After Hours Blog

Music Picks: Jack’s Mannequin, All Things Gold, Steve Aoki

Our recommendations for the best in live music over the next seven days.

The Max Levine Ensemble appear at Black Cat tonight. Photograph courtesy of the band’s Flickr page.

Thursday, February 9

When he’s not busy throwing underground punk shows at houses around the city, David “Spoonboy” Combs plays with his own band, the Max Levine Ensemble. One of the rare DC bands to stick around, they play hard-hitting pop punk driven by Combs’s nasally voice. Tonight they move out of the basements to Black Cat’s backstage, where they’re regulars.

Doors at 8 PM at Black Cat, $8.

All Things Go’s concert series, All Things Gold, can always be relied on to promote catchy bands and acts you’ve never heard of. Tonight, they’ll bring Minneapolis-based DJ Gigamesh to U Street Music Hall—his dancey remixes regularly top sites like Hype Machine. Opening is Summer Camp, a duo that fans of Cults or Best Coast will appreciate.

Doors at 9 PM at U Street Music Hall, $13.

Movie Tickets: Oscar Shorts, “A Better Life,” “Project Nim”

Our picks for the best in film over the next seven days

A still from Pixar’s La Luna, nominated for the Best Animated Short Academy Award. Photograph courtesy of Pixar.

Oscar-Nominated Shorts

One of the most welcome features of Oscar season is the opportunity to see short films in an actual theater, rather than on YouTube or a DVD extra. Shorts don’t have much of a life outside festivals, since they don’t lend themselves to lucrative distribution. But every year the nominees in all the short film categories for the Academy Awards get packaged together and screened in cinemas nationwide, and the full houses are testament to just how much people enjoy these pithy presentations.

This year, Landmark E Street is showing the animated and live-action nominees. The animated shorts include two selections from Canada, two from the US, and one from the UK. There’s the usual Pixar nominee in the bunch—La Luna, a film about the Canadian frontier in the early 20th century—as well as one film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, that promises reference points to sources from The Wizard of Oz to Buster Keaton.

The live-action nominees are often dominated by films that have serious messages or attempt to uplift, and this year appears to be no exception, with a movie about an altar boy choosing between faith and football, one about a missing child, another about boyhood friends divided for 25 years, and one about an old man looking to make amends with his brother. The odd film out here would seem to be Time Freak, about an inventor who creates a time machine and merely travels to the day before. Last year’s quirky God of Love beat out its more serious competitors, so that could bode well for that last title.

West End has the documentary shorts, including one film that screened at last year’s Silverdocs festival, The Barber of Birmingham, as well as films about the following: a successful actress who left her career behind to become a nun; an air strike in Baghdad; women in Pakistan who have been attacked with acid, a depressingly common occurrence there; and survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

All three series open tomorrow, the Live Action and Animated Shorts at E Street Cinema, and the Documentary Shorts at West End Cinema.

Theater Review: “Next Fall” at Round House Theatre

A gay couple divided by their religious beliefs get a compelling rendering in this thoughtful drama.

Chris Dinolfo and Tom Story in Round House Theatre’s production of Next Fall. Photograph by Danisha Crosby.

In any new relationship, there inevitably comes a point when you discover something at least slightly disturbing about the person you’ve fallen for. This can range from the innocuous (bumblebee socks, slovenly habits, a preference for hazelnut coffee) to the outright creepy (My Little Pony collections, home torture chambers, a deep and enduring affection for Hall & Oates). In Geoffrey Nauffts’s Next Fall, currently playing at Round House Theatre, Adam (Tom Story) sits down for a morning-after breakfast with the new object of his affection, Luke (Chris Dinolfo), only to be confronted by the alarming fact that Luke is that most unconventional of New Yorkers: an evangelical Christian.

What to Do This Weekend: February 9 to 12

Woo at the Zoo, the opening of “Genesis Robot” at Synetic Theater, and the Washington DC International Wine & Food Festival.

Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and pianist Brian Ganz come to Washington this weekend. Photograph of Salerno-Sonnenberg by Christian Steiner; photograph of Ganz courtesy of the artist’s website.

Be sure to check out our Valentine's Day guides for couples and singles. Some events start this weekend.

Thursday, February 9

MUSIC: Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg joins the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. The concert will feature Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9. Tickets ($20 to $85) can be purchased through the KenCen’s website. 7 PM. The show runs through February 11.

FILM: The Smithsonian American Art Museum hosts a free screening of Modern Times in the Kogod Courtyard. In the 1936 comedy, Charlie Chaplin falls in love with an orphan girl. Food and beverages will be available for purchase in the Courtyard Cafe. 7 to 8:30 PM.

THEATER: Synetic Theater’s new work, Genesis Reboot, opens tonight. Written and directed by Ben Cunis, the show takes a fresh look at the creation story. A limited number of $10 tickets are available for this performance only through the box office; regular-price tickets ($45 to $55) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 8 PM. The show runs though March 4.

Catch a preview of WSC Avant Bard’s Les Justes tonight at the Artisphere. Based on true events, the 1950 drama follows a group of Russian revolutionaries. Tickets for tonight’s performance are pay what you can; tickets for future showings ($25 to $35) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 7:30 PM. The play runs through March 11.

Toots and the Maytals, Madonna, and Fatboy Slim: Get Your Tickets

Keeping track of when tickets go on sale, so you don’t have to.

Reggae stars Toots and the Maytals play the 9:30 Club on March 19. Image courtesy of the artist’s website.

Jamaican reggae favorites Toots and the Maytals will be playing at the 9:30 Club on Monday, March 19. They are known for their “unique fusion of gospel, ska, soul, reggae, and rock,” according to NPR. Tickets ($26) are on sale now through Ticketfly.

As our own Sophie Gilbert noted yesterday, Madonna will play her first performance in the Washington area since 2004 on Sunday, September 23. She comes to the Verizon Center to promote her upcoming album, MDNA. Tickets ($48 to $358) go on sale Monday, February 13, at 10 AM through Ticketmaster.

Dayglow: World’s Largest Paint Party first appeared in 2006 on college campuses across Florida. The aptly named colorfest will stop by the RFK Stadium Grounds on Saturday, April 14, and will feature deejays, aerial acts, fire shows, and the cannon-fired (and innuendo-laden) “paint blast.” As of 10 AM today, February 8, tickets ($56.25) are on sale through Ticketmaster.

Fatboy Slim comes to the 9:30 Club on Friday, March 23. He released his last album, Here Lies Love, a collaboration with David Byrne, in 2010. Tickets ($45) are on sale now through Ticketfly.

DC Cheer Shows Local Arts Institutions Some Love

Forget football—a new amateur cheerleading squad aims to pep up the Washington art community.

The DC Cheer squad members shake their pompoms in support of the arts. Photograph by E. Brady Robinson.

In a world of slashed budgets and shrinking audiences, it seems arts institutions could use a little cheerleading these days. Thankfully there’s DC Cheer, an amateur cheerleading squad that seeks to enliven the local arts scene. Their brightly colored pompoms and Rockettes-inspired high kicks can now be found in and around art exhibitions and galleries in the Washington area.

DC Cheer is “based on the idea of giving a voice to the DC art community, which has been thriving but remains in the shadow of DC’s larger official presence,” says Kristina Bilonick, a native Washingtonian visual artist. As the former program director for the Washington Project for the Arts, Bilonick spent most of her time promoting DC artists through shows and events, and it became her favorite part of the job. Literally cheerleading for the cause just seemed like an extension of that.

Having long harbored the idea, she finally formed DC Cheer in September of last year for the (e)merge Art Fair, which showcased experimental artists’ performances and installations. Part performance art and part whimsy, DC Cheer encourages not only the arts but also the artists, who, Bilonick says, often appreciate the morale boost and bonhomie amid DC’s fiercely competitive art community. “Artists forming pyramids or doing group motions is an exact metaphor for the way artists in DC should be supporting each other,” she says.

