Washington City Paper (February 13, 2015) by Washington City Paper

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de i u g S Art g n i r p S inSide

Free Volume 35, no. 7 WashingtonCityPaPer.Com February 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19, 2015

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TAKE A JOURNEY FROM FARM TO FORK THE EXHIBITION

CLOSES FEB 22

17th

M Streets NW | www.ngmuseum.org This exhibition is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (www.amnh.org).

2 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

INSIDE

18 opportunity Cost

D.C.’s tenant protections may be about to get substantially weaker. By AAron wiener PhotogrAPhs By dArrow mongomery

4 Chatter distriCt Line

7 Protect and Preserve: The MPD race riot that wasn’t 10 City Desk: Inside Frederick Douglass’ house 12 Loose Lips: (Loophole) closing time 14 Gear Prudence 16 Savage Love 26 Buy D.C.

d.C. feed

31 Young & Hungry: A mobile cannery makes the rounds at local breweries 34 Grazer: Meals that say “I hate Valentine’s Day” 34 ‘Wiching Hour: Bagels at the baseball stadium? Yes please. 34 Underserved: Ripple salutes the Appletini

City List

45 City Lights: Dawn Richard soars post-Danity Kane 45 Music 48 Galleries 51 Dance 51 Theater 52 Film

54 CLassifieds diversions 53 Crossword 55 Dirt Farm

on the Cover

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery Illustration by Lauren Heneghan

arts

37 Film: Olszewski on Boy Meets Girl and She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry 39 Arts Desk: American art molds the look of Sleepy Hollow. 40 Curtain Calls: Klimek on Rapture, Blister, Burn; Paarlberg on House of Desires; Lapin on Last of the Whyos; and Ritzel on Dunsinane 43 Sketches: Jacobson on “Photoworks: Presence of Place” at the American University Museum

INSIDE:

Spring Arts Guide washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 3

CHATTER Metro Mania

yp ap er.c om /ev en t s

community of commenters is about last week’s cover package (“Notes from the Underground,” Feb.6) on Metro’s troubled times. In more than 60 comments, transit enthusiasts debated almost every angle while managing to keep the conversation civil and coherent. Prominently featured in the comments section on Aaron Wiener’s “Can Metro Ever Get Any Better?” was jamesbeaz: “I don’t know what else to say. I’m embarrassed and exhausted by the dysfunction of this city.” jamesbeaz railed (get it?) on Metro for several more paragraphs, urging District residents to look to our global neighbors to see what’s being built in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—because an acute case of public infrastructure envy is just what Metro riders need. Commenters largely agreed, although Metro had its defenders, especially among those readers who truly rely on those services for their commutes. Shenandoah Sue scolded jamesbeaz: “That’s quite some whine James…. The bus system could be better, but it’s pretty darn good for having made no concerted effort at improvement, and I for one am extremely grateful to have it.” NonStopSki agreed: “The Buses are a bright spot in the city.” But in the melee we found no shortage of suggested fixes for Metro’s myriad woes. Fix the streetcars, Christine wrote: “DC needs to make all streetcar lanes dedicated to streetcars.” Just stick it to everyone living outside the city, suggested derleider: “F em. If they want

ington City paper’s

riously look within for cuts. They are too bloated in staff and need to start making cuts to be more viable and profitable,” said DupontNW. ex-14thandYou was on hand to remind us that money is just a construct, man: “Metro doesn’t need to be profitable--it just needs to do its job.” Meanwhile, the thousands spent on the Silver Line ads (“Pieces of Silver”) rubbed @ TurboWhitey (among many others) the wrong way: “That money would have done wonders for some escalators.”

Res FEB. 2 ist! 6 at B Uni lind W te! hin Drin o k!

It’s hard to overstate how passionate wash-

in which we all have a bone to pick with metro

Was

ton ih ng

shorter commutes then move closer in.” Or focus on earning their trust to wheedle some more cash from them. HellOnWheelz said, “The suburbs aren’t giving MetroRail more money because the Authority can’t be trusted,” before providing a lengthy, bulleted list of all the ways Metro misspends. Or maybe keep cutting! “Metro needs to se-

cit

Quit Busking My Chops. “No please,” pleaded LDJ. “So many buskers out there who can’t play an instrument to begin with and over-amplify to boot. The relative quite of the DC’s metro stations is one of the good things about the system.” Fabrisse claimed to have taken the most direct approach we can think of to ensuring a silent commute: “When I lived in Boston, I paid some buskers $20 to shut up until they saw me get on a train.” A twenty?! What are you, made of gold?

No Reservations. Paying extra for a dinner reservation? You either hate it or you shrug it off. “I can’t think of a douchy-er thing to do,” commented loki5586. It’s a slippery slope, cautioned Hawkeye15: “So how long until they are charging for all of their reservations? Xavier_from_new_york couldn’t muster any sympathy: “Finally, the rich and influential catch a break.”

Department of Corrections. Due to a reporting error, Dean Essner’s review of Paperhaus’ self-titled debut LP referred to Alex Tebeleff as the album’s lead songwriter. The album was written by the entire band. A reporting error in Carey Hodges’ review of Stranger in the Alps’ Pattern Matching incorrectly referred to one of their albums as Honey If You Will. It’s actually called Honey If You’re Lucky.

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Protect and Preserve How MPD kept the peace among its own after a racially charged shooting in 1995

Last Saturday, about 40 people gathered inside a basement room in the Metropolitan Police Department’s 7th District to remember an officer who was killed in the line of duty 20 years earlier. If not for an extraordinary response by a handful of people, the tragedy might instead have been remembered as the spark that lit a racial conflagration within MPD. The memorial service for Officer James M. McGee Jr. was relaxed, almost jaunty. People who knew McGee were asked to share their memories of him. Several friends, including a handful of fellow officers who worked with McGee, recalled his athletic prowess and his sense of humor. “Mac was a jokester, and a prankster, he was competitive—and he would cheat to win,” 7D Commander Willie Dandridge recalled, drawing laughs from the crowd. Dandridge was a sergeant in 7D when McGee was killed. McGee’s father, James M. McGee Sr., also recalled his son’s athletic abilities—he excelled at basketball, baseball, and football— and quipped, “he got that from me,” drawing more laughs. None of McGee’s relatives or close friends said anything about the circumstances of his death. But one speaker, David Kirkpatrick, a graying, retired D.C. cop, spoke directly and movingly about the depths of the tragedy, its potentially explosive racial implications, and the remarkable response by McGee’s mother. “There could have been a real rift in 7D and a real rift in the department because a white officer had killed a black officer,” Kirkpatrick said, his voice choked with emotion. As his eyes teared up, Kirkpatrick, who is white, shifted in his seat and looked directly at Mary McGee, the fallen officer’s mother. “But the forgiveness of this woman... I don’t know that I could have done it.” It took a exemplary reaction 20 years ago by both of McGee’s parents, 7D commanders, police union representatives, homicide detectives, and, ultimately, rank-and-file officers, to keep the racial tensions brought to the surface by the shooting from boiling over, in the station and perhaps throughout the police department.

About 15 minutes before midnight on Feb. 7, 1995, McGee, 26, was off duty, in street clothes, driving home in his red Eagle Talon, when a cab driver, Alexander Wallace, drove into oncoming traffic toward the Talon. Two men Wallace had picked up as fares were robbing him; one of them had pressed a gun barrel to the back off the cabbie’s head. In the previous year, attackers had killed five cabdrivers

the two bandits. As the three men struggled near the nose of the cab, McGee jumped out of his car, leaving his girlfriend and her two young daughters inside. McGee pulled his police-issued Glock 9mm handgun from his belt holster, dashed around the rear of the cab, and stood near the taxi’s front door. One block north, at the crest of a hilly section of 25th Street SE, Officer Michael A.

Darrow Montgomery

By Ruben Castaneda

Twenty years after his death, police hold a memorial for James M. McGee Jr. in D.C., and Wallace was desperately trying to reach a major thoroughfare where someone might summon police. Near the corner of Good Hope Road and 25th Street SE, McGee and Wallace hit their respective brakes. Wallace jumped out of his taxi, followed by

Baker, 28, and his partner, rookie Leonard T. Vaughan, were in their squad car, on their way to serve a subpoena. Barely 10 minutes into their shift, the two officers looked down the hill and saw a black man with a gun—McGee. Baker, the driver, flipped on the cruiser’s

roof lights and hit the gas. Seconds later, he turned left onto Good Hope Road, slammed the brakes, and jumped out. Baker pulled out his service weapon, spread his legs in a shooter’s stance, and trained his gun on McGee, who was dressed in a three-quarter length jacket, black jeans, and black boots. McGee had his back to Baker as he trained his weapon on one of the bandits, who was struggling with Wallace, the cabdriver. It was chaos: Wallace was screaming as he fought for his life. McGee shouted that he was a police officer. Baker screamed that he was a police officer and ordered McGee to drop his gun. A civilian driver got out of his car and yelled at Baker that McGee was a cop; the man had seen McGee run toward the struggling cabbie and figured he was an officer. McGee and Baker were acquaintances, but didn’t know each other well. In the cacophony of screams, detectives would determine, it was likely that neither McGee nor Baker heard any of the warnings. Some witnesses said McGee began to turn toward Baker; others said he stepped toward the cabbie and the bandit. Whatever the case, he didn’t drop his gun. Street cops are usually trained to consider an armed man who doesn’t comply with commands to drop his gun, then turns toward you or someone else, as a deadly threat. Baker fired once, twice. One round lodged in McGee’s left arm; the other entered near his left shoulder blade and penetrated his chest. Baker raced to his cruiser and called for an ambulance while Vaughan ran to McGee, opened his jacket, and saw McGee’s silver D.C . police badge, No. 2482, clipped to the right side of his belt. He’s one of us, Vaughan told his partner. Baker notified the dispatcher that an officer was down. An ambulance raced McGee to D.C. General Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead 11 minutes after midnight. At the shooting scene, Dandridge, a 7D patrol sergeant at the time, talked to Baker as the officer sat in his patrol car. “He broke down,” Dandridge recalled after the memorial service. “He wept like a baby. He was torn up.” Dozens of 7D officers, on-duty and and off-duty, heard about the shooting and went to the scene. There, and at the station, black and white officers cried and cursed. And even before investigators provided an official account, officers at that dreary Southeast cor-

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 7

DISTRICTLINE ner, many of them black, began to talk: Baker overreacted. He didn’t give McGee a chance to ID himself or put down his gun. He would not have shot a white man with a gun. It may well have been true that Baker would not have shot a white man with a gun. But that had nothing to do with racial bias. The population of the 7th Police District was and remains overwhelmingly black. In that part of town, a white man with a gun was more likely than not to be a cop or a federal agent. As rumors about the shooting spread with terrifying speed, then-Inspector Winston Robinson, the 7D commander at the time, realized he couldn’t just let events take their course. Most veteran officers, he knew, understood how something like this could happen, but many of the 269 officers under his command were young and relatively inexperienced. If officers began to split along racial lines, if someone said the wrong thing on the street or in the station, it could get ugly in 7D and maybe throughout the entire department.

Six months ago in Ferguson, Mo., the shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, by white Officer Darren Wilson sparked weeks of sometimes angry demonstrations. Some of the anger was caused by the Ferguson Police Department’s refusal to provide basic information about the shooting. For example, the department took six days to release Wilson’s name. Nearly 20 years ago, to keep the peace within MPD, Robinson and other police officials had taken the opposite approach, opting for transparency, however painful the facts were. An hour or so after the shooting, Robinson made a series of phone calls and arranged for all of the officers on duty when Baker shot McGee, and everyone in McGee’s 25-officer unit, to report early to 7D. At police headquarters, Robinson asked Captain William “Lou” Hennessy, then the commander of the homicide unit, whether the lead homicide detective investigating the shooting would go to 7D to brief his officers. Take whoever you need, Hennessy responded. “People were emotional, and talk-

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ing,” Hennessy, now a state judge in Maryland, recalled in an interview. “Stories can get out of hand. We wanted the facts out there.” For several days, homicide Detective Gregory Archer, a blunt ex-Marine who’d caught the case because he was next in the rotation, and several other homicide investigators briefed 7D roll calls and answered the questions of officers. Detective conducted some of the briefings in the basement room where McGee was honored last Saturday. Meanwhile, Robinson and Officer Catharine Taggart-Wilson, the 7D shop steward for the police union, talked to officers, trying to keep them calm. Taggart-Wilson also tried to help Baker cope with the situation. Baker told the union rep he wanted to say goodbye to McGee and offer his condolences to his family. The rep relayed the request to James McGee Sr. Quietly, the elder McGee agreed to meet with Baker, alone, in Galilee Baptist Church, where his son’s body, in full uniform, lay in state. Emotions were running high, and he wasn’t sure how other family members would respond to Baker’s presence, McGee explained. Inside the church sanctuary, Baker bade his fellow officer goodbye, and told the senior McGee how sorry he was, that he never meant to hurt his son. McGee held out his hand—then embraced Baker, to show that, at that moment, he held no animosity. The briefings by homicide detectives, the efforts of Robinson and Taggart-Wilson, and

the extraordinary grace exhibited by McGee’s parents quelled the tensions among 7D officers. Some officers continued to question whether Baker had to fire on McGee, but most accepted the incident as an awful tragedy. An investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office found no criminal wrongdoing by Baker. He left the police department a few years after the shooting. The tragedy occurred during D.C.’s hyperviolent crack era, when the city routinely recorded more than 400 homicides annually. McGee was one of eight MPD officers killed in the line of duty between 1993 and 1997. A little more than two months before McGee was killed, a gangster had walked into the D.C. homicide office and fatally shot two FBI agents and a police sergeant, and almost killed a third agent, before taking his own life. At least a half-dozen of those who gathered in the 7D basement roll call room to honor McGee were relatives of MPD officers who were killed in the line of duty. Among them were Shirley Gibson, 69, the mother of Officer Brian T. Gibson, who had been ambushed in his patrol car on Georgia Avenue NW, near the 4th Police District where he worked, almost exactly two years after McGee was killed. During the memorial for McGee, Gibson spoke of how MPD has enveloped her and her family, helping them to heal. “Officers hug me, and when I feel those hugs and that vest and service weapon on their CP side, I feel my son,” Gibson said.

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objects of his affection

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818 on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. While his exact date of birth is unknown, Douglass selected Feb. 14 based on a nickname given to him by his mother—her “little valentine.” The famed abolitionist and orator lived in the District from 1878 until his death in 1895. Cedar Hill, his home in Anacostia, is now operated by the National Park Service as a museum that keeps safe many of his prized possessions. “Mr. Douglass was a conscious collector,” says curator Ka’mal McClarin. That is to say the artifacts and objects in Douglass’ D.C. home meant something to him. This includes his extensive book and art collection, a rolltop desk housed in his library, and a cane willed to him by President Abraham Lincoln. The 197th anniversary of Douglass’ birth will be celebrated Friday and Saturday throughout the neighborhood he called home. Tours of Cedar Hill begin Saturday at noon and will be preceded by an opening ceremony featuring the young winners of the annual Oratorical Contest at the Anacostia Playhouse. See a full listing of events at nps.gov/frdo/birthday-cel—Sarah Anne Hughes ebration.htm.

Ball-and-Chain Curtain Tie Backs, West Parlor The tie backs “acted as a constant reminder of Mr. Douglass’ early life,” curator McClarin says.

Clockwise: The Columbian Orator, FRDO 650; Douglass in study; Trunk; West parlor violin; Curtain tie back, FRDO 4182; Dining room.

5 6

3700 BLoCk oF ConnECTiCuT AVE. nW, FEB. 9. By DARRoW MonTgoMERy 10 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.

