Arts & Entertainment

Calendar: Feb. 7-13

Parties, exhibits, concerts and more for the week ahead

Published

12 years ago

February 6, 2014

Honey Soundsystem, a San Francisco gay DJ collective, spins at Flash this weekend. (Photo by Shanna Doherty, courtesy the group)

LGBT events calendar for the week ahead in Washington.

Friday, Feb. 7

Larry Cohen hosts a free social anxiety workshop for the LGBT community at (4808 43rd Pl., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. The workshop covers what social anxiety is, what causes and maintains it and the cognitive-behavioral therapy approach to overcoming it. Attendees are not required to speak or interact. Registration is required. For details and to register, visit socialanxietyhelp.com.

The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) hosts a trans support group meeting tonight at 7 p.m. The facilitated group discussion is open to all members of the community including partners, friends and allies. For details, visit thedccenter.org.

Gay District, a facilitated group discussion focused on building understanding of gay culture and personal identity for men ages 18 through 35, meets at the D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) tonight from 8:30-9:30 p.m. For details, visit thedccenter.org.

Team D.C., Capital Pride, Human Rights Campaign and Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies are sponsoring a “Pride House International” event tonight to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics at HRC headquarters (1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.) at 7 p.m. Former pro hockey player Sean Avery will be a guest. RSVP at action.hrc.org. There is a $10 suggested donation to benefit the Russia LGBT Sports Foundation.

The 9 Songwriter Series is tonight from 7:30-10 p.m. at Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse (201 F Street, N.E.) and features performances by local gay songwriters such as Stewart Lewis, Tom Goss and more. Cost is $10. Details at facebookcom/wearethe9 or ebenezerscoffeehouse.com.

Otter Crossing is tonight at Green Lantern (just off Thomas Circle at 1335 Green Court, N.W.) with DJ Tommy Cornelis. For ages 21 and up. $5 cover after 10 p.m. Find the event on Facebook for details.

Saturday, Feb. 8

The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W.) holds free and confidential HIV testing today from 4-7 p.m. For more details, visit thedccenter.org.

Duplex Diner and the Dupont Social Club present “Valentine’s Day is a Drag!” at Duplex Diner (2004 18th St., N.W.) tonight from 6:30-11 p.m. There will be drag queen waitresses and bartenders, DJs, raffles and performances all night long. Dinner seatings are at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. There is a $20 suggested donation to benefit SMYAL.

RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant MiMi Imfurst performs at Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) tonight. Doors open at 10 p.m. Cover is $8 from 10-11 p.m. and $12 after 11 p.m. Drinks are $3 before 11 p.m. Drag show starts at 10:30 p.m. Admission is limited to guests 21 and over. For details, visit towndc.com.

Cobalt (1639 R St., N.W.) hosts “Bearzerk” tonight from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. Music will be by Dean Douglas Sullivan, Tommy Cornelis and more. Well and domestic drinks are $5 and Jameson, Jager and fireballs are $6. Doors open at 10 p.m. Covr is $5 and $7 after midnight. Admission is limited to guests 21 and over.

GLOV hosts the second annual Deoni Jones memorial and rally today at 4 p.m. at St. Luke’s Church (4925 East Capital Street, S.E.). Jones was a victim of an anti-trans hate crime.

Sunday, Feb. 9

Chick Chat, an ages 50-and-over lesbian singles group, meets at the Walters Art Museum (600 North Charles St., Baltimore) at the main entrance near Centre and Cathedral streets today at 1 p.m. For details and to RSVP, email [email protected].

Fairlington United Methodist Church (3900 King St., Alexandria, Va.) hosts “God’s Love Spoken Here,” a special service celebrating its one-year anniversary as a reconciling congregation, this morning at 9:30 and 11 a.m. For details, visit fairlingtonumc.org.

The NeedlExchange presents Honey Soundsystem, a queer DJ collective from San Francisco, at Flash (645 Florida Ave., N.W.) tonight from 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Admission is limited to guests 21 and over. Tickets are $15. To purchase tickets, visit tnxandhny.eventbrite.com.

Monday, Feb. 10

Us Helping Us (3636 Georgia Ave., N.W.) holds a support group for gay black men to discuss topics that affect them today, share perspectives and have meaningful conversations. For details, visit uhupil.org.

Nellie’s Sports Bar (900 U St., N.W.) hosts poker night tonight at 8 p.m. Win prizes. Free to play. For more information, visit nelliessportsbar.com.

