Washington City Paper (February 1, 2019)

CITYPAPER WASHINGTON

FREE VOLUME 39, NO. 5 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM FEB. 1-7, 2019

LOSING

NEWS: CHARTER SCHOOL LEADERS GET RICH 7 FOOD: THE CHEFS WHO FED FURLOUGHED FEDS 16 ARTS: DEAF MOVIEGOERS FIGHT FOR CAPTIONS 18

PATIENTS At the cusp of the opioid crisis, the District rolled out a promising initiative to connect those most at risk of overdose to addiction treatment. Why did the program disappear? P. 12

By Joshua Kaplan

Jazz Jason Moran

Artistic Director

Archie Shepp

NEA Jazz Master

The Human Journey

Crossroads Club

featuring Jason Moran

Friday, March 15 at 7 p.m.

Terrace Theater

Saturday, March 16 at 9 p.m.

Atrium

The New Orleans–born trumpeter, pianist, singer, and composer presents his signature BAM, “Black American Music,” exploring art beyond the confines of genre classification, with pieces from his ambitious 2017 album that fuses the musical traditions of his Louisiana hometown with bebop, swing, blues, and soul, all rooted in the rhythms of Africa.

Drummer Nate Smith is joined by neo-soul singer/songwriter Van Hunt for Smith’s first solo project—a fresh and restless urban pop/ jazz hybrid that will have everyone in the Crossroads Club grooving easy. All tickets are general admission—standing room only.

Archie Shepp’s All-Star Tribute to John Coltrane Sunday, February 10 at 8 p.m.

Concert Hall In this momentous concert event, Shepp celebrates the boundless impact and talent of his good friend and mentor. He’s joined by pianist and Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Jason Moran and other contemporary greats, including Amir ElSaffar, Darryl Hall, Nasheet Waits, and Marion Rampal.

Kennedy-Center.org (202) 467-4600

2 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Nicholas Payton: Nate Smith + Afro-Caribbean KINFOLK with Van Hunt Mixtape

Part of The Human Journey exploration: Kennedy-Center.org/HumanJourney

Groups call (202) 416-8400

For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540.

INSIDE

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COVER STORY: LOSING PATIENTS

12 A pilot program to treat opioid overdoses was successful in 2015.

Three years later, city workers still wonder why it hasn’t been revived.

DISTRICT LINE 4 Housing Complex: The story of a Ward 8 business owner who tried, and failed, to win a contract for work on D.C.’s newest arena 6 Loose Lips: Violence prevention efforts spark emotional responses from residents and councilmembers.

7 Apple for the Administrator: Charter school administrators bring in big bucks, while charter teachers work for low wages.

9 It’s Time for the Answers Issue: Ask us your questions online or over the phone.

SPORTS 10 Breaking the Ice: Capitals’ tough guy Brooks Orpik loosens up off the ice.

11 Gear Prudence

FOOD 16 Well Fed: Chefs, bartenders, and community members come together to feed furloughed federal workers.

DARROW MONTGOMERY 1200 BLOCK OF 6TH STREET NE, JAN.28

ARTS 18 To Be Scene: The fight for more open caption film screenings comes to the D.C. Council.

19 Short Subjects: Olszewski on Hale County This Morning, This Evening 20 News You Can Lose: Bidding farewell to the Newseum’s self-indulgent exhibits 21 Theater: Klimek on Arena Stage’s Kleptocracy and Ford’s Theatre’s Twelve Angry Men

CITY LIST 23 Music 26 Theater 28 Film

DIVERSIONS 29 Savage Love 30 Classifieds 31 Crossword On the cover: Illustration by Stephanie Rudig

EDITORIAL

EDITOR: ALEXA MILLS MANAGING EDITOR: CAROLINE JONES ARTS EDITOR: MATT COHEN FOOD EDITOR: LAURA HAYES SPORTS EDITOR: KELYN SOONG CITY LIGHTS EDITOR: KAYLA RANDALL LOOSE LIPS REPORTER: MITCH RYALS HOUSING COMPLEX REPORTER: MORGAN BASKIN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: DARROW MONTGOMERY MULTIMEDIA AND COPY EDITOR: WILL WARREN CREATIVE DIRECTOR: STEPHANIE RUDIG CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: MICHON BOSTON, KRISTON CAPPS, CHAD CLARK, RACHEL M. COHEN, RILEY CROGHAN, JEFFRY CUDLIN, EDDIE DEAN, ERIN DEVINE, CUNEYT DIL, TIM EBNER, CASEY EMBERT, JONATHAN L. FISCHER, NOAH GITTELL, SRIRAM GOPAL, HAMIL R. HARRIS, LAURA IRENE, LOUIS JACOBSON, CHRIS KELLY, STEVE KIVIAT, CHRIS KLIMEK, PRIYA KONINGS, JULYSSA LOPEZ, NEVIN MARTELL, KEITH MATHIAS, PABLO MAURER, BRIAN MCENTEE, BRIAN MURPHY, NENET, TRICIA OLSZEWSKI, EVE OTTENBERG, MIKE PAARLBERG, PAT PADUA, JUSTIN PETERS, REBECCA J. RITZEL, ABID SHAH, TOM SHERWOOD, MATT TERL, SIDNEY THOMAS, DAN TROMBLY, JOE WARMINSKY, ALONA WARTOFSKY, JUSTIN WEBER, MICHAEL J. WEST, DIANA MICHELE YAP, ALAN ZILBERMAN

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DISTRICTLINE Preference Pointless

A Ward 8 business owner says he lost a construction bid for the Entertainment and Sports Arena despite a “preference points” system meant to help local companies.

Calvin Reid did everything he was supposed to.

The 59-year-old has lived in Shaw for over three decades. Formerly a schematics engineer for General Electric, Reid founded a D.C.based steel fabrication company in 1996, Atlas Manufacturing Company, Inc., and it grew into something he was proud of.

Since the mid-2000s, Reid has operated his company out of a two-story rowhouse on Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE in Ward 8 ’s C o n g r e s s Heights. At its peak, Reid says his company employed over 30 workers, many of whom stuck beside him for a decade or more. Photo collages of his family hang on the white doors of his office, which is stuffed with leather-bound books and filing cabinets.

The building is a 25-minute walk from the neighborhood’s brand new Entertainment and Sports Arena, a 4,200-seat, $69 million stadium that will serve as the Washington Wizards’ practice court and opened to much acclaim last fall. Construction of the arena was intended to help businesses like Reid’s—home-grown, locally operated, and run by people of color, or other minority groups.

Last week, City Paper reported that District officials exaggerated claims about the extent to which businesses based in wards 7 and 8 financially benefited from the development of that arena. While they claimed that $10 million in contracts were awarded to companies based east of the Anacostia River— an amount equal to roughly one out of every seven dollars spent on the project—City Paper discovered that over $6 million of those dollars actually went to businesses primarily based in the more affluent Ward 3, if not outside D.C. altogether.

It’s an all-too-common loophole in the District’s Certified Business Enterprise system, a mechanism by which D.C. awards “preference points” to locally operated busi-

HOUSING COMPLEX

nesses during the contract procurement phase of a project. Entities that want to buy or develop D.C. property must subcontract 35 percent of the project’s adjusted budget to CBEs, with certain projects setting more rigorous, hyperlocal hiring goals.

Getting a leg up in contract bidding for a project in, for example, Ward 8, can be as simple as cheaply renting a cubicle from a shared office in Ward 8. “It’s easy to stand back and say, ‘Oh, we want more participation from minority- owned and small businesses,’” Reid says, “but it’s a three-card show game. It’s about who’s participating versus who’s actually benefiting.”

Atlas was CBE certified for over 20 years.

But after years of working on high-visibility, high-value District projects, like St. Elizabeths Hospital, the Cardozo Education Campus, and the Petworth Neighborhood Library, Reid says he can’t afford to stay in business anymore.

Merely “participating” became too financially draining. And the deciding blow against Atlas, as Reid tells it, was the Entertainment and Sports Arena.

As early as October of 2016, Reid expressed concerns about the management of the project in an email to architect Michael Marshall. Two development companies, Smoot Construction and and Gilbane Build-

4 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

B&B Floor Services’ alleged office at 3215 MLK Jr. Ave. SE

Darrow Montgomery

By Morgan Baskin

ing Company, were to jointly serve as ESA’s general contractor. That strategy “always seems to manifest a few jobs for some, but rarely provides an economic boost to other existing businesses in this city,” Reid wrote, according to a copy of the email he provided to City Paper.

Despite those reservations, he submitted a

bid for structural steel work on the arena. He lost, and is still smarting from it. The winning bid went to SteelFab, a structural steel fabricator with headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, and 14 other locations across the American Southeast. (City Paper asked the offices of Brian Kenner, the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development,

DISTRICTLINE and the Department of Small and Local Business Development, the agency that runs D.C.’s CBE certification program, for a comment on why SteelFab received the contract over Atlas.

They declined to submit one.)

Coupled with other financial losses over the year—Reid estimates that he’s owed about $2 million in back pay since 2007 from working overtime on District projects that his company wasn’t reimbursed for––missing out on the ESA contract made it nearly impossible to keep his company financially solvent. Reid compares owning a small construction business in D.C. to being “the hamster on the wheel,” constantly scrambling for new contracts just to compensate for losses on old ones.

Now, he says, “I’m not doing that anymore.”

He has laid off dozens of employees, many of whom were Ward 8 residents making between $40,000 and $60,000 annually, and had worked with Atlas for over a decade.

SteelFab is far from the only company based outside of D.C. hired to work on the arena. (Greg O’Dell, Events DC’s president, told City Paper last week that around 60 percent of companies hired to work on the arena were CBEs. Events DC is the publicly subsidized facility management company that operates RFK Stadium and the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, and will now run ESA.) City Paper identified four CBEs headquartered outside the wards in which they achieved their CBE certification. Three of those businesses claim to operate in either ward 7 or 8: Saxon Collaborative Construction, LLC, which won a $4.7 million contract on the ESA; JJ Prime Services, which won $1.7 million; B&B Floor Services, which won about $300,000; and Global Engineering Solutions, which received a nearly $150,000 contract.

(In 2017, D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson sent a letter to Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, copying Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, detailing the results of an investigation into a single-family home at 3215 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE where about 30 companies claimed to operate a business. One of those businesses is B&B Floor Services. Patterson noted that B&B’s self-reported rent payments on tax returns filed between 2012 and 2014 are inconsistent with each other and with the rent listed on its commercial lease agreement. “These apparent rent discrepancies also may indicate that a particular company was not actually operating out of 3215 MLK,” she wrote at the time.)

Kristi Whitfield, the director of DSLBD— the D.C. department responsible for processing and approving CBE certification applications—tells City Paper that “I think it’s easy to focus on the frustrations that people might have, and the risk is that you overlook

the good it’s doing. I think that the last year, the government procured over $820 million of CBE [contracts], and so I think it’s hard to say that a program isn’t working. I think that like any big program, we can work to make sure the spirit and intent of the law is being considered.”

City Paper asked Whitfield whether the $820 million figure accurately represents the scope of contracts awarded to locally-owned and operated businesses if some of those CBEs don’t actually have headquarters in the District. In response, Whitfield says that there are “conceptions ... that this is supposed to be a race—some contemplation of race or gender, which is not the test of CBEs.” (It’s true that prospective applicants don’t have to be people of color or women to apply, but Marion Barry, who was mayor when the CBE program was created in the late 1970s, reportedly told senior staff to “direct more city contracts to black-owned companies.” The CBE program predates DSLBD by over 20 years.)

Referring to the businesses City Paper wrote about, including Saxon Collaborative—which made nearly $5 million from the ESA and has a secondary office in Anacostia––Whitfield says that “having more than one location should be seen as a good thing, because there’s more investment in different places. We’re looking for fraud. … If a business is working in two places in the city, it’s harder to see that as a problem to me.”

City Paper then asked Whitfield how she responds to comments made by Saxon president Adam Sacks that his company has struggled to find staff willing to work in Ward 8 because of safety concerns. “There were other things that business said that made me recoil … what he said was abhorrent [about] communities east of river,” she says. “I didn’t appreciate that comment. It’s difficult to sort of be defending him, but I know that when our team went there, that he was there and high level managers were there.” (Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie has suggested conducting random spot-checks of businesses registered as CBEs to ensure compliance with the program’s requirements.)

Whitfield also tells City Paper that she cannot immediately think of specific changes she would like to make to the CBE program. “Let me not just glibly shout off something,” she says.

In the meantime, Reid, the Ward 8 business owner, says operations like his are struggling.

“I couldn’t do it anymore, after 15, 20 years,” Reid says. “It was so oppressive, it just makes you want to die.” Atlas was CBE certified between 1996 and 2018, but Reid finally let his certification lapse when it expired last October. “It did not improve my condition when I was certified,” he says. I have the ulcer to prove it.”

CP

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washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 5

DISTRICTLINE Everyone Chill

D.C.’s new violence intervention programs are earning respect in neighborhoods, though community discussions can get heated.

By Mitch Ryals Emotions ran high in a room full of people who gathered last December to talk about the spike in homicides in D.C. The District ended 2018 with 160 murders, a 38 percent increase from 2017, though violent crime overall fell by 7 percent, according to Metropolitan Police Department statistics. The steady pop of gunfire and fallen bodies have continued into 2019 with 18 homicides this year. Four people were fatally shot just last weekend.

The December meeting at the R.I.S.E. Demonstration Center in Southeast was an opportunity for residents to learn what city leaders are doing to address the issue. It was also an opportunity to vent.

One mother talked about recently losing her son to a gun homicide, those in attendance tell LL. Another woman talked about losing multiple family members to gun violence. They were there because their loved ones could not be.

“It was heart wrenching,” says Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie.

Darrell Gaston, a recently re-elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Ward 8, came with the death of his godson, Gerald Watson, fresh on his mind. The 15-yearold Anacostia High School student was shot 17 times in an apartment building stairwell in Southeast in mid-December. Police have arrested at least one suspect, and are still searching for at least one more.

Gaston fired questions at the officials in the room. He wanted to know what “deliverables” the community could expect from a pilot program aimed at reducing violence that started in the Office of the Attorney General, and what the money for the program went to.

Soon, Gaston found himself in an escalated exchange with Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White. As Gaston tells it, White suggested that if Gaston wanted to keep running his mouth, then “we can go outside.” “So I said ‘OK, we’ll go outside,’” Gaston says now. He got up and walked outside. White did not follow, Gaston says.

White denies Gaston’s version of events,

Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White

Darrow Montgomery/File

LOOSE LIPS

and in a text message to LL, he says it was Gaston who suggested they step outside.

(The councilmember has also lost loved ones to gun violence.)

“Video from that night that showed Gaston provoked the situation by asking me to come outside,” White writes in the text. “It’s funny that he says the opposite. He wants to run for Ward 8 Council for the 3rd time so you will hear a lot of lies and altered truths to fit his narrative because I’m in the way of his dream that will never happen.” (White did not agree to an interview to discuss his ideas for violence prevention, but in a text asked why all of LL’s articles about him are negative: “You never call or email about my legislation or when I gave to 700 kids in the cold,” he writes.)

McDuffie, who was sitting next to White during the meeting, notes that White ultimately apologized, and given the difficult topic of conversation, the meeting was productive.

“In the context of the topic of gun violence that clearly was something some of the residents were experiencing very recently, I think it was an unfortunate interaction,” McDuffie says. “But I also think it progressed beyond the initial interaction with Councilmember White apologizing to everyone.”

