Washington City Paper (April 27, 2018)

CITYPAPER Washington

Free voluMe 38, no. 17 WasHingtoncitypaper.coM april 27-May 3, 2018

Housing: More HuMane evictions 5 Food: tacos don’t Have to be cHeap 16 Film: infinity war is a snore 19

The District government has put forth a sweeping vision for promoting arts and culture in D.C., but some local artists aren’t sure it benefits them. P. 10

By Stephanie Rudig and Matt Cohen Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

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INSIDE on tHe CoVer: CULtUre CLaSH

10 Artists respond to D.C.’s first cultural plan, a lengthy document that lays out elaborate goals but might not give them what they need.

DIStrICt LIne 5 housing complex: The U.S. Marshals Service proposes changes to D.C.’s aggressive eviction policies.

6 loose lips: Shadow senator candidate Andria Thomas wants to fight for statehood on social media.

8 running on empty: The DC Public Charter School Board knew one of D.C.’s oldest charters was in financial trouble for more than a year, but chose not to intervene.

9 gear prudence

FooD 16 taco beef: Mexican restaurants are going upscale, but customers expect their meals to remain cheap.

artS 19 film: Zilberman on Avengers: Infinity War 20 curtain calls: Klimek on Round House Theatre’s “Master Harold”... and the Boys and Paarlberg on GALA Hispanic Theatre’s En el tiempo de las mariposas 22 short subjects: Olszewski on Ghost Stories 23 sketches: Capps on Heather Theresa Clark: Along a Line at Hamiltonian Gallery

CIty LISt 25 30 31 31 33

Music Books Dance Theater Film

DIVerSIonS 33 Crossword 34 Savage Love 35 Classifieds

Darrow MontgoMery 800 Block of 15th Street NW, April 24

EDITORIAL

editor: AlexA mills Managing editor: cAroline jones arts editor: mAtt cohen food editor: lAurA hAyes city lights editor: kAylA rAndAll loose lips reporter: Andrew giAmbrone housing coMplex reporter: morgAn bAskin staff photographer: dArrow montgomery MultiMedia and copy editor: will wArren creative director: stephAnie rudig contributing writers: john Anderson, VAnce brinkley, kriston cApps, chAd clArk, rAchel m. cohen, riley croghAn, jeffry cudlin, eddie deAn, erin deVine, tim ebner, cAsey embert, jAke emen, jonAthAn l. fischer, noAh gittell, lAurA irene, AmAndA kolson hurley, louis jAcobson, rAchAel johnson, chris kelly, steVe kiViAt, chris klimek, priyA konings, julyssA lopez, Amy lyons, neVin mArtell, keith mAthiAs, j.f. meils, triciA olszewski, eVe ottenberg, mike pAArlberg, pAt pAduA, justin peters, rebeccA j. ritzel, Abid shAh, tom sherwood, Quintin simmons, mAtt terl, dAn trombly, kAArin VembAr, emily wAlz, joe wArminsky, AlonA wArtofsky, justin weber, michAel j. west, diAnA yAp, AlAn zilbermAn

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4/13/18 4:32 PM

Locked Out

The U.S. Marshals Service has proposed “more humane” changes to eviction proceedings in the District. Who’s responsible for enacting them?

By Morgan Baskin EvEry day across D.C., more than a dozen evictions occur—a number slightly higher than the national average—in proceedings that involve a crew of armed U.S. marshals. Compared to eviction practices in other metropolitan areas, D.C.’s are particularly traumatizing.

Because landlords have to secure 20 movers for the eviction of a three-bedroom apartment, or 25 for a singlefamily home, tenants must watch as hordes of movers and armed marshals donning SWAT vests flood into their home and drag its contents outside. The evictions become crowded, frenetic, and often humiliating spectacles.

The District, it seems, is finally coming around to changing that.

Last fall, the U.S. Marshals Service “underwent an extensive review of evictions practices” in D.C. and other jurisdictions, Robert Brandt, a spokesman for USMS, tells City Paper.

It came just weeks after the USMS got flak for its October eviction of a tax service company, which forced the U.S. Treasury Department to collect thousands of pages of documents containing consumer tax and social security data that were tossed onto 8th Street NE. (In other cities, sheriff ’s deputies are typically responsible for evicting tenants, but in D.C., the USMS is responsible for serving and carrying out orders issued by D.C. Superior Court, including eviction judgments.)

The review found that many of the marshals’ longtime practices “have been done through force of tradition for decades” but aren’t required by law, according to a D.C. official familiar with the marshals’ review, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely. That includes the frequently criticized tradition of directing landlords to toss tenants’ belongings on the sidewalk or street once they’ve been evicted. City Paper reported in 1999 and 2017 that property owners often em-

housing complex

ploy homeless D.C. residents to do this and frequently pay them below minimum wage.

In mid-March, USMS notified a small handful of groups, including the Legal Aid Society, the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, and the Office of Ward 6 Councilmember and judiciary committee chair Charles Allen, about its proposed changes. After subsequent weeks of quiet but continuous consultation, USMS plans to implement two “significant” policy directives at the beginning of the summer, Brandt says.

First, USMS will overhaul its eviction scheduling and notification system, Brandt says. The service will start scheduling evictions at least two weeks after D.C. Superior Court issues an eviction judgment, and mail tenants a notice of that date “at the time of scheduling,” giving tenants days or weeks of advance notice before they’re evicted. The service will also post that date online. Currently, tenants receive a “writ of restitution,” or eviction judgment, that’s valid for 75 days, and in many cases don’t receive a firm date until the afternoon before they’re evicted, when an evictions schedule for the following day goes up in the Landlord & Tenant Branch of D.C. courts.

Brandt also confirmed that USMS will stop explicitly directing landlords to remove tenants’ property and place it on the street, since there is no legal requirement for them to do so. “It’s the idea of changing locks rather than having everyone’s possessions thrown out,” Allen says.

In January, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of D.C. resident Donya Williams, who says two armed marshals effectively marched her, naked, out of her home during a 2015 eviction, while a crew of 20 movers stood outside her home laughing. She also alleges that thousands of dollars worth of property was stolen, and that someone dumped bleach into bags of her clothing.

“Things can get broken, damaged by water, stolen. It’s not a humane way to handle someone’s property or possessions,” Allen says.

While officials agree that current practices

often degrade (if not terrify) tenants, the marshals’ changes come with a big question mark: Will tenants remain in legal possession of their own property after an eviction?

“If you’re my landlord and the lease is expired, now the locks have been changed and I can’t access my own proper ty, who owns [that property]?” Allen asks. “So there’s some legal ambiguity we’re still trying to work out to make sure people still have access to their own possessions.”

Other major metropolitan jurisdictions instruct landlords to move tenants’ possessions into short-term storage offsite. In Massachusetts, for example, storage laws require the officers leading evictions to move a tenant’s belongings into a public warehouse within 20 miles of the place the tenant rented, for up to six months after the eviction.

Allen says a legislative fix, introduced to the Council before it breaks for the summer, isn’t off the table. But he doesn’t think stakeholders have come to a true consensus on the associated details of that plan—chiefly, who would be responsible for footing the storage bill and transferring tenants’ belongings, and how long tenants would have access to the unit before someone tosses its contents. (Allen indicated that he supports moving evicted tenants’ belongings into short-term storage for a number of months.)

Untangling those questions is the primary reason USMS hasn’t yet enacted its two proposed changes, Allen says. After the marshals reached out to his office in March, he asked them to hold off on introducing the directives, which USMS planned to implement this month, until groups had a chance to work through their legal implications.

They still haven’t. Brandt notes that USMS doesn’t have the authority on its own to direct landlords to move tenants’ property to a storage facility, but will move forward with its proposed changes, regardless of whether the

Darrow Montgomery/File

DistrictLine

Council passes an accompanying bill that legislates around those legal issues.

“I think that the Marshals Service has been surprised that there are concerns about their plan,” Beth Harrison, director of Legal Aid’s Court-Based Legal Services Project, says. “They genuinely felt like they came up with a proposal that balances landlord and tenant interests.”

Looming over that conversation is the specter of the Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed Department of Human Services fiscal year 2019 budget. The Council is currently deciding whether to approve Bowser’s plan, which would cut funding for the city’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program by $1.78 million.

The council approved Bowser’s proposed cut to the fund in her fiscal year 2018 budget and is poised to do so again this year. ERAP funds back-rent payments for tenants who are at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line, and is one of D.C.’s most effective eviction prevention mechanisms.

And though tenant advocates say the direction of USMS’ proposed changes is heartening, many are frustrated by proposed cuts to the programs that help prevent evictions to begin with.

“The Mayor’s proposed budget will take an effective program that is already facing a serious budgetary shortfall and make things worse,” Legal Aid’s Amanda Korber wrote on the group’s website last week. “Further cuts to ERAP [would] leave the most vulnerable families with no way of saving their homes.”

CP

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 5

DistrictLinE

Shadow Campaign First-time candidate Andria Thomas wants to be D.C.’s next shadow senator.

On March 19, five days before the March for Our Lives brought hundreds of thousands of protesters calling for stronger gun regulations to D.C., Andria Thomas showed up at the office of Florida Senator Marco Rubio with a platoon of children and other parents in tow.

The group’s message to Rubio, who has proposed legislation that would effectively gut the District’s gun laws and permit firearms in schools, was simple: Keep your hands off D.C. The Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Rubio’s home state that left 17 people dead had also brought Congress’ unique authority over D.C.’s laws into high relief.

Thomas, who lives with her husband and their two young daughters in Hill East, co-organized the flash mob of families. Her older daughter attends a D.C. public school, and Thomas took Rubio’s actions personally. “The frustration at losing my sense of security for someone who is not accountable to me is fundamentally undemocratic,” she says, bracketing her sentence with sighs.

There was a hitch in the group’s plans. They originally wanted to send Rubio paper flowers bearing the names and ages of victims killed by gun violence in D.C. since 2015, when the senator first introduced his bill. An identical delivery would go to Virginia Representative Tom Garrett, who authored the companion bill in the House. But, just like firearms, bulk deliveries are not permitted at congressional offices.

Instead, the parents and children dropped off handwritten messages at the politicians’ offices. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton greeted the group before they concluded their trip. (Later, they “planted” the paper flowers at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Capitol Hill.)

Rubio was nowhere to be found that day. A staffer claimed he hadn’t heard much about the District’s push for statehood and said his boss merely wanted to align D.C. with existing federal law. Thomas was flabbergasted. How, in 2018, could a congressional staffer for one of the District’s biggest antagonists not know about residents’ decades-long battle for equal voting representation in Congress?

“But if he says that, there’s an opening,” says Thomas, who last month entered the race for one of D.C.’s two “shadow senator” seats.

loose lips

Within two weeks of the election board’s filing deadline, she collected an impressive 4,834 signatures to get on the ballot in the June Democratic primary. Candidates need 2,000 valid signatures to clear the threshold, and it takes most newcomers months to gather them.

“We stormed the office with all of these kids, and it made me feel so powerful to be there representing D.C.’s rights,” Thomas says of her visit to the Hill. “To be perfectly honest, they could not do much about it because it was a bunch of kids. Like, what are you going to do?”

While she is a first-time candidate running for the unpaid and legislatively powerless position Michael D. Brown has held for more than 11 years, Thomas has attracted the support of local Democratic party operatives who see her as a modern face for statehood activism and a quick study of politics. She has worked for more than a decade in strategy consulting with clients around the world.

In April, Thomas scored the endorsement of

6 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

progressive advocacy group DC for Democracy, earning 83 percent of members’ votes. Kesh Ladduwahetty, the organization’s chair, said Thomas would “add much-needed gender diversity to the Statehood delegation.” In addition to Brown, the shadow delegation currently includes Senator Paul Strauss and Representative Franklin Garcia.

Of the four people ever to occupy the shadow senator role (most notably, Reverend Jesse Jackson) only one—Florence Pendleton— was a woman. Thomas, 43, has studied this electoral history and notes that in 2007 Brown took Pendleton’s seat after a third candidate had successfully challenged her signatures.

Thomas has met Brown multiple times and says they are on good terms. He even interviewed her last year on his BBS Radio show Shadow Politics.

“At the end of the day, we’re both very committed to statehood,” Thomas says. “If you were going to say, ‘Oh, one’s more for statehood than the other,’ I don’t think that’s the differentiator.” She touts her abilities to build coalitions and to make the most of limited resources.

“It’s true that I’m a woman and he’s a man,” she says, with a laugh, when asked about the gender dynamic in the competition. “I think in any world you want a representative group of people who are making your case for you.” Although Thomas says “people should not vote for me because I’m a woman,” she adds that “it is a benefit to have a diverse group in the delegation writ large.”

If elected, she says she would seek to develop a more-coordinated social media strategy for statehood advocates, calling it “a minor thing” that could increase the movement’s impact, just as organizers used social media to plan and publicize the Women’s March. She says she Darrow Montgomery

By Andrew Giambrone

would focus on getting a majority of Congress to support statehood by securing the votes of key Democratic and Republican figures and making the issue “top of their minds.”

“When the House and the Senate flip, all it is is a vote in Congress, and we are ready,” Thomas says, adding that she is “cautiously optimistic” Democrats will win control of both chambers in the 2018 midterm elections. Of the shadow senator position, she says, “The fact that it’s unpaid and there’s no real authority, I can get past because I think I can do a good job.”

She would likely continue to work part-time while fulfilling her official responsibilities.

Thomas says she never thought she would run for public office, and instead considered starting her own nonprofit, or landing in a senior role at a company with a social mission.

But the events of Nov. 8, 2016 changed that trajectory. She says the presidential election “spotlighted the social injustices in the U.S.” that also exist in the countries where she had done consulting work, including Haiti, Afghanistan, and Kenya.

But it also “triggered a desire to be active” in her community in ways beyond participating in the parent-teacher association at her daughter’s school. Timing played a part in her change of tack, too: Thomas gave birth to her younger daughter six days before Donald Trump was elected.

“There were definitely hormones at play,” she says, chuckling. “I cried for two months after the election. Some part hormones, some part the devastation of what I thought the implications of the election were. During that crying, I felt increasingly frustrated. I was like, retweeting angry messages on Twitter cannot be the only way that I can be effective.”

Then she received an email from Organizing for Action, the grassroots political group that grew out of Barack Obama’s presidential bids. It encouraged disappointed citizens to start community action groups. “It was like a lightbulb went off,” Thomas says. “‘Oh, that I can do.’”

She called her group “Resist and Rise” and created a Facebook page and website for it.

Last spring, in partnership with prominent advocacy organization DC Vote, Thomas coorganized a family-friendly event on the Hill called “My First Lobby Day” and got involved with the DC Statehood Coalition. During it, she snagged a photo with her baby and Mayor Muriel Bowser. When it comes to D.C.’s autonomy, Bowser has also recently put a bullseye on Rubio, addressing him in a Miami Herald op-ed and a snarky letter.

Thomas doesn’t think Rubio will “change his mind from a bunch of kids walking in the door.” But she wonders how activists can take advantage of media and financial pressures on meddling politicians like him, as well as noncommittal ones. “If it’s not going to change his mind,” she says, “maybe it changes others who see the push we’re making.”

CP

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DistrictLinE

Running On Empty

Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School’s financial woes have existed for much longer than the DC Public Charter School Board let on.

