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COVER STORY: TAKING STOCK

10 Despite D.C.’s population boom, its housing stock remains limited.

DISTRICT LINE 4 Loose Lips: Alleged malfeasance in the bidding war to overhaul D.C.’s unemployment insurance tax system 6 Cop on a Train: The fight to hold Metro Transit Police accountable for recent violent altercations

SPORTS 8 Young Professionals: The Wizards’ youthful newbies look for guidance from veteran players.

ARTS 16 Brave Art: Artist Nekisha Durrett wants to change the way people look at public spaces.

18 Child Care: A conversation with children’s book author Christine Platt 20 Curtain Calls: Jones on Signature Theatre’s A Chorus Line and Thal on Scena Theatre’s Sea 21 Short Subjects: Zilberman on The Report

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EDITOR: ALEXA MILLS MANAGING EDITOR: CAROLINE JONES ARTS EDITOR: KAYLA RANDALL FOOD EDITOR: LAURA HAYES SPORTS EDITOR: KELYN SOONG LOOSE LIPS REPORTER: MITCH RYALS CITY DESK REPORTER: AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ CITY LIGHTS EDITOR: EMMA SARAPPO STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: DARROW MONTGOMERY MULTIMEDIA AND COPY EDITOR: WILL WARREN CREATIVE DIRECTOR: JULIA TERBROCK SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: ELIZABETH TUTEN DESIGN INTERN: MADDIE GOLDSTEIN EDITORIAL INTERN: KENNEDY WHITBY CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: MICHON BOSTON, KRISTON CAPPS, CHAD CLARK, MATT COHEN, RACHEL M. COHEN, RILEY CROGHAN, JEFFRY CUDLIN, EDDIE DEAN, CUNEYT DIL, TIM EBNER, CASEY EMBERT, JONATHAN L. FISCHER, NOAH GITTELL, SRIRAM GOPAL, HAMIL R. HARRIS, LAURA IRENE, LOUIS JACOBSON, JOSHUA KAPLAN, CHRIS KELLY, AMAN KIDWAI, STEVE KIVIAT, CHRIS KLIMEK, PRIYA KONINGS, NEVIN MARTELL, KEITH MATHIAS, BRIAN MCENTEE, CANDACE Y.A. MONTAGUE, BRIAN MURPHY, NENET, TRICIA OLSZEWSKI, EVE OTTENBERG, MIKE PAARLBERG, PAT PADUA, JUSTIN PETERS, REBECCA J. RITZEL, ABID SHAH, TOM SHERWOOD, CHRISTINA STURDIVANT SANI, MATT TERL, IAN THAL, SIDNEY THOMAS, HAYWOOD TURNIPSEED JR., JOE WARMINSKY, ALONA WARTOFSKY, JUSTIN WEBER, MICHAEL J. WEST, DIANA MICHELE YAP, ALAN ZILBERMAN

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DISTRICTLINE LOOSE LIPS

Contractual Obfuscation A leaked document raises questions about a multi-million dollar contract to upgrade D.C.’s unemployment insurance tax system.

Washington Post reported.

On the other side you have Darryl Wiggins, who owns the local company that is subcontracting with Sagitec on the deal. Wiggins and his company, DigiDoc (also known as Document Managers), stood to benefit from an alleged contract-steering scandal that got the chief operating officer for the Department of Health Care Finance fired in 2012. Wiggins was also a political advisor to former Mayor Adrian Fenty and chaired Ward 4 Council campaigns for Bowser and her successor, current Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd.

He is currently the chairperson for Todd’s 2020 re-election campaign.

Wiggins says he’s worked with Sagitec since 2014 on unemployment tax systems in multiple states.

According to the leaked document, Sagitec has experience establishing unemployment tax systems in Maryland, West Virginia, and South Carolina. The company also won the contract to provide the District’s new Paid Family Leave tax system earlier this year.

Because the contract is tied up in pending litigation, neither District government officials, nor representatives for CODICE would speak with LL on the record. David Minkkinen, a senior partner at Sagitec, also declined to comment. A hearing on the protest has not been scheduled.

By Mitch Ryals

Darrow Montgomery/File

In OctOber, D.c. chief contracting officer Derrick White emailed Dash Kiridena, the CEO of a local IT company, CODICE, with some bad news.

Kiridena’s bid for a $13 million dollar contract to modernize the District’s unemployment insurance tax system was rejected. White wrote in the Oct. 9 email that although Kiridena’s proposal was impressive, “the contract has been awarded to the highest ranked offeror, Sagitec Solutions, LLC.” But an internal government document leaked to LL says otherwise.

The 30-page document, dated April 30, 2019, lists the six companies that bid on the contract to modernize D.C.’s unemployment insurance tax system and spells out their proposals. The document then ranks the bidders based on technical criteria, pricing, and any extra points from D.C.’s Certified Business Enterprise program, which is designed to tip the scales in favor of local, minority-owned businesses.

Kiridena’s company, a joint venture with the Illinois-based On Point Technology, LLC, is ranked number one overall due to a boost from its CBE preference points, according to the leaked document. But Sagitec ranked higher in terms of its technical evaluation.

Now, Kiridena is crying foul. On Oct. 24 he filed a protest with the Contract Appeals Board, claiming that the Office of Contracting and Procurement violated contracting law and has ignored his requests for a required debrief after the agency notified him that Sagitec won the contract.

The leaked document and the protest, which has stopped Sagitec’s preliminary work on the contract, highlights some criticism of the CBE program, where proposals from local

companies can be given greater weight than those from potentially more qualified firms.

The protest also pits two companies with ties to the District government against each other. On one side you have Thomas Luparello, the CEO of On Point Technology, Kiridena’s partner in the joint venture. Luparello was the executive director of D.C.’s Department of Employment Services, the agency offering the contract, in former Mayor Vince

4 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Gray’s administration.

Thorn Pozen, a lobbyist who has appeared in this column for his affiliation with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s controversial FreshPAC, is one of the lawyers representing CODICE in the protest. Pozen also lobbied the Council on behalf of Emmanuel Bailey, whose small company won a big piece of the District’s $215 million lottery and sports betting contract despite apparently having no employees, the

nOw rewInD tO May 28, 2019, when OCP notified Kiridena that White would be replacing the original contract officer, Monica Hariri. (Hariri is listed as the contracting officer on the leaked April 30 document, and according to LL’s sources, no longer works for OCP. She declined to comment.)

In his protest Kiridena says Hariri’s departure is concerning.

“In [Kiridena’s] prior dealings with CO

White on separate matters, CO White had expressed to [Kiridena], on more than one occasion, that CBEs were not equipped to handle the District’s technology needs,” the protest states. “These comments indicated to [Kiridena] that CO White was biased against [him] and likely to dismiss [his] proposal simply on the basis of [his] status as a CBE.” For nearly three months, Kiridena heard nothing from White, according to the protest.

Then on Monday, Aug. 19, he received an email from OCP requesting a webinar demonstration of his proposed tax system. The “system demonstration” is part of the normal procurement process in which Kiridena and the other bidders made their pitches to Hariri and a panel of technical experts. The second demonstration would allow White to evaluate the proposals for himself, according to the email.

However, attached to the Aug. 19 email was a more formal letter dated Aug. 16, the previous Friday. The Friday letter offered six time slots over three days from Aug. 21 through 23.

But by the time Kiridena received the email only two slots were left, according to the Monday email.

Following the demonstration, White told Kiridena that his intent was to negotiate with the highest ranked bidder, according to a recording of the meeting that LL listened to.

“I do not know who that will be, and I will not know until I finish [the] system demonstrations,” White said. “But I do want to thank you guys for doing a great presentation for us.”

In the protest, Kiridena says he gave the second demonstration to White only, and none of the technical panel was present.

“Although [Kiridena] is not aware of [White] being a technical expert himself, [White] did not, in any case, identify, to [Kiridena] any disqualifying deficiencies in [his] product or capabilities,” the protest states, adding that White did not ask any follow-up questions.

White and Minkkinen, of Sagitec, signed what’s known as a “letter contract” on Oct. 8 for an amount not to exceed $1 million. The contract allowed Sagitec to begin working immediately because the agreement does not exceed the $1 million threshold requiring the Council’s approval.

OCP notified Kiridena on Oct. 9 that Sagitec won the contract, and the next day he requested a debrief, which OCP policy says he is entitled to within five business days.

White briefly responded via email later that day: “Acknowledged.”

By Oct. 15, White still hadn’t booked a debrief, and Kiridena emailed him again. This time, he specifically asked for numeric rankings of all the bidders, a summary of his rationale for the award to Sagitec, and his own company’s weaknesses.

Again, White responded later that day: “I acknowledge your email.”

On Oct. 17, with still no debrief on the books, and the five-day deadline approaching, Kiridena emailed White again. White quickly replied: “I am in the process of scheduling all debriefs. I will send you an [sic] calendar invite when I’m ready to conduct a debrief for you.”

Four weeks later, Kiridena is still waiting. CP

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DISTRICTLINE

Cop on a Train

Lawmakers and residents brainstorm ways to bring more accountability and transparency to Metro Transit Police, which largely evades public oversight.

Melissa laws still does not know exactly what happened to her 13-year-old son on June 22, even though the incident went viral on social media. Metro Transit Police Officer Jonathan Costanzo tased Tapiwa Musonza, an unarmed black man who intervened when transit police detained Laws’ son. What led up to the police interaction that another Metro rider captured on her phone for 1 minute and 45 seconds and what followed largely remain a mystery to Laws.

“I didn’t understand why my child was handcuffed,” said Laws during a Council oversight roundtable on Metro Transit Police Department’s practices and its effect on communities of color. “There hasn’t been any notice or information as to what actually happened. I know why Mr. Musonza was tased, because he was that body of refuge for my son.”

At-Large Councilmember Robert White, who oversaw the joint-committee hearing on Tuesday, asked Laws if she heard anything from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority since the incident. She replied, “I have not.” She doesn’t even know if charges are pending. Yaida Ford, Musonza’s attorney, tells City Desk via email that Costanzo is still working for WMATA; meanwhile, Musonza can no longer work and is scarred by the tasing.

“I learned today, they have no accountability,” said Laws.

The takeaway from Tuesday’s hearing: Transit police has meager public oversight.

Unlike Metropolitan Police Department, WMATA has immunity from most lawsuits, operates without a civilian complaint board, and provides limited public records. Experts that testified cited the structure of the interstate compact between D.C., Maryland, and Virginia as the reason why. With these constraints, lawmakers and public witnesses discussed ways to bring more accountability and transparency to WMATA. By the end of the four-hour hearing, it became clear there was minimal trust between transit police and the communities they are supposed to serve. However, there is an appetite, particularly within the Council, to work to restore trust.

WMATA had a chance to defend itself.

When given an opportunity to respond to cell phone videos and eyewitness accounts of alleged excessive force, Metro Transit Police Department Chief Ronald Pavlik said:

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Amanda Michelle Gomez

“Social media unfortunately sensationalizes things sometimes and doesn’t give a full perspective. But anytime we do see allegations, we take them very seriously and conduct an internal investigation or refer to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

Pavlik repeatedly said he was open to ideas floated during the hearing, but it seems unlikely he’d enact any without a legislative push from the Council, and WMATA doesn’t directly answer to the Council. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen asked Pavlik if he’d consider having transit police wear body cameras, as MPD officers do, and he said he’s “looked at them, there’s pros and cons.” When White asked about a civilian oversight board to investigate complaints as opposed to having internal affairs do so, Pavlik said he’s generally open to ideas that improve the way WMATA does business. Allen and White both expressed interest in creating something like MPD’s Office of Police Complaints for transit police. (Currently, WMATA averages 75 to 80 citizen complaints a year, but it’s unclear

6 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

whether residents know how to report incidents.)

Pavlik says his 500-plus officers receive at least 1,000 hours of basic training, including implicit bias and de-escalation. But when transit police are arresting someone, the protocol, no matter which jurisdiction, is to “meet force with force.”

Allen called attention to fare evasion, which can lead to excessive force. For example, transit police injured Diamond Rust by tackling her down for evading bus fare. As a result of this and other similar situations, the Council decriminalized fare evasion beginning in 2019, making it a civil crime punishable by a $50 fine. Allen used his time to set the record straight: Decriminalizing fare evasion does not mean more people are piggy-backing or tailgating, as WMATA suggested during last week’s board meeting on its budget proposal. WMATA says it will lose $40 million to fare evasion this year, but Pavlik acknowledged WMATA’s projection includes the rides of 15,000 students who haven’t received their Kids Ride Free cards.

“We have clearly shown through a year’s worth of data that attempting to enforce our way through fare evasion is a failed strategy and will not work. I find it frustrating and baffling that we do not have a greater sense of urgency from WMATA around how to work on designs that can decrease or eliminate fare evasion,” Allen told Pavlik. Allen says he’s looking into legislation to make Metro more affordable for lower income residents, but wouldn’t elaborate beyond that. (Apparently, At-large Councilmember Anita Bonds is ready to do this too.)

“From a transparency standpoint, I’m certainly troubled that the type of things that we expect out of MPD when it comes to use of force, stop data, the outcomes—that’s not reported. There’s nobody who gets that information, not even the board, as best I can tell,” Allen tells City Desk. (During the hearing, Pavlik said WMATA captures name, race, and reason for a stop in what’s called a “stop contact card,” but that data wasn’t public facing. When asked why it isn’t publicly available like, say, crime data, Pavlik admitted he didn’t have a satisfactory answer.) “But I was heartened, I heard Chief Pavlik seemed to express a great openness to explore that,” Allen adds.

Emily Gunston, with Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, says the way to get more information is to amend the interstate compact, which is WMATA’s guiding document. So when the Council appoints new members to represent D.C. on the Metro board, they could prioritize candidates who make commitments to seeking information from transit police and auditing it. “[Pavlik] did not make any commitments of making more information public. A lot of this information—there’s no reason it shouldn’t be public. The policies are the easiest examples. He also said they do an annual force report, they have stop data. They could provide all of that to the public, they could provide analysis to the public,” Gunston tells City Desk. “These are all things major urban police departments do and they do it because they know in order to be effective, they have to work with the communities they serve.”

The backdrop to all of this is that black and brown residents don’t see transit police as being part of their own communities, something Pavlik conceded to and asked the Council for help with. Bennie Patterson, a retired Metro transit police officer, says white officers commonly referred to minority areas, such as the Anacostia Metro Station, as “the jungle.”

Given that systemic racism and classism play a role in police interactions with communities of color, D.C. resident Jay Brown suggested a so-called guardian angel program, where community members could ride Metro to provide security in addition to policing.

They’d serve as trained intervention specialists. The idea was supported by other public witnesses, including Laws.

“There are trust factors that are so deeply rooted when it comes to police. ... Just the mere sight of a uniform versus somebody who is consistent in their community that they can communicate with ... it just tends to bring down that energy,” said Brown. “We keep each other safe.”

CP

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Kelyn Soong

SPORTS BASKETBALL

Young Professionals The Wizards’ youth and lack of experience can account for some of the team’s early struggles.

By definition, isaiah thomas can’t be considered old. The All-Star NBA point guard is only 30. But in the Washington Wizards’ locker room, he’s been alive longer than all but three of the 17 players on the team’s roster this season.

As of the opening night of the season, the Wizards had an average age of 26, while the NBA average is 26.18, according to the annual NBA roster survey. Their most recent starting lineup consisted of Thomas, Bradley Beal, and three players 22 or younger: Thomas Bryant, Troy Brown Jr., and rookie Rui Hachimura.

Youth and inexperience can account for some of the team’s early struggles. Players have been thrust into unfamiliar circumstances, and the Wizards entered its Nov. 13 matchup against the league-leading but similarly youthful Boston Celtics with a 2-6 record, second to last in the Eastern Conference.