The irony of two community leaders inviting a potentially violent confrontation, and then jumping at that invitation, was not lost on

6 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

others in the room that night. White’s critics say the situation is an example of his tendency to go on the defensive when people question him. Those sharp elbows are more befitting an activist than a councilmember, they say. Gaston’s critics point to his minor criminal record (both charges were dismissed after he completed community service), and they say he actually walked outside. thE pilot violEncE prevention program that Gaston and others discussed that night is known in D.C. as Cure the Streets. It’s modeled after the Cure Violence program, which takes a public health approach to violent crime, treating it as an infectious disease.

The model has shown success in reducing violent crime in cities across the country including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.

D.C.’s pilot program was born out of a conversation between White, McDuffie, and Attorney General Karl Racine after last year’s tragic Memorial Day weekend in which 10 people were shot, four fatally. Three of the deaths were in Ward 8.

White’s 17-year-old cousin was among three additional people shot in Southeast the day after Memorial Day, the Washington Post reported at the time, and White called an emergency meeting.

The Council then passed emergency legisla-

tion that dedicated $360,000 to establish the AG’s pilot program and fund it through September. That money was spent almost entirely on salaries for the staff, the AG’s office says. Racine later found more funding in his own budget to keep the program alive through January.

Racine says the program in D.C. focuses on two areas that are among the most violent neighborhoods in the city, according to crime stats.

The first includes Trinidad in Ward 5; the second includes Congress Heights and Washington Highlands in Ward 8.

One key component of the program is the work of “violence interrupters,” who are actively on the ground looking for potential conflicts and squashing them before they escalate. Their job, generally, is to keep the peace.

They organize block parties, service days, and “safe passage walks” to schools, but they also hold formal mediations between groups with active beefs, Racine says. Many interrupters have served time in prison, sold drugs, or grew up surrounded by violence.

The AG gathered with the mayor and the Council to discuss violence prevention strategies earlier this week during their monthly breakfast.

Racine gave updates on his pilot program and threw out very early numbers showing a handful of shootings and zero homicides in the neighborhoods where his program is focused. Those numbers are encouraging, he says.

McDuffie urged the AG’s office and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which also deploys violence interrupters on a city-wide basis, to coordinate.

“The work that you all are doing and that Attorney General Racine is doing, it’s essentially the same thing,” McDuffie says. “It’s based on the Cure Violence model.”

In a conversation with LL, the AG pushes back on the notion that his program is in competition with the mayor’s office. He says a strength of his program is the intense focus on small areas.

During the breakfast discussion, White praised the work done by violence interrupters in general and strongly suggested the city should hire more people to do that work.

“There’s been several nights when I hear gunshots, and it sounds like we’re in a third world country like Baghdad, 30, 40, 50 rounds back to back,” White says. “In fact I heard it last weekend. One of the young guys, Travis, died as a result of that.”

Racine is now anxiously waiting to hear about another potential $2 million from a private donor, which would fund his program until July 2020.

“Certainly in these meetings and other meetings it’s quite natural for us to be critical sometimes of each other about what we can do more of,” Racine says during the breakfast meeting. “But there’s no doubt that the momentum is in the direction of a purely holistic and thorough approach.”

CP

DISTRICTLINE Apple for the Administrator

tion,’” Levy says. “It makes a big difference if anyone actually uses the data. Then the people who are submitting the information tend to be more careful.”

Tomeika Bowden, the spokesperson for the DC Public Charter School Board, confirmed that her organization does not collect any additional information on charter teacher pay.

City Paper asked the State Board of Education if it had ever tried to learn the salaries of D.C. charter school teachers. “The SBOE has not requested that information because it does not fall within the purview of the Board’s work,” answered John-Paul Hayworth, the board’s Executive Director. When pressed on how that squares with the SBOE’s focus on teacher retention, Hayworth said the State Board generally avoids making recommendations on hiring practices, including contract length, performance assessments, and salaries. While the board might recommend that schools report the overall expenditure on teachers in a school, Hayworth added, it “wouldn’t request individual-level information.”

D.C. charter administrators have some of the highest school salaries in town; their teachers, some of the lowest.

By Rachel M. Cohen Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School

Darrow Montgomery/File

Liz Koenig has been working in D.C. charter schools for seven years, and at the same charter for the last five. She used to be a lawyer. “My first-year salary as a teaching assistant was less than my year-end bonus as an attorney, which blew my mind,” she recalls.

When Koenig took her current teaching job, she didn’t know anything about her charter’s salary schedule, other than what she had been offered to start. In the middle of her third year, she asked HR if she could review her school’s pay scale, because she was trying to figure out how her salary might increase if she obtained additional teaching credentials.

“I’ve always been interested in getting a master’s in dual-language teaching for ELL [English language learner] students, or a master’s in curriculum and instruction of literacy, but I’m a mother of two kids, and before I take that leap, I wanted to understand what I could expect to earn at my school if I did get those credentials,” she says. “I can’t take on any more debt. I still have debt from law school I’m paying off.”

But Koenig was denied that information, as are most charter teachers in D.C. “There are 120 schools but you can’t just call them up and learn their salary schedules,” she says. “It puts us in a position where we can’t make informed choices about where we work. Charter schools are free markets for all the parents and kids, but screw those teachers.”

Koenig says if she leaves her school, she’ll probably head to DC Public Schools, “where at least I’ll have the transparency.” Even without getting extra credentials, Koenig estimates she could be earning about $15,000 more right now in DCPS. D.C. is nationally noted for its above-average teaching salaries—the minimum starting rate for a full-time DCPS educator is $56,313, and the average DCPS teacher earned over $76,400 in the 2016-17 school year. But publicly available information about D.C. charter school salaries is surprisingly scant. And unlike DCPS, charter schools are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

This past fall, the State Board of Education released a report on teacher retention in D.C. schools, prepared by Mary Levy, an independent budget analyst. As part of her research, Levy combed through the annual reports published by each individual charter school organization, where, in addition to publishing information about teacher attrition, most schools also report their minimum, maximum, and average teacher salary. The DC Public Charter School Board requests charters report this information, but does not require it, and so some charters, like DC Prep and Washington Global, decline to provide the

salary data.

Still, using what information she could find, Levy estimated the average D.C. charter school teacher salary in the 2016-17 school year amounted to $60,499.

Yet she has reason to question the precision of these self-reported figures. When Levy was compiling data for her SBOE report, she found that most of the charter schools that reported attrition of over 50 percent in fact had far less. “What that says is there’s an assumption that nobody would look at these annual reports, and whoever filled it out apparently confused the words ‘attrition’ with ‘reten-

Though charTer Teachers earn much less than their DCPS counterparts, administrative pay in the charter sector has been rising at a fast clip, according to public records.

According to salary information posted each year on the DC Public Charter School Board’s website, between 2016 and 2018, staff working at the DC Public Charter School Board received raises averaging 12 percent annually. And in 2017, according to nonprofit tax filings, the average annual salary for the top leader at each D.C. charter was $146,000. Only three charter heads earned less than $100,000, and eight earned more than $200,000.

Summary statistics aside, the sector is replete with examples of steep salaries and quick raises. Allison Kokkoros, the head of Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School and the highest-paid charter official in D.C., received a 24 percent salary increase between 2015 and 2016, from $248,000 to $307,000. Then, in 2017, she received another 76 percent increase, bumping her compensation to $541,000. Patricia Brantley, head of Friendship Public Charter School, received a 33 percent raise between 2016 and 2017, increasing her pay from $231,000 to $308,000.

Outside of school heads, other high-ranking charter administrators also claimed significant salaries. In 2017, KIPP DC had four administrators making approximately $200,000 annually, and its president earned $257,000.

The chair of Friendship, Donald Hense, earned over $355,000 annually between 2015 and 2017, and its CFO earned between $171,000 and $197,000 in each of those years.

washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 7

Paid Advertisement IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA LINDSAY FERRER, AMY HADDAD and SARAH SORSCHER on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v.

CAREFIRST, INC.; GROUP HOSPITALIZATION AND MEDICAL SERVICES, INC. d/b/a CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD; CAREFIRST OF MARYLAND, INC., d/b/a CAREFIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD; CARE FIRST BLUECROSS BLUESHIELD; and CAREFIRST BLUECHOICE, INC., Defendants.

) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

Case No. 1:16-cv-02162-APM

SUMMARY NOTICE OF PROPOSED SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION TO:

ALL PERSONS WHO ARE OR WERE PARTICIPANTS IN OR BENEFICIARIES OF ANY NONGRANDFATHERED HEALTH PLAN1 SOLD, UNDERWRITTEN OR ADMINISTERED

BY CAREFIRST, INC., GROUP HOSPITALIZATION AND MEDICAL SERVICES, INC., CAREFIRST OF MARYLAND, INC., AND CAREFIRST BLUECHOICE, INC. (COLLECTIVELY, “CAREFIRST”) IN THEIR CAPACITY AS INSURER OR ADMINISTRATOR, WHO DID NOT RECEIVE FULL COVERAGE FOR AND/OR REIMBURSEMENT FOR BREASTFEEDING SUPPORT AND COUNSELING SERVICES (“CLS”) RECEIVED ON OR AFTER AUGUST 1, 2012 THROUGH AUGUST 31, 2018 (THE “CLASS”).

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a hearing will be held on April 9, 2019, at 11:30 a.m., before the Honorable Amit P. Mehta, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Courtroom 10, 4th Floor, 333 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington D.C., 20001, to determine whether: (1) the proposed settlement as set forth in the Stipulation of Settlement dated as of December 10, 2018 (the “Stipulation”) of the abovecaptioned action (the “Action”) should be approved by the Court as fair, reasonable and adequate; and (2) to award Plaintiffs’ Counsel attorneys’ fees and expenses, and to Plaintiffs a service award.

There is a proposed settlement (“Settlement”) with CareFirst in the Action. The Action and Settlement involve health care coverage for comprehensive breastfeeding and lactation support and counseling services (“CLS”), a mandated preventive health benefit under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”).

The Settlement will resolve a lawsuit over whether CareFirst violated federal law and the terms of its sponsored and administered health plans with respect to coverage and adjudication of claims for CLS. CareFirst denies all of the Plaintiffs’ claims, but has agreed to the Settlement to resolve the Action.

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE CLASS, YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED BY THE SETTLEMENT. UNDER THE SETTLEMENT, CLASS MEMBERS WILL RELEASE ALL LEGAL CLAIMS THEY MAY HAVE AGAINST CAREFIRST RELATING TO COVERAGE FOR CLS RECEIVED BETWEEN AUGUST 1, 2012 AND AUGUST 31, 2018.

THIS NOTICE IS JUST A SUMMARY. YOU MUST READ IN FULL THE NOTICE OF PROPOSED CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT. The Notice and Stipulation describe the benefits of the Settlement, including cash payments to Class members for Authorized CLS Claims. If you did not receive a Notice and a Claims Data Form, in order to receive any cash payment in the Settlement you must establish your rights by submitting a Proof of Claim postmarked on or before July 8, 2019. Your failure to timely submit your Proof of Claim with supporting documentation and any required affirmation that CLS was received, will preclude you from receiving any payment in connection with the Settlement. If you are a Member of the Class and do not request exclusion, you will be bound by the Settlement and any judgment and release entered in the Action, whether or not you submit a Proof of Claim.

If you have NOT received a copy of the Notice, which more completely describes the Settlement and your rights thereunder (including your right to object to the Settlement or exclude yourself from the Settlement), and a Claims Data Form or Proof of Claim Form, you may obtain these documents, as well as a copy of the Stipulation (which among other things contains definitions for the defined terms used in this Summary Notice) and other Settlement documents, online at www.CareFirstBreastfeedingSupportClassAction.com, or by calling 1-855-441-2329.

IF YOU DESIRE TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THE CLASS, YOU MUST SUBMIT A REQUEST FOR EXCLUSION SUCH THAT IT IS POSTMARKED NO LATER THAN MARCH 11, 2019, IN THE MANNER AND FORM EXPLAINED IN THE NOTICE. ALL MEMBERS OF THE CLASS WHO HAVE NOT REQUESTED EXCLUSION FROM THE CLASS WILL BE BOUND BY THE SETTLEMENT EVEN IF THEY DO NOT FILE A TIMELY PROOF OF CLAIM. IF YOU ARE A CLASS MEMBER, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO OBJECT TO THE SETTLEMENT, THE REQUEST BY PLAINTIFFS’ COUNSEL FOR AN AWARD OF ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND EXPENSES, AND/OR THE PAYMENT OF SERVICE AWARDS TO PLAINTIFFS. ANY OBJECTIONS MUST BE FILED WITH THE COURT AND SENT TO CLASS COUNSEL AND CAREFIRST’S COUNSEL BY MARCH 11, 2019, IN THE MANNER AND FORM EXPLAINED IN THE NOTICE. Inquiries should NOT be directed to Defendants, the Court, or the Clerk of the Court. Inquiries may be made to a representative of Class Counsel c/o: CHIMICLES SCHWARTZ KRINER & DONALDSON-SMITH LLP, Nicholas E. Chimicles, Kimberly Donaldson-Smith, or Stephanie Saunders, 361 W. Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19401, 610-642-8500, kmd@chimicles.com or ses@chimicles.com.

Form and substance approved by Court Order dated December 12, 2018.

“Non-Grandfathered Health Plan” means: (i) any health insurance policy created or purchased after March 23, 2010, and (ii) any health insurance policy created or purchased on or before March 23, 2010 that subsequently lost its grandfathered status. The Class does not include members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits (“FEHB”) Program, including members of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Service Benefit Plan (“FEP”).

1

8 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

DISTRICTLINE DC Prep’s Chief Academic Officer earned $203,000 in 2015, and $223,000 one year later. The board chair of AppleTree Early Learning earned over $231,000 annually each year since 2015, reaching $245,000 in 2017. 990 tax forms list another 110 charter administrators earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually, although this list is likely not comprehensive, as schools are only required to disclose their top five highest-paid employees.

2018 figures are not yet available.

In one remarkable instance, Sonia Gutierrez, the founder and former CEO of Carlos Rosario, who now sits on the school’s board, earned $1,890,000 between 2015 and 2017. Board chair Patricia Sosa, when contacted about this large sum, says much of that had been awarded as deferred compensation from Gutierrez’s time working between July 2010 and December 2015. However, according to tax records, she was also paid an average of $326,000 annually during that period.

Research conducted on other cities has shown that administrative spending tends to be higher in charter sectors than in traditional public school districts. Still, administrative spending has also been a concern in DCPS, and it was one of the major points Washington Teachers’ Union leaders brought up during their last round of contract negotiations. And in Denver, public school teachers are currently threatening to go on strike over wages, with teachers calling attention to Denver’s above-average spending on school administration.

For their part, charter school executives defend their current salaries as standard for the sector and necessary to retain top-tier personnel. But there may be a risk that within-sector salary comparisons result in administrator paychecks rising in sync with each other, rather than reflecting an underlying demand for staff.

IronIcally, as charter administrators claim they need high salaries to compete for executive leadership, teachers complain that the opacity of their salaries makes bargaining for higher pay near impossible.

Last week, Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy—a network of four charter schools in D.C.—announced it will be unilaterally closing its Chavez Prep Middle School next year, and merging its two high schools. The network says this new closure and merger are due to lower-than-expected student enrollment, i.e. a revenue shortfall.

Chavez Prep is the city’s sole unionized charter school, and Christian Herr, a sixth grade science teacher at the school, says the lack of a clear salary schedule was one of the main reasons he and his colleagues were mo-

tivated to form a union. “When we were organizing our union, we learned things were just all over the place in terms of who got paid what, and there wasn’t a clear progression,” he says. “Your salary basically depended on how much a principal liked you, or what you were willing to ask for, or demand. The people with the same amount of experience and degrees got paid differently.”

The Chavez Prep union has been negotiating its first contract since the summer of 2017, and establishing a more transparent salary schedule has been one of their top priorities.

What will happen to the union next year is not yet clear, and teachers say they plan to launch a full investigation into the reasons behind the closing of Chavez Prep.