Tuesday, Feb. 11

The D.C. Center hosts a “Center Arts Reception” at MOVA Lounge (2204 14th St., N.W.) this evening from 5:30-8 p.m. Hosted by Regie Cabico, the reception celebrates art and cultural programs at the D.C. Center. There is a $10 suggested donation. For more details, visit thedccenter.org.

D.C. Bi Women hosts its monthly meeting in the upstairs room of Dupont Italian Kitchen (1637 17th St., N.W.) from 7-9 p.m. tonight. For more details, visit thedccenter.org.

“A Kiss for Gabriela,” a HIPS film screening in honor of the late Gabriela Leite, is tonight at 6 p.m. at Busboys and Poets (2021 14th St., N.W.). RSVP to [email protected] for details.

Wednesday, Feb. 12

The Lambda Bridge Club hosts duplicate bridge at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., S.E.) at 7:30 p.m. tonight. No reservations needed and newcomers welcome. If you need a partner, call 703-407-6540.

Big Gay Book Group meets tonight at 1155 F St., N.W. Suite 200 at 7 p.m. to discuss “The Days of Anna Madrigal” by Armistead Maupin, a story about Anna Madrigal, a 92-year-old transgender landlady who embarks on a road-trip to reconnect to her past. For details, email [email protected].

Rainbow Response, an LGBT intimate partner violence prevention group, meets in the third floor conference room at 5 Thomas Circle N.W. today from 6-7 p.m. For details, visit thedccenter.org.

Thursday, Feb. 13

Washington National Opera Bravo Club presents “An Evening with Jake Heggie” at 1915 17th St., N.W. tonight at 7 p.m. Heggie has composed operas including “Dead Man Walking,” “The End of the Affair” and “Moby-Dick.” Wine and hors d’oeuvres begin at 7 p.m. The conversation begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20. To purchase tickets, go here.

The 15th Annual Washington D.C. International Wine and Food Festival begins at Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center (1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.) today through Saturday. Enjoy tastings of high quality food and wine, food pairings and wine education. Tickets range from $45-120. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit wineandfooddc.com.

“Allied in Greek,” an amateur drag competition and Trevor Project fundraiser, is tonight from 7-9 p.m. at Lisner Auditorium (730 21st Street, N.W.). Allied in Pride, the George Washington University LGBT student advocacy organization, and the GW Greek Community are joining efforts on the event which will feature contestants in drag who will lip sync to a song. Chanel Devereaux, a local drag queen, will be on the judging panel. Half of the proceeds will go to the Trevor Project. Tickets are $5 general admission. Find out more by searching for “Allied in Greek” on Facebook.

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Movies

‘Hedda’ brings queer visibility to Golden Globes

Tessa Thompson up for Best Actress for new take on Ibsen classic

Published

14 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Susan Hornik

Tessa Thompson is nominated for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a motion picture for ‘Hedda’ at Sunday’s Golden Globes. (Image courtesy IMDB)

The 83rd annual Golden Globes awards are set for Sunday (CBS, 8 p.m. EST). One of the many bright spots this awards season is “Hedda,” a unique LGBTQ version of the classic Henrik Ibsen story, “Hedda Gabler,” starring powerhouses Nina Hoss, Tessa Thompson and Imogen Poots. A modern reinterpretation of a timeless story, the film and its cast have already received several nominations this awards season, including a Globes nod for Best Actress for Thompson.

Writer/director Nia DaCosta was fascinated by Ibsen’s play and the enigmatic character of the deeply complex Hedda, who in the original, is stuck in a marriage she doesn’t want, and still is drawn to her former lover, Eilert.

But in DaCosta’s adaptation, there’s a fundamental difference: Eilert is being played by Hoss, and is now named Eileen.

“That name change adds this element of queerness to the story as well,” said DaCosta at a recent Golden Globes press event. “And although some people read the original play as Hedda being queer, which I find interesting, which I didn’t necessarily…it was a side effect in my movie that everyone was queer once I changed Eilert to a woman.”

She added: “But it still, for me, stayed true to the original because I was staying true to all the themes and the feelings and the sort of muckiness that I love so much about the original work.”

Thompson, who is bisexual, enjoyed playing this new version of Hedda, noting that the queer love storyline gave the film “a whole lot of knockoff effects.”

