chartered, according to a July 2013 Washington Post story on Thompson, Chartered had more than quadrupled its number of enrollees.

Walks left DOH in 2002, but continued

a friendship with Thompson. According to court documents filed on behalf of Dawn Kum, Walks’ wife until their 2011 divorce, the three regularly exchanged gifts.

“Throughout the friendship of the three, each provided things to each other without agreement, reimbursement, or payment,” one court filing reads.

LL has to get a friend like Thompson, because what comes next was a hell of a gift. In

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 7

DISTRICTLINE 2006, according to Kum, she asked Thompson for $1,058,744.00 for Village Academy of Washington D.C., a school for children with special needs that she runs.

(The same year, Thompson also routed the much smaller sum of $8,000 to a separate company owned by Kum. The cash came through an unusual routing arrangement Thompson had with ubiquitous Wilson Building lawyer-slash-lobbyist David Wilmot, a relationship previously reported

by Washington City Paper.)

Thompson gave the money to Village Academy, but didn’t give the money personally. Instead, he began sending funds from D.C. Healthcare Systems Inc., a holding operation that controlled Chartered and other Thompson companies. By the end of 2008, according to court documents filed by Thompson’s attorneys, DCHSI had sent $1,386,743.74 to Village Academy.

Whether Thompson was entitled to spend that money could become a matter for the courts. Since 2013, Chartered, now in receivership, has been suing Thompson and DCH-

SI for allegedly siphoning money out of the Medicaid contractor with loans and suspicious contracts to other Thompson-owned companies. Thompson has denied his former company’s charges, and is suing the District for $80 million for taking Chartered from him.

Just what Thompson’s money went towards at Village Academy isn’t clear. LL contacted Kum, as well as attorneys for both her and Thompson, but didn’t receive any comment.

What is clear, though, is that Thompson isn’t happy with how Kum managed Village Academy. In a December 2013 arbitration claim, he alleges that Kum’s school spent $96,975 on a Land Rover for her and $87,000 on travel in 2011. Some of the school’s funds, according to Thompson’s lawyers, went to “personally benefit Dawn Kum.” Walks says he has never been involved with Village Academy, and says he didn’t know about any gifts his then-wife’s school received from Thompson.

“I have no idea what Dawn was doing, or who she was doing it with,” Walks says.

LL can’t blame Walks for being confused. Not even Kum and Thompson agree on what their arrangement really was.

Years after the payments started, according to Kum, Thompson asked her to treat DCHSI’s “gift” as an investment for his own tax purposes.

“He needed some tax deductions and asked if the money he gave for the Village Academy could be treated as an investment,” Kum said in an affidavit filed last March.

Kum agreed, and in 2011 the two finished a contract giving Thompson a 36 percent stake in the school. Thompson insists that the 2006 gift was always an investment that was just formalized in 2011.

These days, Thompson isn’t seen as the most trustworthy guy in the District, much to the chagrin of any potential prosecution against Gray. Still, there’s some evidence to back up his claim: In 2006, Kum sent Wilmot and Thompson an email about the money with the subject line “Investment Agree-

ment,” according to court papers.

By 2012, though, Thompson didn’t have money left to splash around on investments-cum-tax-deductions or gifts.

After Thompson was fingered as the top money man behind the illicit 2010 shadow campaign to elect Gray, the FBI raided Thompson’s home and office. Even as Thompson brought on top defense attorney Brendan Sullivan, his lucrative businesses began to dry up.

Presumably looking for that $1 million he’d invested or given to Kum’s school, he tried to withdraw his money. The school paid back some of it, then stopped, launching a years-long legal battle with Thompson and DCHSI that is still ongoing. The court battle has gone Thompson’s way so far, but Kum isn’t eager to part with her supposed gift.

All of which makes LL wonder: If you can’t trust a friend who takes $1 million from CP you, who can you trust?

Got a tip for LL? Send suggestions to lips@washingtoncitypaper.com. Or call (202) 650-6925.

GETTING TO KNOW HALE WOODRUFF

Bring the whole family to the Smithsonian's kickoff celebration of Black History Month! Visitors can take a special family tour of the exhibition Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College, take part in an art-making activity, and listen to music inspired by Hale Woodruff. The day ends with a fascinating presentation of Hale Woodruff’s genealogy by Ms. Karen Bennett Harmon, the artist’s great-niece, introduced and moderated by Smithsonian Librarian Shauna D. Collier.

A panel of critics and artist discuss Hale Woodruff, renowned muralist, artist, scholar and community builder. Panelists include: } Edmund Barry Gaither, director and curator, Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists, and special consultant at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. } Amalia Amaki, independent scholar, artist and curator of the Paul R. Jones Collection at the University of Delaware.

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DISTRICTLINE City Desk

Tomorrow’s history today: This was the week it didn’t really snow here, again.

In 2014, drivers of vehicles struck pedestrians and cyclists more than 500 times in D.C. (A few of the 2014 incidents, it should be noted, involved cyclists striking pedestrians.) This year, that number is already 29, according to information compiled by the Twitter account Struck in D.C. (@StruckDC). While the Metropolitan Police and D.C. Fire and EMS departments tweet out information about struck pedestrians and cyclists, that information is incomplete: Not every incident reported to an official agency is tweeted about, and not every collision is reported to police. An official count of fatalities is eventually released in MPD’s annual report, but more real-time data would help complete the picture. Building off the work of Struck in D.C., City Paper will seek information about pedestrian and cyclist incidents, both reported officially and unreported, and compile it into a map. Visit washingtoncitypaper.

—Sarah Anne Hughes com/go/struck to view the map or submit an incident.

Jeff Wetzel became No. 5 on Jan. 11 when he was struck in a bike lane in the 1800 block of Q Street NW. “She centered herself between the parked cars and assumed it was all for her,” he says. Wetzel was sent over his bike’s handlebars and onto the hood of a parked car after being struck, finally landing underneath a parked truck on the side of the road. The driver received a ticket from D.C. police, he says.

“My bike was unrideable. Thankfully, her insurance took care of that. My back is all messed up, though,” says Wetzel, who will need to receive further medical treatment and physical therapy. Like many other cyclists, Wetzel says he becomes the target of ire from drivers when he rides (legally) in a street lane: “I would love to have a separate place to avoid that.” —Morgan Hines

400 Block of MicHigAN AveNue Ne, JAN. 26. By DArroW MoNTgoMery

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struck D.c.

“My bike was unrideable. Thankfully, her insurance took care of that. My back is all messed up, though,” says Wetzel.

This map, created by Washington City Paper with information compiled by the Twitter account @StruckDC, shows where pedestrians and cyclists have been hit by vehicles as of Jan. 23, 2015. Pedestrian incidents are shown in orange, and cyclist incidents are shown in red. washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 9

SAVAGELOVE I have a dildo that I loooooove, and I was wondering if it’s safe for me to use it in both my ass and my cunt. I would clean it in between uses/ orifices, of course, and it has a flared base, so it’s safe for anal play. Can I do this or do I need to get separate toys for ass and cunt?

—Ass/Cunt Timeshare “First off, never use a toy in the butt and then go straight into vaginal play, because that could result in a nasty bacterial infection,” said Jeneen Doumitt, co-owner of She Bop (sheboptheshop.com), an awesome sex-toy shop in Portland, Oregon. But there is an option for multiple-hole-havin’ people who aren’t coordinated or organized enough to use two toys—one in the ass and another in the cunt—during a single masturbatory session. “ACT could stack multiple condoms on that beloved dildo,” said Doumitt, “and then peel off a used condom before switching orifices.”

If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on condoms, ACT, or if you’re allergic to latex, your dildo will have to be cleaned—and cleaned properly—before you move from one hole to the other. That, of course, was your plan all along: clean the dildo you loooooove between uses/orifices. But can your dildo be cleaned? That depends on what it’s made of.

“Best-case scenario, ACT’s beloved dildo is medical-grade silicone, which is nonporous and can be completely disinfected,” said Doumitt. “To clean a 100 percent silicone toy, ACT can use antibacterial soap, or a light bleach solution, or pop it on the top rack of the dishwasher. ACT can even boil it—up to 10 minutes. Worst-case scenario, the dildo is made of jelly rubber. Jelly toys not only contain toxic phthalates, they’re also porous, which means they can never be fully disinfected. There are other materials, such as elastomer, that don’t contain phthalates, but are still bacteria breeding zones, so it’s generally a good idea to use a condom with any toy if

Keep fucking other people (with your husband’s okay), but quit fucking cigs. you’re unsure of the material.”

Don’t know if your dildo is made from a porous or nonporous material? Take a good whiff. “If it has an odor, especially one that lingers, that indicates a porous toy,” said Doumitt. And if the dildo you loooooove is porous, ACT, or if you’re not sure what it’s made of, your best course of action is to fall in loooooove with a brand-new dildo, i.e., throw away the one you’ve got, replace it with a 100 percent silicone dildo (also with a flared base, of course), and get to work on those holes. Follow She Bop on Twitter —Dan @SheBopTheShop.

I’m a 32-year-old woman with two young kids, married five years. My husband and I never had an overly exciting sex life, but after the last baby, sex became very, very infrequent. I’m a pretty sexual person, I masturbate regularly, and I have a good sexual imagination. I tried to spice things up by suggesting toys and a bit of light kink, but he wasn’t interested. He seems pretty asexual to me these days, and now I just fantasize about other men. Last week, a mutual friend came over to have a drink. When we stepped outside to smoke a cig—just me and the other guy—he kissed me and said, “I’m going to ask your husband if I can fuck you.” He did, and surprisingly enough, my husband said go for it! What a night!

I got permission to fuck someone else. Now I’m not sure if I want to swing or just fuck other people. Advice please. —Horny Married Chick

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Solicited advice first: Swinging would theoretically involve you and your husband fucking other people, HMC, and if your husband isn’t interested in sex, if he’s low-to-no-libido or actually asexual, he won’t be any more interested in swinging than he is in having sex with you. As for fucking other people: That “go for it” may have been a one-time thing, or it may have been a whenever-you-want thing, but you’ll have to check in with your husband to find out which. It’s possible that your husband is interested in cuckolding and knowing you’re messing around with other men will awaken his libido, and it’s possible that he’s neither interested in sex nor threatened by the prospect of his spouse getting it elsewhere. Have a conversation with your husband about what is and isn’t allowed going forward—talk about what you want, talk about what he wants, talk about safety and respect and primacy—but have that conversation when (1) you haven’t been drinking and (2) there’s not a gentleman caller with a boner waiting outside the front door.

Unsolicited advice second: Stop smoking.

It’s bad for you and it’s bad for your kids— even if you’re careful not to smoke around them, HMC, carcinogens and other noxious chemicals cling to your skin, hair, and clothes after you’ve smoked. You’re exposing your kids to those harmful substances whenever you hug, hold, or breastfeed them. Keep fucking other people (with your husband’s okay), —Dan but quit fucking cigs.

What would you say to a woman who was forcing you to choose between her and the photos of your —A Youngish Widower late first wife?

“Good-bye and good riddance, you cruel and —Dan psychotic piece of shit.”

I’m a straight man with a bisexual wife, married a little over two years. She got me started listening to your podcast and opened up

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my mind to alternative relationships. Our arrangement at present is a semi-open kind of thing. She gets some female action on the side, and I, in theory, get a happier, lustier wife who will, if her “friend” is game, include me in threesomes. Our first threesome is happening soon. An old friend/sex buddy and my wife are mutually attracted, and plans are being made. There are some red flags: My wife, who had previously gotten off on the idea of seeing me with another woman, has decreed penetration off-limits. She really doesn’t seem all that thrilled about my having any contact with the other woman at all.

Meanwhile, the friend has told my wife that she can include me if she wants, but it’s my wife that the friend wants. What do I do? I seem to be the only one who wants me to even be involved in this threesome. Do I just keep all my attention on my wife? Do I just watch or even stay out completely?

I love my wife and don’t want to create conflict, but I feel like I’m getting the short end of the —Uncertain In Canada stick here.

I would skip this particular threesome, UIC, if I were you—there’s no bigger boner killer than knowing you’re not wanted.

And, like HMC above, you need to have a talk with your spouse. You signed off on her being with other women on the condition that you, in the context of the occasional threesome, would get to be with other women, too. If your wife isn’t into that—if she’s too threatened by the prospect of seeing you with/inside another woman to keep up her end of the bargain—you need to renegotiate your agreement about openness, and reverting to a closed relationship should be on the table.

That said, forgoing penetration the first time you have a three-way isn’t that monumental a sacrifice—if oral and mutual mas—Dan turbation are still on the menu.

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Dear RUNS: Yes, runners using bike lanes are annoying. No, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, they shouldn’t be there. No, you shouldn’t run them over. Yes, you could say, “Hey, don’t run here!” No, they won’t care. It’s not like they’re accidentally in the bike lane; it’s a pretty purposeful decision underlaid by various rationalizations ( “the sidewalk is too crowded,” or “the sidewalk is blocked,” or “the sidewalk hurts my knees,” etc.), similar to the thought process of all other non-bicyclists who ever find themselves advertently where they shouldn’t be. And while you could try to make this point by riding your bike around a high school track, dinging your bell at each runner you pass and insisting that you had no idea that bikes shouldn’t be there in spite of a wide variety of context clues and an outright prohibition, it’s probably better to learn to accept the stray bike lane runner, roll your eyes at them as you pass, and not let your —GP frustration overwhelm you.

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Gear Prudence: While biking around the city, I frequently encounter runners in the bike lane or cycletrack. On one hand, the percentage of road surface dedicated exclusively to cyclists is pathetically small, and the infringement of that space by a noncyclist may understandably elicit a hostile response, such as “DON’T RUN HERE, ASSHOLE!” On the other hand, in the grand scheme of things, having to dodge a runner from time to time isn’t such a big deal. So what’s the proper reaction?

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Dear NOSE: Bike commuter or not, how do you tell anyone that you find his personal odor noxious and offensive? It’s a conversation that few would revel in having. But if it’s bothering you to the point of distraction (and perhaps if other colleagues have also noticed), it’s worth mentioning. Do it in private, and be sympathetic, like you’re doing him a favor of pointing it out and not like you’re telling him that he’s a horrible, unclean, noisome, malodorous slob.

Ideally, though, nobody would have to have this conversation. It’s incumbent on bike commuters to freshen up upon arrival. This might mean a shower, or it might just mean a quick hand wash and glance in the mirror, as you might do if you walk to work. Bike commuting does not excuse you from the general principles of professional decorum. And you shouldn’t put it on your colleagues to tell you if you stink. —GP Gear Prudence is Brian McEntee, who blogs at talesfromthesharrows.blogspot.com and tweets at @sharrowsdc. Got a question about bicycling?