City Desk

Pen, Library A pen NPS believes Douglass gnawed on is part of the collection. “It really demonstrates how much Douglass was really in deep thought,” McClarin says. It also signifies part of his trajectory from slave to freedom. “It’s this idea that he uses his voice and a pen to progressively move the country forward,” he says. “He was a radical with his pen and his voice.” The Columbian Orator, Library Douglass purchased this collection of texts—a guide of sorts for people who want to become orators—for 50 cents when he was a teenager in Baltimore. It includes a dialogue between a slave owner and enslaved person on the subject of emancipation. “That was a transformative text that really allowed him to think about securing his own liberty and securing liberty for others,” McClarin says. Not only did Douglass escape slavery with the book, he saved it from his Rochester, N.Y., home as it burned to the ground. While visitors to Cedar Hill may remark upon its furnishings, which may appear grand but were at the time middle class, site manager Julie Kutruff notes that Douglass’ “expensive” book collection speaks to what he finds most “precious.” Chair with Wheels, Dining Room Just one chair in Cedar Hill’s dining room, the one used by Douglass, is equipped with wheels. “Not only is he this great speaker that does a lot of public oration, but he’s also somebody that when he has guests at the table, he’s a storyteller,” says Kutruff. The wheels allowed Douglass to act out his stories and move around the room. “Even at home… he’s somebody people listen to and want to listen to, because he’s animated enough to tell these stories,” she says. Traveling Trunk, Second Floor Trunk Room McClarin: “Here’s a man that started out as an enslaved person on a plantation [who was] able to acquire a passport and travel the world.” Violin, West Parlor The family parlor contains multiple instruments, including a violin, which Douglass taught himself to play. “He encouraged other family members to play instruments, too,” she says. (Indeed, his grandson, Joseph Douglass, become a famous concert violinist.) “We have a tambourine that they would give the visitors. You’d be encouraged to clap or sing or play the tambourine.”

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DISTRICTLINE

It’s petition-challenging season in Ward 4 and Ward 8: washingtoncitypaper.com/go/specialelects

Loose Lips

Premium Rush

A new era in D.C. campaign finance begins—but first, the mayor’s picks raised a ton of cash under old rules. By Will Sommer

Darrow Montgomery

Gnash your teeth and rend your Rolodexes: The LLC loophole is dead. As of Jan. 31, the D.C . Council’s legislation eliminating the best workaround in District politics finally went into effect. In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution to the most pliable candidate you can find. Without the loophole, which allowed corporations that control multiple LLCs to skirt maximum donation limits by counting each LLC as an individual contributor, the pool of money floating around the city’s races should shrink. Forget family members—the loophole is survived by grieving bundlers and incumbents with now slightly less firm grasps on their seats. Campaigns that could once rake in money from a single contributor with ten checkbooks now need those funders to sign a lengthy legal statement listing their affiliated corporations. The Loop Loot: Bowser, who voted to eliminate the loophole, accepted LLC money, as did her pals. Office of Campaign Finance, once legally obliged to look the other in the ongoing Ward 4 and Ward 8 spe- hole a year before. In one memorable bunway as donors dodged the city’s flimsy contri- cial elections—and they were ready. As the dle, Bowser took in $20,000 from companies bution limit, now has its filing system set up loophole deadline approached, the best- affiliated with Phinis Jones, the scandalto flag affiliated companies. funded candidates rushed last year and this plagued Southeast businessman, then reBut don’t worry, the loophole’s demise year to take in what could be the last LLC- fused to give it back as his ties to the Park didn’t catch District pols by surprise: The bundled contributions in District history, Southern housing fiasco mounted. The contradiction between her votes and councilmembers who voted to ban the loop- even on the final day. Muriel Bowser’s 2014 mayoral campaign her campaign’s balance sheet earned her hole in 2013 made sure it didn’t apply to their own 2014 campaigns. That means the took in gobs of LLC money even though some grief from the media, but that didn’t first candidates to run on leaner budgets are she voted in favor of eliminating the loop- stop her from crushing opponent David 12 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Catania in fundraising (and in votes). So maybe it’s no surprise that Ward 4 candidate Brandon Todd, Bowser’s pick to inherit her seat, took in as much of his own LLC money as he could before the loophole closed. Helped along by Bowser’s endorsement, Todd brought in $231,541 in the latest campaign reporting period, which ran from mid-December to the end of January. While it’s hard to tell exactly how much

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Ward 4 candidate Brandon Todd also took advantage of the loophole. of that came from linked corporations whose donations would be newly subject to limits, $24,000 came from corporations that share the same address as at least one other corporation backing Todd—a usual sign that they also share the same ownership. Corporations associated with businessman Warren Williams kicked in $2,500, while gas king Joe Mamo gave $1,000 through his companies. Todd doesn’t need all the money. Already, he’s outraised his closest opponents by nearly $200,000. None of Todd’s 14 opponents in what’s quickly becoming a victory lap for Bowser and her entourage received a single contribution from LLCs that share the same address. Todd didn’t respond to a request for comment. Bowser’s candidate east of the Anacostia River proved just as prepared as the LLC loophole’s drop-dead date drew closer. LaRuby May, Bowser’s Ward 8 coordinator in last year’s campaign, wants to take the late Marion Barry’s seat on the Council dais. The new mayor’s endorsement helped May mirror Todd’s crushing fundraising— she pulled in $177,404.76 at the end of the Jan. 31 fundraising period. $22,750—more than 10 percent of her total fundraising—came from corporations that shared an address with at least one other contributing corporation.That sum alone is more than 10 times what some of May’s rivals in the 16-person race raised. None of May’s opponents received contributions from LLCs that appear to be linked. The addresses on May’s campaign finance report read like a map to the District’s go-to financiers. There’s developer Buwa Binitie, whose corporations put in $3,250. Gasoline wholesale magnate Mamo, whose cushy business situation is frequently threatened by Council legislation, gave $1,000 through two of his Springfield, Va.-based LLCs. Given that District law caps individu-

al contributions to ward-level candidates at $500, neither of those contributions would be legal if made on Feb. 1, now that the loophole has been eliminated. May didn’t respond to a request for comment on her fundraising. Still, at least one of May’s opponents thinks the end of the LLC loophole means the fundraising gap in the April 28 special election will start to shrink now that donors will have to abide by the contribution cap. Lenox Ramsey Jr., who manages Ward 8 candidate Eugene Kinlow’s campaign, predicts a fall in May’s contributions now that she can’t multiply her money through LLCs. “There will be a drastic drop in their fundraising,” Ramsey says. Of course, a drop in new fundraising won’t matter much to Bowser’s candidates, thanks to their six-figure leads over the competition. Political consultant Chuck Thies, who ran ex-Mayor Vince Gray’s failed re-election campaign against Bowser, doubts the end of the LLC loophole will matter for the special elections. “It’s probably not significant because the only two candidates who really have access to that money are the two Bowser-supported candidates,” Thies says. “And they seem to have done quite well.” After the special elections, Thies expects the new regulatory regime will mean a reduced pool of money for incumbents to draw on. But Thies has already thought of a workaround for them: dispatching trusted staffers to run PACs on their behalf and take unlimited, post-Citizens United amounts from donors. That’s the beautiful thing about District campaigns: When one loophole closes, anCP other opens. Got a tip for LL? Send suggestions to lips@ washingtoncitypaper.com. Or call (202) 6506925.

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Gear Prudence: I want to buy a cheap used bike, and I know that there are a ton available on Craigslist. But is this a good idea? It seems sort of sketchy. —Unknown Seller Equals Deals? Dear USED: There are three big reasons to be concerned about buying a bike (or anything else, really) from online listing sites. The bike might be stolen, so you’ll want to ask about its provenance. If the seller has purchase paperwork, that’s great, but a bike that was heretofore in mom’s garage probably won’t have a receipt. Secondly, there’s the transaction itself. Bringing a wad of cash to some back alley to give to a stranger isn’t everyone’s idea of the most savory form of commerce. And lastly, caveat emptor, which is Latin for, “If you don’t know shit about bikes, you could end up having to pay more on repairs than you did on the initial purchase.” There are a bunch of reputable local shops and nonprofits (the Old Bike Shop and Phoenix Bikes in Arlington, Gearin’ Up in D.C.) that deal in used —GP wares. Maybe start there instead. Gear Prudence: I must say as someone who has lived and cycled in New York, Oakland, Paris, and now D.C., that the drivers and bicyclists here are the absolute WORST. They’re the rudest, most selfish and most arrogant. Where did this totally shitty transportation culture come from? —Just Everyone Roadwise Kinda Sucks Dear JERKS: It’s an unfortunate vestige of the the Cold War. President Dwight Eisenhower, along with pioneering the interstate highway system, ordered counterintelligence agents to surreptitiously infiltrate local driving schools and motor vehicle departments. In case of invasion, D.C.-area drivers and bicyclists were to behave so recklessly, selfishly, and haplessly that the onrush of Soviet tanks would become so exasperated that they would make a volte face to Moscow, where transportation culture is so much more orderly and polite. Truth be told, I think every locality believes its drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to be the most terrible. Is #thistown really any worse than Boston, New York, or L.A.? Maybe! Many of us are pretty awful. But it’s hard to say, since familiarity breeds contempt. Norms play a part, but so does infrastructure. Studies have consistently shown that dedicated and separated bike lanes lead to reduced injury (for cyclists and pedestrians) and greater compliance to traffic laws. Perhaps as these superior facilities diffuse throughout the region, a better culture will —GP accompany them. Gear Prudence is Brian McEntee, who blogs at talesfromthesharrows.blogspot.com and tweets at @sharrowsdc. Got a question about bicycling? Email gearprudence@washingtoncitypaper.com.

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 15

SAVAGELOVE My 15-year-old son has been watching sadistic porn—and ONLY sadistic porn—for a couple of years. He also tells us (husband and me) that, though he’s not had sex (which he defines as penetration), he’s had oral sex, handjobs, etc., and that he didn’t “flash on” violent images at those times. But he says he thinks about this type of porn all the time—all day, every day—and fantasizes about doing sadistic things to the girls he dates. This all came out as we started having conversations about respect and dating! I proceeded to freak the hell out (though not around him). As the mom and as a woman, I’m upset. I want information, but it makes me sick to read about sexual violence. Particularly when I know there’s an unwilling partner involved, as my son hints he prefers—gang rapes are an example. Though we try to be open and talk about relationships, sex, realworld stuff, this caught me completely off guard. My husband doesn’t believe there’s much reason to worry (yet?), because to us, his friends and family and girlfriends (as far as I know), he’s a very different type of person. He’s involved in school sports and his grades are good. He has friends. There have been zero instances of violence from day care into high school. He has an extremely close relationship with his older brother. There’s nothing I’ve seen that would have made me believe he was even capable of thinking about this stuff. I don’t know if this is a huge red flag or if I’m making this a bigger deal than I should. I’m just terrified he’s going to harm someone. I’m also shamefully awkward around him now. I hate that my view of him has changed. Are there signs—more signs— that I need to watch for? Is he already a danger to himself or others? Where did we drop the ball? —Parent Absolutely Needs Information Concerning Kid’s Erotic Development “Full props to PANICKED for not freaking out in front of her son, and for having always kept the door open for these conversations,” said Dr. James Cantor. “I don’t think she’s dropped the ball: Fate just suddenly dropped her into a whole new game.” Before we get to Dr. Cantor’s advice for

you, PANICKED, here’s why you should listen to him: He is one of the top experts in the world on atypical sexualities and has worked with thousands of sexual offenders—and thousands of perfectly healthy kinksters. He is a clinical psychologist, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and the editor in chief of Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment. He knows what he’s talking about. Now let’s listen to Dr. Cantor… “The chances of there being something serious to worry about here are very small,” said Dr. Cantor. “It is true that psychopathic sex killers have violent sexual fantasies, but it doesn’t work the other way around: Having violent sexual fantasies doesn’t mean anyone is likely developing into a psychopathic sex killer. The great majority of people who enjoy violent (or violent-looking) porn are into healthy BDSM. Going just by the numbers, this is (by far) the most likely outcome.” What do we know about people who develop into psychopathic sex killers—or some other sort of sex offender—and what should you watch for? “We don’t know much,” said Dr. Cantor. “Politicians will spend enormous sums on punishment but barely anything on research to prevent sex crimes in the first place. What is very clear, however, is that psychopathic sex killers are psychopathic: They have a callous disregard for the well-being of others and often have a long history of conduct problems, generally apparent much before age 15. A history of good peer friendships, healthy family relationships, and a typical social and dating life all argue against PANICKED’s son being a danger to others.” So it’s unlikely that your son is the next Ted Bundy, PANICKED. The likelier scenario is this: Your son is really, really kinky. Some sons are. According to Dr. Cantor, not much research has been done into how people become kinky—there’s zero money for that kind of research—but all of the healthy adult kink-

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Your son is really, really kinky. sters Dr. Cantor has worked with could list things they wish they’d known when they were kinky teenagers. Here’s one thing your kinky teenager needs to know: One day, he’ll be able to explore his kinks with consenting adult partners—there are kinky women out there who enjoy bondage, erotic pain, consensual group sex (aka “gang rapes”), pretending to be “unwilling partners,” etc.—but for now, he’ll have to stick to vanilla sex, which he enjoys, as his kinks aren’t something he can spring on a high-school girlfriend. His kinks aren’t something he can spring on any woman, ever. The stuff he’s interested in can be explored only after a mutual interest is established, each and every item on the menu is carefully negotiated, and consent is obtained and sustained. “It would help to find this boy some role models,” said Dr. Cantor. At 15, your son is too young to find kinky role models in the usual places—munches, classes, play parties—but he can find role models right now in books written about safe, sane, consensual kink by safe, sane, consensual kinksters. A few suggested titles: The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play, and the Erotic Edge, a collection of essays edited by Tristan Taormino; Playing Well with Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring, and Navigating the Kink, Leather, and BDSM Communities by Lee Harrington and Mollena Williams; SM 101: A Realistic Introduction by Jay Wiseman; and The Loving Dominant by John Warren and Libby Warren. “Healthy members of BDSM/kink communities are essentially the opposite of psychopaths,” said Dr. Cantor. “Although they are sexually aroused by violent (or violent-looking) images, they are very highly attuned to the

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feelings of their partners and very much want to take extreme care never to hurt them. Their arousal includes the idea that what they’re doing is providing pleasure, even though it might not look pleasurable to vanilla folks.” So that’s what the good doctor had to say, PANICKED, and I believe we should listen to doctors. (An aside: Vaccinate your fucking kids, you morons.) But we typically hear only from doctors—from the psychology, psychiatry, and sex-research varieties—when we talk about a topic like sexual sadism. But I always think it’s a good idea to talk to the people you’re talking about, so… “I’m a woman,” said Mistress Matisse, a writer, professional dominatrix, and sex-workers-rights activist. “I’m also a sadist. Within the context of a BDSM scene, I derive intense psychological and sexual pleasure from hurting people, and over the last 20 years, I have dished out a great deal of physically intense sensations to a lot of people. BDSM is not just about pain, but that’s the part I like best.” But Matisse is what you want your son to be when he grows up: an ethical sadist. “Never in my whole life have I intentionally hurt someone without his or her informed, enthusiastic, and ongoing consent,” said Matisse. “Inflicting pain is my pleasure, but it’s a pleasure I’m in control of at all times. I feel respect, affection, and occasionally awe toward the people who let me push their bodies to the limit. We often laugh together as we play. There’s a tremendous intimacy and trust on both sides. “So it’s entirely possible to be a happy, welladjusted, loving person who’s also a sadist,” said Matisse. “The lesson PANICKED needs to teach her son is that whether it’s a tender kiss or a smack on the ass, he must have his partner’s meaningful consent. If whatever he does springs from that, he’ll be an ethical and —Dan responsible man.” Send your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net.

