Arts & Entertainment
Arts news in brief: March 25
Kaki King at the Birchmere, Pride night at Signature and more
Lesbian King at the Birchmere tonight
Lesbian musician Kaki King will be performing at the Birchmere (3701 Mt. Vernon Ave.) in Alexandria tonight at 7:30 p.m. with Joe Robinson.
King’s newest album, “Junior,” features songs not like her previous works, such as “Spit It Back in My Mouth,” which she describes as her “Cure song” based on its happy groove and depressing lyrics.
In February 2006, King was the only woman and the youngest artist to be included in Rolling Stone’s list of “The New Guitar Gods.”
Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com.
Signature hosts ‘Curtain’ pride night
Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave.) in Arlington hosts “Pride Night,” a special event for the LGBT community, tonight.
The evening includes a performance of the musical comedy “And the Curtain Rises,” at 8 p.m. followed by a post-show cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception.
Loosely based on true events, “And the Curtain Rises” tells the story of how the first American musical, 1866’s “The Black Crook,” came to be, including all the issues trying to stop it such as a cast on the verge of revolt and the scenery and costumes being destroyed.
There will be a shuttle bus picking people up from Dupont Circle on P Street and bringing them directly to Signature at 6:30 p.m. and will leave the theater at 11:30 to ring them back.
Seats on the shuttle are limited and reservations must be made through the Signature Box Office at the time of ticket purchase. Attendees cannot simply show up in the Circle and board.
Tickets are $82 and $87 and include the reception with complimentary wine and beer and light appetizers. The round-trip ticket for the shuttle is an additional $5.
Call 703-820-9771 to purchase tickets and reserve a spot on the shuttle.
The show will run through April 10.
Conner thinks outside box with new exhibits
Zoe Charlton, Mia Feuer and Coble/Riley Projects all have exhibits at Conner Contemporary Art (1358 Florida Ave., N.E.).
Charlton’s exhibit, “Paladins and Tourists,” features large-scale drawings of nude, white male figures and a video entitled “Be Sarah,” about Sarah Baartman, a South African slave who was exhibited for public entertainment as the “Hottentot Venus.”
Feuer’s “Stress Cone” is a special gogo art projects exhibition featuring a large, site-specific sculptural installation modeled on electrical transformer stations suspended from the gallery’s ceiling.
The Coble/Riley Projects exhibit is the collaborative debut of Mary Coble and Blithe Riley with a two-channel video, “Ascension/Immersion.” The team transformed an abandoned house by cutting two large holes in the roof, allowing Coble to enter the structure from above and exit from below repeatedly dropping five feet into a pool of water inside.
HED:
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)
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
‘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.
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