Arts & Entertainment
Rehoboth Beach summer 2022: ‘Let’s choose joy!’
Business owners excited for new season
Your return to Rehoboth Beach for the 2022 spring and summer season should be exciting as we look to move past all the COVID cancellations and restrictions of the past two years.
Everyone in town has been working hard over the past year to make sure this summer is safe and fun. There are new businesses, over-the-top new dance parties, and other less welcome changes, like the loss of the Dolle’s sign on the boardwalk.
Fewer than 1,500 people actually live in or own property in the town of Rehoboth Beach with the right to vote, yet the population swells to over 25,000 in the summer. Rehoboth wasn’t always the gay-friendly town it is today, but the work of CAMP Rehoboth, the LGBTQ community center founded by Murray Archibald and Steve Elkins in 1991, helped changed all that. Now the community is not only welcoming but businesses work hard to attract the LGBTQ community to town. CAMP has new leadership this summer, including Wes Combs as the new president of the board. Executive Director David Mariner recently announced his resignation after three years; the acting director is Lisa Evans.
Combs recently announced CAMP is going through “a strategic planning process to carry the organization into its next chapter. CAMP is delivering critically important and impactful free programming to promote community well-being on all levels; to foster the development of community groups; to develop community space; to promote human and civil rights; to work against prejudice and discrimination; to lessen tensions among the community at large; and to help foster economic growth.”
As you plan your return to Rehoboth, there have been some changes since last year. Aqua Grill reopened in April on Baltimore Avenue with a new menu. It remains the go-to spot for outdoor happy hour after the beach. Then there is The Pines across the street, a great place for dinner and a show. Plan on being at the beach July 16-17 for Hair and Heels weekend at the convention center, sponsored by The Pines, a dance and drag brunch extraordinaire. As if that’s not enough, The Pines’s owners along with Lion Gardner, former chef at the Blue Moon, are hoping to open Drift on Baltimore Avenue by the end of June. Lion has already prepared the menu for Drift and you can sample it many Sundays at The Pines in advance of the much-anticipated opening.
If you haven’t been to Rehoboth since last summer, then you missed the grand opening of Freddie’s Beach Bar on 1st Street. Freddie Lutz is planning exciting things for his first full season at the beach and has already hosted the ageless Pamala Stanley, who left The Pines in the off season.
Another hotly anticipated newcomer is Red, White and Basil, which closed its D.C. location in Adams Morgan and is preparing to open on Route 1 just outside of town. It’s owned by Mark Hunker and Jeff McCracken of Duplex Diner fame; the two also own Jam (best avocado toast in town) and Eden in Rehoboth and recently acquired Coho’s Market & Grill on Rehoboth Avenue.
Also this off-season, the long-awaited Agave Mexican restaurant opened on Route 1 in Rehoboth, an offshoot of the ever-popular Lewes location. The huge bar is gorgeous but arrive early as it’s always packed. The authentic mole sauce can’t be beat.
Ava’s Pizzeria and Wine Bar also opened in the off season at 29 Baltimore Ave. It’s part of a small local chain and a comfy spot for good pizzas, wine, and more. Speaking of wine, the new Unwined wine bar is coming soon to the old Azzurro restaurant spot, which closed for good during the pandemic. The second-floor outdoor deck is one of the best spots in town.
Also new this year is Above the Dunes in the old Greene Turtle space on the boardwalk. Rehoboth has a surprising dearth of outdoor, waterfront dining so the transformation of the old Turtle with its overwhelming number of blaring TVs into the bright, inviting Dunes is a welcome development. The staff here are incredibly friendly and the view is all ocean. The menu includes some healthful alternatives to all the boardwalk grease and fries, including a tuna poke and Korean salmon bowl. Don’t miss it.
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden recently visited their home at the beach and took to the bicycle path. Not sure if they will be able to do what they did in past seasons stopping in at Joe Mack’s Double Dippers on 1st Street, but Joe hopes to see them sometime during the summer. I also know Lori Klein would love to see the first lady back during the 26th season at Lori’s Oy Vey Café in the CAMP courtyard, picking up a sandwich for Joe like she used to. Even if she won’t be there you should not miss Lori’s famous chicken salad.