“It’s a lot of teaching,” Thomas says. “Guys haven’t played meaningful minutes in the NBA, a lot of these guys. You know, they got to experience it themselves, but we also got to teach. The veteran guys got to walk these guys through different situations, but at the same time, they’re getting opportunities to be able to figure out those situations. I mean, it’s tough, but it’s a challenge, and I accept all challenges.”

Young players like Brown and Hachimura have struggled with consistency in their play.

While Hachimura has exceeded some expectations with solid offensive performances and averages 13.6 points per game, he went scoreless against the Indiana Pacers on Nov. 6. Wizards coach Scott Brooks recently criticized Bryant’s shot selection, saying he needs to go to the basket and catch in the paint more. On Oct. 23, Brooks inserted guard Isaac Bonga into the starting lineup due to injuries to CJ Miles and Brown.

When those players returned, Brooks replaced Bonga, who turned 20 earlier this month, with Brown, another 20-year-old.

Brown, a second year player with the Wizards, split his time with the team’s G League affiliate, the Capital City Go-Go, last season.

During the team’s 113-110 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 8, Brown finished with three points, six rebounds, one assist and commit-

Kelyn Soong

By Kelyn Soong

Troy Brown Jr. and Thomas Bryant ted three turnovers, while Bonga, who only played 120 total minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers last season, did not enter the game.

“It’s definitely [a] challenging situation no matter who you’re coaching, veterans, younger guys,” Brooks says. “I think when you coach a younger group or a group that hasn’t had a lot of NBA experience, you have to slow it down a little bit, be patient and let them play through the mistakes instead of reacting with every mistake. There are plenty of times I’d like to react, but I know longterm that’s not the best case.”

With new general manager Tommy Sheppard in place ahead of the season, the Wizards reshaped their roster to reflect a restart to the franchise. Team owner Ted Leonsis announced the creation of Monumental Basketball in July and surrounded Sheppard with a number of organizational hires from the sports industry to bolster four teams under Monumental Sports & Entertainment: the Wizards, Mystics, Go-Go, and Wizards District Gaming.

Sheppard dumped veterans like Trevor Ariza, Jeff Green, and Tomas Satoransky, and brought in a young core that includes rookies Admiral Schofield and Justin Robinson, and second-year player Moritz Wagner, all of whom are 22.

Beal, a two-time All-Star and the Wizards’ undisputed leader, is only 26. For comparison, the franchises with an average age over 28— the Houston Rockets, Lakers, and Milwaukee

8 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Bucks—sit near the tops of their conferences.

The Celtics, on the other hand, have an average age of just 25.09, but their front office and coaching staff are considered to be among the best in the league.

It may feel like a rebuilding period for the Wizards, but the players on the team don’t like using that term. Thomas believes that the Eastern Conference is “wide open, other than a few teams” and that the Wizards can “sneak up on people.”

“I don’t want to talk about rebuilding,” says Wagner, a second-year NBA player from Germany. “I’m not going to do that. I think we have one of the best players in the league here [in Beal]. We owe it to him to compete every night. Same with IT. I think we have vets on this team that want to win, and I think Coach Brooks does a good job, everyone in this room, of finding the right balance between learning and developing players, but also putting us in a position to compete. It’s on us to do that, and I’m not ever going to talk about rebuilding.”

Ish Smith, the third-oldest player on the team at 31, sees positives of having younger players in the locker room. He agrees with Brooks and Thomas that a team with inexperience requires more patience, but believes the Wizards can benefit from an abundance of youth.

“First and foremost, it’s because everybody wants to play fast,” Smith says. “When you got a young team, you can bring that energy, you

The Washington Spirit will have three home fields next year. washingtoncitypaper.com/sports

can bring that juice, and they do that everyday to practice, everyday when we’re playing.”

“Everybody’s really ambitious,” adds Brown. “Everybody really wants to come out and prove themselves. Everybody’s really hungry. Especially when you’re young, you’re trying to make a name for yourself.”

When Smith was a rookie for the Rockets in 2010, he joined a team that included Yao Ming, Shane Battier, Brad Miller, and Kevin Martin. The veteran presence made life easier for him and fellow rookie Patrick Patterson, Smith says.

But when asked specifically what young players struggle with, Smith, like a savvy veteran, doesn’t mention specific names, but instead points to the overall lack of NBA experience. The Wizards, he believes, are also a mature group for their age. Brown was lauded for his basketball IQ before he entered the league, and Hachimura, who constantly has a trail of Japanese media following his every move, is soft-spoken and eager to learn.

“It’s just little things that you see out there,” says Smith. “It could be defensively on a screen and roll, communicating. Let’s say I’m in a position where I can like tell one of the guys [to] get low, I’ll stay high, just communicating why you’re out there ... When you’re in the game and you see it, and you’ve been in the league 10 years, some guys 12 years, some guys seven, eight years, you can see the play before it happens, so you can communicate it before it develops.”

Plus, having them around has off-the-court advantages.

“They keep you young,” Smith says. “You can live vicariously through them, like how they joke and clown, and how they see things.

It’s funny because you would be like, man, when I was your age, I didn’t think like that.”

But Thomas, who is in his first year with the Wizards, doesn’t see much of an advantage to having a young team besides their energy. Players are going to have “learning points throughout the season” and that requires more teaching, he says.

Thomas went from being the last pick in the 2011 NBA Draft to an All-Star and MVP candidate with the Celtics. Whenever a young player asks about his journey, he won’t hesitate to discuss it. During practice, Thomas guides them through different scenarios and carries himself on the court with an air of confidence that comes with being in the league for nearly a decade.

“Everybody’s been a young guy in this league and you don’t know it all. Things are coming so fast, it’s the best players in the world every night,” Thomas says. “It’s tough, but it’s a lot of teaching for the young guys. You have to learn to be patient and know they’re not going to understand it right now. It’s going to take time.”

CP

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washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 9

TAKING STOCK D.C. is rapidly gentrifying and the fate of its affordable housing hangs in the balance.

BY

10 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Rachel M. Cohen

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

Darrow Montgomery

For D.C., the problem is major and it is imminent: How can the city avoid the fate of San Francisco, where housing has grown so costly that barely anyone can afford to live in it?

Though D.C. has not reached the notoriety of SF, where everyone from custodial staff to high-earning tech developers feel priced out, it’s already one of the most expensive cities in the country. And leaders know things could get much worse—if nothing changes.

More than 700,000 people live in the District, an increase of more than 100,000 since 2010. Demographers expect population growth to continue in D.C. through 2045, and already new jobs have been outpacing new housing.

The flood of new residents moving in has added intense pressure on the people who hope to stay. Renters across the income spectrum are paying more of their (largely stagnant) wages toward housing costs, with average rents for market-rate one-bedrooms in D.C. reaching nearly $2,000 per month in 2018, and $2,500 for two-bedrooms. According to Apartment List, a real estate and research site, almost half of D.C. renters spent more than a third of their incomes on housing last year, and nearly a quarter spent at least half.

While D.C. rents may not yet mirror those in the Bay Area, the District did earn its own dubious housing superlative this year. Three national studies published in 2019 came to the same conclusion: that D.C. leads the nation when it comes to neighborhood gentrification and displacement of low-income residents. Many of these residents are being pushed out to the suburbs, partly due to the city’s uniquely high-earning renter population. One report published earlier this year found that 13.9 percent of D.C. renters earn over $150,000, and with Amazon’s new headquarters slated to open in Crystal City, that figure could surely rise.

City leaders say they grasp the stakes, are ready to act, and are committed to expanding affordable housing throughout the District. But some of the poorest residents, and those who have lived in the city for decades, are skeptical that the government’s money will ultimately be spent for their benefit instead of getting lost in the dense network of developers, consultants, and public agencies overseeing housing in D.C. Will these policy discussions really result in quality housing for low-income Washingtonians? Who stands to win and lose in the process? housing is a deeply controversial issue, but there’s at least one idea around which city leaders have newly forged a consensus: Increasing the supply of housing in D.C. is essential to relieving cost pressure in the housing market. Or, flipped around, that in the absence of more housing, the city will grow even more unaffordable.

The Urban Institute, a national think tank, published a study in early September estimating that the Washington metropolitan region needs to produce 374,000 new housing units by 2030 to accommodate projected population growth.

A week later, the board of the Metropolitan

Washington Council of Governments, which represents 24 jurisdictions in the D.C. area, passed a non-binding resolution calling for at least 320,000 new housing units in the region by 2030, with 75 percent of that housing targeted to low- and middle-income families.

The city’s plans, so far, are more modest.

In May, Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an order directing city agencies to study how D.C. can create 36,000 new housing units by 2025, with at least 12,000 of those designated “affordable.”

Then last month, after nearly three years of negotiations, the Council voted unanimously to approve the “framework element” to the Comprehensive Plan—a city document that’ll chart the next two decades of growth and development in D.C. The “framework element” is the first of 25 chapters, and it sets the tone and priorities for the rest of the plan.

It’s been 13 years since D.C.’s Comprehensive Plan was last rewritten, and the biggest changes between then and now, experts say, is new language emphasizing the need for more housing and development in all parts of the city, as well as language officials hope will make it harder to block new developments in court.

A week after the Council took its vote, at a press conference held at ElectriCityBikes in Tenleytown, Bowser and her Office of Planning Director Andrew Trueblood released two new reports—draft proposals for the remaining 24 chapters of the Comprehensive Plan, and neighborhood targets for how the city should distribute 12,000 new affordable units by 2025.

There are roughly 52,000 “dedicated affordable” units in D.C. today, with the majority concentrated in Wards 7 and 8, the poorest parts of the city. The mayor’s plan notably calls for building many more subsidized units in more affluent neighborhoods, like Rock Creek West and Capitol Hill, which have just 470 and 1,820 affordable units respectively.

This recommendation is reinforced by a separate planning process, conducted by the city, to certify that it is in compliance with federal civil rights law. Released in late September, the city’s new draft Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice includes findings such as: Many historically black D.C. neighborhoods have become increasingly white, and zoning and land costs hinder affordable housing in Wards 2 and 3. (Ward 3 was once home to a thriving middle class black community—one that fought for decades for its right to stay.)

“We have all these conversations about cost-pressures, but a fair housing lens is so rarely applied,” says Megan Haberle, the deputy director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, which the city hired to conduct the analysis along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The mayor’s housing proposals, Trueblood emphasized at the October press conference, were informed by the first-ever housing survey recently administered the Office of Planning and the Department of Housing and Community Development. More than three

quarters of the 2,760 respondents said the current distribution of D.C. subsidized housing—with the majority packed east of the Anacostia River—was unfair.

Public review of the mayor’s proposals is ongoing between now and Dec. 20, with ANC resolutions due Jan. 31. The Bowser administration will then prepare its legislative package to introduce by March, with the hope that

voted to end single-family zoning throughout their city, and instead allow residential structures with up to three units to be built in every neighborhood. The state of Oregon followed suit this past summer, voting to allow duplexes to be built in any single-family zoned neighborhood in any city with more than 10,000 people.

Alex Baca, a housing organizer with Great-

Councilmember Brianne Nadeau

Mayor Muriel Bowser

the Council approves a full Comprehensive Plan by the end of 2020.

Mostly oMitteD FroM Comp Plan conversations is the hot-button issue of zoning.

About 28 percent of the city’s land is zoned for residential use, and many advocates say easing up on zoning restrictions to allow for more kinds of development will be key to addressing housing affordability.

Nationally, housing policy has become increasingly focused on the role zoning plays in clamping down on housing supply. Many urbanists were thrilled when Minneapolis undertook major zoning reform last year.

In December, the Minneapolis city council

er Greater Washington—a local urban policy group that generally supports increased housing density—says “no one is ready to touch zoning right now” in D.C., but thinks probably in a year or so, once the Comprehensive Plan is finished, there will be more bandwidth to take up the issue. “The 2016 re-zoning process was very challenging,” she adds, referring to three years ago when the city made minor adjustments to its zoning code, like allowing more homeowners to rent out their garages and basements, and lowering the number of parking spots needed for new construction. (Baca is also a former City Paper assistant editor.)

At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds,

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 11

Activists rally to support rent control on Oct. 26 who chairs the Council’s housing committee, tells City Paper that she too expects zoning reform will be necessary to meet D.C.’s affordable housing goals. Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, also on the housing committee, agrees. “Our zoning code was drafted in 1920 and based on prohibitive covenants and redlining, we have a dark history of segregation and unfortunately the modern era has not rectified that,” she says.

“So what we have to do is legalize more diverse types of housing across the city … we got language on affordable housing, reducing segregation, and racial equity [in the Framework Element] so now we have to do the land-use changes that put our money where our mouth is.”

But some housing advocates are uncomfortable by all the buzz around making it easier to build more homes, and question how affordable these units will really be.

“When the mayor talks about affordable housing to push more density, we just don’t see how building more will actually benefit existing residents,” says Parisa Norouzi, executive director of Empower DC, a grassroots community organization. “If every time you

put multiple units in the place where before there was one unit, it actually drives the price up.” And does building more subsidized units in affluent neighborhoods, she asks, mean there will be less money for housing in other wards?

“The reality is many single-family zoned houses are in black communities with black homeowners, and they are now facing pressure of rising tax costs, even when they’ve paid off their home,” Norouzi says. “If you want to use a racial justice lens, then you need to do a full analysis, and there are parts of the city where ending single-family zoning will do nothing but increase gentrification and displacement.”

Nancy MacWood, a Ward 3 ANC commissioner and trustee on the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, a land-use group that generally backs tight D.C. zoning rules, also voices doubt that easing up on zoning would yield more affordable housing. “In Ward 7 where there is single family zoning, the land values are less than in the single family zoned areas in Ward 3, so a developer who buys a single family lot and redevelops it with multifamily housing is not going to be building af-

12 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

fordable housing,” she says. “The real estate industry in the District, they’re always looking for new places to build, and new ways to make profit.”

Jeff Utz, a D.C. Building Industry Association board member focused on the Comp Plan, pushed back on the idea that the real estate industry is narrowly focused on its bottom line. “There is certainly no desire or focus on pushing people out, and that’s a sensitivity developers have as well, frankly,” he says. “Developers can be an easy punching bag and painted as a monolithic concept, but they live here and work here, on the same streets that are being developed. They are bought in on making sure that the city works and thrives for diverse communities.”

Amidst All this housing affordability discussion, a new citywide campaign just launched in October, dedicated to expanding and strengthening rent control.

In D.C., landlords with units covered by rent control can only raise rent once a year, and the rent can only increase by two percent plus the inflation rate. (Seniors and people with disabilities can apply for a less-

er increase.) There is no official mechanism tracking how many units are still covered by rent control, though experts suspect the number hovers somewhere between 70,000 and 90,000. The Urban Institute estimates that between 1985 and 2011, due to redevelopment and loopholes in the statutes, the District lost approximately 50,000 units of rentcontrolled housing.

D.C. rent control laws are set to lapse on Dec. 31, 2020, and councilmembers have already pledged to pass something before then, extending the program for an additional 10 years. The new Reclaim Rent Control campaign is aiming to use the Council’s upcoming rent control reauthorization to strengthen and expand its protections.

The campaign is driven by a coalition of over 30 local organizations, including housing and faith-based groups, and unions like the Washington Teachers’ Union, UNITE HERE, and SEIU. “Part of our theory of change is you need to unite the left and progressive interest groups and grassroots planning group to get this thing passed,” says Benjy Cannon, a UNITE HERE Local 25 spokesperson. He said coalition members

Councilmember Anita Bonds

Brookland Manor plan on “confronting landlords head on.”

Just like zoning reformers in D.C. have been mobilized recently by actions in Minneapolis and Oregon, rent control advocates point to new victories in New York and California, where housing advocates successfully pressured lawmakers to strengthen tenant protections.

On Oct. 26, the coalition held a launch rally at Lamont Park in Mount Pleasant, turning out roughly 300 people. This week dozens of coalition members poured into the Wilson Building to testify in support of strengthening the laws.

