Arts & Entertainment

Social agenda for April 2

Published

16 years ago

April 1, 2010

Friday, April 2

RAW returns to the Green Lantern, 1335 Green Court N.W., from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. RAW is inspired by gay parties of the early 80s, filled with fog, strobe lights and throbbing music, along with go-go boys. The hosts for the evening are Karl Marks and resident DJs, Shea and Bil. DJ RAD (of Pink Sock) will be the special guest DJ. Catch his set on the 1st floor from 10 p.m. to midnight. Entry is free before 11 p.m., and $3 after that. 21+

Gay District, a weekly, non-church affiliated discussion and social group for GBTQ men between 18 and 35 is held from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave., N.W. For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Nada Surf plays the 9:30 club, 815 V St., N.W., at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20.

“Little Shop of Horrors” is on stage at Ford’s Theatre, 511 10th St., N.W., at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $39-$55; call 202-496-4200 for information.

Friday Night Erev Shabbat Services are held from 8:30-10 p.m. at the Washington Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th St.

Saturday, April 3

Cherry Fund’s annual Cherry Weekend HIV/AIDS Fundraiser will be held at Freddie’s Beach Bar, 555 23rd St. S., Arlington, VA. A $5 donation is being asked that will help HIV/AIDS Prevention & Education Efforts in the region. DJ JFX returns from L.A. to throw down your favorite anthems, vocals and progressive house vibes. The party starts at 9 p.m.

The HomoSonic dance party will be held at the Black Cat Mainstage, 1811 14th. St., N.W., from 9:30 p.m.-3 a.m. The event is co-ed gay/mix, trans inclusive and straight friendly. Cover charge is $10.

CODE returns to Motley Bar above EFN Lounge, 1318 9th St. N.W., for its monthly installment. Gear, rubber, skin, uniform or leather dress code will be strictly enforced. Music provided by DJ Michael Hades. Admission is $10. Code is an 18+ event. There will be an open bar from 9-10 p.m.

The first Saturday of each month is ladies night with JAM at Mova, 1435 P St., N.W. Entry is free plus the first 50 people get a free beer courtesy of Miller Lite. Music will be provided by DJ GEMZ with a little something for everyone.

‘Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett’ at the Lyric Opera House, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave., Baltimore at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $42-$72, call 410-685-5086.

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated at the National Cathedral, a ministry for all faiths, at 8 p.m. Easter Sunday services at 8 and 11 a.m. Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues, N.W. Visit nationalcathedral.org for more information.

Sunday, April 4

Easter services at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, 474 Ridge St., N.W., at 9 a.m.

Dignity Washington, a group for LGBT Catholics, celebrates Easter Mass at 6 p.m. at St. Margaret’s Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave., N.W.

BurGREENdy – recycling during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. BCV is going to be working to encourage recycling during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Volunteers will encourage festival attendees to recycle their empty beverage containers by placing them in recycling containers that are located around the Tidal Basin. There will be two shifts between 3:30-6:30 p.m. Visit burgundycrescent.org for more information.

Monday, April 5

The DC Center invites bears and their allies for the first “Bears do Yoga,” starting today. This four-week class will serve as an introduction to yoga for all different body types and physical abilities. Classes will take place four consecutive Monday evenings: April 5, 12, 19 and 26. Classes begin at 6:15 p.m. in the DC Center Activity Room and last for one hour. There is a suggested $5 donation. To RSVP for this class e-mail [email protected].

Vivian Green, a former backup singer for Jill Scott, plays the Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave. in Alexandria at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35; call 703-549-7000 for information.

Tuesday, April 6

Packing Party at EFN Lounge/Motley Bar, 1318 9th Street, N.W., from 7-8 p.m. Volunteers will be assembling safer sex kits and enjoying drink specials at Motley.

Wednesday, April 7

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler will speak about his recent legal opinion regarding recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages at 6:45 p.m., Govans Presbyterian Church, 5828 York Rd., Baltimore. A meal will be served at 5:45 p.m.; RSVP required for the meal, 410-435-9188.

Join the D.C. chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association for happy hour at Nellie’s Sports Bar, 900 U St., N.W., from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Get to know other professionals working in journalism, communications and related fields. Information on the 20th anniversary NLGJA convention this September in San Francisco will be available.

The Rainbow History Project presents readings from “Persistent Voices”: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS. Starting at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Hall at Summer School Museum and Archive, 1201 17th St., N.W. The anthology includes works by several D.C.-based poets, including Essex Hemphill. The evening will be moderated by Philip Clark, Rainbow History board member and co-editor of the book. Clark, Richard McCann, Kim Roberts and Bernard Welt will read selected poems from the anthology. For more information call 202-821-7532.

DC Ice Breakers, a GLBTQ social group, will meet and ice skate at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston, on top of the Ballston Common Mall parking garage, 627 N. Glebe Road, Arlington. The ice skating events take place on first and third Wednesday nights, with a social after at a local bar. Skating is from 7:45-8:45 p.m. Ice skating novices are welcome. No membership fees and no RSVP needed (for most events), simply show up.

Verdi’s Rigoletto will be shown at 7 p.m. as part of the Opera and Ballet in Cinema series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St., N.E. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the box office, at atlas arts.org/tickets or by calling 202-399-7993.

Career Development at the DC Center, 1810 14th St. N.W., from 3-4 p.m., brings trained and experienced volunteer human resource professionals to offer support with job searches, interviews skills, resume writing and individual career goal counseling. For more information, contact the Center at 202-682-2245 or careerdevelopmentthedccenter.org.

Thursday, April 8

The Cherry Fund presents “Cherry Weekend: A Return to Tradition.” The events of the weekend kick off on April 8 with the Opening Party at Mova, 1435 P St., N.W. from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Music by DJ Jason Royce. Complimentary admission. The event is 21+.

DCBiWomen, the area’s social group for bisexual and bi-curious women, will meet from 7– 8 p.m. at Cafe Luna, 1633 P St., N.W., at 7 p.m. The group’s goal is to create an accepting, encouraging environment for bisexual women regardless of the gender of their partner or what they are looking for, meet other cool bi women and affirm the existence of the bi-identity. For more information visit http://www.dcbiwomen.org/index.asp.

Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

8 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

17 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.