Arts & Entertainment

Calendar: Dec. 31

Events through Jan. 8

Published

13 years ago

December 30, 2010

New Years Eve Parties

Ziegfeld’s/Secrets (1824 Half St., S.W.) New Years Eve party tonight will feature a cash balloon drop, party favors and a free split of champagne.

Lace Lounge’s (2214 Rhode Island Ave., N.E.) New Year’s Eve party “Midnight Kiss” is tonight from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. There will be a complimentary breakfast buffet and champagne and a cash drop at midnight. Pre-sale ticket holders will get express VIP entry. Pre-sale tickets are $12 and can be purchased at lacedc.com. Tickets at the door start at $20.

Apex (1415 22nd St., N.W.) presents New Years Eve tonight with two parties. DJ Melissa will be in the main arena with Michael Brandon with Caliente in the east wing lounge. There will be complimentary champagne and assorted party favors. Cover charge is $15 and doors open at 9 p.m.

Eatonville Restaurant (2121 14th St., N.W.) presents “A New Orleans New Year’s Eve” tonight with two dinners. The first beings at 6:30 and features a three-course dinner. The second seating begins at 10 p.m. with a four-course meal, champagne toast, party favors, live jazz and the official ball drop on the big screen. Tickets are $39 for the first seating and $59 for the second. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit eatonvillerestaurant.com.

Remington’s (639 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.) New Year’s Eve Country Masquerade Ball will begin at 8 p.m. There will be dancing, party favors, a balloon drop, midnight champagne toast and more. Cover is $10. For more information, visit RemingtonsWDC.com.

Wicked Jezabel presents Wicked New Year’s Even Bash tonight starting at 9 p.m. at Second Chance Saloon (5888 Robert Oliver Place) in Columbia with an opening performance by Triple Goddess Tribal Middle Eastern Dance. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at wickedjezabel.com. Ten percent of the ticket sales will be donated to the Mautner Project.

Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) will have a New Years Eve party starting at 10 p.m. Djs BacK2bACk will be counting down the top 10 video of 2010 and Tatianna of RuPaul’s Drag race will perform live in the drag show at 10:30 p.m. X-Faction and the Ladies of Town will also be performing live. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advanced at Universal Gear or online at groovetickets.com and at the door.

Ultrabar D.C. will having a New Year’s party tonight at 10 p.m. with six bars, four DJs, a champagne toast at midnight, buffet, midnight balloon drop, party favors and more. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased at ultrabardc.com.

The Lodge will have a New Year’s Eve party tonight from 7 to 2 a.m. There will be a best dressed contest with cash and bar tab prizes, champagne fountain, party favors and more. Tickets are $25 for two or $15 per person in advanced until Dec. 27., $30 for two or $20 per person at the door. and can be purchased at thelodgemd.com.

Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar (1104 H St., N.E.) and Jimmy Valentines Lonely Hearts Club (1103 Bladensburg Rd., N.E.) will be hosting a “Double Whammy,” with a sponsored shuttle service between the two bars every half hour and drop-offs at Union Station starting at 12:30 a.m. Attendees must be 25 or older. An open bar ticket with access to both bars is $90 and access to either one bar is $25. Tickets are limited.

A few of Andy Warhol's cheeky variations on 'The Last Supper' are on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of 'Warhol: the Last Decade.' (Image courtesy of the Andy Warhol Museum)

Friday, Dec. 31

Special Agent Galactica with Christopher Wingert starring in “The Only Gal in Town,” will be at go mama go! (1809 14 St., N.W.) tonight at 8 p.m. The show will feature songs written by or made famous by Stephen Sondheim, Quincy Jones, Ray Stevens, Richard Rodgers, Ann-Margaret, Dust Springfield, Mary Rodgers, Cy Coleman and more. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door or at ganymedearts.org.