What to Do Tonight: February 8

The Capital Wine Festival, indie pop group Veronica Falls at the Black Cat, and Meklit Hadero at the Artisphere.

Singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero. Photograph by Rus Anson.

Wednesday, February 8

Singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero performs at the Artisphere tonight. “Hadero’s sound is a unique blend of jazz, Ethiopia, the San Francisco art scene, and visceral poetry; it paints pictures in your head as you listen,” says NPR. Tickets can be purchased online for $15 or at the door for $18. 8 PM.

MUSIC: Indie pop group Veronica Falls are dropping by the Black Cat. Their self-titled debut was released in September of last year; listen to some of their songs here. The London natives will be joined by Brilliant Colors. Tickets ($10) can be purchased online. Doors open at 8 PM.

WINE: The Capital Wine Festival returns to the Fairfax with a Heitz Wine Cellars dinner. The four-course spread includes pan-seared crabcake, wild mushroom risotto, mint-glazed lamb chops, and black cherry crème brûlée. Each course will be paired with a Heitz wine. Tickets ($125) can be purchased through the event’s website. 7 PM.

SHOPPING: The Crystal Couture Show and Sale returns with discounted offerings from more than 30 boutiques. In addition to savings up to 50 percent, shoppers can enjoy fashion shows, complimentary drinks, hair and makeup consultations, music by DJ Neekola, and more. The sale runs through February 11.

Theater Review: “Josephine Tonight” at MetroStage

A world premiere musical about the 1930s entertainer provides pure, thrilling satisfaction.

For those who have even a passing knowledge of who Josephine Baker was, Josephine Tonight isn’t going to hold many secrets. Despite Baker’s tough upbringing and the challenges ahead of her, it’s no surprise that the actress/singer/dancer is going to end up a major star by the end of the new biographical musical debuting at MetroStage. But the joys of Josephine Tonight are in the journey to eventual stardom—the jubilant choreography, soaring vocals, and satisfying songs that accompany Baker’s rise to the top.

Sherman Yellen and Wally Harper’s world premiere musical is a conventional showbiz story that focuses on Baker’s early years—her roots in Missouri, her stints in vaudeville and Harlem, and her ascendance to fame in Paris. The portraits of “Josie,” her world-weary mother, and the performers (and foils) who surround her are painted through occasional dialogue and, more frequently, a set of 24 songs, some bluesy, some plaintive, and nearly all of them catchy and cleverly penned.

Theater Review: “Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President!” at Theater J

The “dragapella” quartet skewers politics in their newest musical comedy show.

Ben Schatz, Jeff Manabat, Spencer Brown, and Irwin Keller take on American politics in their new show, Electile Dysfunction. Photograph by C. Stanley Photography.

Ordinarily, the sight of a troupe of overly made up buffoons decked in glaring red, white, and blue strutting across a stage declaring that they’re endorsed by Yahweh would be A) the circus, B) a less-imaginative Saturday Night Live skit, or C) a South Carolina teen beauty pageant. Unfortunately, these days it’s just as likely to be a Republican primary debate. In the past few months alone, we’ve seen serious presidential contenders endorse the concept of child labor, excoriate “government injections” (or vaccinations, as some people like to call them), and declare that government shouldn’t intervene to save the life of a gravely ill man who is uninsured. In other words, not only has life come to imitate art, but it’s also kicked art in the shins, slushied it, and stolen its lunch money.

Which makes things hard for the Kinsey Sicks in their new show, currently enjoying its world premiere run at Theater J. In Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President!, the girls (Rachel, Winnie, Trampolina, and Trixie) have donned their patriotic finest (imagine a fusion of the Star-Spangled Banner and stripper chic) and are announcing their run for president (as a corporation, naturally). “The economy has collapsed,” declares a video at the start of the show. “America is in decline.” So the Kinsey Sicks—America’s “favorite dragapella beautyshop quartet,” in case you weren’t familiar—have abandoned show business, taken newfound pledges of celibacy, and thrown their wigs in the ring—as Republicans.

Madonna Coming to Washington in 2012

The artist announces her first scheduled DC concert since 2004.

Photograph by Flickr user Karen Blue.

If, like us, you were slightly disappointed that Madonna didn’t do anything more outré or controversial at the Super Bowl on Sunday, console yourself—never one to shy away from free publicity, this morning the artist announced she’ll be coming to Washington’s Verizon Center September 23. It’s the first local gig in more than eight years for Madonna, who hasn’t performed here since her Re-Invention tour stopped at what was then the MCI Center in 2004.

So what can we expect from Madge on the heels of her new album, MDNA? Who knows? On her last world outing, the Sticky & Sweet Tour, Madonna divided her show into four acts: Pimp, Old School, Gypsy, and Rave, alternately sitting in an M-shaped throne surrounded by dancers in bondage wear, skipping rope, and (shudder) even playing the guitar. She also caused controversy (naturally) by including a video montage that compared John McCain to Hitler and Barack Obama to Gandhi, and dedicating a performance of “Like a Virgin” to Pope Benedict XVI.

But despite (because of?) a few headlines, the Sticky & Sweet tour grossed upward of $400 million, the highest amount ever for a solo artist, and it’s safe to assume her new one will probably sell out fairly quickly (especially if Bruce Springsteen’s Verizon Center show is anything to go by). Tickets go on sale February 13 at 10 AM through Ticketmaster, so we recommend you stay by a computer Monday morning if you’re dying to see the Queen of Pop.

What to Do Tonight: February 7

“Necessary Sacrifices” at Ford’s Theatre, Adam Arcuragi at the Iota Club, and the Washington DC Comedy Writers Showcase at the Riot Act.

David Selby and Craig Wallace star in Necessary Sacrifices. Photograph by T. Charles Erickson.

Tuesday, February 7

THEATER: If you haven’t already, head to Ford’s Theatre for a showing of Necessary Sacrifices. Richard Hellesen’s drama chronicles two documented meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. “The spirited conversations in which they engage evoke a fly-on-the-wall quality, giving the audience the sense of truly eavesdropping on history as it’s being made,” says arts writer Jane Horwitz. Read the full review here. Tickets ($25 to $50) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 7:30 PM. The play runs through February 18.

MUSIC: Self-proclaimed “death gospel” singer Adam Arcuragi and the Lupine Chorale Society are dropping by the Iota Club and Cafe. “With his poetic preaching and rousing choruses, Arcuragi crafts songs of community, with music that binds,” says NPR. Arcuragi will be joined by Jukebox Serenade. Tickets ($12) can be purchased at the door. 8:30 PM.

The Levine School of Music’s Virginia Big Band give a free performance at the Kennedy Center. The jazz ensemble have performed at the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival and Taste of Arlington. 6 PM.

COMEDY: The Washington DC Comedy Writers Group presents a comedy showcase at the Riot Act. The performance will feature a fake psychic reading, standup acts from local comedians, a series of short films, improv, and more. Tickets ($10) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 8:30 PM.

Theater Review: “Necessary Sacrifices” at Ford’s Theatre

Playwright Richard Hellesen imagines historic meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass in this well-crafted world premiere.

David Selby as Abraham Lincoln and Craig Wallace as Frederick Douglass in the Ford’s Theatre world premiere production of Necessary Sacrifices. Photograph by T. Charles Erickson.

Abraham Lincoln wrestles with what’s morally right versus what’s politically feasible in Richard Hellesen’s arresting, if occasionally pedantic, new play, Necessary Sacrifices, at Ford’s Theatre through February 18. His partner in the struggle is Frederick Douglass, the celebrated African-American abolitionist, orator, and writer who escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838 and became a spokesman here and abroad for the cause. Douglass and Lincoln had two documented meetings at the White House during the Civil War, we’re told in the playbill. In Sacrifices, a world premiere commissioned by Ford’s, Hellesen has imagined what those encounters in the summers of 1863 and 1864 might have been like, based in part on both men’s public orations and Douglass’s many articles.

