Arts & Entertainment
Out & About
Queer music fest kicks off Thursday at the Phase, the Nationals hold LGBT family day, ‘Sugar’ author to present book and new Vida opens on U Street

Queer music fest kicks off Thursday at the Phase
The fifth annual Phasefest Queer Arts and Music Festival kicks off Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Phase 1 Lounge (525 8th St., S.E.) with performances by the Athens Boys Choir, Jen Urban and the Box, Coolots, Frankie and Betty, Ashley Linder, Nikki Smith and Erin Brown.
It continues Friday night with performances by Men, People at Parties, Tayisha Busay, Rad Pony, Lost Bois, G.U.T.S. and Glitter Lust.
The festival ends Saturday night with a performance by the queer, all-female band Sick of Sarah, as well as Hunter Valentine, Allison Weiss, Mitten, Melissa Li and the Barely Theirs, Clinical Trials and Michelle Raymond.
Admission is $10 on Thursday and $20 each night for Friday and Saturday. A festival pass is also available for $45. All attendees must be 21 or older.
For more information, visit phasefest.com.
Local sports teams continue gay days

The Washington Nationals continue to promote their gay-friendly ways. Sunday is LGBT family day. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)
The Washington Nationals are hosting their first LGBT Family Day on Sunday as they take on the Florida Marlins.
Tickets are $16 for Outfield Reserve seat or $25 for an Outfield Reserve seat, a hot dog, soda and a bag of chips and are available online at nationals.com/lgbtfamily.
First pitch is at 1:35 p.m. and kids will be able invited to run the bases after the game.
Also Team D.C. presents the second annual “United Night Out” Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at RFK Stadium as D.C. United takes on Chivas USA.
D.C. Different Drummers will have a pre-game performance and the national anthem will be sung by Peter Fox.
Tickets are $25, a portion of which will benefit Food & Friends.
For more information and to purchase tickets online, visit UnitedNightOut.com.
βSugarβ author to present book
Wayne Hoffman, former Washington Blade reporter, will be in the D.C. area doing two events for his new gay-themed novel, “Sweet Like Sugar,” which is set in and around D.C. and follows the friendship between Benji Steiner and Rabbi Jacob Zuckerman
Hoffman will be leading a discussion at Bet Mishpachah at the D.C. Jewish Community Center (1529 16th St., N.W.) starting at 7:30 p.m. with services to follow at 8:30. He will also have a reading at Barnes & Noble (4801 Bethesda Ave.) in Bethesday on Sunday at 2 p.m.
For more information, visit Hoffman’s website, waynehoffmanwriter.com.
New Vida opens on U Street
Vida Fitness has opened on U Street after a four-month renovation overhaul, unveiling more than 40,000 square feet of fitness space with four levels devoted to cardio, strength, group and personal training making this Urban Adventures Companies fourth location in Washington at 1612 U Street, NW.
This is the largest, most fully equipped location and is the companyβs flagship site.
David von Storch is president of Urban Adventures Companies, Inc. His expansion of the U Street complex delivers high-end amenities that are found in Vidaβs other three locations at Verizon Center, Logan Circle and the Renaissance Washington Hotel.
For the first time, with Vida Fitness added into the mix, the U Street complex will include all of von Storchβs four Urban Adventures affiliate companies under one roof. Capitol City Brewing Company will build a restaurant space specifically designed for upscale dining. Bang Salon is also located on the first level. The Aura Spa is slated to open on the first floor in late spring 2012.
Books
Two new political memoirs reveal how the sausage of democracy is made
Top Dem, GOP spin-meisters weigh in on Trump, Buttigieg, more

βWhy We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hellβ
By Tim Miller
c.2022, Harper
$26.99/259 pages
βAny Given Tuesday: A Political Love Storyβ
By Lis Smith
c.2022, Harper
$22.39/304 pages
The lilies of the field, the Bible tells us, βneither toil nor spin.β If only, they had met Tim Miller and Lis Smith!
Miller and Smith, two top-tier spinmeisters have written memoirs. Fasten your seatbelts. These arenβt the usual tepid politicoβs tales.
As you read, youβll laugh out loud one minute. Then gulp down your go-to comfort food or libation while (literally) worrying about the fate of our democracy.