“I did meet some members of the campaign, and they do have a very ambitious agenda, and I think some of what they are proposing can be realized, I really do, and I plan on working with them,” says Council-

member Bonds. “But I think at the same time we have to be realists about just how far we can move the needle because it is about dollars and cents as it relates to a company having the authority to make money and [also] provide our residents safe, sanitary, and hopefully attractive living environments.”

Earlier this year Bonds formed a working group of housing stakeholders—including advocates, landlords, and attorneys—to look at voluntary reforms to rent control. It ended in a stalemate. “Both sides continue to be very far apart,” she acknowledges.

Many questions reMain about the mayor’s plan.

One is how leaders plan to prioritize the number of units versus the size. A study published this summer found a third of D.C.’s hous-

ing stock is considered family-sized, meaning it has at least three bedrooms, but most of those units are not affordable to lower-income families. The study was commissioned by the city amid protests over redeveloping Brookland Manor, a long-time affordable property in Northeast. Its owner wants to replace the property’s 535 large units with more than 1,750 luxury apartments, the majority of them being oneand two-bedroom.

“If someone says, ‘I can build you 50 affordable units, and they’re all one-bedroom, and someone else can do 30, and they’d be 3 and 4-bedroom, will the Bowser administration feel it has to go by unit count because they need to deliver on their 12,000 unit target?” asks Councilmember Nadeau.

It’s also not clear how exactly the city plans to overcome the “not in my backyard”-style political opposition that has derailed and killed so many housing projects in the past.

One strategy leaders are banking on is making it harder for anti-gentrification activists, as well as residents who want to block or control development in their neighborhoods, to use litigation to achieve their goals. Court challenges—one of the few ways people have fought against projects they worry could change a neighborhood for the worse—can delay construction for years and make an entire project much more expensive. Newly approved language in the Comprehensive Plan, leaders hope, will make it harder to stall future projects.

At the mayor’s press conference in October, an attendee asked Bowser if she’d be willing to go further, and support even more substantial changes to the legal standing of

activists and residents who might want to challenge new development. She hinted that she would.

“I’m discouraging any developer who has the opportunity to build more affordable housing to not be scared away,” Bowser replied. “We will use every tool at our disposal that will discourage that … we need these units.”

The mayor is also sounding an optimistic note with regards to dealing with potential community opposition to new development, especially new affordable housing. “I think that we have to put [projects] in front of people that they can embrace,” she said recently on the “The Politics Hour” of the Kojo Nnamdi Show. “That add housing, that are close to amenities, that are close to Metro, and that they think add value to their quality of life. I think frequently when we talk about these things they are so abstract that people may have a knee-jerk opposition. So we want to give folks great projects that they can support.”

Yet while the mayor’s plan has developed specific targets for how many new units of affordable housing should be distributed throughout the city, it does not offer real details of how the city plans to manage and maintain those properties, or where in those neighborhoods new housing should actually go.

“Should they say how they’re going to build the 36,000 units?” asks Baca of Greater Greater Washington. “Yeah, but they won’t, and I’m not going to die on that hill. Having the mayor say we need more housing does more than we can do with 10 years of GGWash blogging.” unanswered questions about what affordable housing will really look like in practice also remain.

“Affordable” can mean a lot of things, but D.C. has adopted a definition that many cities use: housing that costs less than 30 percent of a household’s income, for households earning up to 80 percent of the region’s median income. Federal guidelines consider anyone earning below that 80 percent cutoff to be “low-income.” Households earning less than 50 percent are considered “very low-income,” and households earning less than 30 percent are “extremely low-income.”

As of July a “low-income” family of four in the D.C. region was one that earned up to $97,050 annually.

While the city has so far steered clear of detailing how affordable the 12,000 affordable units will be, Richard Livingstone, the interim deputy chief of staff at the Department of Housing and Community Development, tells City Paper that “the intention is to create significant affordable housing” for those at the extremely low-income level. Doing so, he says, will come primarily through investing in programs like D.C.’s Local Rent Supplement Program, which offers residents vouchers to cover marketrate rent, and the Housing Production Trust Fund, which has produced over 10,000 affordable units in D.C. since 2001.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 13

But production from the trust fund has slowed in recent years, as construction costs and other expenses have gone up. Reports published over the last two years by D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson have also alleged leaders of the fund chronically mismanaged it and wasted tens of millions of dollars. And while the fund has been annually required to spend 40 percent of its resources on serving the city’s poorest residents, it met this target only once in the past five years, according to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.

Despite all these concerns, Councilmember Bonds says she wants to try increasing the budget for the Housing Production Trust Fund in the future. “I’m going to try to increase it to as close to $130 million, I think that would be helpful,” she tells City Paper.

“If we can increase it more to $150 or $200 million, wow, just think what we could do.”

Bowser also proposed increasing the housing trust fund to $130 million this past cycle.

While city leaders discuss committing new money and attention to affordable development, there is one type of subsidized housing that is getting extremely short shrift: public housing.

“Public housing is the only program that’s permanently affordable and permanently targets the lowest-income residents,” says Norouzi of Empower DC. Most new affordable housing in the District has targeted households earning 50 to 60 percent of the area median income, not 30.

The easiest explanation for why public housing gets less attention is that the federal government has disinvested in the program over the last few decades, leaving existing units nationwide to deteriorate. Last December, after conducting a multi-million dollar audit, the DC Housing Authority concluded that nearly a third of its public housing—2,500 units—demanded “extremely urgent” attention, and were nearly uninhabitable. Another 4,445 units were considered in “critical condition.”

In April, the Housing Authority’s director Tyrone Garrett said it would take $2.2 billion over the next 17 years to get the city’s public housing back into good shape. The Council budgeted $25 million for public housing rehab this year, but advocates say there’s many more ways to increase those investments in the future.

“In the past decade, D.C. has found funding for costly but important priorities such as WMATA and school modernization,” says Doni Crawford, a housing policy analyst at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. “The District has even found hundreds of millions for sports stadiums, so why not public housing?” She suggests scaling back development tax breaks, tapping into the city’s surplus, and using general obligation municipal bonds as some possible sources of revenue.

In late August, the Housing Authority published a draft “Transformation Plan” to address the future of city public housing, and accepted public comment on its plan through Sept. 27. Much of the Housing Au-

thority’s vision involves transitioning units into the private sector through the federal government’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, which converts public housing into Section 8 subsidized rentals, with affordability contracts that are supposed to renew in perpetuity. Housing advocates worry tenants may lose many of their rights through RAD conversions, and a coalition of eight advocacy groups, including Empower DC, Legal Aid Society, and Bread for the City submitted jointcomments to this effect. The draft plan, they wrote, is “virtually silent on the rights of residents [to return and once they are newly developed properties], the impacts of displacement, the very real challenges of renting with a voucher, or the years of harm endured by residents living in slum conditions.”

Peter Tatian, the Research Director of the Urban–Greater DC initiative at the Urban Institute, emphasized that not all projects with expiring subsidies are at risk of being lost as affordable housing, because in some cases the subsidies just renew. Nonetheless, Tatian helps maintain a database of subsidized housing that flags which properties are particularly vulnerable to being lost.

One way the city hopes to preserve affordable housing is by funding communitybased organizations that work with tenants.

These groups help low-income residents take advantage of city programs like the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which entitles tenants to buy the property where they reside if their landlord wants to sell.

Councilmember Nadeau thinks political action is key to preserving existing housing.

Greenleaf Gardens, DC Public Housing The Office of Planning tells City Paper, “public housing is a critical part of the District’s housing ecosystem” and says it is working with the Housing Authority and other agencies “to refine, improve, and implement their [Transformation] plan.” in addition to producing more housing, funding new affordable units, and opening up land for denser construction, leaders say a key element of maintaining affordability in the District is preserving affordable units that already exist. But between 2006 and 2014, the city lost at least 1,000 units of subsidized housing, and another 4,700 dedicated affordable units have subsidies set to expire by 2025.

14 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

“How do you preserve the units that have expiring subsidies?” she asks. “You do that by having an army of people out in communities who are talking to tenants about what that means and getting them organized so they can fight to preserve their affordability.”

In 2017, the city also established a $10 million Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, to leverage private dollars to help maintain, acquire, and rehabilitate existing affordable units. According to LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), a community development financial institution which helps manage the fund, the fund has already helped over 1,000 residents stay in their homes. While the Council almost zeroed out the preservation fund’s budget this

year, lawmakers ultimately approved $11.8 million for it.

Still, it’s hard not to wonder if the investments are large enough, the long-term vision bold enough, or even whether the city has the basic capacity necessary to meet its goals. City Paper has found, time and again, across several different government affordable housing programs, properties in desperate conditions. Many tenants deal with things like insect infestations, doors that don’t lock, debilitating asthma that is, at least in part, attributable to their housing, and sewage bubbling up in their tubs.

And planning officials seem relatively resigned to the fact that some affordable market-rate units currently available to residents just won’t be around in the future.

Older market-rate units that have lower rents without government subsidy are known as “naturally occurring” affordable housing. This subset of D.C. housing has been shrinking: According to the Office of Planning, there were 18,300 fewer “naturally occurring” affordable units available to lower-income families in 2017 than there were in 2006.

“Dedicated affordable” units, meaning subsidized housing for those earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, make up about 16 percent of D.C.’s housing stock. Add the “naturally occurring” affordable units to the mix, and you have roughly 21 percent of all housing in D.C. But in its recently released Housing Equity Report, the Office of Planning noted that the loss of 18,300 “naturally occurring” affordable units suggests that over the next decade or two the remaining supply will no longer be affordable to low-income households. The city’s solution is to ensure that a third of its new housing production will be affordable, so that D.C. can make up for this loss. In other words, three decades from now city planners envision there will be roughly the same percentage of non-rent controlled dedicated affordable units in the city as there is now—21 percent.

If D.C. loses some of its existing subsidized units between now and 2025, will the city then adjust its housing production goals? Would a loss of 2,000 affordable units mean the city would commit to producing 14,000 new ones in a half-decade instead?

For now the city is saying yes, the 12,000 target is a net goal. “Lost units [would] increase the number of new affordable units that must be created,” Livingstone tells City Paper.

Marian Siegel, executive director of Housing Counseling Services, one of the community-based groups that works with residents who are fighting to protect their housing, says that while the city is making some efforts to ensure people who have lived here can stay, it’s not enough.

“The city has tremendous resources and has chosen to use many of those resources to engage new residents in feeling comfortable,” she says. “In general it’s a progressive city, but it often loses sight of how people are living.”

CP

Chandrika Tandon presents

Shivoham—The Quest

A Holiday Pops!

For one special night only, audiences will be treated to the world premiere of Chandrika Tandon’s Shivoham—The Quest. The Grammy®-nominated artist, business leader, and humanitarian describes the work as a musical expression of her 20-year search for the light. Featuring world-class instrumentalists and choirs, Shivoham weaves together a universal harmony of ancient Sanskrit mantras and English prayers, western modes, Indian ragas, African and Spanish styles, jazz, Gregorian chants, and personal stories.

November 22 at 7 p.m.

Eisenhower Theater Kennedy-Center.org (202) 467-4600

Groups call (202) 416-8400 For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540

with Leslie Odom, Jr. Our annual tradition, complete with Santa, the joyful voices of The Choral Arts Society of Washington, and even “snow!” Warm your spirit with fresh takes on comforting classics and sing-along favorites in the festively decorated Concert Hall. This year, we welcome Leslie Odom, Jr., whose remarkable talents continue to inspire audiences across the globe, from his Tony®-winning role in Hamilton to singing “America the Beautiful” at the 2018 Super Bowl™, as well as his new album Mr..

December 13 & 14 | Concert Hall Kennedy-Center.org (202) 467-4600

Groups call (202) 416-8400 For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540

AARP is the Presenting Sponsor of the NSO Pops Season.

Chandrika Tandon presents Shivoham—The Quest is made possible by the Discover India Initiatives.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 15

Gabi Mendick

CPARTS

Brave Art

“Up ’til Now” in the career of local artist Nekisha Durrett

By Jennifer Anne Mitchell

Courtesy of Nekisha Durrett and DC Public Library Nekisha Durrett

D.C. artist Nekisha Durrett has transformed hemlock wood into public artwork. Her sculpture “Up ’til Now” stands over the Connecticut Avenue Overlook park, just south of Dupont Circle, at 1365 Connecticut Ave. NW. A peephole on the front of the sculpture invites viewers to look in to see a diagram of a landscape that calls to mind what D.C. looked like before colonial times. The framework is a nod to the District’s Victorian row houses.

The project was developed with support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as part of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District-produced Layers + Lines exhibition.

Durrett created this piece specifically for the overlook, and integrated elements of the city’s past and present, including hemlock trees. According to a plant guide developed by the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, indigenous peoples once used hemlock trees, known for their medicinal properties, to treat a variety of ailments. Hemlock trees have recently been observed in the mid-Atlantic region on iNaturalist, a nature app that records scientific data and helps users identify plants and animals by connecting them with more than 750,000 scientists and naturalists.

“I think about the ways in which the land had served indigenous people and in particular indigenous peoples who may have populated the area where D.C. is now,” Durrett says. “And how the marshes and the thickets and what people like to call “the swamp” was actually a place of resource and nourishment for people.”

Themes of history and visibility come up often in Durrett’s work, which she traces partly from her personal experiences. “I think that as a person of color, as a queer person, as a woman, I am always, I am hyper-aware of how people perceive me,” she says.

Durrett creates large-scale installations and public art—“Up ’til Now” measures 12 feet high. “The scale of my work,” she notes, “is like this attempt to be seen.”

Her artwork is getting attention. She is one of 46 artists chosen as a finalist for the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (which received 2,600 submissions) and is creating a permanent in-

“I Love You Miss Celie”

16 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

stallation for the newly renovated Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Her work can now be seen in a myriad of local exhibitions: The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery to Aug. 30, 2020, Dialogues at STABLE to March 8, 2020, and Layers + Lines at the Golden Triangle’s Connecticut Avenue Overlook to March 2020.

And that’s just within the last year. Durrett has been awarded multiple grants from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and was an artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center in 2016.

Durrett grew up outside of D.C. in Upper Marlboro. As the daughter of two native Washingtonians, she frequently visited the city to see extended family and attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. She drew contrasts between city life and her life in Maryland.

“I can see Ellington as a very black and a very queer space, and I think that is so powerful for a lot of young people to be in a space where you are seen,” Durrett says.

Duke Ellington’s ethos emphasizes educating the whole student and preparing them for careers in the arts through practical training.

Durrett recounts that an internship she had as a teenager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History had a great impact on her. “I think that’s sort of like where it start-

ArtReach GW changes lives east of the Anacostia River. washingtoncitypaper.com/arts ed,” she says. “Talking about what I love most about D.C., I love the museums.”

She later worked on large-scale graphic production at Smithsonian Exhibits, a branch of the Smithsonian that provides exhibit services like planning and design across the institution, as the art bank manager at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and in exhibit production at the National Portrait Gallery. She now teaches at Duke Ellington in the museum studies department.

“Sometimes you get a faculty member that kind of ignites a new energy,” says Duke Ellington museum studies department chair Marta Reid Stewart of Durrett. “It’s very symbiotic.”

“When I’m there it doesn’t feel like I’m away from my practice, which is something that I’ve always wanted,” Durrett says. “I’ve always wanted for my life and my work to feel like it’s all kind of working together.”

STABLE, an art space in Eckington that officially opened to the public in October, is another home for Durrett. She is one of 32 artists in the collective, which was created as a place for artists to “find their people,” according to its director of advancement and operations Kali Wasenko.

Collaboration is at the heart of STABLE. Its artists bounce ideas off one another, and the art space engages with the local community while also planning to work with embassies to bring in international artists.

Its gallery will feature four to five exhibitions each year in partnership with local and international organizations, with public programming attached to each showcase.

The online multicultural arts platform The Agora Culture sponsors an emerging artist for a year at STABLE and will rotate a new artist annually.

