Arts & Entertainment

In the spirit

Region offers array of holiday entertainment

Published

14 years ago

November 21, 2012

Keith Loria

A dancer from Washington Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker.’ (Photo by Steve Vaccariello; courtesy Washington Ballet)

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington presents “Winter Nights,” Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the Lisner Auditorium, (730 21st Street NW), featuring a pageant of glittering winter “Rockettes,” a Bollywood number and even a visit from Mrs. Claus with the song “Santa Won’t You Please Come Back.” Tickets range from $13 to $35 and can be purchased at gmcw.org.

Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Rd.) in Vienna presents its free annual holiday sing-a-long on Dec. 1, featuring Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs by choir and vocal groups and the United States Marine Band.

The Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.) has several holiday performances and events coming up in December. First, Utah’s preeminent ballet company, Ballet West, brings America’ oldest complete “Nutcracker” to the center from Dec. 5-9. The beloved ballet features the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and National Cathedral School Lower School Singers. Tickets range from $45-$150.

The Kennedy Center teams with National Public Radio for the annual “A Jazz Piano Christmas” on Dec. 8, featuring top jazz pianists such as Master Ellis Marsalis, Jason Moran, Geri Allen and Taylor Eigsti performing their favorite holiday songs. Tickets are $65.

Also at the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rolf Beck, will be performing Handel’s “Messiah” Dec. 20-23. Featured singers will be soprano Katherine Whyte, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, tenor Sunnyboy Vincent Diadia and bass-baritone Panajotis Iconmou. Tickets range from $10 to $85.

The National Philharmonic will perform the “Messiah” on Dec. 8 and Dec. 22-23 with Stan Engebretson conducting at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane) in North Bethesda. Tickets range from $30 to $85.

Washington Symphonic Brass (Photo courtesy the company)

On Dec. 18, the National Philharmonic’s associate Conductor Victoria Gau will lead the Washington Symphonic Brass and National Philharmonic Chorale in a holiday concert at the Music Center. The critically acclaimed 17-member brass and percussion ensemble will ring in the holidays with arrangements of holiday favorites, including a medley by WSB Director Phil Snedecor called “Christmas Memories,” an arrangement by Tony DiLorenzo of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” and an exuberant version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” with the National Philharmonic Chorale. Tickets range from $28 to $48.

The National Philharmonic Singers, under the direction of conductors Stan Engebretson and Victoria Gau, will present a free holiday concert on Dec. 15 at Christ Episcopal Church (107 South Washington St.) in Rockville. The concert will feature famous carols, including the “Hallelujah Chorus,” Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” with harp and “The Blessed Son of God from Hodie” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Other highlights include music from various periods, with a special audience sing along.

Washington Ballet welcomes the holiday season by presenting “The Nutcracker” Nov. 30 through Dec. 23 at the historic Warner Theatre (3515 Wisconsin Ave, NW). Septime Webre’s critically acclaimed ballet transports audiences back in time to historic Washington in a one-of-a-kind production set in 1882 Georgetown and starring George Washington as the heroic Nutcracker, King George III as the villainous Rat King, Anacostia Indians, frontiersmen and many other all-American delights. Tickets range from $34-$99.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performs its “Holiday Pops Celebration” from Dec. 12-16 at the Music Center at Strathmore under the baton of Robert Bernhardt. Daniel Narducci serves as host and guest vocalist. Tickets range from $25-$85.

For those looking for some non-traditional entertainment, they won’t be disappointed.

Town (2009 8th St. NW) will present “A Nightmare Before Xmas” with Sharon Needles, a drag queen famous for winning “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” on Dec. 15. The club will also feature DJ Summer Camp (aka Shea Van Horn in a fabulously slutty dress). The night begins at 10 p.m., but a private meet-and-greet cocktail party is available with Needles for $50. A limited amount of tickets are available at groovetickets.com.

Coyaba Dance Theater (3225 8th St NE) welcomes the young performers of the Coyaba Dance Academy and special guests Soul in Motion and Cheick Hamala Diabaté for its annual multi-generational Kwanzaa Celebration Dec. 14-16. The performance includes traditional dance and drumming. Tickets begin at $22.

Gay filmmaker John Waters will offer his take on the holiday season with his show “A John Waters Christmas” playing the Birchmere (3701 Mount Vernon Ave.) in Alexandria on Dec. 10. Delving into his passion for lunatic exploitation Christmas movies and the unhealthy urge to remake all his own films into seasonal children’s classics, “The Pope of Trash” will give you a Joyeaux Noel like no other. Tickets are $49.50.

Also at the Birchmere, The Four Bitchin Babes, combining humor with music, will be presenting its “Jingle Babes” celebration Dec.14-15. The four women play their own guitars, bass, piano, Irish Bodhran, mandolin and ukulele as they entertain for the holidays. Tickets are $35.