On the night of Monday, April 23, more than four hours into the DC Public Charter School Board’s monthly meeting, its members voted unanimously to close Washington Mathematics Science Technology Public Charter High School at the end of the school year. Founded in 1998, WMST is one of the city’s oldest charters and is also $500,000 short of what it needs to cover its expenses through the end of June.

Under D.C.’s charter law, the PCSB must revoke a school’s charter if it’s considered “no longer economically viable.” While the PCSB is barred from plugging holes in a school’s budget to keep it afloat, it can step in during a charter closure process to ensure that all teachers and other bills get paid.

There are many indications that the PCSB knew WMST was in dire financial straits. Despite sometimes intervening in such situations, in this case it chose not to act.

On March 12, the PCSB made an out-ofthe blue announcement that it would hold an emergency public meeting to discuss WMST’s apparent financial crisis, and how to proceed.

At the meeting, Scott Pearson, executive director of the charter school board, shared the results of a WMST audit by StoneTurn, an independent accounting firm. The charter school board hired StoneTurn to look at WMST’s finances in late February. The auditors’ findings were calamitous. They determined the school was so broke it was unlikely to make its March 23 payroll unless it deferred other bills, like utilities. But even if WMST delayed paying those bills, the accountants projected the school would still run out of money

by April 6. According to the auditors, WMST would need more than $800,000 of additional cash to cover expenses if it were to operate through the end of the school year.

Stephen Marcus, WMST’s attorney, requested that night that the public charter school board delay revoking the school’s charter so that its leaders could sell their school building on Bladensburg Road NE—their biggest asset— and raise the necessary funds. Marcus added that WMST’s teachers said they’d accept delaying their paychecks for the time being, and Deneen Long-White, the chair of the school’s board of trustees, emphasized that they were “rigorously fundraising” to get through the crisis.

Mark Lerner, a veteran observer of D.C.’s charter school community, called the March 12 meeting “perhaps the most bizarre series of events that I’ve witnessed by the DC Public Charter School Board since I first began observing its activities about 20 years ago.”

To learn what the PCSB knew of this situation beforehand, City Paper filed a public records request for all emails to and from Scott Pearson over the past year pertaining to WMST’s budget and finances.

While the PCSB leadership has publicly framed the situation as one where they leapt into action after receiving troubling reports about WMST two months ago, emails shared in response to our records request show that the PCSB had been aware of the school’s alarming fiscal situation for far longer.

According to the emails, two PCSB school finance specialists, Mikayla Lytton and Mohammad Bashshiti, met with WMST’s h e a d o f s ch o o l , N’Deye Diagne, and its business manager, Mark Addae, in May 2017 to discuss the school’s financial situation. Among other things, they talked about how between 2015 and 2017, WMST exceeded $704,000 in revenue loss as student enrollment declined, while their expenses grew by $440,000.

On June 15, 2017, Lytton, who no longer works with the PCSB, emailed Diagne and Addae writing, “As we discussed over the phone earlier today and as I hope you understood from our [May] meeting, we are very concerned with the school’s financial status and projections.” Lytton wrote that the PCSB would like to work with the school to develop a “Financial Corrective Action Plan,” which sets specific targets to improve a school’s financial health.

The PCSB had established such financial action plans with Ideal Academy in 2016, and Richard Wright Public Charter School for Journalism and Media Arts in 2017. If a plan is established and a school then fails to meet the

8 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

agreed-upon targets, the PCSB can vote to issue “an instance of fiscal mismanagement.”

If a school receives multiple instances of fiscal mismanagement, the charter would face likely closure. (Both Ideal and Richard Wright remain open.)

By August 18 last year, Naomi R. DeVeaux, deputy director of the PCSB, emailed Bashshiti and Pearson to express that “right now the only school that warrants immediate action is WMST.” Leaders continued to talk about intervening in subsequent emails, but never did so.

By December, Bashshiti had emailed seven of his colleagues with “many concerning items” from WMST’s 2017 financial audit that might need to be addressed in a financial action plan. Among them, that auditors voiced “substantial doubt” about the school’s ability to continue, that as of September the school was down to about $79,000 in cash, and that although WMST had claimed its situation would improve with the addition of more kids, the school’s total enrollment stood at 228 students in O c t o b e r, d o w n from 277 the previous year.

The auditors also noted that the school failed to properly account for its payables and for depreciation on its fixed assets. These two errors led WMST to understate its expenses by nearly $400,000. “Payables and fixed assets are very straightforward, so the fact that the school had such difficulties is a poor reflection of its accounting staff,” Bashshiti wrote.

Despite mounting evidence over many months that the charter was in serious trouble, the PCSB did not implement a Financial Corrective Action Plan like it had discussed.

A representative from the PCSB told City Paper this was because “we believed that the value of [WMST’s] building was much higher than it turned out to be—which would have allowed the school to secure an equity line of credit.”

At the April 23 meeting, City Paper asked Scott Pearson to expand on this rationale, Darrow Montgomery/File

By Rachel M. Cohen

since the financial action plan for Richard Wright PCS had involved a requirement to secure a line of credit.

Pearson said the two situations were different because WMST owned its building, while Richard Wright did not. He elaborated, saying PCSB had been under the impression that WMST’s building was valued at $9 million, when really it was worth closer to $6 million. Pearson said the $9 million figure “was what had been represented to us by the school” and that he regrets never getting an independent assessment. “I take responsibility for that,” he said.

Diagne and Addae of WMST did not respond to City Paper’s request for comment.

Back on February 21, Bashshiti had emailed his PCSB colleagues to say he was “not confident” WMST would make it through the end of the year based on the school’s most recent unaudited financials. He also noted “WMST’s history of providing unreliable numbers.”

By February 22 the PCSB decided to hire StoneTurn, the auditing firm.

In an email sent to all PCSB senior staff and board members dated March 3, Scott Pearson shared that WMST was insolvent, and outlined how things had escalated to this point. “[Mohammad] Bashshiti on our finance team flagged this concern late last year,” Pearson wrote. “I did not act on it aggressively enough because I believed that the school’s building had appreciated significantly and so in a worst case they could borrow against the building equity (as Ideal PCS just did).”

Board member Don Soifer wrote back telling Pearson he “appreciate[s his] candor regarding what we might have seen an[d] acted on earlier” and noted the shortfalls the board identified in January are “tempting now to see as warning signs.” But, he insisted, the available information back then suggested “any potential default” would have happened after the school year had ended.

Moving forward, the Public Charter School Board has pledged to help all students enrolled at WMST find a new charter or traditional public school to attend next year. While it’s entirely possible that WMST’s leadership had made so many strategic errors that nothing could have saved the school even if a financial corrective action plan had been implemented, students and families will never get the chance to find out.

CP

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Gear Prudence: How often do you think the average D.C. biker swears during their commute? Given all the shit we have to deal with, it’s gotta be like five or six times a ride.

—Personally, Riding Often Foments Abundant Nasty Expressions Dear PROFANE: To the best of GP’s knowledge, there has been no rigorous study to measure bicyclist profanity, though this area does seem ripe for research. Insofar as cursing is a proxy for frustration (fuck.), anger (fuck you!), confusion (the fuck?) and fear (fuck, stop, fuck, fuck, fuck!), attempts at measurement could help assess the overall biking experience and lead to interventions to improve it. This rests on the assumption that there is a direct correlation between bad words and bad biking. Any study design would have to control for baseline levels of profanity among participants, and furthermore, you would also need to consider if bike commuters are a self-selecting group at risk for higher levels of profanity due to other exogenous factors.

It would also be worth exploring the particular triggers for swearing across all travel modes to see if there’s something in particular about bicycling that leads to a disproportionate amount of exposure to these triggers. Then there’s the whole matter of data collection: Are we asking bicyclists to self-report? Or equipping them with microphones? Grad students in lab coats with clipboards following closely on e-scooters? And what about replicability? GP is very concerned this study will never pass peer review.

In the absence of the rigorous investigation that such an important topic deserves, we have no choice but to irresponsibly speculate, and based on nothing but wild supposition and no real evidence, GP has definitively concluded that across all trips of all distances by all bike commuters, the number of times on average that an obscenity is uttered is a little bit more than 0. And here’s why: While bike commuting can indeed be suboptimal/fucking suck sometimes, the overwhelming majority of trips for the vast majority of people are pretty mundane. And assuming that people aren’t just riding around muttering expletives under their breath for no reason, that probably means that most trips are completely swear-free. This more than outweighs some trips that involve multiple curses per ride by someone who rarely curses and also cancels out the few “power swearers” who can barely turn the pedals without letting some four letter words fly. Even if your personal average is five a ride, it’s a stretch to assume that all other bicyclists across all other bike commutes every day of the year are also hitting that number.

As far as the unasked question, whether a bike commuter should curse, often or at all, GP defers to one’s personal judgment. Sometimes it’s good for expressing exasperation, but it’s rarely an effective rhetorical strategy for engaging other road users in productive dialogue.

—GP

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The District government has put forth a sweeping vision for promoting arts and culture in D.C., but some local artists aren’t sure it benefits them.

By Stephanie Rudig and Matt Cohen

Do artists in D.C. feel supported by the local government? It’s a complicated question, and one that artist Linn Meyers, a longtime D.C. resident who has displayed her work at museums and galleries across the District, ponders for a while before coming to a conclusion. “What does it mean to feel supported as an artist?” she asks rhetorically. “Does it mean that making a living is easier here? No. Does it mean that the cultural institutions are open to hearing from you? In some ways, yes.”

The District’s first-ever cultural plan is an attempt by the city to make creators’ voices heard and offer them a robust display of support. In mid-January of this year, the Office of Planning (OP), the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), and the Office of Cable Television, Film, Music, and Entertainment (OCTFME) released their working draft of the DC Cultural Plan—a comprehensive and exhaustive survey that, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s introduction, “lays out a vision and recommendations on how the government and its partners can build upon, strengthen, and invest in the people, places, communities, and ideas that define culture within DC.” It was a massive undertaking that took OP, DCCAH, and OCTFME more than two years and, according to contracts and proposal documents obtained through a Freedom of Infor-

mation Act request, cost more than a quarter of a million dollars to complete.

Throughout the process, the Office of Planning hosted a number of input sessions they called INTERMISSIONDC; these included public engagement events in each quadrant of the city and sessions specifically geared toward arts educators and organizations. Some of these events took the form of open houses where participants could speak with representatives from OP, DCCAH, and OCTFME, while others included structured conversations and brainstorming activities. In the process, representatives from the involved offices say they spoke to more than 1,500 people.

Office of Planning Director Eric Shaw is excited about the final result. “This is the first cultural plan that’s been done by a planning office in the country,” he explains. “In the end, there’s no cultural plan like it in the country.”

Shaw recognizes that some people may be befuddled by a planning office tackling lofty cultural goals, but he sees the OP’s connection to all city operations as an asset. He cites the Plan’s thesis, a cheesy Shakespeare knockoff that is repeated throughout the document: “All the city’s infrastructure is a stage and every resident is a performer.”

DCCAH Executive Director Arthur Espinoza agrees with this approach. “Looking at what geographically we have to offer, challenges

10 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

that exist from transportation to community connections, that was the strength that [OP] brought into this,” he says. In Shaw’s view, the end result “really reflects the community of D.C., the artist community of D.C., and the desire of us to think about culture being everywhere, and using all of our infrastructure as ways to advance cultural goals.”

But not all local artists feel reflected in the Plan. In late February, a group of artists and cultural workers—including those affiliated with Washington Project for the Arts and STABLE, a forthcoming arts space that Meyers helped found—wrote a petition in response to the Cultural Plan titled Keep Artists in DC. The petition asks for a revised draft of the Plan that “makes the retention of artists a primary goal, is led by DCCAH, is guided by a task force comprised of local artists, designers, and creative professionals, and allocates dollars to the goals and investment recommendations.”

More than 1,900 people have signed the petition and left dozens of comments of support.

The Plan’s authors also encouraged interested parties to submit feedback following its January release, but many thought the six-week window to do so wasn’t enough time to read and thoughtfully respond to the 131-page document. Even if people did submit feedback in time, it’s unclear when and how it would be incorporated into a final version, and how that fi-

nal plan will be implemented.

There’s also the question of funding for the next steps of the Cultural Plan. In its proposed budget for fiscal year 2019, the mayor’s office has allocated $10 million in funds supporting “cultural facilities” grants for organizations and $4 million for “general operating and project support grants” for organizations and individuals. However, Plan proposals such as the establishment of an “arts & culture planning position at OP” and launching a “Center for Cultural Opportunities within the District’s Small Business Resource Center” do not yet have dedicated funding attached.

This is all to say: A lot of people in D.C.’s numerous creative communities—artists, musicians, dancers, actors, educators—are skeptical of the Cultural Plan. Not the idea of it—Washington City Paper interviewed artists across all disciplines for this story, and all of them agreed that a comprehensive plan outlining issues and potential solutions for the District’s creative sector is a good thing—but rather, what it lacks and how the agencies that authored it will put it into action.

We asked those we interviewed to respond to the Cultural Plan—what it got right, what they wish it addressed, the source of some of the statistics included within, and what they hope to see come from it. Here’s what they had to say.

Linn Meyers and Rebekah Pineda STABLE, a forthcoming artist studio space in Eckington A lot of the data Linn Meyers and Rebekah Pineda, two of the artists behind STABLE, saw in the Cultural Plan raised their eyebrows. “We ended up emailing people at the DC Commission who we know, to ask certain questions about statistics in it,” Pineda says. “They say the number of visual artists in D.C. is about 180,” she adds, which seemed quite small. “I was like ‘It doesn’t make sense.’”

The reality is that most artists in D.C. don’t make their living full-time as artists; they work in a number of other industries—education, service, hospitality, communications—to support their art. “I think that you can’t define who an artist is by how they make their own living,” Meyers says. “It’s a really simple-minded way to think about the cultural landscape, especially in a city like Washington that is so full of creative people, many of whom make their livings as lawyers, or advocates, or lobbyists, or whatever.”

But beyond the curious data that Meyers and Pineda call out, they see the Cultural Plan as a real opportunity to address important issues facing artists in D.C., like the issue of affordable housing. “I think that there’s a place for a conversation about affordable housing, and I think that there’s a place for a conversation about affordable and sustainable studio space,” Meyers says.

As D.C.’s population has grown, it’s no secret that the cost of housing has skyrocketed, and the availability of housing for lowand middle-income residents has dwindled.

But studio spaces for artists have also become scarce. Meyers points to the example of Union Arts—the warehouse-like building at 411 New York Avenue NE that housed dozens of artists before its landlord sold the building in 2016 to a developer who promptly evicted the building’s tenants and is turning the property into a boutique hotel.

The demise of Union Arts inspired Meyers, Pineda, Tim Doud, and Caitlin Teal Price to form STABLE, which, when it’s complete, will provide studio space for more than two dozen artists. Both Meyers and Pineda say they wish

the Cultural Plan proposed ways to either create or sustain artists spaces in D.C. “Ownership of studio space, of living space, is really one of the best ways to retain a creative community,” Meyers says. “But right now, most artists can’t afford to buy an apartment or a home here in Washington. It’s just not doable.”

Chris Naoum Co-founder, Listen Local First DC and Funk Parade For Chris Naoum, the Cultural Plan represents a lot of potential. “The most important thing right now is what happens afterwards,” he says.