“Having Nekisha here at STABLE is really great because I feel like she has embodied that [collaborative] spirit and brought to life some of the ideas that they intended when they were creating STABLE,” Wasenko says.

Tim Doud, one of STABLE’s founders, knows Durrett well: Their studios are next to one another.

“She’s not only a neighbor, she’s a really good neighbor,” Doud says. “Nekisha brought in someone who she thought could support the organization and that person has. So she brought her resources to us. She didn’t need to; we never asked.”

Durrett considers her impact on a space when creating artwork, too, and selects projects to which she has a personal connection. For example, she created the piece “Heaven Lasts Forever,” in which large, graphic text mowed into grass and painted onto concrete transforms the lawn of

the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where her sister was born. The name of the piece is inspired by a line in The Color Purple, which Durrett refers to more than once in her work.

She quotes the story in another piece of work, “I Love You Miss Celie,” which was presented at the MLK Library during Banned Books Week in 2015. The image is a 48 foot by 30 foot drawing of a hand holding a purple, heart-shaped balloon that says “i love you miss celie,” a phrase from a scene in The Color Purple when two female characters kiss. That moment had a life-changing effect on Durrett when she read the book and saw the film as a young woman.

“I just wanted to literally blow that up, blow up that moment,” Durrett explains. “There is also this deeper thing that I am doing, which is, like, saying this is not something that should be hidden.”

Another recurring element of Durrett’s art is the phrase “Yes Lawd,” taken from a James Baldwin speech. “It’s very particular language and I don’t think it’s language you see often in public spaces,” she says. Durrett mowed the letters into grass in The Parks at Walter Reed, creating a 30 foot by 64 foot artwork. “I like the idea of injecting that language into this space in such a bold way.”

The National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum invited Durrett to create a social engagement piece with museum visitors during the 2019 Smithsonian Solstice Saturday, a festival that takes place on the first Saturday of summer. Durrett was a part of the event’s “America Now: Celebration of Music” portion. This year’s fest coincided with the Don’t Mute DC movement to preserve go-go music and culture in the District.

Durrett took all of that into account when developing her project, making go-go music her focus. The result was “Go-Go Belongs Here,” a 12 foot by 17.5 foot digital print featuring those words in all-caps and composed of posters on which the public had colored during Solstice Saturday. “I thought it was really important to have that represented, especially since this event was addressing local culture and local music,” she says.

Kate Raudenbush, an award-winning sculpture artist who is also featured in the Golden Triangle’s Layers + Lines display, understands that creating large public artworks like Durrett’s is difficult. “It requires an enormous amount of out-of-the-box thinking and a lot of teamwork and a lot of logistics,” she says.

Raudenbush has been displaying her work

Luke Walter Photography

CPARTS

“Up ’til Now” in the Black Rock Desert at Burning Man for many years, and knows a lot about creating artwork on a massive scale. “When you work really big, it’s space consciousness,” Raudenbush says. “I love how she refers to a sense of place and space and time in her work.”

The Golden Triangle BID’s executive director Leona Agouridis is glad to feature artists like Raudenbush and Durrett. “Over the years we’ve developed the capacity to be able to do it—because it ain’t easy,” Agouridis says. “To be able to put a piece of art on a public street, because

GREAT PERFORMANCES AT MASON 2019–2020 SEASON

there are lots of challenges with permitting, with engineering, with siting … and that doesn’t even get to art selection and all of the other elements, we’re lucky to be able to do that.”

The goal of the Golden Triangle’s public art initiative is to enliven urban spaces. With “Up ’til Now,” Durrett delivered. “We got a great note from somebody,” says Karyn Miller, the BID’s curator for Layers + Lines. “He’d walked by the site a thousand times and the piece made him think about everything in a way that he never had before.”

CP

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RUBBERBAND Vic’s Mix

Aquila Theatre GEORGE ORWELL’S 1984

Friday, Nov. 22 at 8 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 23 at 8 p.m.

Montreal’s innovative company

CHANTICLEER A Chanticleer Christmas Saturday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.

“The world’s reigning male chorus” (The New Yorker)

A gripping new adaptation

SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK Celebrating the Holydays Saturday, Dec. 7 at 4 p.m.

Sign language interpreted in ASL

Located on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University, six miles west of Beltway exit 54 at the intersection of Braddock Road and Rt. 123.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 17

CPARTS ARTS DESK

Child Care

By Hannah Grieco Christine Platt is a local author of children’s books and advocate who brings her passionate belief in social justice to young readers. She has an astonishing 13 new books coming out in 2020, all of which explore history and culture through a child’s lens.

Platt, who reads at Busboys and Poets on Nov. 14 and at East City Bookshop on Nov. 16, spoke to City Paper via email about her new books, how she manages to be so prolific, and why children’s literature is essential.

WCP: So, you have 13 children’s books coming out in 2020, including books in three series: Ana & Andrew, This Is…, and Sheroes?

CP: Honestly, it’s unbelievable to see the actual number. Children’s books are so much fun to write, especially when the stories are interconnected like the Lewis family in Ana & Andrew.

Because I created these characters, they actually feel a little like my children. Many of their adventures are loosely based off of activities I did with my daughter when she was younger, like making snow cream in the winter. In comparison, the publisher, ABDO, created the Sheroes series. They wanted an early reader series that focused on the lives of amazing women in history. So, ABDO picked Harriet Tubman, Sacagawea, Joan of Arc, and Cleopatra. (Of course, as soon I saw Harriet Tubman I said, “Yes!”) It’s the same for the This Is… series. The publisher, Callisto, selected Neil Armstrong, Helen Keller, Alexander Hamilton, and how lucky am I, another Harriet Tubman request. Only one of the 13 books is a standalone. It’s a middle-grade book about Martin Luther King Jr.

So, that being said, it doesn’t necessarily feel like 13 books—more like I committed to write books for three series and one standalone. Or perhaps that’s what I’ve convinced myself to help me get through it. Also, it never seems real until I see the finished product.

It’s always a fun surprise for me, too.

WCP: What’s your secret to getting so many books lined up in such a short period of time?

CP: Again, I think it’s because I was signed for three series. Also, most educational publishers are relatively small houses. You get to know the editors and production team really quickly.

I’m sure it makes things easier for them to work with authors and illustrators they’ve worked with in the past, especially for series. The stories will have the same flow and energy. And with each series, I get to further expand the characters and storyline. For example, in the next Ana & Andrew series, the family grows with The New Baby and The Perfect Pet. WCP: How did the idea for the Ana & Andrew series begin? How do you decide on the theme for each book?

CP: The series features siblings, Ana and Andrew, going on adventures that teach

18 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

Norman E. Jones

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

them about African American history and culture. The collection is an extension of ABDO’s Carlos & Carmen series which features Latin American twins. I was asked to pitch to be the author of “a series that focuses on African American history, culture, and family life,” so I had a lot of creative input, including selecting the title [and] names of the characters, Ana and Andrew. And when looking at the family dynamics, I chose to incorporate African American and Caribbean

lineage to give children the opportunity to learn about the history of the African diaspora, not just America.

Deciding on a theme for each book is actually the easiest part—people of the African diaspora share a lot of similar experiences, and those traditions that African American families are able to remember are very important, very sacred. So, writing about experiences like attending a family reunion can be a wonderful win-

CPARTS dow book for black early readers, and the perfect window book for other early readers. I also use these books as an opportunity to write about topics I would have loved to read to my daughter when she was younger.

WCP: Did you always plan on writing children’s literature and will you continue on this path, writing such a large number of books each year?

CP: Believe it or not, I always thought that I would never write for children because I didn’t think I could. Because my first two books were written for adult audiences, I just assumed that I would stay in the historical fiction adult genre. In early 2016, I was writing my third book when my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, called about a potential project that focused on African American history and culture.

(Actually, “writing” is a stretch—I was struggling.) So, I was very excited until she said, “It’s for children.” And I was like, “What? No!” But Emily encouraged me to give it a try. It’s so interesting how these things work out. I often wonder what my response would have been if I hadn’t been struggling to write my third book— I’m almost certain I would have said, “No, thanks.” Isn’t that wild?

In May, I was at my first writing residency, The Lemon Tree House, when my agent called. When she told me that ABDO had selected me to write the first four books in the Ana & Andrew series, I just screamed with joy. It was really wonderful to get my first real book contract while away at a writing residency. Writers know how hard this industry can be.

There’s much more disappointment than good news. So, everyone there celebrated like it was their first book contract too.

And yes, so now, here I am a few years later with a total of 17 children’s books published by fall 2020. And six more under contract for 2021. I think I finally found my lane with writing children’s literature. Thirteen of the 17 books were written this year so at least I know if I ever must produce large numbers of books within a short time frame again—I can do it. I think that’s the biggest difference—knowing I can do it.

WCP: Your writing focuses on inclusivity and equality, and you are also a passionate advocate. Can you tell us about some of the advocacy work you’ve done in the past?

CP: Aside from being a storyteller, I am first and foremost a historian. For almost

“Extremely funny.”

20 years, my work has centered on the history and complexities of people from the African diaspora. This includes everything from working at the Department of Energy as a senior policy advisor focused on energy and environmental justice to recently serving as a race, equity, diversity, and inclusion expert for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Since May 2019, I’ve been writing full-time. So this work and advocacy is now channeled into storytelling, which I absolutely love.

Prior to May, I served as the managing director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University. Advocacy can happen in so many different ways, from storytelling to organizations using social media to spread awareness and execute campaigns of change. I’ve had a wonderful career and I love that I’m still able to do advocacy work through a different creative medium.

–DCist

“HHHHH...Who knew that death could be so fun?”

By

–DC Theatre Scene

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Directed by

Will Davis

WCP: What made you decide to begin writing as a tool for advocacy? And why children’s literature?

CP: There’s just something about storytelling that is so powerful, especially when it comes to children’s literature. Rudine Sims Bishop wrote a wonderful piece called “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” She speaks about the importance of children having windows and mirrors— a way in which to see others and a way to see themselves. I cannot stress how important this is for early readers. To see themselves represented on the pages of a book in a positive way, to have their peers get a glimpse inside their lives and maybe get some answers to questions they’ve been curious about but too afraid to ask.

One of the easiest ways to teach race, equity, diversity, and inclusion is by normalizing it through storytelling. It’s not even teaching, really. It’s just accurately representing society and the importance of all cultures and histories. Many of us grew up reading window books. Imagine to always be looking at someone else’s amazing story, someone who looks nothing like you. It affects students’ self-esteem, their desire to read and learn. It’s so complex. And so easily remedied.

WCP: What book are you reading and loving right now?

CP: Like much of the world, I am reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer, which is such a literary treat. The prose is so beautiful, and it’s centered on one of my favorite topics—the history and lasting implications of the transatlantic slave trade. To say I love The Water Dancer is an understatement.

EC TAC LE .”

“A M AG N IF IC E N T S P

–MD Theatre Guide

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THEATERCURTAIN CALLS

OH SAY, CAN’T YOU SEE? Sea

SECOND BEST TO NONE A Chorus Line

Originally Conceived by Michael Bennett Book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante Music by Marvin Hamlisch Lyrics by Edward Kleban Directed by Matthew Gardiner At Signature Theatre to Jan. 5 Seventeen dancerS face an exacting director, telling him the stories that made them want to become performers and kicking with precision in order to earn a place in the ensemble of his new musical. The set-up is simple, yet A Chorus Line, the ultimate show business show, is anything but. Its big heart and lush songs penetrate whatever steely artifice an audience member may think they have and reduces them to mush in less than two hours.

Signature Theatre knows this, and choosing to close the year with an American classic like this one was likely a no-brainer. Director Matthew Gardiner wasn’t content with simply replicating creator Michael Bennett’s staging and choreography though, so with permission from Bennett’s estate and an assist from choreographer Denis Jones, he’s updated the 44-year-old show ever so slightly, resulting in a marvelous revival that viewers will wish they could watch again and again.

ACL obsessives shouldn’t fret: The steps, kicks, leaps, and touches remain, albeit in different iterations, as do the sparkly top hats. Jones’ changes are most obvious in “Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love,” a musical regaling of the horrors of puberty that has the auditioners grooving one moment and doubled over the next. The updates are less successful in a sloweddown “Music and the Mirror.” It’s supposed to be a breakout number for Cassie, the former star who returns to the line in search of a job, but the slackened pace makes the segment drag.

(Not helping matters is the red leotard and skirt combination that practically swallows actress Emily Tyra. A note to all future Chorus Line costume designers: It’s been four decades, can we please find a new way to make

Cassie look distinctive?)

The sensational ensemble more than keeps up with the demands of a show that keeps them on stage for nearly the entire run time, particularly Signature stalwart Maria Rizzo, who perfectly captures the wit and weariness of Sheila, a veteran dancer on the edge of 30. She delivers her jokes with bite, and when she becomes vulnerable—in “At the Ballet” and during her final moment on the line—the performance takes your breath away.

Similarly spectacular is Matthew Risch as Zach, the director, who in less capable hands can come off as an inscrutable grump. Gardiner’s decision to move Zach’s desk into the center of the theater as opposed to the back, a benefit of Signature’s flexible MAX stage, allows the audience to consider him differently. Risch takes advantage of that attention, adjusting his glasses, shifting his gestures, and moving throughout the space to convey Zach’s focus.

Here he’s not a rude taskmaster, he’s a man obsessed with getting this one decision right.

Risch is so good, in fact, that he upstages his partner in one of the show’s climactic scenes.

When Zach confronts Cassie, his former girlfriend, about her intentions and their past, it’s his argument that wins over the audience, not hers.

That’s the thing about A Chorus Line: The show doesn’t change very much over time but as we age, our relationship with the show and its characters does. Those who once saw themselves in the youthful awkwardness of Daxx Jayroe Wieser’s Mark or the punchy resolve of Samantha Marisol Gershman’s Diana now see themselves as Zachs and Sheilas.

It doesn’t matter if the shape or size of the mirrors the dancers perform in front of change, though Jason Sherwood’s scenic design and the installation of neon lights brighten the black box. The show endures because of its inherent comfort. When times are tough, be it for personal, professional, or political reasons, a theater can become a refuge, where you can laugh and cry and marvel at impressively flexible performers doing athletic feats. The feeling you’ll leave the theater with is one of contentment, and a single phrase might resonate in your head on the way out: Oh god, I need this show.

—Caroline Jones 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. $40–$124.

(703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org.

20 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

By Jon Fosse Translated from Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt Directed by Robert McNamara At DC Arts Center to Nov. 24 no matter how many ways each generation of experimentalists have widened the horizons of dramatic storytelling, audiences still expect continuity to fix their minds upon, whether character, causality, or theme. One innovation, now a convention of improvisational theater called “yes, and...” encourages the performer to accept whatever their scene partner introduces, no matter how incongruous it is to what came before. Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse, said by some to be Europe’s most widely p erformed living dramatist, has not achieved similar succes s i n t h e Anglophone wo rld , p e r haps because he flouts such conventions, as evidenced in Sea, currently making its U.S. debut with Scena Theatre.

Though it looks like a black box theater bereft of scenery beyond a simply constructed bench, the program lists the setting as “a remote desert island.” The shipmaster (Buck O’Leary) claims that he has been “a master of many ships” and that he has “sailed the seven seas.” Though he insists he is on the deck of a ship and that the ship is on the ocean, his main interlocutor, a guitar player (Greg Ongao), remains incredulous, so instead of yes, anding one another, they awkwardly ping-pong the basic facts of the matter until the guitar player seems to accept that he and the shipmaster might not see the same thing. The laughter, instead of coming from the embrace of the increasingly particular and incongruous, comes from an awkward reluctance to live in the same scenario. They cannot even agree whether or not there are others on the ship.