BYT presents DJs and beer tonight from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. at the Bohemian Caverns entertainment/hospitality complex. DJs Chris Burns and friends will be on the second floor in LIV Nightclub. A dozen local bands will play cover songs on the first floor in Hominy and Homo Erectus DJs and friends will be in the Gay Jamboree Opium Den with Stalactights in the basement. Early bird tickets are $55. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit brightestyoungthings.com.

The American City Diner (5532 Connecticut Ave., N.W.) will be showing the film “Dr. Strangelove” starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott tonight. The movie starts at 8 p.m. The full menu will be available. Admission is free. For more information, visit americancitydiner.com.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (10 Art Museum Drive) is hosting “Warhol: the Last Decade,” an exhibit featuring more than 50 large-scale works that marked Andy Warhol’s last decade. This is the last stop of a national tour. Some of the works shown include fright wig self-portraits and three variations on Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission ranges from free for children 5 and younger to $15 for adults. For more information, visit warhol.artbma.org.

Four college football bowl games will be on today at Nellie’s (900 U St., N.W.) today: the Meineke Car Care Bowl with South Florida and Clemson starts at noon. The Hyundai Sun Bowl with Notre Dame and Miami starts at 2 p.m. The AutoZone Liberty Bowl with George and UCF starts at 3:30 p.m. and the Chick-fil-A Bowl ends the night with South Carolina and Florida State at 7:30 p.m. and DJ Wesley D will be playing music and videos all night.

Saturday, Jan. 1

Homo/Sonic is tonight at 9:30 p.m. at the Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.) featuring DJs Natty Boom and Zack and Michael of the New Gay. This is an event is all ages and has a $10 cover.

Johnny Vicious will be at Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) tonight. Doors open at 10 p.m. The cover charge is $8 before 11 p.m. and $12 after.

Refresh is tonight from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Lodge (21614 National Pike) in Boonesboro. Drink specials include $1 Busch Light cans and $5 XXL ReFresher all night long. There’s a $5 cover before 11 p.m. and $8 after.

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue will be performing at 9:30 Club (815 V St., N.W.) tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at 930.com.

Sunday, Jan. 2

The Kinsey Sicks will be performing “Oy Vey in a Manger” today at 3 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. at the Theater J in the Washington DCJCC’s Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater (1529 16th St., N.W.). Tickets range from $35 to $60 and can be purchased by calling 800-494-TIXS or visiting boxofficetickets.com.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (10 Art Museum Drive) will be holding its first free family Sunday of the year today from 2 to 5 p.m. This week’s activity is making “magical mobiles.” All materials are provided.

Monday, Jan. 3

The D.C. Center (1318 U St., N.W.) will have its volunteer night tonight from 6:30 to 8 p.m. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

The National Portrait Gallery is showing an exhibit that focuses on sexual differences in the making of modern American portraiture. “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” is the first major museum exhibit of its kind. The museum is open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and admission is free.

Tuesday, Jan. 4

Join Burgundy Crescent Volunteers to help pack safer sex kits from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight at FUK!T’s new packing location Green Lantern, 1335 Green Ct., N.W.

Nellie’s (800 U St., N.W.) will have drag bingo featuring Shi-Queeta-Lee tonight at 8 p.m. and Beat the Clock happy hour from 5 to 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Jan. 5

“Shear Madness,” a comedy whodunit, will be performed at the Kennedy Center Theater Lab (2700 F St., N.W.) at 8 p.m. “Madness” takes place in present-day Georgetown, in the Shear Madness Hair Styling Salon. Visit kennedy-center.org for more information and to purchase tickets.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (10 Art Museum Drive) will have a collection tour today at 2 p.m. showcasing art that inspires contemplation.

Thursday, Jan. 6

The Lincoln Center Theater presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” today at the Kennedy Center opera house (2700 F St., N.W.) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $39 to $150 and can be purchased at kennedy-center.org.

Friday, Jan. 7

The Dance Party will be at 9:30 Club with Wallpaper, K-Flay, Ra Ra Rasputin and lowercaseletters at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at 930.com.

The D.C. Center will have its monthly open mic night tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and performer can sign up until 8. This night will feature the work of the Brother Tongue Poetry Workshop participants.