Emily Silberstein, the CEO of the Cesar Chavez network, tells City Paper that her organization “has a long history of implementing a teacher pay scale that includes educational degrees and years of experience as factors in pay. Each year, the pay scale is reviewed as part of the network’s budgeting process. When updating the Chavez pay scale, we consider the network budget, pay in the D.C. charter sector, and the DCPS teacher pay scale.”

Silberstein says their updated pay scale is shared annually with teachers, and she defends her network’s compensation rates as competitive with other D.C. charter schools—citing a recent study by EdFuel, a nonprofit that helps schools recruit and retain teachers.

City Paper reached out to EdFuel to review the aforementioned compensation study, but Kelly Gleischman, a managing partner, said the study is not publicly available, as it’s currently shielded under a non-disclosure agreement. She says it was published March 1, 2018, and is under an NDA for eighteen months after that.

DCPS gets about $16,000 per pupil from the city’s operating budget, and charters receive a little less than $15,000—though charters also shoulder some additional costs like retirement and building maintenance. Silberstein says she understands why teachers would choose to teach in DCPS if pay was a top consideration. “For highly effective teachers, DC Public Schools is one of the highest-paying school districts in the country,” she says.

“I admire DCPS for that and wish D.C. charter schools received the same kind of public and philanthropic support to make such salaries possible.”

“Speaking personally,” says Herr, “if I were at DCPS I would get paid $14,000 more than I do now, and my wife, who has worked at Chavez Prep as long as I have and has two master’s degrees, she’d get paid $19-to-$20,000 a year more.”

CP

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SPORTS

The struggling Capitals know something needs to change if they’re going to turn around their seven-game losing streak. “It seems like in a lot of instances, we’re 90, 95 percent all-in,” says forward T.J. Oshie. washingtoncitypaper.com/sports

Breaking the Ice

Caps defenseman Brooks Orpik, known as a no-nonsense tough guy, is more approachable than you’d think.

By Jason Rogers After spending 16 years in the National Hockey League and winning two Stanley Cup Championships, very little surprises Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik anymore, whether that’s forwards, formations, or fans.

The 38-year-old, who played in his 1,000th NHL game on Jan. 14, is known throughout the league for his tough, allbusiness demeanor.

His steadfast commitment to fitness and nutrition has helped him withstand the concussive impact of 3,078 hits and 1,744 blocked shots, the second and fourth-most in the NHL over that time span, respectively. He’s officially fought 14 times in his career, most recently in Game 6 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals, and has amassed a 9-5 record according to HockeyFights.com, an outcome good enough to win you a belt in some weight divisions.

“He’s so, like, serious with his job,” 22-yearold Capitals forward Jakub Vrana tells City Paper. “He comes in here and he works hard.”

“He’s very serious,” says Caps defenseman Madison Bowey with a reverent shake of his head. “He always comes ready to compete.”

Based on that level of professionalism, some hockey fans may assume that Orpik can’t take a joke. They’d be wrong.

“I always think it’s funny that people just equate the way you play to what your personality must be,” Orpik says, reclining at his locker after practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Arlington. “I guess it’s just human nature. I’m probably guilty of it.”

If you ask his Capitals teammates, one thing they consistently mention about Orpik is his jovial nature.

Bowey chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest when asked about the team’s alternate captain.

“When a guy like him laughs, it just kind of brings joy to everyone,” he says. “I think that’s the cool thing about Brooksy … Everyone sees how passionate he is. But at the same time, being a leader, you have to keep things light. He

Brian Murphy

HOCKEY

knows the right times to do that.”

“He might be one of the funniest guys on the team,” says Vrana. “And he knows how to make guys laugh. He always comes in and jokes around, which is a great example for the younger guys. He shows them how they should take care of their bodies and stuff, but he can also throw in a couple jokes.”

For Orpik, those lighter moments serve a purpose.

“It’s too long a year. We’ve got a [sevengame] losing streak going right now, and it’s easy to come in and pout and be angry,” he says. “But that negative energy doesn’t solve anything. I think keeping it positive reminds guys that we’re pretty lucky to do the job we do.”

And Orpik uses that balance of good-natured ribbing and leadership by example to help keep his younger teammates in line, even if that means embarrassing them.

Jayson Megna, a forward currently playing for the Hershey Bears, the Capitals’ American Hockey League affiliate, first played with Orpik on the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2013, Megna’s rookie season.

“I remember one time, I was in the food line [after practice] and I was going to sneak a cookie,” Megna says. “Right as I was about to

10 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

take a bite of it, [Orpik] came up behind me, pointed at it, and said, ‘You don’t want to put that shit in your body.’ So what could I do? I had a salad instead.”

Orpik frequently teases teammates about their eating habits in the cafeteria.

“It was my fifth ever NHL game one night in Buffalo,” Vrana recounts with a laugh. “[Earlier that day], we’re eating a pre-game meal, and we always have ice cream after lunch. Not many guys take it, it’s usually for the coaches and staff. Well, I finish my meal and I get, like, three scoops of ice cream and a bunch of chocolate sauce. I sit down, and I look at Brooksy, and Brooksy is staring at me.

And I’m like, ‘What does he want,’ you know?

It’s my fifth game in the NHL! I’m a really new guy! So I offer him some. Like, ‘Brooksy, you want some?’

And he goes, ‘No thanks, I can’t. I’ve got a game tonight.’

And I’m like, ‘Aw, shit!’” Vrana says.

“That’s obviously a joke,” Orpik explains. “I was probably a lot worse with my nutrition at this point than these younger guys are.”

Certain players are easier targets than others. “Burky [Andre Burakovsky] takes a lot of heat. Now, this wasn’t me …” Orpik says,

flashing a mischievous smile, “but guys will come out and their tie’s been cut in half before TV spots, so they have to go on camera like that. Or spray-painted shoes on road trips— I’m talking bright blue—so you have to walk around with them for the whole trip.”

Orpik frequently uses lighthearted humor as a way to bond with younger teammates, especially those who are new to the U.S. and for whom English may not be a first language.

“When [Capitals center] E vg e n y Kuznetsov first got here, Brooks is one of the guys that would sit with him and watch Family Feud,” says Al Koken, a Capitals television broadcaster for 35 years. “He had something similar with [Evgeni] Malkin in Pittsburgh; he would teach Malkin curse words in English, and Malkin would teach Orpik curse words in Russian.”

These moments of joking help Orpik build a trust with his teammates that just may take their careers to the next level.

“Everybody always tells you that your career goes by quickly, and it does. I remember my first training camp, just staring at Mario [Lemieux]. Now, I’m not Mario by any means, but you can’t be naïve,” Orpik explains with earnest, focused eyes. “The younger guys watch everything you do, how you carry yourself. That can have a big influence on how you conduct yourself as a younger guy.”

His relationship with 23-year-old Bowey is a prime example.

“I probably wouldn’t be here in this spot if it wasn’t for Brooksy. He really helped me out a lot, helped build up my confidence,” Bowey says. “That passion never leaves him. When you’re in the locker room and you really need help, he’s always there for you.”

Koken has often seen the two walk out of the weight room together and believes that’s no coincidence. To Koken, the value of Orpik’s influence in the locker room can’t be measured on the score sheet.

“Orpik has asked himself why he’s here,” Koken says. “He’s asked himself, ‘Is it just to cash a check, play defense, and go home?’

Or is it to be a good guy, and to instruct the young players who are going to take his place one day?”

Orpik’s choice is clear, and with another practice complete, he tosses the last of his pads in the team laundry and takes a meaningful look around the locker room.

“There’s always younger guys watching,” he finally says. “How you carry yourself, how you treat people around you, at the rink, and the bus, and the restaurants. You can have an impact on them.”

Orpik then stands, and laughs.

“I think that’s the important thing.”

CP

Gear Prudence Gear Prudence: Here’s something I don’t get.

Sometimes I’ll see people lock their bikes to street signs even when there’s an empty bike rack nearby.

Doesn’t seem to me like this should even be legal. Is there something I’m just not getting? —Really, A Cyclist Keeps On Not Locking Yonder Dear RACKONLY: It’s both legal, for the most part, and makes sense, for the most part. People tend to want to lock their bikes as close to their destination as possible and if that means choosing a street sign over a bike rack a half a block away, they’ll chose the sign. A close bike means less walking after you park and also lets you more easily keep an eye on it if you’re worried about theft or other malfeasance. While it may not be specifically designed for the task, as long as the street sign is solidly affixed to the ground and reasonably accessible from the sidewalk, it’ll get the job done. As for the legality, DC Municipal Regulation 18-1209 says that bikes can be locked to stanchions (street signs or parking meters) for up to 12 consecutive hours, provided the stanchion is not in a bus zone or within 25 feet of the intersection (though GP doubts this is ever enforced). Bikes cannot be locked to fire hydrants, police call boxes, or trees with diameters under 10 inches, though you don’t have to be the Lorax to see that locking to trees of any diameter is pretty bad. Don’t ever do that.

—Gear Prudence Gear Prudence: Why is bike twitter so mean? Someone just suggests that maybe not all bikers are perfect and they jump down their throats like a bunch of self-righteous maniacs. These little twits are even worse than Bernie bros (though there’s probably a lot of overlap)! —Man, You Odious Pathetic Ingrate Commenters!

Dear MYOPIC: A working theory in two parts: 1) Twitter is a hell site that brings out the worst in people, no matter the topic (see: 2016 election, comic book movies, the color of dresses, etc.), and denies nuance and conciliation 2) Many people who bicycle carry around with them a lot of unchanneled rage due to the challenges of a hostile and uncaring biking environment, in which their safety is minimized and callous disregard for their well-being and convenience is manifest. Unable to release their frustration another way (like running a pedestrian off the road with their car or shooting a fellow driver in a banal bout of road rage), they turn to the internet to vent their frustrations. Blessed/cursed with some anonymity and, more importantly, physical distance, some really let loose. The powerlessness and vulnerability one feels on a bike is erased and people can’t help but overcompensate when at the keyboard.

Or, there’s a subset of assholes in any larger group and it has nothing to do with them riding bicycles.

—GP

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LOSING PATIENTS In 2015 the District began an innovative outreach program to find the people most at risk of overdosing and help them get into treatment.

Despite promising results, the city shuttered the initiative after two months and never replaced it.

By Joshua Kaplan

12 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

They pulled up to the liquor store and hopped out of the van in matching white polo shirts, the letters “DBH” stitched over each of their chests: Department of Behavioral Health. They were looking for someone, and they had been looking for him for a while. A few days earlier a man had overdosed on heroin, but someone had called an ambulance and it arrived in time to save his life. Usually, that would be the end of it as far as the District was concerned. But these workers were here to make sure the man did not fall through the cracks. The addresses they’d had on file for him were on the other side of town, but when he was nowhere to be found, they asked around and managed to get in touch with his sister. She pointed them here.

They walked into the liquor store and called out his name; the man answered. One of the workers walked up to him and spoke softly: “We came here to help you. Your sister told us you’d be here, and your sister is so happy that we’re here.” After the man bought his liquor, they sat down outside the store and talked. It was soon clear that an intensive detox was the best option for him. He agreed, and said he was ready to go that very minute—as soon as he finished his half-pint. He went into the alley behind the store, chugged it, and returned. “Let’s go,” he said. They all got in the van, went to grab his clothes, and then drove off to treatment.

This was how the Heroin Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (Heroin SBIRT) pilot program operated. In the summer of 2015, as the opioid crisis was beginning to take hold of D.C., the city began an innovative program to offer treatment to those most at risk. Whenever Emergency Medical Services responded to a suspected opioid overdose, rather than resuscitating the person and forgetting about them, the first responders would pass the person’s name and information over to DBH. Within a week, DBH would send outreach workers to find that person and offer to clear whatever obstacles they could— anything that was keeping the person from getting treatment.

Two years later, in May 2017, Mayor Muriel Bowser took the stage at the Regional Opioid and Substance Abuse Summit, which she co-hosted with the governors of Maryland and Virginia so that hundreds of policy makers could share strategies for combating the opioid crisis. In her keynote, she took the opportunity to describe three of the District’s initiatives. One focused on law enforcement.

Another distributed Naloxone—the lifesaving medicine that can reverse overdoses—around the city. The third was the Heroin SBIRT. “Between May and August of 2015,” she said, “the District’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services partnered with the Department of Behavioral Health to offer immediate access to treatment to individuals who experienced opioid overdose.”

As she spoke, the Heroin SBIRT program had been shuttered for almost two years. City agencies have yet to restart or replace it.

Several of the Department’s top substance abuse officials from that time still

want to know why. One former member of DBH leadership tells City Paper, “I met a lot of our clients, and to find out they’re dead now … It didn’t have to be that way. We could’ve done something.”

The opioid crisis was not yet dominating national headlines in 2014, but District officials had noticed that the number of overdoses was on the rise. The city formed a “Heroin Working Group,” bringing all of D.C.’s public health and public safety agencies together to strategize and to coordinate their response.

In 2015, 114 people died from opioid overdoses in D.C., up almost 40 percent from the year before. Most of the people who use heroin in D.C. are what city officials describe as a “fixed population.” Whereas the image of the opioid crisis nationally is white kids on OxyContin, the heroin users in the District are primarily black, middle-aged, longtime D.C. residents who have been using heroin for decades.

According to District data, 59 percent of D.C. opioid users have been using heroin for over

reach workers would take the list and drive around the city to find them. One of the outreach workers involved in the program—who asked to go by Jordan to protect their identity— describes the process to City Paper.

Sometimes finding the people they were looking for was easy, but sometimes the DBH workers had to leverage people across the community to track them down. The men who hang out at Jurassic Park—a well known spot near Congress Heights to buy and use heroin—would tell them where to look for someone. Homeless shelter employees would call them when someone finally came in.

Final statistics on the SBIRT program indicate that, more often than not, DBH found the people it was looking for. Then, Jordan says, they would give the person a hug and ask them if they wanted help. “If someone comes and says, ‘I got a ride. I’m here to help you,’” says Jordan, “What a joy. What a joy to a dying man.” If they were too hungry to think straight, the workers would buy them food from McDonald’s. They would answer ques-

“If someone comes and says, ‘I got a ride. I’m here to help you,’ what a joy. What a joy to a dying man.”

25 years, and 88 percent have been using it for over a decade. It is not uncommon for a person overdosing on heroin to have overdosed and been resuscitated before. For instance, during the 65 days of the Heroin SBIRT program, emergency medical services responded to 97 different people overdosing on opioids.

Seven of those 97 people overdosed twice during that period, and officials found that those 97 had generated over one thousand calls to the city’s Fire and EMS (FEMS) in the previous eight years, averaging over 10 ambulance calls a person.

FEMS knew who the people suffering most deeply from opioid addiction were—the city just needed to connect them to treatment.

So they started the SBIRT program as a twomonth-long pilot.

Every day or two, FEMS officials would send DBH a list of the people who had overdosed. Four days a week, a team of DBH out-

tions, talk to the person about their options for treatment, and even offer to take them directly to treatment, right then and there.

Of the people the outreach workers managed to get in touch with over those 65 days, over half made concrete plans to enter treatment, and 20 percent agreed to be immediately driven straight there.

So often, it was not lack of desire that was keeping people from getting help. Those dealing with the most dangerous forms of opioid addiction often face a long list of barriers to treatment. Jordan says, “Some knew [where to go for treatment], but some people didn’t know. Some people knew, but they didn’t have a valid form of ID” to prove they were a District resident, and couldn’t assemble the money to get a new ID. Maria Paige, an addiction specialist at the community health nonprofit Mary’s Center, says, “You just can’t say that people don’t

want to be sober. Because everybody wants a good life.” Paige says the structures keeping people out of treatment range from worries about whether seeking treatment will get them in trouble with their employers or probation officers to inability to pay for transportation to get to DBH’s only intake center, which is in Northeast.