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How a new loophole could give landlords a bigger edge on D.C. tenants

By AAron Wiener

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

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18 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

This story is likely to bring new business to an already well-paid lawyer. That’s not what I set out to do, of course. He didn’t pay me to write the story, or pitch it to me. In fact, he won’t even return my calls. But the lawyer and his firm have come to dominate a lucrative corner of real-estate law in D.C., and past efforts to shed light on his controversial practices have only boosted his profile. “I used to mention the name of the firm in my hearings,” says former Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, who once subpoenaed the lawyer to a nine-hour hearing. “But their business increased so much that they had their most profitable year, and they attributed that to the publicity I gave them. So I stopped mentioning their name.” If every law has a loophole, then every loophole has a lawyer waiting to exploit it. Every time lawmakers close that loophole, the lawyer is sure to find another. And when it comes to questions of tenant rights when a building goes up for sale, more often than not, that lawyer is Richard Luchs. Luchs, a founding shareholder of Greenstein DeLorme & Luchs, has mastered one particular corner of D.C.’s famously tenant-friendly housing law. For nearly 30 years, he’s made a name for himself by sticking up for the big guy: the owners of apartment buildings. The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, passed in 1980, is at the heart of the District’s efforts to protect tenants from landlords who seek to displace them. The essence of the law is simple: Before an owner sells a building, she or he must give the tenants a chance to buy it themselves. The reality is much more complex. Basic questions of definition—what’s a sale? what’s a fair price?—have taken TOPA (as it’s known) to the courts and back so many times that 35 years after the law’s enactment, still no one really knows what it means. Luchs has routinely capitalized on this confusion, and has consequently appeared in these pages several times before. A 2006 cover profile, titled “The Painmaker,” told the story of how Luchs mastered what came to be known as the “95/5 loophole,” whereby the transfer of 95 percent ownership in a building didn’t qualify as a sale under the law, and so tenants never had a chance to make the purchase themselves. Last summer, I explored the case of Museum Square, an outdated Section 8 building whose owners, represented by Luchs, announced they’d demolish the building unless the lowincome tenants came up with $250 million. Luchs’ success has begotten its own hurdles. In 2005, the D.C. Council amended TOPA to close the 95/5 loophole. In 2010 and 2011, the D.C. Court of Appeals twice ruled that Luchs’ creative arguments didn’t override tenants’ TOPA rights. And last fall, then-Mayor Vince Gray and then-Councilmember David Catania introduced legislation to prevent exorbitant sale offers under TOPA like the one that occurred at Museum Square. Now, in a case pending before the D.C. Superior Court, Luchs has discovered what could be another loophole, one that would

Above: Sedgwick Gardens, 3726 Connecticut Ave. NW; At left: The Argonne Apartments at 1629 Columbia Road NW were part of the Richman Towers lawsuit, but didn’t gain TOPA rights because the tenant association was found to lack standing. bar the residents of nine recently sold buildings from exercising their TOPA rights. So far, the D.C. government agrees with him. If the courts do, too, the result could be a substantial weakening of tenant protections in the District. On Nov. 22, 2013, DR Resolution, LLC transferred ownership of Daro Realty, LLC., which until that day had been named Daro Realty, Inc., to IUC Daro Realty Manager. Didn’t follow that? Here’s how that transaction is described in court papers: A week before Thanksgiving 2013, the New Yorkbased Infinity Group bought nine D.C. apartment buildings. If those two things don’t sound the same, it’s for a reason. TOPA is triggered by a sale of property, and the convoluted structure of this transaction, the owners contend, makes it something other than a sale.

The inscrutable jargon helps, too. Tenants may track their buildings’ ownership, but they’re unlikely to read much into a name change from an “Inc.” to an “LLC.” By the time the tenants of these nine buildings learned that the properties would have new owners, the transfer was already complete. China Boak Terrell and Jeff Quigley both got word of the sale from a note in their respective mailboxes in late 2013, from the tenant support group Housing Counseling Services. “They said, ‘Hey, I think this is a violation of your rights,’” recalls Quigley, a resident of Sedgwick Gardens, a five-story building on Connecticut Avenue NW in Cleveland Park. He and Boak Terrell, who lives at Randall Mansions on Lamont Street NW in Mount Pleasant, both scrambled to assemble tenant associations that December; they now serve as the associations’ presidents. Together with a pair of law-

yers and a third tenant association, they sued the owners last September, alleging a violation of their TOPA rights. Exactly who those owners are is a more complicated question than it might seem. Carissa Barry, president of Daro Management Services, which manages the Daro properties, says the properties didn’t sell; rather, shares of the corporation that owns those properties, Daro Realty, may have sold. But she won’t say to whom, or to what extent. “We are a privately held company, so I’m not prepared to disclose shareholder information,” she says. Likewise, the various responses to the lawsuit from Luchs and Daro’s other lawyers make no mention of the new owners’ identity. But all signs in public records and elsewhere point to the Infinity Group, a business investment holding company with a real-estate acquisition arm. IUC Daro Realty Manager is registered to the 30th floor of 1407 Broadway,

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 19

Sedgwick Gardens Infinity’s address. So, as of Nov. 22, 2013, is the ownership of each of the nine buildings, according to D.C.’s property records. Infinity Managing Partner Etienne Locoh signed the certificate of formation, certificate of conversion, and confirmatory deed for Daro Realty, LLC. And Locoh and Infinity Managing Partner Steve Kassin both came to meetings with Boak Terrell and Quigley and presented themselves as the new owners of the LLC, according to the two tenant association presidents. (Infinity did not respond to requests for comment.) The crux of the legal dispute, as usual, is the definition of the term “sale.” The D.C. Code, as amended in 2005 to close the 95/5 loophole, states that the definition of “sale” includes “the transfer of an ownership interest in a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, association, trust, or other entity which owns an accommodation as its sole or principal

asset, which, in effect, results in the transfer of the accommodation.” This clearly covers the purchase of an LLC that controls a property. The more contentious phrase is “sole or principal asset.” Because Daro Realty, LLC owns nine buildings, none of which comprises more than half the total value of the company, the owners argue that there’s no accommodation that constitutes the sole or principal asset. “The sale of interest in an entity which owns a portfolio of housing accommodations,” Luchs and a colleague state in their response to the tenants’ lawsuit, “is not a sale under TOPA.” That’s the newest wrinkle in the law that’s supposed to protect tenants’ rights. “Daro has absolutely exploited a loophole, because if you look at what they’re saying, it’s that because they sold all of their buildings, none of what they’re selling is a building,” says Boak Terrell. “It makes no sense. It makes a mockery of the

20 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

spirit of the law.” Joel Cohn, legislative director at the Office of the Tenant Advocate, also thinks Luchs’ legal argument is dubious. “The problem with that interpretation is that the statutory language is inclusive,” he argues. “The legislature intended to capture the principal asset scenario as something that is included. The language doesn’t say that anything is excluded.” But the District authorities with TOPA oversight have so far sided with Luchs. Last August, Lauren Pair, the rental conversion and sale administrator at the Department of Housing and Community Development, responded to an inquiry from Boak Terrell about whether TOPA applied to the sale. “It is the agency’s position,” she wrote in an email, “that the housing provider has not violated TOPA if 1900 Lamont Street NW was transferred as part of a sale of the corporate owner whose as-

sets included a multiple property portfolio.” Her explanation hinged on the “principal asset” issue. “The interests which were transferred were in a corporation which owned multiple assets, none of which was the corporation’s principal asset,” she wrote. “Because the transfer involved a multiple-building portfolio, TOPA was not applicable because the transfer was not deemed legally to be a sale; that is, tenants were not entitled to receive either an opportunity to purchase or a notice of transfer.” The law may not be clear on whether such a sale triggers TOPA rights, but the question of notice to tenants appears to be spelled out more clearly. If property changes hands and TOPA doesn’t apply, the D.C. Code states, “the owner shall provide each tenant and the Mayor written notice (‘Notice of Transfer’) of the transfer of an interest in a housing accommodation or of any ownership interest in a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, association, trust, or other entity which owns a housing accommodation.” Pair was not authorized to comment for this story. DHCD spokesman Marcus Williams says by email, “As represented to DHCD by Daro’s counsel, Daro intended to transfer its entire portfolio of properties to a third party purchaser; none of the single properties represented Daro’s sole or principal asset. As represented to DHCD, the Daro transaction appeared to be outside the definition of a ‘sale’ and TOPA does not apply to the sale of Daro’s portfolio sale.” Graham, for one, isn’t surprised by the city’s stance. “They have always ruled for the landlords,” he says of city regulators. “What this suggests is the need for eternal vigilance by those who care about these issues.” Luchs is a registered lobbyist, and has lobbied the city officials who make housing law on behalf of real-estate clients including Daro. According to the Office of Campaign Finance, Luchs has donated $4,750 to candidates for mayor and Council since 2000 as an individual, plus $4,500 between 2006 and 2008 under the business name Richard W. Luchs Attorney At Law. In addition, Greenstein DeLorme & Luchs contributed $13,400 to Council and mayoral candidates from 1999 to 2006. A disproportionate number of the buildings involved in recent TOPA disputes are in Ward 3, including Sedgwick Gardens. Ward 3 Councilmember May Cheh looked into the need to address TOPA’s ambiguities after several properties in her ward were part of a big national package sale in late 2012. Those conversations died down amid concern that allowing TOPA to govern the transfer of interests in property-owning entities could have unintended consequences, like triggering TOPA whenever someone buys stock in such a company. After that, the issue “seemed to have faded,” she says. But now it may be time to take it up again. “There are legislative fixes that might have to be done,” she says. “I don’t know why the problem was shelved. I guess we dropped the ball at the Council.” Michael Czin, a spokesman for Mayor Muriel Bowser, says the mayor is conducting a “top-

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Richman Towers, 3055 16th St. NW to-bottom review” of TOPA’s implementation. “We need to make sure the spirit, as well as the letter, of TOPA is being carried out,” he says. TOPA isn’t the only area where the city’s well-intentioned housing laws have failed to prevent tenant displacement and rising rents. The core mechanism for fighting these trends is the city’s rent-control law. In theory, it should limit rent increases in apartment buildings constructed before 1975, which comprise the majority of D.C.’s rental housing stock. In practice, due to exceptions built into the law, landlords have capitalized on rising demand by pushing tenants out via lucrative buyouts and replacing them with much higher-paying renters, or by petitioning the city for rent hikes far beyond the usual limits. But TOPA is the statute whose ambiguities are most routinely plumbed by lawyers, challenged by tenants, and decided by the courts. That’s where Sedgwick Gardens Tenants Association v. Daro Realty is headed. Luchs and other TOPA critics have argued that the law rarely results in tenants purchasing their buildings. But to housing advocates, that’s hardly a knock on the statute. Rather than having their homes sold out from under them with no say, tenants are empowered to partner with a new owner of their choosing in exchange for financial concessions on rent or renovations. At the very least, they can use their TOPA rights as a bargaining chip, agreeing not to invoke the law if the owner promises to keep their units affordable or make repairs. Indeed, the “purposes” section of the TOPA law specifically lays out this goal, stating that it aims “to strengthen the

Randall Mansions, 1900 Lamont St. NW bargaining position of tenants.” That gives buyers and sellers of apartment buildings a strong financial incentive to circumvent TOPA whenever possible. Buyers often have to forgo a share of their profits by making concessions to the tenants. As a result, they often make sellers lower offers. And letting the whole thing play out can delay the sale process by more than a year. If the Court of Appeals agrees with Luchs and Pair and preserves the loophole, the implications for tenant rights could be broad. Owners of multiple properties in the city could evade TOPA by simply bundling two or more of them in such a way that no one property represents more than half the total value of the package. And the residents of these buildings would lose their power to weigh in on the sale, a right granted in 1980 that has still never had the full influence its creators intended. In the late 1970s, a group of young lawyers assembled to try to fix the most contentious line in D.C. housing law. The Rental Housing Act of 1977 had tackled an array of housing issues, but it was Section 602(b) that was causing problems. An apartment building owner, that section stated, can’t sell the building unless he or she “gives the tenants an opportunity to purchase the housing accommodation at a price which represents a bona fide offer of sale.” “Between 1977 and 1980, there were 15 to 20 lawsuits trying to figure out what it was that that one or two sentences meant,” says Rick Eisen, a tenant lawyer who was part of the group. The team worked to clarify that section,

22 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

putting together the language that would become the 1980 TOPA law. (Among the residents testifying in favor of the law before the Council was a young representative from the tenant association of the newly tenant-purchased McLean Gardens apartment complex named Phil Mendelson, who now chairs the Council.) The lawyers didn’t imagine at the time that their work would be at the center of some of the city’s most important housing battles more than three decades later. “If you’d asked any of us in 1980 if we’d still be discussing this in 2015, everyone would’ve laughed at you,” says Eisen, whose law partner Eric Rome is one of two attorneys representing the tenants in the Sedgwick case. (Rome is out on medical leave; the other attorney, David Fensterheim, declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing litigation.) “I don’t think anyone would’ve thought this would be the framework for property transactions in the District for the next 35 years.” But TOPA’s crafters did have the foresight to include one provision intended to resolve disputes over the law’s intent. The law states, “The purposes of this chapter favor resolution of ambiguity by the hearing officer or a court toward the end of strengthening the legal rights of tenants or tenant organizations to the maximum extent permissible under law.” In other words: When this law is less than clear, the courts are supposed to err on the side of expanded tenant protections. “The courts have been somewhat resistant to doing that,” Eisen laments, “and sometimes have a tortured interpretation, saying, ‘This is not ambiguous so we

don’t have to comply with that rule of statutory construction.’” The city government has done largely the same. The housing regulation specialist at the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, which oversaw rental housing at the time, certified the exemption of at least 85 building sales from TOPA between 1999 and 2004. Those properties were worth more than $340 million, with half of that total represented by Luchs. Elected officials repeatedly turned down opportunities to tighten the law. In 1981, DHCD considered but ultimately rejected a rule that would have set limits on the ill-defined “bona fide offer of sale” by tying that to an independent appraisal—the exact kind of change that Catania and Gray felt compelled to make 33 years later. In 1983, then-Mayor Marion Barry wrote to then-Councilmember John Ray to signal his opposition to a proposed amendment to the TOPA law that would have redefined “sale” to include the transfer of majority control in a corporation that owns housing as its major asset. “To the best of my knowledge,” Barry wrote, “this method of majority control transfer has not been used to avoid the provisions of the current law.” Perhaps Barry was swayed by the developers who backed him early in his tenure, or perhaps he just couldn’t foresee the turn D.C. housing would take 30 years later. In recent years, two cases of Luchs’ creative machinations have come before the D.C. Court of Appeals. In the first, Waterside Towers Resident Association v. Trilon Plaza Company, Luchs represented the owners of an expansive Southwest apartment

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Sedgwick Gardens complex who created a trust that owned the property and a holding company that owned the trust, and then sold that holding company. The court ruled in 2010 that because the owners created these entities as part of the transfer, the whole package constituted a sale under TOPA. But the victory for tenants was partial: Only those living in the townhouse portion of the property had the right to purchase. Because the trust and holding company for the towers had been created prior to the sale, the towers weren’t subject to TOPA. Even in a nominal loss, Luchs scored a big financial win for his client. The same thing happened the next year in Richman Towers Tenants’ Association v. Richman Towers. The Bernstein family, represented by Luchs, had sold 11 apartment buildings in similarly convoluted fashion. First, the owners transferred the deeds to the properties to newly formed LLCs. Then they sold 99.99 percent of the interests in those LLCs to the apartment investment group Carmel Partners. The remaining 0.01 percent went to brand-new Quarry Enterprises, which had one member, the broker who had told Carmel about the properties. That broker testified that he formed Quarry at Carmel’s behest but didn’t know why he was instructed to create it. Here, Luchs added a novel argument to his

usual lineup. Donning the mantle of courthouse grammarian, he claimed that the placement of commas in the TOPA law meant that TOPA applied only when the owner planned to demolish the building or stop renting it out. That would clearly contradict the law’s stated intent and its legislative history, as the court pointed out. But again, the court’s ruling against Luchs was still a partial victory for his clients. Only two of the buildings would have to go through the TOPA process, the court ruled; the other four tenant associations that had filed suit lacked standing to sue because they didn’t provide sufficient evidence that they represented at least half of the buildings’ households. Once more, even in defeat, Luchs managed to secure a financial win for landlords who were able to complete the majority of their sale without getting bogged down by TOPA—and a loss for tenants who were unable to match him in the courtroom. The history of TOPA has been one long chase for city lawmakers trying to keep pace with the legal jujitsu of the likes of Luchs. That’s likely to continue long after the Sedgwick case is resolved. “When a lot of money is involved and lawyers are parsing legislative language, I think you’re always in catch-up mode,” says Cheh. “Because there’s always some new argument