In this production, David Selby as Lincoln and Craig Wallace as Douglass make a convincing, contrasting duo in countenance, demeanor, and voice. The spirited conversations in which they engage evoke a fly-on-the-wall quality, giving the audience the sense of truly eavesdropping on history as it’s being made. This is Selby’s second outing as Lincoln at Ford’s. He played the president almost exactly three years ago in James Still’s The Heavens Are Hung in Black, commissioned by Ford’s to mark the reopening of the newly refurbished landmark theater. The lanky actor seems effortlessly to channel the great man in an inspired mix of folksiness—the high-pitched twang noted by those who actually heard Lincoln speak is jarring at first, then pleasurably realistic—warmth, melancholy, and political savvy.

What to Do This Week: February 6 to 9

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center, pianist and vocalist Tony DeSare at Strathmore, and “Un-American” at Signature Theatre.

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Kirven James Boyd and Linda Celeste Sims. Photographs by Andrew Eccles.

Monday, February 6

THEATER: Signature in Schools presents Un-American at Signature Theatre. In this limited engagement starring Arlington students, two rival high schools face off in a local TV game show. If you can’t make this performance, there’s another one on February 10. Free. 7:30 PM.

Art Preview: “Snapshot: Painters and Photography, from Bonnard to Vuillard” at the Phillips Collection

A new exhibition reveals how early photography proved irresistible to artists.

Left: Maurice Denis, Marthe offering Bernadette a bunch of grapes, Le Pouldu, September 15, 1890. Right: Maurice Denis, Noële and Her Mother, 1896. Photographs © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.

“You press the button, we do the rest” said the slogan on George Eastman’s first Kodak camera, which enthralled thousands of would-be photographers when it debuted in 1888. No longer was photography relegated to professionals with expensive, cumbersome equipment—Eastman’s handheld made easy work of the process, creating shutterbugs of amateurs and artists alike. Many post-impressionist painters and printmakers found themselves swept up in the Kodak craze, taking thousands of snapshots of their travels, families, models, and muses. Some of their photographs were exchanged with fellow artists; some were used as studies for future pieces. And some, perhaps, were never meant to be seen.

Two hundred of these prints are on display in the Phillips Collection’s latest installation, “Snapshot: Painters and Photography, from Bonnard to Vuillard,” which makes its stateside debut tomorrow after an initial showing in Amsterdam. Co-organized by the Van Gogh Museum, the Phillips Collection, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the exhibition explores the work of seven artists known to be transfixed by this new medium. A few may be familiar: Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, and Maurice Denis were all members of a post-impressionist school known as the Nabis, a group of avant-garde painters influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin. The remaining three—Henri Rivière, George Hendrik Breitner, and Henri Evenepoel—are lesser known, but were equally as enamored with Eastman’s technology. Curators combed through Parisian attics and peeked into dusty shoeboxes in the Hague to uncover these artists’ photos, many of which have never been shown before.

WashingTelevision: The Firm Recap, “Chapter Six”

Just when you think things can’t get much worse for Mitch (or NBC’s ratings), they do.

Not even Juliette Lewis in a wedding dress could save last night’s episode. Josh Lucas, Juliette Lewis, and Callum Keith Rennie in The Firm, “Chapter Six.” Photograph by Ian Watson/NBC.

So the last time we saw Mitch, he was bundled up in a police station being arrested for the murder of Martin (who took a dive off of a sketchy hotel balcony and ended up inadvertently redecorating the sidewalk). I say this because, like you, presumably, I have no idea what’s going on in the show these days. I can just about get my head around the single-episode storylines, but then things flash back and forward a few weeks and I’m totally, irrevocably lost. Maybe it’s because the show is so bad these days that I have to get drunk to watch it, or maybe it’s because I can’t bring myself to care—who knows? Either way, it appears Mitch is being pursued by the police, some Chicago gangsters, AND some goons hired by his boss; Sarah Holt is an innocent victim/evil murderess/Army vet (or even worse, an insurance broker); and Martin is in some way connected to some grand scheme Mitch’s firm is also embroiled in, but he really wants to be a whistleblower. Got that? Me neither. Here are the winners and losers from last night’s episode, “Chapter Six.”

February Art Preview

French paintings, dragons, dark matter, and an exhibition by late photographer Tim Hetherington open this month.

Manet’s “Masked Ball at the Opera,” now on display in the French Galleries in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building. Photograph courtesy of the NGA.

MUSEUM EXHIBITS

The French paintings at the National Gallery of Art have a brand new home. Following a two-year renovation and reorganization at the hands of curator Mary Morton, the French Galleries in the NGA’s West Building are now open on the second floor, with Monets, Manets, Cezannes, and Gauguins galore. Morton’s curation groups paintings by theme, so one room groups view paintings, another places women artists together (including six remarkable works by Mary Cassatt), and another has what appears to be an “Eastern boudoir” motif. Jokes aside, there are some outstanding works to be seen here, so it’s well worth a trip if you haven’t visited recently.

Also at the National Gallery: In advance of the London Olympics, an exhibition in the West Building looks at how cities have historically spruced themselves up for major events. “From the Library: The Fleeting Structures of Early Modern Europe,” February 4 through July 29, draws from the museum’s rare-books collection to explore the temporary structures built in the 15th and 16th centuries for everything from royal weddings to coronations.

Also in the West Building through July 8, “The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione” brings together around 80 prints and drawings by Castiglione, an influential Italian baroque artist.

Theater Review: “The Gaming Table” at Folger Theatre

A high-society gambling ring serves as sheer entertainment in this witty production.

Tonya Beckman Ross, Michael Milligan, and Katie deBuys in The Gaming Table at Folger Theatre. Photograph by Carol Pratt/Folger Theatre.

It’s fitting that the Spice Girls just announced a 2012 reunion, because Girl Power is apparently running wild at the Folger Theatre this month. Eighteenth-century dramatist Susanna Centlivre—whom we could dub “Old Spice” if we were feeling uncharitable—might lack the more enduring fame of many of her restoration comedy counterparts (Colley Cibber, John Vanburgh, William Congreve), but as a new adaptation of her 1705 play The Basset Table proves, she’s well worthy of a comeback tour.

Director Eleanor Holdridge has assembled an all-female creative team for the Folger’s production, which runs though March 4 (read our interview with her here), while dramaturg David Grimm has updated the script and renamed it The Gaming Table (basset, a European card game beloved by society mavens for its dramatic high stakes, is presumably too obscure a term for contemporary audiences). In Centlivre’s play, women are far more than just supporting characters. There are stereotypes, yes—such as the pious Lady Lucy (Katie deBuys), and the manipulative, shallow compulsive gambler Mrs. Sago (Tonya Beckman Ross). But there’s also Valeria (Emily Trask), who eschews romance in favor of dissecting small animals; as well as the business-minded and savvy Lady Reveller (Julie Jesneck), who’d rather take possession of a man’s pocketbook than his heart.

Movie Tickets: Screen Valentines, “Addiction Incorporated,” and a Gene Kelly Centennial

Our picks for the best in film over the next seven days.

Cary Grant and Irene Dunn in The Awful Truth. Photograph courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

AFI Retrospectives

As awards season (thankfully) starts to wind down, the AFI ends its annual break from retrospective series—January usually being spent letting folks catch up on the end-of-year prestige films—and begins four new collections of older films, three of which will be with us until early April. Here’s what you can look for at the AFI in the coming weeks, all starting this weekend:

Screen Valentines: Great Movie Romances: Better for you than a box of chocolates and more enduring than a bunch of flowers, the shortest of the new retrospective series fills the month of February with eight classic romances spanning more than a half-century of cinema. Things get underway tomorrow with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn playing that most romantic of couples, the would-be divorcées, only they’re going to have to last a year apart before they’re granted their walking papers. They’re both desperately trying to find someone to replace the love of their life, but maybe, just maybe, the awful truth of The Awful Truth is that they’re really made for each other. The series also includes probably the best of the bunch, The Lady Eve, on Valentine’s Day itself, and other titles include selections with the Hepburns, Katherine (The African Queen) and Audrey (Two for the Road), as well as more-modern favorites in Dirty Dancing and—for fans of a kinder, gentler Ryan Gosling than is on display in this week’s Blu-ray pick— The Notebook.