Email gearprudence@washingtoncitypaper.com.

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Linda Cropp

Eleanor Holmes Norton

’ A WomAn s

When did d.C. politiCs break the gender barrier? longer ago than you might realize.

by sarah anne hughes

PhotograPhs By Darrow MontgoMery 14 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

PlAce

Mary Cheh

Carol Schwartz

On the day Muriel Bowser became the seventh elected mayor of Washington, D.C., her place in the city’s history—the second woman to hold the job—was clearly on her mind.

“One of the single biggest surprises and delights of this campaign was the reaction I got from little girls,” Bowser told a crowd earlier this month, as she was inaugurated at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “They watched me, they cheered me on, and they inspired me to keep pushing, to live up to their hopes and dreams. You probably know that there are a handful of women who run big cities… And today, because of you, I am one, too.”

Two days after she gave that speech, Bowser appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press with Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier and D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson for a segment touted as “The Women Who Run Washington.”

“Women are still chronically underrepresented in U.S. politics, at both a local and national level,” host Chuck Todd said. “But there’s one city,” continued Todd—whose wife Kristian Denny Todd, he disclosed onair, was a paid campaign adviser to Bowser in 2014—“where those three top jobs will be

filled by women for the next year, and that city is Washington, D.C. I’m pleased to be joined by the three powerful women who run the nation’s capital.”

“How fitting for the nation’s capital to have three women in charge,” Bowser said, a proud smile displayed.

It may be fitting, but it’s not as new as the glowing national coverage made it seem.

While a woman police chief is indeed a rarity in U.S. cities (the first female chief of a major city was appointed in 1985 in Portland, Ore.; D.C.’s first was interim chief Sonya Proctor in

1997), women have served as mayors since at least 1887, when Susanna Madora Salter was elected in Argonia, Kan. Doris A. Davis became the first black woman mayor of a major U.S. city after she was elected by the people of Compton, Calif., in 1973. D.C.’s first woman mayor, Sharon Pratt, elected in 1990, was preceded in the late 1980s by Lottie Shackelford and Carrie Saxon Perry in Little Rock and Hartford, respectively.

“People don’t quite realize how influential, how involved women are in this city. But then remember that the city itself is not respect-

ed,” says Tom Sherwood, an NBC4 reporter who’s been covering D.C. since the 1970s.

In a city ultimately controlled and regularly insulted by Congress, where less than a fifth of the members are women, there’s something especially sweet about the District’s progressive Council, where women first held a majority in 1979.

For the past several decades—even before home rule—powerful women have pulled the strings politically in D.C., both in public and behind the curtain. Nowhere can that be seen more prominently than on the D.C. Coun-

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 15

cil, where Bowser got her start as the Ward 4 councilmember. But it extends up to Capitol Hill, where Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has been D.C.’s lone, non-voting member of Congress since 1991.

“This is a tradition in D.C., although it may be the first time the nation notes it,” says Norton.

The tradition is also seen in Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, where women hold 133 leadership positions city-wide, down to the political campaigns of D.C. candidates.

“If you look far enough, it’s women who really run all political campaigns, whether it’s national, local, municipal, neighborhood,” says one-time deputy chief of staff to Marion Barry and longtime D.C. activist Betty King.

“The people who really ring the doorbells, lick the envelopes, send out the emails … are principally women.”

“There’s a tremendous ignorance in the country and in this very city,” says Sherwood, “about the importance and power of women.”

Before District residents were able to vote for a mayor and Council, they voted for the school board. The first elections to fill 11 seats were held in 1968, five years before Congress would pass the Home Rule Act. It’s where future Councilmembers including Linda Cropp, Betty Ann Kane, Hilda Mason, and Carol Schwartz got their political starts.

“There were always women on the school board, and there were powerful women who were president,” says Kane, who was elected to an at-large seat in 1978 and served for 12 years.

In 1975, the first elected Council began its inaugural session, with Polly Shackleton representing Ward 3, Nadine Winter representing Ward 6, and Willie Hardy representing Ward 7.

“There had been no history of gender in elected office, since we were just starting,” says Charlene Drew Jarvis, who served as the Ward 4 councilmember from 1979 to 2001. “Many of the women who were elected in 1974 were a part of the civil rights movement.”

Just four years later, women reached a majority on the Council. Hardy, Shackleton, and Winter were by then joined by Kane, Jarvis, Mason (at-large), and Wilhelmina Rolark (from Ward 8).

While the achievement fulfilled the ideal of a legislative body reflecting its electorate, it also brought a diversity of backgrounds— activist, attorney, scientist, editor, educator— to the Council coupled with something that only women can bring to the table. Maybe they’re more concerned with the end product, as Councilmember Mary Cheh puts it.

Perhaps, as Councilmember Yvette Alexander posits, women are naturally nurturing. Or more flexible in terms of their management, as longtime D.C. political columnist Jonetta Rose Barras says.

Whatever it is, women have shaped D.C.’s history for the better.

Kathleen Patterson, a three-term member who represented Ward 3, for example, led an investigation in 2004 as chair of the Council’s

were extremely valuable in that process… I was trained to listen, to hear, to get an understanding of the different needs.”

But there are times when normally rational people won’t listen to reason. Her demand that Nationals Park be at least 50 percent privately financed made her Public Enemy No. 1 to baseball fans, as then-Mayor Williams claimed it threatened the deal. (Ultimately, Cropp was ignored, and the city paid for the whole ballpark.) But in retrospect, the vilification of Cropp seems especially unfair, considering that the new D.C. United stadium in nearby Buzzard Point will be financed through a 50-50 partnership between the District and the team.

“They wanted baseball at all costs,” Cropp says, adding that she was accused of not understanding the importance of the sport.

“The reality is, I understand the costs of… doing what’s best for your family, and D.C. was my family. And I did not want someone to come in from the outside and take my family to the cleaners.”

While Cropp says she wanted baseball in D.C., she had to “protect my family… and strike the best deal that I could,” a decision she has not wavered from. “Now everybody else is saying, ‘Oh... yeah.’”

Yvette Alexander

judiciary committee into public demonstration policing after mass arrests in Pershing Park at a 2002 protest. “She’s the reason the police department is now held up as a model of how to handle demonstrations, rather than being like Ferguson, Mo.,” says Sherwood of Patterson, who is now the D.C. Auditor. Her decision to hold hearings in the community, Barras says, also set an important precedent for the Council.

Jarvis helped shepherd legislation through the Council to build the Walter E. Washington Convention and Verizon centers, which became a critical part of new development downtown.

“I came from a scientific field,” says Jarvis, who chaired the Committee on Economic Development. “I had great respect for data and for outcomes. I had a good way of framing questions because that’s what I did in science.”

Schwartz, who twice served as an at-large member, championed a contested but ulti-

16 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

mately successful bill to mandate paid sick leave for many District workers, making D.C. the second city in the country to do so. The law, Schwartz says, cost her a place on the Council, as the then-Republican was painted as anti-business, but it still makes her proud.

Linda Cropp, the first and only woman to chair the Council, from 1997 to 2007, is credited with helping restore the District’s image after fiscal disaster. “Anthony Williams, to his credit, has said publicly… that I really kept the city straight financially,” she says.

“When the city was having severe financial problems, those most in need were the ones who were harmed.”

Elected to an at-large seat in 1990, Cropp was an educator and guidance counselor in D.C. public schools before her time on the Council. “As the chairman of the Council, it can be extremely difficult to bring 12, 13 ideas together in order to function,” she says. “My skills as a counselor, in particular,

After Hardy’s departure in 1981, women regained a majority in 1985 after Carol Schwartz won an at-large seat. “We got a lot of pride and pleasure from it,” says Schwartz.

During that period, Schwartz says, she got “respective and equal treatment” from the men on the Council, like Chairman John Wilson and at-large member John Ray. Jarvis used her psychology degree from Howard University to ensure that happened.

“I did find that, with respect to some of my male colleagues, my approach to them was purposeful and tentative and seeking their input even though, in my mind, I knew the answers and I knew the outcome I wanted,” Jarvis says.

But as any powerful woman knows, confidence can be a dirty word in politics.

“Charlene Drew Jarvis was a masterful councilmember, but people grew tired of her because she had this huge ambition,” says Barras. “She had a powerful intellect. She could digest information and spit it back at you in a matter of minutes. She had an aggressive style.”

“I always considered that I was proactive but in women that can be considered ‘aggressive,’” Jarvis says of the descriptor. “I had a keen understanding of human behavior— who needed to be the more powerful of the pair, that he has power—and once that is acknowledged then the door is open to conversation… I never resented it. On the contrary, I was glad I understood it.”

The number of women councilmembers dipped in the early ’90s, only to rise to seven in 1997 and fall again in the new millenium.

With the fluctuation comes a subtle change in the Council’s dynamic.

“It’s hard to put your finger on it [but] I detect a distinct difference with more women on the Council,” says Cheh, admitting to her

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own “complementary [view] toward women.”

Cheh, who was elected to represent Ward 3 in 2006, says for the most part she’s been “treated with respect and seriously.”

But during her first Council session, with four elected women on the dais, Cheh introduced the Payday Loan Consumer Protection Act of 2007, which capped predatory interest rates. Cheh was in a John A. Wilson Building conference room with advocates for the bill, she recalls, when a male councilmember suggested that, perhaps, another councilmember should lead the charge against the “tough customers” of the payday loan industry.

Then-Chairman Vince Gray replied that Cheh could handle it, and the subject was dropped, Cheh recalls.“Would he have said that if you weren’t a woman? It crossed my mind.”

Sharon Pratt (who was once known as Pratt Dixon and Pratt Kelly) was elected in 1990, but not before she was forced to defend herself for being a woman. She told the Washington Post in July 1990 it was “something people were wrestling with” and later faulted her general election opponent, Republican Maurice L. Turner, for running “best man for the job” ads.

While Jarvis, one of three Democratic councilmembers to run against Pratt for the party’s nomination for mayor in 1990, dealt with similar stigma, she says Pratt won because she had never been part of the elected government. (She was, however, divorced from Council Chairman Arrington Dixon.) “Any of her allegations of the failures of government became a part of her mantra,” says Jarvis.

“She could use the same brush to describe all the same candidates in the race.”

The first woman elected to be mayor of D.C., Pratt entered office on Jan. 2, 1991, facing a fiscal crisis left by Barry. Her legacy is now a cautionary footnote in D.C. politics rather than a highlight in the history of women’s progress. Just two years into her term, Pratt faced an unsuccessful recall campaign: “If this were a man, this would not be happening,” Winter, one of the first women elected to the Council, told the Post in March 1992. “If this is not sexism in the highest degree… where else is an elected official judged in only 12 months and nine days?”

But by 1993, the verdict was in: The city faced a nearly $500 million deficit, up from $300 million when Pratt took office. “Some female voters abandon Kelly,” the Post declared in August 1994: “Kelly… for many District voters was once a symbol of hope and empowerment, but… is now faring poorly among many of them.”

Pratt lost the 1994 Democratic primary to Barry, who mounted a postprison comeback to beat Schwartz in the general election. But it’s hard to believe any person—man or woman— could have overcome the burdens facing D.C.: a heap of debt, an alarming drug crisis, the burden of paying for all “state” activities without federal help.

“It was an excruciating time for the city,” says Jarvis of Pratt’s term. “The challenges that she faced during that period were like none other that were faced later on.” Adds Norton: “The first black woman to become mayor could not have happened into a worse time in the history of the city. She would have had to be more than a man or a woman or several of those” to overcome the challenges.

Unable to conquer the deficit, as well as Republican outrage after his reelection, Barry’s Courtesy D.C. Council

Outside the District, especially, Marion Barry’s legacy boils down to an infamous night at the Vista Hotel. There, he uttered his most well-known sentence about former girlfriend Hazel Diane “Rasheeda” Moore, on whom he pinned his (however temporary) political downfall in a memoir published before his death.

But when he first took office as the second mayor elected after home rule, Barry created a government of inclusivity, where qualified people were welcome regardless of their color or gender.

“He was a real feminist,” says Betty King of her former boss.

King served as the head of Barry’s Office of Boards and Commissions during his first twoand-a-half terms and during his fourth term as deputy chief of staff and head of the Office of the Ombudsman.

The more than 1,000 appointees King screened, as Sherwood and Harry Jaffe write in Dream City, the definitive history of D.C. politics in the Barry era, “reflected the city’s diversity and geographical sections.”

“He was always very supportive of demographic balance,” says King, “by sex, by age, by ward of residence, by color, and so forth.

We were very heavy into affirmative action.”

King, who worked on fundraising for Barry’s first campaign, says the mayor was open to input from women, a bare majority of whom were “part of the nucleus of the [campaign] staff.”

“I had never worked for anybody where I was

Barry out of the game while he served a six-month prison term, opening the door for an outsider to ascend to the top of D.C.’s political structure.

so challenged and given so much freedom,” says King. “I served at the pleasure of the mayor, running an office that he very much appreciated and treasured. I had a lot of power.”

Sherwood agrees: “[King] was quite influential in the Barry administration,” he says.

“She’s one of the many people in any administration who’s behind the scenes but very important to what gets done.”

While the equal-opportunity employer version of Barry seems odd juxtaposed against his later self—the man who opposed gay marriage, who blamed the “temptress” in his life

18 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Top: Women first held a majority on the Council in 1979.

Bottom: The majority was restored in 1985. for causing him to smack her—King says that was reality.

“What he did in his private life, it was completely different than what he did in his professional life, as far as those who worked for him were concerned,” says King of Barry’s public scandals.

But the most famous failing of his private life in January 1990 would temporarily take

Screenshot via NBC News

comeback term ushered in one of the darkest chapters in D.C.’s history, the federal control board era. Four years after pushing out Pratt, Barry would himself be replaced by thenchief financial officer Anthony Williams, after he declined to run again in 1998.

While gender was part of the conversation before Pratt, women candidates for mayor didn’t see it as a deciding factor in the outcome of their races. When she ran for the Democratic mayoral nomination against Barry in 1982, former councilmember Kane says it wasn’t gender that hurt her; it was race: “People weren’t ready” for a white mayor, she says.

“I felt I had the capacity to be mayor because I understood how to solve problems,” Jarvis says of her 1982 run against Barry, “but, as usual, I underestimated the political skill of Mayor Barry.” Patricia Roberts Harris, the first black woman appointed to a secretary position in a presidential cabinet, finished second to Barry in the race.