βNext to love, the most sacred thing you can give is your labor,β James Carville says to staff and volunteers in the last days of Bill Clintonβs 1992 presidential campaign in a real life Aaron Sorkin moment in the 1993 documentary βThe War Room.β
Miller and Smith both saw βThe War Roomβ when they were kids. Miller would grow up to be a Republican strategist who left the party over Trump. Smith would become a top Democratic political operative. But βThe War Roomβ instilled in both of them a love of the public service and game of politics.
Miller, who lives in Oakland, Calif., with his husband Tyler and their daughter Toulouse, is a former Republican political operative. He was communications director for Jeb Bushβs 2016 presidential campaign and spokesman for the Republican National Committee during Mitt Romneyβs 2012 presidential campaign. Miller left the GOP to become a leader of the βNever Trumpβ movement. After calling it quits with Trump, Miller worked briefly as a consultant for Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Trump administration. Now, Miller is an MSNBC analyst, a writer at large with βThe Bulwarkβ and the host of βNot My Partyβ on Snapchat.
The Republican Party has a history β from Ronald Reaganβs abysmal record on AIDS to Donald Trumpβs transphobic policies β of being anti-queer. Youβre likely wondering how Miller, as a gay man, could stomach working for the GOP.
In βWhy We Did It,β Miller puts himself and some of the people who βenabledβ Trump under the microscope.Β
βAmerica never would have gotten into this mess if it werenβt for me and my friends,β Miller writes, βWe were the βnormalβ Republicans.β
When Trump arrived, they didnβt take him seriously. They didnβt, βget off on the tears of immigrant children,β Miller writes. Nor would they have been caught βdead in one of those gaudy red baseball caps,β he adds.
βWhy in the fuck,β Miller asks, βdid the vast, vast majority of seemingly normal, decent people whom I worked with go along with the most abnormal, indecent of men?β
The first half of the memoir is Millerβs story of how he βcompartmentalizedβ being a gay man with being an operative for the largely homophobic GOP.
Take when he worked for John McCainβs presidential campaign. Though he was gay, Miller told McCain to walk it back after McCain said βgay marriage should be allowed if thereβs a ceremony kind of thing.β
In the second half of the book, Miller examines why people such as Elise Stefanik opted to βtake the red pillβ and work for βthe great MAGA future.β
βWhy We Did Itβ is dishy, dark, and soul-churning.
Smith, a top Democratic strategist and veteran of 20 campaigns, has worked for everyone from Claire McCaskill to Barack Obama. She was a senior communications adviser for Pete Buttigiegβs presidential campaign.
Thankfully, βAny Given Tuesdayβ isnβt a stuffy political memoir. Itβs smart, snarky, and gossipy. Smith is James Carville in high heels.
βAny Given Tuesdayβ is about Smithβs life in politics intertwined with stories from her personal life.
Due to sexism, her love life was politicized. Smith became a tabloid target when she fell in love with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, after learning of Smithβs relationship with Spitzer, fired her from her job with his administration. (Though she had worked for de Blasioβs campaign.)
You wonder if this would have happened if Smith had been a man. But Smith gets many digs at de Blasio. After her firing, de Blasio tried to win Spitzerβs political endorsement. βBoth of us had tried to get in bed with Eliot,β she writes of de Blasioβs failure to win Spitzerβs backing, βbut only one of us had been successful.β (Smith and Spitzer no longer have a relationship.)
Unlike Miller, Smith doesnβt have to twist herself into a compartmentalized pretzel to do her work. Like Miller, sheβs hopped up on the βgameβ of campaigns. Though Smith doesnβt agree with everything everyone she works for believes in, sheβs generally in synch with centrist Democrats.
Among the most interesting chapters of βAny Given Tuesdayβ are those about her work on Buttigiegβs campaign. If youβre queer or queer-friendly, even if you donβt agree with his politics, you get the historic significance of Buttigiegβs campaign.
Smithβs account of being on the road with the βButtibusβ and prepping Buttigieg for the candidatesβ debates is entertaining and informative. Itβs moving when Smith, a seasoned, snarky hack, comes to believe Buttigieg is βthe oneβ β the candidate who truly would serve this country well.