“But I think more than that, I think fundamentally something that it does is give Hedda a real foil. Another woman who’s in the world who’s making very different choices. And I think this is a film that wants to explore that piece more than Ibsen’s.”

DaCosta making it a queer story “made that kind of jump off the page and get under my skin in a way that felt really immediate,” Thompson acknowledged.

“It wants to explore sort of pathways to personhood and gaining sort of agency over one’s life. In the original piece, you have Hedda saying, ‘for once, I want to be in control of a man’s destiny,’” said Thompson.

“And I think in our piece, you see a woman struggling with trying to be in control of her own. And I thought that sort of mind, what is in the original material, but made it just, for me, make sense as a modern woman now.”

It is because of Hedda’s jealousy and envy of Eileen and her new girlfriend (Poots) that we see the character make impulsive moves.

“I think to a modern sensibility, the idea of a woman being quite jealous of another woman and acting out on that is really something that there’s not a lot of patience or grace for that in the world that we live in now,” said Thompson.

“Which I appreciate. But I do think there is something really generative. What I discovered with playing Hedda is, if it’s not left unchecked, there’s something very generative about feelings like envy and jealousy, because they point us in the direction of self. They help us understand the kind of lives that we want to live.”

Hoss actually played Hedda on stage in Berlin for several years previously.

“When I read the script, I was so surprised and mesmerized by what this decision did that there’s an Eileen instead of an Ejlert Lovborg,” said Hoss. “I was so drawn to this woman immediately.”

The deep love that is still there between Hedda and Eileen was immediately evident, as soon as the characters meet onscreen.

“If she is able to have this emotion with Eileen’s eyes, I think she isn’t yet because she doesn’t want to be vulnerable,” said Hoss. “So she doesn’t allow herself to feel that because then she could get hurt. And that’s something Eileen never got through to. So that’s the deep sadness within Eileen that she couldn’t make her feel the love, but at least these two when they meet, you feel like, ‘Oh my God, it’s not yet done with those two.’’’

Onscreen and offscreen, Thompson and Hoss loved working with each other.

“She did such great, strong choices…I looked at her transforming, which was somewhat mesmerizing, and she was really dangerous,” Hoss enthused. “It’s like when she was Hedda, I was a little bit like, but on the other hand, of course, fascinated. And that’s the thing that these humans have that are slightly dangerous. They’re also very fascinating.”

Hoss said that’s what drew Eileen to Hedda.

“I think both women want to change each other, but actually how they are is what attracts them to each other. And they’re very complimentary in that sense. So they would make up a great couple, I would believe. But the way they are right now, they’re just not good for each other. So in a way, that’s what we were talking about. I think we thought, ‘well, the background story must have been something like a chaotic, wonderful, just exploring for the first time, being in love, being out of society, doing something slightly dangerous, hidden, and then not so hidden because they would enter the Bohemian world where it was kind of okay to be queer and to celebrate yourself and to explore it.’”

But up to a certain point, because Eileen started working and was really after, ‘This is what I want to do. I want to publish, I want to become someone in the academic world,’” noted Hoss.

Poots has had her hands full playing Eileen’s love interest as she also starred in the complicated drama, “The Chronology of Water” (based on the memoir by Lydia Yuknavitch and directed by queer actress Kristen Stewart).

“Because the character in ‘Hedda’ is the only person in that triptych of women who’s acting on her impulses, despite the fact she’s incredibly, seemingly fragile, she’s the only one who has the ability to move through cowardice,” Poots acknowledged. “And that’s an interesting thing.”

Arts & Entertainment

2026 Most Eligible LGBTQ Singles nominations

We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region.

Published

2 days ago

January 7, 2026

Staff reports

We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region.

Are you or a friend looking to find a little love in 2026? We are looking for the most eligible LGBTQ singles in the Washington, D.C. region. Nominate you or your friends until January 23rd using the form below or by clicking HERE.

Our most eligible singles will be announced online in February. View our 2025 singles HERE.

Photos

PHOTOS: Freddie’s Follies

Queens perform at weekly Arlington show

Published

2 days ago

January 6, 2026

Michael Key

The Freddie's Follies drag show was held at Freddie's Beach Bar in Arlington, Va. on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Freddie’s Follies drag show was held at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va. on Saturday, Jan. 3. Performers included Monet Dupree, Michelle Livigne, Shirley Naytch, Gigi Paris Couture and Shenandoah.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)