Arts & Entertainment
‘Moonlight’ wins best kiss at MTV Movie & TV Awards
Emma Watson, Million Bobby Brown win first gender-neutral acting categories
Ashton Sanders and JharrelĀ Jerome accepted the award for best kiss for “Moonlight” at the MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday night.
“Moonlight” competed in the category againstĀ Emma Watson and Dan Stevens in “Beauty and the Beast,”Ā Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in “Empire,” Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in “La La Land” and Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick in “Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates.”
āI really have to start with saying thank you to my parents,ā Jerome, 21, told the crowd. āI love yāall so much. But on a real note I think it is safe to say that it is okay for us young performers, especially us minority performers, to step out of the box. Itās okay for us to step out of the box and do whatever it takes to tell the story and whatever it takes to make the change. This award is for that. Itās for us artists who are out there, who need to do whatever it takes to get people to wake up.ā
Sanders, 19, dedicated the award to “the unders” and “the misfits,” acknowledging the gravity of two black, queer characters winning an MTV award.
āThis award is bigger than Jharrel and I,ā Sanders said. āThis represents more than a kiss. This is for those who feel like the unders, the misfits ā this represents us. We love yāall and thank yāall.”
Adam Devine hosted the awards ceremony which merged movie and TV categories together for the first time this year. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” won for best reality competition and while RuPaul did not give an acceptance speech on stage, the show’s Instagram posted its thanks.
The awards were also the first to present gender-neutral acting categories in movie and TV. Emma Watson won best actor in a movie and was presented the award by nonbinary actor, Asia Kate Dillon. Dillon, who portrays Taylor Mason on “Billions,” is the first nonbinary actor to play a nonbinary character on a mainstream TV show.
“This is very meaningful to me. Both to be winning the award and to be receiving it from you, Asia [Kate Dillon]. Thank you for educating me in suchāin such an inclusive, patient, and loving way,” Watson said in her acceptance speech.
Millie Bobby Brown received the other gender-neutral acting honor withĀ the best actor in a show for her role as Eleven on “Stranger Things.”
“Beauty and the Beast,” the first Disney film to include a gay character, won best movie and “Stranger Things” won the best show category.
Theater
Round House explores serious issues related to privilege
āA Jumping-Off Pointā is absorbing, timely, and funny
āA Jumping-Off Pointā
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org
In Inda Craig-GalvĆ”nās new play āA Jumping-Off Point,ā protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-GalvĆ”n, 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 sheās 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 Leslieās 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 sheās on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralphās. (In fact, weāll discover that heās 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 Andrewās demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslieās current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script.
This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslieās 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 āa queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemistā), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-GalvĆ”nās deftly balanced three-hander.
Cast membersā performances are layered. Salterās Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gaviganās Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. Heās terrific.
The 90-minute dramedy isnāt without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. Itās 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 Rahamās revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslieās attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writersā 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 Kulemekaās sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.
āA Jumping-Off Pointā is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the countryās leading playwrights and newer voices.
Nightlife
Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival
An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend
When does a garden GLOW? When itās run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.
This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Baileyās 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. Heās 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.
āThe Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,ā he says. āTrue club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. Itās the cool party inside the bigger party.ā
Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. āThey 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.ā
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 ābringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.ā Among those are DJ Sedrick, āa DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,ā says Bailey. āI am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!ā
Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and āhouse music legendsā DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.
Bailey is focusing on D.C.ās 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, heās DJād across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened āin concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.ā Heās also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.Ā
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).
Out & About
Washington Improv Theatre hosts āThe Queeriesā
Event to celebrate queer DMV talent and pop culture camp
The Washington Improv Theatre, along with the Mayorās Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Gay Menās Chorus of Washington DC, will team up to host āThe Queeries!ā on Friday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Studio Theatre.
The event will celebrate Queer DMV talent and pop culture camp. With a mixture of audience-submitted nominations and blatantly undemocratically declared winners, āThe Queeries!ā mimics LGBTQ life itself: unfair, but far more fun than the alternative.
The event will be co-hosted by Birdie and Butchie, who have invited some of their favorite bent winos, D.C. “D-listers,” former Senate staffers, and other stars to sashay down the lavender carpet for the selfie-strewn party of the year.
Tickets are just $15 and can be purchased on WITVās website.Ā
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