Saturday, Jan. 8

The NSO Teddy Bear Concert: “Fancy That!” will have three performances of a one-woman show with NSO violinist Marissa Regini today at 11 a.m., 1:30 and 5 p.m. in the Kennedy Center’s Family Theatre (2700 F St., N.W.).

The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will hosts its fifth annual photography exhibit and reception tonight from 5 to 7 p.m. at CHAW (545 7th St., S.E.) featuring works from local and regional artists. Admission to the opening and exhibition is free and will continue until Feb. 4.

Photos

PHOTOS: Capital Pride Pageant

Court crowned at Penn Social event

Published

1 day ago

April 28, 2024

Michael Key

From left, Zander Childs Valentino, Sasha Adams Sanchez and Dylan B. Dickherson White are crowned the winners at a pageant at Penn Social on April 26. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Eight contestants vied for Mr., Miss and Mx. Capital Pride 2024 at a pageant at Penn Social on Saturday. Xander Childs Valentino was crowned Mr. Capital Pride, Dylan B. Dickherson White was crowned Mx. Capital Pride and Sasha Adams Sanchez was crowned Miss Capital Pride.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Theater

Round House explores serious issues related to privilege

‘A Jumping-Off Point’ is absorbing, timely, and funny

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Patrick Folliard

Cristina Pitter (Miriam) and Nikkole Salter (Leslie) in ‘A Jumping-Off Point’ at Round House Theatre. (Photo by Margot Schulman Photography)

‘A Jumping-Off Point’
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org

In Inda Craig-Galván’s new play “A Jumping-Off Point,” protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-Galván, a real-life successful Black playwright and television writer, adheres to the same maxim. Whether further details from the play are drawn from her life, is up for speculation.

Absorbing, timely, and often funny, the current Round House Theatre offering explores some serious issues surrounding privilege and who gets to write about what. Nimbly staged and acted by a pitch perfect cast, the play moves swiftly across what feels like familiar territory without being the least bit predictable.

After a tense wait, Leslie (Nikkole Salter) learns she’s been hired to be showrunner and head writer for a new HBO MAX prestige series. What ought to be a heady time for the ambitious young woman quickly goes sour when a white man bearing accusations shows up at her door.

The uninvited visitor is Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a fellow student from Leslie’s graduate playwriting program. The pair were never friends. In fact, he pressed all of her buttons without even trying. She views him as a lazy, advantaged guy destined to fail up, and finds his choosing to dramatize the African American Mississippi Delta experience especially annoying.

Since grad school, Leslie has had a play successfully produced in New York and now she’s on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralph’s. (In fact, we’ll discover that he’s a held a series of wide-ranging temporary jobs, picking up a lot of information from each, a habit that will serve him later on, but I digress.)

Their conversation is awkward as Andrew’s demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslie’s current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script.

This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslie’s wisecracking best friend and roommate Miriam who has a knack for making things worse before making them better. Deliciously played by Cristina Pitter (whose program bio describes them as “a queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemist”), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-Galván’s deftly balanced three-hander.

Cast members’ performances are layered. Salter’s Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gavigan’s Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. He’s terrific.

The 90-minute dramedy isn’t without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. It’s all discussion-worthy topics, here pleasingly tempered with humor.

New York-based director Jade King Carroll skillfully helms the production. Scenes transition smoothly in large part due to a top-notch design team. Scenic designer Meghan Raham’s revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslie’s attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writers’ room with the requisite long table and essential white board. Adding to the graceful storytelling are sound and lighting design by Michael Keck and Amith Chandrashaker, respectively.

The passage of time and circumstances are perceptively reflected in costume designer Moyenda Kulemeka’s sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.

“A Jumping-Off Point” is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the country’s leading playwrights and newer voices.

Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Evan Caplan

Ed Bailey's set at last year's Project Glow. (Photo courtesy Bailey)

When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.

This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.

While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.

“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”

Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”

Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.

This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”

Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.

Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.

Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.

Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.

With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.

Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).