In βAny Given Tuesday,β Smith reveals how the messy sausage of democracy is made. In βWhy We Did It,β Miller makes even die-hard atheists pray that democracy will last. Β Β
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Theater
New musical highlights Frederick Douglass but falls short
βAmerican Prophetβ needs more energy and spark

‘American Prophet’
Through Aug. 28
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
$66 – $115
Arenastage.org
Frederick Douglassβs brilliance didnβt blossom in a walled garden.Β
Born into slavery around 1819, the renowned abolitionist worked the fields of Marylandβs Eastern Shore, and docks of Baltimore before escaping to freedom in New York where he emerged as a famed orator, writer, and publisher. Along his exceptional journey, Douglass was supported by family, and like-minded folks including prominent progressives of different temperaments whom he both learned from and heavily influenced.
In βAmerican Prophet,β a biographical musical now premiering at Arena Stage, co-creators Marcus Hummon and Charles Randolph-Wright have intentionally relied heavily on Douglassβs written words with mixed results. In both dialogue and lyrics, the great oratorβs fearless opines are present, sometimes they spark and crackle, soar and inspire, and other times theyβre not enough.Β
The action takes place on a tiered set resembling the choir space in an unadorned church. Itβs here the players congregate to tell Douglassβs remarkable story that doubles as a compelling slice of mid-19th century American history.
Standing centerstage is Douglass with a serious but handsome countenance, that distinctive side part, dark coat and vest. The actor (Curtis Wiley stepping in for Cornelius Smith, Jr., on a recent Sunday evening) is every inch the activist whose photograph is copiously featured in history books.
(Having slipped into Arenaβs Kreeger Theatre just as the lights went down, I didnβt realize until intermission when a strip of paper announcing the substitution fell out of my program, that I was watching an understudy. Wiley didnβt miss a line or lyric. His voice is gorgeous.)
Staged by Randolph-Wright, the musical unfolds chronologically as a straightforwardly told story. Douglass is born Frederick Bailey, purportedly the son of a slave and her white owner. After his motherβs death, heβs nurtured by a loving maternal grandmother (Cicily Daniels) and taught to read by his ownerβs sympathetic wife who recognizes the boyβs quick mind and ability. Soon after heβs sent off to Baltimore to serve as companion to a family relation about his same age. When that doesnβt work, heβs sent back to the farm where an overseer unsuccessfully tries to break young Baileyβs spirit.
Back in Baltimore, still a slave, he works long hours as a stevedore with his pay going to his owners. Exuberant and inexhaustible, he finds time to take in some pleasures of the city. At a dance he meets his wife, a free black woman named Anna Murray (Kristolyn Lloyd). Together, they successfully flee to the free North. Once there β after changing his name to Douglass from a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, βThe Lady of the Lake,β β his career booms.Β
Grammy-winning composer Hummonβs score, a mix of gospel and country sounds, moves the story lucidly along while leaving room for some strong stand-alone melodies, particularly Kristolyn Lloydβs pleasing rendition of Annaβs βI Love a Man.β In the supporting role of supporting wife, Lloyd is a standout.
Going forward, Douglass finds friendship and opportunity with William Lloyd Garrison (Thomas Adrian Simpson) an abolitionist who demands absolute fealty from his colleague. He forms a true comradeship with fiery abolitionist John Brown (Chris Roberts), but when their tactics become too dissimilar, the pair part company.
The second act finds us on the precipice of the Civil War, and itβs here we meet Abraham Lincoln (Simpson again). Itβs not the usual hagiographic portrayal weβre used to seeing, far from it. The great savior of the Union is written as a real politician β gladhanding and strategic. Still, Lincoln evolves and benefits from his association with Douglass, even borrowing his thoughts from time to time.
Douglass was a force. Insanely ahead of his time, he called slaveowners to the carpet and expressed the hypocrisy of America at home and on tours abroad. And while the musical does lovingly put his humanness on display, I wanted more. When that jolt of energy and spirit finally comes with the showβs stirring final number βAmerican Prophet,β itβs too little too late.
Douglass spent his final years in Washington. He died at his home Cedar Hill in Anacostia. He was 77.
Movies
New doc illuminates Patricia Highsmithβs life and work
βIntercourse with men is like steel wool to the faceβ

If youβve been transfixed by the amusement park scene in Alfred Hitchcockβs βStrangers on a Train,β rooted for the sociopath Tom Ripley in the 1999 film βThe Talented Mr. Ripleyβ or been moved to tears by the love of Therese and Carol in Todd Haynesβs movie of βCarol,β Patricia Highsmith is etched in your DNA.