24 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

that can be made.” The Sedgwick case might not provide any degree of resolution to the matter, because it could avoid the courtroom altogether. Boak Terrell and her Randall Mansions neighbors have already reached an agreement with Daro, and as a result they’ll drop out of the suit. In exchange, Daro has promised to make certain improvements to the building. Daro and the tenants also worked out a so-called voluntary agreement—the main tool used by landlords to increase rents on future tenants in rent-controlled buildings. Through that agreement, Daro promises not to raise rents on the existing tenants for two years, after which rent increases will comply with the usual rent-control limits. But for current and future vacant units, the rents will go up by between 61 percent and 438 percent. A one-bedroom whose rent is currently $538 would see it shoot up to $2,894 if vacated. Boak Terrell’s rent is protected, but if she moves out, rent in her apartment will more than double. In other words, the current residents of Randall Mansions are getting what they wanted. But for future tenants, the building’s likely to be far more expensive, further shrinking the city’s tight supply of affordable housing. Quigley and his neighbors are also trying to work out a settlement with Daro, though

Quigley declines to disclose any details of that negotiation. Again, the residents could potentially benefit more than they would under TOPA. But these negotiations raise the prospect that the case could avoid the courthouse altogether—and the loophole could remain intact, unadjudicated, and ready for future use. Boak Terrell and Quigley recognize the potential conflict between their personal interests and those of the city’s population of renters as a whole. Boak Terrell says she would have preferred a solution that would preserve affordable housing for future renters, but now that TOPA has been evaded, many of her neighbors “don’t have the appetite for huge litigation.” Quigley, too, feels torn between his obligations to his neighbors and his desire for stronger tenant protections in the city. “I’m trying to balance being an advocate for my constituency of tenants and thinking about the broader picture,” he explains. “And honestly, my top priority is my tenants.” With or without a court fight on this case, Quigley fears that the continued erosion of tenant rights is inevitable. “Lawyers are paid a lot of money to find ways to circumvent regulation everywhere,” he says. “This is just another example of that. No matter the intent of the statute and how airtight the law CP may seem, it’ll continue to happen.”

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Can Do: Matthew Sebastionelli brings canning to breweries. By Jessica Sidman Atlas Brew Works co-founder Will Durgin brings a couple snifters of his Rowdy rye beer over to the bar of the Ivy City brewery. “Would you care to sample the beer that we’re about to package?” he asks. “Before we run it, I always take a sample just to make sure it’s good and the carbonation is right.” Sure, he has a device that checks the carbonation, but he likes to taste-test, too. “It’s a good beer,” approves Matthew Sebastionelli, founder of Arlington-based River City Cannery. Atlas Brew Works wouldn’t be selling cans so soon after its launch if it weren’t for Sebastionelli and his mobile beer canning business. The year-and-half-old brewery initially wanted, and

still plans, to buy its own canning line. But similar equipment costs at least $250,000 (not to mention the cost of maintenance and labor) and can take a long time to custom-manufacture. “Circumstances dictated that we wanted to get the cans out there and start to get people aware of them,” says Atlas co-owner Justin Cox. And so River City Cannery has taken on the job since December. Every few weeks, Sebastionelli and his crew drive up with a truck carrying nearly 3,000 pounds of equipment on wheels and roll it right into the brewery. The team will work all day—from around 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.—running empty cans from nearly ceiling-high pallets through a conveyor belt of carbon dioxide injectors and lid sealers. Then they’ll pack it all up and head to a different brewery the next day, six days a

week. River City Cannery now cans 56 different beer brands for 22 breweries, mostly in the mid-Atlantic, with seven more breweries looking to start soon. Before launching the company with his wife Ashley Sebastionelli last March, Sebastionelli had little experience in beer or packaging. He’d been a firefighter since he was 18. But in April 2012, Sebastionelli got injured on the job, and he thought he might be forced to retire from the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. Ashley, who previously worked at LivingSocial, told him he’d have to find something else to do and encouraged him to explore his passions. Like beer. Now 30, Sebastionelli got into beer after a friend gave him a home-brewing kit for his 27th birthday. “I feel it’s like tattoos—you either love it or you hate it once you do it the first time,” he says. “And so I went crazy.” (He’s got tattoos, too.) First, Sebastionelli wanted to open a brewery. But he quickly learned that wouldn’t be cheap. “It’s a multimillion dollar investment, and you need to know what the hell you’re doing,” he says. Next, he considered opening a brewpub, only to realize it’s nearly as expensive, if not more—and you have to know how to run a restaurant, too. His third idea was to open a brew-on-premise operation where amateurs could come in and pay to use his equipment to brew small batches of beer. Among the features he wanted to include was a canning line. While nearly any homebrewer can get tools to bottle, it’s not as easy to can. Cans, brewers agree, are generally superior vessels for maintaining the quality of beer: They’re completely sealed, and no light seeps in. Sebastionelli started researching and found a couple of companies that made small compact canning lines. Among them was Wild Goose Canning, which custom-built his current line. The company previously specialized in underwater camera and airplane parts. It stumbled into beer because its facility neighbored Boulder, Colo.’s Upslope Brewing Co., which asked Wild Goose for help upgrading its canning system. The research into packaging got Sebastionelli thinking: What if he could have the equipment without the overhead of a brick-and-mortar retail establishment? He wasn’t the only one with that idea: Sebastionelli learned of two or three other upstart mobile beer canneries in other parts of the country around the time he was looking to launch one. Over the past few years, at least 20 mobile canning operations have popped up nationwide. Many wineries use mobile bottling systems. Mobile canning for breweries just made sense. At most, River City Cannery cans up to 100 barrels—33,100 12-ounce cans—a day. Sebastionelli plans to add two more canning lines in the near future that will allow him to do even more. His growing team includes seven full- and part-time employees. Among the breweries that he now works with are Rockville’s Baying Hound Aleworks, Baltimore’s Heavy Seas Beer, and Frederick’s Red Shedman Farm Brewery. When Sebastionelli first launched the company, he thought he’d be working primarily with really small breweries. But that hasn’t necessarily been the case. “We’re going to be packaging this year for some very large regional breweries that said, ‘We want in on cans. We just bought a $3 million bottling line, it took all our extra space. For us to get a canning line that makes sense for us for long-term growth, we need to spend another washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 31

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$3 million, and we don’t have that money or that space.’” For brewers looking to eventually get their own canning lines, working with Sebastionelli’s company for now allows them time to expand other parts of the business before investing. It also gives them a chance to feel out the equipment and learn how it operates. That was another part of the appeal for Atlas Brew Works, the second D.C. brewery to offer cans after DC Brau (which owns its own canning line). Sebastionelli says it takes handling 200,000 to 300,000 cans of beer to become really proficient at operating the equipment. Brewers can end up wasting a lot of beer if they don’t know what they’re doing, so it helps to train with someone who’s experienced. Like Atlas, Jailbreak Brewing Company (based in Laurel) was also looking to purchase its own canning line early on. But given that founders Kasey Turner and Justin Bonner put up all the money for their entire brewery, they wanted to be careful where they spent their cash. They also weren’t sure if the market would lean toward bottles or cans. “We figured we’ll just cut it down the middle and do a little canning, and if it didn’t work, we would invest in a bottling line,” Bonner says. River City Cannery currently cans Jailbreak’s double IPA, Big Punisher, and a jalapeño IPA called Welcome to Scoville, which are distributed exclusively in Maryland. The brewery is looking to start canning its amber ale, Infinite, in March. Packaging is huge part of the beer market. Bonner estimates most breweries sell roughly 75 percent of their product in cans or bottles and the rest on draft. Jailbreak, which is coming up on its one-year anniversary, still puts out more beer in kegs than cans, but Bonner expects that to flip in the near future. “People go out to bars and restaurants and they try the beer, but at the end of the day, more people are buying beer in liquor stores and consuming it at home or with friends,” he says. “It connects the consumer to the product even more.” Jailbreak plans to add its own canning line

later this year, but they will likely continue working with River City for overflow production. Meanwhile, Sebastionelli wants to allow homebrewers to use his equipment too, as he initially set out to do with the brew-on-premise idea. Once a quarter, River City Cannery partners with a local brewery for a “canning for a cause” event, where homebrewers can come in for a day to can their beers and the proceeds go to a local charity. The only difference: River City can’t use its fill system, because they’d waste all the beer just getting it in the lines. Instead, for such small batches, they fill the cans manually and seam them with the machinery. The company has done one so far with Jailbreak and was able to raise about $1,000 for D.C. Firefighters Burn Foundation. Even with the expanding business, Sebastionelli didn’t completely give up on being a firefighter. Despite his fears of having to retire, the fire department has kept him on. He continues to be a member of Truck Company 17 near the Benning Road Metro and helps drive a ladder truck. The rotating shifts mean he works 24 hours on and has 72 hours off. Meanwhile, his wife helps manage the company full-time. “It’s just part of who I am,” Sebastionelli says. “It’s what I’ve done for a very long time. I made that decision early, early on in life, and I didn’t start this because I wanted to leave the fire service. I started this because I thought I was going to have to.” Still, Sebastionelli doesn’t see any reason why he can’t continue to do both. And even though it wasn’t what he initially set out to do, he prefers it to opening a brewery of his own. “I get to walk into a brewery, get to try different beers—great beers—and enable them for growth. I like that a little bit more than if I were to do it on my own,” he says. “I kind of feel like just being a fireman, I still get to do something CP to help, and that’s the coolest part.” Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to hungry@washingtoncitypaper.com

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DCFEED

what we ate last week:

Grazer

Toast with duck liver mousse and raspberry jam, $7, Slipstream, Satisfaction level: 3.5 out of 5

what we’ll eat next week:

i love

eww Bar Pilar 1833 14th St. NW Alongside its regular menu, Bar Pilar is serving up “date-ender” dishes like smoked head cheese with pickled quail egg, chicken-fried chicken livers, and country hamwrapped rabbit offal with beef fat whipped potatoes. The bar is offering a few resentfully named cocktails inspired by rock lyrics like the Rolling Stones-indebted “Dead Flowers to My Wedding” (rosepetal vodka, green tea, and soda). Singles you’ll meet: Brine their own sweetbreads

The FainTing goaT 1330 U St. NW “Fainting Goat” isn’t the most romantic name for a restaurant, so it’s fitting that they

Underserved

The best cocktail you’re not ordering What: An Ode to an Appletini with Calvados apple brandy, Imbue vermouth, lemon, and sparkling cider Where: Ripple, 3417 Connecticut Ave. NW Price: $14 What You Should Be Drinking Four cougars sitting in a bar that airs Sex in the City episodes instead of SportsCenter is the kind of scene that calls for a round of appletinis. The sugary drink assaults the eyes with its Nickelodeon slime green, thanks to Pucker Sour Apple Schnapps. This image is perhaps why few order one of Ripple bar manager Caroline Blundell’s favorite creations: Ode to an Appletini. “I’ve always wanted to poke fun at the cocktail, especially Zach Braff’s char-

Caviar tacos with yukon potato shells, $32 for two, Orange Anchor, Excitement level: 3 out of 5

Who decided that Valentine’s Day was torture for singles? Restaurants looking for a gimmick to draw in the lovelorn demographic, it seems. This Feb. 14, local restaurants are offering plenty of specials exhorting diners to shovel down halitosis-inducing food with all the bitterness of the recently abandoned. It’s all a bit black-and-white: eternal bliss and flutes of Champagne for the taken, mountains of garlic bread and organ meats for those sending caustic glances their direction. But hey, if you see Valentine’s Day as opportunity to get drunk and gorge on stinky grub, here are some options. —James Constant

aren’t embracing the candlelight-and-chocolate crowd. Instead, the restaurant is serving a “broken heart brunch” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with dishes inspired by relationshipending lines like “I Thought We Were In An Open Relationship” (eggs in a basket with jamon serrano and red eye gravy) and “We Were On A Break” (lobster, fontina, and leek quiche). The bottomless drinks you’ll need to forget about your former love are $15. Singles you’ll meet: Shouldn’t be trusted

p.m. Dinner specials are titled in a similarly vitriolic tone. Our pick? Grab the “Love Stinks” (stinky cheeses with housemade jams, chutneys, pickles, and a baguette, $15) and sit at the bar, sinking shot after shot of Corralejo tequila ($6). Singles you’ll meet: Carry tattered copies of The Bell Jar, are crying

Carmine’s 425 7th St. NW

Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch is perhaps the most appropriate beer out there for anti-Valentine’s Day. Naturally, the Daily Dish’s “Unhappy Hour” will offer it, alongside other drink deals, for $4 between 3:30 and 6:30

The purveyor of vast quantities of Siciliangrandma comfort food is offering two singles-focused packages. You’ll have to get at least six people together, so it’s for the popular people. The “Girls Gone Garlic” ($125) offers three salad options, six choices of pasta, Prosecco, and the restaurant’s signature “Titanic” dessert with five scoops of ice cream on a flourless chocolate torte. Prosecco and the dessert alone run $65 for those who want ice cream for dinner. Singles you’ll meet: Will introduce you to mama after four dates

acter on Scrubs,” she says. (Dr. John Dorian loved appletinis.) Fortunately, Blundell’s take couldn’t look or taste further from its stereotype. There’s no Pucker, but the lineup of ingredients—including Calvados apple brandy, Imbue vermouth, and cider—contributes to the sparse orders: “People would rather order something else than ask about them,” she says.

aged in American Oak. Try it on its own, and the blast of botanicals might have you dabbing it on like perfume on date night. It mingles well with Oregon’s Anthem Hops dry cider. “As cider catches on more and more, people are asking for dryer styles,” Blundell says. Its dryness contributes to a balanced finished product that doesn’t cause cavities (un—Laura Hayes like its inspiration).