But Schwartz says she had a different experience in the post-Pratt years. “We already tried a woman and that didn’t work out so well,” she recalls people telling her during her later runs against Barry in 1994, and Williams in 1998.

“Well, look at all the men who didn’t work out,” she says. “We certainly didn’t stop electing men.”

While Pratt’s legacy does continue to loom, Sherwood and Barras say Schwartz didn’t lose because of her gender. “People love Carol Schwartz,” Sherwood says. “She has an infectious personality that people like, but there are many reasons people vote. So she lost… five campaigns for mayor for a variety of reasons, none of which were her gender.”

“It had nothing to do with Sharon; it had everything to do with Tony Williams, [who] played the community so finely,” Barras says of the 1998 campaign.

Williams wouldn’t have run himself if not for another influential D.C. woman. On the day in 1998 that Williams announced he wouldn’t seek the mayor’s office, Marie Drissel was already scheduled to have lunch with him. The D.C. activist with a finance background was “dreadfully disappointed” by Williams’ decision not to run, she says, but was not deterred as she was armed with a precinct-by-precinct count that showed he could win. “He said, ‘My family is just adamant.

They’re completely against it,’” Drissel recalls Williams telling her at that lunch. She replied, “Well, we’ll just have to draft you.”

“We really wanted to see change,” Drissel says of herself and civic activists Paul and Barbara Savage. With a team that showed Williams could bridge the race divide (Drissel is white; the Savages are black), Drissel says she raised $35,000 for a man who didn’t want to run.

“We did it, and we were very powerful doing it,” says Drissel, who was appointed director of the Office of Board and Commissions

by Williams, the same position King held after helping get Barry elected.

Sharon Pratt may have moved on from politics—she now runs her own consulting

Bowser, Henderson and Lanier appear on Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd. firm—but some voters refuse to let her go.

“Let me just say this: Sharon Pratt Kelly. Okay?” a woman told the Post before the 2014 Democratic primary. “We don’t need that again.”

“It was disappointing when Sharon Pratt Kelly ended up being an unsuccessful reform mayor,” says Sherwood. But comparing Bowser to Pratt is unfair to both of them, yet, he says, “I hear it all the time.”

“Let’s say Mayor Bowser stumbles in some way,” says Cheh, who sat next to Bowser on the Council dais, when asked about the Pratt comparison. “That’s what it’s going to come down to. That will really annoy me.”

After her election in the fall, Bowser told Washington City Paper of the comparison, “It strikes me as odd political analysis, especially since I was in college the entire time Sharon Pratt was mayor.”

“I’ve only encountered objections [because of gender] a handful of times,” Bowser says now.

“My campaign has been supported because it represents values shared by men and women.”

Less than a month into her administration, Bowser is facing her first major crisis after a Metro train filled with smoke, leaving one person dead and countless questions about what happened unanswered. It’s also the first test of how the D.C. media will treat Bowser, who’s still in the honeymoon phase of a mayorship that will, fairly or not, be compared to Pratt’s dark turn.

“This is about being an effective politician and executive,” Barras says of the way Bowser’s performance should be covered. “This has nothing to do with gender.”

Why was D.C. so willing to elect women long before the national press thought to celebrate it? In the 1970s and ‘80s, an influx of jobs in the local and federal government brought

women out of the home, a development Kane says made her election to the Council a nonissue. “People [were] used to having women as the boss,” says Kane, the first woman appointed to chair a Council committee.

“When I was elected in 1979, I came into office because so little had been done to help revitalize our neighborhood commercial corridors after the 1968 riots,” says Jarvis. “I remained in office a good part of the time when cities were in distress. That was the most challenging part of my career in office. It was far more challenging than issues of gender.”

Norton, who works in the dual realities of progressive D.C. and conservative federal “Washington,” says “women have chased men out of holding sex against any woman in Congress.” During her successful campaign to become D.C.’s delegate in 1990, Norton was endorsed by EMILY’s List, a first for the Democratic organization, which previously would not take a stance when more than one woman was running in a single race.

“That’s how few women were running for the House or the Senate,” Norton says. But 25 years after her first election, the current number of women in the House—84, or 19 percent of the body— is “sad and shameful,” she says. “There is no reason why the House... should not be half and half.”

After the April special elections in Ward 4 and 8, women could have a Council majority again (although Bowser aide Brandon Todd, a man, is expected to win her seat). For the five women currently on the Council, there’s a sense of camaraderie, even if gender didn’t play a role during their elections.

“I don’t think it hurt me at all,” Cheh says of being a woman. “I think it was a plus. Anecdotally, people have said, typically men, ‘I’d love to be able to vote for a woman.’”

Ward 7’s Alexander agrees, but she also

brings up an article from the Post’s Reliable Source that focused on Bowser’s marital status, albeit not in an outwardly negative way.

“What does that have to do with anything?” questions Alexander.

But for women in other parts of the country, who face overt sexism, a non-judgmental article about marital status would seem like an endorsement.

Anita Bonds, an at-large councilmember who also heads the D.C. Democratic party, says party chairs from elsewhere have relayed to her the difficulties women face when running for office outside the District.

“We’ve been very liberal and open here in the District of Columbia,” says Bonds, whose involvement in D.C. politics stretches back to Barry’s first campaign. “I recall the early years with the gay pride movement. We were on it and doing things. Equality was our bag.”

“D.C. is more progressive when it comes to elected women because it’s more progressive,” echoes Norton.

Cropp points to women’s involvement in activism, both inside and outside elected politics, on a community-level. “D.C. is such a size that you can truly touch the lives of your constituencies,” she says. “People could feel the activism and involvement of individuals.”

Bowser’s election and decision to keep Lanier and Henderson in top spots set off a flurry of positive local and national press coverage, from the Post to Ms. magazine. And while it may have underplayed D.C.’s history, the Meet the Press appearance highlighted something the city is—and should be—proud of.

“The fact is, we have been showcased on national TV,” Norton says of primarily negative coverage, “but I have seldom seen D.C. spotlighted nationally in such a positive CP way.”

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 19

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YOUNG & HUNGRY

Adam Kavalier is a stickler about his beans. The Undone Chocolate co-founder says he pays about $500 over the market price per ton for his organic farm-direct cocoa beans to get a premium product. And if they’re not up to snuff, he’ll sometimes send them back. Then, in every 150-pound sack of cocoa beans, he sorts out the small ones and the cracked ones by hand.

“These are looking real good. They’re uniform in size,”

how he roasts them in the oven. When they’re done, he’ll use a vacuum-powered machine called a winnower to separate the shells from the cocoa nibs. The shell will be packaged up and sold as an herbal-earthy tea. But the nibs will be combined with organic cane sugar—the only other ingredient in the chocolate—and ground for three days.

Kavalier lifts the red lid off the cylindrical grinder, which can hold up to 65 pounds of chocolate. It looks like a giant

“People make Willy Wonka jokes,” Kavalier admits. “I feel like an Oompa Loompa sometimes. It’s a lot of work.”

This isn’t just some whimsical pastime for Kavalier. He has a Ph.D. in biology with a focus in phytochemistry and was headed toward a career in cancer pharmacology before he and his wife decided to start their own chocolate company. While D.C. has chocolatiers like Co. Co. Sala, who create confections and truffles but don’t make bars from the bean, Undone is the District’s first chocolate manufacturer. (The suburbs, however, are home to chocolate makers like Woodbridge’s Potomac Chocolate and Gaithersburg’s SPAGnVOLA.) Later this year, Undone will be joined by Concept C, another bean-to-bar operation opening next to DC Brau on Bladensburg Road NE from couple Colin and Sarah Hartman. She’s a São Paulo, Brazil, native and culinary school grad who’s worked for Valrhona and San Francisco’s Dandelion Chocolate, and he’s a Wharton MBA who served in the U.S. Marines.

Both companies see themselves not just as producers of a delicious treat, but as sources for social and environmental good. Concept C will specialize in bars made with cocoa beans from Brazil’s Amazon and Atlantic rainforests,

Undone Chocolate’s Kristen and Adam Kavalier make bars in Union Kitchen.

stock pot with two big wheels inside turning in opposite directions—fast, then slow, fast, then slow. It takes a day or two to get the chocolate smooth and another day or two to decrease the bitterness. “A lot of flavor development happens here,” he says.

The chocolate will then be poured in pans and aged for between a week and two months, depending on the origin of the beans. As with wine, aging chocolate brings out complexity and develops the subtle fruit and nut flavors that hide underneath the bitterness.

The chocolate is then chopped into chunks, melted down, and tempered, which gives the product its “shine, snap, and buttery mouthfeel,” before it’s filled in molds, wrapped, and labeled.

where fungal infestations devastated the cocoa industry several decades ago. As a result, many farmers cut down their cocoa plantations inside the rainforest canopy and converted them into things like cattle pastures. The Hartmans hope to help restore the rainforest, which has a symbiotic relationship with cacao trees, by supporting the region’s chocolate industry. They plan to donate a yet-undetermined portion of their sales to a Brazilian NGO that purchases deforested, unproductive farmland and helps bring back the native plants and wildlife.

“We’re not just a chocolate company,” says Colin Hartman.

“We want to be seen as a company that also actualizes rainforest conservation.”

Undone Chocolate is likewise interested in sustainable

Chocolate City Meet D.C.’s first bean-to-bar chocolate makers.

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

By Jessica Sidman

Kavalier says, scooping up a handful and letting them fall through his fingers. If you lean in, they smell acidic. “The cocoa beans are fermented,” he explains.

Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair” is playing in the background of the Union Kitchen workspace, where Kavalier is working on a recent Thursday afternoon next to a dog biscuit maker and a chickpea chip producer—a few of the 50 or so artisans who use the food incubator. Kavalier launched Undone Chocolate with his wife Kristen Kavalier in December, and they now produce 2,000 chocolate bars a month in D.C. Kavalier spreads the beans out on pans and demonstrates

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 21

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sourcing, but the Kavaliers are especially touting the health benefits of their chocolate. The bars come with labels like “replenish” and “nourish” and a cardiogram symbol. Whereas most chocolate bars advertise what they contain, Undone wanted to do something different: “It’s kind of similar to vitamin water where you’re actually trying to name a feeling that it provokes,” says Kristen Kavalier.

Adam Kavalier came across cacao, the plant used to make chocolate, while he was studying plant biochemistry and how plants make medicinal compounds in graduate school at the City University of New York. (He then got a post-doctorate degree at Weill Cornell Medical College.) He started making chocolate at home and bringing it into the lab to test its antioxidant levels. He became obsessed with finding beans to craft the most antioxidant-rich chocolate possible.

“It sort of started as this analytical processing thing,” Adam Kavalier says. “Making chocolate takes several steps and involves making some of your own machinery. I love to build things and love to make things ... So it filled a lot of different passions for me, both on the science side and the artistic side.”

Meanwhile, Kristen Kavalier had her own lifelong tie to chocolate. She says when her mom found out she was pregnant with her, she ate tons and tons of chocolate. “The joke was I came out as a chocolate baby instead of a crack baby,” she says. “Growing up, I had all the really funny chocolate sweatshirts or pillows.”

It seemed meant to be when Adam Kavalier gave her four homemade chocolate bars on their first date.

Adam Kavalier spent about five years experimenting with recipes in their 700-squarefoot New York apartment. The couple had to put an acoustic sound barrier wall over their kitchen door because they’d often have two or three noisy chocolate grinders going at once. Then, because they were worrie about the vibrations disturbing their neighbors downstairs, they stacked up yoga mats.

The entire space was filled with huge containers of beans, and nibs, ginders, a temperer, a fan, and other equipment. “It just took up the entire apartment,” Kristen Kavalier says.

“The only room that never had chocolate in it was the bedroom, and actually at one point I think it did.”

The Kavaliers started Undone Chocolate on a small scale while they were still in New York, selling some bars to friends and hosting chocolate fondue parties. Then Kristen Kavalier got a job in D.C. with a social analytics startup called NewBrand, where she continues to work full time. Adam Kavalier, who grew up in Chevy Chase, eventually moved the operation here with plans to move into a professional kitchen and build the business.

Darrow Montgomery

DCFEED(cont.)

Pour Some Sugar on D.C.: Undone sells three flavors of chocolate Concept C’s Sarah Hartman had a very different path to a career in chocolate. She went to culinary school in Brazil and worked briefly in restaurants. She knew she wanted to be in the food industry, but she didn’t know where. Her mother-in-law gave her a book on chocolate while she was still in school, and she started researching chocolatemaking and its history. “I kind of fell in love,” she says. She went to an online school called Ecole Chocolat to learn more about the craft before going on to work in corporate sales for Valrhona.

Both chocolate makers saw an unfilled niche for their products in D.C.: Many major cities have a chocolate factory. “We were surprised when we got here that there was no factory,” Adam Kavalier says.

Undone Chocolate currently sells three 70 percent dark chocolate bars, including one with pink Himalayan salt and another with cinnamon, cardamom, and chili. The bars are available at Glen’s Garden Market, Yes! Organic Market on 14th Street NW and in Petworth, Smucker Farms, and Compass Coffee, among others. The Kavaliers have national ambitions eventually, as do the Hartmans. When they launch, Concept C will make Atlantic and Amazon rainforest dark chocolate bars plus dark and milk “pure Brazilian” chocolates that blend the two. Later, they’d like to make bars that incorporate Brazilian fruits like cashew fruit and guava. Concept C’s factory will also host tours, tastings, and workshops.

As Kavalier sees it, the competition is welcome. Both are creating high-end products that don’t come cheap given the quality of the ingredients.

“It’s good for all of us to have more chocolate here,” Adam Kavalier says, “because it raises people’s awareness of what’s behind CP the $7 or $8 bar on the shelf.”