February Theater Preview

Astro Boy, Charlie Brown, Camus, and the Kinsey Sicks come to Washington stages this month.

Louise Schlegel and Blair Bowers in The Gallerist, closing February 19 at Atlas Arts Center. Photograph by C. Stanley Photography.

DON’T MISS

Signature Theatre presents the world premiere of Really Really , a drama by Paul Downs Colaizzo, January 31 through March 25. The show is set at an elite university where a night of partying has dramatic consequences.

February 2 through March 4, Constellation Theatre Company presents Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding . The 1933 Spanish tragedy is about a wedding disrupted by murder and old feuds.

February 4 through 19, the Kinsey Sicks return to Theater J with their new election-year show, Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President! The drag “beautyshop quartet” skewers politics in this world premiere production.

Music Picks: The Kills, Olivia Mancini, Theophilus London

Our picks for the best in live music over the next seven days.

Rock duo the Kills perform at 9:30 Club tonight. Photograph by Flickr user giovanni.

Thursday, February 2

In a White Stripes–less world, the Kills have stepped up to fill the bluesy boy-girl rock duo void. They’ve got a bit of a spooky edge—their songs have been used on the soundtracks of True Blood and Friday the 13th—but they’re still catchy as hell. Their show at the 9:30 Club is sold out, but lots of people are selling extras on Craigslist.

Doors at 7 PM at 9:30 Club, sold out.

A big-band supergroup composed of members of a bunch of DC Americana and roots-rock bands, the Natty Beaux play covers of American classics. Head to the Hamilton to see them perform hits by Elvis, Jerry Lee Louis, Ray Charles, and more. Best of all: It’s free.

Doors at 6:30 PM at the Hamilton, free

What to Do This Weekend: February 2 to 5

Opening night of “Blood Wedding” at the Source, the Discover Ellington festival at Strathmore, and Super Bowl parties galore.

The Kinsey Sicks return to Theater J with Electile Dysfunction. Photograph courtesy of the group’s Facebook page.

Thursday, February 2

ART: Phillips After 5, a popular after-hours event at the Phillips Collection, returns with live jazz music, acting classes led by Arena Stage staffers, gallery talks, and more. Food and drink will be available for purchase. Tickets ($12) can be purchased through the gallery’s website. 5 to 8:30 PM.

THEATER: Constellation Theatre Company’s Blood Wedding opens tonight at Source. Written by Federico García Lorca, the Spanish tragedy is about lovers torn apart by murder and old feuds. Tickets ($20 to $40) can be purchased through the theater’s website. 8 PM. The play runs through March 4.

MUSIC: Trumpeter Andrew Balio joins the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore. The program will feature works by Bach, Rameau, Haydn, and Mozart. Tickets ($28 to $88) can be purchased through the Strathmore’s website. 8 PM.

Indie pop band the Jackfields are performing at the Iota Club and Cafe. The Virgina natives fuse Pink Floyd psychedelia with Beatles piano pop. You can listen to some of their songs here. The band will be joined by Aaron Thompson and Bobbie Allen. Tickets ($10) can be purchased at the door. 9 PM.

Theater Review: “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” at Keegan Theatre

A fine ensemble cast brings Neil Simon’s delightful comedy about the early days of television to life.

Kevin Hasser, Bradley Foster Smith, and Ray Ficca in Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Photograph by Jim Coates.

Young writer Neil Simon got a very lucky break when he and his brother Danny were discovered by comic genius Sid Caesar. They were writing comedy scripts for a summer resort when Caesar saw their show and hired the Simons to join the writing team on Your Show of Shows in the early ’50s. Decades before Saturday Night Live, Caesar and company were inventing political sketch comedy. The writers faced network pressures to dumb down the show, as well as a growing right-wing political climate fueled by Senator Joe McCarthy. Laughter on the 23rd Floor is based on Simon’s 30 Rock–esque experiences on the show.

Lucas Brickman ( John Loughney) the new kid on the writing staff, is clearly the young Neil Simon. He joins a crew of neurotic, high-strung, quick-witted writers trying to please both the brilliant, pill-popping star of The Max Prince Show and the network. As they bounce ideas off the walls and each other, their personal clashes are always clever and sometimes downright hysterical. This is an ensemble piece. Although only one member of the cast, Ray Ficca, is an Equity actor, every member holds his or her own to make the play work. Michael Innocenti is particularly appealing as the hypochondriac Ira Stone who never met a symptom he couldn’t love. Ficca’s Max Prince is fascinating to watch, even when he is self-destructing. His take on Marlon Brando playing Julius Caesar with a little Stanley Kowalski mixed in is worth the price of admission alone.

Get Your Tickets: Guns N’ Roses, Feist, Young Jeezy

Keeping track of when tickets go on sale, so you don’t have to.

Feist plays the Strathmore on Wednesday, May 9. Photograph courtesy of the artist’s website.

Guns N’ Roses play the Fillmore Silver Spring on Thursday, February 23. Tickets ($85) go on sale Friday, February 3, at 10 AM through Live Nation.

Singer-songwriter Feist comes to Strathmore on Wednesday, May 9. Her 2007 album, Reminder, received four Grammy nominations and took home five Juno Awards in 2008. Get your tickets ($45) starting February 1 at 10 AM from Ticketmaster.

Young Jeezy’s national profile blew up when he released “My President” in 2008; the song criticized the George W. Bush administration and anticipated what then–Democratic nominee Obama might bring to the White House. Jeezy drops in for a visit on Saturday, March 3, playing the Fillmore as part of his Hustlerz Ambition Tour. Tickets ($30) go on sale Friday, February 3, at 10 AM through Live Nation.

Country guitarist Junior Brown comes to the Birchmere on Friday, April 6. Best known for his unusual instrumentation—he plays a double-neck guitar that’s a combo of electric and lap steel—and raucous picking style, Brown has played with Bob Dylan and Hank Williams III. Tickets ($25) are on sale now through Ticketmaster.

Shakespeare Theatre Company Announces Its 2012–13 Season

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Coriolanus,” and works by Gogol and Schiller are on the schedule.

Marsha Mason and Miriam Silverman in All’s Well That Ends Well. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

Shakespeare Theatre Company announced the lineup for its 2012–13 season this morning, and seems to be cementing its reputation as a home for heavyweight literary works. Along with crowd-pleasing productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale, the schedule includes productions of Coriolanus and Friedrich Schiller’s Wallenstein running in repertory, thanks to a new series sponsored by the Robert H Smith Family Foundation.

Like Mother, Like Son

Deborah Willis and son Hank Willis Thomas joined forces on "Progeny," on display at the GMU Fairfax Campus Until Feb. 29

Photograph of “Sometimes I See Myself in You” by Deborah Willis courtesy of the Philips Collection.

When Deborah Willis was asked to consider working on an exhibit with her son, photographer Hank Willis Thomas, the theme of parenthood seemed like a natural fit. Willis—chair of the Photography and Imaging department at NYU and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant—knew early on that her son had an affinity for photography. “Whenever we would visit my mother, he’d rearrange all the pictures in the family album,” she says. “He had this gift in terms of images and storytelling.”

“Progeny,” at the Fine Art Gallery in the Art & Design Building on George Mason University's Fairfax Campus—the pair’s first show together—explores motherhood, memory, and family traits through photographs of the artists as well as their portraits of others. Without planning it, many of Willis’s and Thomas’s ideas corresponded. “I was interviewing pregnant women and asking them words they lived by, and he was asking people in a video installation about their birth,” Willis says. “I was looking at female bodybuilders, and he was looking at sportsmen, thinking about iconic images of male bodies.”