There are others there, wherever there might be, the desert island, at sea, the back of the DC Arts Center, or in a Hades where they have only half-drunk from the waters of forgetfulness that flow through the River

of Lethe. A man and a woman (Eamon Patrick Walsh and Sara Barker) experience love at first sight, but similarly avoid embracing any particulars. They cannot start to share their life histories because they don’t have any. Likewise, an older couple (a casually attired Kim Curtis and Ellie Nicoll, in an elegant evening gown and black overcoat) seem uncertain as to their surroundings or how they arrived there. The plot seems to thicken as they mention the estranged offspring they haven’t seen in years. The shipmaster, the guitar player, and the younger woman each take turns seeking a heartfelt reunion that never happens.

Only the guitar player manages to make more than a fleeting connection once he starts to play. In keeping with the bare set, Ongao grips an air guitar, plants his feet in a wide stance, and strikes some cantilevered rock star poses. The music the audience cannot hear arouses excitement in one woman, who begins to sway before leading into a snaky undulating dance.

What to make of it all is another matter. Is Fosse satirizing the transcendental ego inhabiting the philosophies of René Descartes, Jean-Paul Sar tre, and others, suggesting that instead of being alone and reconstructing our knowledge from an intellectual attitude of doubt, we are instead trapped in a meaningless existence with an inexperienced scene partner who could benefit from an acting class? Is it a claim that the guitar player’s music and the woman’s dancing, the ephemerality of sound and movement, and the erotic feelings we attribute to them, transcend fixed categories of identity and difference, self and other, place and time? Or is Fosse mocking such notions? Maybe he’s poking fun at improv comedy workshops.

Mingling among the colorful mono-prints and digital images of Ellyn Weiss and Richard Dana during the post-show reception in the front gallery of the DCAC, one of the actors could be overheard remarking, perhaps impishly, “I’m interested in other people’s interpretations, because I don’t know what it’s about.” Perhaps that is the secret to Fosse’s inability to replicate the popularity he has in Europe: English speaking audiences don’t fully appreciate the joys of not knowing what it’s about.

—Ian Thal 2438 18th St. NW. $15-$35. scenatheatre.org.

FILMSHORT SUBJECTS

2019–2020

ANTHONY B W/ NKULA AND

SPECIAL GUEST RAS HAITRM THURSDAY

FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN W/ MAN ABOUT A HORSE

TONIGHT!

TRACE BUNDY NOV 14

INTEL PROCESSORS The Report

Directed by Scott Z. Burns The chaos in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks led our intelligence community down dark paths, and new political procedural The Report is about how dangerous and destructive those paths really were. This is the directorial debut of Scott Z. Burns, a screenwriter and frequent collaborator with Steven Soderbergh, and his film’s dogged intelligence is unique.

Unlike All the President’s Men, a film with similar scale, there are no celebrity journalists at the center of this story. Burns counts on you following him through the unglamorous minutiae of bureaucracy and the intelligence community.

By denying his characters any backstory, the film’s moral clarity and desire for the truth send the audience through a dense, dizzying story.

Adam Driver plays Daniel J. Jones, a former staffer for the Senate intelligence committee.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening) asks him to look into interrogation tapes the CIA destroyed. It is a simple enough request, except Jones is so single-minded that his investigation takes five years to complete. The CIA cooperates with the investigation, supplying Jones and his team with a secure room and raw intelligence, and he uncovers widespread use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”—torture.

Burns films this investigation in a clinical way, using Jones’ dot-connecting as the basis for where to cut and put the camera. The Report understands that D.C. isn’t always about power lunches and floor speeches; instead, most of the work in this city is thankless, with researchers and anonymous regulators grinding out change while the public never notices. The torture scenes are a bracing rejoinder to the anonymity of Jones’ work: With queasy handheld close-ups, the camera lingers on detainees as they’re humiliated, waterboarded, and worse. All this detail emboldens Jones, making him a crusader for the truth.

The inauguration of President Barack Obama is an unexpected complication, and this is where The Report finds its true purpose. Yes, these interrogations happened under Bush, but the film reveals how the administrative state has a vested interest to keep the breadth of its power a secret. Jon Hamm plays Denis McDonough, Obama’s former chief of staff, and he has the awkward position of defending the president from a scandal that did not happen under his watch. Feinstein and Jones argue the truth is the only way out of this quagmire, except they face increasingly bad odds.

Between The Report and Marriage Story, Adam Driver is having a hell of a year. As Jones, his performance is not particularly showy, and yet he achieves something inherently difficult: He makes research and writing look cinematic. As the release of the report looks increasingly unlikely, Driver’s dogged idealism is all the more brave, and yet the performance eschews traditional heroism. Perhaps Jones realizes that if he stops pushing, then no one else will. What makes The Report so fascinating is that all the supporting characters, even the compromised CIA interrogators, are heroes of their own story. Burns’ script has enough nuance to convey that everyone feels they are doing the right thing.

The key relationship in this film is between Jones and Feinstein. Bening’s work is quietly stunning. She comes off as chilly, even cruel, but she’s undeniably a shrewd, calculating leader—and she ultimately gets what she wants.

By the time the film reaches its conclusion, with Feinstein only providing a few words of appreciation, the subtext suggests those words mean the world to Jones. Few bosses are ever effusive, especially in Washington, so The Report goes to show you have to be a little nuts to work this hard with so little reward.

The Report ensures that audiences will not forget what was done in America’s name, and what we lost in the process. Like Jones’ investigation, this procedural might sound too dry, but in Burns and Driver’s hands, it is ferocious.

—Alan Zilberman The Report opens Friday at Landmark E Street Cinema.

NOV 14

FRIDAY NOV

15

SAT, NOV 16

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND W/ PIERCE EDENS TUES, NOV 19

TOMORROW & SATURDAY!

AN EVENING WITH

THE SILKROAD ENSEMBLE NOV 15 + 16

WHOSE HAT IS THIS? WED, NOV 20

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

RISING APPALACHIA W/ RAYE ZARAGOZA

FRI, NOV 22

DEANNA BOGART AND TORONZO CANNON BRIAN NEWMAN

SAT, NOV 23

COLLABORATOR WITH LADY GAGA AND TONY BENNETT, INFUSING NYC JAZZ WITH ROCK ENERGY NOV 20

AMY HELM NOV 21

ESCHER STRING QUARTET JASON VIEAUX, guitar CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

THAT 70’S PARTY W/ SUPERFLYDISCO SAT, NOV 30

ALL GOOD PRESENTS

KELLER WILLIAMS’ THANKSFORGRASSGIVING FEAT. KELLER & THE KEELS W/ SPECIAL GUEST LINDSAY LOU SUN, DEC 1

3:00pm & 6:30pm

JEFFREY KAHANE, piano

A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS W/ THE ERIC BYRD TRIO

DEC 1

TUE, DEC 3

EILEEN IVERS

HANG UP AND LISTEN LIVE IN DC

NOV 22

CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

A JOYFUL CHRISTMAS DEC 7 | 2 SHOWS!

WILL LIVERMAN, baritone KEN NODA, piano CHAMBER MUSIC AT THE BARNS

JAN 12

AN EVENING WITH JD SOUTHER JAN 15

SLATE PRESENTS SUN, DEC 8

VIENNA TENG W/ EMMA HERN SUN, DEC 15

EMMYLOU HARRIS:

AN INTIMATE PERFORMANCE BENEFITING BONAPART’S RETREAT SAT, DEC 21

BAILEN

WILD CHILD

AND MANY MORE!

W/ CAMERON NEAL

JAN 17

STRIPPED DOWN (DUO)

THEHAMILTONDC.COM washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 21

22 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITYLIST

THE DIRTY GRASS PLAYERS & HONEY DEWDROPS

Music 23 Theater 26 Film 28

CITY LIGHTS: FRIDAY

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15 $12ADV/$15DOS

H

Music FRIDAY BLUES

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Jontavious Willis and Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton. 8 p.m. $20. citywinery.com.

CLASSICAL

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. National Symphony Orchestra: Noseda conducts Tristan and Isolde—Act II with Gould and Goerke. 8 p.m. $15–$89. kennedy-center.org.

MUSIC CENTER AT STRATHMORE 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Taipei Symphony Orchestra. 8 p.m. $25–$75. strathmore.org.

RACHEL M. SCHLESINGER CONCERT HALL AND ARTS CENTER 4915 East Campus Drive, Alexandria.

(703) 323-3000. Nutcracker Potpourri. 2 p.m. $5–$85. nvcc.edu.

COUNTRY

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

Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen. 8 p.m. $17.25–$39.75. thehamiltondc.com.

FUNK & R&B

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. CeCe Peniston. 8 p.m. $35–$45. citywinery.com.

LOST/FOUND: EXPLORATIONS IN PHOTOGRAPHIC TIME AND SPACE

Studio Gallery’s annual photography exhibition doesn’t reach the heights of last year’s unusually fruitful effort, but the exhibit’s dozen artists collectively offer an impressive range of styles.

Steven Marks produces lush, dream-like color images; Gary Anthes uses crisp black-and-white to document forlorn corners of Navajo country; Iwan Bagus contributes a deeply personal meditation on his late mother that features a brain scan and sarongs; and Shaun Schroth assembles still lifes using bits of natural detritus, including mesmerizing wisps of milkweed. Of special note are works by Soomin Ham, who creatively repurposes old, damaged film into mixed media collages, and Rania Razek, who chronicles broad sweeps in lonely places, from a backwoods road to a supple sand dune. But the finest contribution may be Matt Francisco’s understated, elegiac photographs that depict window blinds whose hues channel the ambient light of different times of day. The exhibition is on view to Nov. 23 at Studio Gallery, 2108 R St. NW. Free. (202) 232-8734. studiogallerydc.com.

—Louis Jacobson

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

Chastity Belt. 7 p.m. $15. ustreetmusichall.com.

ROCK AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. Petty Coat Junction. 8:30 p.m. $20–$30. ampbystrathmore.com.

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020. Eric Church. 8 p.m. $125–$250. theanthemdc.com.

PEARL STREET WAREHOUSE 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. People’s Blues of Richmond. 8 p.m. $15. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

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

WORLD BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna.

(703) 255-1900. Silk Road Ensemble. 8 p.m. $62–$77. wolftrap.org.

H

11/14 THU THE 9 SONGWRITER SERIES $10/$12 11/15 FRI THE DIRTY GRASS PLAYERS + THE HONEY DEWDROPS $12/$15 11/16 SAT TUCKER BEATHARD W/ SCOTT KURT $12/$15 11/19 TUE TWO BOOKS TEXAS TWO STEP FREE 11/21 THU SARAH POTENZA W/ GRANVILLE AUTOMATIC $12/$15 11/22 FRI THE VEGABONDS W/ THE TRONGONE BAND $15/$20 11/23 SAT GILES MCCONKEY (2 SETS) $10/$12 11/29 FRI THE HIGHBALLERS FREE 11/30 SAT TWIN BROTHERS BAND FREE 12/20 FRI BOY NAMED BANJO NIGHT 1 W/CRAWFORD & POWER $16/$30 12/21 SAT BOY NAMED BANJO NIGHT 2 W/EASY HONEY $16/$30 12/22 SUN POSSESSED BY PAUL JAMES $15 12/27 FRI LEFT LANE CRUISER W/S/G RODNEY HENRY! $12/$20/$40 HILL COUNTRY BARBECUE MARKET 410 Seventh St, NW • 202.556.2050 HillCountry.com/DC • Twitter @hillcountrylive

Near Archives/Navy Memorial [G, Y] and Gallery PI/Chinatown [R] Metro

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 23

KENNEDY CENTER MILLENNIUM STAGE 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Noura Mint Seymali. 6 p.m. Free. kennedy-center.org.

!

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

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

Tix @ Ticketmaster.com

FRANKIE VALLI

A SPECIAL EVENING WITH THE ORIGINAL JERSEY BOY

FOUR SEASONS FRI. NOV. 15 • 8PM • AND THE

WWW.FRANKIEVALLIFOURSEASONS.COM

CHAKA presents

An Evening with

THE FLATLANDERS

Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock

PAULA POUNDSTONE CARMINHO ‘Portugese Fado Star!’

SIERRA HULL and NOAM PIKELNY & STUART DUNCAN 21 GAELIC STORM 20

An Evening with

CHRIS BOTTI 24 HERMAN'S HERMITS featuring PETER NOONE 29 THE SELDOM SCENE & DRY BRANCH FIRE SQUAD 30 MARY PRANKSTER "PRANKSGIVING 2019"

Dec 1

4

TANYA TUCKER THE FIXX

3

ELECTRONIC

POP

On Sale Now at Ticketmaster.com chakakhan.com

22

PEARL STREET WAREHOUSE 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys. 8 p.m. $15. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

ATLAS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 1333 H St. NE. (202) 399-7993. Cecily Salutes D.C. 7 p.m.; 9 p.m. $20– $30. atlasarts.org.

KHAN

19

COUNTRY

JAZZ

The Warner Theatre Sat. Nov. 16, 2019, 8pm

17

SATURDAY

ECHOSTAGE 2135 Queens Chapel Road NE. (202) 503-2330. Loud Luxury. 9 p.m. $20–$25. echostage.com.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT TICKETMASTER.COM

Nov 14

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. The Movement. 8 p.m. $17–$25. unionstage.com.

Royston Langdon

A PETER WHITE CHRISTMAS

with Peter White, Euge Groove, Vincent Ingala, & Lindsey Webster "Winter JUDY COLLINS Stories"

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Neon Indian. 6 p.m. $30. 930.com.

BLACK CAT 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. AllahLas. 8 p.m. $20. blackcatdc.com.

ROCK

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020. Eric Church. 8 p.m. $125–$250. theanthemdc.com.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Marshall Crenshaw. 8 p.m. $28–$35. citywinery.com.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Jimbo Mathus’ Incinerator. 8 p.m. $16–$20. citywinery.com.

JOYOUS CHRISTMAS

w/Bobby Caldwell & Marion Meadows

OHIO PLAYERS 14 SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY 13

& The Asbury Jukes

15

A Honky Tonk Holiday!

BILL KIRCHEN & TOO MUCH FUN and JUNIOR BROWN

IN THE MOMENT

ST. STEPHEN AND THE INCARNATION EPISCOPAL CHURCH 1525 Newton St. NW. (202) 232-0900. The Ergs!. 6:30 p.m. $18–$20. positiveforcedc.org.

VOCAL

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD THEATRE 603 Edmonston Drive, Rockville. (240) 314-8690. Hearts and Harmony—An Afternoon of Barbershop A Capella. 1 p.m. $7–$15. fscottfitzgerald.showare.com.

KENNEDY CENTER CONCERT HALL 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. The Washington Chorus: Mozart’s Requiem. 8 p.m. $10–$68. kennedy-center.org.

WORLD

BARNS AT WOLF TRAP 1635 Trap Road, Vienna.

(703) 255-1900. Silk Road Ensemble. 8 p.m. $62–$77. wolftrap.org.

SIXTH & I HISTORIC SYNAGOGUE 600 I St. NW. (202) 408-3100. Amjad Ali Khan. 8 p.m. $40. sixthandi.org.

KENNEDY CENTER TERRACE THEATER 2700 F St. NW. (202) 467-4600. Zoltán Fejérvári. 2 p.m. $45. kennedy-center.org.

NORMAN BROWN'S

CITY LIGHTS: SUNDAY

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

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN String 11 FIVE FOR FIGHTING Quartet "Playing Their Hits and Holiday Favorites" 12

The Ergs! play punk music that appeals to even those most skeptical of the genre. It is goofy and upbeat—the fun uncle of the more polished pop punk that would gain mainstream attention in the 2000s and 2010s. Between 2004 and 2007, the act released three albums. They officially called it quits in 2008, but continued to play the occasional show. Now the band is touring, and this stop features local bands Bacchae, Blue Streak, and The Max Levine Ensemble.

This performance, and the entire stretch of tour dates, honors the 15th anniversary of the band’s debut LP Dorkrockcorkrod, which is still the best place to begin for first time listeners. The Ergs! perform at 6:30 p.m. at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church, 1525 Newton St. NW. $18– $20. (202) 232-0900. ststephensdc.org.