But perhaps the largest barrier to people getting themselves into treatment is the nature of heroin addiction itself. The amount of time between an addict’s last dose and the onset of intensely painful withdrawal symptoms is just a matter of hours. As Paige puts it, when someone is severely addicted and says they need help, “we have to do it right away.

Because within an hour or two, that’s not going to happen. We have people who have been using heroin for 10, 30 years, and that’s the window of opportunity.”

Dr. Dan Smith, who leads the addiction treatment programs at Mary’s Center, says, “It’s tempting sometimes to want to treat the most stable patients: the people who come to all their appointments on time, get there early, have jobs, all that sort of thing. But the reality is that the people who need treatment most, especially if we’re going to make an impact on the number of overdose deaths, are the people who are not those things … Those are the people we really need to access.”

The idea behind SBIRT was to stay in touch with those most in need and try to make it as easy as possible for them to access treatment when they were ready for it. In Jordan’s lengthy career, they say they have “never had that much power to help people,” as they did during the SBIRT pilot. Jordan, like many of the peer outreach workers, is a D.C. native who first encountered the city’s addiction treatment services as a client rather than as a provider, and has been in recovery and working to treat addiction in the city for over 20 years. In all that time, Jordan adds, “I have never seen nobody coming to get you except the police— until this.”

The outreach workers did not always arrive at a time when their client felt able to seek help. Jordan says people would often say, “I’m not ready right now. Come back tomorrow.”

And so the workers would follow up.

Jordan describes one person who had been a long time, heavy heroin user. The outreach workers followed up with him two or three times after their initial contact. One time, he had a court date and could not miss it by going into treatment. Another time, he was in withdrawal and did not feel up to it. But eventually, his family called and said he was ready.

The team drove straight there, and took him to the Psychiatric Institute of Washington to enter detox. Jordan ran into him six months later and he was still clean.

Then, as the program continued, something unexpected happened. People began to recognize the workers’ van and word spread that they were there to help. Jordan says that people would waive them down or call them, asking if they could take care of their grandson or their sister. These people got the same treatment as the ones on EMS’

washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 13

tunity to connect with as many people as we had hoped.”

Nesbitt, who is now acting director of DBH as well as the director of the Department of Health, was heavily involved with the Heroin Working Group in 2015, and acted as a spokesperson for DBH regarding the SBIRT program. When asked why the program was discontinued, she did not answer directly, but said, “the results of the Heroin SBIRT pilot program [were] used to craft new strategies that we expect to bring more people into treatment.”

But officials who were at DBH and FEMS at the time suggest that there were other reasons for the program’s demise, pointing to what they see as deep-rooted problems in the District’s response to the opioid crisis.

list. Program evaluation documents indicate that in the first month of SBIRT, eight people who were not on the overdose list got into the program this way. In the second and final month, about 50 people did.

In August 2015, the pilot ended. Emails obtained by City Paper through the Freedom of Information Act show that at that point, DBH officials began work on implementing a permanent version of the program, and later started preparing to apply for a federal grant that would have provided funding to restart an expanded version of the SBIRT program (the original pilot had been done with existing Department resources).

But by January 2016, the mood had changed. Emails indicate that DBH’s deputy director had recently told one staff member that DBH would not be reimplementing the SBIRT program or applying for the grant after all. That month, Department of Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt requested an update on the status of restarting the program. The staff member was not sure how to respond, and so she wrote to the deputy director and Dr. Tanya Royster, director of DBH until last November, to confirm that “SBIRT is not a priority right now.” They responded that the staffer was correct.

The city has not reimplemented any similar program since—with one small exception.

In 2017, as the number of synthetic cannabinoid overdoses continued to mount in the District and the Department faced pressure to act, they ran a second SBIRT pilot similar to the heroin one but for synthetic cannabinoids such as K2 instead. This pilot, however, lasted only a week. D.C. officials presented the concepts of both SBIRT pilots at the Regional Opioid and Substance Abuse Summit later that year.

Between May 2017 and September 2018, D.C. ambulances responded to an average of more than five opioid overdoses every day.

Since the Heroin SBIRT pilot, there has been no program focused on directly connecting high-risk drug users to treatment.

And when someone overdoses in D.C. today, nobody from the city is responsible for following up to help them. (A point of terminology: D.C. has programs that use the SBIRT evaluation method, a standard practice for identifying substance use disorder and determining treatment options. The Heroin SBIRT pilot also used the SBIRT evaluation method, but otherwise, these programs are unrelated.)

Royster tells City Paper that “the primary reason the SBIRT pilot was not continued was that FEMS did not have the staff to continue to provide the data (names and address of overdose victims).”

Retired Deputy Fire Chief Rafael Sa’adah tells a different story. Sa’adah led the FEMS portion of the Heroin SBIRT pilot, and says that he was willing to keep sending the data over, but “sensed that DBH did not want to engage in any ongoing partnerships where FEMS would be inside their shop,” so he set up an automated version where DBH could receive the list without needing FEMS to compile it. But, he says, “Dr. Royster essentially ghosted me and would never follow-through on implementing the SBIRT as an ongoing program.”

A spokesperson for FEMS says that while “the Heroin SBIRT pilot program was instrumental in paving a path forward in our efforts to reach, touch and connect with those seeking help with their substance disorder disease” and influenced D.C.’s new plan to reduse opiod use, released in December and dubbed LIVE.LONG.DC, he suggests that “the initial pilot program did not afford us with the oppor-

14 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

In September 2016, Royster joined top officials from across the District government in a meeting to discuss an opioid crisis that was rapidly worsening. 231 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, more than twice as many as the year before.

When Royster’s turn to speak came, she talked about how the group of people using opiates in D.C. was substantially different than in a lot of other cities, consisting primarily of long time heroin users. She described them as “a recalcitrant population.” “We do have capacity to treat them if we can get them into treatment,” she said, “but they have turned down treatment many, many, many times over those 30 years.”

City Paper interviewed five high-level substance abuse officials who were at DBH at the time of the SBIRT pilot, all of whom wished to remain anonymous to protect themselves from retaliation. They tell City Paper that this outlook corresponded with a lack of appreciation, under Royster, for the factors that may keep a person away from addiction treatment.

Her attitude toward the challenge of getting people into treatment is not exceptional in D.C. government, and some say it may indicate a deeper structural problem at DBH. DBH is only five years old, created when D.C. merged the Department of Mental Health with the Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration. This was part of a national trend to combine mental health and substance use disorder treatment, since there is often substantial overlap. In D.C., as in many other jurisdictions, the addiction treatment arm was the much smaller of the two.

The five substance abuse officials City Paper interviewed describe the environment during the SBIRT pilot as hostile, with serious tensions between the two components as mental health rose to dominance. Two of them said, in separate interviews, that “it was less of a merger and more of a takeover.” But all admit that the power dynamic was inevitable, given their respective sizes.

All five also said that there were instances where mental health leadership overruled substance abuse leadership in ways that they felt neglected the differences between addiction and mental health treatment. As one says, “they tried to hammer a round peg into

a square hole—tried to make everything mental health-like. Certainly, there are many intersections; many people in addiction are also dealing with depression and anxiety. Some have SPMIs [serious and persistent mental illnesses], but that’s far from the majority.”

And substance abuse outreach may have been one of those instances. One official explained, “With mental health, people reach out. They call hotlines. Substance use comes with stigma, so they’re less likely to reach out—they’re afraid they’ll be arrested. Some are on probation. Some have jobs and don’t know who they’ll run into. So that’s why you do outreach. You go to people and understand their circumstances and figure out what they need to get into care. Outreach really plummeted [during Royster’s tenure].

People in mental health didn’t understand the value of it.”

Royster says she worked “very hard to have one DBH not a mental health side and a SUD [substance use disorder] side.”

There are also more mundane reasons SBIRT ended. Three of the DBH officials City Paper spoke with and retired Deputy Fire Chief Sa’adah say they think it ended due to personal conflicts and what one described as “deepseated resentment of working with other agencies at DBH.” Another former member of DBH leadership let out a long sigh as she recounted the tension around the program: “You know how people get when they get threatened. It’s not about you. People are dying.”

In the near future, the District will have an exciting, new program to connect people who have overdosed with treatment. For much of the past year, the Department of Health and the Department of Behavioral Health have been gearing up for a pilot that will connect overdosees with treatment in the emergency room, and if the person declines treatment in the ER, they will send peer outreach workers to follow up a day or two after the person is discharged. Michael Kharfen of the Department of Health says that he hopes the pilot will begin offering treatment in April or May. Unlike the Heroin SBIRT, the program only takes in those who come to the emergency room, which Kharfen says is an obstacle they are working to solve, because currently as many as half of people who EMS treats for overdoses decline to be transported to the hospital.

The past may prove instructive.

Sa’adah says the bickering that killed the SBIRT program gets at a larger problem with how the District handles collaboration. “The interagency and interdisciplinary approach [was] absolutely the most effective way to address our ongoing overdose crises in D.C.,” he says. “However, what was lacking in [the SBIRT pilots and the Heroin Working Group] was the ongoing involvement of the deputy mayors of the relevant clusters.” He thinks that when communication broke down between the agencies involved, city leaders “should have stepped in and forced cooperation between the agency directors.”

“That never happened,” he says, “so a promising approach to saving lives was thwarted by petty turf wars.”

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DCFEED

what we ate this week: Drunken Master taco with Kung Pao shrimp, chile de arbol, shishitos, peanuts, miso-agave rice, $4.50, Taco Bamba.

Satisfaction level: 4 out of 5. what we’ll eat next week: Pozole verde with hominy, avocado, queso fresco, radish, onions, oregano, and lime, $13, Cielo Rojo. Excitement level: 4 out of 5.

Well Fed

What local chefs learned when they stepped away from their restaurants to feed furloughed government workers

By Laura Hayes José Andrés somehow still has time to think about condiments. The chef and humanitarian, who owns more than a dozen restaurants and leads efforts to feed natural disaster victims through World Central Kitchen, his donor-supported nonprofit organization, has recently shifted his focus to federal workers impacted by the government shutdown. On one recent afternoon, he implored #ChefsForFeds volunteers in D.C. to spread garlic aioli to the edges of every piece of bread.

“José is insistent that we must respect the food as much as we respect these people,” says Red Truck Bakery owner Brian Noyes, who has been volunteering to feed workers for two weeks. “He knows these workers need nutrition and calories to keep going.”

The owner of the twin Virginia bakeries says he’s been putting in up to 12 hours of work per day. “I’ve been overseeing the sandwich making lately,” he says. “We’re slicing bread like crazy.” He says volunteering has reminded him that every kitchen task is equally important. “I have a new love for the dishwasher who I stand over waiting for a sheet pan.”

Noyes has had an emotional reaction to the work. “I tried to get out of the kitchen a couple times to see how long the line was,” he explains. After seeing that it snaked around the block, he began to cry. “It’s not a soup kitchen. These are government employees. There are FBI agents in coats and ties and there were park police in Kevlar vests in line. It just gets you when you realize who you’re helping.”

When it emerged that furloughed federal government employees were going to miss paychecks during the longest shutdown in U.S. history, Andrés called on WCK to establish a kitchen in D.C. The doors of #ChefsForFeds opened on Jan. 16 in the ThinkFoodLab space at 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Tim Kilcoyne is one of the chefs leading the charge. He first got involved with World Central Kitchen when fires swept through his hometown in Ventura County, California, in late 2017.

He was evacuated for almost two weeks. WCK

Darrow Montgomery

YOUNG & HUNGRY

A #ChefsForFeds volunteer contacted him and asked if he’d run a kitchen; he’s been with the organization ever since.

“This one is very different because there’s no natural disaster, so there’s still power and there’s no flooding or smoke from a fire or volcano,” Kilcoyne says. “A lot of people aren’t thrilled that they have to come in—these are people who have had good jobs for quite some time who might be embarrassed to come for a free meal.” But #ChefsForFeds has become a gathering place for the community, Kilcoyne explains. It’s about more than just food.

Volunteers have served approximately 75,000 meals to date. On Jan. 23 alone, they served 11,400 meals between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. While the shutdown has temporarily ended, WCK plans to operate #ChefsForFeds

16 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

through at least Feb. 1 as workers rebound and await back pay. Part of the daily routine now includes packing free bagged lunches and sending them directly to places like the FBI and the National Zoo. While many #ChefsForFeds volunteers have been furloughed federal employees themselves, members of the D.C. hospitality industry have helped as well. “We’ve had servers, bartenders, culinary schools, and local chefs reach out,” Kilcoyne says. noyes leArned of the volunteer opportunity from Chef Christian Irabién Gamboa, who is preparing to open Amparo Fondita in Northeast D.C. Irabién first volunteered with World Central Kitchen in December in

Tijuana, Mexico, where the organization continues to feed refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. Within days of returning to the District, the former Oyamel chef agreed to coordinate #ChefsForFeds volunteers.

Irabién can empathize with furloughed federal workers because he didn’t always wear a chef ’s coat. He previously did economic work with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“Everyone on the ground level gets totally screwed out of making a living,” he says. “Do you quit your job where you have some benefits and seniority and stability to get another job?

Everyone is between the sword and the wall. All I know how to do is cook and that’s what I did.”

Despite the challenges of growing demand,

DCFEED scratch cooking for the masses in a small kitchen, juggling ingredients that arrive by the truckload, and long days even by chef standards, Irabién says he can’t stop talking about the experience to anyone who will listen. “Everyone is being their best self, which is such a contrast to everyday life when your ratio of amazing people versus ‘Man, I could have done without that guy,’ has a different balance.”

He says his biggest takeaway from the experience is a desire to make the food system more equitable and redistribute food waste to those in need. “There were days in the beginning where we’d end up with 100 [leftover] sandwiches,” he explains. “Volunteers bagged them up and took them to different shelters.”

with tzatziki, curry roasted garbanzos, farro, and cherry tomatoes; and a winter vegetable panzanella with butternut squash, sauteed kale, Brussels sprouts, purple cabbage, pine nuts, croutons, and chipotle pesto.

While #ChefsForFeds strives to make gluten-free and vegan or vegetarian offerings available, Pow Pow Chef Margaux Riccio noticed furloughed workers who keep Kosher might be cut out from the meals and decided to hold a free dinner at her restaurant. She filled the 50 slots almost immediately and received requests to hold another Kosher dinner, but ultimately decided to work with #ChefsForFeds instead. “We decided we can’t afford to do more, so we all agreed during our man-

“It’s a super generous chef and restaurateur community and everybody cares.”

Like Irabién, Himitsu partner Carlie Steiner volunteered at World Central Kitchen in Tijuana. The day her return flight landed in D.C. in January, she rolled her suitcase straight to #ChefsForFeds and got to work. She’s volunteered there almost every day since. Steiner, who has a culinary degree, first connected with Andrés when she worked for his restaurant group’s playful cocktail bar, barmini.

Steiner has mainly helped with operations and established systems to keep #ChefsForFeds organized. She says the experience has taught her how much a smart, strong team can accomplish. “I’ve never been a part of another organization that’s been so quick and on the ball … One of the biggest shocks to me is how the volunteers take this seriously. They’re on time. They’re early … Everyone is here and beautifully aggressive about everything.”

Her restaurant serves fresh crudos and refined plates with a Japanese influence, but Steiner says the way they’re cooking at #ChefsForFeds isn’t extremely different, especially because the organization purchases its ingredients locally and puts money back into the local economy. “I can see where it’s necessary to provide nutritious meals that are decent in size versus when it’s time to do tasting menus, but the food we’re serving is food fit for restaurants,” she says.