Looking for a little theater this holiday season? There are plenty of offerings to whet any theatrical appetite.

‘White Christmas.’ (Photo courtesy the Kennedy Center)

The Kennedy Center will stage Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” based on the popular movie, in its Opera House from Dec. 11 to Jan. 6. Tickets start at $25.

The National Theatre (1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) stages Cameron Mackintosh’s new 25th anniversary production of “Les Misérables” from Dec. 13-30. The new production features glorious new staging and spectacular reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo. Ticket prices start at $40.

The Olney Theater (2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd.) in Olney is bringing back storyteller Paul Morella in a one-man performance of “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas.” Tickets for all shows at Olney start at $26 and can be purchased by calling the box office at 301-924-3400.

Olney will also stage Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical “Cinderella” from now until Dec. 30. The musical includes memorable songs such as “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible” and “Ten Minutes Ago.” Tickets are $26-$54.

The BlackRock Center for the Arts (12901 Town Commons Drive) in Germantown is getting into the holiday spirit with a theatrical performance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on Dec. 8 and “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Dec. 15. Tickets range from $15-$29.

BlackRock also hosts “A Ceremony of Carols,” with the National Philharmonic Singers and harpist Rebecca Smith on Dec. 16. Tickets are $23-$25 and can be purchased at blackrockcenter.org.

Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave.) in Arlington will present “Holiday Guys,” a two-man cabaret starring three-time Tony Award nominee and Signature favorite Marc Kudisch and Astaire Award nominee Jeffry Denman. The non-traditional holiday show is complete with song, dance and silliness and will play Dec. 11-16.

Back by popular demand to Signature is the festive series “Holiday Follies,” featuring a wonderful wintry line-up of special guest performers, along with a host of Signature’s closest friends and artists. Performances are scheduled from Dec. 18-23. Tickets for both Signature shows are $41.

Whether a fan of jazz, pop or classical, music lovers can get their fix all holiday season.

The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra (2001 Eleventh Street NW) performs its holiday concert, “A Bohemian Christmas,” featuring holiday classics from the libraries of Claude Thornhill, Count Basie, Stan Kenton and the entire Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn adaptation of “The Nutcracker Suite” on Dec. 10. Tickets are $10.

On Dec.8, Saxophonist Tim Warfield returns to Bohemian Caverns to host his annual Jazzy Christmas Show. Tickets are $25.

Saxophone extraordinaire Dave Koz, who’s openly gay, is celebrating his 15th annual “Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Concert” at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane) in North Bethesda on Dec. 3. Special guests include David Benoit, Javier Colon and Sheila E. The concert begins at 8 p.m. and tickets range from $38 to $72.

The Christ Church Episcopal (118 N. Washington St.) in Alexandria is presenting “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” on Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. The Christ Church Choir, the Canterbury Choir, the Cherub Choir, guest organist Daniel Aune and a brass quintet will join to offer music for the Advent season. A wine-and-cheese reception will follow the free performance.

DC Swing!, with its new conductor, Matt Leonhardt, will perform a holiday benefit gala with live holiday music, hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar on Dec. 15th, at Nage Bistro (1600 Rhode Island Ave NW), from 7-10 p.m. The LGBT-friendly group is part of D.C. Different Drummers. Tickets start at $30.

Metropolitan Community Church of Washington (474 Ridge St. NW), D.C.’s largest mostly gay church, presents its annual Christmas concert “Christmas Miracles” Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at 7:30 both nights. The church will also offer a special Christmas concert and community dinner on Dec. 7 and a family Christmas concert on Dec. 8. Visit mccdc.com for more information.

The Philadelphia Brass Quintet will perform a world premier-commissioned work for Candlelight Concert Society’s 40th anniversary on Nov. 24 at the Horowitz Performing Arts Center, Smith Theatre, on the campus of Howard Community College (10901 Little Patuxent Parkway) in Columbia. The concert features an array of classical and contemporary music by Susato, Bach, Durufle, Ewazn, Weill, Elgar, Lichtenberger, Van Heusen and Duke Ellington. Tickets range from $12-$30.

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

a&e features

The queer Asian comics building collective joy in D.C.

Spotlighting chaotic ways family, romance, identity take shape in their lives

Published

19 hours ago

July 16, 2026

Christina Lee

Alex Kim performs at the Pride Comedy Special in Washington, D.C., on June 18, 2026. (Photo by Christina Lee/VOICES)

Kevin Chen’s family tombstone has room for four: him, his parents and his boyfriend. The arrangement might prove to be a little awkward.

“My boyfriend is 100% white, and my parents are 100% disappointed,” Chen confessed.