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Bone Broth may be as ancient as boiling water, but that hasn’t stopped people from proclaiming it one of the top food and health trends of 2015. Red Apron began offering the nutrient-rich liquid in to-go cups this week. (You can also find it at fast-casual restaurant Hälsa, which recently opened in Monroe Street Market.) Here’s a look at the anatomy of this meat juice. —Jessica Sidman

What We ate last Week: Scallion and crab pancakes, $6, Mama Rouge, Satisfaction level: 2.5 out of 5 What We’ll eat next Week: Greek island-inspired shellfish tower, $125, Kapnos Taverna, Excitement level: 4 out of 5

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Underserved The best cocktail you’re not ordering What: Diablo 14 with Fidencio Mezcal, house-made grenadine, apple bitters, celery bitters, aromatic bitters, habanero tincture, lime juice, and a grapefruit twist, $12 Where: Eat The Rich, 1839 7th St. NW What You Should Be Drinking This cocktail was born out of Eat The Rich’s big, sloppy crush on the Misfits and other bands created by Glenn Danzig. The heavy metal-themed bar introduced the Diablo 14 as a part of a special menu created when Danzig’s deathrock band Samhain came to the Howard Theatre on Halloween. Named after the song “Diablos ’88,” the drink was a hit. So they downloaded it to the permanent menu where its popularity has slipped. Bar

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Why You Should Be Drinking It Matz says the mezcal scares people off because they’re less familiar with tequila’s smokier cousin. Then there are the naysayers who say they’ve sworn off tequila (and the agave spirit family) after an epically bad night. It’s time to unload that baggage and give mezcal a shot (but not that kind of shot). The Scotch-drinker’s tequila has unrivaled smokiness that goes great with anything fruity—like Eat The Rich’s tart and tangy pomegranate grenadine. The Diablo 14 may look like a ladylike, sweet pink drink, but there’s definitely some junk in the trunk with a full 2 oz. pour of Fidencio Mezcal. “It’s a hefty cocktail with all that mezcal, but as my father would say, it wears it well,” Matz says. The blend of three types of bitters (apple, celery, and aromatic), plus tongue-tickling heat from habanero peppers prevents sugar from overpowering the drink. It’s a well-balanced glass that’ll warm —Laura Hayes you up from the inside.

What It Is: These mollusks earned their ominous name because hemoglobin turns their liquid a reddish hue. Originally a Chinese favorite, they’re now cultivated off the coast of Maine and Mexico’s Baja region. Slightly larger than many of their bivalve brethren, newly appointed executive chef John Melfi calls them “a clam person’s clam.”

What It Tastes Like: Melfi takes his prep cues from El Salvador, where the clams are prepared ceviche-style with lime and Thai chilies. The finely diced flesh is mostly smooth, though there are still some slightly chewy bits (but nothing that distracts). First, you’ll taste the acidic pop of the citrus, followed by an oceanic salinity accented with kelp. Finally, there’s a hint of heat at the back of your throat.

The Story: “No one has them … and there’s this ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ element, which catches peoples’ attention,” says Melfi. The chef has served them in the past, most recently during his tenure at Fiola Mare, where José Andrés came in and downed half a dozen of them in a single session. “They do freak some people out,” admits Melfi, who has tried offering them several different ways and refers to them on the menu by their less sanguine name, Mangrove Cockles. The shellfish are delivered fresh every Thursday and served until they sell out, which is often before the next shipment comes in.

How to Eat It: The stark white shells are mottled with black hair and presented on a snowbank of salt dappled with flower petals and peppercorns. Each bivalve basin holds a small mound of blood clam ceviche, which can be consumed with a fork or a spoon.

Don’t even think about slurping these daintily presented delicacies. —Nevin Martell

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Screens

With an anonymous Twitter account and a willing actor, what would you do?

By Christina Cauterucci

I should have known, when the entrance was locked, that I was in for a weird night. I was just 10 minutes early for the third D.C. performance of Brian Feldman’s txt, and the house manager was waving my partner and me away from the glass door of the American Poetry Museum. Maybe the show’s canceled, I thought. It was the night of a big football game, I was told—the night the Patriots may or may not have used 11 not-firm-enough balls to clinch the AFC championship—and theaters have closed for far more dubious reasons than a sports tournament.

Turns out the manager was just readying the concessions spread. But America’s No. 2 pastime did cast a shadow over the night’s performance: In addition to my partner and me, there were two other people in the audience.

One was Feldman’s friend. Another ran the venue. At most performance art exhibitions, being part of a small crowd is a treat: It feels more focused and personal (“intimate,” in industry parlance), and shorties like me can actually see the stage. But when I saw the rows of empty seats at txt, I panicked—beThat’s How We Troll: cause I, with the rest of the tiny audiFeldman’s experiment ence, had to write the show. can bring bullies out txt has no script, no storyline, no of hiding. blocking, no master plan, no filter—just Feldman, a Deanwood-based artist, at a desk, scrolling through a Twitter feed on his phone. Each of watching. There’s no correct takeaway to be had, just as audience member is assigned an anonymous throwaway ac- there are no two people who’ll bring the same experienccount, and whatever s/he tweets, Feldman reads out loud. es and predilections to bear on a single performance. But Most performance art includes a participatory ele- in txt, the participation is the performance. “I think this ment—the art happens in the space between performer is a little more accessible than traditional performance art. and audience, shaped by reaction, awareness, and the act It’s not confrontational. It’s more of a team effort,” Feld-

man says. “A lot of the stuff I’ve seen lately has been super serious, and this skews more toward the funny stuff, Mel Brooks-style.”

For a show made possible through some of today’s most commonly used and socially isolating technology, txt’s atmosphere is surprisingly warm: At the performance two weeks ago, string lights hung over a small stage backed by full bookshelves; Feldman’s desk held a flowerpot and a colorful, handpainted coffee mug. When Feldman walked behind the desk and sat down, we all looked around—at him, at one another, at our phones—waiting for something, anything, to start. I began to sweat and, unable to suffer silence in the presence of others, broke the ice. “Hi,” I tweeted, displaying the kind of nuanced creativity one would expect from the arts editor of an alt-weekly newspaper. “Hi,” Feldman said.

And après moi, le déluge. Tweets ran faster than our feeble minds or fingers could manage. By the time I’d type a response to one person’s line, another would jump in with something totally unrelated; the logistics of the platform (sending delays, 140-character limits) informed the show’s absurdity. One or more of my fellow tweeters kept bringing Feldman back to uncomfortable small talk: “I’m kinda hungry.” “What the hell is this place?” “Oh my god we could all run for the door.” Another went off on a tangent about a hallucinating caterpillar and Kanye West, apropos of nothing, totally capsizing my efforts to get us all on one page and make up a coherent damned story. txt felt like a non-hierarchical group project, and we’d all been given vastly different assignment sheets. I silently judged the person who tweeted “Wouldn’t it be weird if everyone just started randomly jumping up and down,” hoping that bit of inanity didn’t come from my partner’s phone. (It took all my willpower to keep from glancing over at her screen.) With the rest of us silently typing away, Feldman sounded like the gauchest person at a dinner party—asking questions that no one answered, spouting out M-for-mature-rated nonsense, blabbering on in a thousand different directions. That frustrating, delightful unpredictability is part of the point. “I didn’t want to put too many restrictions on it and say, ‘hey everybody, we’re coming and writing a mystery story,’ or ‘this is a themed adventure, choose your own adventure novel kind of thing,’ because nobody in the audience wants it to be,” Feldman says.

At one previous show, an audience member had Feldman say the same thing every few minutes (“very Ionesco” by Feldman’s estimate). At another, someone tweeted row after row of the smiling-pile-of-shit emoji, which Feldman dutifully read aloud, one by one. (“Poop emoji. Poop emoji.

Darrow Montgomery

CPARTS Behind the

Watch Ex Hex’s new video for “Don’t Wanna Lose,” lousy with ‘80s perms and statement socks: washingtoncitypaper.com/go/dontwannalose

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 27

CPARTS Continued

Poop emoji.”) The best sequences in our show were serendipitous, as if a thousand monkeys on typewriters had accidentally happened upon a storyline. “I like my wife,” someone tweeted, a millisecond before “but I wear underwear anyway,” a holdover from a separate train of thought, came through.

Feldman doesn’t do anything halfway: He brought BFF, a one-on-one “friend-building” exercise, to Capital Fringe in 2012 and currently offers it every single weekday. He’ll perform txt, which premiered in February 2009 at Orlando’s Kerouac Project, each Sunday in 2014, save for Super Bowl Sunday, Oscars night, Mother’s Day, and the first night of Rosh Hashanah. “If no one shows up, I still have to do it,” Feldman says. “I’ll stare at the house manager, and she’ll write things. I have to get all...48 shows in this year, at least, just so I have some kind of momentum or false momentum to push me along.” Though he’s become known for his performance art, Feldman has a background in theater. He approaches all his of his projects from that angle, but favors more conceptual pieces for their human insight. “In a traditional play, going through the rehearsal process, you’re always trying to find the real moments,” he says. “Here, everything is real and immediate.”

As such, a pre-show disclaimer read by the house manager (it was supposed to be delivered by Siri, but the manager’s device wasn’t cooperating on the night I attended) warned the

audience that the show might include coarse language, explicit themes, or offensive content. An experiment in where the human mind goes when it’s unfettered by codes of accountability or coherence, txt can bring out the latent rabble-rousers in the crowd. “Most shows, at the end of the show, I pretty much stand up and say, ‘thank you all, you sick fucks,’ because there are some very demented people,” Feldman says. “Once people have that veil of anonymity, they really go all out.”

When two latecomers entered the room halfway through the performance I attended (we were six strong, now!), I decided to experiment with the form. “New guys TELL US YOUR NAMES,” I tweeted. Feldman read it with appropriate gusto (part of the joy of the show was hearing my hastily composed lines spoken by a true man of the thee-ay-ter), and the two fellows quietly obliged. A few minutes later, I tried again. “Doug, call out your favorite sauce!!!!!!” I think Doug said “barbeque,” but I was laughing too hard and feeling too guilty about the unamused look on his face to hear. My co-conspirators joined in. “Doug have you ever killed a man?” “Doug have you ever been to a Turkish prison?” “Doug did you sell secrets to any enemy combatants?” Doug fell silent.

Feldman says someone ends up getting picked on at every show (sorry, Doug), and our small group once brushed

against some racist material. “That guy in the front looks like Kevin Hart,” one person tweeted, referring to a black man in spectacles who looked exactly nothing like Kevin Hart. (Hart’s non-dopplegänger could have tweeted it himself, of course). No matter what the tweets read, Feldman’s committed to speaking them. “I’ve said some of the funniest things in my life thanks to this show,” Feldman says.

“But I’ve also said the most terrible, horrible things.” His devotion to form is admirable, but words have real power, and it’s impossible to levy a trigger warning against every possible trauma scar.

Still, if the project’s purpose is to reflect reality, to bring something like the anonymous free-for-all of Internet comments onto the stage, stripping away hate speech or personal attacks would neuter it of meaning. The possibilities for trolling, social experimentation, and group self-regulation would make this show a golden case study for modern communication scholars. txt delivers all the breathless, anything-can-happen anticipation and nervous laughter of an improv show, but without any of the pressure to make a funny that makes a crappy improv troupe so agonizing to watch. Like a sex party, it was both exhilarating and exhausting, and it seemed to work best when we all synced our wavelengths. But at times, it was even more CP fun to just sit back and watch.

A World Premiere Written and Directed

by Aaron Posner

THROUGH FEBRUARY 15 28 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

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“Sassy yet heartfelt... Posner and Chekhov, together again.”

- The Washington Post

CPARTS Arts Desk

a local geek is competing for glory on king of the Nerds this season. Will he win? washingtoncitypaper.com/go/nerd

LittLe BLack Nook Bass was inspired in part by the “tiny house” movement. It’s ironic, she says, that the tiny house bandwagon has been mainly driven by wealthy white people when the concept holds the most promise for lower-income residents. Moving “Black Space” from a schmancy art fair to a free public space that’s frequented by local homeless people drives that point home— some have even asked her, half-jokingly, if they could move in.

Christina Cauterucci

Is D.C. still Chocolate City? Holly Bass doesn’t know. The poet and performance artist has lived here for 20 years, and much of what she first loved about the city—the friendly, talkative neighbors, the integration of races and cultures—has faded with influx of pricey coffee shops and condos. When she moved to D.C. after stints in California and New York, Bass reveled in the proliferation of black artists’ gatherings and social spaces. Now, she often finds herself the only black person at restaurants in her own neighborhood. (Bass lives on 16th Street NW across from Malcolm X Park, and shakes her head at newcomers who call it by its official but conspicuously whitewashed name, Meridian Hill.)

For “Black Space,” an installation on view at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library through Feb. 26, Bass constructed a small house on a foundation cut in the District’s image. She first exhibited the piece at October’s (e)merge art fair at the Capitol Skyline Hotel, and stored it in pieces in the library’s third-floor stacks, which are closed to the public, until rebuilding it earlier in January in preparation for Black History Month. Part of the work of “Black Space’ is in the conversations it starts: While Bass installed the piece with a small crew, wearing white jumpsuits marked with a black silhouette of D.C., she took frequent breaks to chat with inquisitive passersby, delaying the physical work.

The discussions that most interest Bass aren’t about D.C.’s shifting racial demographics, but about how the city can make everyone feel welcome in the changing city and preserve its black history and social customs. Paired with parties celebrating African-American culture and a panel on the current state of Chocolate City, “Black Space” will be a month-long home for learning about D.C.’s past and confronting important, uncomfortable questions about its future.

—Christina Cauterucci

The house, loosely modeled after the architecture of LeDroit Park and the shotgun house in Georgia where Bass’ father grew up, has only three walls; where the city meets the Potomac, a corrugated sheet of metal mimics the river’s bends.

With crates, a broom, and a basket, the house’s porch looks like that of the Southern ancestors of many D.C. residents. Bass found the crates at Eastern Market.

Photos of black life in midcentury D.C. from the library’s Washingtoniana collection line the wall outside the house, and will be hung inside as family portraits.

Bass burned a diagram of the Metro map onto the house’s wooden floor. Outside the structure’s perimeter, on the floor of the library’s lobby, colored tape marks the Metro lines’ extension past D.C.’s borders. washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 29

Galleries

Life’s Great Histories

can People” cannot be seen in its entirety: At the time of Lawrence’s painting, his benefactors did not have the foresight to ensure that the parts of the collection would stay together. Two of the panels are lost to history.

The collection itself is not all that’s fractured about the “Struggle” series. Painting in a more mature mode of “dynamic cubism” (his term for his style), Lawrence depicts scenes of war and resistance, from the Revolutionary War through the War of 1812. In the 12 panels on view at the Phillips, the compositions are dominated by shards, representing the violence of bayonets, the cut of military uniforms, and the tion Series” read like a hauntupraised arms of colonists, ing children’s book. slaves, indigenous people, Wilkerson herself told the and imperialists.

New York Times that “The The “Struggle” series was a Migration Series” is one of bizarre choice for Lawrence. the first introductions most In the upheaval that followed people get to the Great Mithe Supreme Court’s decision gration. “Because it’s so big in Brown v. Board of Educaand so embedded in who tion, the artist retreated into we are, it’s hard to see,” she safer territory. While “The told the paper in December.