Willis lived in Washington for ten years while working at the Smithsonian and pursuing her doctorate in cultural studies at George Mason. During that time, her son—whose show “Strange Fruit” was at the Corcoran until earlier this year—attended DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he focused on photography and museum studies. “He was living my dream—there weren’t the same opportunities in the ’60s,” Willis says. “What I learned at George Mason was how to have a different conversation about art.”

“Progeny” runs February 1 through 29. Learn more at GMU's website.

This article appears in the February 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.

What to Do Tonight: February 1

“Progeny” opens at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, Ellen Cherry performs at Strathmore, and Simon Doonan signs copies of his new book at the W Hotel.

Baltimore native Ellen Cherry takes the stage tonight at Strathmore. Photograph courtesy of the artist’s website.

Wednesday, February 1

ART: Don’t miss opening night of Deborah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas’s new exhibition, “Progeny.” The mother-son duo’s show explores motherhood, memory, and family through photographs. “Progeny” runs through February 29 at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts.

MUSIC: Singer-songwriter Ellen Cherry performs at Strathmore tonight. The Emmy-nominated musician released her newest album, (New) Years, in 2010. You can listen to some of her songs here. Tickets ($12) can be purchased through Strathmore’s website. 7:30 PM.

If you’re in the mood for something edgier, Machine Head are dropping by the Rams Head. The Grammy-nominated band toured with Metallica in 2009. The group will be joined by Suicide Silence and Darkest Hour. Tickets ($20) can be purchased through the venue’s website. Doors open at 6 PM.

BOOKS: Barney’s New York creative ambassador Simon Doonan will sign copies of his new book, Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, at the W Hotel. Guests can enjoy drink specials and door prizes. E-mail whappenings@brandlinkdcrsvp.com to RSVP. 7 to 9 PM.

February Classical Music Preview

Our picks for the best concerts, operas, and classical performances this month.

Christoph Eschenbach conducts the National Symphony Orchestra in a concert of Beethoven and Strauss, February 2 through 4. Photograph by Margot Schulman.

A few months ago, I heard John Eliot Gardiner conduct a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 that, aside from being a bit rough around the edges, bore all the hallmarks of the period-instrument style that once rested squarely on the fringes of the classical music world. I’m curious to hear how Christoph Eschenbach interprets the same work with the National Symphony Orchestra (February 2 through 4), given that so many mainstream orchestras have now adopted Gardiner’s historical approach to Beethoven—brisk tempos, limited vibrato, transparent string textures, everything lighter and brighter. Whatever your preference, the “ Eroica” is a revolutionary piece of music, both a hymn to mankind and the personal testament of a composer coming to terms with his own deafness and mortality. Also on the program: Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen , composed in response to the desolation of Munich during World War II.

Eschenbach pairs two more monumental works for his next set of concerts with the NSO, February 9 through 11: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a searing piece of contrasting moods and ideas—by turns wild and introspective, exuberant and heartbreakingly quiet—and Anton Bruckner’s valedictory Symphony No. 9. Once, only Russian violinists, such as David Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan, performed the Shostakovich, but in the past 15 years or so, it’s become part of the standard repertoire. Here, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg appears as soloist. As for the Bruckner, I heard Eschenbach conduct a memorable performance of this work with the New York Philharmonic a few years ago, and the concluding Adagio sounded spiritual (as any Bruckner symphony must), spacious, eternal, and intense.

Theater Review: “The Elephant Room” at Arena Stage

Magic, mustaches, and zany jokes meet theater in this offbeat new show.

Louie Magic, Dennis Diamond, and Daryl Hannah in Elephant Room at Arena Stage. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

The Elephant Room, currently playing at Arena Stage, is kind of like the magic show your mom booked for your eighth birthday party—you know, if instead of pulling rabbits out of their hats, the magicians poured milk out of a light bulb, levitated a concrete block, and turned a doll into a bottle of whiskey. Following its debut at the 2011 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, the three-man production has taken its out-there illusions to Arena’s newest stage, and I’m not going to lie to you—things get weird. But it’s an enjoyable, laugh-out-loud kind of weird.

Where to Watch the Super Bowl in Washington

No matter which team you’re rooting for, the specials at these local bars will have you cheering this Sunday.

In this town, plenty of people have roots in either New York or Boston (or a seething hatred of at least one of those cities’ football teams). But even if you don’t belong to one of those camps, you’ll likely be watching the big game this Sunday. We’ve rounded up some great area bars offering special Super Bowl deals on drinks and food to ensure that no matter what the final score is, you (and your wallet) will come out a winner.

Did we forget your favorite spot? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Washington

Blue Banana will open two hours before kickoff and serve $12 Yuengling and Miller Lite pitchers and other $15 pitchers, in addition to specialty cocktail discounts. The regular food menu will be bolstered by the PORC Mobile food truck, offering sloppy joes, mac and cheese, and other barbecue and tailgating favorites. Leave the kids at home; this party is open only to those 21 and over.

Hudson Restaurant and Lounge will have food specials such as apricot spicy wings, bacon-crusted fish sticks, and lobster or short rib sliders for $5. To help you wash them down, during each quarter of the game the restaurant will offer a different one of its new specialty cocktails for $6, plus happy hour drink prices all day.

7 Romantic Things to Do With Your Sweetheart in Washington

You can go to dinner and a movie any night. Why not woo with something more off the beaten path?

Give her a rock that won’t fit on her finger with a trip to jaw-dropping Luray Caverns. Photograph by Flickr user david_jones.

You can spend any day of the year having dinner and a movie, but it’s the creative ideas that can make this Valentine’s Day one to remember. We rounded up some of our favorite spots to visit to commemorate this February 14.

Walk With the Animals

Take a walk on the wild side on February 11, when the National Zoo hosts its fourth annual “Woo at the Zoo,” which gives visitors the opportunity to educate themselves on the way animals court and cavort, in addition to enjoying refreshments, a cash bar, and the chance to decorate a dessert for that special someone. The discussions will be held in the Visitor Center at 4:30, 6:30, and 8:30 PM. Tickets ($11 for members, $22 for nonmembers) must be obtained for one discussion. Buy in person or online.

3001 Connecticut Ave., NW. Call 202-633-3040 for more information.

What to Do Tonight: January 31

The American Ballet Theatre at the Kennedy Center, a French wine tasting at Agora, and R&B singer Marc Broussard at the Birchmere.

The American Ballet Theatre performs a scene from Thirteen Diversions. Photograph by Rosalie O’Conner.

Tuesday, January 31

BALLET: The American Ballet Theatre brings La Bayadére to the Kennedy Center. Tonight’s mixed repertory program features scenes from Black Tuesday, Manon, Don Quixote, and Thirteen Diversons. Tickets ($25 to $99) can be purchased through the KenCen’s website. 7:30 PM. The show runs through February 5.

WINE: Agora is hosting a French wine tasting tonight. Guests can sample a variety of wines from the Southwest region, including Domaine Laplace’s “Autour du Fruit” Madiran 2009 and “Les Sarments Rouge” Madiran 2008. Each tasting will be paired with a selection of canapés by executive chef Ghassan Jarrouj. Reservations ($30) can be made by calling 202-332-6767. 6 to 7:30 PM.

BOOKS: Historian Douglas Brinkley signs copies of his new book, The Quiet World, at the Barnes and Noble in downtown DC. The renowned author is also a Vanity Fair contributing editor and a history commentator for CBS News. Free. 6:30 PM.

MUSIC: R&B singer Marc Broussard performs at the Birchmere tonight. “His music radiates soulful Louisiana blues, but his songs blend those influences with raucous rock ’n’ roll to create unique and infectious music,” says NPR. You can listen to some of his songs here. Tickets ($35) can be purchased through Ticketmaster. 7:30 PM.