As the co-founder of Listen Local First DC—a local music initiative that works to promote the D.C. music scene on a national level—Naoum was most interested in how the Plan would address issues that specifically affect musicians. But he was disappointed to find that the Plan doesn’t spend a lot of time focusing on the issues musicians in D.C. face and lumped them in the amalgamous “Cultural Creators” category.

After the working draft of the Cultural Plan was released to the public in January, Naoum put together a series of brainstorming sessions with different members of D.C.’s music community to develop a formal critique. Drafted and co-signed by more than two dozen musicians and music-related organizations, the comments sent in during the public review period focus on the specific needs of the music community that they feel aren’t adequately explored in the Cultural Plan.

Naoum’s most significant suggestion is the creation of a publicly funded D.C. Music Task Force, which he says is essential. “There are too many different agencies and too many different organizations that affect the lives in the music community,” he says. “And it’s very hard for them to sort of navigate that system without having someone that’s focused on music issues.”

Local musicians looking for government support—whether that be grants, permits, or venue issues—can turn to the OCTFME and DCCAH. The problem, as Naoum sees it, is that both of these agencies already have enough on their plates trying to serve artists

STABLE artists Rebekah Pineda, Caitlin Teal Price, Tim Doud, and Linn Meyers washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 11

Karen Lange and JR “Nexus” Russ

in other disciplines and cannot effectively address the specific issues facing musicians.

Those issues could be something as minor as putting together legislation to get designated street parking outside of venues for musicians to be able to load in and out or as large as preserving storied venues like Bohemian Caverns, which closed in 2016.

But beyond the creation of a D.C. Music Task Force, Naoum says there are several smaller items the Cultural Plan should address in its next steps. Among them: encouraging efforts that are already in place, like help with funding for established practice spaces; implementing a Fair Trade Music Standard, which would establish best practice guidelines for venues hosting live music, including a minimum wage requirement; investing in musicians through grants, fellowships, and education programs; and promoting local music at national events like SXSW. Naoum isn’t completely critical of the Plan, though. He praises the Plan’s idea for a Cultural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Revolving Loan Fund, which would provide small, short-term loans that can support artists’ smaller, but still burdensome, financial obstacles. For musicians, that could be a loan to help pay for merchandise before going on tour.

“I thought that was really interesting they had that,” Naoum says. “That seemed way too specific for the Plan overall, too. It was just sort of shoved in there.”

Karen Lange Artistic Director and Founder, Pinky Swear Productions Karen Lange got involved in the theater world by way of improv comedy, and moved on to performing in musicals and other productions.

Ten years ago, after attending a show at the Capital Fringe Festival with appalling roles for women, she and a friend decided to start their own company to address the problem, and “pinky swore” to ensure they followed through with their plan.

Pinky Swear Productions doesn’t have a fixed location and instead stages its shows at rented locations around town. Not all theater venues are created equal. Some are extremely flexible and have everything a company might need, but others lack the appropriate equipment. Lange describes putting on shows with outside noise filtering in due to poor soundproofing and using public restrooms as dressing rooms.

She has occasionally used unconventional performance spaces, such as a tiny house and Dupont Underground (where Pinky Swear’s current show is running), when the script calls for it, and though those have been useful for attracting crowds looking for a novel theatergoing experience, they come with their own challenges. “Those spaces are really, really hard to do a show in. They’re not built for theater,” Lange says.

Despite facing these space dilemmas, Lange is hopeful about the ability of certain parts of

12 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

Jordan Martin, Nathalie von Veh, and Peter Nesbett the Plan to impact smaller theater companies.

She attended one of the INTERMISSIONDC sessions and found it to be an encouraging experience. “You got face time with people about what mattered to your industry. I got to bend a lot of people’s ears and I feel like in the Plan they heard that.”

Lange sees some practical considerations in the Cultural Plan that would directly benefit theaters like hers. For one, there’s a recommendation that cultural spaces under the city’s purview—libraries, recreation centers, or public school facilities utilized for classes or practice space—be open later to better serve the population. “We’re a non-union theater, and everybody does this as a side hustle and so we’re not rehearsing during the day,” she explains.

Though Lange is optimistic about the potential of a proposed outward-facing PR push to promote D.C. arts regionally, nationally, and possibly even internationally, she wonders if smaller groups like Pinky Swear will be left out. “It’s rare that people come in from out of town and come see one of my shows; they don’t know we exist,” she explains. “So how far does that PR plan go? Are they going to do

things like the mid-level theaters like Forum or Constellation? Or are they going to stick to the Studios, the Arenas, the Woollys and things like that?”

Washington Project for the Arts Peter Nesbett, Director; Nathalie von Veh, Development and Outreach; Jordan Martin, Program Assistant Washington Project for the Arts is a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1975 as a place for artists to perform and display contemporary art, participate in workshops, and connect with other visual artists. WPA’s programming and exhibits are driven by artists, allowing them more agency over their work.

As the Plan currently stands, “One of the things really missing is investment in artist’s practices,” according to Nesbett. “It could be through greater direct support of artists in the form [of] fellowships and grants, it could be through cultural exchanges, it could be practice-related work opportunities.”

WPA believes the Plan muddies the definition of what it means to be an “artist,” both by grouping together all artistic disciplines and

by conflating artists with “cultural creators.”

As Nesbett explains, “It’s really easy to lump everything sort of under the creative economy, which skews in one direction and also flattens all those distinctions.”

They also object to the Plan’s thesis that says “every resident is a performer.” “Even though the idea that everyone is creative is an important concept for people to embrace, it doesn’t help support people who are making art as a full-time profession,” von Veh argues.

Another point of contention is the focus on the monetization of art instead of the less concrete benefits art can provide, or the creation of art for its own sake. “One of the biggest rubs with the Cultural Plan is the absence of even acknowledging that value, except outside of that commercialized arena,” Martin says. Nesbett adds, “It’s not really addressing the intangibles of artistic creation in a way that just improves overall quality of life and the health of the community by fostering critical dialogue, enhancing imagination and identity.”

DCCAH plays an integral role in D.C.’s arts communities and the WPA team is dismayed by how infrequently it is mentioned

in the Plan. DCCAH grants totaled $10 million in 2018, and funded both organizations and individuals, including WPA. Particularly important is the Arts and Humanities Fellowship program, which awards grants of up to $10,000 to individuals. The grants aren’t project based, meaning artists can use it to pay for anything they need. (DCCAH Executive Director Arthur Espinoza says he’s “heard of people who’ve had to use it to help with their medical expenses.”)

WPA doesn’t mind the Plan’s effort to promote local arts through advertising initiatives, but wishes it would reach beyond the region.

Nesbett proposes “an embassy approach. The Swiss embassy is promoting Swiss artists in the U.S. to promote the image of Switzerland. We can do the same thing, perhaps by investing in artists by sending them abroad,” he says.

Funding more opportunities to send artists to art fairs or residencies outside of the District could concretely help artists’ careers, while simultaneously promoting them to a wider audience and generating buzz for the local arts scene.

One of WPA’s biggest priorities is keeping artists in the area, and they don’t think the

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 13

draft includes enough incentives to make that happen. “The Plan does a pretty good job articulating the fact that the city is losing a lot of artists, but they don’t address real solutions,” von Veh says. “This is the affordable housing issue, this is an issue with the city losing its cultural identity. And we don’t see any commitment to retaining what makes D.C., D.C.” “WPA can’t exist if there’s no artists here,” Martin says. “If the Cultural Plan doesn’t work and it doesn’t actually keep artists here, then that’s it for WPA.” Andy Johnson Art historian, curator, and arts writer Andy Johnson works at The George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design as the program administrator of the Art History program and as the gallery director of Gallery 102. On top of that, he curates independent shows at various galleries, serves as a contributing editor for the online arts outlet DIRT, and runs the Art on the Vine art fair for the Agora Culture, a platform that connects artists and collectors. His work in many different areas of the arts gives him a broad view of

D.C.’s art scene and the challenges it faces.

He reports that he wasn’t particularly aware of the Cultural Plan as it was being developed but has spent a considerable amount of time reading and studying the draft Plan since its release—and even did a word search to count how many times certain terms appeared in the 131-page document.

“They used ‘cultural’ 1,500 times, but by the end of it I’m not really understanding what they mean by ‘cultural,’” Johnson says.

He points out that crucial issues are acknowledged in the Plan, but no possible solutions are included. He references a call-out box containing “a page and a half of black culture. That’s great, you did your homework and looked up how important it is, but I don’t see how that is incorporated into this larger Cultural Plan.”

He also notes that the Plan contains summaries of community input gathered at the INTERMISSIONDC events but “there’s a huge disparity between what the community said they needed to pay attention to versus what ultimately ended up in the Plan.”

In Johnson’s opinion, a major concern is this lack of focus on artists’ needs and sug-

Judy Estey

14 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

gestions, instead centering on partnering with developers and monetizing artists’ work. Under the heading of “Big Moves,” the Plan calls out the overarching goal to “form stronger linkages between real estate development and cultural space production.” “I think as long as there’s an appeasement of developers, it will never serve the artists,” Johnson says. In situations where artists are forced to work with developers in exchange for space, funding, or the ability to complete a project, he argues, “It’s a singular artist against a company with millions or billions of dollars. Who really has the power in that meeting room?”

Being embedded in the university system, Johnson notes that one thing the Cultural Plan does successfully is propose partnerships with local colleges. “Universities have tons of money. They’re occupying space, so they should be creating infrastructure and programs that serve the community.” But, he continues, “It’s unclear what they’re going to do, and I’m not sure that’s even feasible because relationships with each university would be so different. Each university serves very different communities.”

JR “Nexus” Russ Burner, Creative, D.C. Native JR Russ has been following the Cultural Plan since it was first announced. The former dancer who has worked in arts policy and edication used to work at DCCAH and is currently a Pinky Swear Productions company member.

Since the draft of the Plan was released, he’s been curious about what next steps OP and DCCAH will take.

“One of my main takeaways has been cautious concern and optimism,” he says. “It didn’t help that the Commission has had a Strategic Plan that’s been kinda on the shelf for a couple years, and so one of the biggest questions has been how is this going to be different.” DCCAH’s 2015 Strategic Plan outlines a lot of the same issues the Cultural Plan does.

Russ’ biggest criticism of the Plan is how it addresses arts education. “Even though it was talked about throughout the Plan in various places, if you go to the appendix … there’s only one or two arts education [recommendations],” he says. “And in that, it seemed to conflate pre-professional artist training from arts education that all children receive.”

He’s referring to the Arts Education Program Grant, a program designed to support both in-school and out-of-school humanities projects for children, as well as DC Public Schools’ arts curriculum, which is more of a summary of students’ arts course requirements. “A concern was making sure that even in the arts education space, those two different goals for teaching art and technique have very different ends and very different means,” he says.

One of the biggest items the Cultural Plan tackles is the lack of spaces for artists in the District—both in terms of studio space and affordable housing. Russ wishes the Cultural Plan addressed the space needs of individual artists communities instead of “artists in general.”

“Having lived in art space lofts, even looking at artist live-work spaces ... the needs are very different,” he says. “Even though I think the technical needs might be different, at the end of the day we’re all agreeing that we need more space than people typically use in their everyday work.”

Marta Staudinger

Judy Estey Development Director, Dance Place and Arts Action DC steering committee member Based on her work with Dance Place and Arts Action DC, Judy Estey has two perspectives on the Cultural Plan “that aren’t mutually exclusive,” she says.

Arts Action DC is a collective of more than 200 arts and culture-focused organizations that work together as “a unified voice for funding, support, and growth for arts, humanities and the commercial arts sectors of the creative economy.” It seems like an organization the architects of the Cultural Plan would have met with to gain input.

But Estey says that she requested a meeting with the Cultural Plan steering committee, on behalf of Arts Action DC and Dance Place, several times but never got a response. For Arts Advocacy Day 2018 on March 12, Arts Action DC compiled and submitted comments during the review period, which highlighted specific aspects of the Cultural Plan it would like to see implemented.

Among them: the creation of the cultural facilities fund to support existing arts spaces and the creation of new ones; the implementation of the cultural space innovation grant program, which would encourage developers and property owners to rent to cultural spaces; affordable housing programs for artists; an increase in youth arts programming; support for local cultural identity and traditions—like the city’s robust go-go and jazz scenes; and a marketing campaign to signal boost the work of the District’s creators on a national level.

Estey feels that the Plan does not effectively address the issues Dance Place and other midsize arts nonprofits like it face. “It seemed to me like a lot of the Plan was really focused on emerging institutions, pre-established large institutions like the Kennedy Center, and entrepreneurial artist types,” she says. “There seems to be very little mention of what is need-

ed for the sustainability of small to mid-size arts organizations … The government doesn’t find it sexy to say, ‘We continue to support organizations so they don’t fold.’ That is rarely a talking point.”

Dance Place already owns its building, but she says fundraising—for things like building maintenance and educational programs—is still a big issue for them. “Because we’ve got our building, we’re set for life? I don’t think so. Maybe there were parts of it that needed a deeper read. I felt like that input that Dance Place would’ve given, or me on behalf of Dance Place, was not looked at at all.”

Marta Staudinger Curator, director, and founder of Latela Art Consultants & Gallery Latela is a consulting service for buyers and local artists at various stages of their careers, as well as a gallery and community space. When she opened the space on the Brookland Arts Walk in late 2015, founder Marta Staudinger had to decide between a few different types of gallery models. She could become a nonprofit, but, she says, “I felt like this city didn’t need another gallery like that. There are a lot of really great nonprofits that are doing a great job.” She could take on the risk of a large busi-

ness loan to get a sizable space and subsidize the gallery’s profits by charging showcased artists a membership fee, or make the space double as an event venue. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” she says, “but the events come first, the art comes second. I also didn’t want to charge artists.”

“I think about a city where there could be 10 to 12 small galleries like Latela all across town that don’t need to charge for artists’ rent, don’t need to apply to grants, and don’t need to cloud their vision with event planning, who can just be commercial art galleries representing the local arts. But our city is not allowing that,” she says.

A lack of focus on the arts as their own standalone industry is one of Staudinger’s frustrations with the Cultural Plan. “In the Plan, the language does not separate creative economy from the arts. They should be treated somewhat differently,” she says.

“Creative economy” is a fairly nebulous term that’s used throughout the Cultural Plan, and it can encompass anything from fine arts to cooking to commercial architects to social media, depending on who’s defining it.

If it’s true that the arts are inextricable from the larger economic view, Staudinger would at least like to see fine artists like the ones she

represents benefit from some of the economic windfall. “If there’s an initiative from the Mayor’s office to help the art community and the art economy—not creative economy as a whole—why are they not doing something that’s connecting, for example, all the lobbyists they work with every day to the arts?” she asks. “I want to see them having a work of one of these local artists in their home or in their office.”

“When I think about a Cultural Plan, I want something that’s itemized,” Staudinger says. She desires concrete actions that could be quickly implemented, like creating one live-in artist studio in every new residential development.

She also suggests that when important cultural spaces are lost, the city should provide a plan “that is going to give us two times the amount of space throughout the city in the next five years,” a variation on the idea of planting two trees for each cut down.

Her vision for how the city can better support the arts comes down to a simple overarching idea: “When I think of cultural planning, I think of looking at a grid of the city. Where does stuff already exist? Where’s stuff being built, and how can we infiltrate those areas with more arts to make a nice ratio? I don’t think it could be that hard. Just give me a map.”

CP

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 15

Laura Hayes

DCFEED

Casolare launches a new brunch on May 5 that marries food from Rome’s Jewish Quarter and New York City’s Lower East Side.