Highsmith, who lived from 1921 to 1995 wrote more than 50 books (novels and short story collections). Nearly all of her books were made into movies.
Recently, βLoving Highsmith,β a fab documentary about Patricia Highsmith has been released. The film, written and directed by Eva Vitija, opens Sept. 2 at the Film Forum in New York and Sept. 9 at Landmarkβs Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles. βLoving Highsmithβ premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and bowed at the Frameline Film Festival in June.
Highsmith, like Tom Ripley and many of her other fictional characters, led a double life. She was a lesbian. But, because of the homophobia of her era, Highsmith had to be closeted about what she called βthe ever present subjectβ of her βhomosexuality.β
Except in the 5,000 pages of her diaries and notebooks. (1,000 pages of her diaries and notebooks were published in 2021 in βPatricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995.β)
Even if Highsmith werenβt acclaimed for her mastery of suspense, she would be a queer hero.
In 1952, her novel βThe Price of Saltβ was published under the pseudonym βClaire Morgan.β (It was reissued in 1990 under the title βCarolβ and with Highsmithβs real name.)
Then, fiction featuring queer characters had to end unhappily: they died or went to jail. βThe Price of Salt,β a rare exception, became a lesbian cult classic. Its protagonists end up together β alive and not in prison.
βLoving Highsmithβ deftly uses writings from her diaries and notebooks as well as interviews with her family and lovers to illuminate not only Highsmithβs life and work but queer culture in the 1950s.
The film skillfully interweaves archival clips from interviews with Highsmith and famous film adaptations of her work with stories from her relatives and lovers. Gwendoline Christie (βGame of Thronesβ) reads excerpts from Highsmithβs work.
Too often watching documentaries of talented, deceased icons is deadly. You feel like youβre entombed in lifeless talking heads and stagnant images.
You donβt have to worry about βLoving Highsmith.β Its talk and images make Highsmithβs story come alive.
As the film makes clear, Highsmith was quite βloving.β She had many lovers β in New York, England, France and Germany. Despite trying to cure herself with analysis, Highsmith sexually liked women. βSexual intercourse [with men] is to me like steel wool to the face,β she says.
Highsmithβs mother, by the accounts of Highsmith herself, her family and her lovers, was a horror show. She told Highsmith that she was sorry she hadnβt aborted her. When Highsmith was 14, her mother berated her for βmaking noisesβ like a βles.β
New York had many gay bars in the 1950s, we learn from βLoving Highsmith.β But homophobia was so rampant that you wouldnβt get off at a subway stop near a bar out of fear that a straight friend, family member, or co-worker would see you going into a queer bar.
There is one problem with βLoving Highsmith.β It soft pedals Highsmithβs anti-Semitism and racism. It mentions Highsmithβs prejudices only once: saying Highsmith in her old age reverted to the bigotry of her grandparents.
Highsmithβs bigotry grew more virulent in her old age. But, though she had Jewish friends, Highsmith was anti-Semitic throughout her life.
This doesnβt diminish Highsmithβs literary achievement or iconic role in queer history. Anti-Semitism and racism were likely common in Texas where Highsmith was born and lived before moving to New York when she was six. βLoving Highsmithβ is a thoughtful, informative documentary. It would have been more insightful if more attention had been paid to Highsmithβs prejudices.
Even with this caveat, βLoving Highsmithβ is a must-see documentary. It will send you racing to read the nearest Highsmith book at hand.
-
Africa7 days ago
Landmark intersex rights law takes effect in Kenya
-
District of Columbia2 days ago
Another gay couple assaulted in D.C. in suspected hate crime
-
Obituary6 days ago
LGBTQ ally Olivia Newton-John has died at 73
-
District of Columbia5 days ago
Gay couple assaulted on D.C. street by attackers shouting βmonkeypox faggotsβ
-
District of Columbia6 days ago
Lesbian activist assaulted with barstool at D.C. lounge
-
Television4 days ago
For Gaiman fans, βSandmanβ is a βDreamβ come true
-
Out & About6 days ago
10 LGBTQ events this week
-
Arts & Entertainment7 days ago
Abbi Jacobson engaged to her girlfriend Jodi BalfourοΏΌ