Dishes have included a grilled sirloin steak sandwich with pickled onions, roasted tomato, and spring mix finished with a roasted garlic aioli; a roasted broccoli and basil tahini bowl

agers meeting that they would volunteer me,” she says.

Riccio volunteered at #ChefsForFeds on Jan. 24. “I don’t think I’ve worked like that since I was 20,” she says. After making thousands of quinoa bowls, she is signed up for two more shifts this week. “I appreciate that they’re not cutting anything off [despite the shutdown being over] … Even though we are a transient community, we are supportive of each other.”

Chef Matt Adler, formerly of Osteria Morini and Schlow Restaurant Group, believes D.C.’s general camaraderie is magnified in the restaurant industry. “The chef community in D.C. is tighter than anywhere I’ve ever lived,” says the chef, who now runs his own consulting company, MRA Culinary Solutions. “It’s a super generous chef and restaurateur community and everybody cares.”

Adler says he has done his fair share of charity work over the years, but nothing has compared to #ChefsForFeds, where he has been volunteering most days from 7 a.m. to noon.

He calls it “one of the most difficult things he’s done” and compares it to “opening a brand new restaurant twice a day with brand new staff.”

“This is the first charity work I’ve done that affects so many people,” he says. “As chefs, we get invited to ‘walking around’ tasting events where you put your dish up and leave and forget about it. This was a good opportunity to make a difference on a very large scale. That’s why I kept doing it.”

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To Be Scene

es. So, in 2015, he started a group with other deaf and hard-of-hearing film fans to organize more open caption screenings at area movie theaters.

“I’ve been around deaf and hard-of-hearing people of different backgrounds all my life, and part of the reason I pursue captioning accessibility is because it is something that benefits the whole community,” he tells City Paper.

Since it launched, Nordlof ’s group, DC Deaf Moviegoers, has amassed a significant following. It has 2,336 members in its Facebook group, a mailing list of 1,052 subscribers, and organizes two to three open caption screenings per week in D.C. But recently, Nordlof and the DC Deaf Moviegoers have run into a new problem: There just aren’t enough open caption screenings in D.C. to accommodate the demand for them.

So, they’ve taken up their case with the D.C. Council, hoping that it will pass legislation requiring area movie theaters to host more open caption screenings.

Stephanie Rudig

Deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers push for local movie theaters to host more open caption screenings.

By Kayla Randall To see and enjoy a film in a movie theater as a deaf or hard-of-hearing person, you have two options.

You could use a closed captioning device— a personal device that displays captions for only you to see. But those devices sometimes present a number of challenges. Say you request use of a closed captioning device at your theater: You may get a clunky pair of glasses that aren’t particularly comfortable, especially if you already wear prescription glasses; or you could use a cup holdermounted device that requires you to shift your

FILM

eyes back-and-forth between the big screen and said device.

These devices come with a set of “whatif ” problems: What if the theater’s closed captioning system isn’t working? What if your device’s batteries are dead, or quickly dying?

What if your device is not functioning properly? You then have to get up, interrupt your moviegoing experience, and try to find an employee who can help you acquire a working device. Your problem may or may not be solved, and by then, there’s a good chance you’ve missed a significant chunk of a movie you paid to see.

Or, a closed captioning device might not even be an option for you at all because it gives you migraines or vertigo.

18 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

All of these “what ifs” are a frequent reality for deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers who have grown weary of closed captioning devices. But there is the second option: open captions.

With open captions, movie theaters simply display words and sound cues on the screen.

For many moviegoers in the D.C. area who rely on or prefer open caption screenings, the frequency of these screenings is few and far between. And, depending on where you live, open caption screenings may not be an option at all.

For a long time, Erik Nordlof, a movie lover who is deaf, struggled to find open caption screenings, especially once theater chains started carrying closed captioning devic-

The silenT film era was the last respite for the deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoing audience. It was the last time there was truly equal access at the theater for both the hearing and the deaf and hard-of-hearing public. It began in the late 1800s, and when it ended around the 1920s—when “talking pictures” were popularized—“deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers had no access at the movie theaters for decades after that,” Nordlof says.

Open captions are considered more accessible and the best practice for a number of reasons. The open caption advocacy group Open Captions Australia precisely lays out why that is: There’s the ease of viewing, not just for people who are deaf and hard of hearing, but people with other disabilities—like autism and auditory processing disorders—as well as senior citizens, veterans with severe tinnitus, children learning to read, and people for whom English is a second language.

In 2015, Hawaii became the only state in the country to pass legislation requiring its theaters to host open caption screenings. The law required theaters with more than two locations to provide at least two open caption showings per week of each film. Since then, however, the law has weakened and theaters are now only required to show one open caption screening per week, or offer closed captioning devices.

Howard A. Rosenblum, the CEO and director of legal services for the Silver Spring-based National Association of the Deaf, says that while the Department of

Justice mandated improvements in closed captioning, that technology is still not satisfactory for many deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

“All existing forms of closed captioning have been problematic in different ways,” says Rosenblum. Those problems include an inadequate number of devices at a theater, devices breaking down, batteries dying, and words displayed out of sync with the movie.

Nordlof and the DC Deaf Moviegoers are hoping that D.C. will soon join Hawaii and pass open caption legislation. Many people “have gone to the movies less often or stopped entirely because of the inaccessibility of the closed captioning devices,” he says. “Movie theaters are simply not giving deaf and hardof-hearing moviegoers the access they need.

They are breaking the law in continuing to provide problematic CC devices.”

D.C. is uniquely situated to adapt to the needs of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community because of the presence of Gallaudet University, the transformative institution designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

“Gallaudet has the largest concentration of deaf and hard-of-hearing people in a single location in the world,” says Fred Weiner, the director of real estate foundation and D.C. government relations at Gallaudet. The school has close to 2,000 students annually and about 500 full-time employees. Plus, there are many Gallaudet alumni in the area, and a large contingent of deaf or hard-of-hearing federal government workers (the federal government, Weiner says, is the largest employer of deaf and hard-of-hearing people).

Inspired by Hawaii’s legislation, Nordlof met with Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen with the idea to introduce a similar bill in D.C. “Being a hearing person, I had no idea of the contraptions and devices that have to be carried and how they don’t really work and how many problems my own neighbors are facing,” Allen says.

In September of last year, Allen, along with Councilmembers Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1), David Grosso (At-Large), and Anita Bonds (At-Large) introduced the Open Movie Captioning Requirement Act of 2018. The bill would require any movie theater with more than three screens to provide at least four open caption screenings a week of every movie they’re showing. At least two of those screenings, the bill says, would have to be shown during peak hours (anytime after 6 p.m. on Fridays and after noon on Saturdays and Sundays). Additionally, any theater with two or three screens would be required to show open caption screenings twice a week, and theaters with just one screen would be required to host an open caption screening monthly.

But the bill died in the final days of last year.

It was introduced too late in the legislative calendar to be passed before 2019. Allen’s office is hoping to reintroduce the bill next month, with some tweaks based on testimony and feedback from a public hearing in December.

Even as the future of the bill is in limbo, Nordlof ’s advocacy on this issue is inspiring others around the country to fight for caption access. John Quinney, a member of the Vermont chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America, is now pursuing open captions at his local theaters. “DC Deaf Moviegoers has really helped give me a sense of what’s possible,” he says.

Allen’s bill AmAssed a long list of supporters, from Gallaudet to the National Association of the Deaf to the DC Language Access Coalition, but some were not in favor. Chief among the opposition: movie theater owners.

Esther Baruh, the director of government relations for the National Association of Theatre Owners, testified at the hearing that “the general moviegoing public really just doesn’t love going to shows that have open captions.”

Though NATO members insisted at the hearing that they want access for deaf patrons and want their patronage, they also said that closed captioning devices were the best way to address their needs.

“Our data suggests that thousands and thousands and thousands of deaf and hardof-hearing patrons are using and appreciating closed captioning systems in cinemas all across this country, and it’s an achievement that we are quite proud of,” NATO CEO John Fithian said during his testimony.

NATO did not respond to several requests for comment for this article.

During his testimony, ANC 6C06 Commissioner Robb Dooling, who is deaf, wore large closed captioning glasses to demonstrate just how “cumbersome and, frankly, dehumanizing” they can be. But Fithian insisted in his testimony that “the cleaver of a mandate means we’ll have a lot of empty auditoriums that will cost us a lot of money, and we want to find universal access a different way.”

At one point, Fithian suggested that NATO is working on new technology to stream holograms of people signing a movie to the seats of deaf patrons as they’re watching it.

Allen scoffs at this idea. “The thing around the devices is you’re having to constantly shift your eyes between the action on the screen and the words on the device,” Allen says.

“Now imagine there’s a hologram. Just put the open captions on the screen.”

During the hearing, Allen says he observed a particularly pointed bit of irony. “There were these big screens in the hearing room that we had interpreters typing up everything that was being signed as well as being spoken, so that there was a full written transcription taking place in real time,” he says. “In essence, it was open captions of the hearing.”

He noticed that the people from the movie theater industry who were there to testify against the bill kept their eyes glued to a screen with no picture, only the words being spoken.

As they sat waiting to speak in opposition to an open caption bill, they closely watched the open captions.

CP

FILMSHORT SUBJECTS

DAYS OF THEIR LIVES Hale County This Morning, This Evening Directed by RaMell Ross

Hale County tHis Morning, tHis evening quickly announces itself as a different type of documentary when an intertitle asks, “What is the orbit of our dreaming?” Indeed, RaMell Ross’ debut film speaks the language of a dream, with superficially unrelated scenes of an African-American community’s slicesof-life standing in where a traditional pointA-to-point-B narrative might be. The result is impressionistic, a look at daily triumphs and challenges that feels like reverie but couldn’t be more real.

Hale County is in rural Alabama, and the doc mimics a small town in which everybody knows everybody—and therefore you’re going to meet everybody. There’s really no focus here, but out of a mostly unidentified cast of characters, Ross introduces us to two young men: Quincy, a father who works at the catfish plant, and Daniel, a student. Both have dreams and strong work ethics. Quincy says that his motto is “don’t give up” and that “before I leave this earth, I want to fulfill all my goals and my dreams,” noting especially that he wants to make life better for his son. Daniel’s aim is getting into a good college where he can play basketball. He gets into Selma University, and a scene of him shooting (and making) several 3-pointers proves that he has the talent to make his mark.

Otherwise, though, the doc is random.

There are scenes of cheerleaders, of worshippers at church, of a man playing most excellent blues guitar. Here’s a cop’s flashlight glaring right into the camera; here’s a literal deer in headlights afterward. There’s a shot of graveside mourners after a shocking death, the understated announcement of which is the most powerful punch the film offers. Curiously (though the whole of the doc is curious, really, in the best way), Ross shows the black, toxic smoke of a tire fire mixed with sunlight and intercut with a scene from the 1913 film Lime Kiln Club Field Day, with its star, Bert Williams, looking from behind trees as if at the fire. (The film is said to be the oldest featuring African-American actors.) Next is the intertitle, “What happens when all the cotton is picked?” The themes are big: birth, death, family, economics.

Nearly as frequent as scenes of people are scenes of nature. Ross is a cinematographer, and it shows; he also has a love of skies. There are shots of the stars, the moon, a sunrise, and clouds, often artfully framed, such as one image of a night sky with the camera looking upward through a basketball hoop.

To give the impression of gazing out a car window, there’s a lengthy shot of a landscape, its fields and trees whizzing by as sounds and bits of dialogue from other scenes play. At times, all this gets frustrating; having made the acquaintance of Quincy and Daniel (and Quincy’s adorable son, Kyrie), you want the doc to more traditionally follow them. But if you let the film’s lyrical rhythms and existential moments wash over you, you’ll feel the truths about their lives even if you don’t technically know them.

—Tricia Olszewski Hale County This Morning, This Evening screens Wednesday, Feb. 6 at the Avalon Theatre.

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News You Can Lose Over the years, the Newseum has demonstrated an innate ability to pander to our profession’s most self-indulgent tendencies.

Of course, the museum does contain exhibitions of defining moments of modern history—the 9/11 gallery, a bit of the Berlin Wall, Pulitzer-winning photographs—but for every worthwhile exhibition, there always seems to be one that skews toward naval-gazey.

Below, we highlighted the Newseum’s most self-indulgent exhibitions from over the years. —Matt Cohen and Caroline Jones

WikimediaComons/Gareth Milner

The Newseum—the living paean to the First Amendment— has been sold. Well, its building has, at least. The long-struggling museum announced last week that it sold its prominent Penn Quarter building to Johns Hopkins University for a whopping $372.5 million. But this isn’t the end of the Newseum; it’s currently on the hunt for a new home in the D.C. area. As journalists, you’d think we’d be a bit sad to see the Newseum, in its current form, go. Eh.

1. Anchorman: The Exhibition Since it opened its doors in 2008, the Newseum has struggled to, well, lure people through those doors. It sought to change that in 2013 with an exhibition celebrating one of the best movies to lampoon the entire industry which the Newseum is a living monument to: Anchorman. The great thing about Anchorman is that it’s a movie that’s laughing at, not with, the world of broadcast news. But with Anchorman: The Exhibition, the Newseum demonstrated a remarkable feat of completely missing the joke. That, in and of itself, is a feat worthy of being in a museum.

2. Louder Than Words: Rock, Power, and Politics; Elvis! His Groundbreaking, HipShaking, Newsmaking Story; Woodstock at 40: The Rise of Music Journalism Call it baby boomer pandering. These musical exhibits aren’t really about news and would fit in better at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or Graceland. But since the Newseum has to get bodies in the door, nostalgia-fueled shows like these show up frequently. Video interviews with Bono and Village People costumes don’t tell the story of how music events and the coverage of them changed journalism practices, but they do interest older visitors from out of town and create plenty of merchandising opportunities.

20 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

3. CNN Politics Campaign 2016: Like, Share, Elect

4. Inside Tim Russert’s Office: If It’s Sunday, It’s ‘Meet the Press’

People are still reeling from the 2016 election—and for good reason. But of the many narratives to emerge in the election’s aftermath, the one that’s still brought up is how much the news media messed up in the election cycle. No network did worse than CNN, whose breathless recapping of Trump’s campaign felt more like a cynical reality show than thorough election coverage. Case in point: CNN partnered with the Newseum for a “one-of-a-kind immersive experience” that told the story of the 2016 election in real time. Oops.

Meet the Press host Tim Russert’s sudden death in 2008 prompted an outpouring of overwrought, tearful tributes and remembrances from famous fans and casual viewers alike. It also prompted the Newseum to turn the contents of Russert’s office into an exhibit where viewers could examine fascinating items like folded newspapers, framed pictures of his kid, and a CVS bag. The result was somehow both voyeuristic and boring, and still managed to make journalists seem like total slobs.

THEATER

Grumpy Old Men

for all that light,” I was inclined to forgive it its excesses. One lesson of this mess we’re in is that subtlety is overrated.

Plays about conniving oligarchs and distraught jurors ask audiences to disregard their preconceived notions about democracy.

By Chris Klimek

Kleptocracy

Kleptocracy

By Kenneth Lin Directed by Jackson Gay At Arena Stage to Feb. 24 The acToR chRisTopheR geaRy does not look like Vladimir Putin. That’s not a disqualifying strike against his nervy, mannered performance as the man who’s ruled Russia since the time before iPods in Kleptocracy, Arena Stage’s absorbing world premiere drama about the Russian president’s rivalry with oligarch-turned-philanthropist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. But it is a bit puzzling that the show’s cast includes a much closer Putin lookalike in actor Joseph Carlson, who appears as Putin’s translator, among other roles. Carlson was a very good Andrew Jackson in a not-very-good show at Arena called Sovereignty at this time last year, so he has experience playing heads of state who are also cruel sons of bitches.