Art Review: “Visual Audio” at Honfleur Gallery

Conceptual artists take inspiration from urban neighborhoods in a new show east of the river.

Rob Peterson participating in the “Radio Ark Transmission” project. Photograph by Chris Kennedy.

Tackling social issues has long been a theme among conceptual artists, but as a new show at Anacostia’s Honfleur Gallery demonstrates, doing so can yield mixed results. Curated by Honfleur cofounder Briony Evans Hynson, “Visual Audio: Inquiries Into Found Media” features two artistic collaborations, each with a hyper-local focus. “Radio Transmission Ark,” organized by artists Robert Peterson, Lindsey Reynolds, and Kate Clark with Hirshhorn Museum music educator Jon William, is a refreshingly sensitive tribute to Southeast DC. The project is almost bewilderingly multidisciplinary—it includes a sketchy, in-progress “Memory Map” of Anacostia, additional maps peppered with notes on daily experiences, found objects from the area, zines of black-and-white photographs (on sale for $10 to $15), audio recordings, a radio transmission, and a Tumblr journal.

Telling Stories: A Q&A With Actor Tom Story

Story plays one of the two leads in Geoffrey Nauffts’s drama "Next Fall" at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre this month.

If you’ve been to the theater more than once this past year, chances are you’ve seen Tom Story. He’s one of Washington’s most prolific actors, tackling roles that have ranged from the young Scrooge in A Christmas Carol to Andy Warhol in Pop! This month, he plays one of the two leads in Geoffrey Nauffts’s drama Next Fall at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre. Here’s a conversation with Story.

Tell us about Next Fall.

I play a writer named Adam who’s in his late thirties and struggling with what to do in his life, but he’s very witty. He meets a younger guy and begins a relationship, and the issue isn’t so much their age difference—which is around ten years—as it is that the younger man, Luke, is a born-again Christian. It’s a play about religion in the modern world, faith, and the conflict between the gay-rights movement and Christianity.

What appealed to you about the character?

I’m always looking for different kinds of roles. It’s hard being an actor in a town like Washington—people see you a lot, and to make a living you have to keep working, so it’s inevitable you’re going to repeat yourself. I try over the course of the season to have one or two things that really stretch me, and I thought I could bring something to this role.

What was your favorite role in 2011?

I loved playing Andy Warhol. It was a singing Warhol, which seems insane and was unlike anything I’d ever done, so it was really hard but brought me a lot of joy.

How did you become interested in theater?

I grew up in Northern Virginia, so my early education in the theater was going into DC—Arena, Shakespeare, Studio, and Woolly Mammoth. My last two years at Woodbridge High School, I went every weekend. I’m a product of this town’s theater culture, and I’ve seen it explode over the years, although there was tons going on back then, too—amazing actors I’m lucky to work with now, like Ted van Griethuysen, Floyd King, Nancy Robinette, Sarah Marshall.

Your real-life boyfriend, Chris Dinolfo, plays your boyfriend in Next Fall.

It’ll be interesting. It’s another part of the experience that’s new, because we’ve worked together before but never like this, where we’re the central relationship of the play. In many ways, I think it’ll be easier, because when you start working on a show you have to start relationships with strangers. I’m looking forward to it.

What else do you have planned?

I have a part in the musical 1776 at Ford’s Theatre, and rehearsals start the day Next Fall opens. At the end of that run, I’ll start The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company. I’m playing Dr. Caius—he’s a funny Shakespeare clown, but in a different genre from characters I’ve played before. He’s French, for one thing. I’ve never played a French person before.

Next Fall is at Round House Theatre through February 26. Tickets ($26 to $51) are available through the theatre’s website.

This article appears in the February 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.

A Night at the Museum for the Obamas

The first family headed to the Corcoran last night for some Sunday-evening browsing.

When the Obamas strolled over to the Corcoran last night, sadly this photo wasn’t still hanging. Photograph by Flickr user RRCarroll.

What’s a First Family to do on a Sunday evening when there’s no football on? In the case of the Obamas, you can always stroll across the street to the nearest art gallery and take in a contemporary exhibition or two. Which is precisely what happened last night when Barack and Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, visited the Corcoran Gallery of Art for some after-hours culture.

Presumably it isn’t tricky to persuade a museum to stay open late when you’re commander in chief, because even though the Corcoran usually closes at 5 PM on Sunday, doors stayed open for the First Family, who, according to White House pool reports, walked over around 6:30. Corcoran representatives weren’t at liberty to disclose exactly what the Obamas looked at, but reports say they took in the “30 Americans” exhibition, as well as some of the Corcoran’s contemporary work. They also got a sneak preview of “Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War from the Collection of Julia J. Norell,” which doesn’t officially open till February 4.

The “30 Americans” exhibition, which opened last fall, is a showcase of some of the most influential African-American artists of the past three decades, and includes work by Kara Walker, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Nick Cave, and Kehinde Wiley. You can read our review of the show here. There’s no official word on whether the Obamas got to see Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro’s “Are We There Yet?,” a playful, site-specific installation about space and consumption, or “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Why,” in which Healy and Cordeiro craft space-themed images out of Legos. But we’re sure that after seeing his own inauguration depicted in Lego form, the President is a bit harder to impress, so maybe it’s just as well.

Theater Review: “Red” at Arena Stage

The Tony-winning play by John Logan comes to Washington in a stellar production.

Patrick Andrews as Ken and Edward Gero as Mark Rothko in Red, at Arena Stage through March 11. Photograph by Liz Lauren.

It’s a testament to the skills of director Robert Falls that he achieves the seemingly impossible in Red, currently playing at Arena Stage—he makes spellbinding theater out of watching paint dry. During one tumultuous scene in the middle of the play, Mark Rothko (Edward Gero) and his assistant, Ken (Patrick Andrews), cover a canvas with paint as if possessed, working in silent, furious tandem. Then they stop. On the square behind them, now a deep, shining shade of maroon, their visible brush strokes slowly fade as the paint begins to set, and for some inexplicable reason, it’s mesmerizing to watch.

To say that art, and one man’s tricky, impenetrable understanding of it, is at the heart of Red—which is co-presented by Arena Stage and Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and arrives here after a well-received Chicago run —is an understatement. John Logan’s Tony-winning 2009 play is a fascinating look at the dogmatic, unyielding vision of Rothko, whose paintings (presumably to his chagrin) adorn the walls of endless college dorm rooms and major art galleries alike. As the play opens, Rothko undertakes a new commission to provide murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram Building in New York. To console himself for the indignity of providing art as decor, he insists these new paintings be profound, dark, unwelcoming—and that they “ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch” who eats next to them.

What to Do This Week: January 30 to February 2

Opening night of “Next Fall” at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre, Bell’s Hopslam Ale at ChurchKey, and Beethoven and Strauss at the Kennedy Center.

Patrick Heusinger and Patrick Breen in the Broadway production of Next Fall. Photograph courtesy of the show’s website.

Monday, January 30

ART: The National Gallery of Art’s new exhibition, “Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition,” opened yesterday. The collection, which features some 55 works, explores Picasso’s artistic development over a 30-year period. “What’s fascinating is how distinctly the exhibition traces the evolution of a style, from inconspicuous early drawings to fully fledged experiments” says arts editor Sophie Gilbert. Read the full review here. The exhibit runs through May 6. Free.

Valentine’s Day Events for Singles

For those of you flying solo this year, we’ve compiled a roundup of the best Valentine’s day events for singles. So grab a friend (or five) and prepare for the greatest Valentine’s yet.

Looks like this single critter had a blast at last year’s Woo at the Zoo. Photograph by Mehgan Murphy/National Zoo.

Saturday, February 11

SCAVENGER HUNT: Track down naughty novelties during the Watson Adventures’ Naked Scavenger Hunt at the American Art Museum. Items include a tempting she-devil, a giddy drinker, and a startling Lite-Brite picture. And yes, clothes are required. Tickets ($24.50) can be purchased through the event’s website. 1 PM. The scavenger hunt runs through February 12.