—Callie Tansill-Suddath

MIRACLE THEATRE 535 8th St. SE. (202) 400-3210.

This Will Destroy You. 9:30 p.m. $20–$24. themiracletheatre.com.

SUNDAY

8

THE ERGS!

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

Charlotte Lawrence. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

6&7 feat. JONAS

F JELD and Special Guests CHATHAM COUNTY LINE

CITY LIGHTS: SATURDAY

CLASSICAL

ELECTRONIC

ECHOSTAGE 2135 Queens Chapel Road NE. (202) 503-2330. Loud Luxury. midnight $20–$25. echostage.com.

FOLK

AMP BY STRATHMORE 11810 Grand Park Ave., North Bethesda. (301) 581-5100. The Small Glories. 8 p.m. $16–$28. ampbystrathmore.com.

PEARL STREET WAREHOUSE 33 Pearl Street SW. (202) 380-9620. Lula Wiles. 7 p.m. $12–$25. pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

HIP-HOP

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

Skizzy Mars. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

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

Dave. 7 p.m. $15–$20. unionstage.com.

24 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, but Robert Miller’s photographs could benefit from a couple fewer words—namely their titles, which are redundant to the point of distraction. Miller, the Washington Post’s deputy director of photography, contributed more than two dozen photographs to this exhibit, a mix of black-and-white and color images with a pleasingly newspapery vibe. Miller is a talented observer of the street scene, variously capturing an angular riot of pedestrian feet, a fleeting moment when an older couple’s path meets that of a younger pair, and a solo figure purposefully navigating a thick mist. But he should have laid off the overly literal titles, from “Batman” (depicting a costumed character on the sidewalk) to “Big Kiss” (for an image that echoes Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “V-J Day in Times Square”). His photograph of a young girl intently crossing a downtown D.C. street can be perfectly well understood without its title, “Determination.” The exhibition is on view to Nov. 17 at Photoworks at Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. Free. (301) 634-2274. glenechophotoworks.org. —Louis Jacobson

MONDAY ROCK

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

Hozier. 8 p.m. $49.50–$79.50. theanthemdc.com.

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. Tennis System, Daisy, and The Sounds of Waves. $10–$12. dcnine.com.

TUESDAY POP 9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Alice Merton. 7 p.m. $25. 930.com.

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

Sara Bareilles. 8 p.m. $55–$125. theanthemdc.com.

THIS WEEK’S SHOWS

Wild Nothing w/ Kate Bollinger ..............................................................F NOV 15 Neon Indian w/ Sateen ................................................................................ Sa 16 Alice Merton w/ Raffaella ........................................................................... Tu 19 NOVEMBER

DECEMBER (cont.)

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram .....................................Th 21 San Fermin w/ Wild Pink ..........F 22 Sasha Sloan w/ Winnetka Bowling League Early Show! 6pm Doors ....................Sa 23 Alex Cameron w/ Holiday Sidewinder & Emily Panic Late Show! 10pm Doors ....................Sa 23

La Dispute w/ Touché Amoré & Empath .......Su 24 U STREET MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

Miami Horror w/ Argonaut & Wasp • Ozker .....F 29 Alice Smith .............................Sa 30 DECEMBER ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Collie Buddz w/ Keznamdi ......Su 1 Mac Ayres w/ Stephn ................Tu 3 ALL GOOD PRESENTS

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong w/ lespecial

Must purchase 2-Day Pass with

12/7 PPPP @ The Anthem to attend. .....F 6

Devendra Banhart w/ Black Belt Eagle Scout Early Show! 6pm Doors .....................Sa 7 Omar Apollo w/ Alexander 23 & Silver Sphere Early Show! 6pm Doors .....................F 13 Cautious Clay w/ Remi Wolf

Late Show! 10pm Doors ......................F 13

Samantha Fish w/ Nicholas David .......................Tu 17 Daughters and HEALTH w/ Show Me The Body .................W 18 Turnover & Men I Trust w/ Renata Zeiguer ......................Th 19

Hot in Herre Holiday Spectacular:

2000s Dance Party with DJs Will Eastman and Ozker • Visuals by Kylos ........................F 20

& FINAL NIGHT ADDED! FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECOND

Thievery Corporation w/ The Archives ..........................Su 22 GWAR w/ Unearth & Savage Master .......F 27 The Pietasters w/ The Fuss • Oison • Creachies .Sa 28 Clutch w/ The Steel Woods & Damon Johnson .......................Su 29

Gogol Bor d ello DEC 30 & 31 Complimentary Champagne Toast at Midnight on New Year’s Eve!

JANUARY

No Scrubs: ‘90s Dance Party

with DJs Will Eastman & Ozker • Visuals by Kylos ..........................F 3

Yola w/ Amythyst Kiah.................F 10 BASS NATION PRESENTS

Svdden Death w/ Phiso .........Sa 11 Hiss Golden Messenger w/ Lilly Hiatt ................................W 15 American Authors and MAGIC GIANT w/ Public ........Th 16 STEEZ PROMO PRESENTS

Sullivan King w/ Eliminate .....F 17 Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven

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

JONATHAN RICHMAN & BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY ... SAT MARCH 7 AN EVENING WITH

T H E Y

MIGHT BE GIANTS -

FLOOD 30th ANNIVERSARY................................................ APRIL 9 On Sale Friday, November 15 at 10am T ADDED!

D NIGH FIRST NIGHT SOLD OUT! SECON BenDeLaCreme & Jinkx Monsoon: Girls Gotta Eat ........................ JAN 10 All I Want for Christmas is Attention .NOV 29 STORY DISTRICT’S Top Shelf ................................... JAN 25 Robert Earl Keen Countdown to Christmas Julius Dein ................................ FEB 23 w/ Shinyribs........................................DEC 6

AEG PRESENTS

Trixie Mattel ............................ MAR 1 thelincolndc.com • impconcerts.com • U Street (Green/Yellow) stop across the street!

9:30 CLUB PRESENTS AT U STREET MUSIC HALL

Last Dinosaurs w/ Born Ruffians & Ginger Root ...................... Th NOV 14 Chastity Belt w/ Strange Ranger ......F 15 Charlotte Lawrence w/ Goody Grace ............................Sa 16 Skizzy Mars w/ Yoshi Flower & Zaia .Su 17 White Denim w/ Spaceface ..........Tu 19 Mikal Cronin w/ Shannon Lay .......Sa 23 Jaymes Young w/ Phil Good .........Su 24

Thurston Moore Group .............Sa 7 9:30 CLUB & ALL GOOD PRESENT

Jojo Mayer / NERVE ................W 11

The Slackers w/ Mephiskapheles ...Th 19 Temples w/ Art d’Ecco All 11/8 9:30 Club tickets honored. . M JAN 20 Great Good Fine OK w/ Aaron Taos ...............................F 31 Palace .................................M FEB 3 9:30 CLUB AND TRILLECTRO PRESENT Poppy ........................................Sa 8 Berhana .................................Sa 30 070Shake Ezra Collective .................. Tu DEC 3 All 10/10 tickets honored. ..........Sa MAR 7 • 930.com/u-hall • impconcerts.com • Buy advance tickets at the 9:30 Club box office. •

Early Show! 6pm Doors ....................Sa 18

MANY MORE SHOWS ON SALE! 930.com impconcerts.com

9:30 CUPCAKES

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

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

9:30 CLUB BOX OFFICE HOURS are 12-7pm on weekdays & until 11pm on show nights, 6-11pm on Sat, and 6-10:30pm on Sun on show nights.

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

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

930.com washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 25

*

VALET & SECURE PARKING AVAILABLE

CITY LIGHTS: MONDAY

LIVE MUSIC | URBAN WINERY | RESTAURANT | BAR | PRIVATE EVENTS

11.23

11.20 Booker T. Jones

Celebrates the release of his memoir Time Is Tight and companion album Note By Note

(2 Shows)

w/ Des Demonas*

12.1

11.30 Lil John Roberts “Stripped” featuring Tony Tatum, Kari Epps & Special Guests

PJ Morgan Holiday Show

12.7

12.4

Ingrid Andress*

Kevin Ross

12.14 Slim Jim Phantom Trio

The Mash|Up Experience

12.15

(ft. Jennie Vee from Eagles of Death Metal)*

12.19

12.17

Mike Zito: BETTY Holiday Show Secret Society Rock & Roll, A Tribute To Chuck Berry*

Rodriguez -

An Intimate Evening of Music and Conversation w/ Raye Zaragoza

1350 OKIE STREET NE, WASHINGTON DC | CITYWINERY.COM/WASHINGTON DC | 202.250.2531

become a

custom

member vinofile EXCLUSIVE PRESALE ACCESS, NO TICKETing FEES, complimentary valet & more!

HOZIER

Miki Howard

Bush Tetras

11.26 Simone & Friends Comedy*

11.24

Thanksgiving Wine now available!

NEW YORK • CHICAGO • NASHVILLE • ATLANTA • BOSTON • WASHINGTON DC • PHILADELPHIA • HUDSON VALLEY

WE’VE BEEN SEEN AND HEARD IN D.C. SINCE 1981.

Ireland’s Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, known simply as Hozier, broke out in 2013 with the release of “Take Me to Church.” His self-titled debut album came out the following year, achieving critical acclaim and commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic. His latest project, Wasteland, Baby!, continues the captivating mix of folk and soul traditions with wordplay that is characteristic of Irish culture, but takes place on a grander scale. The album’s first single, “Nina Cried Power,” featured the one and only Mavis Staples as a guest vocalist, and many of the tracks feature insistent beats under rich, choir-like harmonies which remain an important part of Hozier’s live performances. Hozier performs at 8 p.m. at The Anthem, 901 Wharf St. SW. $49.50–$79.50. (202) 888-0020. theanthemdc.com.

—Sriram Gopal SONGBYRD MUSIC HOUSE AND RECORD CAFE 2477 18th St. NW. (202) 450-2917. From Indian Lakes. 8 p.m. $18. songbyrddc.com.

ELECTRONIC

ROCK

HIP-HOP

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

White Denim. 7 p.m. $20. ustreetmusichall.com.

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. Letters to Cleo. 7:30 p.m. $25–$45. unionstage.com.

BIRCHMERE 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria.

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

POP

THE ANTHEM 901 Wharf St. SW. (202) 888-0020. AJR. 7:30 p.m. $34.50–$58.50. theanthemdc.com.

WEDNESDAY

ROCK

FOLK

FUNK & R&B

BLACK CAT 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Titus Andronicus. 7:30 p.m. $15–$18. blackcatdc.com.

CAPITAL ONE ARENA 601 F St. NW. (202) 628-3200.

Casting Crowns + Hillsong Worship. 7 p.m. $25–$174. capitalonearena.viewlift.com.

DC9 1940 9th St. NW. (202) 483-5000. King Buffalo. 8 p.m. $12. dcnine.com.

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Booker T. Jones. 8 p.m. $45–$55. citywinery.com.

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

Sara Bareilles. 8 p.m. $55–$125. theanthemdc.com.

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

8 p.m. $14–$60. dcnine.com.

ROCK BLACK CAT 1811 14th St. NW. (202) 667-4490. Crumb.

7:30 p.m. $20. blackcatdc.com.

THURSDAY BLUES

9:30 CLUB 815 V St. NW. (202) 265-0930. Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. 7 p.m. $20. 930.com.

26 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

JAZZ

CITY WINERY 1350 Okie St. NE. (202) 250-2531. Bria Skonberg. 8 p.m. $25–$35. citywinery.com.

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

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership

SIXTH & I HISTORIC SYNAGOGUE 600 I St. NW. (202) 408-3100. Dessa. 8 p.m. $25–$28. sixthandi.org.

WORLD

THE HAMILTON 600 14th St. NW. (202) 787-1000. Rising Appalachia. 7:30 p.m. $25–$30. thehamiltondc.com.

BECOME A MEMBER.

UNION STAGE 740 Water St. SW. (877) 987-6487. Clan of Xymox. 7:30 p.m. $20–$40. unionstage.com.

Theater

AGNES OF GOD Dr. Martha Livingstone, a courtappointed psychiatrist, is charged with assessing the sanity of Agnes, a novice nun accused of murdering her newborn. Anacostia Arts Center. 1231 Good Hope Road SE. To Nov. 24. $23. anacostiaartscenter.com.

AIRNESS Nina thinks winning an air guitar competition will be easy—until the lovable nerds she’s competing against prove her wrong. Keegan Theatre. 1742 Church St. NW. To Nov. 30. $36–$58. (202) 265-3767. keegantheatre.com.

AMADEUS This play dramatizes Mozart’s ascent from child prodigy to favored composer—and the palace intrigue going on between the title character and his foe and rival Salieri. Folger Elizabethan Theatre. 201

CITY LIGHTS: TUESDAY

LETTERS TO CLEO

Along with Ron Swanson, “treat yo’ self,” and countless reaction GIFs, we can thank Parks and Recreation for the reunion of Letters to Cleo, in a manner of speaking. After a decade-long run that included Buzz Bin single “Here and Now” and memorable covers on the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack, the Boston-born band disbanded in 2000. In 2012, Parks and Rec got the band trending on Twitter and then roped the group in for a fictional “Unity Concert” on the show. Since then, the five-piece has released a new EP that shows that they’ve still got a knack for crafting alt-rock sing-alongs like they did in their heyday. And while they weren’t a particularly influential ’90s band, it’s not hard to hear their legacy in Speedy Ortiz, Sadie Dupuis’ solo project-turned-full-band that has been revitalizing grunge for a new generation for much of the decade, who will also play. Letters to Cleo perform at 7:30 p.m. at Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. $25–$45. (877) 987-6487. unionstage.com.

—Chris Kelly

CITY LIGHTS: WEDNESDAY

HEROES: PRINCIPLES OF AFRICAN GREATNESS

This year marks two important anniversaries: 400 years since the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia and the 25th anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections. The National Museum of African Art’s Heroes: Principles of African Greatness explores how African cultures have been ingrained in the foundation of America and highlights African artists as storytellers. As curator Kevin D. Dumouchelle put it, “We live in conflicted times politically in many ways, in moments where there’s often more of an appeal to emotion rather than reason or history. I thought of meeting our visitors on an emotional level first and using that as a path to talk more about objects in history.” The exhibit includes work from Paa Joe, a Ghanian sculptor known for his fantasy coffins, that helps illustrate the story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Other featured artists include Kay Hassan, Ousmane Sow, Sue Williamson, and Nelson Mandela. In addition to several new acquisitions, Heroes will feature popularly known artworks from the permanent collection.

The Smithsonian is also building new ways to connect the public with the stories of African heroes—there will be a multimedia version of the exhibit available for view on smartphones and an exhibition-specific Spotify playlist. The exhibition is on view at the National Museum of African Art, 950 Independence Ave. SW. Free. (202) 633-1000. africa.si.edu.

—Mikala Williams

HARRY POTTER characters, names and related indicia are © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Harry Potter Publishing Rights © JKR. (s19)

Year Five begins! Between crushing on Cho Chang, studying for his O.W.L.s, and the ever-growing number of detentions from Professor Umbridge™, Harry Potter™ must find the time to discover the secret of his terrible nightmares. Experience the film in HD on a giant screen with composer Nicholas Hooper’s score played live by the NSO conducted by Steven Reineke.

November 29–December 1 | Concert Hall Kennedy-Center.org (202) 467-4600

Groups call (202) 416-8400 For all other ticket-related customer service inquiries, call the Advance Sales Box Office at (202) 416-8540

AARP is the Presenting Sponsor of the NSO Pops Season.

washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 27

E. Capitol St. SE. To Dec. 22. $27–$85. (202) 544-7077. folger.edu.

A CHORUS LINE Signature stages one of the most classic American musicals, A Chorus Line—the story of hopeful dancers in an audition room hoping for a spot in the chorus line. Signature Theatre. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. To Jan. 5. $40–$110. (703) 820-9771. sigtheatre.org.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL In this classic Dickens tale, a miser learns the true meaning of Christmas—with some help from some ghostly apparitions. Ford’s Theatre. 511 10th St. NW. To Jan. 1. $32–$124. (202) 347-4833. fords.org.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME 15-year-old Christopher Boone, a boy who sees the world differently from most people, begins investigating the grisly death of his neighbor’s dog and finds himself on a coming-of-age journey. Round House Theatre Bethesda. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. To Nov. 22. $32–$68. (240) 644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org.