Jokes about family traditions and the untraditional ways they’re practiced earned a burst of laughs at the bar where Chen was opening for the Pride Comedy Special. The D.C. stand-up event, produced by Comedy Bonfyre last month, spotlighted queer Asian comics who shared the chaotic ways family, romance and identity take shape in their lives.

From candid oral sex takes to top surgery hypotheticals like “Where do the boobs go?”, the night highlighted the loud camaraderie of the queer Asian experience — one that sounds like a cacophony of snorts, cackles and belly laughs. While the comics say they are not quite a community, there’s more than enough shared material to bring them together.

“It was such a magical experience. I loved performing in a queer API lineup. It feels so validating,” Chen said after the show. “I’m wondering, ‘Is this how white men feel all the time?’”

Each performance evoked queer Asian joy through a medium that could use more of its presence.

According to Chen, who is based in D.C., it’s hard to say whether there is a true queer Asian comedy presence in his city. There are only a scattered “handful” of Asian comics, and people of color are underrepresented in queer comic circles, he said.

When Tarunika Anand, a nonbinary lesbian comic, first entered the mainstream D.C. comedy scene, they mostly encountered straight white men, describing the experience as “a culture shock.”

“I feel like sometimes a lot of queer spaces are really white, and then a lot of Asian spaces are really straight,” Anand said. “I don’t feel like I fit into either.”

But feeling marginalized didn’t stop these comics from honing their craft and creating spaces for others like them. Alex Kim, who headlined the special and is based in Brooklyn, runs the queer Asian comedy group Boba Gays, which began on WhatsApp and has since made its way to Lincoln Center.

Every Wednesday, Anand co-produces a free comedy show called Funny Side Up. The queer-led group focuses on inclusivity and showcasing new talent.

“It’s really beautiful to speak about your experience and your existence in a way that’s uplifting,” Anand said.

Family is a major throughline of their comedic repertoires.

Chen, for instance, shared that he identifies with jokes about having Asian immigrant parents and the expectations they pass down.

“You see me, you know this part about me, you know this experience intimately, and I can see the truth that you’re trying to wrap a joke around,” he said. “That hits even harder because that’s my truth too. I think that’s what makes good comedy.”

Anand had the audience at the special howling when they explained that their parents’ be-more-like-them comparisons didn’t end when they came out. Instead, the expectations took on a new form.

“Now, my parents want me to be the best gay,” Anand said. “They’re like, ‘Do you know Ellen DeGeneres?’”

Kim said he’s been trying to unlearn things from his Christian Korean mom. Yet he described a moment when he was getting ready for the club and realized he looked just like his mother getting ready for church.

“I’ve been finding it hard to escape her,” Kim said.

Mutual recognition also radiates through the different ways queer love can take shape. From singlehood to death-do-us-part commitments, the comics cover just about every corner.

Anand is holding out hope for settling down with “a nice, pretty, Indian girl.” They recently went through a breakup and said they felt they dodged a bullet.

“As a person of color, I just don’t think I should be with a Swiftie,” they said.

Chen, touching on what it’s like to be in a queer interracial relationship, said that meeting his white boyfriend’s baby nephew for the first time felt like he was forced to participate in a diversity, equity and inclusion training.

“The dad was like, ‘Please welcome Kevin. Be curious about his culture, his history, his foods,’” Chen joked.

Laughter is not the only reward for the comics.

To Anand, comedy is a space where they can say whatever they want. “It gives me a voice,” they said.

Nik Narain, a North Carolina-based trans and nonbinary South Asian comic who performed at the special, said meeting older trans comedians and taking the stage helped him feel reassured in his identity during his transition.

“Stand-up was a really cool way to process that onstage,” he said. “[It] became a way for me to repackage my thoughts.”

Queer Asians are still figuring out their place in the greater D.C. comedy scene. The group is small in numbers and many are still working toward a full-time comedy career. But Narain feels he’s already made it.

Narain is reluctant to pin it all on one moment. He feels that success is already peeking through in milestones — opening for celebrities, traveling to performances and self-producing shows.

“As long as I can keep doing this, I’m super happy,” he said.

This story was produced as part of the AAJA VOICES fellowship program, a student journalism project of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

Out & About

Rehoboth’s Aqua to celebrate 20th anniversary Sunday

Event marks culmination of Pride weekend in beach community

Published

2 days ago

July 15, 2026

Staff reports

Aqua’s Katie Lyell is the reigning Best Rehoboth Bartender in the Blade’s Best of LGBTQ DC awards competition. (Blade file photo by Daniel Truitt)

Aqua Bar & Grill in Rehoboth Beach will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Sunday, July 19 from 2-7 p.m. DJ Biff will entertain the crowd; there will be complimentary birthday cake and surprise guests.

The event marks the culmination of Pride weekend in Rehoboth Beach, which runs all weekend with panel discussions, parties, and more.

Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

4 days ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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