Try house-made bagels, latkes topped with lox, pastrami hash, and Roman pizza at the Glover Park Italian restaurant.

Taco Beef

A cook flips tortillas at Espita

By Laura Hayes The fried chicken wing tacos at Espita Mezcaleria are dressed with a 12-ingredient lime cashew crema, 13-ingredient “chicken salt” made from aggressively spiced crispy chicken skin, and a 24-ingredient salsa that includes five types of chiles, smoked paprika, toasted cashews, apples, golden raisins, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, and onions.

It takes multiple days to make all the components. The labor-intensive salsa isn’t used in any other dishes on the Shaw restaurant’s

Young & hungrY

Oaxacan-inspired menu that includes everything from ceviche and Wagyu beef crudo to a lamb rib and neck dressed in mole. Each order of two fried chicken wing tacos costs $12.

“I hear a lot of people say things like, ‘The tacos are amazing at Espita, but they should cost $3,’” partner Josh Phillips says. “I feel so strongly that not all tacos have to be $3.”

Fifty-three percent of Espita’s 70 one- and two-star Yelp reviews talk about the food being overpriced. Most are from 2016, when the restaurant opened with a different chef. Current Executive Chef Robert Aikens joined the team in the summer of 2017. “I literally just paid $18 for 3 of the smallest ‘tacos’ I’ve ever had. No side either. Seriously? This place is so

16 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

Darrow Montgomery

Local chefs are pushing Mexican cuisine in new directions, but customers still quibble about prices.

pretentious it is almost funny,” wrote David D. “Why is [it] that nowadays all the new Mexican/Latin restaurants in D.C. are so pretentious? Is it that hard to serve dishes that people are familiar with and have reasonable prices?”

PC K. asks.

Even $3 is too much for customers at El Sol and Mezcalero, where tacos range from $2.75 to $3.50. “A lot of people complain about the price being too high,” owner Alfredo Solis says. He keeps prices low to be competitive even though he makes almost everything from scratch. “I don’t want to make a lot of money—I just want to pay my employees and my rent,” he says.

Phillips and Solis are frustrated by the as-

sumption that Mexican food has to be cheap no matter how much a chef spends on ingredients or how much an operator shells out for labor or rent. While other immigrant cuisines have diversified to offer meals at a variety of price points, customers expect Mexican food to remain cheap.

Phillips points to Italian cuisine as an example of this dichotomy. The same diners who order $9 dishes of purchased linguini and marinara sauce at a casual place like Dupont Italian Kitchen don’t blink about paying $18 at The Red Hen for house-made pasta swirled with premium ingredients on special occasions.

Even Indian cuisine is evolving. “Look at Rasika,” Phillips says. “What they’ve done is wonderful … I’m not sure why that’s more accepted, or how long it took to be accepted.”

This feeling resonates in the wider food world. When asked about Mexican food on a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” in 2016, Anthony Bourdain called it “the most undervalued, underappreciated world cuisine with tremendous, tremendous potential.” “I think we should pay more attention to it, learn more about it, and value it more,” he wrote. “This is frankly a racist assumption that Mexican food or Indian food should be cheap.”

“Go over to El Sol and you can get an excellent taco for $3,” Phillips says. “There and Taqueria Habanero, it’s hard to beat what you’re getting for the money.” The cheapest taco at Espita costs $5.50. That $2.50 difference isn’t huge, but in order to get customers to pay that difference, Phillips has to provide value when it comes to ingredients, ambience, drinks, and service.

“There are people who are charging exorbitant prices for a taco that don’t deserve the money,” Phillips says. According to him, a chicken tinga taco that costs $5 or $6 is a ripoff if it’s just 20 cents worth of braised chicken and a simple guajillo salsa on a store-bought tortilla. If the tortillas were homemade, that could justify the price.

Mexican restaurants and taquerias have three choices when it comes to corn tortillas.

They can purchase them like Taco Bamba, make their own starting from a corn flour base like El Sol and Mezcalero, or make the tortillas from scratch by grinding their own corn in house like Espita.

“You can’t put good pizza on bad crust,” Phillips says. He studies what other restaurants serve and believes Espita is one of the few local restaurants, along with Oyamel, that grinds its own corn.

Espita carries five varieties of corn from Mex-

ico and displays the pillow-sized white sacks by the side exit. A team of cooks comes in at 6 a.m. each morning to start the process of washing and grinding the corn. By 2 p.m. most days, they will have produced a couple thousand tortillas that are utilized for tacos, chips, and tostadas.

Union Kitchen Grocery sits across the street from Espita. Tasting their packaged corn tortillas side-by-side with Espita’s house-made version is revealing. After both were warmed on the restaurant’s plancha, one tasted deeply of corn and was sturdy enough to hold juicy toppings. The other tasted like a paper napkin and crumbled.

Many customers hit up Espita for its selection of mezcal. Pours of the agave-derived spirit or cocktails that utilize it aren’t cheap for a reason. The bar’s rail mezcal, El Buho, costs about $50 a bottle locally, while other rail liquors cost closer to $12. “This isn’t to talk shit on whiskey or vodka,” Phillips says, “but they start with a raw material that’s cheap, plentiful, replenishes fast, and doesn’t take a ton of labor.”

Agave is dangerous to harvest. “If you’re walking through an agave field and you trip, you can impale yourself,” Phillips says. “There are scorpions and rattlesnakes. It’s hot, backbreaking labor.”

It annoys him when customers are willing to shell out money for quality agave spirits, but not the food that pairs with it. He compares the situation to a hypothetical French restaurant, where it would seem silly to pair an expensive bottle of Bordeaux with a $6 croque madame.

Positive reviews from Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema have brought attention to Espita’s upscale cuisine. The success of similar fancy Mexican spots like Oyamel and Rosa Mexicano, both of which have done booming business on 7th Street NW for more than a decade, can partially be attributed to their prime locations.

Chef Victor Albisu operates five Taco Bamba locations in the region and will soon open a new upscale Mexican restaurant, Poca Madre, downtown. He agrees with Phillips that Mexican food, unlike some other immigrant cuisines, has been pigeonholed at a certain price point. “I’m not calling anyone racist,” he says. “It’s just an idea that’s ingrained—that this is cheap food.”

Taco Bamba serves traditional tacos like carne asada and chorizo for $3.50 each and more unconventional “tacos nuestros,” like “The Patito,” with roasted duck carnitas, mole verde, and pickled radicchio slaw, for $4.50 each. Among their non-taco offerings are nachos, sopes, tortas, and quesadillas.

The restaurant’s pricing gets a mixed response from customers, according to Albisu.

Some think the tacos are too expensive, and others think they’re getting a bargain because the tacos are generously stuffed. “We get a lot of people through Taco Bamba who take pictures and say, ‘We can do this at home,’” Albisu says. “There are a lot of misconceptions about tacos. It’s street food and should be honored as such, but the way we do it is

pretty unique. The way chefs are tackling tacos now deserves to bury the conversation about the $1 taco.”

Thanks to price inflation due to rising rents, minimum wage increases, and the climbing costs of certain ingredients, $1 tacos are becoming elusive, but diners still expect them.

In a one-star review of Taco Bamba on Yelp, user Tracy D. wrote “They could learn a thing or two from Chipotle. What really got us was the prices for the food because it really wasn’t worth it... We were still hungry and ended up going to McDonald’s afterwards.

Should’ve just gone there first.”

Recently a customer came into Taco Bamba and requested an off-menu avocado taco. Albisu charged him $3 and encountered pushback. “I put a whole avocado in that taco and they cost us between $1.25 and $1.50,” the chef says. “They’re like gold. They should be traded publicly.”

The price of a case of about 50 avocados fluctuates between $55 and $120, according to Phillips. “When you look at the price of guacamole around town it’s as cheap as $7 or $8 for mass-produced grey guacamole to upwards of $20,” he says. He fantasizes about selling guacamole for “market price,” much like how restaurants label certain seafood. Phillips and Albisu also point out that when customers look at tacos, they see diced and shredded vegetables on top of pieces of meat, which makes it difficult to judge how much of the ingredients the chefs are utilizing.

Albisu is banking on Washingtonians’ willingness to spend more on Mexican cuisine when he opens Poca Madre in May. He’s interested in Mexican cuisine’s ties to indigenous cultures, which will be reflected on the upscale restaurant’s menu.

“There’s an inherent magic about the food,” he says. “Honoring these cultures is a big thing for me.” He talks about how indigenous populations built flavor by using a variety of chiles to create refined recipes centuries ago. Poca Madre will focus on celebrating ingredients and modernizing dishes.

Albisu is more optimistic than some that perceptions are changing. “For years people have elevated Italian or Asian food and found a lot of success and acclaim—Mexican food is having its moment in a lot of ways.”

Upscale Mexican restaurants are receiving critical acclaim and pushing the cuisine’s boundaries in other cities from Cosme, Toloache 50, and Claro BK in New York to Mi Tocaya in Chicago, Broken Spanish in Los Angeles, Cala in San Francisco, and Xochi in Houston.

“If you had opened Espita 50 years ago at the equivalent price point, we would have opened with several months of cash on hand and then we’d close when that cash ran out,” Phillips says. “We’ve made a lot of progress.

The vast majority of our guests walk through our doors thinking they’re waking into a nice restaurant that happens to be Mexican.” CP Eatery tips? Food pursuits? Send suggestions to lhayes@washingtoncitypaper.com.

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The DC Jazz Festival®, a 501(c)(3) non-profit service organization, and its programs are made possible, in part, with major grants from the Government of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, Mayor; with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Office of Cable Television, Film, Music & Entertainment; and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development; and, in part, by major funding from the Anne and Ronald Abramson Family Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Gillon Family Charitable Fund, Wells Fargo Foundation, The NEA Foundation, Venable Foundation, The Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Reva & David Logan Foundation, John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. ©2018 DC Jazz Festival.

All rights reserved.

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 17

Millennium Stage

May 15 La Dame Blanche

DCPS MUSIC FESTIVAL WEEK 22 TUE The Columbia Heights

Educational Campus

A celebration of the human spirit

The Kennedy Center DC Partnership School is proud to present the Lincoln Middle School Band, CHEC Orchestra, CHEC Concert Band, and the CHEC Choir.

Free performances every day at 6 p.m. No tickets required*

23 WED Woodrow Wilson High

*Unless noted otherwise

School Vocal Music Program

May 3 The Beanstalk Library

The Kennedy Center DC Partnership School presents the Concert Choir, Women’s Choir, Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and The Wilson Singers.

24 THU The Kennedy Center

Youth Council

MAY 2018 1 TUE NSO Youth Fellows

An unprecedented Kennedy Center–wide celebration of Cuban arts and culture.

For more information, visit tkc.co/cuba

This evening’s performance, curated by and featuring some of the Kennedy Center’s Youth Council members, showcases a variety of art forms centered on the theme of youth activism.

9 WED CaribeNostrum (Havana)

25 FRI The Music in Me Foundation:

Participants in the National Symphony Orchestra training program play works by Gliere, Klughardt, and Paff.

2 WED On One Accord: Musical

10 THU Adonis Gonzalez (Atlanta)

& Mauricio Herrera (New York)

Tribute to Jewish American and African American Composers

This performance features soprano Arianna Zukerman, tenor Issachah Savage, composer Samuel Post, narrator Betty Entzminger, and Artistic Director/pianist Dr. Lester Green.

Presented in collaboration with the Coalition for African Americans in the Performing Arts.

Classical keys and Cuban rhythms collide when the Latin Grammy®–nominated pianist and Grammy® nominee and master percussionist join forces.

11 FRI Orquesta Miguel Faílde

(Matanzas)

Led by flutist Ethiel Fernandez Faílde—grandson of the namesake bandleader—the band celebrates Cuba’s danzon.

3 THU The Beanstalk Library

The popular D.C. rock band has its roots firmly planted and eyes pointed skyward.

Presented in collaboration with Hometown Sounds.

12 SAT Batucada for Cuba: From

Brooklyn to Brazil (New York / D.C.)

4 FRI NSO Youth Fellows

Enjoy New York–based youth drumming squad Brooklyn United Marching Band followed by D.C.-based Afro-Brazilian all-female percussion band Batalá.

Participants in the NSO training program play works by Poulenc, Mahler, and Shostakovich.

5 SAT Alex Vaughn

Join the D.C.-based R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist for a show featuring a wide range of soul and energy.

13 SUN Cuban Popular Dances

by D.C. Casineros

This world-renowned dance ensemble takes you on an interactive journey through the history of Cuban popular dance. Come at 5 p.m. for a free dance lesson with instructors.

Presented as part of Celebrate Mary Lou Williams.

IN THE FAMILY THEATER

6 SUN Split This Rock Presents Louder

than a Bomb DMV 2018 FINALS

High school–aged spoken word teams of five compete for the 2018 Grand Championship.

14 MON Arte Y Moda Fashion Show

This combination of imagination, fine art, and design features costumes created by Cuban designers who take their inspiration from paintings and sculptures by Cuban visual arts masters.

This program contains mature themes and strong language.

Free general admission tickets will be distributed in the Hall of States starting at approximately 5 p.m., up to two tickets per person.

7 MON Funk Parade

Celebrating D.C.’s vibrant U Street neighborhood, this parade, street fair, and music festival brings people together and makes them feel all right through music, dance, and the visual arts.

15 TUE La Dame Blanche (Paris)

With her explosive mix of Hip Hop, nu cumbia, reggae, and Latin beats, the Cuban singer, flutist, and percussionist delivers powerful and compelling sounds.

8 TUE PANLARA Youth Steel Orchestra The ensemble plays musical selections ranging from reggae, jazz, and R&B to Latin and soca.

FOR DETAILS OR TO WATCH ONLINE, VISIT KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG/MILLENNIUM.

Brought to you by

DAILY FOOD AND DRINK SPECIALS 5–6 P.M. NIGHTLY • GRAND FOYER BARS FREE TOURS are given daily by the Friends of the Kennedy Center tour guides. Tour hours: M–F, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sa./Su. from 10 a.m.–1 p.m.

For information, call (202) 416-8340.

#MILLENNIUMSTAGE

Unleash Your Superpowers!

Fusing elements of jazz and Latin American folklore, this quartet moves musically between the traditional classical quartet style and today’s popular music.

PLEASE NOTE: Standard parking rates apply when attending free performances.

18 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

16 WED Dizzy Gillespie Afro-Cuban

Experience (New York)

This five-piece ensemble, led by Gillespie’s bassist John Lee, showcases the unique rhythms and well-loved melodies from Cuban bebop, or Cu-Bop.

17 THU Luis Faife and D.C. Cuban

All Stars

Under the direction of the Afro-Cuban saxophonist, the band performs Cuban timba music, showcasing both traditional and contemporary rhythms.

18 FRI Cuba Goes Tap by Keyla

Created by Cuban Dutch composer Orozco and with acclaimed tap-dancer Pollak, this program merges American rhythm tap with Afro-Cuban music and dance.

19 SAT Guantanamera Celebration

Enjoy a music celebration of the poetry of José Martí; one of his works became the basis for the famous song “Guantanamera.” This interactive performance gathers several voices.

20 SUN Tiempo Libre (Miami)

These three-time Grammy® nominees are true modern heirs to the rich musical tradition of their native Cuba, celebrated for their sophisticated performances of timba music.