Though Putin’s consolidation of authoritarian rule in a period when democracy appeared, at least briefly, to be flowering has made him the world’s No. 1 strongman, the KGB agentturned-politician could only have risen so high and remained in power for so long—19 years, though he says he will step down when his fourth presidential term expires in 2024—by being consistently underestimated.

Geary, slight of build and nasal of voice, begs us to repeat the mistake of Khodorkovsky and many others and to judge him insufficiently sturdy to play so cunning a foe of Western liberal democracy. “Your time will come,” he sneers to a George W. Bush administration official late in the play, which throws up only a few temporal signposts during its narrative, spanning roughly from 1992 to 2013. “Your president will be my dog.” On the day I wrote this, the Trump Administration officially lifted the sanctions on three companies in which friend-of-Putin Oleg Deripaska owns large interests, over the objections of the 362 members of the House of Representatives, including 136 Republicans.

Kleptocracy is more successful as a geopolitical yarn than as a character study, though maybe that fits for a story at least in part about a scheming puppetmaster. Playwright Kenneth Lin has billed it as “a fictional play based on historic events.” While the motives of some of its principals—particularly Khodorkovsky, despite Max Woertendyke’s appealing performance

as the would-be reformer, who today lives in Switzerland—remain as opaque as the oil that buoyed their fortunes, Lin’s reverse engineering of recent geopolitical history feels no more implausible than many developments on House of Cards. (Lin was a writer and producer on the Netflix series.)

Formally, this one is an odd duck. It’s Geary’s Putin who addresses us directly throughout the show, starting with a racy line from surrealist Russian poet Daniil Kharms: “They say all the best tarts are fat-arsed.” But the title of that bit of literature, How a Man Crumbled, could also be applied to this play, which along with its diabolical narrator has a more traditional protagonist in Khodorkovsky, who took advantage of the opportunities of Glasnost in the early-to-mid-1990s to become, for a time, the richest man in Russia.

As the play opens, Khodorkovsky is living in his BMW while offering cash for the “privatization vouchers” that gave the Russians at least a theoretical opportunity to buy shares in what used to be state-owned companies. He’s also begging a 19-year-old blonde beauty named Inna, played by Brontë England-Nelson, to become his second wife. Though Woertendyke plays Khodorkovsky as a bent-knee lover, Inna understands him well enough to know the choice he’s made is a calculated one. “I need you to bring the sheep to me,” he tells her.

With a few partners, he seizes control of Yukos Oil and is implicated in the assassination of a regional politician who claims Yukos owes a vast sum in back taxes. He wants to make bank and Westernize the motherland by selling out to an American conglomerate, even if it

means starving his own employees to keep Yukos so profitable that the Americans can’t stay away. Rebuffing Putin’s entreaties and subsequent threats to slow down, he finds himself jailed on tax evasion charges—and runs for office from his cell. As he revisits correspondence from old rivals, Lin puts one of them, Elliot Bales’ murdered local official, back on the stage, with prosthetic entry and exit wounds affixed to his head. Prison guards who once abused him now bring tea and luxuries to try to win his favor.

Not all of it is as deft as that. A George W. Bush administration official played by Candy Buckley, who seems to have modeled her performance on the 43rd President’s hip-shooting Texan persona, is more a caricature than a character.

This nameless functionary’s job is to grease the wheels of Western expansion into Russia by getting Khodorkovsky to stop jeopardizing the sale of his company by calling for reforms and backing Putin’s political opponents. She’s working Putin, too, to try to get him to stop inserting himself into what the U.S. would like to claim is a transaction between private entities.

Misha Kachman’s black, brutalist set uses just a few design elements to suggest the forces of capitalism swiftly remaking Russia: the back half of Khodorkovsky’s imported car; an illuminated oil company logo. Nicholas Hussong’s projections of ripples of oil swimming over the set’s flat surfaces, together with Broken Chord’s murky score and ambient sound design, give the evening an atmosphere of frightening inevitability. By the time Putin unscrews a lightbulb before sitting at his desk to tut-tut that he had to stop Khodorkovsky because Russia just isn’t “ready

1101 6th St. SW. $41–$95. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

Twelve Angry Men

By Reginald Rose Directed by Sheldon Epps At Ford’s Theatre to Feb. 19 Reginald Rose’s juRy room drama Twelve Angry Men—a teleplay, a stage play, a Sidney Lumet-directed, Henry Fonda-starring feature film, and then and for decades now, a stage play again—takes the sanguine view that if just 8.33 percent of the jury in a criminal trial is cautious and skeptical, our system will not allow an innocent person to be convicted of a crime. That one conscientious skeptic—Fonda in the movie, Dexter’s Erik King here—is the persuader who does what the accused’s court-appointed counsel did not, patiently peeling apart and examining the incongruities of the government’s sloppy case. My own memory of serving on a jury in a criminal case in 2003 was mainly that we were pressured not to deliver one verdict or the other, but rather to bring in a verdict quickly. The inability of some jurors to divorce the circumstances of the case from their lived experience is an element of Rose’s script that remains trueto-life and compelling.

The version on offer at Ford’s Theatre is confusing on a few fronts: chiefly, the time period in which it is supposed to be set. It lops off the judge’s instructions to the jury, but otherwise mostly retains the 1950s speech of the classic Lumet film I was made to watch in high school civics class, and some of the actors— a mix of D.C. stage veterans (Eric Hissom, Craig Wallace, Lawrence Redmond, Michael Russotto) and fresh faces—have a more natural command of it than others. But they wear contemporary clothes, and oh yes, six of them are now men of color. (It’s strongly suggested that the accused is, too.) In director Sheldon Epps’ most notable choice, by which I mean the one that most invites dissection, the jurors, identified only by their numbers, are won over almost directly along racial lines.

The insertion of an intermission, which scrambles the suspense generated by telling the story in real time, causes the play to lose some tension. It also means stopping the first act and starting the second on an awkward jury room brawl tableau that looks like the Iwo Jima Memorial. The war-drums soundtrack stinger that announces the start of each act is mercifully brief, but seems to signal an artifact from the 1980s, not the 1950s. Updating Twelve Angry Men every generation or so would be a worthy notion, but this fuzzy-period take makes a unanimous verdict elusive.

511 10th St. NW. $25–$62. (202) 347-4833. fords.org.

washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 21

22 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITYLIST

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

Feb 5

Music 23 Theater 26 Film 28

Music

Carly KASEY CHAMBERS Burruss

ARLO GUTHRIE

8

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

"Alice's Restaurant" Tour with Sarah Lee Guthrie

ESTELLE

10

FRIDAY BLUES

“Experience Lover’s Rock Live!”

13

DAVID SANBORN

14

BURLESQUE-A-PADES IN LOVELAND “A Valentine's Day Spectacular”

BLUES ALLEY 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Corey Harris. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $25–$30. bluesalley.com.

feat. Angie

CABARET

15

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. (888) 9452468. The Mason Cabaret presents The Golden Age of Broadway. 8 p.m. $15–$30. cfa.gmu.edu.

A tribute to the musicians we loved and lost in 2018.

Featuring DC area's finest musicians!

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. St. Lawrence String Quartet. 7:30 p.m. $40. wolftrap.org.

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven’s Emperor. 8 p.m. $15–$89. kennedy-center.org.

FOLK

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Greensky Bluegrass. 7:30 p.m. $40–$75. theanthemdc.com.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Justin Trawick and The Common Good. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Luke Brindley. 7:30 p.m. $18. jamminjava.com.

FUNK & R&B

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Daley and JMSN. 8 p.m. $25. 930.com.

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Will Downing. 7:30 p.m. $75. birchmere.com.

GYPSY SALLY’S 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Bob Marley Birthday Celebration. 9 p.m. $13–$16. gypsysallys.com.

Back in 2013, Toni Braxton almost retired from music, telling The Grio, “For what I do I have to love it. I have to feel that excitement and it’s gone.” But the R&B legend was able to unbreak her heart, reuniting with longtime collaborator Babyface for an album of duets. Still, Braxton was out of the game for a little while, performing on Broadway, starring on reality TV, and struggling with lupus. Thankfully, Braxton appears to be all the way back, returning with her first solo album since 2010, last year’s Sex & Cigarettes. True to its title, her smoky contralto is even smokier these days while remaining just as sexy as ever on an album that made a few concessions to contemporary trends without feeling dated. On her latest tour, featuring beloved R&B girl group SWV as guests, expect some of Braxton’s new songs across a setlist dominated by the hits of her iconic self-titled debut, like the timeless “Another Sad Love Song” and, of course, her unstoppable 1996 ballad “Un-Break My Heart.” Toni Braxton performs with SWV at 8 p.m. at The Theater at MGM National Harbor, 101 MGM National Ave., Oxon Hill. $137.50–$353. (844) 346-4664. mgmnationalharbor.com.

—Chris Kelly HILL COUNTRY LIVE 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050.

Mo Lowda & the Humble. 9:30 p.m. $12–$30. hillcountrywdc.com.

JAZZ

WORLD

BETHESDA BLUES & JAZZ 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Norman Connors and Bobbi Humphrey. 8 p.m. $59.50–$79. bethesdabluesjazz.com.

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE GALLERY 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Camille Thurman and The Darrell Green Trio. 7 p.m.; 9 p.m. $20. kennedy-center.org.

POP

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Almost Selena. 8 p.m. $7.75–$15.50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

ROCK

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Flow Tribe. 8 p.m. $15–$25. thehamiltondc.com.

Bonnie JAMES McMURTRY Whitmore

24

JEFFREY OSBORNE

Mar 1

TONI BRAXTON AND SWV

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Cautious Clay. 7 p.m. $18. ustreetmusichall.com.

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Victor Provost and Josanne Francis. 8 p.m. $17–$35. ampbystrathmore.com.

21

27&28

ELECTRONIC

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487.

Brasstracks. 8 p.m. $20–$60. unionstage.com.

ERIC ROBERSON

16 Daryl Davis Presents: Thanks For The Memories – 2018

CLASSICAL

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

BAYNK. 10:30 p.m. $15–$20. ustreetmusichall.com.

Pontani, Murray Hill, & more!

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Victor Provost and Josanne Francis. 8 p.m. $17–$35. ampbystrathmore.com.

SATURDAY BLUES

BLUES ALLEY 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Corey Harris. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $25–$30. bluesalley.com.

CABARET GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. (888) 9452468. The Mason Cabaret presents The Golden Age of Broadway. 8 p.m. $15–$30. cfa.gmu.edu.

CLASSICAL

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. (888) 9452468. Mendelssohn & Schumann. 8 p.m. $15. cfa. gmu.edu.

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven’s Emperor. 8 p.m. $15–$89. kennedy-center.org.

MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. National Philharmonic: Chopin. 8 p.m. $34–$88. strathmore.org.

COUNTRY

MARSHALL CRENSHAW & THE BOTTLE ROCKETS

2

Empty BOB SCHNEIDER ThePockets

3

SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK

7

MADELEINE PEYROUX & PAULA COLE

8

THE MANHATTANS

9

SUGAR SAMMY

10

THE HIGH KINGS

14 15 16 18

featuring Gerald

alston

KINKY FRIEDMAN & DALE WATSON "Long Tales & Short Songs DEL & DAWG

(Del McCoury & David Grisman)

TOM RUSH Reed TODD SNIDER Foehl

Cash Cabin Sessions Vol. 3, Album Release Tour!

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. H.C. McEntire. 8 p.m. $12–$20. jamminjava.com.

ELECTRONIC

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Wingtip. 9 p.m. $12–$15. dcnine.com.

ECHOSTAGE 2135 Queens Chapel Road NE. (202) 503-2330. Cash Cash and R3hab. 9 p.m. $25–$30. echostage.com.

APRIL 2, 2019 - 8PM TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT TICKETMASTER.COM/800-745-3000. presents

washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 23

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Luttrell. 10:30 p.m. $10–$15. ustreetmusichall.com.

FOLK

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Greensky Bluegrass. 7:30 p.m. $40–$75. theanthemdc.com.

CITY LIGHTS: SATURDAY

FUNK & R&B

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Will Downing. 7:30 p.m. $75. birchmere.com.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Caz Gardiner. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

LIVE MUSIC | BOURBON | BURGERS

FEBRUARY FR 1

SA 2

BACK TO THE 90s CLASSIC ALBUMS NIGHT: 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF GREEN DAY’S “DOOKIE” FEATURING BRAIN STEW + GETCHOO + SKYDIVER GROUNDHOG DAY CELEBRATION FEATURING LA UNICA

FR 8

WELLES

FR 8

DRIVE BY TRUCKERS AFTER PARTY FEATURING THE BEANSTALK LIBRARY

SA 9

FLASHBAND PRESENTED BY 7DRUMCITY

TU 12 ELISE DAVIS w/ CONOR AND THE WILD HUNT WE 13 SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS w/ SPECIAL GUESTS NATIONAL RESERVE TH 14 WIL GRAVATT FR 15 BLUES & SOUL NIGHT FEATURING FAST EDDIE & THE SLOWPOKES FR 22 DANNY BURNS SA 23 GOOSE SURPRISE ATTACK SU 24 SOUTHWEST SOUL SESSIONS w/ ELIJAH BALBED & ISABELLE DE LEON TH 28 ROCKABILLY NIGHT FEATURING KITI GARTNER & JAY JENC (FROM JUMPIN’ JUPITER)

MARCH FR 1 SU 3

TU 5

BENCOOLEN, SWIFT TECHNIQUE, AND NEBRASKA GRAMMY NOMINATED FOR BEST CONTEMPORARY BLUES ALBUM DANIELLE NICOLE BAND w/ ASHLEIGH CHEVALIER A MARDI GRAS CELEBRATION ON THE WHARF FEATURING THE CRAWDADDIES

pearlstreetwarehouse.com

FOLLOW US @PEARLSTREETLIVE 33 PEARL ST SW DC •THE WHARF

HIP-HOP

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Trippie Redd. 8 p.m. $35. fillmoresilverspring.com.

JAZZ

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Marcus Johnson. 8 p.m. $25–$40. ampbystrathmore.com.

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. I AM A MAN. 7 p.m. $30–$40. kennedy-center.org.

POP

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. JAGMAC. 3 p.m. $15–$25. jamminjava.com.

ROCK & ROLL HOTEL 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-7625.

We Were Pirates. 8 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. SOAK. 8 p.m. $15–$17. songbyrddc.com.

ROCK

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. The Dustbowl Revival and Hot Club of Cowtown. 3 p.m.; 8 p.m. $32–$37. wolftrap.org.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Junior Marvin. 8 p.m. $25–$35. thehamiltondc.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Blahsum. 9 p.m. Free. songbyrddc.com.

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

KONGOS. 7 p.m. $25. ustreetmusichall.com.

MY FAVORITE MURDER LIVE

Does the word “Murderino” mean anything to you? How about the phrase “Stay sexy and don’t get murdered”? Do you ever end conversations with “Elvis, do you want a cookie? Meow!”? If you answered “yes” to any or all of these questions, this event has probably been on your radar for months. And if not, this event will quickly initiate you into the fandemonium that follows Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark and their beloved podcast My Favorite Murder. My Favorite Murder is a show that started as a discussion of exactly what the title implies: Kilgariff and Hardstark’s favorite murders. In each episode they share an interesting murder, and now the show regularly incorporates telling listeners stories of hometown murders and bizarre crimes.

There are also a ton of live episodes because these women tour the world as much as any pop star. This current tour has special significance as Kilgariff and Hardstark are promoting their co-written memoir that comes out in May. Unlike other true crime podcasts that are intensely researched and delivered in grave tones, this show’s secret sauce is the women’s capability to take a morbid subject and find the humor in every story. The show begins at 8 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall, 1776 D St. NW. Sold out. (202) 628-1776. dar.org.

—Diana Metzger

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. El Ten Eleven. 9 p.m. $17–$25. unionstage.com.

