Arts & Entertainment
John Waters is bringing back the drive-in — with masks — at Md. Film Festival
Will cicadas spoil the show or add to the fun?
Writer and filmmaker John Waters says he grew up going to drive-in movies.
“We went every single night. With the same movie playing.“
He had a certain routine.
“I used to…drive in alone with two cases of beer covered in a blanket and with four people in the trunk.”
Now Waters is working to introduce a new generation to drive-in movie theaters, which are making a comeback because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When the pandemic happened, it did bring drive-ins back,” he said in a recent interview. “Most young people have never been to a drive-in. I think it’s a good answer [to the pandemic], and it’s a good atmosphere for certain types of movies.”
Waters is getting ready to host a double feature drive-in movie night on May 21, as part of the Maryland Film Festival that runs from May 19 to May 27. The theme is “Russian Shock Night at the Drive-In,” because he selected two Russian films to present: Why Don’t You Just Die! and The Road Movie.
This will be the third time during the pandemic that Waters has hosted a drive-in night for a film festival, after double features last year for the Provincetown International Film Festival, at the Wellfleet Drive-In Theatre on Cape Cod, and the New York Film Festival, at The Bronx Zoo.
This time the venue is Druid Hill Park, home of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. The film festival is creating a pop-up drive-in theater on the sloping lawn of the Mansion House, the zoo’s headquarters, in conjunction with Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks. It will have a 52-foot-wide inflatable screen and space for 93 vehicles. The price of admission is $25 per car, and tickets sold out in a day.
The film festival is the first organization to get a permit for an in-person outdoor gathering on public property in more than a year from the city of Baltimore, where Mayor Brandon Scott has been cautious about allowing public events. The mayor wouldn’t allow the annual July 4th fireworks show at the city’s Inner Harbor or the annual Artscape festival in July.
“I’m proud to the first one,” said Waters, who came up with the idea for a drive-in during the festival. “I’m thankful that they’re letting us do it.”
Based on his experience at the other festivals, Waters said, he’s confident it will be successful. “I love the idea of the drive-in. I think it will be good, and it is safe. Everybody’s in their car. Even if you haven’t been vaccinated. Well, I hope you don’t come if you haven’t been vaccinated. But still, everybody’s in their car. It’s at a social distance.”
Waters, who lives in Baltimore, traditionally introduces a movie of his choice on Friday night of the annual film festival, and it’s a highlight of the event. Last year it didn’t happen because the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic.
This year the festival is back as mostly a virtual event, because the theater where it’s held is still subject to COVID-related seating restrictions. Organizers asked Waters to bring back his signature movie night. He didn’t want it to be online.
“I said, I hate virtual. I’m so sick of virtual,” he recalled. “They knew I had done a drive-in at the New York Film Festival, where we showed Salo and the Gasper Noe movie, Climax…It works well in the drive In.”
Film festival organizers, led by executive director Sandra Gibson, collaborated with city officials to identify the site and figure out the details. “You don’t have to be vaccinated, but you will have to wear masks…if you’re outside your car,” Gibson said.
The parks department didn’t place a limit on the size of vehicles or the number of people in a vehicle, although larger ones will be located towards the back of the lot, she said.
“If you have a hatchback, we’ll let you open your hatchback and sit in the hatchback,” she said. “We’ll let you sit in the back of a flatbed truck as long as you have a mask on. If you have an SUV that holds eight people, we’re fine with that as long as everybody can see. But they have said you have to stay in your car.”
Waters describes Why Don’t You Just Die! as “a grindhouse, seat-ripping blood-drenched family revenge comedy that begs to be seen in a drive-in with a crazy audience cheering from their cars,” and The Road Movie as “a dash cam documentary from hell that puts you live in the car accidents and near misses all for your rage viewing pleasure.”
He said the two movies are in line with the ones he usually picks for screenings in the film festival’s Parkway Theatre, “but these two I think are even better for a drive-in setting.”
The Road Movie, featuring footage compiled from Russian dashboard cameras, has a car-oriented theme that fits with the drive-in set-up and will be the second film of the night. “You’ll drive home safely after this one, I guarantee you,” Waters said.
He chose a Russian theme, he said, “just because I loved these movies and I knew that Russia was especially kind of unmentionable these days. I’m not a fan of Russia either, but maybe everybody could come dressed as Nikita Khrushchev and his wife, or Putin.”
Given the climate in Russia, “it’s just kind of amazing that these two movies ever got made there,” he said. “They’re pretty radical movies. Especially Why Don’t You Just Die!”
Waters said the location brings back fond memories, in part because the zoo is there and he lived nearby: “I’ve always liked Druid Hill…I used to live across the street at Temple Gardens Apartments for many years.”
He jokes that he’s a little suspicious that the city permitted his event but not the Fourth of July fireworks, citing COVID-19 as the reason.