21 MON Washington National Opera Talented members of WNO’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program perform excerpts from La traviata, Faust, and Eugene Onegin. Includes discussion with the program’s Principal Coach, Ken Weiss.

TAKE METRO to the Foggy Bottom/GWU/Kennedy Center station and ride the free Kennedy Center shuttle departing every 15 minutes until midnight.

GET CONNECTED! Become

a fan of KCMillenniumStage on Facebook and check out artist photos, upcoming events, and more!

The Kennedy Center welcomes persons with disabilities.

ALL PERFORMANCES AND PROGRAMS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

26 SAT D.C. Regional High School

Latin Dance Competition

Students representing their respective school showcase the most popular Latin dances of today competing in couples and group/team categories.

27 SUN School Without Walls

The Kennedy Center DC Partnership School presents a musical evening featuring its Stage Band and Concert Choir.

28 MON Leftist

Orozco featuring Max Pollak (D.C. / New York)

2018–2019 Preview

This interactive PeerPositivePOWER Presentation with an anti-bullying message features singer/ songwriter Reesa Renee; award-winning recording artist King Kanja; rock ‘n’ roll, Hip Hop, and soul superintendent Dr. Darryl Adams; and local youth performers.

Hailing from Afghanistan, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Washington, D.C.-area, the band’s members integrate worldly sounds, storytelling, and great vibes into a Hip Hop performance.

Family Night: Washington National Opera Kids

29 TUE

On a field trip to The National Gallery of Art, Bennie, Daniella, Eleanor, Cory, and Avalon search for ways to “let out” what’s inside of them. As they confront their individual struggles in life, they discover themselves anew.

30 WED VSA International

Young Soloists

A showcase of the 2018 Competition winners, this concert recognizes outstanding musicians with disabilities, ages 18-25, from around the world.

31 THU Dance Exchange

Dance Exchange returns to Liz Lerman’s iconic work Still Crossing, and partners with local artists, local faith leaders, and the choir from All Souls Unitarian Church in a new performance work.

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.

Generous support is provided by The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and The Karel Komárek Family Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Kimberly Engel and Family-The Dennis and Judy Engel Charitable Foundation, The Gessner Family Foundation, The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives, The Isadore and Bertha Gudelsky Family Foundation, Inc., The Meredith Foundation, Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A.J. Stolwijk, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Committee for the Performing Arts, and the Millennium Stage Endowment Fund.

CPArts

Rare Essence cofounder Rory “DC” Felton has died. washingtoncitypaper.com/arts

Infinity Bore

Marvel touts its new Avengers movie as the biggest crossover in history, and the result is a messy juggling of characters that ultimately cheapens the parts of its sum.

By Alan Zilberman

Avengers: Infinity War

Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo It Is tIme we start taking comic book movies seriously. When the first Iron Man came out 10 years ago—a few months before The Dark Knight—it was seen as “great for a comic book movie.”

Since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has dominated the summer blockbuster season, to the point that their most influential idea, a shared universe, has infected popular entertainment as we know it.

Avengers: Infinity War is the latest comic book movie, and it arrives with the hype and expectation of “the biggest crossover in history.” Not the biggest comic book crossover, but the biggest crossover, period. The grim irony is this film cheapens everything that made the MCU so special. Fans will feel cheated, like the movie spit in their eye, and it may take some serious soul-searching to figure out why that is.

There are so many characters in Infinity War—at least two dozen superheros from previous films—that summarizing the film is basically pointless. The biggest challenge facing screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with directors Anthony and Joe Russo, is that there are so many characters it’s difficult to make sure they all get their due. Their solution is to make several mini-sequels and paste them together.

In Infinity War, there are inelegant parts of Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Black Panther, and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Most of the time the heroes spend time apart, in strange configurations. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), for example, somehow teams up with Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel). Sometimes these configurations are meant for laughs, but most of the time it is just tricky to keep everyone straight. You know how the last season of Game of Thrones felt rushed, to the point where everyone’s plan hung together awkwardly? Infinity War is like that, except with the added complication that it takes place on several planets.

The thread uniting all these heroes is the villain. Josh Brolin plays Thanos, a genocidal maniac whose idea of “balance” is to destroy half of all life in the universe. Thanos gets the plurality of screen time, and multiple opportunities to explain himself. Unlike the villain in Black Panther, whose ideas were rooted in history and were so forceful they were almost convincing, Thanos’ thirst for power amounts to little more than a default antagonist.

Brolin tries to bring some soul into the performance—including a flashback that shows his kinder side—yet his motivations remain murky. In point of fact, what should be the movie’s most

emotional moment includes a character whose sole purpose is to explain what Thanos is feeling. This is a classic example of why movies should always show, never tell, and it does not help that Thanos looks like what would happen if you wrapped a rubber band around a wrinkly ballsack.

The first Avengers film and its sequel, Age of Ultron, had the benefit of Joss Whedon’s leadership. He is not an intuitive action director, but he has an ear for dialogue. At their best, his Avengers films functioned as character-driven comedies punctuated by moments of exaggerated action, or explosions. The Russo brothers have seemingly nothing unique about their directing style; they are Company Men to the core, adhering to the Marvel aesthetic of flat colors and little depth. All of the Avengers films

kanda forever” crystallize our need for leadership, our yearning to believe in someone else, our hope that we will all be OK. Infinity War does not seem to grasp this appeal. It is full of quips, with some jokes landing better than others, but the heroes are stretched too thin to have personalities, let alone values. Now Robert Downey Jr.—a man who owes his reborn career to Marvel—cannot hide that he looks bored and desperate.

Despite its missteps—including an audience-dulling opening act from which it cannot quite recover—there are some shiny spots on what amounts to a highlight reel of a better, more coherent film. As Dr. Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch has some fun knocking down Iron Man a peg or two. Elizabeth Olsen plays Scarlet Witch, and she finds convincing emotional reserves in a scene that we have seen dozens of times before. (That being said, her Eastern European accent from Age of Ultron inexplicably disappeared.) There are callbacks to earlier MCU films that you may not suspect, and Thor’s arc leads to the sole instance where Infinity War resembles glossy, gorgeous pop art.

But for each transcendent moment, there are dozens more where we see actors go through the motions of their contractual obligations. A picture of Chadwick Boseman recently went viral because the actor looked so unhappy at the Infinity War premiere. Anyone who sees the film will totally get the feeling.

It is difficult to discuss Infinity War without acknowledging its dark tone and the implication of its ending. Whether they are happy or sad, the best endings have an inevitability to them, as

film

end with dull automatons rushing toward the good guys, giving them opportunities to show off their skills. If the Marvel Cinematic Universe aims to rise above its source material—and reshape popular entertainment—it needs to move beyond climax after climax with unremarkable, repetitive violence.

The best Marvel films, Captain America: The First Avenger and Black Panther, are about one simple question: What does it mean to be good? Chris Evans and Chadwick Boseman are intuitive actors, doing better work than their roles require, so they found a moral core that made the case for why superhero films should be taken seriously. Simple lines like “I don’t like bullies,” or “Wa-

well as a concurrent emotional payoff. Infinity War ’s certainly feels inevitable, minus all the emotion. It goes through the motions of darkness, in a perfunctory way that hardly seems final.

It’s such a misfire, borne out of cynicism and a dearth of imagination, that Infinity War undermines the films that precede it (Black Panther in particular). For more than a decade, the Marvel films have varied in quality, so they either felt like two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back. Avengers: Infinity War does not step backward. It leaps backward. CP Avengers: Infinity War opens Friday in theaters everywhere. washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 19

TheaTerCurtain Calls “Master Harold”... and the Boys

Boys Won’t Be Boys “Master Harold”... and the Boys

By Athol Fugard Directed by Ryan Rilette At Round House Theatre to May 6

Damnation via faint praise is always a risk when writing about a strong production of a venerable play that’s been staged many times before. “Master Harold”... and the Boys, the most openly autobiographical of Athol Fugard’s many apartheid dramas, was too hot for his home country when it first appeared in 1982; it was the first of his plays to have its world premiere outside of South Africa. It bowed at Yale Repertory Theatre with Danny Glover in the role of Sam, the elder of two black servants in the employ of a white family in Port Elizabeth circa 1950. It’s a gloomy afternoon, and the wet weather has left the small cafe he and his younger colleague Willie are operating (on behalf of their white employers) without customers. So they practice their steps for an upcoming ballroom dance competition, at least until Hally, the 17-year-old son of their bosses, drops by after school.

The boy’s father is an abusive drunk and a

cripple; it’s Hally’s mother who works to keep the family solvent. When Hally was younger he embraced Sam as a favorable alternative to his own dissolute father, though Sam’s skin made him the social inferior of the schoolboy he’s nurturing—an awareness that has began to dawn on Hally in his adolescence.

All these details are drawn from the playwright’s own life, and the ease with which he grafts them onto his characters without a palpable whiff of exposition is one of the reasons his work still gets produced all over the world.

Fugard is in his mid-80s now, having outlasted apartheid by 24 years, and still writing, too.

But “Master Harold” remains one of his sturdiest and most haunting creations. And Ryan Rilette’s closely observed, unhurried production is both a worthy tribute to the material’s resilience and another superb showcase for the gifts of Craig Wallace—a versatile allarounder who’s been so consistently good for so long that it would be easy to undervalue him. As Sam, he lets us see every particle of Hally’s disrespect play across his face, and his residual affection for the boy does battle with his indignation.

Ro Boddie’s role as Willie, Sam’s younger colleague, requires him to silently polish the floor of Meghan Raham’s set for long stretches, but he’s alert and attentive to every move and countermove between Sam and Hally.

Nick Fruit is just a bit too eager as the latter, a spoiled child who has absorbed his parents’ prejudice in spite of Sam’s kindness to him.

20 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

Fugard’s elegant, unpreachy writing, and Wallace’s generosity as as scene partner, put Fruit out of his depth only when he’s required to perform a long phone conversation with his mother. But this slightly out-of-tune solo is but a few moments of a show that, for the majority of its 100-minute running time, hums with the music of a world-class ensemble.

—Chris Klimek 4545 East West Highway, Bethesda. $45–$65.

(240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org.

sister Act En el tiempo de las mariposas (In the Time of the Butterflies)

By Caridad Svich Based on the novel by Julia Álvarez Directed by José Zayas At GALA Hispanic Theatre to May 13

Dominican Despot Rafael Trujillo was the apotheosis of the banana republic dictator.

He was so cartoonishly sleazy and brutal it’s difficult to picture him as a real person, which is why fiction suits him so well. Mario Vargas Llosa somewhat clinically psychoanalyzed him in The Feast of the Goat, while Junot Díaz gave him the Lord of the Rings treatment in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, attributing to him Sauron-like superpowers, which Trujil-

lo certainly would have appreciated. This was someone who renamed Santo Domingo, the capital city, Ciudad Trujillo, put his name on all license plates in the country, and required churches to post signs reading “God in heaven, Trujillo on earth.” His only reform was to later reverse the order of those two phrases.

It takes a different angle to bring the tinpot strongman down from Mount Doom, or Pico Trujillo, which Julia Álvarez aimed to do with In the Time of the Butterflies. Her novel focused not on Trujillo, but on his most famous victims and feared adversaries, the Mirabal sisters. Their horrific and very public murders showed him to be no demigod, just a capriciously savage, greedy man, and the outrage it produced spelled the end of Trujillo at the hands of his more cunning military subordinates (most likely with help from the CIA).

The Mirabal sisters were everything Trujillo and his thugs in the secret police—those he tasked with scoping out women for his predatory appetites, including the Mirabals—were not. Brave, intelligent, principled, they not only rejected his advances but sought to bring down his regime with force and paid the ultimate price.

The story of the “Butterflies,” their code name for themselves, presents such a rich ore to mine for drama that it should be an ideal subject for stage or screen. Showtime attempted the latter, a Salma Hayek vehicle that failed to jump start Marc Anthony’s abortive film career. Playwright Caridad Svich has adapted the novel as En el tiempo de las mariposas

a play, something she did previously with Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits. It’s the kind of work that plays to GALA’s strengths—literary historical dramas in intimate settings. José Zayas directs, having also led productions of The House of the Spirits and another classic novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold for GALA. Like Marc Anthony’s acting, it’s a great idea in concept.

That it doesn’t really work is a shame, and a hazard of reducing a multifaceted 30-year history into a too-short play when it’s better suited to a four-hour, two-part Steven Soderbergh biopic. Despite a straightforward, linear plot and exposition-heavy dialogue, the audience can be bewildered by the sudden jumps because parts of the Mirabal’s life stories were clearly cut for time. The sisters rebel against the regime and go to jail. Suddenly they’re out.

Now they’re under house arrest. At some point it’s mentioned offhand that the until-then unmarried sisters now all have husbands and they’re all in jail. Did we miss something?

The production benefits from a strong cast playing the four sisters: Alina Robert’s seething Minerva, Lorena Sabogal’s idealistic Patria, Inés Domínguez del Corral’s bratty-turned-brave Mate, and especially Broselianda Hernández as the sad Dedé, who sat out the rebellion and lived to regret it. In terms of authenticity, it doesn’t help that none of the actors are Dominican, though it does make it more decipherable to an audience less accustomed to the random truncations of Dominican Spanish. The only off note comes from

Delbis Cardona, who plays Trujillo as a serpentine figure complete with a ssssnake-like accent sounds more like Gollum than the porcine tyrant.

Svich’s play is great at communicating what important and admirable figures the Mirabal sisters were. It isn’t so great at explaining, much less showing, what exactly they did, which is a detriment given the range of resistance activities they engaged in, from propaganda to arms smuggling to helping to organize the June 14 Revolutionary Movement, and the risks those activities entailed. Much of the dialogue revolves around the sisters’ romantic interests, a not irrelevant part of the story, given their husbands’ roles in the same movement. But for a real life conspiracy tale, it’s one that puts the conspiring on the back burner.

It’s also a tale that’s still very much alive in the country where the sisters have become icons. Now the Dominican Republic’s most famous martyrs, their images decorate an obelisk Trujillo built for himself. They may have been mortal enemies, but their histories are now intertwined. Such is the tininess of the Dominican Republic that two presidential candidates, one in the last election and another in the next, include a daughter of the Mirabals and a grandson of Trujillo. But that’s a coda too ironic for a story as idealistic as this one.

—Mike Paarlberg

“Arresting and distinctive… a riveting ride” —The Times (London)

3333 14th St. NW. $25–$55. (202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org.

May 2–6 | Eisenhower Theater TICKETS ON SALE NOW! KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG | (202) 467-4600 Tickets also available at the Box Office. Groups (202) 416-8400 For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540.

Theater at the Kennedy Center is made possible by

Kennedy Center Theater Season Sponsor

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 21

FilmShort SubjectS

Photo by Karli Cadel /Glimmerglass

HAPPILY EVER AFTER HAS FINALLY MET ITS MATCH.

Candide

May 5–26 | Opera House Music by Leonard Bernstein / Book Adapted from Voltaire by Hugh Wheeler in a New Version by John Caird / Lyrics by Richard Wilbur with Additional Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, and Leonard Bernstein In English with Projected English Titles Production from The Glimmerglass Festival

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG | (202) 467-4600

Tickets also available at the Box Office. Groups call (202) 416-8400.

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

Major support for WNO is provided

by Jacqueline Badger Mars.

David M. Rubenstein is the Presenting Underwriter of WNO. WNO acknowledges the longstanding generosity of Life Chairman Mrs. Eugene B. Casey.