Migration Series” represent“There’s so much to study— ed a brave and forward-lookit’s almost like studying 20thing patriotism, a telling of an century culture itself.” invisible history, the “StrugThat’s part of what makes gle” series indulged in nos“The Migration Series” a talgia. (But not jingoism: stunning achievement: It conLawrence’s Revolutionary veys such enormity through America did not overlook the such simple gestures. Freexperience of slaves.) quently, Lawrence’s compoIt is unreasonable for tositions are divided into fields day’s viewers to hold Lawor planes of three. The comrence to task for not painting positional harmony throughto the themes we might have out helps to establish the cywished a lyricist of his caliber cle’s rhythm. to choose instead of the coloPanel No. 5 (“Migrants nies. After all, he might have were advanced passage on the easily followed the Europeanrailroads, paid for by northfocused painters of his day ern industry. Northern inand pursued a different kind dustry was to be repaid by of abstraction entirely. Nevthe migrants out of their fuertheless, seeing works from ture wages”), a painting of a these cycles side by side, it is train traveling by nightfall, a hard not to dwell on the gulf plume of black smoke rising between them. in the air, is as simple as an Part of the delight in seeArthur Dove landscape. Panel ing “The Migration Series” is No. 31 (“The migrants found that the history of the Great improved housing when they “Struggle... From the History of the American People, no. 18: In all Migration, even a century latarrived north”) depicts three your intercourse with the natives, treat them in the most friendly er, is still not a thing we can housing tenement buildings, and conciliatory manner with which their own conduit will admit. wrap our heads around. And rendered as flat planes of -Jefferson to Lewis & Clark, 1803.” by Jacob Lawrence (1956) yet Lawrence understood it somber tempera punctuated as it was happening. Before by blocks of color representing lighted win- tion Series” paintings owned by the Phillips Wilkerson’s complete history arrived, seeing dows—a Harlem abstraction on city life.

Collection will soon be joined with their “The Migration Series” might have been the Lawrence created his cycle without the counterparts in New York, for now, they best depiction of the magnitude of the movebenefit of hindsight—indeed, he had nev- can still be seen in special exhibit in D.C. ment. Lawrence held up a lamp to real expeer been to the South when he painted the se- The panels are on view alongside works rience and captured it faithfully. As a work of CP ries. (Lawrence was painting during the sec- from a follow-up series, which was meant art, it is a piece of history. ond wave of the Great Migration; his parents to be another 60-panel cycle (but ended at had come north, from Virginia and South 30), painted by Lawrence in 1954–56. 1600 21st St. NW. $10-$12. (202) 387-2151.

Carolina, during the first.) While the “Migra- “Struggle… From the History of the Ameri- phillipscollection.org

After painting the Great Migration, Jacob Lawrence went nostalgic.

“Struggle… From the History of the American People” At the Phillips Collection to Aug. 9

By Kriston Capps

The Warmth of Other Suns, a history of the Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, may be the single best account of one of the most significant yet poorly understood transformations of the 20th century. During the Great Migration, some 6 million African-Americans left the South for the industrial Northeast and Midwest, as well as cities in the West.

They were not economic migrants, Wilkerson explains; not exclusively, anyway. Her book shows that blacks who left the South were political refugees, fleeing the state-sanctioned terrorism of white supremacy, albeit without leaving one country for another.

After its publication in 2010, Wilkerson’s book was quickly greeted as both the authoritative history of the Great Migration and the most creative telling in nearly 70 years. (The Warmth of Other Suns closely follows three black migrants of varied backgrounds as they depart the South for Chicago, New York, and California over three different decades.) The book is required reading for understanding an even more elegant depiction of the Great Migration: Jacob Lawrence’s “The Migration Series” (1940–41).

Time to get reading. For the next two years, the two museums that each own half of the 60 panels that make up the “The Migration Series” will take turns displaying the entire sequence. On April 3, for the first time in 20 years, the Museum of Modern Art, owner of the even-numbered panels, will reassemble Lawrence’s complete cycle. The sequence will travel to the Phillips Collection, steward of the odd-numbered paintings, in 2016.

“The Migration Series,” or as Lawrence originally titled it, “The Migration of the Negro,” comprises all five dozen modernist panels. The achingly simple paintings deliver a complete narrative; a literal caption appends each panel (e.g. “Panel No. 3: From every southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north”). The cadence of paintings and captions makes “The Migra-

30 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

TheaTerCurtain Calls away from holmes Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery Directed by Amanda Dehnert Written by Ken Ludwig At Arena Stage through Feb. 22

another alters his voice with the swap of a hat; and there’s the expected drag- and accent-based humor. It’s funny at times, as the performers are deft impressionists with excellent comic timing, but Holmes would surely ask what Ludwig’s trying to hide with all this surface-level misdirection.

Presumably he’s not hiding the story, which hews to Doyle’s original with minor changes that mostly draw outsized dispositions around characters who previously had none. Sir Henry, the wealthy young Canadian heir to the Baskerville fortune, has become a Texan with a grating cowboy personality (through no fault of Glenn, who

UPCOMING EVENTS Tues, 2/3 at 6:30pm Mort(e) Robert Repino Wed, 2/4 at 6:30pm Queen Sugar Natalie Baszile Wed, 2/11 at 6:30pm Mr. Putin Fiona Hill & Clifford G. Gaddy Wed, 2/18 at 6:30pm Cooks in the Bookstore An evening with Joe Yonan, Bonnie Benwick, and David Hagedorn.

Music Center 10th Anniversary!

SAVION GLOVER’S STePz

Friday, February 6 Celebrate the Music Center at Strathmore’s 10th Anniversary with a pre-show happy hour!

Margot Schulman

Sherlock Holmes barely matters to one of his most famous stories. The genius detective vanishes for much of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 novel The Hound Of The Baskervilles, leaving his fawning sidekick Watson alone to brave the spooky Devonshire country manor Baskerville Hall. So it’s Watson No Quit Sherlock: Three who investigates a helltireless actors play more ish hound-beast and matthan 40 roles. ters of a large inheritance, though of course Holmes, that legacy hog, takes all the credit.

Perhaps it’s justified that Holmes comes off like a prick in Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, Ken Ludwig’s new adaptation of the novel for Arena Stage. As the titular condescending sleuth, Gregory Wooddell treats Lucas Hall’s put-upon Watson like he’s the real hound, and does everything but toss him a treat for a job well done. Onstage, when Holmes is so often physically absent, this dynamic is even more apparent than on the page—or in the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring PBS series Sherlock, where the character is the enigmatic universe around which every London mystery plays him). Did we American rubes realrevolves. Children, who seem to be Basker- ly need our own transparent proxy into this ville’s target audience, will wonder what all timeless mystery? Doesn’t that undermine the fuss around that brilliant mind is about. the basic appeal of Anglophilia: to escape Mostly, the dynamic duo are stuck react- from the colonies for a bit? ing to everyone else’s manic energies. The The production design is a better realizaother three actors (Stanley Bahorek, Michael tion of Baskerville’s farcical tone, as props enGlenn, and Jane Pfitsch) share the remain- ter the bare stage from all directions for scene ing 40-plus roles that aren’t Holmes or Wat- changes only to be swept away moments latson. They dart on and off the stage to play er. We know Watson is in a meadow when a the crusty police foil Lestrade, Cockney chil- dozen magnetic flowers drop from the rafdren, a gloomy Gothic couple straight out of ters; when he and Sherlock go to Paddington Young Frankenstein, and too many others to Station, there’s a whistle and a puff of steam keep straight. Ludwig’s adaptation moves and they’re shuffling along on a make-believe past homage and parody and, under Aman- choo-choo. It’s charming, use-your-imagida Dehnert’s hyperactive direction, lands nation theater that will be good for kids, for squarely on spoof. whom “how did they do that?” can be the The resulting wink-winks are of the true mystery. The rest is just elementary.

—Andrew Lapin pandering sort that will always get laughs with the right audiences. An actor realizes another of her characters is being sum- 1101 Sixth St. SW. $45-$110. (202) 554moned and runs offstage for a quick change; 9066. arenastage.org

Thanks to WAMU, official media sponsor

Valentine’s Day

JOHN PIZZARELLI & JANE MONHEIT Saturday, February 14

Celebrate Mardi Gras!

IRVIN MAYFIELD AND THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA Wed, February 18 Top down: Jane Monheit by Timothy-Saccenti, Irvin Mayfield, Savion Glover

1517 CONNECTICUT AVE. NW 202.387.1400 // KRAMERS.COM

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washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 31

FilmShort SubjectS Full Short PreSS Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Animated and Live Action Every year, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences get things wrong. Filmgoers’ righteous protests—which nominations are unworthy, which snubs are unfathomable—are subjective, of course, and the misguided picks usually few enough to prevent allout Sturm und Drang.

But then the 2015 nominations were announced. Total Sturm und Drang.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that the animated and live-action shorts chosen to compete this year are, for the most part, a whole lot of meh. The live-action collection is the bigger disappointment, with even the best of the lot—a suicide story starring Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent called The Phone Call—failing to connect enough dots for a satisfactory conclusion. Boogaloo and Graham is more lighthearted, focusing on two young brothers in 1978 Belfast whose father gives them baby chicks to raise. Again, there’s a question mark or two left at the end, but the resolution of the family’s bickering over the chickens when they get older feels truthful and loving despite the incomprehensible arguments.

Aside from one touching moment, the Tibetan-language Butter Lamp, a collaboration between France and China, also leaves you shrugging. It’s about an itinerant photographer who schleps around various backdrops and persuades Tibetans to let him take their photo. The hinted-at message of the film is that the photographer, with his multitudes of exotic scenery, is bringing a bit of joy into the lives of people too poor to travel. But it’s too slight to make an emotional impact.

The two final live-action candidates, Parvaneh and Aya, center on young women who make new friends—one out of necessity, the other out of dissatisfaction with her life. You root for Parvaneh, an Afghan who, in the snoozy start of the film, is living in Switzerland, timid and unfamiliar with her new home. When she asks an outgoing, enterprising blonde to help her wire money to her family back home, the woman brings out Pari’s inner badass. The title character in Aya, however, is clearly unhinged, deciding while she’s waiting for someone else at the airport to pose as a professional driver for a foreign man traveling to Jerusalem. Aya won the Israeli version of an Oscar for best short, but through its entire 40-minute runtime, this woman and her refusal to be honest—or give a reason for her action—will make you as batty as she is.

The animated shorts may not have stronger messages, but they do have stronger storytelling. A Single Life is full of charming

One Way Or A Mother: Steve’s charms make him hard to discipline. touches, opening with a 20-ish woman about to eat pizza right out of the box when a delivery arrives. It’s an album, and when she puts it on the record player, she discovers that time moves back and forth along with the needle—so, naturally, she checks out different periods of her life.The film doesn’t end on the best note, but its earlier whimsy stays with you.

In capturing the life of an orphaned pig who’s in charge of running a windmill dam that keeps pollution out of his animal-populated town, The Dam Keeper is tinged with loneliness. The pig is mocked for being dirty and shunned at his school, supporting a message about the power of friendship. Though it could use a bit more cheer to better counter the bleakness, well, it’s about a little piggie—it’s cute even when it’s sad.

There’s no joy at all in The Bigger Picture, a story about an ill elderly woman cared for by her two adult sons who don’t get along.

Add the title to that summary, and you’ll see where this one’s heading. Disney’s Feast, meanwhile, follows the company’s laughand-a-tear formula with a clever story about a puppy whose frequently human diet changes from junk food to greens—much to his displeasure— as his owner trades bachelorhood for married life.

Though the sight of a bouncy dog diving into a bowl of popcorn is adorable, the Canadian Me and My Moulton is the best of the lot, a 14-minute portrayal of a family as nar-

32 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

rated by the middle of three daughters. Her voiceover describes her jealousy of the traditionally-minded tenants who live below them.

(Watching the girls sporadically topple over in art-deco kitchen chairs while no one pays attention is rather hilarious.) The film is simply drawn, the narration deadpan: “We’re off-topic,” the daughter interrupts a family discussion to tell us. Me and My Moulton may be less than a quarter of an hour long, but it delivers everything you look for in a good film.

All in all, it’s a laudable lot, but if this selection parallels the rest of the Oscar nominations, just imagine: Somewhere out there, there’s a short-film equivalent of the shameful Lego Movie snub.

—Tricia Olszewski Screenings of the Oscar-nominated shorts begin Jan. 30 at E Street Cinema.

Parental Cajole Mommy Directed by Xavier Dolan Xavier Dolan is the future of cinema. At least, we should hope he is. There may come a day when the wunderkind Quebecois director makes the kind of safe, competent movie that cleans up at the Oscars and turns him a major star. But when he does, some will mourn

the passing of his early period, which produced beautifully indulgent gems like Mommy, a personal and joyous work of cinema that puts most of this year’s Oscar nominees to absolute shame.

Equally rewarding and emotionally devastating, Mommy is a modern story of maternal determination. Anne Dorval plays Diane, a 40-something widow whose troubled son Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon) gets expelled from a school for delinquents after setting fire to the cafeteria. Diane brings Steven home, and with the help of a neighbor (Suzanne Clément), a former teacher who’s taking a sabbatical after some unidentified trauma, sets out to rehabilitate him.

It’s a tall task. Steve suffers from severe ADHD, and losing his father—who died just weeks after being diagnosed with cancer—has not helped. Steve drinks, smokes, and throws violent fits, but Diane is only marginally more mature, despite her maternal instinct. Cursing at each other in front of a dinner guest, they resemble a bickering married couple more than a mother and son. Still, Dolan finds authenticity in an Oedipal relationship more typically used as fodder for shallow cinematic psychoanalysis or, worse, a punch-line. “Loving people doesn’t save them,” a counselor says in an early scene, but Diane sets out to prove her wrong.

An early scene in the duo’s apartment highlights their dysfunction. Steve gives Diane a gold necklace that reads “Mommy,” an item he clearly shoplifted. She refuses it, and he snaps; he chases her around the house like a madman, only to weep apologetically when he runs out of energy. For the rest of the film, she wears the necklace, which starts to feel less like a thoughtful gift and more like a brand.

On paper, Mommy may sound like a difficult movie, and in some ways, it is. The characters are not always fun to be around, but they are always compelling. Pilon is a powerful adolescent presence, capturing both the unbridled energy of a child and an awareness of the power of his own charisma, especially on the two troubled women trying to care for him. Dorval has the tougher haul, grounding the movie with practical concerns of her family’s survival while depicting a character who’s driven by grief but lacks the emotional space to express it.