Theater: Women Take the Spotlight Onstage and Off in “The Gaming Table”

All the world’s a stage, and in the Folger Theatre’s new production, the women are much more than merely players.

Lady Reveller and friends gamble the night away in The Gaming Table, on stage at Folger Theatre. Photograph by Carol Pratt.

It was only seven years before playwright Susanna Centlivre was born that women were allowed to take the English stage, and it would only be another 300 or so before local director Eleanor Holdridge and an all-women design team would help introduce Washington audiences to the most popular female comedic playwright of the 18th century.

The little-known dramatist’s work comes to life this week as The Gaming Table begins its run at the Folger Theatre. Stacking its deck with commanding women onstage and, in this production, off, Centlivre’s 1705 comedy centers on a young widow and the colorful cast of characters and courtiers who populate her home nightly to play basset, a high-stakes card game (the play’s original title was The Basset Table). Couples spar and tangle with the requisite witty prose, madcap antics, and complex plots of the Restoration genre, Holdridge says, but after nearly 20 years directing plays from this period, it was Centlivre’s attitude toward her female characters that made Holdridge really take notice.

WashingTelevision: The Firm Recap, “Chapter Five”

Bromances, missing teachers, and shredded documents all featured in last night’s episode.

Two things occurred to me while watching last night’s episode of The Firm. The first was this: How on earth does Mitch manage to make sure he’s assigned one brand new murder case each week with precise regularity? And then how does he break down said murder case, bring it to trial, and wrap it up efficiently in less then seven days? These things can take forever—look at Brittany Norwood, who’s only today getting sentenced for killing her Lululemon coworker almost a year ago. The idea that Mitch could get his clients off the hook in under a week and still have time to attend an endless number of family pizza summits with Abby, Tammy, and Ray is fairly improbable. But it sure explains why his clients are always so POd when he’s never around.

The second thing is that this show might be the least realistic interpretation of Washington to grace the small screen since Carrie nearly got blown up by the lake in Fake Farragut Square last fall. In fact, it’s almost making us appreciate how well Homeland managed to portray the city despite barely filming here. If you’re making a show about Washington, the rules go something like this: You film by a monument for your pilot episode, you splice in a few overhead landmark shots between scenes, and you throw in awkward references to news blogs called “Washington DC” and companies named “DC Tech” any time you can. Then you can film in locations with skyscrapers and cobbled streets galore, and nobody, apparently, will notice. So aside from the obvious fail of basic geography, here are the main winners and losers from last night’s episode.

Art Preview: “Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition” at the National Gallery of Art

A new show traces the evolution of one of the art world’s greatest talents.

Some talents are so gargantuan, so utterly incomparable, that they seem to be ordained, not earned. Most normal mortals could hardly begin to aspire to the dizzying heights of Mozart, or da Vinci, or Wayne Gretzky, no matter how many years of tedious slog they put in. So it can be strange, then, to see a legend deconstructed—reduced to early experiments, simple sketches, and occasional flashes of the genius that would come later.

Such is the feeling of “Picasso’s Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition,” which opens in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building Sunday. The show accompanies the unveiling of the revamped French Galleries upstairs, and could hardly offer more of an intriguing juxtaposition. Many of the French paintings are masterpieces—polished, composed, slick. What you see in the Picasso show instead is the growth of one of the 20th century’s most formidable and groundbreaking talents, in three decades of work starting when the artist was nine and ending when he was 40.

Movie Tickets: “The Grey,” “Albert Nobbs,” ReelAbilities Disabilities Film Festival

Our picks for the best in film over the next seven days.

Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick in Elia Kazan’s Wild River. Photograph courtesy of Academy Film Archive and Twentieth Century Fox.

The Grey

While the ads make this look like just another in the recent spate of Liam Neeson-beating-people-up films—this time with the actor taking on wolves—it’s not quite as simple as that. Writer/director Joe Carnahan has something a little more thoughtful in mind here: Neeson plays a sniper who works at a northern Alaska oil outpost taking out any wildlife that might threaten the roughnecks working the rigs. When a plane carrying these guys back to civilization goes down in the Alaskan wilderness, seven survivors attempt to make it through as both the cold and a territorial wolf pack stalk them with ruthless efficiency. It’s clumsy and over the top at times, but engaging on much less of a guilty pleasure level than the marketing would have you believe.

View the trailer. Opens tomorrow at theaters across the area.

Music Picks: Jeff Mangum, Lightfoot, Prussia

Our picks for the best in live music over the next seven days.

Singer-songwriter Marc Broussard performs at the Birchmere Tuesday. Photograph by Flickr user Stephanie Moore.

Thursday, January 26

Considering its rock offerings in the past have included Kid Rock and Kiss, we’re not sure how great of an honor it is to be named “best band in Detroit.” Nevertheless, Prussia have made a name for themselves by being more interesting than their Motor City forerunners. The five-piece employs sudden tempo shifts, a frenetic stage presence, and multiple vocalists to keep things interesting live—without resorting to Halloween costumes. They’re at DC9 tonight.

Prussia, doors at 8:30 PM at DC9, $8.

Theater Review: “The Snowy Day” at Adventure Theatre

A world premiere production of the classic children’s book appeals to kids and adults alike.

The energetic cast of Adventure Theatre’s The Snowy Day may sparkle with perspiration under the lights, but kids of all ages will easily believe the actors are frolicking, singing, and dancing in the cold snow instead. In its latest production, the theater for young audiences in Glen Echo has commissioned and mounted a world premiere musical based on the Caldecott Award–winning 1962 picture book by Ezra Jack Keats. It’s the second in Adventure Theatre’s African-American Adventure Series of original musicals created by African American artists. (The first was Mirandy and Brother Wind). Now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its publication, The Snowy Day is notable for being the first picture book to feature an African-American child, Peter, as its protagonist.

High-spirited, tuneful, and inventive, the 55-minute musical, wittily staged by director Jessica Burgess, takes Keats’s minimalist fable about a little city boy going out to play in a new snowfall and opens it up in all kinds of ways, while still nodding to the original. Peter still conjures up his own adventures, but now his Ma gives him ideas to work with, and those adventures take the shape of other actors in dual or triple roles. Washington-based David Emerson Toney, an actor and playwright, penned the script, transforming Keats’s quiet, contemplative story with new events and characters and more than a dash of attitude. The result is different in tone but the same in heart. Toney also makes sure we know Peter and his mother live in a southern city where snow is so rare that Peter has never seen it before, which ups the ante for his special day.

What to Do This Weekend: January 26 to 29

“Josephine Tonight!” opens at MetroStage, the 16th annual MSP Polar Bear Plunge, and Chinatown’s annual Chinese New Year parade.

Adam Green and Euan Morton star in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s staging of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Photograph by Scott Suchman.

Thursday, January 26

ART: Art Soiree hosts Apocalyptoon 2012’s opening reception at the Artisphere. The pop-up exhibit will feature works from the country’s top cartoonists, including the Washington Post’s Tom Toles, the Economist’s Kal, and MSNBC’s Daryl Cagle. Guests can enjoy live music, complimentary snacks, and a cash bar. Tickets ($25) can be purchased through the Artisphere’s website. 6 PM. The exhibition runs through January 29.

THEATER: Don’t miss opening night of Josephine Tonight! at MetroStage. Directed and choreographed by Maurice Hines, the musical follows Josephine Baker’s journey from small-town girl to French movie star. Tickets for tonight’s pay-what-you-can performance are available at the door; tickets for future performances ($45 to $50) can be purchased through Box Office Tickets. 8 PM. The play runs through March 18.

MUSIC: Clarinetist Jörg Widmann joins the National Symphony Orchestra in “Armonica.” The program will also feature works by Mozart and Schubert. Tickets ($20 to $85) can be purchased through the Kennedy Center’s website. 7 PM. The show runs though January 29.

