Arts & Entertainment

Howard Theatre to host first queer party in 60 years

Pride event recalls ‘Moms’ Mabley’s decadent 1940s celebration

Published

14 years ago

June 6, 2012

After her after-party was raided by police, Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley reportedly kept her ‘hen party’ going at the Howard Theatre. (Blade file photo)

Back in the 1940s, when an after party for a “Moms” Mabley show was raided by police at a nightclub owned by D.C.’s “female Al Capone,” Odessa Madre, the attendees weren’t ready to go home, so they kept their decadent queer party going at the Howard Theatre.

At least that’s what Marc Powers, director of marketing for the Howard Theatre, has gathered from accounts from those who knew Jackie “Moms” Mabley, and those who were part of the Howard Theatre community in its heyday.

“Moms Mabley played the Howard Theater,” Powers said. “When that got shut down they were like ‘damn, where are we going to go? Might as well just go back to the Howard!’”

More than 60 years later, the theater will host its first official LGBT event when Brightest Young Things and Capital Pride present WildLife, featuring a queer lineup, including recording artist and New York City personality Amanda Lepore, JD Samson of Le Tigre and MEN, Natty Boom and more. The party is set for Friday, 9 p.m.-3:30 a.m. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Visit dcpride2012.eventbrite.com for more information.

“Now it’s not happening under the cloak of the night,” Powers says about the difference between Mabley’s impromptu “girls party” and Friday’s Pride party. “It’s being advertised in the Blade and City Paper and the Washington Post.”

“This is very much our history as well, here at the Howard,” said John Marble of Brightest Young Things about the lesser-known gay stories that dot the 101-year history of the theater.

Howard Theater, gay news, Washington Blade

The Howard Theatre’s director of marketing is interested in unearthing more of the gay history of the recently restored landmark.

The story of the Howard Theatre’s long lost gay party is almost too fantastic. Because the party was unofficial, there was no written record. Powers said it’s an important part of the recently restored theater’s distinguished history. D.C.’s most notorious madam treating her good friend — a top comic who confirmed suspicions she was a lesbian before she died — to a smorgasbord of her favorite things.

It was fitting that the first artist to play the Howard Theatre for its third grand re-opening on April 13 was black lesbian comic Wanda Sykes, echoing Mabley’s last live performance on April 17, 1975 at the second grand re-opening of the theater weeks before her death.

Though Mabley was not closeted, she wasn’t known as a lesbian to most of her fans, as her onstage persona was quite the opposite. But off-stage, Mabley was known as a pioneer, dressing androgynously and appearing in drag in movies like “The Emperor Jones.”

The assumed original location of the party, Madre’s flagship “Jill Joint” — a nickname for an establishment that trafficked in illegal gambling, drugs, liquor and prostitution — the “Club Madre” was located at 2204 14th St., N.W., the site of the new Mova lounge.

“The club offered liquor by the shot, numbers by the book and girls by the hour,” The Washington Post published in a 1980 piece on Madre. “The late comedienne Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley performed there free, spending her days in Washington as Odessa’s guest. The two became like sisters.”

“We’re talking about a three-decade relationship, here,” Powers said of the companionship that Madre and Mabley shared from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Though unrecorded until now, Powers said that it’s important to recover and preserve the gay history of the historic Howard Theatre as well, and the connection with Mabley/Madre as well as Duke Ellington’s writing partner Billy Strayhorn, another notable gay character in Howard’s history.

“We don’t know if Madre was at ‘the Madre’ at the time,” Powers said of the after-party, which Powers described as a “hen party.” “She had rooms, clubs, and restaurants all over the city. …She had moving, rotating circles. But Odessa was the host of the party.”

After the club was shut down, Mabley was not interested in going to bed.

“She always keeps the party going,” Powers said. “She’s notorious for that.”

Powers said, according to accounts, it was Mabley herself who was able to secure the key in the middle of the night.

“She gets the key somehow — maybe from a night manager — and has the party upstairs in the Howard Theatre’s balcony,” Powers said.

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Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

2 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

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A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

11 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.