22 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

WNO’s Presenting Sponsor

Additional support for Candide is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Boo Goes There?

Ghost Stories

Directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman If you sneak up to someone in the dark and yell “Boo!” that doesn’t make you a master of horror. If you dress up as a half-rotted little girl and cry out a demonic “Daddy!” then you’re a bit closer. Ghost Stories traffics in both tropes, though the jump scares slightly outweigh the real scares and leave the film feeling like a cheat—at least part of the time. Admittedly, though, your pulse won’t know the difference.

First-time theatrical feature directors Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman adapted Ghost Stories from their stage play of the same name. Nyman also plays Professor Goodman, a paranormal investigator who believes that all of his case studies are pure hokum with real-world explanations. But then he’s summoned to the home of Charles Cameron (Leonard Byrne), a now-elderly paranormal debunker who challenges Goodman to explain the goings-on in three cases because he can’t and has had his know-it-all arrogance taken down several pegs. Easy peasy, thinks the junior dick.

Goodman then interviews a night watchman, a teenage boy, and a businessman to learn their stories and what they think happened to them. (“The brain sees what it wants to see,” Cameron used to say, which Goodman adapted as his own credo.) Tony (Paul Whitehouse), the guard, tells the investigator that his wife is deceased and he has a daugh-

ter with locked-in syndrome. He hasn’t visited her in five years. The film then flashes back to Tony’s paranormal experience, which involves a very, very dark warehouse, an impossibly sunny song from the 1950s playing on the radio, and … dolls. Yeah, it’s as cliche as spooky little kids. But that’s because, after all the fakeouts, it works.

Case 2 is about Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther). Lawther is terrifically creepy as the teen, though he’s not even what’s freaky about the story. His case involves another heavily used setup in horror films, the stalled car in a deserted area in the wee hours of the morning. This segment of the film gets a little more terrifying, as it dials down the jumps and amps up the shudder-inducing imagery. (Rarely have two people’s backs been so spine-tingling.) But it also earns a welcome laugh: “Staaaayyyyy,” says the thing that goes bump in the night. “Fuck that!” Simon says before running. The lad may be scared, but he’s also smart.

The final chapter, along with a coda and a Shyamalan-worthy twist, is when things get trippy. Martin Freeman plays Mike Priddle, a businessman who tells Goodman about a conception gone wrong. His story involves a poltergeist but also a shocking suicide, some whoa-man visuals, and, depending on your interpretation, Satan. Without giving too much away, Goodman has something in common with all three cases, and—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—they rattle him to his very core. Which leaves Ghost Stories scoring a solid “OK” in terms of both its originality and its scares. The storylines can feel awfully familiar and sometimes, you’ll find yourself rolling your eyes after you jump out of your seat.

—Tricia Olszewski Ghost Stories opens Friday at Landmark E Street Cinema.

GALLERIESSketcheS

A CUT, A SHAVE, A SCHEME, A PRANK… ALL IN A DAY’S WORK!

World on a Wire Heather Theresa Clark: Along a Line

At Hamiltonian Gallery to May 12 Just imagine: If the sensors failed to trip in Heather Theresa Clark’s “Sides of a Line” (2018), now on view at Hamiltonian Gallery, then viewers might wind up squeezed to a paste between two fashionably chic walls. Crushed by metaphor. Killed by art. Wiped out by the collapsing structures of late capitalism.

That’s one way to read Clark’s trap sculpture, one of the most ambitious projects ever mounted by Hamiltonian, or at least the biggest. For the piece, the artist has built two 10-by-13-foot walls that face one another. One is fixed, a padded scaffold that looks like a combination bed frame and mattress. The other wall, which has one mattress face to match the other, is mounted to a mechanical system that slides it along a 52-foot-long track. Running through and between the walls is a cable, cemented on the movable-wall end to the gallery floor by a turnbuckle and heavy burlap weights. Bigger than the piece itself are the weighty ideas that the artist wants viewers thinking about.

Picture a tightrope walker balanced on the wire between the walls, as one closes in on the other, shortening the distance at hand for an acrobat while an imaginary clock ticks down.

Or re-live the trash-compactor scene from Star Wars, only with one designed by Kanye West in martial couture tones. The sides of the walls that bear down on each other are covered in sleek black military parachute, punched and buttoned in upholstery fashion. The track is paved with marbled Formica. The side of the wall facing out from the vice is lined with wax, punched like tin with a fleur-de-lis pattern. Clark is pointing to a larger framework— maybe capitalism, maybe the Kardashians.

Along a Line gestures broadly at systemic forces. In “Sides of a Line,” the tightrope

hints at performance, the roles we play, within a structure that poses a threat. The critique mounted in this installation is both literal and wishy-washy. It reads like an indictment of an idea along the lines of late capitalism or neoliberalism, big-tent concepts that have come to embody sanitized corporate evil. Concepts so big they don’t mean anything.

Clark’s solo show is uneven: “DISSONANCE” (2018), a pair of photos documenting a dance-like performance conducted by the artist on a barge at sea, is inviting but hard to judge from this presentation. On the other hand, “Monument” (2018) steals the show. The sculpture comprises a pedestal made of plywood, over which the artist has suspended a ghostly imprint, an echo of the pedestal rendered in rawhide. Nevermind that it’s a tribute to Rachel Whiteread’s “Monument” (2001), part of London’s famous Fourth Plinth series. The piece may be the key to unlocking Clark’s politics.

For the “Monument” that Whiteread was invited to build in Trafalgar Square, she made a copy of the empty fourth plinth, cast in transparent resin, and set it on the plinth as an inverted mirror-image. Whiteread’s contribution to the Fourth Plinth series seems part and parcel of a ’90s approach to political art: heavy, snarky, laden with symbolism, performative in a theatrical vein. For her own “Monument,” Clark has recreated an outline of a corner of the plinth in rawhide. It looks like a flag waving over the memorial, a transformation of the monument that still exalts the monument.

If Clark’s work can be read as an embrace of a bigger way of framing global politics, then it could be read as a rejection of the communityfocused craft of social practice, the dominant political art genre of the 2010s. Whereas social practice has seen artists zero in on locally oriented topics like lead poisoning or food security, Clark embraces the sweeping gesture of history. In “Monument” she is flying that idea as a flag: a monument to monumentalism.

—Kriston Capps 1353 U St. NW. Free. (202) 332-1116. hamiltoniangallery.com.

Photo by Cory Weaver

“Sides of a Line” by Heather Theresa Clark (2018)

The Barber of Seville

April 28–May 19 | Opera House Music by Gioachino Rossini Libretto by Cesare Sterbini In Italian with Projected English Titles WNO Production

TICKETS ON SALE NOW! KENNEDY-CENTER.ORG | (202) 467-4600

Tickets also available at the Box Office. Groups call (202) 416-8400.

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

Major support for WNO is provided

by Jacqueline Badger Mars.

David M. Rubenstein is the Presenting Underwriter of WNO. WNO acknowledges the longstanding generosity of Life Chairman Mrs. Eugene B. Casey.

WNO’s Presenting Sponsor

Generous support for WNO Italian Opera is provided

by Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello.

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 23

24 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITYLIST

1350 OKIE ST NE, WASHINGTON D.C.

CITYWINERY.COM/WASHINGTONDC

UPCOMING SHOWS!

Music 25 Books 30 Dance 31 Theater 31 Film 33

4/26

RAMI KLEINSTEIN

4/29-30 SUZANNE VEGA

Music

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

5/2

BILLY SQUIER & G.E. SMITH

5/4

BOB SCHNEIDER (FULL BAND)

5/5

PATTY SMYTH & SCANDAL

5/8

FRIDAY ClASSICAl

GRAHAM PARKER

(WITH JAMES MADDOCK)

5/10

JUICY SCOOP PODCAST WITH HEATHER MCDONALD LIVE RECORDING

Kennedy Center terraCe theater 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Washington Performing Arts presents Paul Huang & Orion Weiss. 7:30 p.m. $45. kennedy-center.org.

5/11

HEATHER MCDONALD STAND-UP

5/12

SANDRA BERNHARD'S “SANDEMONIUM"

Mansion at strathMore 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Robin Spielberg. 7:30 p.m. $30. strathmore.org.

5/16

LAITH AL-SAADI

5/18-19 COWBOY MOUTH

(WITH FRED LEBLANC ACOUSTIC)

5/28

ROGER CREAGER

6/2

THE THE BAND BAND

6 /7-14

DC JAZZ FESTIVAL

6/8

THE PATRICIA BARBER TRIO

6/10

THE BAD PLUS

6/12

BAYLOR PROJECT

6/13

Blues alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. John Pizzarelli. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $40–$45. bluesalley.com.

HOMAGE TO A MASTER: KETER BETTS FEATURING BEN WILLIAMS AND SPECIAL GUESTS

6/15

POP

GEOFF TATE’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION: MINDCRIME

6/16

PIERS FACCINI IN THE WINE GARDEN

ElECTRONIC

ten tigers Parlour 3813 Georgia Ave. NW. (202) 506-2080. option4. 10:30 p.m. $15. tentigersdc.com. u street MusiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Ryan Hemsworth. 10:30 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

JAzz

BirChMere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Najee. 7:30 p.m. $45. birchmere.com.

u street MusiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Twin Shadow. 7 p.m. ustreetmusichall.com.

6/16-18 JOAN ARMATRADING

union stage 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. The Residents. 8 p.m. $35–$45. unionstage.com.

ROCk

9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Unknown Mortal Orchestra. 8 p.m. $30. 930.com. the antheM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Beck. 8 p.m. $55–$75. theanthemdc.com. linColn theatre 1215 U St. NW. (202) 888-0050.

Calexico. 8 p.m. $35. thelincolndc.com.

SATuRDAY ClASSICAl

MusiC Center at strathMore 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. National Philharmonic: Northern Lights. 8 p.m. $42–$76. strathmore.org.

DJ NIgHTS

u street MusiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Will Eastman. 10:30 p.m. Free. ustreetmusichall.com.

6 /19

RYAN HEMSWORTH

Whether they know it or not, every electronic musician that remixes their favorite song, uploads it to SoundCloud, and tries to self-actualize a career in the music business is emulating Ryan Hemsworth. The Canadian talent began the decade editing Frank Ocean and Lana Del Rey songs, producing for underground rap innovators like Main Attrakionz and composing his own music. Deftly combining the best bits of electronica, hip-hop, R&B, and pop, Hemsworth quickly developed a signature sound: club-ready beats, swirling synthesizers, and a pervasive sense of melancholy. Not that he has much to be sad about these days, producing for living legends like E-40 and pop stars like Tinashe, helming his own record label, and—in a bucket list move for a video game obsessive—remixing part of the Street Fighter II soundtrack. Perhaps that’s why his latest single, the Afrobeat-infused “Four Seasons,” feels like the sounds of summertime happiness. Ryan Hemsworth performs at 10:30 p.m. at U Street Music Hall, 1115 U St. NW. $10–$12. (202) 588-1889. ustreetmusichall.com.

—Chris Kelly

FOlk

BirChMere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Janis Ian. 7:30 p.m. $45. birchmere. com. u street MusiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Jeremy Loops. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

ROCk

9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Brian Fallon & The Howling Weather. 8 p.m. $25. 930.com.

HIP-HOP

FillMore silver sPring 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. (301) 960-9999. The Wildflowers. 8 p.m. $7.75–$15.50. fillmoresilverspring.com.

JAzz

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

Dweezil Zappa. 9 p.m. $39.75-$89.75. thehamiltondc. com.

union stage 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. Cut Chemist. 11 p.m. $20–$30. unionstage.com.

SuNDAY ClASSICAl

the international student house oF Washington dC 1825 R St. NW. (202) 232-4007. Yeol Eum Son. 4 p.m. $20–$40. ishdc.org.

Kennedy Center terraCe theater 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Washington Performing Arts presents Nathan Lee. 2 p.m. $45. kennedy-center.org.

Blues alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. John Pizzarelli. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $40–$45. bluesalley.com.

linColn theatre 1215 U St. NW. (202) 888-0050.

Robyn Hitchcock and his L.A. Squires. 8 p.m. $35. thelincolndc.com.

OPERA

Pearl street Warehouse 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. The Riverbreaks. 8 p.m. $15. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

MiraCle theatre 535 8th St. SE. (202) 400-3210.

Nancy And Beth. 8 p.m. $35–$40. themiracletheatre.com.

union stage 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487.

White Ford Bronco. 7 p.m. $40–$55. unionstage.com.

union stage 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. Ben Miller Band. 8 p.m. $15. unionstage.com.

Kennedy Center oPera house 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Washington National Opera: The Barber of Seville. 7 p.m. $45–$150. kennedy-center.org.

RED WANTING BLUE

6/20-21 JOAN ARMATRADING

FOlk

6/23

GREG LASWELL

6/23

BILLY PRICE

6/29

AJ GHENT

6/30

MASTERS OF THE TELECASTER FEATURING JIM WEIDER , G.E. SMITH & TOM PRINCIPATO - TRIBUTE TO ROY BUCHANAN

7/8

AZTEC TWO-STEP

7/14

ANTHONY DAVID

7/17

SYLEENA JOHNSON

7/20

PAULA COLE

7/21

RAY WYLIE HUBBARD

7/25

THE QUEBE SISTERS

7/27-28 ERIC ROBERSON 8/4

HAYES CARLL SOLO

8/18

HOWIE DAY

8/22

SHOOTER JENNINGS ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

9/25

JUMP, LITTLE CHILDREN

11/27

AN EVENING WITH HOT TUNA ACOUSTIC

VINOFILE

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 25

CITY LIGHTS: SATuRDAY

BROCCOlI CITY FESTIVAl

If on the off chance you’ve never heard of Broccoli City Festival, you’re probably wondering why someone would curate an entire festival dedicated to broccoli. But if you haven’t lived under a rock, like most, you’d be up on this grassroots sustainability-focused organization presenting one of the biggest spring musical celebrations in the D.C. area. As stated on its official website, Broccoli City’s mission is to “build thriving urban communities that sustain future generations by mobilizing and educating urban millennials through social impact campaigns and major events.” It’s a worthy cause, and for the past five years the festival has used great music, specifically black music, as a catalyst for distinct community involvement. Not to mention, the lineups are always fire. This year’s headliners, Migos (pictured), Miguel, and baby bumpin’ Cardi B who just killed it at Coachella, are moseying over to give the kids the show they deserve. At a new venue this year, RFK Stadium’s Lot 6, Daniel Caesar, H.E.R., Nipsey Hussle, Rich the Kid, Lightshow, Grits & Biscuits, and HoodCelebrityy round out the list of expected performers. This year, the BC Fest team is going for bigger and better. Broccoli City Festival begins at 12 p.m. at RFK Stadium, 2400 East Capitol St. SE. Sold out. bcfestival.com.

—Mikala Williams

THURSDAY, MAY 10 | 8 PM JACK EVERLY, conductor

Experience Raiders of the Lost Ark like never before as the Baltimore Symphony performs John Williams' epic score alongside the classic Steven Spielberg film.

PRESENTING SPONSOR:

THE MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE NORTH BETHESDA, MD • ON THE RED LINE • FREE PARKING TICKETS FROM $35 • 1.877.BSO.1444 • BSOMUSIC.ORG

26 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

JAzz

ROCk

BirChMere 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

(703) 549-7500. Sun. Apr. 29: HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL -7:30pm- $65.00. 7:30 p.m. $65. birchmere. com.