One of the great old standbys at the beach, celebrating its 23rd birthday, is The Purple Parrot Grill and Biergarten on Rehoboth Avenue. Owners Hugh Fuller and Troy Roberts make everyone feel welcome with consistently good food, entertainment, and a handsome group of friendly bartenders and managers. Fuller said, “The town has an excitement about it that has been building since last year. If the last few months are indicative of what’s ahead it’s going to be a record-breaking summer.” He kidded that if you are part of the excitement, then “don’t complain about the crowds, or traffic, sure to be at the beach.”
Then there is the iconic Back Porch on Rehoboth Avenue; as locals know, weekend brunch at the cozy bar is one of the town’s most charming and unforgettable bites. Of course, Meghan Kee’s collection of restaurants, including La Fable, Dalmata, Houston White and the new Bramble and Brine at The Buttery in Lewes, continue to wow local foodies.
“The summers are always too short,” Kee said. “With that in mind, I am looking forward to making this season the best I can for our guests and my staff. Seems that our region will be busy, booming, and bustling come Memorial Day. It’s our duty as business owners and residents to give people what they come here for. Creative thinking and strategy got us all through the past two years, let’s choose joy for this third COVID summer.”
The Blue Moon is back offering some of the best fine dining in town along with drag and other entertainment; talented NYC pianist Nate Buccieri is expected to return for the season. Check Blue Moon’s site for updates.
The gay-owned Port 251 offers drag brunch and a friendly bar where Blade Best Bartender nominee Zane Rego holds court. The fabulous Holly Lane remains behind the bar at Cafe Azafran. Check out Goolees Grill for one of the best breakfasts in town. The Coffee Mill is ready and owner Mel Damascena told the Blade, “We are celebrating 30 years serving the local community. We have special events coming up including fundraising events to help community non- profits at both The Coffee Mill and the Mill Creamery right across from Coffee Mill serving local Hopkins’s ice cream.” Damascena also has Brashhh on 1st street, now celebrating nine years in business. Longtime Rehoboth business owner Steve Fallon has the always fun Gidget’s Gadgets on Rehoboth Avenue and now a second place selling vinyl records, Extendedplay. He invites everyone to Rehoboth and says,“if you stroll the streets, appreciate the diversity and embrace the many shops and eateries, your stay will be memorable.”
Back on Baltimore Avenue don’t forget to stop in at mainstays like Elegant Slumming for exquisite jewelry and Philip Morton Gallery for art, and the delicious Frank and Louie’s for sandwiches andItalian specialties. On Wilmington, Yolanda has remodeled Mariachi. Don’t leave the beach without a gift for your pet from Critter Beach on Rehoboth Avenue and then further out on Rehoboth Avenue is Rigby’s Bar and Grill and the popular Diego’s Bar and Nightclub with regular entertainment and a bustling outdoor beach bar.
Remember that Rehoboth is also home to a vibrant community theater and here’s hoping the town commissioners will not force it to leave town. Plan to see a show at the amazing Clear Space Theatre on Baltimore Avenue. This season’s productions include “The Submission,” “9 to 5,” “Grease,” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
Make your plans early as hotels and rentals are all booking fast.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch was held at Salamander Washington DC on Sunday, April 19. Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) was presented with the Allyship Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The umbrella LGBTQ sports organization Team D.C. held its annual Night of Champions Gala at the Georgetown Marriott on Saturday, April 18. Team D.C. presented scholarships to local student athletes and presented awards to Adam Peck, Manuel Montelongo (a.k.a. Mari Con Carne), Dr. Sara Varghai, Dan Martin and the Centaur Motorcycle Club. Sean Bartel was posthumously honored with the Most Valuable Person Award.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Television
‘Big Mistakes’ an uneven – but worthy – comedic showcase
In the years since “Schitt’s Creek” wrapped up its six season Emmy-winning run, nostalgia for it has grown deep – especially since the still painfully recent loss of its iconic leading lady, Catherine O’Hara, whose sudden passing prompted a social media wave of clips and tributes featuring her fan-favorite performance as the deliciously daft Moira Rose. Revisiting so many favorite scenes and funny moments from the show naturally reminded us of just how much we loved it, even needed it during the time it was on the air; it also reminded us of how much we miss it, and how much it feels now like something we need more than ever.
That, perhaps more than anything else, is why the arrival of “Big Mistakes” – the new Netflix series starring, co-created and co-written by Dan Levy – felt so welcome. We knew it wouldn’t be the Roses, but it seemed cut from the same cloth, and it had David Rose (or at least someone who seemed a lot like him) in the middle of a comically dysfunctional family dynamic, complete with a mother who gets involved in town politics and a catty sibling rivalry with his sister, and still nebbish-ly uncomfortable in his own gay shoes. Only this time, instead of running a charmingly pretentious boutique, he’s the pastor of the local church, and instead of a collection of kooky small town neighbors to contend with, there are gangsters.