While the actors’ performances are stellar, Dolan’s affection for the characters carries the day. Amid all the domestic strife, he affords Diane and Steve a few moments of joyful release, depicted with a dazzling array of formal tricks. Dolan’s bold and ambitious style is that of a child who’s just discovered a treasure chest full of tools. Cynics may consider Mommy indulgent or immature, but it’s also the stuff of which great dreams —Noah Gittell are made.

Mommy opens Jan. 30 at Bethesda Row Cinema.

BooksSpeed ReadS

Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat

By John McQuaid Scribner, 304 pages, $26 John McQuaid isn’t one to mince words.

When he says the sense of taste has been more crucial to humankind than we’re inclined to give it credit for, well, he certainly doesn’t aim low.

“More important than vision, or hearing, or even sex, flavor is the most important ingredient at the core of what we are,” he writes. You can almost hear the heavenly choirs sing behind him.

Better than sex: It’s a high pedestal to be sure, but with Tasty, the Silver Spring author’s book-length investigation of the history and science of taste, McQuaid has committed himself to a writing challenge that’s nearly as lofty. After all, in his attempt to craft an all-encompassing look at taste—both its physical components and cross-cultural implications—McQuaid has forced himself to tackle a not-so-trifling task: simply describing the damn thing. Though tastes are instantly recognizable to our tongues, our words have a much tougher time taming them.

Here, McQuaid does an admirable job.

While he may be mainly occupied with matters of the mouth and brain, it’s his ear for language that makes the proceedings immensely readable. From “bubbling fat” and

Featuring Kate Eastwood Norris & Holly Twyford

Photo by James Kegley

TasTe on a True sTory

“the crackle of seared skin,” to notes on an ancient ancestor that was “no more than the wisp of a beast,” McQuaid moves ably between topics that often elude description— not just taste, but also the past’s unimaginable creatures and brain’s winding paths.

And when these descriptions wear thin— there are a few too many “firing neurons” and “bursts of boldness”—McQuaid turns to one of his other strengths: an exceptional knack for analogy. When describing how umami (that is, savoriness) silently accentuates the other basic tastes, he writes, “It’s like the Wizard of Oz, putting on a tremendous show from behind the curtain.” On how taste buds lasso passing food molecules, McQuaid likens the reaction to “the bottom of a bouquet when the middle is grasped too tight.” In just a phrase or two, he summons the means to make even abstract ideas relatable.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that Tasty dwells only with the specifics of what we lick and chew—nor that it’s perfect. McQuaid doesn’t lack for ambition, extending his focus as far back as 250 million years and as deep as the DNA that turn some misfortunate souls against broccoli. For the most part, McQuaid’s concerned not with the plate but with the brain, both with the neurology and psychology that trigger what we experience as pleasure in food, and how it’s helped direct our behavior.

This wide scope can make for uneven reading; the author appears more comfortable with some topics than with others. A section presenting the prehistory of taste drags a bit, and McQuaid’s novel device of dividing that span into five important meals becomes a tired gimmick before long. His chapter on fermentation meanders a little far from its focus, losing its thread—and me—somewhere along the way. The seeming ease with which McQuaid glosses many difficult topics occasionally makes them a bit too smooth to use as building blocks later; when we only get the reduced versions of complex concepts, it’s difficult to appreciate how these missing details influence the ideas he introduces further on in the book.

Luckily, McQuaid regains his footing soon enough. His meditation on the deadly history of sweets is at times devastating, and his thoughts on the “benign masochism” of eating hot peppers are both funny and fascinating. These chapters and others, leavened as they are with timely anecdotes, manage to be at once unsettling and enlightening.

I approached this book a skeptic (in my defense, I submit that Tasty sounds alarmingly like a reality show on Bravo) but leave it a convert. In his bid to enthrone taste at the heart of human experience, McQuaid does more than offer a compelling argument. He leaves the world looking— and, yes, tasting—just a little bit different.

—Colin Dwyer

ON STAGE NOW THROUGH MAR. 8

202.544.7077 | folger.edu/theatre

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 33

Bohemian Caverns Tuesdays Artist in Residency

Heidi N JA Martin

DC’s Legendary Jazz Club

Established in 1926 2001 11th ST NW - (202)299-0800

American Crooner Tour

Vinx

Quartet

Mad Curious B FE

Buster Williams &

Larry Willis

Thur Jan 8th

The

Young Lions

Fri & Sat

Fri & Sat th

Lenny Robinson

a Special Bohemian Caverns presentation

Jan 9 & 10

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Quamon Fowler Mat Mitchell & Ches Smith presented in conjunction w/ Transparent Productions

Sun Jan 11th

Jason Hwang’s SING HOUSE presented in conjunction w/ Transparent Productions

Sun Jan 18th

Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra

Jan 16th & 17th

Valentine’s DayWeekend Aaron “Ab” Abernathy w/ Nat Turner Fri Feb 13th

Loide Sat Feb 14th

Mondays @ 8pm

"This group is something special." ~ Mike West (CityPaper)

www.BohemianCaverns.com

34 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Voting ends March 1. washingtoncitypaper.com

Vote online and be eligible to win airline tickets to anywhere Turkish Airlines flies.

BEST OF 2015 OUT APRIL 9 Reserve Now! Call the advertising department to book your Best of D.C. ad today: 202-332-2100

CITYLIST Music

Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 0 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

SearCh LISTIngS aT waShIngTonCITYpaper.Com BluEs

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

Friday

BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Corey Harris. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com.

KAKI KING

Rock

madam’S oRgan 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. JP Blues. 10 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan.com.

Comet Ping Pong 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 364-0404. Galvanize, Bleached Bones, Rom. 10 p.m. $12. cometpingpong.com.

zoo BaR 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 2324225. Kiss and Ride Blues Band with Carly Harvey. 10 p.m. Free. zoobardc.com.

the hamilton 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Shartel and Hume. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc. com. Kaki King, Janel and Anthony. 7 p.m. $18–$53. thehamiltondc.com. Johnny & The Headhunters.

10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

Folk 9:30 ClUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Greensky Bluegrass, The Last Bison. 7 p.m. $20. 930.com.

RoCk & Roll hotel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. Incredible Change, Coup Sauvage and The Snips, Harness Flux, DJ Jazmine, DJ Average. 9 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

BaRnS at wolF tRaP 1645 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. San Fermin with Invoke String Quartet, White Hinterland. 8 p.m. $22. wolftrap.org.

Funk & R&B

WoRld

FillmoRe SilveR SPRing 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Black Alley, Ari Lennox, DJ Alizay, Kerim the DJ. 9 p.m. $25. fillmoresilverspring.com.

gw liSneR aUditoRiUm 730 21st St. NW. (202) 994-6800. Zap Mama, Antibalas. 8 p.m. $30–$50. lisner.org.

ElEctRonic howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Space Jesus & Freddy Todd, DELTAnine, Soohan. 11 p.m. $12.50–$15. thehowardtheatre.com.

U StReet mUSiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. DJ Tennis, Chris Nitti. 10 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

Jazz Bohemian CaveRnS 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Reginald Cyntje. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $20–$25. bohemiancaverns.com. twinS Jazz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Thad Wilson. 9 p.m. & 11 p.m. $15. twinsjazz.com.

Simon Shaheen oud & violin

Sat, Feb 7 at 8pm Sixth & I Historic Synagogue 600 I Street NW, Washington, D.C.

Calling Kaki King a guitarist does her a disservice. The post-rock composer and musician is a consummate performance artist who does things to her instrument most self-identified guitarists could never even imagine, much less replicate. In her latest project, “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body,” King sits onstage in total darkness, save for visuals projected onto the screen behind her and, with laser precision, onto her custom white Ovation Adamas guitar. Each song or movement King plays meshes perfectly with the projections—some look like particularly trippy iTunes visualizer themes; others are less abstract but equally mesmerizing, like hi-def videos of paint blobs blobbing about. There’s a narrative in there somewhere, but don’t try too hard to follow along. Just watch King’s deft, percussive picking and let the sounds of a true genius make you marvel at the capacity of six little strings in the right hands. Kaki King performs with Janel and Anthony at 8:30 p.m. at the Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. $18–$53. (202) 787-1000. thehamiltondc.com. —Christina Cauterucci

The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma Sun, Mar 1, 5pm Kennedy Center 2700 F Street NW, Washington, D.C.

Cristina Pato Sat, Mar 14, 8pm Sixth & I Historic Synagogue 600 I Street NW, Washington, D.C.

mUSiC CenteR at StRathmoRe 5301 Tuckerman Lane, Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Ladysmith Black Mambazo. 8 p.m. $28–$69. strathmore.org.

Hip-Hop howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Black Moon, Pharoahe Monch, DJ Zu. 7 p.m. $25–$50. thehowardtheatre.com.

classical kennedy CenteR ConCeRt hall 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra with Arabella Steinbacher. 8 p.m. $10–$85. kennedy-center.org.

Zakir Hussain Celtic Connections Tue, Mar 17, 8pm GW Lisner Auditorium 730 21st Street NW, Washington, D.C. Co-presented with GW Lisner Auditorium

TICKETS: WashingtonPerformingArts.org

(202) 785-9727

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 35

saturday Rock BetheSda BlUeS and Jazz 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Dream Discs. 8 p.m. $25. bethesdabluesjazz.com.

BlaCk Cat 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Harmonic Blue, Sunbathers, Atoka Chase, Sealab. 9 p.m. $10. blackcatdc.com. dC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Elliott Brood, Annie Stokes. 8:30 p.m. $10–$12. dcnine.com. gyPSy Sally’S 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. The Gladstones, The Jill Warren Band. 8 p.m. $10–$12. gypsysallys.com.

RoCk & Roll hotel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. The Duskwhales, Save The Arcadian, Dr. Robinson’s Fiasco, Cabin Creek. 8 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

Funk & R&B howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

4EY the future, The Kingz, ABM & AJA Cranknation.

12 p.m. $20–$30. thehowardtheatre.com. The Brencore Allstar Band. 8 p.m. $29.50–$60. thehowardtheatre.com.

ElEctRonic U StReet mUSiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Gigamesh, Slaptop, Lightwaves. 10 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

Jazz Bohemian CaveRnS 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Reginald Cyntje. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $20–$25. bohemiancaverns.com. kennedy CenteR teRRaCe galleRy 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Yard Byard. 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. $26–$32. kennedy-center.org. twinS Jazz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Thad Wilson. 9 p.m. & 11 p.m. $15. twinsjazz.com.

BluEs BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Corey Harris. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com. madam’S oRgan 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. Rico Amero. 7 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan.com.

James Armstrong. 10 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan.com.

Folk 9:30 ClUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Greensky Bluegrass, The Last Bison. 7 p.m. $20. 930.com.

Sixth & i hiStoRiC SynagogUe 600 I St. NW. (202) 408-3100. Erin McKeown, Maryleigh Roohan. 8 p.m. $15–$18. sixthandi.org.

Hip-Hop FillmoRe SilveR SPRing 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Shy Glizzy. 8 p.m. $37.50–$50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

Go-Go howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Team Familiar, EU with Sugar Bear, DJ AMP C. 11 p.m. $20–$25. thehowardtheatre.com.

CITY LIGHTS: SATURDAY

MARIINSKY BALLET Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” is so much easier heard than seen. The landmark piece of music, with its blaring horns, eerie winds, and heart-thumping timpani, turned 100 in 2013, and orchestras around the world have been performing it to celebrate. Too easily forgotten in austere concert halls is the ballet for which the music was commissioned: a reimagining of an ancient pagan sacrifice on the Russian steppes, as performed by those early 20th-century rogues, the Ballets Russes. Many choreographers—from international stars like Maurice Béjart to locals like Lucy Bowen McCauley—have since used the music to create “Rites” of their own, while the original was presumed forgotten. But in 1987, the art and dance historians Kenneth Archer and Millicent Hodson teamed up to reconstruct Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography and Nicholas Roerich’s costumes based on backstage photos, notes from scores, eyewitness accounts, and disparaging reviews.

At the Kennedy Center this week, Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet will perform its reconstruction along with two other works debuted by the Ballets Russes: “The Swan” and “The Spectre of the Rose.” Some argue that none of these works retain their shattering impact, but after seeing these ballets, you’ll better understand every dance that followed.

The Mariinsky Ballet performs Jan. 27 to Feb. 1 at the Kennedy Center Opera House, 2700 F St. NW. $30–$165. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org. —Rebecca J. Ritzel 36 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 37

---------3701 Mount Vernon Ave. Alexandria, VA • 703-549-7500

For entire schedule go to Birchmere.com Find us on Facebook/Twitter!

Tix @ Ticketmaster.com 800-745-3000

Jan 30

1811 14TH ST NW

marshall crenshaw

www.blackcatdc.com

and The Bottle rockets

@blackcatdc JAN/FEB SHOWS

31

Charles Ross’

Feb 4

place of purchase.

Minnies atDriver 5 the robert Cray band CANCELLED. Refund

6

THU 29 FRI 30

FILM SCREENING

SALAD DAYS

Reunion Show!

Pat McGee Band 10 CHRISETTE MICHELE 11 travis tritt 14 burlesque-a-pades in loveland!

FRI 30

PUNK ROCK KARAOKE

SAT 31

HARMONIC BLUE

SAT 31

BURLESQUE (21+)

CITY LIGHTS: SUNDAY

SUN 1

EVAN DANDO

Bonnie Bishop ‘Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Tour’

THU 5

PINKWASH

WHITE VIOLET

owen leighton meester Danoff tab benoit

FRI 6

PHASEPOCALYPSE NOW

FRI 6

MAGIC & SIDESHOW

SAT 7

PARQUET COURTS (SOLD OUT)

SAT 7

BUTCH QUEEN DANCE PARTY

SUN 8

FELLOW CREATURES

feat. The World Famous pontani sisters, angie pontani, Miss Tickle, Calamity Chang, Helen pontani, The Main attraction, Cherie Nuit and albert Cadabra!

RideRs in the sky

15 17

18 19

“Salute to Roy Rogers!”

Robert Earl Keen

keller williams

20 21

An Evening with

Don McLean 22 Stanley ClaRke 23 NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS & ANDERS OSBORNE PRESENT N.M.O. 24 Uriah heep (Rescheduled from 10/1/14. All 10/1 tickets honored on this new date.)

DC KINGS / DC GURLY SHOW / DJS

MON 9

26 &27

MIKE+THE MECHANICS Steve Poltz 28 NAJEE Mar 1 British invasion tour 2015 feat. Peter asher, Denny Laine, Chad & Jeremy. Billy J. Kramer, Mike Pender’s searchers, terry sylvester

Cindy BETH HART Alexander 4&5 GAELIC STORM 6&7 Rachelle FeRRell

2&3

8

ZOLA JESUS

Watch aWards 2015 Washington area community theater honors

jesse cook the Quebe 10 Asleep At the wheel sisters 11 An Evening with seth Avett & jessicA leA mAyfield 12 leo kottke The Far 13 DaVe alVIn & PhIl alVIn & The GuIlTy Ones west mid atlantic 14 Harmony sweepstakes regionals

WED 11

Second Night Added!