9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Kate Nash.

7 p.m. $25. 930.com.

Blues alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. John Pizzarelli. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $40–$45. bluesalley.com.

POP 9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Echosmith.

7 p.m. $29. 930.com.

ROCk BlaCK Cat 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Minus the Bear. 7:30 p.m. $25-$30. blackcatdc.com.

MONDAY JAzz

Blues alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Louie Cruz Beltran. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $25. bluesalley.com.

Kennedy Center MillenniuM stage 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The U.S. Army Blues. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

the antheM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Modest Mouse. 8 p.m. $45–$75. theanthemdc.com.

MiraCle theatre 535 8th St. SE. (202) 400-3210.

Jon Foreman. 7 p.m. $25. themiracletheatre.com.

TuESDAY ClASSICAl

Kennedy Center MillenniuM stage 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. NSO Youth Fellows. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

ElECTRONIC 9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Carpenter Brut. 10 p.m. $25. 930.com.

HIP-HOP 9:30 CluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Sango. 6 p.m. $25. 930.com. u street MusiC hall 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

MoneyBagg Yo. 7 p.m. $20–$25. ustreetmusichall.com.

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 27

CITY LIGHTS: SuNDAY

FROM THE ISLAND TO THE WORLD Teatro El Público’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

Piano Marathon with Aldo López Gavilán and Jorge Luis Pacheco, photo by Teresa Wood

Los Van Van

Compañía Irene Rodrígu ez, photo by Christopher Jon es

May 8–20, 2018 An unprecedented Kennedy Center-wide celebration of Cuban arts and culture

400 artists, more than 50 events Tickets and information at kennedy-center.org/CUBA The Presenting Underwriter of ARTES DE CUBA HRH Foundation Major support is provided by David M. Rubenstein.

Digital Sponsor

Additional support is provided by Virginia McGehee Friend, Amalia Perea Mahoney and William Mahoney, The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives, and the Artes de Cuba Festival Committee.

International Programming at the Kennedy Center is made possible through the generosity of the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts.

28 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

gOlD DIggERS OF 1933

During the Great Depression, Hollywood responded to America’s bleak mood with even more glamorous spectacle. Some of the greatest musicals of the 1930s feature a wild visual invention that was positively psychedelic, thanks to choreographer Busby Berkeley, whose elaborate staging turned flanks of chorus girls into geometric patterns synchronized to bubbly pop standards.

Gold Diggers of 1933 was the height of Berkeley’s dance imagination. The film is shown on a triple bill with 42nd Street and Footlight Parade as part of a book event for Harvey G. Cohen, author of Who’s in the Money? The Great Depression Musicals and Hollywood’s New Deal, who will introduce the screening. You can’t miss Gold Diggers’ famous centerpiece featuring Ginger Rogers wearing a costume made of silver dollars and singing “We’re in the Money”—in pig Latin. But even this escapist entertainment doesn’t ignore the financial crisis in the real world: The movie opens with a rehearsal of a show that’s suddenly shut down because the producers haven’t paid their bills. The film screens at 3:45 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $8–$13. (301) 495-6700. afi.com/silver.

—Pat Padua

#DCJAZZFEST

Take Metrobus and Metrorail to the...

JUNE 8 – 17, 2018 TICKETS ON SALE NOW

D C JA Z Z F E S T.O RG

JUNE 16 – 17, 2018

DC JAZZFEST AT THE WHARF

SUMMER

TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

JAKE OWEN

THE REVIVALISTS

JORDAN DAVIS

AUG 19

WITH CHRIS JANSON

JUN 3

LESLIE ODOM JR.

R+R=Now

(A Robert Glasper Supergroup)

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah | Ivan Lins & Friends | Ben Williams Presents: I Am a Man | Mark G. Meadows | Jazz Academy Ensemble Washington Jazz Arts Institute Ensemble | AMP Trio feat. Tahira Clayton Akua Allrich | Batala | Michael Ventura | Fabrizio Bosso Quartet Edmar Castañeda & Grégoire Maret | Melissa Aldana | Rochelle Rice The Jihye Lee Orchestra | Hess Is More | Yosvany Terry & Baptiste Trotignon’s Ancestral Memories | Reginald Cyntje Jose Andre Band | DCJazzPrix Finalists and more!

PRESENTING SPONSOR

PLATINUM SPONSORS

DAWES

SHOVELS & ROPE JOSEPH

THE WASHINGTON BALLET GISELLE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MAY 25

FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS X AMBASSADORS MIKKY EKKO

JUN 7

THE SISTERHOOD BAND

GOLD SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSORS

MEDIA SPONSOR

ALANIS MORISSETTE SEP 6

AUG 23

STEVEN TYLER AND THE LOVING MARY BAND

The Washington Post is the official media sponsor of DC JazzFest at The Wharf

ZZ WARD

JUN 21

DR. DOG MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA CRITICAL EQUATION TOUR

(SANDY) ALEX G JUN 22

LUDOVICO EINAUDI

WHEELS OF SOUL 2018 TOUR

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS JUL 11

JUANES JUL 13

HALSEY

JESSIE REYEZ

HOPELESS FOUNTAIN KINGDOM

JUL 15

CASINO ROYALE IN CONCERT

NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA JUL 22

ZIGGY MARLEY STEEL PULSE TRIBAL SEEDS SEP 1

JUL 8 The DC Jazz Festival®, a 501(c)(3) non-profit service organization, and its programs are made possible, in part, with major grants from the Government of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, Mayor; with awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Office of Cable Television, Film, Music & Entertainment; and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development; and, in part, by major funding from the Anne and Ronald Abramson Family Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Gillon Family Charitable Fund, Wells Fargo Foundation, The NEA Foundation, Venable Foundation, The Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Reva & David Logan Foundation, John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. ©2018 DC Jazz Festival.

All rights reserved.

CASINO ROYALE LICENSED BY MGM. CASINO ROYALE © 2006 DANJAQ, UNITED ARTISTS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AND RELATED JAMES BOND TRADEMARKS, TM DANJAQ.

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 29

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

ROBERTO FONSECA APR 26

THURSDAY

DWEEZIL

ZAPPA THE CHOICE CUTS TOUR SATURDAY APR

28

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

Tix @ Ticketmaster.com 800-745-3000

NAJEE 28 JANIS IAN 29 HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL May Carsie 3 MADELEINE PEYROUX Blanton 4&5 THE WHISPERS 6 MARCUS MILLER 10 UNDER THE STREETLAMP Apr 27

11 2nd Annual Desperados/Wax Museum Reunion!

FRI, MAY 4

feat.

AN EVENING WITH

WHITE FORD BRONCO

with Mark Wenner

THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS W/ CHARLIE HUNTER SUN, MAY 6

GOGO PENGUIN

12 13

GARY TAYLOR RENAISSANCE “A Symphonic Journey”

Trapper BoDEANS Schoepp 18&19 KINDRED THE FAMILY SOUL 20 KIEFER SUTHERLAND B R Monica 23 RAUL MALO Rizzio 24 MARC COHN 25 RAHSAAN PATTERSON 26 se. s at place of purcha WALTER CANCELLED. Refund BEASLEY 27 10,000 MANIACS

PoP The AnThem 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Haim. 8 p.m. $45–$125. theanthemdc.com.

Rock Rock & Roll hoTel 1353 H St. NE. (202) 388-7625.

Protest the Hero. 8 p.m. $20–$25. rockandrollhoteldc.com.

Wednesday

ThuRsday elecTRonic

u sTReeT music hAll 1115 U St. NW. (202) 588-1889.

Eliminate. 10 p.m. $10. ustreetmusichall.com.

Jazz

BiRchmeRe 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. (703) 549-7500. Madeleine Peyroux. 7:30 p.m. $50.50. birchmere.com.

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 337-4141. Joshua Redman Quartet. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $45–$50. bluesalley.com.

PoP

Jazz

9:30 cluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Matt and Kim. 7 p.m. $35. 930.com.

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Irene Jalenti. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $22. bluesalley.com.

Rock

oPeRa kennedy cenTeR TeRRAce TheATeR 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Opera Lafayette presents Visitors to Versailles. 7:30 p.m. $25–$115. kennedy-center.org.

PoP 9:30 cluB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Matt and Kim. 7 p.m. $35. 930.com.

Rock dc9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Loma. 8 p.m. $12–$15. dcnine.com. union sTAge 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487.

Company of Thieves. 8 p.m. $15–$50. unionstage. com.

The AnThem 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020.

Alice In Chains. 8 p.m. $50–$75. theanthemdc.com. kennedy cenTeR millennium sTAge 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The Beanstalk Library. 6 p.m.

Free. kennedy-center.org.

PeARl sTReeT WARehouse 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. Shawn James. 7 p.m. $10. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

Books

JAke TAPPeR CNN anchor Jake Tapper opens up about his debut political thriller, The Hellfire Club, cen-

17

WED, MAY 9

ROBBEN FORD W/ TONEY ROCKS FRI, MAY 11

THE BUMPER JACKSONS W/ ELENA & LOS FULANOS

SAT, MAY 12

NEWMYER FLYER PRESENTS

THE BEST OF JANIS JOPLIN & JIMI HENDRIX 10am, 12:30pm, 3pm

MOTHER’S DAY GOSPEL BRUNCH FEATURING

THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY GOSPEL CHOIR TUES, MAY 15

MINGO FISHTRAP WED, MAY 16

DELTA RAE W/ SAWYER FRI, MAY 18

THE WEIGHT BAND

FEAT. MEMBERS OF THE BAND, LEVON HELM BAND, & RICK DANKO GROUP SAT, MAY 19

SUN, MAY 20

AN EVENING WITH

SOLD OUT

YACHT ROCK REVUE AN EVENING WITH CHAISE

ick Rantley

Lily JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE Hiatt Jamie 30 THE TAJ MAHAL Trio McLean 31 BIG BAD VOODOO DADDY 1 HERE COME THE MUMMIES 2 JASON D. WILLIAMS & THE NIGHTHAWKS June 4&11 RY COODER & His Band

In the

!

AMADOU & MARIAM 8 KELLY WILLIS & CHRIS KNIGHT 9 CHARLES ROSS’

LOUNGE

SAT, MAY 26

DANA FUCHS

THREE DOG NIGHT 12 DAVID SANBORN 13 MATTHEW SWEET 10

THEHAMILTONDC.COM

CITY LIGHTS: Monday

29

7

BETTYE LAVETTE

FRI, MAY 25

with Ratso & Johnny Castle,

CHARLOTTESVILLE ALL-STARS

SAT, MAY 5

SUN, MAY 13

NRBQ, NORTHSTAR BAND

Blues Alley 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. (202) 3374141. Daisy Castro. 8 p.m.; 10 p.m. $22. bluesalley.com.

30 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

kaTe nash

Kate Nash exploded onto the music scene in 2007 with her chart-topping debut album, Made of Bricks. After a decade of being used and abused by the pop machine, the British singer-songwriter is back for more, but this time wielding an impervious cloak of confidence and sass. Her 2018 album, Yesterday Was Forever, brings a teenage girl’s diary to life and colors experiences like heartache, anxiety, and self-esteem challenges with bubbly pop optimism and punk rock girl power. In her live performances and recorded albums, Nash has used the ten years of tumultuous life experience gained since her debut album to empower teenage girls and fellow thirty-somethings. “I wanted people to come to my shows and leave feeling like they could do fucking anything,” Nash said in a recent interview with HuffPost. “I wanted to create this party atmosphere where you can have the best time and feel really free and un-judged for who you are.” Kate Nash performs with Miya Folick at 7 p.m. at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $25. (202) 265-0930.

930.com.

—Casey Embert

thh

NEW MUSIC VENUE

NOW OPEN

CITY LIGHTS: TuESDAY

THE WHARF, SW DC

DINER & BAR OPEN LATE!

APRIL F 27

CONYA DOSS FT. LIN ROUNDTREE

SU 29 MELBA MOORE

M AY W2

JAZZY BLU

TH 3

JODY WATLEY AND SRL

S5

JOE CLAIR & FRIENDS COMEDY SHOW

APRIL CONCERTS

(2 SHOWS 7/10PM)

SANgO

SU 6

Going by Sango, the music producer’s stage name is almost as good as his actual name. Born Kai Asa Savon Wright (Seriously, how cool is that?) in Washington state, the 26-year-old beat-maker and graphic designer is definitely making a name for himself in the hip-hop music world. He’s one of those producers who, despite releasing mixtapes and EPs, lives and thrives behind the scenes—you’ve probably heard production from him, but also probably didn’t know it. As Sango, he’s produced for Wale, GoldLink, Tinashe, Bryson Tiller, DRAM, and many others, dabbling in sounds ranging from contemporary R&B to hip-hop to Brazilian baile funk. But if his latest body of work is any indication, he’s coming out of the shadows and into the light of day.

This March he released the album In The Comfort Of, a lush, boundary-pushing album with layered beats that could easily soundtrack your life. It’s about time you got to know him. Sango performs at 6 p.m. at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $25. (202) 265-0930. 930.com.

—Kayla Randall tered on a congressman who is thrust into office following his predecessor’s mysterious death. Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University. 805 21st St. NW. May 2. 7 p.m. $33–$35. (202) 994-7470.

KWaMe alexander Award-winning author Kwame Alexander chats about his latest acclaimed work blending basketball and poetry, Rebound. Politics & Prose. 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. April 30. 10:30 a.m.

Free. (202) 364-1919. ronan FarroW Journalist Ronan Farrow discusses his new book, War On Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, a chronicle of the United States’ decline in diplomatic esteem worldwide. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. 600 I St. NW. May 3. 7 p.m. $18–$45. (202) 408-3100.

Dance

es throughout the day, including Bowen McCauley Dance Company and students from the Kenmore Middle School dance residency. Kenmore Middle School. 200 South Carlin Springs Road, Arlington. April 28. 1 p.m. Free. (703) 228-6800. apsva.us/ Domain/1742. ternary Patterns For insoMnia Stockholmbased dance company Andersson Dance and Glasgow-based string orchestra Scottish Ensemble join onstage in a series of collaborative performances in a whirlwind of movement and sound. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. 2700 F St. NW. April 27 8 p.m.; April 28 2 p.m.; April 28. 8 p.m. $29–$89. (202) 4674600. kennedy-center.org.

Theater

Border Northern Virginia dance company Jane Franklin Dance presents a performance that examines psychological and physical barriers through visual art and movement. Theatre on the Run. 3700 S. Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington. April 27 7:30 p.m.; April 28. 7:30 p.m. $20–$30. (703) 228-1850. arlingtonarts.org.

the CauCasian ChalK CirCle From playwright Bertolt Brechtin and with an English translation by Alistair Beaton, The Caucasian Chalk Circle presents the story of a young servant girl named Grusha who is caught in a social revolution. Soon, she must risk everything to save an abandoned baby. Constellation Theatre at Source. 1835 14th St. NW. To May 13. $25–$55. (202) 204-7741. constellationtheatre.org.