The Daily Dish 8301 Grubb Road, Silver Spring

Why You Should Be Drinking It There’s nothing aggressively sweet about the Ode to an Appletini. It’s dry and tart enough to fire up the parotid glands—the twinge you feel where your jawbone meets your ears after you take in something sour. A generous amount of lemon can take credit for the zip. Calvados, a storied apple brandy from Normandy, France, gives the cocktail its golden hue. The other two main ingredients are from Oregon. Imbue Bittersweet Vermouth is made from the state’s native pinot gris grapes

34 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

THE’WICHINGHOUR

The Sandwich: The Natitude Where: Bullfrog Bagels, 1341 H St. NE Price: $9 Bread: Choice of plain, onion, sesame seed, poppy seed, salt, or everything bagel Stuffings: Hot pastrami, Swiss cheese, dijon mustard sauce Thickness: 3 inches Pros: Bullfrog Bagels are D.C.’s best—chewy inside with plenty of seeds for extra seasoning. Their flavor, which isn’t overtly yeasty, provides the perfect base for the housecured, thinly sliced pastrami piled on top. Served warm, the pastrami with slightly crisp edges that add a pleasant crunch, is equally salty and smoky, making for a delicious nosh. Cons: If you wait too long to dig in, the hot pastrami melts the Swiss cheese and makes it congeal slightly, dulling the flavor and giving it a gummy texture. The sodium-rich sandwich could also use a bit more acidity; the dijon sauce lacks the mustardy tang pastrami requires. Messiness (1 to 5): 2. Melted cheese seals all the ingredients together, but the pastrami gives off enough grease to make your fingertips slightly slick. Hold on tight and stock up on napkins. Overall score (1 to 5): 4. The Natitude contains just enough meat, cheese, and bagel to fill the void left by Tyler Clippard’s departure. Bring these bagelwiches to Nats Park and the snaking line at Shake Shack will get shorter. Just remember to grab some mustard from the hot dog stand. —Caroline Jones

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Film

Gender’s Game

Pay equity may be a distant dream, but trans love gets a happy ending. Boy Meets Girl Directed by Eric Schaeffer

”

You might laugh when Francesca, after Ricky reveals that she’s transgender, says, “Where did you get it? I mean, who gave it to you?” But then you realize that, given the setting and Francesca’s Pollyanna disposition, that’s perhaps the film’s most realistic line. Meanwhile, everyone Ricky and Robby meet assumes they’re a couple (the script has a particular fixation on Robby’s good looks, which are repeatedly discussed). Their characters are little more than tokens, with only these details serving as dimensions: Ricky wants to be a fashion designer and is waiting to hear whether she’s been accepted by a New York school, and Robby is supposedly a skirt-chaser, though this is mentioned once in the first scene and then forgotten. It’s pretty obvious where this is going—unfortunately, just because the female lead is transgender doesn’t mean that the film escapes rom-com tropes. Will Pollyanna give in to her attraction? Will Ricky and Robby ever become a couple? And how is it that Robby knows the dickface Marine but Ricky, his lifelong shadow, doesn’t? Despite its overall amateur feel, Boy Meets Girl is decently acted and inarguably pioneering, with Hendley, an actual transwoman instead of a dude in drag, an especially pleasant surprise: She’s not about to win any Oscars yet, but considering she’d never played so much as “3rd Angel From the Right” in kindergarten, her performance is impressive. (Schaeffer discovered her on YouTube, admitting that he had to turn to Google to find a transgender actress.) There are a few more headscratching moments before the film ends, as when Robby yells at Ricky, “You leave bodies in your wake!” which seems to be from another script. But Schaeffer adds a sweet it-gets-betteresque message before things wrap, framing the film with a seven-year-old video a dour-faced Ricky made about her mother’s reaction to her gender identity. It’s one bow-tied happy ending you’ll gladly excuse.

It’s the kind of run-in that happens in small rural towns all the time: An unlucky-in-love transgender woman is chatting with her best friend during a slow shift at a coffee shop.

tor of Boy Meets Girl. And while watching his film, you get the feeling that the budget goons were about to turn off the lights before he could finish, because there are a lot of coincidences that, even by romantic comedy standards, are jammed tootightly into just 95 minutes. Exhibit A: Ricky (Michelle Hendley) and BFF Robby (Michael Welch) see Francesca (Alexandra Turshen) at the ol’ waterin’ hole later that day. Yes, they all grew up right here in this Kentucky town! No, they haven’t met ’til now! Though Robby did go to school with Francesca’s Marine fiancé (Michael Gal-

She says to him, “Maybe I should date girls.” Then, in less time than it takes to make a cappuccino, a pretty young thing walks in. And even though this customer is engaged—to a man—she sure seems to be into the barista. Wait—that’s a pretty unlikely scenario for a tiny town, or a big city, for that matter. Or anywhere, really, except for You Wish, U.S.A. Population: one. That lone optimistic resident is Eric Schaeffer, writer-direc-

In Mary Dore’s documentary She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, author and early feminist activist Alix Kates Shulman recalls the defeatist outlook that swallowed her back in the 1960s, when she was married with two children under the age of 5: “I felt finished.” Woman in the Mirror: Shulman had gone to graduate school, but it Finally, a trans characdidn’t matter; a woman’s ultimate goal, sociter played by an actual ety said, was to marry and procreate. Shulman transwoman. didn’t buy that—so she stopped making casante), who loses his shit when he Skypes his intended from Af- seroles and joined the Women’s Liberation Movement, then in its infancy. ghanistan and she mentions her new friend Ricky. Dore’s film chronicles the feminist movement from 1966 to Schaeffer isn’t exactly subtle with exposition, either: “But when you turned 16, something changed.” “Something... 1971, as it not only grew but inspired black and gay women— changed.” (Please, tell me all about it, my close confidant who also supported women’s lib, but had different battles to since childhood.) Francesca all but blares through a bull- fight—to organize, too. She’s Beautiful opens with a recent Austin rally for womhorn that she’s never been the adventurous or experimenen’s health care—Texas having banned abortion past the 20th tal type. So far.

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry Directed by Mary Dore By Tricia Olszewski

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 37

CPARTS Continued

week of pregnancy, with red tape so complicated many providers stopped performing all abortions—where one protester’s sign read, “If men could get pregnant, birth control pills would be available in gumball machines.” It’s at once funny and infuriating. But viewers who weren’t around 50 years ago to witness the attitudes women were up against will get a lot angrier as the film goes on. Said a broadcaster on the day of the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality: “If your secretary won’t do the filing and your wife won’t cook, don’t blame them: Remember, you gave them the vote 50 years ago.” Fury. When lesbians—who Betty Friedan first ignored, then threw out of the National Organization for Women, thinking their presence deterred progress—brought attention to their rights (and very existence) by banding together under the name “The Lavender Menace,” one male speaker at a meeting said, “Maybe some girls here today will become lesbian. They could be doctors, lawyers—we don’t know!” More fury. Dore follows the documentary formula pretty predictably, including commentary from leaders of the movements (Jacqui Ceballos, Rita Mae Brown, and a familiar face for District residents, Eleanor Holmes Norton), the literature that fueled it (The Feminine Mystique; Our Bodies, Ourselves), and footage of anonymous opponents. In one fresh touch, Dore

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intercuts video of the participants speaking at various events as their younger selves with their more recent interviews for the film. It’s 2015, so there’s not much need for counterbalance to make She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry more objective— it’s 92 minutes of rah-rah. Yet, incredibly, many of the issues the film broaches still need that fight. Today’s women don’t receive equal pay for equal work. Being aggressive in the business world doesn’t mean you’re ambitious, it means you’re a bitch. You’re damned if you decide to stay home with the kids and damned if you want to—or, often, have to—work full time. Abortion remains a divisive issue and slut-shaming is alive and well, with women taking some of the blame in cases of sexual assault—in a most extreme example, when University of Virginia leaders forbade sorority members from going out on the night fraternities initiate new members. When did this happen? Oh, a couple of weeks ago. You know, for the women’s safety. If the boys aren’t tempted, the boys won’t rape. CP The most furious you can imagine. Boy Meets Girl opens at Angelika Pop-Up on Feb. 13. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry opens Feb. 13 at E Street Cinema.

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Arts Desk

Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum

Good Road

to Hollow

When Septime Webre, artistic director of the Washington Ballet, adapted Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” into a ballet (running at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre Feb. 18–22), he sought inspiration from the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum. In addition to the museum’s extensive collection of Hudson River School paintings, which were created around the same time as Irving’s story, the ballet’s production team and the museum’s curators looked at Shaker furniture and modern sculpture to help represent the tale’s small New York village at the end of the 18th century. The quaint landscapes appear bright and cheerful, but don’t be fooled: The ballet’s look is all shadows and spooky spirits. —Caroline Jones “Along the Hudson” In order to capture the Hudson Valley in its natural state, as it used to be before multi-million-dollar homes dotted its shorelines, the production team looked to this painting by John Frederick Kensett.

“The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane” Unsurprisingly, Webre took cues from John Quidor’s recreation of the story. The contrast between light and dark elements will factor into the ballet’s lighting design, and the central tree and its residents will also appear in some form.

“Scene on the Hudson (Rip Van Winkle)” This 19th-century James Hamilton painting offers a different view of the Hudson Valley, incorporating another iconic Irving creation, Rip Van Winkle. The dancer portraying Ichabod Crane will tell the story of the man who slept for 20 years during the ballet.

“Young Moravian Girl” The costumes and look of the flirtatious Katrina Van Tassel were inspired by this portrait, painted by John Valentine Haidt a few decades before Irving’s story takes place.

“Monekana” Deborah Butterfield’s 2001 sculpture helped Webre and his team visualize how to represent the chase between Crane and the Headless Horseman. While the horse looks like it’s made out of driftwood, it’s actually made from bronze and weighs more than 3,000 pounds.

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 39

TheaTerCurtain Calls Feminist Critique Of all the plays in Gina Gionfriddo’s acerbic, insightful oeuvre, 2012’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is the one that faults along the most predictable lines. It compares and contrasts a pair of former roommates, now in their early 40s. Catherine is an academic successful enough to be an occasional panelist on Real Time with Bill Maher; single and childless, she writes about feminism through the prism of porn and horror movies. Gwen is a stay-at-home mom to a 13-year-old and a 3-year-old, muddling through her stultifying marriage to Don, the dean of an undistinguished liberal arts college somewhere in New England. What’s that thing the grass always is? Catherine’s semi-voluntary re-entry into Gwen and Don’s lives comes when she moves back home to help care for her ailing 70-something mother. The fact that Catherine’s mom happens to live in the same college town where Don has found a comfortable position that suits his low-exertion temperament is the least of the contrivances that make Gionfriddo’s very funny play sound like a terminally unfunny movie. But the execution is all. Gionfriddo— and the sturdy-to-sterling cast director Shirley Serotsky has pulled together—makes us care about these vividly imagined characters, each of whom has compromised herself in her own way. As Catherine, Michelle Six—who played the title role in Round House’s production of Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw in 2013—comes off as stiff and distant in the lengthy opening scene, but she finds her groove once the action moves to her mom’s living room, where Catherine teaches a summer seminar through Don’s college for two students, complete with cocktails. Plausible? Who cares? It’s enough that she gets to debate 21-year-old babysitter/ former stripper/aspiring reality TV star Avery’s shrugging embrace of promiscuity and nonchalance about porn. Catherine even invites her mother—the convalescent, played by Helen Hedman—in to recall the distant years when going stag wasn’t an option. Eavesdropping on four women of three generations debating the merits of Phyllis Schlafly’s ardent anti-feminism doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, maybe, but these are the strongest scenes, thanks largely to Maggie Erwin. In the role of Avery, she comes perilously close to walking away with the show in her back pocket, using her blunt, skeptical delivery to wring laughs from lines that don’t announce themselves on the page as jokes. Erwin

LonnieTague

Rapture, Blister, Burn By Gina Gionfriddo Directed by Shirley Serotsky At Round House Theatre to Feb. 22

Nun the Wiser: This 17th-century play could be a modern telenovela. pulled off the same trick in Studio Theatre’s megahit comedy Bad Jews, which she left three weeks ago to join Rapture. (She couldn’t have known Jews would play for 15 weeks, the longest run in Studio’s 36-year history.) That the pragmatic Avery contrasts so sharply with the beatific, slightly dim WASP she played at Studio is a compliment to Erwin’s versatility. Tim Getman conveys Don’s slacker charm without breaking a sweat; he’s consistently strong and familiar enough that we probably undervalue him. Of the production elements, only Matthew M. Nielson’s musical score rings false. It’s barely there save for when it blasts over the scene changes, but those ersatz U2 riffs don’t suit the caustic story being told. To those familiar with The Heidi Chronicles—Wendy Wasserstein’s Tony- and Pulitzer-winner of a generation ago, about a single academic who hits her 40s and feels betrayed by the feminist movement she’d long championed—Rapture can’t help but feel like a sort of intentional update. Gionfriddo protested in a New York Times essay when the play premiered in 2012 that she didn’t intend her play as a response to Wasserstein’s, “but no one is ever going to believe that.” She’s wrong. I’ll believe anything Gionfriddo tells me. Even if, or perhaps because, it resists synopsis. —Chris Klimek 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. $30. (240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org

40 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

mass appeal Los empeños de una casa (House of Desires) By Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Directed by Hugo Medrano At GALA Hispanic Theatre to March 1 As Catholic religious orders go, nuns tend to get a lot less attention from the Church than the more famous and well-funded priestly orders. Which is, one radical nun once told me, both good and bad: Nuns get less financial support, but they can also get away with doing almost whatever they want. That may be why Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th-century nun in colonial Mexico, could become a major Spanish literary figure by writing some fairly racy stuff. Take, for example, Los empeños de una casa (House of Desires), GALA Hispanic Theatre’s current production, which features cross-dressing, an almost-gay marriage, and both men and women wooing their love interests by kidnapping them. It’s too bad, then, that such a great production is so hard to understand. For all its boundary-pushing irreverence, House of Desires is still a Baroque-era Spanish play (which is to say, written before the development of modern Spanish) full of vosotroses and reversed word order and antiquated vocabulary, much akin to Shakespearean English. And while there are English surtitles, the di-

alogue is so thick that you basically have to make a choice between watching the action on stage or keeping up with the plot. Extensive conversations, particularly in the first act, are pure exposition. This kind of firehose approach to plot advancement, normally the crutch of lazy writers, is actually necessary given how convoluted this story is: It’s essentially an entire Mexican telenovela squeezed into a single play. The parallels to such cheesy modern-day TV fare as Corazón salvaje clearly weren’t lost on director Hugo Medrano, who updated the setting from 17th-century Spain to 1940s Mexico without any obvious incongruities. Then, as now and forever, soaps (or soapy plays) revolved around forbidden loves, overly complicated seduction schemes, and big mustaches. In House of Desires, the scheme hatched by a rich brother and sister involves abducting the two objects of their affection to their estate, a plan further complicated by the fact that brother and sister’s respective love interests are dating each other. Then Love Interest No. 1’s valet is into the housekeeper and starts dressing in drag and, well, you should probably read the synopsis in the playbill a couple of times beforehand. Given the difficulty of just reciting the lines—in addition to the Baroque Spanish, the whole thing is written in rhyming couplets— the acting throughout is impressive. Anchoring the cast, and the story, is Luz Nicolás, a GALA regular who did a terrific Benjamin

23 MON H Chantal Loïal

The dancer performs an original work that pays tribute to Sarah Baartman, better known as the Hottentot Venus, and is an ode to black women. They Call Her Venus melds traditional AfroCaribbean moves with contemporary aesthetics.

24 TUE H United States Air Force Airmen of Note The quintet performs classic and modern jazz standards led by TSgt Grant Langford.

I N T H E T E R R A C E T H E AT E R

25 WED H Apollo Orchestra with Harolyn Blackwell*

Brought to you by

FREE PERFORMANCES 365 DAYS A YEAR EVERYDAY AT 6 P.M. H NO TICKETS REQUIRED *Unless noted otherwise

FEBRUARY 15–28 IN THE TERRACE THEATER

The orchestra presents Dance Music of the Americas, including music from Ginastera, Copland, Stravinsky, and Arturo Márquez. The program also features Metropolitan Opera soprano Blackwell in the orchestral premiere of excerpts from Ricky Ian Gordon’s Genius Child, which was written for Ms. Blackwell and is based on poems by Langston Hughes.

I N T H E T E R R A C E T H E AT E R

15 SUN H Curtis Institute of Music

Students perform works by Prokoﬁev, Arensky, and Rachmaninoff.

16 MON H The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University

THU H Hari Kondabolu*

The New York comedian performs his exciting political stand-up. He released his debut album Waiting for 2042 in March. He has appeared in comedy stints with Chris Rock on FX, and on The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central, and more. Opening set by Elahe Izadi. This program contains mature themes and strong language.

Students perform works by Beethoven, Weirich, Verdi, and Ouyang.

27 FRI H Lula Washington

17 TUE H Manhattan School

The company presents dance works in a variety of styles that entertain and educate on the African American dance experience.

of Music

Students from the Chamber Choir perform works by Gregg Smith, Whitman, and David Lang.

