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Calendar for March 12

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Friday, March 12

“It’s Britney Bitch” features Britney look-a-likes, karaoke, trivia, music and more at Town, 2009 8th St., N.W., 202-234-TOWN or towndc.com. Doors open at 10 p.m., drag show at 10:30 p.m.; 18+. Cover is $5 from 10-11 p.m. and $10 after for those 21+ and $10 all night for 18-20.

Visit Apex, 1415 22nd St., N.W., for Caliente Grande! Expect the hottest Latin music from DJ Michael Brandon with doors opening at 9 p.m. 18 to get in and 21 to drink.

The second Friday of each month at the Green Lantern, 1335 Green Court, N.W., offers “Jacob’s Ladder,” music of the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. The DJs for the evening will be T&T Music Factory (DJ tim ē & DJ Timothy Mykael make up this electrifying team). Two DJs playing 90 minutes each. All you can drink Smirnoff Vodka flavors buffet for $15; $5 cover.

Gay District is a weekly, non-church affiliated discussion and social group for GBTQ men between 18 and 35. The group meets from 8:30-10:30 p.m at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave., N.W. For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Women in their Twenties will meet at the DC Center, 1810 14th St. N.W., at 8 p.m. WiTT is a social discussion group for lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other interested women in the D.C. area. The group is led by several facilitators on a rotational basis. New participants are always welcome. The discussion is followed by dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Saturday, March 13

MIXTAPE at EFN Lounge/Motley Bar, 1318 9th St., N.W., from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. MIXTAPE is an alterna-gay-disco-electro-pop-indie dance party for queers, gays, lesbians, trans, queens, kings, boys, girls, and every combination thereof. 21 and over; $5 cover.

The second Saturday of each month Sean Morris presents “Fly” at Mova, 1435 P St., N.W. Expect music from 1990 through 1999, with your favorites from the decade that brought us grunge. Tracks from Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and, of course, your favorite divas in their prime like Whitney Houston, Madonna and even Amy Grant! 99 cent shot special from 10-11 p.m.; no cover, 21 and up.

Black Cat, 1811 14th St., N.W., 202-667-4490, hosts its long-running Mousetrap, a Brit-pop dance night, on the main stage beginning at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 general admission. Visit blackcatdc.com for information.

National ShamrockFest, billed as the largest St. Patrick’s Day festival in the mid-Atlantic, features 40+ bands, including the Roots and Train. Held at RFK Stadium, 2400 E. Capital St. (Stadium-Armory Metro). Gates open at 11:30 a.m.; tickets start at $24.99. Call 877-77-CLICK or visit shamrockfest.com.

The Washington Wizards take on the Orlando Magic, 7 p.m. at Verizon Center. Tickets start at $10. Visit ticketmaster.com for information.

Women Artists/Women Healing II: “Healing Power of Myth, Ritual & Celebration,” features mostly women artists, writers and healers for workshops in dance/movement, storytelling and more. Free, open to the public, 12:30 p.m., 1420 Columbia Rd., N.W. Visit womenartistswomenhealing.com or call 202-332-4200 x1041 for information.

Sunday, March 14

“Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection” continues at the Corcoran Gallery, 17th Street and New York Avenue, N.W. Tickets are $10; $8 for students. And if you can’t get enough Cezanne, don’t miss the BMA’s “Cezanne and American Modernism” now through May 23, 10 Art Museum Dr., Baltimore, 443-573-1700, artbma.org. Tickets are $15.

Burgundy Crescent, a gay volunteer organization, volunteers today for D.C. Central Kitchen. To participate, visit burgundycrescent.org.

Check out Cobalt, 1639 R St. N.W., for X and party the winter blues away by welcoming daylight savings time. This Month: DJ Glanson (NYC) with opening Set by DJ Pete Glow. Dancers, live drag performance by Isis Deverreoux; 21 and up, $7 cover ($5 from 10-11 p.m.).

Monday, March 15

Acclaimed singer John Hiatt performs at the Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria, Va., 7:30 p.m. Visit ticketmaster.com for tickets or call the Birchmere at 703-549-7500.

Jacob Nathaniel Pring and Alphonso Wilson present the premiere of “Indigo” at Tabaq Bistro, 1336 U St., N.W. Local DJ and producer A-Ron.The.DJ (http://www.subwaystate.com/) will conjure the atmosphere for the inaugural Indigo. Doors open at 9 p.m.

Tuesday, March 16

“The Light in the Piazza” continues at Arena Stage in Crystal City, 1800 South Bell St., Arlington, Va. (Crystal City Metro). Show at 7:30 p.m.; tickets $62-67. Visit arenastage.org for information.

Packing Party at EFN Lounge/Motley Bar, 1318 9th St., N.W., from 7-8 p.m. Volunteers will be assembling safer sex kits and enjoying drink specials, 7-10:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 17

The Tom Davaron Social Bridge Club will meet at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center, 721 8th St., S.E. No partner needed. Visit lambdabridge.com; click “Social Bridge in Washington, D.C.”

Thursday, March 18

“American Idol” favorite Daughtry performs at 1st Mariner Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, 7:30 p.m. For info or tickets, call the box office at 410-347-2010 or ticketmaster.com.

Alpha Drugs invites you to attend its Survival Forum VII, a lecture on new therapies for Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS, finding the strongest possible regimen with the fewest side effects, at 6:30 p.m., Hotel Palomar in the Phillips Ballroom, 2121 P St., N.W. Registration will begin at 6:30, and the lecture and dinner will start at 7 p.m. To RSVP, or for more information, contact [email protected] or call 202-265-5757.

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Photos

PHOTOS: Capital Pride Pageant

Court crowned at Penn Social event

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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)

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Theater

Round House explores serious issues related to privilege

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

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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. 

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Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

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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).

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