Move Me Festival The 9th annual family-friendly festival celebrates the performing arts with more than 20 local arts partners offering performanc-

the CruCiBle This Eleanor Holdridge-directed adaptation of Arthur Miller’s classic play about the Salem witch trials features Chris Genebach from

MILLIE JACKSON

TH 10 BEEGIE ADAIR TRIO

THE SWON BROTHERS

S 12

STOKELY OF

SARAH SHOOK AND THE DISARMERS w/ ZEPHANIAH OHORA

F 27

THE JUDY CHOPS CD RELEASE w/ THE WATT BROTHERS THE RIVERBREAKS w/ SUSPECT CLASS JON STICKLEY TRIO w/ ADRIAN AND MEREDITH

SA 28 SU 29

FT. MONICA RAMEY F 11

TH 26

MAY CONCERTS

MINT CONDITION (2 SHOWS 7/10PM)

SU 13 MOTHER’S DAY WITH REGINA BELLE (2 SHOWS 11AM/4PM)

W2

JONNY GRAVE FREE SHOW!

TH 3 F4

DEAD WINTER CARPENTERS

SA 5

JUMPIN’ JUPITER FREE SHOW! noon-3pm!

SA 5 SU 6

CHOPTEETH AFROFUNK BIG BAND RUBEN MORENO AND ZYDECO RE-EVOLUTION

W9

LEARN TO LINDY HOP w/ MICHAEL & JESS!

TH 10

LUKE WINSLOW-KING w/ JACK GREGORI PRACTICALLY EINSTEIN w/ SILENT CRITICS BRENDAN JAMES w/ PETE MULLER

F 11 SA 12

SU 20 VIVIAN GREEN

SHAWN JAMES (SOLO) w/ JOHN BUSTINE w/ SOUTH HILL BANKS

3PM ZYDECO DANCE PARTY!

THE 1ST OF 6-WEEK SWING DANCE LESSON SERIES EACH WEDS @ 7PM

TU 15

CONCERT IN THE BLIND: DAVID WAX MUSEUM & LOWLAND HUM

http://igg.me/at/bethesdablues

TH 17

WESTERN CENTURIES

7719 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, MD

F 18 SA 19 TU 22

CARSIE BLANTON w/ DEVON SPROULE CHUCK BROWN BAND LEE ROY PARNELL w/ JANINE WILSON AND MAX EVANS

(240) 330-4500 www. BethesdaBluesJazz.com Two Blocks from Bethesda Metro/Red Line Free Parking on Weekends

2-STEP DANCE LESSON INCLUDED!

TICKETS ON SALE! pearlstreetwarehouse.com

washingtoncitypaper.com april 27, 2018 31

Carousel starring as John Proctor. Coming to the Olney stage for the first time, this tale focusing on an unseeable evil tearing a colonist town apart aims to speak truth to power much like the 1953 original did. Olney Theatre Center. 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney. To May 20. $49–$74. (301) 924-3400. olneytheatre.org. en el tieMPo de las MariPosas (in the tiMe oF the ButterFlies) Based on the novel by Julia Álvarez, playwright Caridad Svich adapts this account of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic. Using the code name “butterflies,” they lead the resistance against the dictatorial regime of General Rafael Trujillo—until their brutal murder. Presented in Spanish with English subtitles. GALA Hispanic Theatre. 3333 14th St. NW. To May 13. $25–$95. (202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org.

Fly By night This dark comedy rock-fable comes from playwrights Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock. At the heart of it is a melancholy sandwich maker whose mundane existence becomes entwined with entrancing two sisters.

1st Stage. 1524 Spring Hill Road, McLean. To May 6. $15–$33. (703) 854-1856. 1ststagetysons.org. girlFriend Todd Almond and Matthew Sweet’s vibrant coming-of-age musical duet makes its D.C. premiere. In 1993 small-town Nebraska, collegebound jock Mike and aimless Will find themselves drawn to each other. What follows is a rush of firsttime love, full of excitement, confusion and passion.

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

John When a young Brooklyn couple Elias and Jenny escape on a getaway to a cozy bed-and-breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a ghost seems to haunt their troubled relationship. This hyperreal transfixing work from playwright Annie Baker makes its D.C. debut. Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To April 29. $40–$80. (703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org. royal shaKesPeare CoMPany: haMlet The Kennedy Center presents the North American pre-

miere of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s riveting, contemporary take on the Shakespeare classic Hamlet. This stateside premiere follows the show’s acclaimed 2016 run in the United Kingdom. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. 2700 F St. NW. To May 6. $39–$129. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org. roz and ray Directed by Adam Immerwahr and written by Karen Hartman, Roz and Ray is a powerful, urgent, and gripping medical drama about a doctor at the onset of the 1980s AIDS crisis. The story centers on Dr. Roz Kagan, who offers a new miracle drug to save Ray Leon’s hemophiliac twins. Things aren’t always as they appear to be, though, and being on the cutting edge of medicine can lead to moral ambiguity and tough choices. Theater J. 1529 16th St. NW. To April 29. $24–$69. (202) 777-3210. theaterj.org. shear Madness A famed concert pianist who lives above the Shear Madness unisex hair salon dies in a scissor-stabbing murder. Set in modern day Georgetown, this interactive comedy whodunit lets its audience solve the crime. Kennedy Center Theater Lab. 2700 F St. NW. To June 10. $54. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org. titus androniCus Synetic Theater’s visionary founding artistic director Paata Tsikurishvili produces the 13th addition of the “Wordless Shakespeare” series, showcasing this revenge-driven tragedy about fiery passion, energy, and vengeance. Synetic Theater at Crystal City. 1800 South Bell St. , Arlington.

To May 27. $15–$35. (866) 811-4111. synetictheater.org. true West Two estranged brothers, well-educated Austin and con man Lee, reunite in their mother’s California kitchen. There, Austin is working on his screenplay. What follows is an explosive, darkly funny American tale of sibling rivalry, Hollywood producers, and stolen toasters. Rep Stage at Howard Community College. 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. To May 13. $15–$40. (443) 518-1500. repstage.org. tWo trains running August Wilson’s masterpiece about everyday lives makes its way to Arena Stage. At the heart of the story is Memphis Lee’s diner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, confronted with a chang-

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

SHEIlA HETI

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32 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

Opening Sheila Heti’s new novel, Motherhood, is like hearing a song that you know, just a few beats in, will be your new favorite. With each sentence, the narrator goes back and forth intellectually over whether she needs to become a mother, as most women eventually do. That’s the plot.

Yet, in that, Heti has achieved a mystic’s appreciation for the basics of being alive, a place that many equally ambitious writers never reach. Unspooling the raw details of random chance, her romantic relationship, her maternal ancestors, her friends, her soul, and most importantly, her art, the novel deepens in feeling until the very last page. Heti, a Toronto native, has written numerous books, including the brilliant 2012 novel How Should a Person Be? But her latest is a major work and a must-read for anyone interested in musings on motherhood. Go see her. Sheila Heti speaks at 7 p.m. at Politics and Prose at The Wharf, 70 District Square SW. Free. (202) 488-3867. politics-prose.com.

—Diana Michele Yap

CITY LIGHTS: THuRSDAY

RONAN FARROW

It’s not just journalist Ronan Farrow’s good looks or famous last name as the son of Mia Farrow that have made him a household name in writing circles. It’s his ability to be boldly outspoken while also knowing when to be humbled by a very big story. Farrow wrote the New Yorker articles that helped bust the horrors of Harvey Weinstein wide open, spur on the #MeToo movement, and uncover many other alleged sexual assaults perpetrated by men of power and fame, earning him the Pulitzer for Public Service. He’s a champion of women professionally and personally, vocally supporting his sister Dylan Farrow’s allegations of sexual abuse as a child by Mia Farrow’s thenpartner Woody Allen. Now, he’s championing exposing the wrongs of our country in even broader ways. This is the crux of his new book, War On Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. Inspired by his past experience working in the State Department, Farrow uses interviews with foreign policymakers and whistleblowers to discuss why America has fallen out of favor abroad. But it’s more than pessimistic facts as he also provides ways to turn the tides of this country’s divisiveness with the rest of the world. He’ll discuss it all with Mary Louise Kelly of NPR’s All Things Considered. Ronan Farrow speaks at 7 p.m. at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, 600 I St. NW. $18–$45. (202) 408-3100. sixthandi.org. —Diana Metzger ing world during the Civil Rights Movement in 1969.

Arena Stage. 1101 6th St. SW. To April 29. $56–$91.

(202) 488-3300. arenastage.org. underground railroad gaMe Two teachers get shockingly down and dirty with a lesson about race, sex, and power at Hanover Middle School in this unflinching Ars Nova production of the fourth wallbreaking play. Going round after round on the mat of America’s history, the teachers bare it all, $ in3R-rated, 5 2 1 far-reaching fashion. Woolly Mammoth% Theatre.

5 , 641 % (

Film

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D St. NW. To April 29. $20–$69. (202) 393-3939.

7 ( 1 % 2 7wool6 2 0 ( 7 , 0 ( Amy6Schumer as an insecure lymammoth.net. $i Feel / 6Pretty 2 7 < stars ; $ ' = ( woman who gains confidence and the belief that she 6 $ ; 1 ( 3 $ / Waiting For godot Director Garry Hynes brings is the most beautiful woman in the world after falling ' Beck( 6 3 , & $ % / ( 0 ( 0 ( a fresh and funny take on playwright Samuel and hitting her head. Co-starring Michelle Williams $ Emily 9 $Ratajkowski.

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Puzzle ANTISOCIAL NETWORK

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Across

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11 Gear tooth 14 Money for something 15 Lacking originality 16 $5, slangily 17 Eventually got around to unleashing annoying tweets from oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fake account?

19 Ideal number 20 Shop tool 21 â&#x20AC;&#x153;And one more thingâ&#x20AC;?

22 Charonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s river 23 Kamasi Washingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s instrument 25 Kathmanduâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nation 28 Truly awful thing shared on the Internet?

34 One new to the company 35 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cease!,â&#x20AC;? at sea 36 Anime unit 37 Line of calculus 38 Years old 39 Pie chart material 40 [ ] comment

41 Killing Eve actress Comer 42 Rachel from Skid Row 43 Those in charge gonna start flame wars?

46 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m guilty!â&#x20AC;?

47 Over-___ headphones 48 Post sauna getup 50 What a freelancer writes on 53 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Science is organized knowledge; wisdom is organized lifeâ&#x20AC;? philosopher 57 Night screecher 58 Guy who scours for negative content on a lolcat-filled forum?

61 Character actor R. ___Ermey 62 Original: Prefix 63 Tapped letters 64 Dime guy 65 Snopes debunkings 66 Ease back

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It doesn’t “just keep happening,” ASSHOLE, you keep doing it. And these women didn’t “turn into” one-year, three-year, seven-month, and four-months-and-counting affairs on their own. You turned them into affairs by continuing to show up. And while you claim that each of these women pursued you despite knowing you were in an exclusive relationship, it doesn’t sound like you ran from any of them. At best, you broke into (or slowed to) a trot, which allowed each one of these lady predators to overtake you.

The first step toward holding yourself accountable for your appalling actions—a close friend of your wife? really?—is doing away with the passive voice. Don’t ask yourself, “How’d that happen?!?” as if the universe were conspiring against you somehow. You weren’t hit by a pussy meteor every time you left the house. You did these things. You had these affairs. You. Zooming out: If all it takes for some rando to get her hands on your otherwise committed cock is to DM you on Instagram, you have no business making monogamous commitments.

If you’d sought out a partner who wanted an open relationship—a wide-open one—you could have had concurrent, committed, non-

34 april 27, 2018 washingtoncitypaper.com

exclusive relationships and avoided being “a liar, a cheat, a user,” etc.

Seeing as you’re a reader, ASSHOLE, I suspect you knew an honest open relationship was an option—that ethical non-monogamy was an option—but you didn’t pursue that.

And why not? Maybe because you don’t want to be with a woman who is free to sit on other dicks. Or maybe the wrongness and the selfloathing—the whole bad-boy-on-the-rack routine—turn you on. Or maybe you’re the wrong kind of sadist: the un-self-aware emotional sadist. You say you love your wife, but you also say she’d be crushed—destroyed—if she discovered what you’ve been doing. Be honest, ASSHOLE, just this once: Is the destruction of your wife a bug or is it a feature? I suspect the latter. Because cheating on this scale isn’t about succumbing to temptation or reacting to neglect. It’s about the annihilation of your partner—a (hopefully) subconscious desire to punish and destroy someone, anyone, fool enough to love you.

The tragedy is how unnecessary your choices have been. There are women out there who aren’t interested in monogamy, there are female cuckolds out there (cuckqueans) who want cheating husbands, and there are masochistic women (and men) out there who get off on the thought of being with a person who would like to crush them. So long as those desires are consciously eroticized, fully compartmentalized, and safely expressed, you could have done everything you wanted, ASSHOLE, without harming anyone.

So what do you do now?

It seems like you want out, and your wife definitely deserves better, so cop to one affair, since copping to all of them would crush her— or so you think. People are often way more resilient than we give them credit for, and convincing ourselves that our partners can’t handle the truth is often a convenient justification for lying to them. But on the off chance it would crush your wife to be told everything, just tell her about Ms. Instagram. That should be enough.

—Dan Savage P.S. Get your ass into therapy, ASSHOLE. I’m a 42-year-old gay man. I’ve been with my husband for 21 years. We met in college and, except for a six-month break, we’ve been together ever since. I made an open relationship a requirement at the start. While my husband had jealousy and trust issues, he hooked up with others regularly.

After a few tense years, we started couples therapy. During therapy, my husband revealed that he was never in favor of the openness. After trying some new arrangements—only together, only at sex parties, DADT—he realized he wasn’t comfortable with any situation. He told our therapist

that every time I hooked up with someone, he was retraumatized because it reminded him of the time I broke up with him for six months 20 years ago. I agreed to a monogamous relationship, and I’ve gone a year without hooking up with anyone else. He seemed genuinely relieved and said he felt more secure. But almost immediately, he began talking about how he wanted to hook up with others. I’m at a loss. I feel tremendous guilt for even thinking about splitting up, so I keep hoping we’ll stumble on the thing that will work for us. I don’t know what to say when he says I should be monogamous to him while he gets to hook up with others.

He says this would be best, since my hooking up triggers him. We are at an impasse. It sucks that we could break up over this.

—Gay Marriage Having Crisis

I’ve written about a few gay couples—and a few straight ones—where one half gets to hook up with others while the other half doesn’t. But they were cuckold couples, GMHC, and the half who didn’t “get to” hook up with others didn’t want to hook up with others. The cuck half of a cuckold couple gets off on their partner “cheating” on them. While people outside the relationship might perceive that as unfair—one gets to cheat, the other doesn’t—what’s more ideal than both halves of a couple getting just what they want?

But if an eroticized power imbalance— an honestly erotized one—doesn’t turn you on, the creepily manipulative arrangement your husband is proposing certainly isn’t going to work.

Which means it’s both ultimatum and bluff-calling time. So long as your husband thinks he can dictate terms by pointing to his triggers and his trauma, GMHC, he has every incentive to continue being triggered and traumatized. So with your couples therapist there to mediate, tell him your marriage is either open or closed. You’re not interested in being his cuckold and he can’t point to his trauma to force you into that role. You’re a handsome couple—thanks for enclosing the lovely picture (sometimes it’s nice to see the face of the person I’m responding to!)— with a long history together, and here’s hoping things work out. But if they don’t, GMHC, neither of you is going to have a problem finding a new partner. He can get himself a guy who likes being dictated to, if that’s really what he wants. And you can find a guy who wants an open and egalitarian relationship, which is what you deserve.

—DS P.S. If your therapist is taking your husband’s side in this, GMHC, get a new therapist.

Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net.

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