“Maybe they hope we all get it,” he said. “That’s a new one. We had the censor board. Maybe this is a different way to censor.”
He said he hopes the 17-year cicadas, insects that are just coming out of the ground in Maryland after a 17-year hiatus, make an appearance when his movies are showing.
“I wouldn’t even be mad,” he said, if they “were smashing into the windshields while we were watching. But then we should have shown The Swarm.”
Given the park setting, “you can bet there might be some,” he went on, imagining the possibilities of an insect invasion on his movie night. “It would only add to the disaster theme and the insaneness of the event, to be attacked by nature at Druid Hill Park and watching crazy Russian movies.”
According to the website DriveInMovie.com, there are about 325 drive-in movie theaters currently operating around the United States, down from a peak of more than 4,000 in the 1950s.
Besides the ones in operation, “there are many more that are permanently closed but still remain standing and could potentially be reopened at some point in the future,” says the website, which lists the drive-ins in every state and those that have closed in the past 20 years. “In fact, there have been several drive-in theaters that have been reopened the past couple of years after sitting dark for 20 or even 30 years.”
The first “true” drive-in, the website states, was the “Automobile Movie Theatre” in Camden, New Jersey. It was opened on June 6, 1933 by Richard Hollingshead, a movie buff who initially experimented with showing movies in the driveway of his home.
Hollingshead got a U. S. patent for his drive-in, which the drive-in website describes as essentially a movie screen tied to some trees, a radio placed behind the screen for sound, a film projector on the hood of a car, and a strategy for spacing out cars. His slogan was “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are.”
But Hollingshead’s patent was later declared invalid, and that allowed others to follow his formula without paying him royalties. “Maybe one of the reasons Drive-In Movies are so much more popular in the United States than in other countries is because the drive-in movie is truly an American invention,” the website states.
Today, both vintage drive-ins and pop-up drive-ins are being put to a variety of uses, from sites for fundraisers to filming locations to settings for socially-distanced music performances. When traditional movie theaters were shuttered because of the pandemic, drive-ins became an alternative because the audience remains outdoors.
In some cases, the land is used for swap meets and flea markets when movies aren’t being shown. Joe Biden held drive-in rallies when he was running for President, and voters applauded by honking horns and flashing headlights.
Waters, who just turned 75 and has filmed all of his movies in and around Baltimore, is a drive-in aficionado.
“I’ve spent my whole life in the drive-in,” he said. “I’ve written about them. I grew up in the Timonium Drive-In…The Bengies Drive-In, we filmed Cecil B. Demented in for a week. I spent a week on the roof of that concessions stand.”
In Polyester, “I had an art drive-in,” he said. “The joke was that they showed art movies, and in the concessions stand they had caviar and champagne. That was filmed at the Edmondson Drive-in” in Baltimore.
For him and others in his generation Waters said, the drive-in was “the first apartment’ where “kids could actually get away from their parents.”
It also taught him about saving money by sneaking people in — something he doesn’t want to see on his night.
“I’ll be catching you if you try to sneak in in the trunk, let me warn you,” he said. “I know all the tricks sneaking in the drive-in.”
For this week’s event, the plan is that Waters will be there and will be visible on screen, introducing the movies. Though he’s been vaccinated, there won’t be a Meet-and-Greet session with fans, for safety reasons. “He knows that we’ve got restrictions and he may have his own,” Gibson said. “He’s really conscious that it’s still a pandemic.”
The city has come up with a list of rules and regulations for those with tickets. Besides the requirement that people wear masks when outside the vehicle, no food or drink may be consumed outside of vehicles. Car windows must be up when eating. Tailgating isn’t allowed. Everyone must pre-register and sign a parks department waiver before arriving.
Waters said he read all the rules and couldn’t find any restrictions against having sex in a vehicle during a movie.
“I guess that means you can have sex,” he said. “When I was young, that’s what everybody did.”
The same goes for drinking in a vehicle, he said. “That’s something you always did at the drive-in too.”
The list of rules and regulations is part of the traditional drive-in experience, because every drive-in has rules. In a way, Waters said, it also goes along with the theme for the night:
“It will feel like the Russian government is watching.”
Although the drive-in night is sold out, other tickets are still available to the Maryland Film Festival, including Pride Night and eight LGBTQ-oriented films viewable online. Information about the lineup is at mdfilmfest.com.
Theater
Iconic Eddie Izzard takes on 23 characters in ‘Hamlet’
Energized take on role offers accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare
‘The Tragedy of Hamlet’
Through April 11
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Tickets start at $90
Shakespearetheatre.org
Eddie Izzard is an icon.
Best known for her innovative standup and film roles, the famed British performer is also a queer activist who over the years has good-naturedly shared details from her decades long trans journey. What’s more, Izzard has remarkably run 43 marathons in 51 days for charity.