18 WED H Cleveland Institute

of Music

Students play works by Bach, Peskin, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff, plus contemporary works by Eric Sammut, Gabriel Novak, and Jasmine Choi.

19 THU H University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance

Dance Theatre

5 P.M. STRUM-ALONG; 6 P.M. PERFORMANCE

SAT H Ukulele Joy: A StrumAlong Jam Session with The Sweater Set and Louisa Hall

Catch the spirit of the Kennedy Center’s upcoming international festival IBERIAN SUITE: global arts remix. Bring your ukulele for a strum-along followed by a performance and audience strum- and sing-along!

Students play works by Tamplini, Brahms, and Stravinsky, plus various vocal selections.

20 FRI H Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Students perform works by Debussy, Liszt, and Bartók and songs by Haydn, R. Strauss, and Menotti.

21 SAT H Yale School of Music

Students play works by Mozart and R. Strauss.

22 SUN H Peabody Institute

Students perform arias by R. Strauss, songs by Brahms, and works by a Spanish Renaissance composer, Mey, York, Chopin, and Balakirev. The Millennium Stage was created and underwritten by James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs to make the performing arts accessible to everyone in fulﬁllment of the Kennedy Center’s mission to its community and the nation. Additional funding for the Millennium Stage is provided by The Isadore and Bertha Gudelsky Family Foundation, Inc., The Meredith Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A.J. Stolwijk, U.S. Department of Education, and the Millennium Stage Endowment Fund. The Millennium Stage Endowment Fund was made possible by James A. Johnson and Maxine Isaacs, Fannie Mae Foundation, James V. Kimsey, Gilbert† and Jaylee† Mead, Mortgage Bankers Association of America and other anonymous gifts to secure the future of the Millennium Stage. Education and related artistic programs are also made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts and the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.

PLEASE NOTE: There

is no free parking for free performances.

The Kennedy Center welcomes persons with disabilities.

THU 26 H Hari Kondabolu * Free general admission tickets will be distributed in the States Gallery starting at approximately 5:30 p.m., up to 2 tickets per person.

Live Internet broadcast, video archive, artist information, and more at

kennedy-center.org/millennium For more information call: (202) 467-4600

TAKE METRO to the Foggy Bottom/GWU station and ride the free Kennedy Center shuttle departing every 15 minutes until midnight. GET CONNECTED! Become a fan of Millennium Stage on Facebook and check out artist photos, upcoming events, and more!

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 41

TheaTerCurtain Calls Button turn in La Señorita de Tacna. Here, she’s sister Ana’s (a strong Natalia Miranda-Guzmán) mischievous housekeeper Celia, clearly Sor Juana’s stand-in because she gets all the best snarky lines. The big mustache is Carlos, Ana’s love interest, played by Erick Sotomayor, the only Mexican in the production, who hams it up with a northern Mexican accent and swagger (Mexicans have similar stereotypes about northern Mexico as Americans do about Texas). At one point, a “Viva México cabrones!” sneaks in that was probably not in Sor Juana’s script. Medrano’s staging, like the acting, is exaggeratedly Mexican—Carlos is disguised, for no discernible reason, as a mariachi, and everyone breaks out into a ranchera song a couple times. House of Desires is both bold and remarkable, but also a bit of a challenge: a well acted, deeply funny spoof of the very soap operas that it predated by centuries, with some pointed commentary about machismo that will strike you as surprisingly modern. If you can manage to decipher it, that is. —Mike Paarlberg

visions and restless nights interrupt his usual street rumbles. “My body don’t stay down,” he says, and neither do his surroundings, which are best appreciated by audiences with a high tolerance for elliptical stories and enigmatic dialogue. Here’s a 20th-century lawyer (Séamus Miller) with an unhealthy obsession with his young goddaughter and no clear connection to Eddie. Here’s the devilish Whyos boss Sweeney (Randolph Curtis Rand, a bit of Bill the Butcher in him). He’s on a nebulous hunt for Eddie’s “legacy,” haunting the boardwalk, crooning folk ballads about love and sorrow across the vast expanse of time. And here are the self-made freaks, led by the great Elliot Bales as Ruby, an alligator-skinned man with a Louisiana drawl. Bales and Darnall develop a crackling chemistry as Ruby comes to believe this washed-up deviant may actually be the second coming of Christ. Weich-

been cast. Last of the Whyos is a body that don’t —Andrew Lapin stay down. 1810 16th St. NW. $25-$35. (202) 248-0301. spookyaction.org

the (other) sCottish play Dunsinane By David Greig Directed by Roxana Silbert The National Theatre of Scotland at Shakespeare Theatre to Feb. 21 In a town that so often seems to have #newplay fever, scripts that were written last week often generate automatic enthusiasm.

Circus Chic: Whyos is all bowler hats and sideshow getups.

3333 14th St. NW. $20-$42. (202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org

time aFter time As silly a plot device as time travel can be, there’s an element to it that works well on stage. The same setting can take on new dimensions hundreds of years apart, which Spooky Action Theater and playwright Barbara Wiechmann grasp particularly well in the world premiere of Last of the Whyos. The fact that New York’s Coney Island, after 100 years, beats with a new variation of the same kitschy grime is why this mashup of Gangs Of New York, Freaks, Rip Van Winkle, and religious commentary works as slippery dream theater, even though it never stops feeling like an amusement park sideshow. Director Rebecca Holderness’ Coney Island seems to be in a limbo between waking and dreaming, a land where all its denizens hover, and where Spooky Action productions so often find themselves. Eddie Farrell (Michael Kevin Darnall in a killer Irish brogue) is a Whyos gangster at the peak of his powers who goes to sleep in the late 1800s, the twilight years of Five Points gang rule. Backlit by a video loop of the boardwalk, and flanked by stage designer Vicki Davis’s creaky wooden planks and posts, he suddenly shudders like a marionette. He wakes up adrift in 1987, at the feet of a circus sideshow trio. But long before Eddie’s quantum leap, odd

K-Town Studios

Last of the Whyos Written by by Barbara Wiechmann Directed by Rebecca Holderness At Spooky Action to March 1

mann pushes her thickly drawn characters into a great many pairings, but few of them work as well as this one, perhaps because when everyone’s on a different plane of reality, establishing true connection is tough. So Tia Shearer, who plays a young free spirit with striking resemblance to someone from Eddie’s past, has some nice monologues about the familial apocalypse she escaped from, but her dialogue with others never clicks like it needs to. Holderness captures a great melancholy among the carnival: the ramshackle peace of the hut where the sideshow crew live, the wish-washing of the hard waves beneath it all. Eddie may be the one out of his time, but the overpowering feeling is that time has eluded everyone on this beach. Costume designer Erik Teague has fun with the bowler hats of the Five Points gangs and the outrageous circus getups of the freaks. The second act meanders too much, but Wiechmann’s spell has already

42 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Yes, it’s wonderful that the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities generously funds local playwrights, that so many theaters focus on new work, and that the National New Play Network is based here. But at the moment, the best productions of recent scripts are onstage at Shakespeare Theatre, because sometimes what it takes to make great new drama is classical acting and very old stories. Dunsinane, Scottish playwright David Greig’s sequel to Macbeth, and The Metromaniacs, David Ives’ new translation of a 1738 French farce, both run through most of February at Shakespeare’s two Penn Quarter venues. Both are with seeing, but if you can only spring for one $18 under-35 discount theater ticket, send your parents and English major friends to see Metromaniacs, and get thee to Dunsinane. The National Theatre of Scotland is back for its fourth D.C. visit in five years, and it is

very much back with a vengeance: the vengeance of Lady Macbeth, who in this production is not a crazy person running around trying to wash imaginary stigmata off her hands, but an incredibly smart and sexy redhead played by Siobhan Redmond. Over the course of the drama, she’ll sing in Gaelic, sleep with a hot invader, ace a courtly wedding dance and fend off a homicidal ex in the middle of a gently falling onstage blizzard. What a woman. What a show. Dunsinane was first produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2010 and has been almost constantly in revival ever since. Much of the cast on this U.S. tour (going on to Chicago and Los Angeles) has done the play before, and there are few theatrical pleasures that exceed watching a stage full of classically trained British actors who know what they’re doing. Director Roxana Silbert and her creative team have devised a staging that is beautiful yet nearly bare. The sets include the suggestion of a castle, which at show’s opening has just been overtaken by the English. Macbeth is slain, and his body is glimpsed beneath the blue and white cross, but he’s never referred to by name. He’s simply called, “the tyrant.” Like his wife’s reported mental state, however, that title may be matter of perception. “He was a good king,” Lady Macbeth says in her eulogy. “He ruled for 15 years. Before him there were kings and kings and kings and none of them could rule for more than a year.” When Siward, leader of invading English troops, asks if he always did what she said, she replies, “Mostly.” Like a post-colonial critic, Greig suggests that the man who wrote the Scottish play may have been anti-Scottish. During the months leading up to last summer’s stay-with-England referendum, Greig lobbied for separatism on Twitter. In his play, he presents English distaste for the Scots as a given circumstance and source of humor rather than as a topic for debate. Just as effectively, Greig compares England’s 11th-century invasion to the 21st-century occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and suggests Siward’s attempt to unite the Scottish tribes under Malcolm is akin to failed Bush/Blair nation-building. In the hands of most American playwrights, attempts at Iraq War allegories tend to devolve into preachy rants or merely preach to the choir. Like Black Watch, the contemporary war drama that the National Theatre presented here in 2011 and 2012, Dunsinane presents the soldiers as rough-and-tumble but worthy of sympathy and wise to the futility of their missions. As a chorus of infantrymen ponders aloud early in Dunsinane, “This country… You wonder why we’re here. You wonder why we want the place. You wonder why —Rebecca Ritzel they give a fuck.” 610 F St. NW. $20-$110. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org

GalleriesSketcheS Madam’s Organ

VALENTINE’S DAY DINNER “Bed” by Mark Power (2014)

40-Year-Old COnvergenCe “Photoworks: Presence of Place” At the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center to March 15 It took four decades, but Photoworks— the photography center at Maryland’s Glen Echo Park—has become enough of an institution to have a retrospective of its own. The location of the exhibit, a large, airy space at the American University Museum, is quite a bit fancier than what Photoworks had in its early days. Back then, according to the retrospective, “the facility was rustic. Entering the Photoworks space felt like passing through a tiny Alice in Wonderland door… into a deep, dark cave, a room with bare bulbs and wet floors.” By contrast, the retrospective, which includes the work of both current and past artists affiliated with Photoworks, is impressively large and sprawls across the museum’s first floor. As might be expected, not every image in the exhibit is equally compelling. Landscapes by Sonia Suter, Brad Beukema, and Frank P. (Tico) Herrera are comparatively bland, and still-lifes and nudes by Judith Walser and Grace Taylor, while technically astute, do not exactly break new ground. All told, though, the retrospective’s batting average is pretty high. One image by Henry Freidman depicts sycamores in Gaithersburg; the image looks so timeless that it could be mistaken for a meditation from the Civil War era. Another Freidman image presents a flat white building façade in Waynesboro, Va., layered with the elongated shadows of traffic lights—a pleasing spatial distortion as languid as the setting. In a more experimental vein, Joe Cameron uses skillful ultra-high contrast techniques to capture a gently curving sidewalk curb; in another image, he photographs a velour chair and carpet, creating an adroit study in surfac-

es. Sarah Hood Salomon, meanwhile, offers a jittery photograph of trees, seemingly taken while riding on a children’s swing. The exhibit’s documentarians produce some fine work, as well, from Christine A. Pearl’s images of demolition derbies to Michael Lang’s photographs of drag queens getting ready in their dressing rooms. Tom Wolff gracefully captures the christening of robed celebrants in the Rappahannock River, while Fred Zafran contributes a moody series of nighttime urban vignettes, and Rebecca Drobis offers a moving scene from a Blackfeet reservation in Montana—an image of several kids jumping on a trampoline, one of them holding what appears to be a real handgun. Several artists indulge a creepy vibe. Elsie Hull Sprague (who passed away a year ago last month) and Mark Power depict institutional rooms in sickly hues, and Sora DeVore channels the pitilessness of Sally Mann and Frederick Sommer by documenting the decay of animal corpses. The oddest image in the exhibit is Power’s monumental photograph of a fork covered with food residue and resting on a used napkin. Power’s style pays homage to Stephen Shore, while the choice of object upends the most familiar previous depiction of utensils: the crisp, stylish fork photographs of Jan Groover. Far-flung locales provide the raw material for some of the exhibit’s finest images: Drobis’ dreamy depiction of a school bus in the West enveloped by a baby blue sky; Eliot Cohen’s image of three gnarled trees in Namibia set against an off-kilter desert background; and Karen Keating’s black-and-white image of a fenced-in pig in Cuba framed by intersecting phone lines and a stick in the ground, a simple yet impeccably arranged tableau. Focusing on such distant locations, though, is ultimately a diversion. At root, this exhibit involves a local museum spotlighting the work of local artists at a local artistic institution, and in that mission, it succeeds. Ultimately, the “place” in “Photoworks: Presence of Place” —Louis Jacobson is right here at home. 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Free. (202) 8851300. american.edu/cas/museum

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Stacy Brooks DownHome Blues

11:00pm - 2:30pm Madam’s House Party On The Second Floor-Featuring DJ India 10:00pm

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washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 43

v Res o i s t!

a! v

d Un k ite

a !D !

Rin

Thursday, February 26

6:00 PM 21+ Welcome Blind Whino $45 Price will increase

Washingtoncitypaper.com/events 44 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITYLIST Music

Friday Rock

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Frederick Yonnet. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com. Fillmore silver spring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Periphery, Nothing More, Wovenwar, Thank You Scientist. 7 p.m. $26.50. fillmoresilverspring.com. gypsy sAlly’s 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Love Canon, Karen Jonas and Tim Bray. 9 p.m. $15–$20. gypsysallys.com. The hAmilTon 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Lloyd Dobler Effect. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc. com. velveT lounge 915 U St. NW. (202) 462-3213. Big Hoax, Haint Blue, Dear Creek,. 9:30 p.m. $8. velvetloungedc.com.

Funk & R&B Birchmere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Eric Benet. 7:30 p.m. (Sold out) birchmere.com. DAr consTiTuTion hAll 1776 D St. NW. (202) 6284780. The Stylistics, The Drama. 8 p.m. $60–$150. dar.org. howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. Ms. Lauryn Hill. 9 p.m. $100–$175. thehowardtheatre. com.

hill counTry live 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050. Scott Kurt, Memphis 59. 9:30 p.m. Free. hillcountrywdc.com.

Folk BArns AT wolF TrAp 1645 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Solas. 8 p.m. $25–$28. wolftrap.org. The hAmilTon 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Chatham County Line, The Bumper Jacksons. 8:30 p.m. $15–$20. thehamiltondc.com.

WoRld ArTisphere 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. (703) 8751100. Aurelio. 8 p.m. $18. artisphere.com. pATrioT cenTer 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax. (703) 993-3000. Juan Gabriel. 9 p.m. $59–$149. patriotcenter.com.

Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48 Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Theater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

SearCh LISTIngS aT waShIngTonCITYpaper.Com

Scott, Naked Blue. 8:30 p.m. $25–$35. thehamiltondc. com.

rock & roll hoTel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. Dead Professional, Rathborne, New Boss. 8 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com. velveT lounge 915 U St. NW. (202) 462-3213. Catscan, StereoRiots, Height Keech. 9:30 p.m. $8. velvetloungedc.com.

Funk & R&B BeThesDA Blues AnD JAzz 7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda. (240) 330-4500. Billy Ocean. 7 p.m. & 10 p.m. $50–$90. bethesdabluesjazz.com. howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. Ms. Lauryn Hill. 9 p.m. $100–$175. thehowardtheatre. com.

saturday

ElEctRonic

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Frederick Yonnet. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com.