CITY LIGHTS: THURSDAY

TITUS ANDRONICUS

DEAR JACK, DEAR LOUISE Two strangers meet by letter during World War II and hope to meet in person, but the war keeps pushing them apart. Arena Stage.

1101 6th St. SW. To Dec. 29. $56–$72. (202) 488-3300. arenastage.org.

E2 In Bob Bartlett’s modern-day retelling of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward the Second, Edward makes a choice that could rock his dynasty, all the while challenging notions of gender and sexuality. Horowitz Center at Howard Community College. 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. To Nov. 17. $15–$40.

(443) 518-1500. repstage.org.

ENTRESUEÑO The Flamenco Aparicio Dance Company presents Entresueño, a reality-bending show taking audiences to the borderlines between memories and imagination, reality and dreams. Musical direction is by Grammy-nominated Gonzalo Grau. GALA Hispanic Theatre. 3333 14th St. NW. To Nov. 17. $10– $48. (202) 234-7174. galatheatre.org.

EVERYBODY Branden Jacobs-Jenkins revisits the 15th century play Everyman in a production where the main role is assigned by lottery among a small cast of actors. Lansburgh Theatre. 450 7th St. NW. To Nov. 17. (202) 547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org.

HARD TIMES Charles Dickens’ tale of the circus, set in Industrial Revolution England, features four actors playing dozens of characters. Washington Stage Guild at Undercroft Theatre. 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW. To Dec. 8. $25–$50. (240) 582-0050. stageguild.org.

KEEP. Keep. is a new one-man show about the past, the present, holding on to the former, and starting over in the latter, written and performed by Daniel Kitson. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Dec. 1. $20–$25. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org.

LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE Seven lesbian friends settle in for a seaside stay when the unexpected arrival of a straight woman who just left her indifferent husband in the city puts them in jeopardy of being outed. Gunston Arts Center, Theatre Two. 2700 South Lang St., Arlington. To Nov. 23. $25. (703) 418-4808. wscavantbard.org.

LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS This one-man play seeks to correct the record by adding Latinos back into the history books. National Theatre. 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. To Nov. 23. $59–$99. (202) 6286161. nationaltheatre.org.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS In Little Shop of Horrors, Seymour Krelborn, a meek floral assistant in the Skid Row neighborhood, pines after his co-worker Audrey.

He brings in big business for the flower shop when he discovers a rare plant, whom he names “Audrey II,” that, as it turns out, feeds on human flesh. Constellation Theatre at Source. 1835 14th St. NW. To Nov. 17. $19–$55. (202) 204-7741. constellationtheatre.org.

NEWSIES Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst are no match for the striking newsboys of New York City in the sultry summer of 1899. Arena Stage.

1101 6th St. SW. To Dec. 22. $86–$105. (202) 4883300. arenastage.org.

OCCUPANT A little Jewish girl from Russia immigrated to the US and became the renowned sculptor Louise Nevelson. In Occupant, she’s been invited to participate in an interview—from beyond the grave.

Through her ups and downs, her contradictions and evasions, we witness the deep inner turmoil and intrepid triumphs of one of the 20th century’s greatest artistic minds. Theater J. 1529 16th St. NW. To Nov. 30. $34–$64. (202) 777-3210. theaterj.org.

PORT AUTHORITY Three generations of Dublin men navigate lost love and missed opportunities in this show directed by Jack Sbarbori, who directed Quotidian’s 2009 production of the play. Quotidian Theatre Company at The Writer’s Center. 4508 Walsh St.,

Bethesda. To Nov. 17. $15–$35. (301) 816-1023. quotidiantheatre.org.

RENT On its 20th anniversary tour, Jonathan Larson’s RENT—a reimagining of La Bohème—follows seven struggling artists trying to make ends meet. National Theatre. 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. To Nov. 17. $54– $99. (202) 628-6161. nationaltheatre.org.

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN This classic American musical—featuring songs like “Good Mornin’” and “Make ‘em Laugh”—follows Hollywood’s transition from the silent era to the talkies. Olney Theatre Center. 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney. To Jan. 5. $37–$69.

(301) 924-3400. olneytheatre.org.

THEORY Mosaic Theater Company presents Theory, a play where a young professor tests the limits of free speech in her classroom—and ends up in a digital catand-mouse game, fearing for her life. Atlas Performing Arts Center. 1333 H St. NE. To Nov. 17. $20–$65.

(202) 399-7993. atlasarts.org.

TWELFTH NIGHT This play is the classic Twelfth Night set to the 1969 backdrop of Woodstock and the Vietnam War. Shakespeare’s Illyria is undergoes the redefining of gender roles, war, and music. George Mason University Center for the Arts. 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. To Nov. 24. $10–$20. (888) 945-2468. cfa.gmu.edu.

WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA: THE MAGIC FLUTE This whimsical production designed by Maurice Sendak of Where the Wild Things Are stages Mozart’s beloved opera in a world of playful, evocative fairy tales. Kennedy Center Opera House. 2700 F St. NW. To Nov. 23. $25–$299. (202) 467-4600. kennedy-center.org.

WHITE PEARL This comedy about whiteness and the beauty industry follows the fallout of a skin whitening cream ad’s leak—and someone’s definitely getting fired. Studio Theatre. 1501 14th St. NW. To Dec. 8. $20– $80. (202) 332-3300. studiotheatre.org.

Film

CHARLIE’S ANGELS Three high-powered female spies—Charlie’s Angels—must protect a whistleblower who exposes a dangerous technology. Starring Elizabeth Banks, Naomi Scott, and Kristen Stewart. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

28 november 15, 2019 washingtoncitypaper.com

The speed at which Titus Andronicus chew through musicians is a testament to the band’s intensity. Spin says at least 14 people have quit, and Wikipedia counts only four current members.

Patrick Stickles, Titus Andronicus’ frontman and ringmaster, is probably the wellspring of that intensity. On one hand, Stickles is a New Jersey guy with a workmanlike approach who models himself after Bruce Springsteen. On the other, he beefs with Pitchfork using the band’s Twitter handle and annotates the Genius pages for his own songs. You could see why it might take a certain type of person to survive in a band both fronted by that guy and named for Shakespeare’s most depraved and violent revenge play. But with that intensity comes appetite: Titus Andronicus’ music is DIY econo-punk with arena-scale ambitions, and to date they’ve dropped two sprawling concept albums, one of which (The Monitor) tackles mental health and the American Civil War. Their latest effort (produced by Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü fame) is a more straightforward affair, a victory lap through the band’s storied discography. Titus Andronicus perform at 7:30 p.m. at Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $15–$18. (202) 667-4490. blackcatdc.com. —Will Lennon DOCTOR SLEEP In this sequel to The Shining, a grown-up Danny Torrance must protect a young girl with psychic powers from a cult who wants to harm them both. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

LAST CHRISTMAS A frazzled woman living a messy life takes work as one of Santa’s elves—and meets a man who feels too good to be true. Starring Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, and Emma Thompson. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

FORD V FERRARI Two Americans attempt to push the laws of engineering and physics and create a Ford that can compete against a Ferrari at a 1966 race. Starring Christian Bale, Matt Damon, and Caitriona Balfe. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

MIDWAY Midway covers WWII’s dramatic Battle of Midway through the perspective of the soldiers who fought in it. Starring Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, and Luke Evans. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

FRANKIE In lush Sintra, Portugal, three generations of a family must deal with a life-changing event. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, and Marisa Tomei. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE GOOD LIAR A well-to-do widow is picked up by a con man looking to score, but things get complicated quickly. Starring Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, and Russell Tovey. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) HARRIET This biopic follows the extraordinary life of Harriet Tubman, who escaped from slavery and returned to dangerous territory over and over again to free other people. Starring Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., and Clarke Peters. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) HONEY BOY Shia LaBeouf plays a father in story based on his own childhood and family relationships.

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, and FKA Twigs.

(See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN A private eye with Tourette’s syndrome tries to crack the case of his mentor’s murder. Starring Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, and Willem Dafoe. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) PLAYING WITH FIRE A group of manly firefighters have to rescue—and take care of—three rambunctious children. Starring John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and Judy Greer. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) THE REPORT A Senate staffer uncovers dramatic secrets when he investigates the CIA’s post-9/11 activities. Starring Adam Driver, Jon Hamm, and Annette Bening. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information) TERMINATOR: DARK FATE Sarah Connor must protect a young girl from a new liquid Terminator from the future. Starring Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mackenzie Davis. (See washingtoncitypaper.com for venue information)

SAVAGELOVE My boyfriend and I met online to explore our kinks. We’d both been in relationships with kinkshaming people who screwed with our heads. Since we weren’t thinking it was more than a hookup, we put all our baggage on the table early and wound up becoming friends. Eventually we realized we had a real connection and started a relationship where we supported our desire to explore. I’ve never been happier. The only issue is how he gets down on himself if I get more attention than he does. After the first kink party we went to, he would not stop trying to convince me that no one looked at him all evening. I tried to boost his confidence, and I also brought up things like “You were on a leash, so maybe people assumed you were off-limits.” No dice. I couldn’t get him to even entertain the notion that anyone even looked at him. He’s a cross-dressing sissy who loves to be used by men—heterosuckual—and he has a lot of baggage, with every last one of his exes citing his cross-dressing as a reason to leave him for a “real” man. To make things worse, we have had issues with guys coming over for him, finding out there’s a Domme female in the picture, and switching focus to me.

I feel like I wind up avoiding kinky sexual situations (which I love!) because I’m so concerned about protecting his ego. I’ve tried using my words and we generally communicate well, but he is unwilling to entertain any interpretations that don’t mesh with his theory that he’s obviously undesirable. The breaking point for me was this past weekend. He encouraged me to go to a swingers party with a friend, and I had a blast. It was super empowering, and all I wanted to do was tell him every detail—the way he will when he services cock—and he was so jealous that I was able to effortlessly get so much attention, he wasn’t ready to hear it. It made me feel the same sex shame I felt with my ex. It also made me feel like he was insinuating how could I get so lucky, which hit all my chubby girl self-conscious places hard. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!

—Seeking Insightful Stress Solution, Yup Tell that sissy to get over herself.

Your boyfriend is making you feel guilty about something you have no control over: Women get more attention at mixed-gender sex/play parties than men do. And as far as your respective kinks go, SISSY, there are always going to be more people out there who want to get with Domme women than guys who want to get with/be serviced by submissive heterosuckual cross-dressers.

Your boyfriend will always attract less interest than you do at a kink party, just as someone who goes to a BDSM play party hoping to do a little knife play will attract less interest than someone who’s looking for a little light bondage. Instead of counting the number of guys who approach you at a party and then trying to ruin your night for getting more attention than he does, your boyfriend has to make the most of every opportunity that comes his way.

And if some guy approaches him at a play

party only to realize he’s on a leash, SISSY, isn’t that guy supposed to turn his attention to the Dominant partner? If your boyfriend could resist the urge to spiral down at those moments— if he could resist the urge to make himself the center of negative attention—those men would probably turn their attention back to him at some point, particularly if you encouraged/gave them permission to do so. (You could and perhaps should also make it clear to anyone who approaches you at some-if-notall kink parties that you’re a package deal: You play together or you don’t play at all. But even then, your boyfriend has to accept that you’ll be leveraging your desirability on both your behalves and be at peace with it.

Usually when I advise readers to “use their words,” it’s about making sexual needs clear, i.e., asking for what we want with the understanding that we may not always get what we want. But

But what you need, SISSY, is for your boyfriend to knock this petty, hypocritical slut-shaming shit off. (He’s essentially shaming you for being the slut he’d like to be.) what you need (and you need to use your words to get), SISSY, is for your boyfriend to knock this petty, hypocritical slut-shaming shit off. (He’s essentially shaming you for being the slut he’d like to be.) It might help if you got him to recognize and grieve and accept not just the reality of the situation—women with more mainstream kinks are more in demand at mixed-gender kink parties than men with niche kinks—but also the risk he’s running here: His insecurities are sabotaging your relationship. Him setting traps for you—like encouraging you to go out and play only to make you feel terrible about it afterward—and making hurting insinuations about your attractiveness is making this relationship untenable. Tell him that you’re going to dump him if he can’t get a grip. And then ask him what will be worse—being partnered with someone who gets more attention than he does in kink and swinger spaces or being a single male in those spaces. (It’s a trick question, at least partly, as many of those spaces don’t allow single males.)

—Dan Savage Straight woman here with a penis question: My current partner is uncircumcised, which I

am completely fine with. However, his foreskin is so tight that it can’t be pulled back over the head of his penis. I did my research and discovered the issue is phimosis. I asked him about it, and he said it’s always been this way and that sometimes it is painful. None of his doctors have seemed to notice it during exams, and he’s never brought it up.

Oddly enough, this is something that I’ve come across with two different partners—and in both situations, they had issues with maintaining an erection. Is this a thing?

—My Boyfriend’s Penis Phimosis is definitely a thing, MBP, and when it makes erections a painful thing, as it often does, then erections are going to be harder to obtain and sustain. And unless a doctor was examining your boyfriend’s erect penis, it’s not something a doctor would notice. A good doctor will ask their patients about their sexual health and function, but— based on the mail I get—it seems very few people have good doctors. Looking on the bright side: Phimosis is easily treated, if you can persuade your boyfriend to ask his doctor about it. Smearing a steroid cream on his cock could stretch and loosen the foreskin.

And if the cream doesn’t work, then a full or partial circumcision will do the trick. —DS I love my boyfriend, and he knows I like women, too. Our sex life was okay, a little boring and routine and always “doggy style.” And he hardly ever goes down on me—like, at all.

I can count on one hand the number of times he’s done it in four years! So I agreed to have a threesome to spice things up, and we bought condoms. When we got down with another woman, he decided to have sex with her after me and he also decided to go down on her.

You know, the thing he never does for me. I’m so upset now, I can’t even have sex with him. I feel like it was a betrayal of my trust for him to eat out a woman he barely knows when he won’t do that for me. He also didn’t use the condoms—he says he “didn’t have time.” He said it meant nothing. But it’s really got me upset.

—Now Overlooking My Need Of Munching Not only would I have been upset during that threesome, NOMNOM, I would have been single very shortly after it. Dude doesn’t eat pussy—dude doesn’t eat your pussy—and can’t find the time to put a condom on when he wants to (gets to!) have sex with another woman in front of you? DTMFA. —DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net.

Scene and

Heard Cast Away November, 2019 I have seen my brothers and sisters, my cousins and friends, strangers and enemies cast away. It’s always the same. A low rumble followed by a loud clang. It’s disheartening to see the bodies pile up. But the man who’s doing this has faith that it will work.

Every key opens something. That’s our one truth, our foundational myth. We all have a purpose, a problem to which we are the only solution. Surely one of us will open this locked door in a downtown office building. Surely one of us is the solution he’s looking for. He tries another. It doesn’t fit the knob and he lets it fall, jangling as it mixes with hundreds of castoff failures. They paint a Pollock-like canvas of dull metallics and bright colors.

It’s my turn now, and his faith is contagious.

Maybe I will be the one to open this door, maybe this is my purpose. He grabs me and lifts me up to the knob. In a moment of elation I slide in. He was right! I was right! The fit is perfect.

He turns his wrist. Nothing happens. Suddenly I’m falling. Time passes slowly, and those familiar doubts return. Will I ever find my purpose?

Will my entire life go by unrealized? Why can’t I open this door?

—Will Warren Will Warren writes Scene and Heard. If you know of a location worthy of being seen or heard, email him at wwarren@washingtoncitypaper.com.