WORLD

WARNER THEATRE 513 13th St. NW. (202) 783-4000.

Faramarz Aslani. 9 p.m. $49–$199. warnertheatredc. com.

SUNDAY CLASSICAL

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The Kennedy Center Chamber Players. 2 p.m. $36. kennedy-center.org.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART WEST GARDEN COURT 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. (202) 8426941. Trio Valtorna. 3:30 p.m. Free. nga.gov.

PHILLIPS COLLECTION 1600 21st St. NW. (202) 3872151. Jess Gillam and Thomas Weaver. 4 p.m. $5–$45. phillipscollection.org.

ROCK

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. The Bachelor Boys Band. 8 p.m. Free. jamminjava.com.

KENNEDY CENTER MILLENNIUM STAGE 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Levine Music presents J Rock Hip Hop and The Blamers. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

TUESDAY CLASSICAL

DAR CONSTITUTION HALL 1776 D St. NW. (202) 6284780. Sarah Brightman. 8 p.m. $50–$295. dar.org.

FOLK

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. (888) 9452468. St. Olaf Orchestra in Concert. 8 p.m. Free–$10. cfa.gmu.edu.

ROCK

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Kasey Chambers. 7:30 p.m. $39.50. birchmere.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Mackenzie Shivers. 9 p.m. Free. songbyrddc.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Sneaks. 8 p.m. $13–$15. songbyrddc.com.

MONDAY BLUES

INSTITUTE OF MUSICAL TRADITIONS AT THE TAKOMA PARK COMMUNITY CENTER 7500 Maple Ave., Takoma Park. (301) 754-3611. The Nighthawks. 7:30 p.m. $12–$20. imtfolk.org.

JAZZ

BLUES ALLEY 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Herb Scott Quartet. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $20. bluesalley.com.

24 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

COUNTRY

ELECTRONIC

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Nao. 7:30 p.m. $30. fillmoresilverspring.com.

FOLK

HILL COUNTRY LIVE 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050.

Meadow Mountain. 8:30 p.m. Free. hillcountrywdc. com.

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Justin Nozuka. 7:30 p.m. $20–$30. jamminjava.com.

POP

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Thomas Dybdahl. 8 p.m. $15–$17. songbyrddc.com.

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487.

RKCB & Shoffy. 7:30 p.m. $15–$30. unionstage.com.

ROCK

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. The Band Camino. 8 p.m. $12–$15. dcnine.com.

WEDNESDAY CLASSICAL

KENNEDY CENTER MILLENNIUM STAGE 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Juilliard String Quartet. 7:30 p.m. $45. kennedy-center.org.

ELECTRONIC

SOUNDCHECK 1420 K St. NW. (202) 789-5429. Luca Lush. 10 p.m. $7–$15. soundcheckdc.com.

FOLK

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Drew and Ellie Holcomb. 7:30 p.m. $45. birchmere.com.

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Greg Brown. 8 p.m. $25–$50. thehamiltondc.com.

JAZZ

BLUES ALLEY 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Reginald Cyntje. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $22. bluesalley.com.

POP

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Megan Davies. 7:30 p.m. $15–$25. jamminjava.com.

ROCK

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Sharon Van Etten. 7 p.m. $30. 930.com.

Merriweather Post Pavilion • Columbia, MD JUST ANNOUNCED!

THIRD EYE BLIND & JIMMY EAT WORLD

w/ Ra Ra Riot ......................................................................................................FRI JULY 19

CHRIS STAPLETON

w/ Margo Price & The Marcus King Band .......... AUGUST 11

THIS WEEK’S SHOWS

Poppy w/ Flint Eastwood Early Show! 6pm Doors ........................................ Th JAN 31 Amen Dunes w/ Arthur Late Show! 10pm Doors .............................................. Th 31 Daley & JMSN .......................................................................................... F FEB 1

On Sale Friday, February 1 at 10am M3 ROCK FESTIVAL FEATURING

Whitesnake • Extreme • Warrant • Skid Row • Vince Neil • Kix and more! .....................................................MAY 3-5 For a full lineup, visit m3rockfest.com

FEBRUARY

MARCH (cont.)

BASS NATION PRESENTS

BASS NATION PRESENTS

Space Jesus w/ Minnesota • Of the Trees • Huxley Anne

Late Show! 10:30pm Doors ..................F 8 ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Spafford w/ Of Tomorrow .........Sa 9 Panda Bear w/ Home Blitz ......M 11 Dorothy w/ Spirit Animal .........Tu 12 Bob Mould Band w/ Titus Andronicus ...................Th 14 Galactic feat. Erica Falls

Dirt Monkey Late Show! 10pm Doors ....................Sa 2 Citizen Cope w/ David Ramirez .Su 3 WET and Kilo Kish w/ Hana Vu ...................................Tu 5 JJ Grey & Mofro w/ Southern Avenue ....................Th 7 ALL GOOD PRESENTS

BoomBox ....................................F 8

Sa 16 - w/ Aztec Sun) .....F 15 & Sa 16

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

D NIGHT ADDED!

Vince Staples w/ Buddy .........Sa 23 You Me At Six w/ Dreamers & Machineheart ....Su 24 Pat Green and Aaron Watson ...............W 27 Big Head Todd & The Monsters w/ Blue Water Highway ..............Th 28

MARCH

Cole Escola This is a seated show.

Early Show! 6pm Doors ........................F 1

STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Manic Focus Late Show! 10pm Doors ......................F 1 Deerhunter w/ L’Rain Early Show! 6pm Doors ......................Sa 2

MANY MORE SHOWS ON SALE!

9:30 CUPCAKES

J Boog w/ EarthKry & Eddy Dyno .M 11

MUSE

.......................................................................................................... APRIL 2 Ticketmaster

Lincoln Theatre • 1215 U Street, NW Washington, D.C. JUST ANNOUNCED!

JOSH RITTER & THE ROYAL CITY BAND

w/ Penny & Sparrow ............................................................................................ FRI MAY 17

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Trevor Hall w/ Dirtwire & Will Evans ............Tu 12 Smallpools ...............................W 13 ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Mike Gordon ............................F 15 Teenage Fanclub w/ The Love Language ...............Sa 16 Jonathan McReynolds ........Su 17 ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Railroad Earth Two-night passes available. ..F 22 & Sa 23 AN EVENING WITH

Nils Frahm .............................Su 24 TRILLECTRO PRESENTS

Lil Mosey w/ Polo G .................W 27 U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

AEG PRESENTS

Capital One Arena • Washington, D.C.

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

The Motet w/ No BS! Brass Band .................Sa 9

FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECON

Ticketmaster • merriweathermusic.com • impconcerts.com

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

(F 15 - w/ High & Mighty Brass Band •

The Knocks w/ Young & Sick • Blu DeTiger ...Su 17 Jacob Banks ...........................Tu 19 LP w/ Korey Dane........................W 20 Michael Ray w/ Ryan Griffin ...Th 21 Cherub w/ Mosie Late Show! 10pm Doors ......................F 22

Slayer w/ Lamb of God • Amon Amarth • Cannibal Corpse ................................ MAY 14 Jason Aldean w/ Kane Brown • Carly Pearce • Dee Jay Silver .............. MAY 17 Phish ...................................................................................................... JUNE 22 & 23 Train/Goo Goo Dolls w/ Allen Stone ...................................AUGUST 9

Big Wild w/ Robotaki & Mild Minds ...........F 29

On Sale Friday, February 1 at 10am THIS SATURDAY!

Whindersson Nunes .......... MAR 23

Capturing Pablo:

An Evening with DEA Agents Steve Murphy & Javier Pena A Conversation on Pablo Escobar’s Take Down and the Hit Netflix Show Narcos ................... FEB 2

Meow Meow + Thomas Lauderdale (of Pink Martini) .............................. MAR 25

Spiritualized ............................APR 16 Story District’s Citizen Cope .............................APR 17 Sucker For Love ................... FEB 14 JOHNNYSWIM .........................MAY 15 ALL GOOD PRESENTS AN EVENING WITH Yann Tiersen The Mavericks ........................ MAR 8 (Solo In Concert) .........................MAY 24 Alice Smith ................................. MAR 9 AN EVENING WITH AURORA w/ Talos....................... MAR 10 Apocalyptica Plays Metallica By Four Cellos Tour .MAY 28 José González

& The String Theory............ MAR 20

• thelincolndc.com • U Street (Green/Yellow) stop across the street!

STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Boogie T.rio w/ Mersiv ..........Sa 30

APRIL

Let’s Eat Grandma ..................M 1

930.com

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

9:30 CLUB PRESENTS AT U STREET MUSIC HALL

Ripe MHD w/ Moluba .............................F 15 w/ Brook and the Bluff & Del Florida . W FEB 6 9:30 & TRILLECTRO PRESENT Cherry Glazerr MadeinTYO w/ Thutmose & Key! ..... M 18 w/ Mannequin Pussy .......................W 13 Julia Holter w/ Jessica Moss ........Tu 19 • Buy advance tickets at the 9:30 Club box office • 930.com

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 on weekdays & until 11pm on show nights, 6-11pm on Sat, and 6-10:30pm on Sun on show nights.

HAPPY HOUR DRINK PRICES impconcerts.com AFTER THE SHOW AT THE BACK BAR!

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!

930.com washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 25

CITY LIGHTS: SUNDAY

CITY LIGHTS: TUESDAY

PAW PATROL LIVE! RACE TO THE RESCUE

No venue is too big and no pup is too small for your kids’ (and maybe your) favorite crime-solving talking dogs. And now these CGI purebreds come to life for an afternoon of thrilling entertainment that doesn’t cost much more than a movie.

Well, unless you get the meet-and-greet VIP package—just tell junior you never got to meet Luke Skywalker, it’s a good lesson to learn at an impressionable age. Rescued by the young boy Ryder, the faithful canines, including Chase, Marshall, and Skye—shout out your favorite!—put big puppy eyes on teamwork and the kind of good sportsmanship that always foils the sinister plans of the greedy, mustache-twirling Mayor Humdinger of Foggy Bottom. Yet as the PAW Patrol utilizes, and sometimes battles, the latest technology, it knows its history. Inspirations for the show go back to the '60s marionette series Thunderbirds and its big bads even resemble silent movie villains. The show begins at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at EagleBank Arena, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax. $15–$175. (703) 993-3000. eaglebankarena.com. —Pat Padua

CITY LIGHTS: MONDAY

ANGELA J. DAVIS

“This powerful book demands our fierce attention,” proclaims Toni Morrison on the cover of Policing the Black Man, Angela J. Davis’ most recent high profile contribution to the growing canon of literature on race and America’s justice system. From profiling to prosecution, Policing the Black Man analyzes the justice system’s discriminatory methods, ultimately condemning its treatment of black boys and men. Davis, a professor of law at American University and the author of the 2007 book Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor, serves as editor of this anthology, which includes essays by scholars, criminal justice activists, and legal experts. Capitalizing on the worldwide momentum gained since the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, the book breaks down implicit police bias, the mass incarceration of black bodies, and the failure of the Supreme Court. Davis will bring her decades of experience in education and the criminal justice system to this talk, which will no doubt serve as a damning indictment of an institution that claims liberty and justice for all. Angela J. Davis speaks at 6:30 p.m. at Kramerbooks, 1517 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 387-1400. kramers.com.

—Amy Guay

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Castlecomer.

8 p.m. $12. dcnine.com.

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Warbly Jets. 8 p.m. $12– $14. songbyrddc.com.

U STREET MUSIC HALL 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Ripe. 7 p.m. $18. ustreetmusichall.com.

THURSDAY BLUES THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000.

Walter Trout and Eric Gales. 7:30 p.m. $18–$43. thehamiltondc.com.

26 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

NAO

“You leave and return, you’re just like Saturn to me,” NAO croons on the title track of her sophomore studio album, Saturn. According to astrological lore, the Saturn return is the window of time when Saturn returns to the position it occupied at one’s birth. This cosmic coming-of-age usually takes about 29 years to occur and initiates a transformative chapter of personal growth and monumental changes. So, the British singer-songwriter decorated all of the heartbreak, growing pains, and regenerative rapture of her Saturn return with the sounds of her childhood, like Afropop beats, dancehall rhythms, and proto-funk grooves. Saturn sounds mature and selfassured, much like NAO after embracing her own Saturn return—or at least enduring her tumultuous 20s. Now in her early 30s and thriving, NAO exudes the contentment and confidence it takes to harness the power of vulnerability, lean into moments of uncertainty, and create a strikingly relatable R&B record. NAO performs at 7:30 p.m. at The Fillmore Silver Spring, 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $30. (301) 960-9999. fillmoresilverspring.com.

—Casey Embert

CLASSICAL

CLARICE SMITH PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Stadium Drive and Route 193, College Park. (301) 405-2787.

Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. 8 p.m. $10–$25. theclarice.umd.edu.

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra: Schumann’s Piano Concerto. 7 p.m. $15–$89. kennedy-center.org.

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Omer Quartet. 7:30 p.m. $20– $45. kennedy-center.org.

MANSION AT STRATHMORE 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Tessa Lark. 7:30 p.m. $30. strathmore.org.

FOLK

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Mandolin Orange. 7 p.m. $25. 930.com.

HILL COUNTRY LIVE 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050.

Sam Burchfield and Pierce Edens. 8:30 p.m. $12–$20. hillcountrywdc.com.

FUNK & R&B

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Musiq Soulchild. 7:30 p.m. $79.50. birchmere.com.

FILLMORE SILVER SPRING 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Martha Afework. 8 p.m. $15. fillmoresilverspring.com.

JAMMIN JAVA 227 Maple Ave. East, Vienna. (703) 2551566. Bob Marley’s 74th Birthday Tribute Event. 7:30 p.m. $12–$22. jamminjava.com.

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487.

David Garibaldi. 8 p.m. $25. unionstage.com.

JAZZ

BLUES ALLEY 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Jessy J. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com.

ROCK

SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. Tommy Newport. 8 p.m. $15–$20. songbyrddc.com.

Theater

ADMISSIONS This production, a look at privilege, power, and the perils of whiteness, is from the author of Bad Jews, the best-selling play in Studio Theatre history. Bill and Sherri are the white, progressiveand-proud headmaster and dean of admissions at Hillcrest, a mid-tier New Hampshire boarding school.

Over the last 15 years, they’ve worked to diversify the school’s mostly white population, but when their high-achieving son Charlie’s Ivy League dreams are jeopardized, the family’s reaction blasts open a deep rift between their public values and private decisions.

Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Feb. 17. $20–$104.

(202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org.

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’ Signature Theatre transforms into Harlem for this swing-filled, Tony-winning celebration of the songs of legendary jazz pianist, composer, singer, and entertainer Thomas “Fats” Waller.

Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To March 10. $40–$84. (703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org.

AMERICAN MOOR Directed by Drama Desk nominee Kim Weild and starring playwright/performer Keith Hamilton Cobb, American Moor tackles race in Ameri-

washingtoncitypaper.com february 1, 2019 27

atre at Source. 1835 14th St. NW. To March 3. $15–$45.

(202) 204-7741. constellationtheatre.org.

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

NELL GWYNN Former Drury Lane orange seller Eleanor Gwynn was a prolific comic celebrity figure of the Restoration period, King Charles II’s favorite mistress, and one of the first actresses on the English stage.

Much lauded for its London run, Nell Gwynn, a portrait of this amazing woman, premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe and won the 2016 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. Folger Shakespeare Library. 201 E. Capitol St. SE. To March 10. $42–$79. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu.