Tommy emmanuel 17 Marcus Miller 18

LIZ LONGLEY

Brian Wright

BROOKE FRASER SIDEKICKS

EVERY WEEKEND AT 7PM

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

TEN FORWARD SICK SAD WORLD A HAPPY HOUR "HAPPY" HOUR 1 STAR TREK:TNG TWO DARIA EP. PER WEEK

ROMULAN ALE SPECIALS

EPISODES PER WEEK MYSTIK SPIRAL DRINK SPECIALS

NOW OPEN!

9

16

(21+)

LUCKY CAT PINBALL

TAKE METRO!

WE ARE LOCATED 3 BLOCKS FROM THE U STREET/CARDOZO STATION

TO BUY TICKETS VISIT TICKETFLY.COM

38 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

2014 yielded a lot of great punk rock. An unintentional consequence of its popularity is that most indie rock now feels tame by comparison. You know that band Real Estate, full of New Jersey nerds who play rock so polite that your dad would love it? Yeah, it sounds like elevator music now. Still, there’s a part of us that craves indie rock’s clean, spare pop sounds, and the Athens, Ga., quartet White Violet provides just that. Its guitar sounds are crisp, yet there’s energy and power there, too, and it’s hard to shake. On its 2014 record Stay Lost, the band alternates between ballads and straightforward rock tunes, with vocal performances that are soulful and confessional in equal measure. Semicircle, another Athens band, rounds out the bill, so the evening at DC9 will educate listeners on how Southern rockers do it better. White Violet performs with Semicircle at 9 p.m. at DC9, 1940 9th St. NW. $10. (202) 483-5000. dcnine.com. —Alan Zilberman

classical kennedy CenteR ConCeRt hall 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra with Arabella Steinbacher. 8 p.m. $10–$85. kennedy-center.org.

sunday Rock

9:30 ClUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Asaf Avidan. 7 p.m. $25. 930.com.

BlaCk Cat BaCkStage 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Evan Dando, Sara Johnston. 8 p.m. $18–$20. blackcatdc.com.

tuesday Jazz

BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Tamara Wellons. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $20. bluesalley.com.

Bohemian CaveRnS 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 299-0800. Lenny Robinson. 7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m. $10–$15. bohemiancaverns.com.

Wednesday Rock

dC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. White Violet, Semicircle. 8:30 p.m. $10. dcnine.com.

9:30 ClUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Laura Tsaggaris, Justin Jones & the B-Sides. 7 p.m. $20. 930.com.

Funk & R&B

dC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Natalie Prass, Lady Lady. 8:30 p.m. $13–$15. dcnine.com.

howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Dwele, D. Carter. 8 p.m. $35–$70. thehowardtheatre.com.

Sixth & i hiStoRiC SynagogUe 600 I St. NW. (202) 408-3100. Kevin Devine, Into It. Over It., Laura Stevenson. 8 p.m. $15–$18. sixthandi.org.

Monday

ElEctRonic

Jazz

BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. The Brian Cunningham Project. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $20. bluesalley.com. kennedy CenteR millenniUm Stage 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Imani-Grace Cooper. 6 p.m.

Free. kennedy-center.org.

U StReet mUSiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. DJ Sliink, Enferno, James Nasty. 10 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

Jazz BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. EC3, Sol Edler. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com.

I.M.P. PRESENTS Merriweather Post Pavilion • Columbia, MD

JUST ANNOUNCED!

DARIUS RUCKER

THIS WEEK’S SHOWS ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Greensky Bluegrass w/ The Last Bison ............................................................... F 30

AN EVENING WITH

Asaf Avidan ...................................................................................................... Su FEB 1 Laura Tsaggaris vs. Justin Jones and the B-Sides

CD Release Party! ...................................................................................................... W 4 FEBRUARY

w/ Brett Eldredge • Brothers Osborne • A Thousand Horses .................................AUGUST 22 On Sale Friday, January 30 at 10am

Kix • Europe • Queensrÿche F lorida G eorGia l ine feat.

and more! ........ MAY 1 & 2

Two-day tickets on sale now. For a full lineup, visit m3rockfest.com

w/ Thomas Rhett & Frankie Ballard .........................................................MAY 9

U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

Viceroy w/ Phantoms ....................................................................................................... Th 5

DOCTOR DREAD PRESENTS

Bob Marley’s 70th Birthday Celebration featuring Third World • Jesse Royal • Roger Steffens • DJ Dub Architect ..................................F 6

DC MUSIC DOWNLOAD’S THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW FEATURING

Paperhaus (Album release show) • Loud Boyz • Baby Bry Bry and The Apologists • DJ AYESCOLD Early Show! 7pm Doors ............................ Sa 7

KENNY CHESNEY The Big Revival Tour 2015

w/ Jake Owen & Chase Rice .................................................................. MAY 27

FALL OUT BOY| WIZ KHALIFA

BOYS OF ZUMMER TOUR w/ Hoodie Allen & DJ Drama........................................................ JUNE 27

• merriweathermusic.com • 930.com

STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Borgeous w/ LooKas • LJ MTX • BORTZ Late Show! 11pm Doors ...................... Sa 7

AN EVENING WITH

Chris Robinson Brotherhood ..................................................................................... W11 Phox w/ Field Report........................................................................................................ Th 12 SpeakeasyDC’s Sucker for Love This is a seated show. Early Show! 6pm Doors.Sa 14 Mixtape: Alternative Dance Party with DJs Matt Bailer & Shea Van Horn

DAR Constitution Hall • Washington D.C. JUST ANNOUNCED!

Sufjan StevenS

Late Show! 11pm Doors ................................................................................................... Sa 14

Ticketmaster

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

JJ Grey and MOFRO w/ The London Souls .............................................................. W 18

Meyerhoff Symphony Hall • Baltimore, MD

AN EVENING WITH

Big Head Todd and the Monsters ........................................................................... Th 19

NIGHT ADDED! TWO NIGHTS SOLD OUT! THIRD Punch Brothers w/ Gaby Moreno ............................................................................. Su 22

Ariel Pink w/ Jack Name ..............................................................................................M 23 Echosmith w/ The Colourist ...................................................................................... Th 26

.................................................................................MAY 5

On Sale Friday, January 30 at 10am

Sarah McLachLan

AN EVENING WITH

...................................MARCH 15

Ticketmaster

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Railroad Earth

(F 27 - w/ Floodwood feat. Al Schnier and Vinnie Amico of moe.) .............. F 27 & Sa 28

MARCH Aesop Rock with Rob Sonic w/ DJ Abilities ........................................................... Su 1 Gang of Four w/ Public Access T.V. ........................................................................... Tu 3 Josh Abbott Band ......................................................................................................... W 4 Pat Green ........................................................................................................................ Th 5

Echostage • Washington, D.C.

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN

.......................................................................... JUNE 11

I NTERPO L ...............................................................................................JULY 28 2135 Queens Chapel Rd. NE • Ticketmaster

ALL GOOD PRESENTS THE ROAD TO DELFEST WITH

RFK Stadium • Washington, D.C.

The Travelin’ McCourys

featuring Billy Nershi and The Jeff Austin Band ..........................................................F 6 of Montreal w/ Yonatan Gat ..........................................................................................Sa 7

RuPaul’s Drag Race: Battle of the Seasons

hosted by Michelle Visage featuring Alaska 5000 • BenDeLaCreme • Darienne Lake and more! .............................................................................................. Su 8 The Church ....................................................................................................................... M 9 Jukebox the Ghost w/ Little Daylight & Secret Someones ................................. Tu 10 G. Love and Special Sauce w/ Matt Costa ............................................................. W 11

20th Anniversary Blowout!

Buddy Guy • Gary Clark Jr. • Heart • and more! ...................................... JULY 4, 2015 For full lineup, visit 930.com Ticketmaster

U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

Flight Facilities ................................................................................................................ F 13 Ryan Bingham & Lucero w/ Twin Forks ............................................................... Sa 14

1215 U Street NW, Washington, D.C.

STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Robin Schulz w/ Le Youth .............................................................................................. W 18

MANY MORE SHOWS ON SALE!

9:30 CUPCAKES

930.com

The best thing you could possibly put in your mouth Cupcakes by BUZZ... your neighborhood bakery in Alexandria, VA. | www.buzzonslaters.com

ADAM DEVINE w/ Adam Ray ............................................................FEBRUARY 21 DEMETRI MARTIN :

The Persistence of Jokes

Taping His New Comedy Special! Two Shows! 6pm & 9pm Doors ............................ MARCH 7

FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECOND

NIGHT ADDED!

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE .......................................................................... MARCH 28

9:30 CLUB PRESENTS AT U STREET MUSIC HALL The Project w/ His Dream of Lions &

Young Summer ..................................... F 20 Sub Radio Standard .........................Sa FEB 7 Kyle Kinane This is a seated show .......... Tu 24 JMSN w/ Rochelle Jordan & Abhi//Dijon..F 13 OCD: Moosh and Twist w/ Ground Up . W 25 Doomtree w/ Open Mike Eagle............ Sa 14 Wolf Alice............................................... F 27 Hundred Waters Theophilus London

w/ Mitski & Soft Cat .......................... F MAR 6 Pete Rock & Slum Village w/ HANiF ..Tu 10 Francisco The Man w/ Jackson Scott & Raindeer .................. W 18 Hermitude............................................. W 11

AN INTIMATE SOLO/ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCE BY

Citizen Cope .................................................................................. APRIL 9

LISA LAMPANELLI ............................................................................................ MAY 29 NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS ...................................................... JUNE 4 • thelincolndc.com •

U Street (Green/Yellow) stop across the street!

w/ FATHER & Doja Cat .......................... Su 15

• Buy advance tickets at the 9:30 Club box office

Tickets for 9:30 Club shows are available through TicketFly.com, by phone at 1-877-4FLY-TIX, and at the 9:30 Club box office.

9:30 CLUB BOX OFFICE HOURS are 12-7PM Weekdays & Until 11PM on show nights. 6-11PM on Sat & 6-10:30PM on Sun on show nights.

9:30 CUPCAKES The best thing you could possibly put in your mouth.

Cupcakes by BUZZ... your neighborhood bakery in Alexandria, VA. www.buzzbakery.com

PARKING: THE OFFICIAL 9:30 parking lot entrance is on 9th Street, directly behind the 9:30 club. Buy your advance parking tickets at the same time as your concert tickets!

HAPPY HOUR DRINK PRICES

AFTER THE SHOW AT THE BACK BAR!

930.com

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 39

THE BAD PLUS

J

A

N

U

A

R

DANCE NIGHT! ESSENCE - LADIES SPECIAL ADMISSION $1

F 30

LOCAL LEGENDS THE NIGHTHAWKS

SA 31

F

JAN 29

NEWMYER FLYER PRESENTS: A DREAM DISCS TRIPLE HEADER

E

B

R

U

A

R

Y

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6

JONATHAN EDWARDS

14TH ANNUAL

JAN 30

SAN FERMIN

BUDDY HOLLY TRIBUTE S8

WITH INVOKE STRING QUARTET

WHITE HINTERLAND

MARCELS, A SALUTE TO THE JUKEBOX GIANTS

VALENTINE’S DAY WEEKEND

GENERAL ADMISSION

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 14

THE DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA SPECIAL PERFORMANCE SUNDAY FEBRUARY 15

THE DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA

FEB 4 & 5

INTERNATIONAL GUITAR NIGHT

F 20

SOUND CONNECTION FEATURING MARQUISE & DJ NOEL

SA 21 JOE CLAIR COMEDY NIGHT (SHOWS AT 7P & 10P) WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 25

JUST ADDED

SPECIAL FILM SCREENING OF

“TOUCH THE WALL”

FEB 6

THE MONTROSE TRIO

F 27 THE FABULOUS HUBCAPS SA 28 TOM PRINCIPATO BAND

Jon Kimura Parker, Martin Beaver, and Clive Greensmith CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

M

A

R

C

H

SUNDAY MARCH 8

MIDGE URE

(SOLO ACOUSTIC) PLUS

FEB 7

BEAUSOLEIL AVEC MICHAEL DOUCET LAURA BENANTI

MARGOT MACDONALD

SU 15

GENERAL ADMISSION DANCE

NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

JUST ANNOUNCED FRIDAY, MARCH 20 & SATURDAY, MARCH 21

MAGGIE ROSE

FEB 13 & 14

SOLAS

7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD (240) 330-4500

SEE FULL SCHEDULE AT

WOLFTRAP.ORG

Two Blocks from Bethesda Metro/Red Line Free Parking on Weekends

40 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

twinS Jazz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Batida Diferente. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. twinsjazz.com.

BluEs

classical

mUSiC CenteR at StRathmoRe 5301 Tuckerman Lane, Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Wynton Marsalis Quintet, Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. 8 p.m. $35–$75. strathmore.org.

kennedy CenteR ConCeRt hall 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra with Vilde Frang. 7 p.m. $10–$85. kennedy-center.org.

classical

Y

TH 29 TONIGHT AT 8 PM!

twinS Jazz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. BSQ. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. twinsjazz.com.

kennedy CenteR ConCeRt hall 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Cameron Carpenter. 8 p.m. $15. kennedy-center.org.

thursday Rock BlaCk Cat BaCkStage 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Pinkwash, Puff Pieces, Sneaks. 8 p.m. $10. blackcatdc.com. dC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Great Good Fine Ok, Kristin Diable, The Walking Sticks. 8 p.m. $8–$13. dcnine.com. the hamilton 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Puddles Pity Party. 6:30 p.m. $25. thehamiltondc.com. howaRd theatRe 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899.

Midnite, Jah9. 9 p.m. $25–$60. thehowardtheatre.com.

Funk & R&B RoCk & Roll hotel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. Gully Waters, Nag Champa, Continue. 8 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

Jazz BlUeS alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 337-4141. Roy Ayers. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $45. bluesalley.com.

theater

BaSkeRville Tony-winning playwright Ken Ludwig takes advantage of the Sherlock Holmes craze and presents this comedic new take on The Hound of the Baskervilles, with five actors playing more than 40 roles. Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To Feb. 22. $55-$110. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

BeSSie’S BlUeS MetroStage revives this musical look at the 20th century, which won six Helen Hayes Awards when it debuted at Studio Theatre 20 years ago. Playwright Thomas W. Jones II directs and choreographs the production that tells the story of the blues from the perspective of singer Bessie Smith. MetroStage. 1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. To March 15. $55-$60. (703) 548-9044. metrostage.org.