Jazz

Rock

gypsy sAlly’s 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Love Canon, Karen Jonas and Tim Bray. 9 p.m. $15–$20. gypsysallys.com. The hAmilTon 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Carly Harvey Band. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc. com. Julia Nixon, The Lofgren Brothers, Todd Wright, Cal Everett, The Hummingbyrds, Tender Polman, Eric

u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Thomas Jack, Sam Feldt, Tommy Cornelis. 10 p.m. (Sold out) $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

BohemiAn cAverns 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Loide. 7:30 p.m. & 10:30 p.m. $25–$77. bohemiancaverns.com. music cenTer AT sTrAThmore 5301 Tuckerman Lane, Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. John Pizzarelli, Jane Monheit. 8 p.m. $48–$78. strathmore.org. Twins JAzz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Irene Jalenti. 9 p.m. & 11 p.m. $15–$20. twinsjazz.com.

u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. JMSN, Rochelle Jordan, Abhi//Dijon. 6 p.m. $15. ustreetmusichall.com.

FlAsh 645 Florida Ave. NW. (202) 827-8791. Brawther. 8 p.m. $8. flashdc.com. u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. James Zabiela, DJ Lisa Frank, Sumner. 10 p.m. $15. ustreetmusichall.com.

Thurs, 2/19 at 8:00pm Erotica Slam at Hillyer Art Space

Jazz BohemiAn cAverns 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Aaron “Ab” Abernathy, Nat Turner. 7:30 p.m. & 10:30 p.m. $25–$77. bohemiancaverns.com.

Mon, 2/23 at 8:00pm An Evening of Humorous Readings

Twins JAzz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Irene Jalenti. 9 p.m. & 11 p.m. $15–$20. twinsjazz.com.

BluEs

Sun, 3/1 at 7:00pm Noir at the Bar Ten female writers read crime fiction

ioTA cluB & cAFé 2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. (703) 522-8340. Bobby Thompson and the New Gentlemen, Westmain, Lauren Calve Band. 8:30 p.m. $12. iotaclubandcafe.com. zoo BAr 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 2324225. Sookey Jump. 10 p.m. Free. zoobardc.com.

9:30 cluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Sturgill Simpson, Anderson East. 8 p.m. (Sold out) 930.com.

Wed, 2/18 at 6:30pm Cooks in the Bookstore An evening with Joe Yonan, Bonnie Benwick, and David Hagedorn. Bring your food & cooking questions for three of Washington’s favorite local food writers!

ElEctRonic

countRy

UPCOMING EVENTS

kishi Bashi at sixth & i historic synagogue, Feb. 19

1517 CONNECTICUT AVE. NW 202.387.1400 // KRAMERS.COM washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 45

BluEs

Hip-Hop

The hAmilTon 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Kiss & Ride. 10:30 p.m. Free. thehamiltondc.com.

u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Theophilus London, FATHER, Doja Cat. 6:30 p.m. $26. ustreetmusichall.com.

zoo BAr 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 2324225. Smokin Polecats, Marianna Previti, Jamie Lynch. 10 p.m. Free. zoobardc.com.

countRy Fillmore silver spring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Sam Hunt, Native Run. 8 p.m. (Sold out) fillmoresilverspring.com.

Folk BArns AT wolF TrAp 1645 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Solas. 8 p.m. $25–$28. wolftrap.org.

Hip-Hop u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Doomtree, Open Mike Eagle. 7 p.m. $16. ustreetmusichall.com.

dJ nigHts Dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. DJ Shannon Stewart, DJ Bill Spieler. 10:30 p.m. $2. dcnine.com. rock & roll hoTel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. DJs Rex Riot, Basscamp. 11:30 p.m. Free. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

Vocal hill cenTer AT The olD nAvAl hospiTAl 921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. (202) 549-4172. Debra Tidwell. 7:30 p.m. $15–$20.

sunday Rock

BlAck cAT BAcksTAge 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Franz Nicolay, More Humans, the Tender Thrill. 8 p.m. $12. blackcatdc.com.

Funk & R&B Fillmore silver spring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Erykah Badu. 8 p.m. (Sold out) fillmoresilverspring.com. howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. Stephanie Mills. 8 p.m. $69.50–$100. thehowardtheatre.com. mADAm’s orgAn 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. The Good Thing Band-Old School Funk. 9 p.m. Free. madamsorgan.com.

Jazz Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Marion Meadows. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $27.50. bluesalley.com. Twins JAzz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Jackie Myers. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. twinsjazz.com. zoo BAr 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 2324225. Mike Flaherty’s Dixieland Direct Jazz Band. 7:30 p.m. Free. zoobardc.com.

clArice smiTh perForming ArTs cenTer Stadium Drive and Route 193, College Park. (301) 405-2787. Fauré Piano Quartett (Germany). 3 p.m. $10–$25. claricesmithcenter.umd.edu. nATionAl gAllery oF ArT 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. (202) 737-4215. National Gallery of Art New Music Ensemble. 3:30 p.m. Free. nga.gov. phillips collecTion 1600 21st St. NW. (202) 3872151. JACK Quartet. 4 p.m. $15–$30. phillipscollection.org.

gospEl howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. Howard Gospel Brunch. 1 p.m. $35–$45. thehowardtheatre.com.

Monday Rock

Dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Operators, Pleasure Curses. 9 p.m. $10–$12. dcnine.com. hill counTry live 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050. Sol Driven Train. 8 p.m. Free. hillcountrywdc.com.

Funk & R&B Fillmore silver spring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Erykah Badu. 8 p.m. (Sold out) fillmoresilverspring.com. mADAm’s orgAn 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. One Nite Stand. 9 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan. com.

Jazz BohemiAn cAverns 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. bohemiancaverns.com.

tuesday Rock mADAm’s orgAn 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. The Johnny Artis Band. 9 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan.com. rock & roll hoTel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. Bad Suns, Coasts, Maudlin Strangers. 8 p.m. (Sold out) rockandrollhoteldc.com.

Funk & R&B The hAmilTon 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Dirty Dozen Brass Band. 7:30 p.m. $25–$30. thehamiltondc.com. howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. Dawn Richard. 8 p.m. $17.50–$40. thehowardtheatre. com.

countRy

Jazz

Birchmere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Riders in the Sky. 7:30 p.m. $25. birchmere.com.

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Cheri Maree. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $20. bluesalley. com.

Folk

BohemiAn cAverns 2001 11th St. NW. (202) 2990800. Lenny Robinson. 7:30 p.m. & 9 p.m. $10–$15. bohemiancaverns.com.

comeT ping pong 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. (202) 364-0404. Juan Wauters, The Sea Life, and Nice Breeze. 9 p.m. $12. cometpingpong.com. gypsy sAlly’s 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Amy Helm and the Handsome Strangers, New Sweden. 8 p.m. $18–$22. gypsysallys.com.

46 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

classical

countRy Birchmere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Robert Earl Keen. 7:30 p.m. $49.50. birchmere.com.

Folk Dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Emmy The Great, Louis Weeks. 9 p.m. $14. dcnine.com.

Wednesday Rock

BArns AT wolF TrAp 1645 Trap Road, Vienna. (703) 255-1900. Edwin McCain. 8 p.m. $30. wolftrap.org. Birchmere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Leighton Meester, Owen Danoff. 7:30 p.m. $25. birchmere.com. Dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. New Madrid, Go Cozy, Witch Coast. 9 p.m. $10. dcnine.com. Fillmore silver spring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. Sleeping with Sirens, Pierce the Veil. 7 p.m. $37.50. fillmoresilverspring.com. gypsy sAlly’s 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Cutting Agency, Fractal Cat. 8 p.m. $10. gypsysallys.com. u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Francisco The Man. 7 p.m. $15. ustreetmusichall.com.

Funk & R&B 9:30 cluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. JJ Grey & Mofro, The London Souls. 7 p.m. $25. 930.com. howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic. 8 p.m. $39.50–$45. thehowardtheatre.com.

ElEctRonic u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Nightmares on Wax (DJ Set), All Good Funk Alliance. 10 p.m. $12. ustreetmusichall.com.

Jazz music cenTer AT sTrAThmore 5301 Tuckerman Lane, Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. 8 p.m. $29–$69. strathmore.org. Twins JAzz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. BSQ. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. twinsjazz.com.

classical liBrAry oF congress cooliDge AuDiTorium First Street and Independence Avenue SE. (202) 7075507. Richard Goode. 8 p.m. Free. loc.gov.

thursday Rock

Birchmere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Tab Benoit. 7:30 p.m. $29.50. birchmere.com. Dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Beacon, Lord RAJA, Lance Neptune. 8:30 p.m. $10–$12. dcnine. com. rock & roll hoTel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-ROCK. The Hunting Party, St. James & The Apostles, The Butterface Effect. 8 p.m. $12. rockandrollhoteldc.com. sixTh & i hisToric synAgogue 600 I St. NW. (202) 408-3100. Kishi Bashi String Quartet, Busman’s Holiday. 8 p.m. $25–$30. sixthandi.org. velveT lounge 915 U St. NW. (202) 462-3213. Borracho, Carousel, Joy, Caustic Casanova. 9 p.m. $8. velvetloungedc.com.

ElEctRonic u sTreeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 5881880. Chocolate Puma. 10 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall. com.

washingtoncitypaper.com february 13, 2015 47

Francisco the man at u street music hall, Feb. 18

Jazz Twins JAzz 1344 U St. NW. (202) 234-0072. Mad Dog Jazz. 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. $10. twinsjazz.com.

BluEs 9:30 cluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Big Head Todd and the Monsters. 6:30 p.m. $35. 930.com.

countRy hill counTry live 410 7th St. NW. (202) 556-2050. Colonel Josh & the Honkey Tonk Heroes. 8:30 p.m. Free. hillcountrywdc.com.

Folk gypsy sAlly’s 3401 K St. NW. (202) 333-7700. Ed Jurdi, Seth Walker, Edward David Anderson. 8:30 p.m. $12–$15. gypsysallys.com.

WoRld mADAm’s orgAn 2461 18th St. NW. (202) 6675370. Patrick Alban and Noche Latina. 9 p.m. $3–$7. madamsorgan.com.

Hip-Hop howArD TheATre 620 T St. NW. (202) 803-2899. PRhyme (DJ Premier & Royce da 5’9”), EZ Street. 9 p.m. $15–$50. thehowardtheatre.com.

Galleries

ADDison/ripley Fine ArT 1670 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 338-5180. addisonripleyfineart.com. OngOing: “Natural Allusions” A variety of nature-themed paintings and sculptures by artists Jackie Battenfield, Carson Fox, Isabel Manalo, Jackie Battenfield, Judy Hoffman, Julia Bloom, Linda Cummings, and Merle Temkin. Jan. 31–March 14. ArlingTon ArTs cenTer 3550 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. (703) 248-6800. arlingtonartscenter.org. OngOing: “Instigate. Activate.” Four new curators present mini-exhibitions that focus on landscapes, containers and borderlands, large scale alternative worlds, and the concept of home. Jan. 24–April 4. OngOing: “Gun Love” AAC resident artist Dawn Whitmore considers the role of women in contemporary gun culture in this exhibition that features altered photos gleaned from social media and portraits of women acting out the love of firearms by posing with plastic guns. Jan. 24–April 4. ArTisphere 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. (703) 8751100. artisphere.com. OngOing: “Live/Life.” South African artist Elsabe Dixon draws inspiration from the life cycle of insects for this interactive exhibition that explores sensory memory and biology. Oct. 1–Feb. 22.

48 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

OngOing: “Infinitesimal” Artist Monica Stroik explores the limits of perception and memory in this immersive new exhibition of oil paintings that draws inspiration from Artisphere’s architecture. Feb. 4–April 25. OngOing: “Select 2015” Local artists showcase new works at this annual exhibition and auction that supports the D.C. art community. Jan. 29–March 6.

BrenTwooD ArTs exchAnge 3901 Rhode Island Ave., Brentwood. (301) 277-2863. arts.pgparks. com. OngOing: “Unmapped” Artists Pat Goslee, Ellyn Weiss, and Sally Resnik Rockriver use visual art as a means of exploring the world and understanding their lives in this exhibition of new work. Jan. 12–Feb. 28. cArroll squAre gAllery 975 F St. NW. (202) 234-5601. carrollsquare.com. OngOing: “Linear Function” Artists Alex Mayer, Nick Primo, and Douglas Whitmer present paintings and sculptures that require a sparse use of materials, be it wood, paint, or steel. Feb. 6–April 24. cross mAckenzie gAllery 2026 R St. NW. (202) 333-7970. crossmackenzie.com. OngOing: “Why Ai Wei Wei” Korean ceramic artist Hyun Kyung Yoon questions Ai Wei Wei’s destruction of Chinese vessels in this new exhibition that also features her wall-hanging series “Indeterminate Lines.”. Jan. 9–Feb. 28. DAnce plAce 3225 8th St. NE. (202) 269-1600. danceplace.org. OngOing: “ A Monstrous Reality” Computer game designer Johan Lobe presents a series of drawings and digital illustrations of various monsters and fictional creatures. Feb. 5–Feb. 28. Dc ArTs cenTer 2438 18th St. NW. (202) 462-7833. dcartscenter.org. Opening: “Dis/Satisfaction: Permission to rewrite history, it’s personal” The nine members of Sparkplug, DCAC’s artist collective, present their first exhibition. Featured works include paintings, sculpture, and interactive performance art. Feb. 13–March 15. FounDry gAllery 1314 18th St. NW. (202) 463– 0203. foundrygallery.org. OngOing: “Six New Members…Six Directions” Photographers Heather Jacks and Gregory O’Hanlon, painters Jorge Luis Bernal, Michele D. Morgan, and Natacha Thys, and digital artist Kenneth W. Minton, all new members of the gallery, showcase their work. Feb. 4–Feb. 28. The FriDge Rear Alley, 516 Eighth St. SE. (202) 6644151. thefridgedc.com. ClOsing: “RIOT” Brooklynbased artist David Molesky, known for his paintings of burning landscapes, incorporates humans and animals into his latest series. Dec. 6–Feb. 14. gAllery plAn B 1530 14th St. NW. (202) 234-2711. galleryplanb.com. Opening: “Ten by Ten” Artists who have displayed work at plan b in the past return to present 10 inch square paintings that capture their style at this anniversary exhibition. Feb. 18–March 22. goeThe-insTiTuT wAshingTon 812 7th St. NW. (202) 289-1200. www.goethe.de/washington. OngO-

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Enjoy

ing: “Light and Dark” Photographs of East and West

Germany and their citizens by acclaimed artist Barbara Klemm. Jan. 14–Feb. 27. hAmilToniAn gAllery 1353 U St. NW. (202) 332-1116. hamiltoniangallery.com. ClOsing: “Naoko Wowsugi and Whoop Dee Doo” Hamiltonian kicks off its year with a birthday-themed performance exhibition. Jan. 10–Feb. 14.

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hemphill 1515 14th St. NW. (202) 234-5601. hemphillfinearts.com. OngOing: “Willem de Looper” Stained paintings from the mid-20th century by the former Phillips Collection curator. Jan. 17–March 28.

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hillyer ArT spAce 9 Hillyer Court NW. (202) 3380680. hillyerartspace.org. OngOing: “Linda Hesh’s All Gay Review” The artist presents a variety of interactive works to explain the gay rights movement in D.C. as told from the perspective of a heterosexual woman. Feb. 6–Feb. 28. OngOing: “Reconcile” Abstract paintings influenced by science, collage, and sketches by painter Andrea Barnes. Feb. 6–Feb. 28. OngOing: “Recycled Adventures in Cardboard Relief” Socially conscious collages created from recycled materials by Jason Yen. Feb. 6–Feb. 28.