And now, Izzard finds a towering new challenge with the worldwide tour of “The Tragedy of Hamlet” (at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre through April 11), in which she plays 23 characters (Hamlet, King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, the ghost, etc.) in a solo performance running just over two hours.
At a recent performance, Izzard, before slipping into character, appeared on the unadorned stage to say that though infused with comedy, “Hamlet” is definitely a tragedy, a story of a family and country both tearing themselves apart. She also warns that there’ll be a lot of breaking the fourth wall. After all, it didn’t exist in 1600 around the time when “Hamlet” was written.
The play unfolds in flurry of movement and scandal as the Danish prince begins to plot revenge after learning that his father, the old king was conspired against and murdered.
While some of Izzard’s character shifts are shown only by a subtle change in stance or modulation of voice, others are more obviously displayed like court sycophant Polonius walking with a stiff leg and mimed cane, or his ill-fated daughter Ophelia trotting girlishly across the upstage platform.
Delivered downstage at the intimate Klein venue, Izzard’s Hamlet soliloquies are performed with striking clarity. The one actor play is adapted and edited by Mark Izzard (the star’s older brother) and directed by Selina Cadell who successfully fosters the visceral connection between the actor and the house. Directly addressing an audience is something Izzard does exceedingly well. You feel as if she’s looking at/speaking to only you.
Cuts and choices are made that might not please traditionalists. The stabbing of eavesdropping Polonius might prove disappointingly underplayed to some. Whereas, the subsequent satisfying dual/death scene is long and precisely choreographed. Fear not, Izzard doesn’t flag a bit, not even when battling a cough (as was the case on the night of No Kings Day).
Not surprisingly, Izzard leans into the comedy. Her deliciously placed pauses, lines read ironically, and double takes, all gifts of comedy sharpened to perfection over a long career that kicked off as a street performer in the early eighties in London’s Covent Garden.
The play within a play scene finds Hamlet slyly rattling the conscience of King Claudius. As played by Izzard, it’s wickedly delightful and especially good. And the back and forth between the grave diggers done as a clever Cockney and his green assistant is a master class in how to play a Shakespearean clown.
Kitted out in a black peplum jacket over leather leggings and boots, Izzard gives gender fluid shades of contemporary diehard scenester and a Renaissance courtier. (Design and styling by Tom Piper and Libby DaCosta)
Attention has been paid to the blonde high ponytail, crimson lips and matching lacquered nails. The hands are important. Whether balled into fists or fingers fluttering, they’re in use, especially when playing Hamlet’s ex-friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (a clever surprise that can’t be spoiled).
Tom Piper’s set is wonderfully minimal. It’s an empty white walled space with three narrow windows that appear cut deeply into stone like those of a castle. These white flats serve as the ideal canvas for lighting designer Tyler Elich’s looming shadows, ghostly green light, and other unexpected flourishes of drama.
Izzard fills the stage. Her presence is huge, and her acting first-rate. At times, you forget it’s a one-person show.
I’d like to say, prior knowledge of the Bard’s best tragedy isn’t necessary to enjoy this fast-paced production. Despite a halved runtime and obscure words replaced with modern equivalents (“tedious old git” Hamlet says of Polonius), familiarity with the play is helpful.
With “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” Izzard secures a place among fellow queer Brits like Miriam Margolyes (“Dickens’ Women”), Sir Ian Mckellan (“Ian McKellen on Stage”), and more recently Andrew Scott (“Vanya”) in the solo players’ pantheon.
Izzard’s energized take on Hamlet is terrific. The way her powerful public persona bleeds into the work without taking over is exciting, and a uniquely accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare.
Friday, April 3
Center Aging Monthly Luncheon With Yoga will be at 12 p.m. at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. Email Mac at [email protected] if you require ASL interpreter assistance, have any dietary restrictions, or questions about this event.
Go Gay DC will host “First Friday LGBTQ+ Community Social” at 7 p.m. at Silver Diner Ballston. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, April 4
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Nellies Sports Bar will host “Nellies DC Drag Brunch” at 12 p.m. Come get served like a queen, by a queen at the top rated Drag Brunch in DC! Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of amazing drag performers, for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets start at $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite.
Monday, April 6
Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Happy Hour Meetup” at 5:30 p.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar and restaurant. This event is ideal for making new friends. It’s free to attend. The group will gather inside at the purple booth to the left. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Tuesday, April 7
Universal Pride Meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group seeks to support, educate, empower, and create change for people with disabilities. For more details, email [email protected].
Wednesday, April 8
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.thedccenter.org/careers.
Thursday, April 9
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. To be more fair with who is receiving boxes, the program is moving to a lottery system. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5:00 pm if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.
a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
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