Jazz-funk artist Roy Ayers performs at Blues Alley tonight. The venerable musician has brought us hits including “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” “Running Away,” and “We Live In Brooklyn, Baby.” Tickets ($40) can be purchased through the club’s website. 10 PM.

Win Two Tickets to See William Fitzsimmons at Sixth and I

Follow After Hours Blog on Twitter to score seats at the singer-songwriter’s February 23 show.

Follow @AfterHoursBlog on Twitter to win tickets to William Fitzsimmons’s concert in February. Photograph by Erin Brown.

We have two tickets to give away for William Fitzsimmons’s February 23 concert at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. Fitzsimmons, who’s fresh off the release of his 2011 album, Gold in the Shadow, is a haunting, folk-influenced singer-songwriter whose music the Wall Street Journal once described as “achingly romantic.” He’s often compared to Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, and Iron & Wine, and his songs have been featured in episodes of One Tree Hill, Private Practice, and Brothers & Sisters.

To win tickets, all you have to do is follow After Hours Blog (@AfterHoursBlog) on Twitter between now and February 20. We’ll select a winner at random and notify them February 21.

Springsteen, Chili Peppers, and Death Cab for Cutie: Get Your Tickets

Keeping track of when tickets go on sale, so you don’t have to.

Red Hot Chili Peppers play the Verizon Center Thursday, May 10, at 7:30 PM. Photograph by Ellen von Unwerth, courtesy of redhotchilipeppers.com.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers make a rare stop in DC on their “I’m With You” world tour. They play the Verizon Center on Thursday, May 10. Get your tickets ($42.50 to $62.50) beginning Friday, January 27, at 10 AM through Ticketmaster.

Rock all-star Bruce Springsteen comes to the Verizon Center with his legendary E Street Band on Sunday, April 1. Springsteen’s 2009 Working on a Dream was his ninth number one album. Tickets ($71 and $101) go on sale Saturday, January 28, at 10 AM through Ticketmaster.

Renowned rapper Lauryn Hill comes to the Warner Theatre on Wednesday, February 29. The former Fugees singer will be performing music from her iconic album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Tickets ($75 to $150) are on sale now through LiveNation.

Alternative rock band Death Cab for Cutie come to Strathmore on Monday, April 30. They will be collaborating with the Magik*Magik Orchestra, a modular orchestra from San Francisco. Tickets ($45 to $75) go on sale Friday, January 27, at 10 AM through Ticketmaster.

Theater Review: “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” at Shakespeare Theatre

Shakespeare’s earliest romantic comedy gets a millennial makeover in this edgy production.

Long before the time of MTV2’s reality lineup and Stephanie Meyer, a more erudite source had some fun exposing the folly of hormonal teenagers’ impulsive decisions. In what was likely his earliest foray into romantic comedy, Shakespeare turned his keen eye for human antics toward the tangles of lovesick adolescents when he wrote The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the end of the 16th century. Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Two Gentlemen, now playing at the Lansburgh Theatre, supplants Verona for wealthy teenage suburbia where, firmly in the idle hands of Generation ME, the story’s evergreen lessons telegraph as loudly as its iPod playlist.

Director PJ Paparelli’s production plunges into the privileged teenage psyche well before any actors step onto the stage. Heineken, Trojan, and Apple logos plastered across a forest of dented aluminum set pieces bring to mind the trash can overflowing with crumpled beer cans after a house party. So introducing the play’s characters ripping late-night shots of Jack Daniels in an empty parking lot seems about right. With Ben Folds’s piano blasting and set designer Walt Spangler’s nifty electronic message board tweeting snarky exposition overhead, we meet Valentine and his best friend, Proteus. The young men have reached that bittersweet point of impending adulthood, and Proteus ( Nick Dillenburg), in the grips of young love, has opted to stay in Verona with sweetheart Julia ( Miriam Silverman), while cynical Valentine ( Andrew Veenstra) is bidding his buddy farewell in favor of big-city living in Milan.

What to Do Tonight: January 25

Ladytron at U Street Music Hall, a free performance by Ballet Teatro Internacional at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and a wine dinner at Red Rocks in Columbia Heights.

Synth-pop group Ladytron. Photograph courtesy of the group’s Facebook page.

MUSIC: Mike Flaherty’s Dixieland Direct Jazz Band are giving a free performance at the Kennedy Center. The group fuses traditional New Orleans Dixieland music with swing and blues. You can listen to some of their songs here. 6 PM.

Synth-pop band Ladytron are dropping by U Street Music Hall tonight. The European imports’ “shadowy sound has been compared to that of electroclash groups like Fischerspooner and to the darker work of New Order,” says NPR. Ladytron will be joined by deejays Reuben Wu, Shea Van Horn, and Cale. Tickets ($5; free for 21 and up) can be purchased at the door. 9 PM.

BALLET: Washington’s own Ballet Teatro Internacional presents a free lunchtime performance at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. The show will feature classic and contemporary ballet. Free. Noon.

WINE: Red Rocks in Columbia Heights is whipping up a five-course wine dinner. The spread includes passed appetizers, wild boar meatballs, antipasto, pizza, and poached pears. Each course will be paired with a wine from Siema Wines. Reservations ($50) can be made by calling 202-506-1402. 6:30 to 9:30 PM.

Theater Review: “The Gallerist” at Rorschach Theatre

A world premiere at Atlas Performing Arts Center explores art and madness in this well-crafted production.

Louise Schlegel and Blair Bowers in The Gallerist. Photograph by C. Stanley Photography.

The old adage says the eyes are the windows to the soul. Fengar Gael believes one might be better off peering into the depths of a painting.

The author of The Gallerist, currently playing in a world premiere production staged by Rorschach Theatre at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, is particularly interested in the souls of animals, both dead and alive. Her unnerving play meanders through multiple decades to explore the unique power a bestiary holds over a family and its descendants.

Where to Watch the State of the Union Address in Washington

Observe one of the biggest presidential speeches of the year the time-honored American way: by drinking. Here’s where to do it.

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address in the House chamber at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 25, 2011. Official White House photograph by Lawrence Jackson.

The State of the Union may not be as big as the Super Bowl, but for many of this city’s politicos, it’s a close second. Whether you have to watch the speech for work or you just want to play a drinking game, we have a lot of options for the event, which begins at 9 tonight.

The Center for Global Development’s annual State of the Union bingo and viewing party will begin at Commissary at 8 PM. Although the guest list has reached capacity, interested parties can join the waiting list here.

The official Obama for America watch party, hosted in Shaw by Surafel Shiferaw, will run from 8 to 10:30 PM. For more information or to RSVP, click here.

The Women’s National Democratic Club party will offer pre-address cocktails (cash bar), discussion, and networking beginning at 7:30 at its offices (1526 New Hampshire Ave., NW). For more information or to RSVP, click here.

If you don’t want to plan ahead, several bars welcome drop-ins to watch the big event on their TVs.

Bullfeathers will show the address with sound, although no food or drink specials will be offered.

Busboys and Poets in Shirlington will host a viewing party and panel discussion, run by the Arlington Democrats, beginning at 8 PM and including as-yet-undetermined drink specials.

Capitol Lounge will broadcast the address with sound and will offer its regular Tuesday specials: $1 off all drinks and 25 cent wings while they last.

Lounge 201 will offer special $4 red and blue martinis during the address, which will play on the many flat-screen TVs with full audio.

Union Pub will offer State of the Union–themed specialty cocktails in addition to the regular Tuesday specials: $12 Bud Light pitchers, $4 small-batch bourbons, and $5 Vintage 50 microbrews. Union will also play the address with sound on its 18 flat-screen TVs and one 5-foot projection screen.

Ventnor Sports Cafe will host its seventh annual watch party, featuring $1 Jell-O shots and no cover.