ChoiR Boy When a prestigious boarding school for young African-American men falls on hard financial times, its acclaimed gospel choir feels the pressure.

The young man chosen to lead the group must decide whether that responsibility is worth ignoring his sexual orientation in this new musical story by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Feb. 22. $20-$78. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org. dUnSinane The Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Scotland present a limited engagement of David Greig’s dramatic sequel to Macbeth, in which one man attempts to restore peace to a ravaged nation. Sidney Harman Hall. 610 F St. NW. To Feb. 21. $20-$110. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

FRozen 10-year-old Rhona disappears and the actions of her mother and killer are followed over the next sev-

CITY LIGHTS: MONDAY

“HOW THE CIVIL WAR CHANGED WASHINGTON”

While the Civil War tore the nation in half just south of the District’s borders, it also paused building projects, like the Washington Monument (shown), and altered social and cultural patterns in D.C. Some remnants, like the forts (Reno, Totten, and Dupont, among many others), were turned into parks and still serve as reminders of the city’s transformation from defenseless town to fortified capital. D.C.’s demographics also changed during the war, when slaves walked off their owner’s plantations and joined the Union’s cause; surrounded by two slave states, the city got a population bump after the Emancipation Proclamation. The Anacostia Community Museum, which is located on the site of Fort Stanton, examines how the city evolved over time with maps and period photographs on the walls of its main gallery. Some aspects, like the rivers and Foggy Bottom’s streets, remain the same on contemporary maps, while neighborhood names like Swampoodle (present-day NoMa) and Uniontown (present-day Anacostia) remind viewers how much the District has changed in the past 150 years. The exhibition is on view daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., to Oct. 18, at the Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Place SE. Free. (202) 633-4820. anacostia.si.edu. —Caroline Jones

washingtoncitypaper.com JANUARY 30, 2015 41

Voting ends March 1.

HITTING NEWSTANDS APRIL 9

Vote online and be eligible to win airline tickets to anywhere Turkish Airlines flies.

$10 BURGER & BEER MON-FRI 4 P M -7 P M

TRIVIA EVERY M O N D AY & W E D N E S D AY

$3 PBR & NATTY BOH ALL DAY EVERY DAY

600 beers from around the world Downstairs: good food, great beer, $3 PBR & Natty Boh’s all day every day

*all shows 21+

F R I D AY, J A N 3 0 T H

AWKWARD SEX IN CITY

DOORS AT 7PM SHOW STARTS AT 9PM S A T U R D AY, J A N 3 1 S T

PORT CITY BAR CRAWL

12PM-6PM BEER & BURGER $10

JIM HENSON BURLESQUE

DOORS AT 8PM SHOW STARTS AT 10PM M O N D AY, F E B 2 N D

DISTRICT TRIVIA

DOORS AT 630PM TRIVIA STARTS AT 730PM T U E S D AY, F E B 3 R D

LAST RESORT COMEDY DOORS AT 730PM SHOW STARTS AT 830PM W E D N E S D AY, F E B 4 T H

CITY LIGHTS: TUESDAY

THE METROMANIACS The Metromaniacs is a play obscure enough to satisfy even the most alternative aesthetes. It’s based on La Métromanie, a 17th-century French comedy by Alexis Piron that, while considered a classic, has received very little attention in the English-speaking world until now. This version, translated and adapted by playwright David Ives, is the third in his series of updated French classics. The plot goes like this: Poet Damis becomes enamored with the writings of a mystery poet he comes to believe is his own daughter, Lucile. But in an Oldboy-tier surprise, it’s not Lucile’s work; it’s actually the poetry of a middle-aged man named Francalou, who wants to use the misdirection to distance Lucile from the son of his bitter rival. The play is also rife with 17th-century jokes, scheming servants, pseudonyms, and disguises. That might sound complex, but rest assured that the intertwined plots and fiery feuds will come untied by evening’s end. The play runs Feb. 3 to March 8 at the Lansburgh Theatre, 450 7th St. NW. $20–$100.

(202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org. —Tim Regan

PERFECT LIARS CLUB TRIVIA WITH DAMION WOLFE

STARTS AT 730PM VICTORY BEER TAP TAKEOVER STARTING AT 6PM,WE WILL BE POURING DIRTWOLF, HOP RANCH, PRIMA PILS, GOLDEN MONKEY T H U R S D AY, F E B 5 T H

UNDERGROUND COMEDY DOORS OPEN AT 730 SHOW STARTS 830PM F R I D AY, F E B 6 T H

LATIN ROCK BANDS SHOW AT 730PM

1523 22nd St NW – Washington, DC 20037 (202) 293-1887 - www.bierbarondc.com @bierbarondc.com for news and events

42 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

eral years by psychiatrists. Delia Taylor directs this production of Bryony Lavery’s script. Anacostia Playhouse.

2020 Shannon Place SE. To March 1. $25-$35. (202) 544-0703. anacostiaplayhouse.com. gigi Acclaimed screenwriter Heidi Thomas presents a re-envisioned take on Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical about a young women and a wealthy playboy who fall in love in Belle Époque Paris. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. 2700 F St. NW. To Feb. 12. $45-$135. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org. halF-liFe In this zombie-inspired work of physical theater, a car accident survivor wanders through life resembling an undead person and must handle the perceptions of others while she recovers. Flashpoint Mead Theatre Lab. 916 G St. NW. To Feb. 22. $10-$20.

(202) 315-1306. culturaldc.org.

hoUSe oF deSiReS In this play written in the 17th century by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, four characters squabble over mistaken identities and failed romances.

Director Hugo Medrano sets his version in 1940s Mexico and incorporates mariachi music into this farce that considers the will of women during a period when they were subjected to a strict moral code. GALA Hispanic Theatre. 3333 14th St. NW. To March 1. $20-$50.

(202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org. laSt oF the whyoS A gang leader in 1880s New York travels 100 years into the future to confront his future self in this mysterious and cinematic play. Rebecca Holderness returns to Spooky Action to direct this play by Barbara Wiechmann. Spooky Action Theater.

1810 16th St. NW. To March 1. $10-$35. (301) 9201414. spookyaction.org.

the lieUtenant oF iniShmoRe When the black cat of a mad Irish liberation fighter is killed, his neighbors try to replace it without his knowledge. But when they wind up with an orange cat instead, the thoughtful couple has to contend with a world of machine guns and terrorism. Matthew R. Wilson directs Martin McDonagh’s dark but gleeful comedy. Constellation Theatre at Source. 1835 14th St. NW. To March 8. $20-$45. (202) 204-7741. constellationtheatre.org. liFe SUCkS (oR the PReSent RidiCUloUS) Aaron Posner plays with the plot of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in this new work about a gorgeous, misunderstood woman, a homely girl, and a man searching the depths of his soul to understand his failings. Theater J. 1529 16th St. NW. To Feb. 15. $25-$65. (202) 518-9400. theaterj.org.

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN In the modern quest to “have it all,” can women avoid coveting what they lack?

Please, please, let someone other than rich tech executives weigh in on this eternal question. Playwright Gina Gionfriddo (who also authored Becky Shaw, performed to great acclaim at Round House two seasons ago) immerses herself in the quandary in Rapture, Blister, Burn, a 2013 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

When two graduate school friends encounter each other after post-collegiate life took them in divergent directions, they feel they must each defend their choices while staring off into the other’s seemingly greener grass. Catherine, a successful professor and pundit, can’t help but wonder what she’s missed by staying single and childless when faced with her old flame Don, the one that got away and married her old friend Gwen. Gwen, while taking a course taught by Catherine, wrestles with her choice to give up career ambitions for family life. Gionfriddo tells the story of two modern women whose frustrations feel extremely familiar. Just don’t lean in too close to Round House’s intimate stage.

The play runs Jan. 28 to Feb. 22 at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. $10–$50. (240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org. —Diana Metzger

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ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE ®

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

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maRy StUaRt Holly Twyford and Kate Eastwood Norris star in this new production of Frederick Schiller’s play that chronicles the final days and death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Folger Elizabethan Theatre. 201 E. Capitol St. SE. To March 8. $40-$75. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu. the metRomaniaCS Alexis Piron’s classic farce involves poets, pseudonyms, disguises, and many intertwining relationships. Shakespeare Theatre Company presents the play as part of its ReDiscovery Series.

Lansburgh Theatre. 450 7th St. NW. To March 8. $20-$100. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org. othello WSC Avant Bard presents a new production of Shakespeare’s tale of love, hate, and jealousy, the only major tragedy by the Bard that the troupe hasn’t performed. Theatre on the Run. 3700 S. Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington. To March 1. $30-$35. (703) 2281850. arlingtonarts.org.

RaPtURe, BliSteR, BURn After meeting in graduate school, Catherine and Gwen pursued opposite life paths, with Catherine becoming an academic and Gwen becoming a wife and mother. Gina Gianfriddo’s comedy explores what happens decades later, when they start to covet each other’s lives. Round House Theatre Bethesda. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda.

To Feb. 22. $10-$50. (240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org.

ing her husband’s assassination. Ford’s Theatre. 511 10th St. NW. To Feb. 22. $35-$62. (202) 347-4833. fordstheatre.org.

FilM BlaCk oR white Elliot might lose custody of his n beloved granddaughter. Starring Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer, and Gillian Jacobs. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) Sea A recently laid off submarine captain n BlaCk takes some of his old crew on a dangerous mission to retrieve gold from a sunken Nazi vessel. Starring Jude Law. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) the loFt Five married men secretly share a n penthouse loft, engaging in affairs or whatever else they please. One day, they find the body of a dead woman they don’t recognize. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) A widow struggles to raise her vion mommy lent son. Written and directed by Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats). (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

the temPeSt Taffety Punk presents another allfemale Shakespeare production as part of its Riot Grrrls series. Company member Lise Bruneau tells the story of an overthrown duke and a mysterious monster in this new version of Shakespeare’s magical company.

Taffety Punk at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. 545 7th St. SE. To Feb. 28. $15. (202) 261-6612. taffetypunk.com.

they want. Soon enough, bad things start happening.

(See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

the widow linColn James Still’s world premiere play chronicles Mary Lincoln’s life in the weeks follow-

Film clips are written by Reese Higgins.

PRoJeCt almanaC A group of outcast teenagn ers builds a time machine and use it to get what

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Luce Unplugged Community Showcase Friday, February 6 6-8pm Explore thousands of artworks and enjoy music from D.C. groups lowercase letters and Art Sorority for Girls. Port City Brewing offers a free tasting (21 and older).

Cash bar. Presented with Washington City Paper. Bands selected with the help of Arts Editor Christina Cauterucci and Washington City Paper arts writers. Free!

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Smithsonian American Art Museum • 8th and G Streets, NW • Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. • AmericanArt.si.edu • Free

44 JANUARY 30, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITY LIGHTS: THURSDAY

JAH9 Young Jamaican singer, poet, and community organizer Jah9 quickly developed a following among roots reggae fans with her 2013 debut album, New Name. The title track’s spiritual references to King Rastafari and the Lion of Judah, along with the island’s traditional loping rhythm, is standard for the genre. But this Baptist minister’s daughter gives listeners much more: her melodic voice, varied cadence, and distinctive instrumental touches provided by producers like the acclaimed Rory “Stone Love” Gilligan. The soulful “Mr. Right” offers a subtle flavoring of flute, while “Preacher Man” endears with its jazzy piano, Baptist church organ, and echoed dub bass. It all helps Jah9, born Janine Cunningham, transcend the platitudinous phrasing she sometimes pens. Thanks to a sweet yet strong delivery she developed with Jamaican crooning legend Beres Hammond, lyrics like “your only limitation is your imagination” and “tap into the potential of your mind,” sound convincing, not cheesy, welcoming the audience into her world. Jah9 performs with Midnite at 9 p.m. at the Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. $25–$60. (202) 803-2899. thehowardtheatre.com. —Steve Kiviat

WEIGHTLIFTERS

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13 Magnetic induction units 18 Opens up at the dentist 22 Comic Barinholtz on “The Mindy Project” 24 Grains in breakfast cereals 25 Old ___ (like orthopedic shoes and lace handkerchiefs) 29 ___ Taylor (clothing store) 31 Stories follow them 32 Salmon variety 33 Disables a security camera, perhaps 35 1983 arcade eater 36 With 46-Down, Ryan Gosling’s better half 37 “After the break,” in TV lingo 38 Wars of the Roses monarch 40 WWII commander also known as “The Desert Fox” 41 Web forums’ ancestor 42 Long, narrow inlet 44 “___ of the Jedi” 45 Hard pressed?

46 See 36-Down 49 Mournful bell toll 51 Composed 53 “Shane” star Alan 54 Loud explosion 57 Monkey house spot 58 Was on a November ticket

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1 Actress Kunis 5 Dictator’s order 9 “___ Go” (“Frozen” showstopper) 14 Years of Spanish class 15 Have a sore spot?

16 OTC analgesic 17 Weightlifter working on his legs?

19 Wild West legend ___ Bill 20 “The Audacity of Hope” family 21 Weightlifter working on his biceps?

23 NBA executive Pat 24 “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright” poet 26 Lost GI 27 Feast day figs.

28 “Pretty Little Liars” writer Shepard 30 Gets the word out?

32 Country with a territory that uses polar bear-shaped license plates 34 In medias ___

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35 Weightlifter who is working on his presses?

38 Abbr. for a king or queen 39 Utensils used with pastas 40 Fix a drink order with a bad head 43 Record label for Big Star 44 Meniscus’s spot 47 ___ rampage (tearing) 48 Some turban wearers 50 “To know my deed, ___ best not know myself”: Macbeth 52 Weightlifter who lifts barbells to his shoulders?

54 “Big Eyes” director 55 “Dude!”

56 Weightlifter who keeps track of how much he lifts?

59 Carefully avoid 60 Student ___ debt 61 Fairway obstacle 62 Big name in chocolate 63 Like verbose writing 64 Parts of bread often the last to be eaten

Down

1 AAA player’s goal, with “The” 2 “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

3 Townies 4 “I know everything!”

5 Wikis alternatives 6 RN’s room 7 Word said with a finger sanp 8 Bright aquarium fish 9 Thirsty dog, say 10 Household util.

11 Shawnee chief in the War of 1812 12 Piano, slangily

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ®

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Last Week: 2014 Manspreading S C A L P S

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