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

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21, 2018, with a Will and will serve without Court Supervision. All Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Notice of Request for unknown heirs and heirs Proposals Creative whose Auto/Wheels/Boat . . .whereabouts . . . . . . . . 42 Minds International are unknown shall Buy, Sell,School Trade . . enter . . . . their . . . .appear . . . . . . . .

Public Charter seeks providers of ance in this proceedMarketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Architectural Design & ing. Objections to such Consultings Services. . . . . . appointment Community . . . . . . . . . shall . . . .be42 Full RFP available at filed with the Register Employment . . . . of . .Wills, . . . .D.C., . . . .515 . . .5th 42 reativemindspcs.org/ requests-for-proposal Street, N.W., Building Health/Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . or via email. Bids due A, 3rd Floor, Washingto heather.hesslink@ or Body & Spirit . . . . ton, . . . D.C. . . . .20001, . . . . .on . 42 creativemindspcs.org by before 5/7/2020. Claims . . . . . the . . . decedent . . . . . 42 12:00Housing/Rentals PM on Novemagainst ber 27.

Legal Notices . . . shall .the . .undersigned .be . .presented . . . . . with . .to42 a SUPERIOR COURT of Music/Music Row .copy . . .to . .the . . Register . . . . . 42 OF THE DISTRICT OF Wills or to the Register Pets . . . . . . . . . . . of . .Wills . . . with . . . .a .copy . . . to 42 COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION the undersigned, on or Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42 2019 ADM 001130 before 5/7/2020, or be NameShared of Decedent, Housing . forever . . . . . barred. . . . . . .Persons . . 42 Beatrice Ward. Notice of believed to be heirs or Services . . . to . . . . . legatees . . . . . . of . .the . . .decedent . . 42 Appointment, Notice Creditors and Notice to who do not receive a Unknown Heirs, Robert copy of this notice by Drew and Rita Drew, mail within 25 days of whose address is 7405 its publication shall so Kenstan Ct, Temple inform the Register of Hills, MD 20748; 4703 Wills, including name, 8th St NW, Washingaddress and relationton, DC 20011 was ship. Date of first appointed Personal publication: 11/7/2019 Representative of the Name of Newspaper estate of Beatrice Ward and/or periodical: Washwho died on September ington City Paper/Daily

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Legals

KIPP DC PUBLIC CHARTER NOTICE IS SCHOOLS HEREBY GIVEN REQUEST FOR PROTHAT: POSALS TRAVISA OUTSOURCING, INC. (DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER Donor Database and AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS Events Management FILE NUMBER 271941) HAS System DISSOLVED EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 27, 2017 AND HAS FILED KIPP DC OF is soliciting ARTICLES DISSOLUTION OF proposals from qualified DOMESTIC FOR-PROFIT CORvendors Donor PORATION for WITHa THE DISTRICT Database and Events OF COLUMBIA CORPORATIONS DIVISION Management System.

The RFP can be found Aon CLAIM AGAINST TRAVISA KIPP DC’s website OUTSOURCING, INC. MUST at www.kippdc.org/ INCLUDE THE NAME OF THE procurement. Proposals DISSOLVED CORPORATION, should INCLUDE be THEuploaded NAME OFtoTHE the website no later CLAIMANT, INCLUDE A SUMMAthan PM EST, on RY OF 5:00 THE FACTS SUPPORTING November 26,BE2019.

THE CLAIM, AND MAILED TO 1600 INTERNATIONAL DRIVE, Questions can be adSUITE 600, to MCLEAN, VA 22102 dressed rebecca. furst-nichols@kippdc.

ALL org.CLAIMS WILL BE BARRED UNLESS A PROCEEDING TO ENFORCE THE CLAIM IS COMSUPERIOR MENCED WITH COURT IN 3 YEARS OF OF THE DISTRICT OF PUBLICATION OF THIS NOTICE COLUMBIA IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION PROBATE 29-312.07 OFDIVISION THE DISTRICT OF 2019 FEP 000130 Date COLUMBIA ORGANIZATIONS ACT. of Death March 23, 2019 Two Rivers PCS is soliciting Name proposalsoftoDecedent, provide projectKymanoung-Ah Nam, of agement services forNotice a small conAppointment of aForeign struction project. For copy of the RFP, please Representative email procurement@ Personal tworiverspcs.org.

Deadline for and Notice to Creditors submissions is DecemberLee, 6, 2017.

James Kang-Koog whose address is 3740 Branding Iron Place, Dublin, CA 94568 was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Kyoung-Ah Nam, deceased, by the Superior Court for Santa Clara County, State of California on Oct. 7, 2019. Service of process may be made upon District Registered Agent Services, Inc. at 1025 Connecticut Avenue,

Print Deadline The deadline for submission and payment of classified ads for print is each Monday, 5 pm.

You may contact the classifieds rep by emailing classifieds@washingtoncitypaper.com or calling 202-650-6941.

NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036 Legals whose designation as District DC SCHOLARS PCS REQUEST of Columbia agent has FOR PROPOSALS – Modubeen filed with the lar Contractor Services - DC Register of Wills, D.C. Scholars Public Charter School The solicitsdecedent proposals owned for a modular the following District of contractor to provide professional Columbia management real and property: construction services25th to construct a modular 1275 St. NW, Apt building to house four classrooms 804, Washington, DC. and one faculty offiowned ce suite. The The decedent Request for Proposals per(RFP) District of Columbia specifi cations can be obtained on sonal property. Claims and after Monday, November 27, against 2017 from the Emilydecedent Stone via commay be presented to munityschools@dcscholars.org. the undersigned and All questions should be sent in filed the No Register writingwith by e-mail. phone calls regarding this the RFP District will be acof Wills for cepted.

Bids must515 be received of Columbia, 5th by 5:00 PM on Thursday, Street, N.W., 3rd December Floor, 14, 2017 at DC Scholars Public Washington, D.C. 20001 Charter School, ATTN:from Sharonda within 6 months Mann, 5601 E. Capitol St. SE, the date of publicaWashington, DCfirst 20019.

Any bids tionaddressing of this notice. not all areas as outDate publication: lined inof thefirst RFP specifi cations will 11/7/2019 not be considered.

Name of Newspaper and/or periodical:for Rent Apartments Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter Name of Person Representative: James KangKoog Lee TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: Nov 7, 14, 21 Must see! Spacious semi-furnished 1 OF BR/1 BA basement STATE NORTH apt, Deanwood, IN $1200.

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Defendant/Respondents.

Construction/Labor

TO: Deea Smith, Claudius Dre Smith, Chelsea Smith

TAKE NOTICE that a pleading seeking relief POWER DESIGN NOW HIRagainst you has APPRENbeen ING ELECTRICAL TICES SKILL LEVfiled in OF theALL aboveELS! entitled special proceeding. The nature of the aboutbeing the position… relief sought is Do you for lovePartition working with Petition by your hands? Are you interSale. ested in construction and You are required to in becoming an electrician? make defense such Then the electricalto apprentice pleading not be later than position could perfect for the day ofapprentices Decemyou!24th Electrical are 2019, able to earn paycheck ber, saida date and full benefi(40) ts while learnbeing forty days ing the firstfrom thetrade firstthrough publication hand experience. of this notice. Upon your

failure to do so, the what we’re looking for… party seeking service Motivated D.C. residents who against want to you learn will the apply electricalto the court for the relief trade and have a high school sought. diploma or GED as well as reliable This thetransportation.

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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION Financial Services 2019 ADM 000910 Denied Credit??

Work to ReName of Decedent, pair YourJean CreditThompson.

Report With The Gloria Trusted in Credit of Repair.

Name Leader and Address Call Lexington Law forPlant, a FREE Attorney Amanda credit report summary & 4000 Legato Road, credit repair consultation. 855-620Suite 1100, Fairfax, 9426. John C. Heath, Attorney at VA Notice of Law Law,22033.

PLLC, dba Lexington Appointment, Notice to Firm.

Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Barbara Services ThompsonHome Smith, whose address is 309 Park Dish Network-Satellite TeleStreet, Bluefield, West vision Services. Now Over 190 Virginia 24701 was channels for ONLY $49.99/mo! appointedforPersonal HBO-FREE one year,RepFREE resentativeFREE of theStreaming, estate Installation, of Gloria Jean Thompson FREE HD. Add Internet for $14.95 died on July 20, awho month.

1-800-373-6508 2019, without a Will

and will serve without Auctions Court Supervision.

All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., Building A, 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. Whole Foods Commissary Auctionon or before 20001, DC Metro Area 5/07/2020. Claims Dec. 5 atthe 10:30AM against decedent 1000s Tables, Carts shall be S/S presented to & Trays, 2016 Kettles up the undersigned with a to 200 Gallons, Urschel copy to the Register of Cutters & Shredders inWills or to2016 the Register cluding Diversacut of2110 WillsDicer, with6aChill/Freeze copy to the undersigned, or Cabs, Double Rack on Ovens & Ranges, (12) Braising before 5/07/2020, or be Tables, barred.

2016 (3+)Persons Stephan forever VCMs, to30+ Scales, believed be heirs or Hobart 80 qt Mixers, legatees of the decedent Complete Machine Shop, who do not receive a and much more! View the copy of at this notice by catalog mail within 25 days ofor www.mdavisgroup.com its412-521-5751 publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address andGarage/Yard/ relationRummage/Estate ship.

Date of first Sales publication: Flea Market 11/7/2019 every Fri-Sat Name of Newspaper 10am-4pm.

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William W Crocker

Decedent FIND YOURTOOUTLET. NOTICE UNKNOWN HEIRS RELAX, UNWIND, Rosemary Tate, whose REPEAT CLASSIFIEDS address is 761 Quebec HEALTH/MIND, BODY Place, N.W., WashingD.C. 20010, is the & ton, SPIRIT personal representative

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Office Space for Events Rent/lease at 915 Rhode Island Avenue, Christmas in Silver Spring NW Washington DC Saturday, 2017 20001. December $50.00 2, per Veteran’s Plaza Sf Min. 3,109 sf 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. available.

Great work- in Come celebrate Christmas space/metro the heart of Silverassessible Spring at our includes reception/ Vendor Village on Veteran’s Placonference room, 2 arts za. There will be shopping, unisex and craftsrestrooms, for kids, pictures with Santa, music andContact: entertainment and kitchen. to spread holiday cheer and more. dseegers@hillcrest-dc.

Proceeds from the market will org provide a “wish” toy for children in need. Join us at your one stop Hyattsville Room for shop for everything Christmas.

Rent: NeighborFor moreQuiet information, contact hood, Futsum, Close to Metro, Furnished, NS, Off info@leadersinstitutemd.org or Street Parking, $575/ call 301-655-9679 mo. uitls. incl. 410-476General 1665 Lookingatoroommate?

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Dogs will beSpacious, in a ventilated kennel Modern Full so they will not be exposed of light.Newly Build,to winter and harshhigh weather etc. Space spacious, ceilings, will be needed as soon as possilarge windows, drenched ble.

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12 Punk rocker Joan who plays guitar for the Sunday Night Football theme song alongside Carrie Underwood 14 Advertising award 17 There are three in Fiji 22 "Don't impress me" 24 Brit. honors 25 Greenbacks 27 Fooled around 28 Make things less intense 29 Fancy Jaguars 30 ["what are these lyrics again?"]

31 Computer that comes with Keynote 32 End of the bender (just go to bed already, no need for these) 33 Cartoonist Feiffer 36 Cat's lingo 37 Basketball announcer Albert 39 Supereccentrics 40 "Finally!"

42 Retirement vehicle 43 Model ___ Hadid 45 Smack collector 46 Bear with 47 Levi's Stadium player, briefly 48 Mad as hell 49 Athens aperitif 50 Storm or Rogue, e.g.

51 Right, in 36-Down 55 Affirmative word 56 Jimmy's girlfriend on Better Call Saul

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15 16 18 19 20 21 23 25 26 27

30 33 34 35 36 37

Antic event Real a-hole Islam pilgrimage My Neighbor Totoro genre Chick on the keys High card Bender stop #1 (late morning) Gentle touch Baton Rouge sch.

Film genre with detectives and dames Eat your peas, informally Appears that way "Eeny meeny ___ moe" Ones who go either way Western comics antihero played

by Josh Brolin in a 2010 movie Sheet on a bed Intense desire Sturdy tree Friends at the Sorbonne Did a fancy move on the field, say Guiding spirit

38 Internet connectivity problem 39 Actress Samira of The Handmaid's Tale 40 Cab driver's income 41 Pulled off 43 "___ blimey!"

(Brit's outburst) 44 Gives it a go 45 "All Apologies" band 49 Vehicle on the farm 51 Shakespeare villain who has more lines than the titular character of the play he appears in 52 Trash collector 53 Actress Thurman 54 Bender stop #2 (early afternoon) 57 Hit with a taser 58 Kind of acid 59 Drink made with apples 60 Hammer-___ (guitar playing techniques) 61 Heroin, in slang 62 File material

1 Rings up

14

1 6 10 13

2 49-Down flavor 3 Stir, as interest 4 Bird that can run upward of 30 miles per hour 5 Dials back 6 Soup du ___ 7 Sea eagle 8 Chilled out in a man cave, say 9 "Big" surfers on Hawaii 10 Bender stop #3 (late afternoon) 11 Foodie berry

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Furnished Room for rent- Old City Capitol Hill - H Street Corridor.

W/D, Internet service, Utilities included, $1200/ month Please visit- http:// www.thecurryestate. com/home.html for more details.

work-day. * Ability to read and interpret documents such as safety rules, operating and maintenance instructions, and procedure manuals, and the ability to communicate them to others.

Compensation: Salary commensurate with experience. Generous benefits.

Amazing 4 bedroom/2.5 bathrooms townhouse 5 minutes walking distance from the Minnesota Avenue Metro. Historic charm, spacious layout, lovelyquiet neighborhood close to everything.

Duration: Fulltime position; posting closes when position is filled.

Fully equipped kitchen with plenty of counter space, a gas stove, dishwasher and stainlesssteel appliances. Washer and dryer in the unit.

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Enjoy the Minnesota Avenue Metro neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vibrant social scene, new restaurants and coffee shops. Easy access to I-295 will speed up your morning work commute.

Available December 1, 2019 psaragiotis@worldbank. org

Flyer Distributors Needed MondayFriday and weekends.

We drop you off to distribute the flyers. NW, Bethesda, Silver Spring, Wheaton. $9/hr. 240715-7874

To apply send cover letter and resume: resume@ufcw.org EOE ADA Need Computer Tutorial. Need Someone who is computer savvy and can help me set up a new laptop and give me a tutorial. 301-3834504 Wholistic Services, Inc. is looking for dedicated individuals to work as Direct Support Professionals assisting intellectually disabled adults with behavioral health issues in our group homes and day services throughout the District of Columbia.

Job requirements: * Experience working with intellectually disabled adults with behavioral health issues is preferred

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UFCW International Union Building Assistant Washington DC www.ufcw.org Overview: UFCW is seeking a Building Assistant Duties and Responsibilities: *Maintain beverage service and the cleanliness of the employee break rooms and pantry areas * Performs a thorough cleaning of all refrigerators bi-weekly. * Maintains coffee service throughout workday, keeping coffee stocked in all break rooms and conference http://www.washingtrooms. oncitypaper.com/ * Orders, Receives, inventory and stores coffee and Breakroom Supllies * Provides daily backup for Reception, Operational Support and Services, Floater I and II, the local unions, representatives and Presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office. * Provides or assists in providing beverage service for in-house meetings, luncheons, etc. * Assists with projects and production and acts as back-up for some shipping functions in the Printing, Shipping and Receiving Office.

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Contact: Stevenstvn9@ aol.com I LOVE HISTORY I love history and am looking to make friends with individuals with the same interest. I work at a major research institution and live at Dupont Circle.

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washingtoncitypaper.com november 15, 2019 31

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