Arts & Entertainment

Arts news in brief

Phillips Collection re-opens after serious fire and more

Published

13 years ago

January 13, 2011

'The Finding of Erichthonius,' a 1632 painting by Peter Paul Rubens that's part of the Phillips Collection. None of the art work was damaged or destroyed by last year's fire. (Image courtesy of the Phillips Collection)

Phillips Collection reopens after serious fire

After its disastrous fire Sept. 2, this weekend is the welcome-back celebration/grand reopening of the newly renovated Phillips House, a museum since Duncan Phillips opened its doors in 1921 as America’s first museum of modern art. It’s full of his collection of works by Renoir and Monet, van Gogh and Degas, Picasso and Klee, and more.

The fire was restricted to the roof and a suite of offices directly under it, and the famed art was not harmed, but there was extensive water damage to 12 galleries inside the 1897 building, at 1600 21st St. N.W., in Dupont Circle near 21st and Q.

Now everything is back in place as the museum kicks off its 90th anniversary year under the banner of “90 Years of New,” beginning with this weekend’s reopening when the regular $12 admission charges are waived and complimentary champagne will be uncorked. The museum is open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. A host of programs, installations, films and more are promised.

The year’s celebration culminates on Nov. 5 with the 90th-anniversary “birthday bash.” More details are here.

Gay arts group to honor King holiday

A “Remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” sponsored by the GLBT Arts Consortium with the Capitol Hills Arts Workshop will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church, 4th and Independence Avenue, S.E.

Participants include the Rock Creek Singers of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (GMCW); light jazz, pop and folk music from Not What You Think, a 12-person ensemble from the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington; and Fortissima, D.C.’s feminist chorus open to “sopranos and altos of all genders,” known as the Bread and Roses Feminist Singers until 2009. Youth will also talk and sing, from the Bokamoso Youth Centre in Winderveldt Township near Pretoria, South Africa. The Centre offers AIDS awareness and other services and each year 12 of the students in its performing arts program receive scholarships for a month-long performance tour in the U.S.

The consortium is a collaboration of varied arts organizations including singers, painters, actors, dancers and filmmakers. For more details, go here or call its co-manager Jill Srachan at 202-547-4102.

St. Marks Players unveil new ‘Inherit the Wind’ production

Also on Capitol Hill beginning today is a new production by the St. Marks Players of “Inherit the Wind,” the play about the famed “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925, when a school teacher was tried for the crime of teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution, in contradiction to fundamentalist understandings of biblical creation.

The playwrights, Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee (the same team who wrote “Auntie Mame”), were writing in 1955, and taking specific aim at McCarthyism, according to Blake Cornish, who plays Henry Drummond, the character loosely based on civil liberties lawyer Clarence Darrow who battled but lost in the Tennessee courtroom against three-time presidential candidate and religious fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan.

Cornish, who has sung with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and is a former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force attorney, says the play is relevant in 2011 because it “explores issues around the relationship between religious teachings and secular law, and pertains to LGBT equality in lots of different ways, when people use religious beliefs in ways that many in gay community would find to justify bigotry.”

Performance dates are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. through Jan 29, at St. Marks Episcopal Church, 3rd and A Streets, S.E. For tickets, go here or call 202-546-9670.

‘Pocket operas’ series continue at the Source

Eight-time Helen Hayes award-winning director Joe Banno brings two more of the In Series’ “pocket operas” to the Source Theater weekends (8 p.m. with 3 p.m. matinees) until Jan. 22. The In Series, a small, performing arts organization has specialized for more than 25 years in an eclectic blend of opera, cabaret, theater and dance, and Latino-heritage productions.

This time it’s 19th century Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona’s “Maria la O,” a “Zarzuela,” the Spanish lyric-dramatic genre incorporating operatic and popular song, about a white plantation owner who must choose between the mulatta he loves, the Havana nightclub star Maria, and the aristocratic woman he is expected to wed. Love of course is darkened by betrayal and death. Mezzo soprano Anamer Castrello stars as Maria.

The other opera is Italian composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s world-famous 1892 opera “Pagliacci” (Clowns), where a troupe of entertainers visits a village and their show intertwines tragically with real life. The desperately sad clown Canio, destined to make the world laugh while he stands at the brink of self-destruction, is portrayed by tenor Peter Burroughs.

Tickets for $20-$39 at 202-204-7763 or inseries.org. If you must miss this pairing in January, shows have been added in late April/early May at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street N.E.

Photos

PHOTOS: Night of Champions

Team DC holds annual awards gala

Published

2 days ago

April 21, 2024

Michael Key

Team DC President Miguel Ayala speaks at the 2024 Night of Champions Awards on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Photos

PHOTOS: National Cannabis Festival

Annual event draws thousands to RFK

Published

2 days ago

April 21, 2024

Michael Key

Growers show their strains at The National Cannabis Festival on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024

Theater

‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith

A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor

Published

3 days ago

April 20, 2024

Patrick Folliard

Adil Mansoor in ‘Amm(i)gone’ at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. (Photo by Kitoko Chargois)

‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net

“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.

Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.

Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.

WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?

ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?

I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.

BLADE: Are you more director than actor?

MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.

I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.

BLADE: Describe your mom.

MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.

She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.

BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?

MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.

So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.

BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?

MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.

BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?

MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.

Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.

BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?

MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.

I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.