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honFleur gAllery 1241 Good Hope Road SE. (202) 365-8392. honfleurgallery.com. OngOing: “Frank P Phillips” The local artist presents abstract, muted paintings inspired by architecture. Jan. 9–Feb. 28. JoAn hisAokA heAling ArTs gAllery 1632 U St. NW. (202) 483-8600. smithfarm.com/gallery. OngOing: “Bought & Sold: Voices of Human Trafficking”

Curators aim to change public attitudes about human trafficking through this exhibition that features photos by Kay Chernush and an installation by Barbara Liotta. Jan. 9–March 7. morTon Fine ArT 1781 Florida Ave. NW. (202) 628-2787. mortonfineart.com. Opening: “Self Conscious” Abstract portraits by Alexandria-based painter Rosemary Feit Covey. Feb. 13–March 5. Opening: “No Trace of the Woman” Supernatural-themed works by Virginia painter and photographer Laurel Hausler. Feb. 13–March 5. sTuDio gAllery 2108 R St. NW. (202) 232-8734. studiogallerydc.com. OngOing: “Vegetation Ceremonies” Painter Carol Rubin presents colorful paintings inspired by nature in this exhibition that promotes environmentalism. Feb. 4–Feb. 28. OngOing: “Celebrating Black History Month” UDC and American University photography students respond to the literature of the Harlem Renaissance in this new exhibition that honors the achievements of African Americans. Feb. 4–Feb. 28. susAn cAllowAy Fine ArT 1643 Wisconsin Avenue NW. (202) 965-4601. callowayart.com. OngOing: “Anytime/Anywhere: A Modern Landscape” Contemporary oil paintings by Minnesota-based artist Carl Bretzke. Feb. 6–March 7. TouchsTone gAllery 901 New York Ave. NW. (202) 347-2787. touchstonegallery.com. OngOing: “Unspoken Messages” Ceramic sculptures inspired by moths, butterflies, and transformation by Janathel Shaw. Feb. 6–March 1. OngOing: “Earth’s Elements” Artist Harmon Biddle captures natural elements using

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Sat Feb 14

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50 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

Franz nicolay at Black cat Backstage, Feb. 15

----------

watercolors on paper, then transfers them to glass, turning a two-dimensional work into something threedimensional. Feb. 6–March 1. viviD soluTions gAllery 1231 Good Hope Road SE. (202) 365-8392. vividsolutionsdc.com. OngOing: “Access/Index” Photographer Katherine Sifers considers the cost and access to food that many D.C. residents encounter in this exhibition by displaying shots of $25 worth of fresh food purchased from local markets. Jan. 9–Feb. 27. zeniTh gAllery 1429 Iris St. NW. (202) 783-2963. zenithgallery.com. OngOing: “Women of Zenith Who Have Reached the Zenith” Female artists take over the walls at this exhibition to celebrate Washington’s female leaders and Zenith Gallery’s 37th anniversary. Jan. 14–April 26.

dance

sleepy hollow Artistic Director Septime Webre premieres a new ballet based on Washington Irving’s short story about Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horsemen. The production also incorporates stories from the Salem Witch Trials to ramp up the spookiness. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. 2700 F St. NW. Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m. $45-$145. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org. lulA wAshingTon DAnce TheATre The Los Angeles-based company makes its debut at Dance Place and presents works inspired by jazz trumpeter Terrence Blanchard and the civil rights movement, as well as a piece by former Alvin Ailey company member. Dance Place. 3225 8th St. NE. Feb. 14, 8 p.m.; Feb. 15, 4 p.m. $15-$30. (202) 269-1600. danceplace.org.

theater

BAck To meThuselAh George Bernard experiments with science fiction in this satirical romp that journies from the Garden of Eden to far into the future. Washington Stage Guild at Undercroft Theatre. 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. To March 15. $20-$50. (240) 582-0050. stageguild.org. BAskerville Tony-winning playwright Ken Ludwig takes advantage of the Sherlock Holmes craze and presents this comedic new take on The Hound of the Baskervilles, with five actors playing more than 40 roles. Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To Feb. 22. $55-$110. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org. Bessie’s Blues MetroStage revives this musical look at the 20th century, which won six Helen Hayes Awards when it debuted at Studio Theatre 20 years ago. Playwright Thomas W. Jones II directs and choreographs the production that tells the story of the blues from the perspective of singer Bessie Smith. MetroStage. 1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. To March 15. $55-$60. (703) 548-9044. metrostage.org. cherokee One white and one black couple seek rejuvenation in nature and head to a campsite in Cherokee, North Carolina. But when a group member disappears and a strange local makes the remaining members consider living off the grid forever, their plans and lives quickly change. John Vreeke directs Lisa D’Amour’s companion to Detroit, which played at Woolly last season. Woolly Mammoth Theatre. 641 D St. NW. To March 8. $40-$68. (202) 393-3939. woollymammoth.net. chicAgo The touring production of this classic musical about murder, mayhem, and ladies in prison comes to the National for a week of performances. National Theatre. 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. To Feb. 15. $48-$98. (202) 628-6161. nationaltheatre.org. choir Boy When a prestigious boarding school for young African-American men falls on hard financial times, its acclaimed gospel choir feels the pressure. The young man chosen to lead the group must decide whether that responsibility is worth ignoring his sexual orientation in this new musical story by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Feb. 22. $20-$78. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org. conversATions i’ve never hAD Catholic University MFA candidate Kathleen Burke presents this dark drama about a newlywed couple whose happy existence is halted when a mysterious stranger from

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FROM ERIC SCHAEFFER THE MAKER OF “IF LUCY FELL,” “STARVED” AND “AFTER FALL, WINTER”

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the wife’s past arrives. Catholic University of America. 620 Michigan Ave. NE. To Feb. 21. $5-$15. (202) 3195000. cua.edu. DouBT, A pArABle In John Patrick Shanley’s story set at a Bronx Catholic school in the early ‘60s, a charismatic priest is accused of harming a young boy and comes under question by the school’s veteran principal, a strict, aging nun. When the doubt starts to overcome her, her entire life and vocation are thrown into disarray. 1st Stage. 1524 Spring Hill Road, McLean. To March 1. $15-$28. (703) 854-1856. 1ststagespringhill. org. DunsinAne The Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Scotland present a limited engagement of David Greig’s dramatic sequel to Macbeth, in which one man attempts to restore peace to a ravaged nation. Sidney Harman Hall. 610 F St. NW. To Feb. 21. $20-$110. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

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“One of the most

important romance ﬁlms of the last 20 years”.

Frozen 10-year-old Rhona disappears and the actions of her mother and killer are followed over the next several years by psychiatrists. Delia Taylor directs this production of Bryony Lavery’s script. Anacostia Playhouse. 2020 Shannon Place SE. To March 1. $25-$35. (202) 544-0703. anacostiaplayhouse.com.

Cody Clarke, SMUG FILM

hAlF-liFe In this zombie-inspired work of physical theater, a car accident survivor wanders through life resembling an undead person and must handle the perceptions of others while she recovers. Flashpoint Mead Theatre Lab. 916 G St. NW. To Feb. 22. $10-$20. (202) 315-1306. culturaldc.org.

BOYMEETS GIRL Falling in love transcends transgender

STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH ANGELIKA POP-UP AT UNION MARKET 550 PENN ST NE, WASHINGTON DC (571) 512-3313 • ANGELIKAPOPUP.COM

3 0 1 - 6 3 3 - 5 6 0 1 charles@steckphotography.com w w w. s t e c k p h o t o g r a p h y. c o m

house oF Desires In this play written in the 17th century by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, four characters squabble over mistaken identities and failed romances. Director Hugo Medrano sets his version in 1940s Mexico and incorporates mariachi music into this farce that considers the will of women during a period when they were subjected to a strict moral code. GALA Hispanic Theatre. 3333 14th St. NW. To March 1. $20-$50. (202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org. kiD vicTory Legendary composer John Kander collaborates with playwright Greg Pierce on this world premiere musical about a young boy who returns home a year after disappearing and his struggle to reenter society. Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To March 22. $29-$94. (703) 8209771. signature-theatre.org. king heDley ii In the ninth play from August Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle,” King Hedley returns from prison determined to open a business. But when a scheming conman threatens to reveal long held family secrets, King’s plans are threatened. Timothy DOuglas directs this look at the daily struggles of a community in the 1980s. Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To March 8. $40-$90. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org. lAsT oF The whyos A gang leader in 1880s New York travels 100 years into the future to confront his future self in this mysterious and cinematic play. Rebecca Holderness returns to Spooky Action to direct this play by Barbara Wiechmann. Spooky Action Theater. 1810 16th St. NW. To March 1. $10-$35. (301) 9201414. spookyaction.org.

Is the Glass half full? Is the Glass half empty? how about half off! realdeal.washingtoncitypaper.com 52 february 13, 2015 washingtoncitypaper.com

The lieuTenAnT oF inishmore When the black cat of a mad Irish liberation fighter is killed, his neighbors try to replace it without his knowledge. But when they wind up with an orange cat instead, the thoughtful couple has to contend with a world of machine guns and terrorism. Matthew R. Wilson directs Martin McDonagh’s dark but gleeful comedy. Constellation Theatre at Source. 1835 14th St. NW. To March 8. $20-$45. (202) 204-7741. constellationtheatre.org. liFe sucks (or The presenT riDiculous) Aaron Posner plays with the plot of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in this new work about a gorgeous, misunderstood woman, a homely girl, and a man searching the depths of his soul to understand his failings. Theater J. 1529 16th St. NW. To Feb. 15. $25-$65. (202) 518-9400. theaterj.org. love, loss, AnD whAT i wore Six actresses play a variety of characters in this series of monologues about relationships and the way we dress, adapted for the stage by Nora and Delia Ephron from the book by Ilene Beckerman. Next Stop Theatre. 269 Sunset Park

Drive, Herndon. To March 7. $28. (703) 481-5930. nextstoptheatre.org. mAry sTuArT Holly Twyford and Kate Eastwood Norris star in this new production of Frederick Schiller’s play that chronicles the final days and death of Mary, Queen of Scots. Folger Elizabethan Theatre. 201 E. Capitol St. SE. To March 8. $40-$75. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu. The meTromAniAcs Alexis Piron’s classic farce involves poets, pseudonyms, disguises, and many intertwining relationships. Shakespeare Theatre Company presents the play as part of its ReDiscovery Series. Lansburgh Theatre. 450 7th St. NW. To March 8. $20-$100. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org. much ADo ABouT noThing This latest wordless production from Synetic Theater sets the story of confirmed bachelor Benedick and his equally stubborn and single counterpart Beatrice in 1950s Las Vegas. Paata Tsikurishvili directs the company’s 11th “Silent Shakespeare” adaptation. Synetic Theater at Crystal City. 1800 South Bell St., Arlington. To March 22. $15-$95. (800) 494-8497. synetictheater.org. oThello WSC Avant Bard presents a new production of Shakespeare’s tale of love, hate, and jealousy, the only major tragedy by the Bard that the troupe hasn’t performed. Theatre on the Run. 3700 S. Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington. To March 1. $30-$35. (703) 2281850. arlingtonarts.org. oTher DeserT ciTies A family comes together for the first Christmas in six years, only to be torn asunder when the daughter announces she’s written a memoir full of unsavory details, in this dark drama by John Robin Baltz. Highwood Theatre. 914 Silver Spring Avenue, Suite 102, Silver Spring. To Feb. 15. $20-$25. (301) 587-0697. thehighwoodtheatre.org. rApTure, BlisTer, Burn After meeting in graduate school, Catherine and Gwen pursued opposite life paths, with Catherine becoming an academic and Gwen becoming a wife and mother. Gina Gianfriddo’s comedy explores what happens decades later, when they start to covet each other’s lives. Round House Theatre Bethesda. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. To Feb. 22. $10-$50. (240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org. The TempesT Taffety Punk presents another allfemale Shakespeare production as part of its Riot Grrrls series. Company member Lise Bruneau tells the story of an overthrown duke and a mysterious monster in this new version of Shakespeare’s magical company. Taffety Punk at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. 545 7th St. SE. To Feb. 28. $15. (202) 261-6612. taffetypunk.com. The wiDow lincoln James Still’s world premiere play chronicles Mary Lincoln’s life in the weeks following her husband’s assassination. Ford’s Theatre. 511 10th St. NW. To Feb. 22. $35-$62. (202) 347-4833. fordstheatre.org.

FilM

JupiTer AscenDing Mila Kunis plays the Earthling heiress to a magnificent galactic kingdom. One group vying for the ruling power wants her dead. A genetically modified soldier (Channing Tatum) ties to protect her. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) reD Army A documentary about a famously successful Soviet Union hockey team. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) sevenTh son The seventh song of a seventh son battles evil spirits under the tutelage of Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges). The biggest challenge comes from a witch named Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore). (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) The spongeBoB movie: sponge ouT oF wATer More than 10 years after his first movie, the yellow guy returns to the silver screen. Mr. SquarePants and his crew fight an evil pirate (Antonio Banderas) over a stolen recipe. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

Film clips are written by Reese Higgins.

LET’S GET TOGETHER

By BREndan EmmETT QuiGLEy

Across

1 Roth’s replacement in Van Halen 6 Maid’s nightmare 9 Outcome of any of the Bills’ Super Bowl appearances 13 Writer Calvino 14 Latin 101 verb 16 Stake that might get you jacked up? 17 Festival whose first headliner was Jane’s Addiction 19 “Democracy is the road to socialism” writer 20 Put down 21 One taking a lot of drugs, perhaps? 23 Maker of Mauvelous and Unmellow Yellow colors 26 Dog-breeding grp. 27 “Edge of Tomorrow” craft 28 Slick stuff 29 Making no sense 32 Like a strong drink 34 Protective cup location 35 Hairy mountain beast 36 Lout

38 “This can’t be good” 42 Actress Grossman of “American Horror Story” 44 Big name in watches 45 Sealed, as a deal 50 Make a mistake 51 Altar in the sky 52 Judge who heard arguments from Shapiro 53 Kigali resident 55 Chocolatefilled cookie 57 One collecting thoughts on the record 58 Cote d’___ 59 Getting it on, or a hint to this puzzle’s theme 64 Boring way to learn 65 Quick drink 66 Some Facebook clicks 67 Change for a five 68 Temperamental one with bad face piercings, maybe 69 Approving words

Down

1 Queen’s home 2 The Hawks, on an ESPN chyron 3 Miss 4 “Luck Be ___”

23 Snug and comfortable like a cashmere jumper 24 Confirmation, e.g. 25 Returned to earth 26 The world’s largest one has a circumference of 4’ 4” 30 Classic pizza order 31 Show room? 33 Ticket number? 36 Some BDSM participants 37 “Just saying here,” briefly 39 Got out of here but quick 40 Fried seedpod 41 “Get him on the ___!” 43 Serving upside 44 Covered in sequins 45 Classic sports car 46 Sprint competitor 47 Base gesture? 48 Hitchcock classic that takes place in San Francisco 49 Country singer Jake ___ 54 “Swear to God!” 56 War god 57 2% alternative 60 Stun 61 Approvals 62 #22 in a series 63 #19 in a series

5 Demarcate, as a V.I.P. section 6 Assorted 7 NFL analyst Aikman 8 “Only You” synthpop band 9 Doner kebab meat 10 Streaking 11 Shoot from high above 12 Rabbit, e.g. 15 Guitar effect played with the mouth 18 Org. that’s against abusive debt collection 22 Healthy berry

D.C.’s awesomest events calendar. washingtoncitypaper.com

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LAST WEEK: APPLYING PRESSURE G E T T E X H E S P E L E L L A D O B I R L E T A L T E X A M E T H A S H Y T I P S E C H O E K E D M E N S

O W A X R L I P S P E Z T A A W S R A I D N N A G E I N W A B R I L E

A C A I

G E I S H T A E P S E K E Y M H I E L F E T S

E D D I S E E D B A I N G O T S S T A H L

C U R L

O N E A L A L R G E O D T O N L E E I O L I L

M I N N I E

A T O D D S

R O A D S O D A

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