ONCE This Tony-winning musical with music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, based on the 2006 film which won an Oscar for Best Original Song, took Broadway by storm with its romantic folk-rock ballads. Set in contemporary Dublin, Once ponders the mysteries of music and love as a street guitarist is about to give up on his dreams when he meets a curious woman who wants to know all about him and the pair embark on a remarkable musicmaking journey. Olney Theatre Center. 2001 OlneySandy Spring Road, Olney. To March 10. $37–$84.

(301) 924-3400. olneytheatre.org.

RICHARD THE THIRD This Shakespearean tragedy depicts the Machiavellian tactics employed by the ruthless Richard of Gloucester to attain the crown at any cost. A penetrating account of megalomania.

Shakespeare Theatre Company Studios. 610 F Street NW. To March 10. $44–$125. 202-547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

SHARON VAN ETTEN

Anne Helen Petersen’s recent Buzzfeed essay, “How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation,” captured the guilt and confusion many feel about being too overwhelmed to complete simple chores. It ignited a conversation about burnout, its causes, and those who suffer from it. Sharon Van Etten’s first record in four years—recorded during a time when she was pregnant, going to school, beginning an acting career, and recording music for film and television—coincidentally arrives just in time to be a fitting companion to this conversation.

Named because of her repeated dismissal of a computer update alert, Remind Me Tomorrow captures the unsettling feelings of pursuing your future while still occasionally longing for the past and feeling all too stuck in the present. Van Etten’s deep voice, wandering but precise, and ragged when she needs it to be, will be familiar to fans, but she’s left her guitar behind in favor of distinct percussion, keyboards, and synth wrapped in a cozy amount of reverb. Both kind and celebratory, Remind Me Tomorrow is a welcome salve for the rundown and overwhelmed.

Sharon Van Etten performs at 7 p.m. at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $30. (202) 265-0930. 930.com.

—Justin Weber

ca’s theaters. A black actor (Cobb) grapples with auditioning for Othello in this 85-minute, award-winning play. Anacostia Playhouse. 2020 Shannon Place SE. To Feb. 3. $30–$40. (202) 290-2328. anacostiaplayhouse.com.

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE Chock-full of homicidal maniacs, the Brewster family must dodge the local Brooklyn police as protagonist and drama critic Mortimer navigates their criminal plots and his relationship to the minister’s daughter. A classic black farce featuring spinster aunts, a Teddy Roosevelt delusion, and devious plastic surgery. Thomas Jefferson Theater. 125 S. Old Glebe Rd., Arlington. To Feb. 16. $15– $25. (703) 532-5479. arlingtonarts.org.

THE BALTIMORE WALTZ In this 1992 Obie Awardwinner from Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, Anna contracts ATD (Acquired Toilet Disease), a fictitious fatal affliction common among elementary school teachers who share bathrooms with young children, and flies to Europe with her brother Carl for one last pleasure-seeking extravaganza. Dedicated to Vogel’s brother Carl (who died of AIDS-related complications in the 80s), The Baltimore Waltz is a tragic farce in honor of the ties that bind. Keegan Theatre. 1742 Church St. NW. To Feb. 19. $40–$50. (202) 265-3767. keegantheatre.com.

THE BROTHERS SIZE Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney (an Academy Award winner for the 2016 Best Picture Moonlight), The Brothers Size follows the reunion of two estranged brothers in the Louisiana bayou. The Chicago Tribune calls it “the greatest piece of writing by an American playwright under 30 in a generation or more.” 1st Stage. 1524 Spring Hill

Road, McLean. To Feb. 24. $15–$39. (703) 854-1856.

1ststagetysons.org.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC The long-nosed soldier/ poet Cyrano de Bergerac teams up with his betterlooking friend Christian to win the heart of his lady love in Edmond Rostand’s celebrated play. Expressive movements replace Rostand’s couplets in this wordless adaptation at Synetic Theater. Synetic Theater at Crystal City. 1800 South Bell St. , Arlington. To March 10. $10–$50. (866) 811-4111. synetictheater.org.

KLEPTOCRACY From director Jackson Gay comes this fictional play inspired by historic events, a worldpremiere drama by Kenneth Lin (House of Cards) which turns the spotlight on U.S.-Russia relations. In the ensuing rampage of hyper-capitalism after the pivotal moment of the Soviet Union’s collapse, the Oligarchs, a new class of robber barons, plunge Russia into a terrifying dark age of chaos and corruption. When the richest and most ruthless Oligarch attempts to reform and open Russian markets to the world, he’s confronted by a young Vladimir Putin who is charting his own path to power. Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To Feb. 24. $56–$115. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA When the Devil arrives in Bulgakov’s classic 20th century novel, Moscow is thrown into chaos as death and supernatural events besiege the city. Constellation Theatre Company presents a subversive take on the events that follow the titular Master (locked up in a mental institution) and Margarita (his brave lover) as they race to end the ungodly phenomena. Constellation The-

28 february 1, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

THREE SISTAHS Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s play, this musical blends gospel, rhythm & blues, bebop and funk to portray three women who reflect on the past, present, and future during the height of the civil rights and anti-war movements of 1969. MetroStage.

1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. To Feb. 24. $55. (703) 548-9044. metrostage.org.

TWELVE ANGRY MEN After hearing what all but one deem damning testimony, twelve jurors—all with their own biases and perspectives—comb over evidence and debate the concept of reasonable doubt as the life of a teenager accused of murder hangs in the bal-

ance. Ford’s Theatre. 511 10th St. NW. To Feb. 17. $20– $62. (202) 347-4833. fords.org.

Film

GLASS In this entry into M. Night Shyamalan’s cinematic universe, Unbreakable’s Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as Mr. Glass and Bruce Willis reprises his role as David Dunn, who tracks a disturbed man with multiple identities, Kevin Wendell Crumb from Split. Co-starring James McAvoy and Sarah Paulson. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING When a young boy named Alex stumbles upon the mythical sword Excalibur, he joins forces with a band of fellow youngins and the great wizard Merlin to defeat the medieval menace Morgana. Starring Rebecca Ferguson, Tom Taylor, and Patrick Stewart. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) MISS BALA A young woman named Gloria gets drawn into a dangerous world of cross-border crime as she battles a ruthless drug cartel to save her kidnapped friend in Mexico. Starring Gina Rodriguez, Anthony Mackie, and Ismael Cruz Cordova. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) OUTLAWS Within the underworld of outlaw motorcycle club gangs, the heir to one club’s throne must betray his leader to save his brother. Starring Ryan Corr, Abbey Lee, and Simone Kessell. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) SERENITY When his ex-wife tracks him down begging for his help, a fishing boat captain’s mysterious past comes back to haunt him—but everything is not as it seems. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Diane Lane. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

CITY LIGHTS: THURSDAY

MUSIQ SOULCHILD

In the book Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove, The Roots bandleader recalled the jam sessions that the legendary crew hosted at his South Philly home at the turn of the millennium. “Before I knew it, there was round-the-clock music: singers, musicians, MCs. Some of the people there were from The Roots, but most weren’t. Most were normal people who aspired to careers in entertainment. All were welcome,” he wrote.

“The pizza delivery guy… thought that maybe he’d take his turn on the microphone, too, because he had done some singing, and he thought he had something to contribute. That was Musiq Soulchild.” That pizza guyturned-soul singer has certainly contributed in the years since, becoming one of the most beloved voices of the the Soulquarian-powered neo-soul movement, thanks to loverboy jams like “Just Friends (Sunny),” “Halfcrazy,” and “Forthenight.” In the years since, R&B has largely moved further into the hip-hop rabbit hole, but for R&B lovers who favor the flavors of jazz, gospel, and classic soul sounds, Musiq Soulchild still delivers. Musiq Soulchild performs at 7:30 p.m. at The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. $79.50. (703) 549-7500. birchmere.com.

—Chris Kelly

SAVAGELOVE I’m a 21-year-old woman, and I have an IUD. I’ve had sex with quite a few men, and one thing seems to be almost constant among them: trying to fuck without condoms. Many of the men I’ve been with seem to be perfectly fine and terribly eager to have sex without condoms. This has always angered me. They generally assume or make sure I’m on birth control, which they immediately take to mean condom-free sex is welcome. I don’t want to have sex without condoms without being in a committed relationship. I know people cheat and monogamy doesn’t mean STIs won’t happen, but it’s a risk I’m comfortable with. I’m so annoyed by how often men try to get out of using condoms (it’s often persistent, even with people I’ve been seeing a while) that I want to start lying and say I’m not on birth control. The risk of a baby seems to be the only STI most men are concerned with. Is it all right for me to lie and say I’m not on any birth control and explain why I lied later on if things get serious? —I’m Understandably Distressed Let’s get this out of the way first: You’re right, IUD, sexually transmitted infections (STI) do happen to people in monogamous relationships. People cheat, people lie, people contract, people transmit. A 2015 study found that people in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships were no more likely to contract an STI than people in monogamous relationships. The reason? If a person in a monogamous relationship screws around and doesn’t use a condom, they can’t ask their partner to start using condoms again without drawing attention to their infidelity. If someone in a CNM relationship asks their primary partner to start using condoms again—because a condom broke or fell off or didn’t wind up on a cock for some other reason—they’re drawing attention to their fidelity. Moving on …

Right again, IUD: Babies do seem to be the only STI many men are worried about. Australian researchers conducted a large study about stealthing—the deeply shitty, rape-adjacent practice of surreptitiously removing the condom during intercourse—and they were shocked to discover how common this deeply shitty practice seems to be.

“The researchers estimated in advance that approximately 2 percent of the sample would report having been stealthed,” sex researcher Justin Lehmiller wrote in a blog post looking at the results of the study. “In fact, 32 percent of the women and 19 percent of the men surveyed reported having experienced stealthing … A majority of both groups reported discussing the event with their partner afterward, and most also reported feeling emotionally stressed about it. A majority also considered stealthing to be a form of sexual assault. These results suggest that stealthing is not a rare occurrence and we would do well to study it further.”

The researchers didn’t ask heterosexual men about being stealthed and, as Lehmiller points out, there are some scattered reports out there about women poking holes in condoms before sex or retrieving them after sex. We don’t need a study to tease out the motives of these women—they want to have a child and don’t care whether their partners do (and that is not okay)—but we could use a study that asked heterosexual men about their motives for stealthing. One question we should put to these assholes: Are they more likely to “go stealth,” i.e., to sexually assault a woman, if they know her to be on some other form of birth control? Or are they just so wrapped up in their own momentary sexual pleasure that they don’t give a shit about babies or any of the other STIs?

“Now, do you want to rawdog me or do you want to complain?”

Moving on to your actual question …

Can you lie? Of course you can. Should you lie? In the case of a casual sex partner who might not have your best interests at heart, i.e., some total rando you want to fuck but aren’t sure you can trust, I think you can lie and should lie. This lie doesn’t do him any harm; it’s not like you’re telling him you’re on birth control when you’re not. And if telling this lie inspires some rando to be more careful about keeping the condom on (sometimes condoms fall off by accident), then it’s a lie that made the sex safer for you and for him.

And if you get serious about someone you initially lied to about having an IUD—if some dude makes the transition from hot rando to hot boyfriend—and he reacts badly when you tell him the truth, just say (or text) this to him: “I could have waited to fuck you until I was sure you were a good guy. But then you would have missed out on all the awesome sex we’ve had up to now. Would that have been better?

And by coming clean now, I’m basically saying that I think you’re a good guy that I can trust.

I know that now, but I didn’t always know it because I’m not psychic. Now, do you want

to raw-dog me or do you want to complain?”

—Dan Savage My girlfriend opposes sex work because she believes it oppresses women. Early in our relationship, she demanded to know if I had ever paid for sex because she couldn’t be with me if I had. And I told her the truth: “No, never.” She didn’t ask if I’d ever been paid for sex. (One guy, he blew me, no women were oppressed because no women were involved, it happened twice.) Do I need to tell her?

—Two-Time Gay For Pay Nope.

—DS

My partner is too embarrassed to raise this question with his doctor: Is it safe for me to drink my partner’s urine? He’s HIV-positive, but his viral load is undetectable. I know that other STIs could potentially be passed on to the watersports receiver through urine. My partner has been tested for everything and has no other STIs. He is worried that his urine could contain enough of his antiretroviral drugs (Tivicay and Descovy) to do me harm. He is particularly worried that I might suffer from the side effects of those drugs. I am not currently on any medications. I believe that his fear stems from when he was on chemo drugs for something else. Nurses treating him then advised me not to use his hospital bathroom so that I would not possibly be exposed to any chemo-drug residue. I know that you’re not a doctor—but could you ask a doctor for us?

—Ingesting Medicines “This one is easy,” said Dr. Peter Shalit, a physician who has been treating people with HIV/ AIDS for 30 years. “Tivicay and Descovy are very benign medicines with very little potential toxicity in standard doses. If one were to drink the urine of someone taking these medicines, there would be essentially no Tivicay, as this medicine is excreted by the liver, not the kidneys. The remnants of the drug are excreted in the feces, so to get significant exposure to secondhand Tivicay, you’d have to eat … well, never mind.”

As for Descovy—that’s actually two medicines in one. First, the bad news: Emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide, the meds in Descovy, are excreted in the urine. And the good news: “The amount of Descovy that would be in one liter of urine is much less than a single pill’s worth,” said Dr. Shalit, who is also a member of the American Academy of HIV Medicine. “Since these medicines are intrinsically very safe to begin with, in my opinion the health risk from exposure to the small amounts that may be found in urine is negligible. Don’t worry about it.”

—DS

PODCAST Every week City Paper reporters interview someone that helps tell the story of D.C. Subscribe at washingtoncitypaper. com/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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square foot multi-level facility at Friendship Public Charter SchoolAdult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 NOTICE OF REQUEST Southeast Elementary FOR PROPOSALS site .in Auto/Wheels/Boat . .ward . . . 8 . . Anacos . . . 42 Thurgood Marshall tia DC. Friendship has Buy, Sell,school Trade . . engaged . . . . . . an . . Architect . . . . . . . .

Academy charter seeks a contractor to develop construcMarketplace . . . . tion . . . documents . . . . . . . .and . . 42 for exterior painting, pointing, and/or minor . . . . . specifications Community . . . . . . . . . .to . meet . . 42 repairs at-height. Full the programmatic Employment . . . . needs. . . . . . The . . .selected . . . . . 42 RFP available at https://thurgoodmarHealth/Mind . . . . contractors . . . . . . . . will . . .be . . . . . shallacademy.org/about/ required to construct employment-opportuniBody & Spirit . . . . the . . .approved . . . . . . designs . . . . 42 ties/ or via email. no later than July 31, Housing/Rentals . . . .in . .time . . . for . . the . . 42 Bids due to 2020 dschlossman@tmapchs.

2020/2021 school year.

Legal Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 org with a 10-page and The competitive 5 MB Music/Music file-size limit (in- Row .

Request . . . . .for . . Proposal . . . . . 42 cluding exhibits) by can be found on FPCS . . .12, . . . . . . . . website . . . . . .at . http://www. . . . . . . 42 Tues.,Pets February 2019.

Real Estate . . . . . friendshipschools.org/ .procurement . . . . . . . . . Propos . . . 42 FRIENDSHIP SharedPUBLIC Housing . als . . are . . . due . . .no . . later . . . 42 CHARTER SCHOOL than 4:00 P.M., EST, Services . . . . . . . . Thursday, . . . . . . . February . . . . . . 22, 42 NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL 2019. No proposals will EXTENSION be accepted after the Friendship Public Chardeadline. ter School is seeking Questions can be bids from prospective addressed to Provendors to provide; curementInquiry@ * General Contractor/ friendshipschools.org Construction Company services to build a SUPERIOR COURT Middle School, OF THE DISTRICT OF approximately 35,594 COLUMBIA

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Legals DC SCHOLARS PCS - REQUEST 4008 Kansas Avenue FOR PROPOSALS – Modu#4 Washington DC lar Contractor Services - DC 20011.

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