As it turns out, it really does feel cut from the same cloth, but the design is distinctly different. Set in a fictional New Jersey suburb, it centers on Nicky (Levy) and his sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) – he openly gay with an adoring boyfriend (Jacob Gutierrez), yet still obsessive about keeping it all invisible to his congregation, and she drudging aimlessly through life as an underpaid schoolteacher after failing to achieve her New York dreams of show biz success – who inadvertently become enmeshed in a shady underworld when a gesture for their dead grandmother’s funeral goes horribly awry.
They’re surrounded by a crew of equally compromised characters. There’s their mother Linda (Laurie Metcalf), whose campaign to become the town’s mayor only intensifies her tendency to micromanage her children’s lives; Yusuf (Boran Kuzum), the Turkish-American mini-mart operator who pulls them into the criminal conspiracy yet is himself a victim of it; Max (Jack Innanen), Morgan’s live-in boyfriend, who pushes her for a deeper commitment and is willing to go to couples’ therapy to prove it; Annette, his mother (Elizabeth Perkins), who lends her society standing toward helping Linda’s campaign against a misogynistic opponent (Darren Goldstein); and Ivan (Mark Ivanir), the seemingly ruthless crime boss who enslaves the siblings into his network but may really be just another slave himself. It’s a well-fleshed out assortment of characters that helps our own loyalties shift and adapt, generating at least a degree of empathy – if not always sympathy – that keeps everyone from coming off as a merely “black-and-white” caricature of expectations and typecasting.
To be sure, it’s an entertaining binge-watch, full of distinctive characters – all inhabiting familiar, even stereotypical roles in the narrative – who are each given a degree of validation, both in writing and performance, as the show unspools its narrative. At the same time, it makes for a fairly bleak overall view of humanity, in which it’s difficult to place our loyalties with anyone without also embracing a kind of “dog eat dog” morality in which nobody is truly innocent – but nobody is completely to blame for their sins, anyway.
In this way, it’s a show that lets us off the hook in the sense that it places the idea of ethical guilt within a framework of relative evils, as it permits us to forgive our own trespasses by accepting its “lovably” amoral characters, each of whom has their own reasons and justifications for what they do. We relate, but we can’t quite shake the notion that, if all these people hadn’t been so caught up in their own personal dramas, none of them would have ended up in the compromised morality that they’re in.
However, it’s not some bleak morality play that Levy and crew undertake; rather, it’s more an egalitarian fantasy in which even “bad” choices feel justified by inevitability. Everybody’s motivations make enough sense to us that it’s hard to judge any of the characters for making the choices – however unwise – that they do. In a system where everyone is forced to compromise themselves in order to achieve whatever dream of self-fulfillment they may have, how can anybody really blame themselves for doing what they have to do to survive?
Of course, all things considered, this is more a relatable comedy than it is a morality play. As a comedy of errors, it all works well enough on its own without imposing an ideology on it, no matter how much we may be tempted to do so. Indeed, what is ultimately more to the point is how well this pseudo-cynical exercise in the normalization of corruption – for that is what it really about, in the end – succeeds in letting us all off the hook for our compromises.
In the end, of course, maybe all that analysis is too deep a dive for a show that feels, in the end, like it’s meant to be mostly for fun. Indeed, despite its focus on being dragged into the shady side of life, the arc of its messaging seems to be less about a moralistic urge toward making the “right” choice than it is a candid recognition that all of us are compromised from the outset, often by choices we only force upon ourselves, and that’s a refreshing enough bit of honesty that we can easily get on board.
It helps that the performances are on point, especially the loony and wide-eyed fanaticism of Metcalf – surely the MVP of any project in which she is involved – and the directly focused moral malleability of Ortega; Levy, of course, is Levy – a now-familiar persona that can exist within any milieu without further justification than its own queer relatability – and, in this case, at least, that’s both the icing on the cake and substance that defines it. That’s enough to make it an essential view for fans, queer or otherwise, of his distinctive “brand,” even if he – or the show itself – doesn’t quite satisfy in the way that “Schitt’s Creek” was able to do.
Seriously, though, how could it?
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