Metro Weekly

All posts by Doug Rule

  • Birchmere Babes

    ''I like to say I went from being a Hag to being a Bitchin' Babe, which is clearly a promotion,'' jokes local singer-songwriter Debi Smith....

  • Musical Trips

    No doubt, you've heard the hype. Last month The Washington Post reported that Signature Theatre decided to stage Dreamgirls, purely and simply, as a showcase...

  • Back to the Bard

    ''Elizabethan London and contemporary Washington, D.C., probably have more in common than any two other cities,'' says Ethan McSweeny. It's because of that link that...

  • Awkward 'Aliens'

    A theatergoer just might get lost daydreaming during The Aliens, plotting an escape out of the Studio Theatre's intimate, second-floor Milton Theatre. That is, of...

  • Organ Transplant

    ''An organ in a concert hall has to have balls,'' says organ consultant Jeff Weiler. ''And the old organ was just whistling Dixie.'' The Kennedy...

  • North Pole Longing

    {GMCW: Born This Way (Photo by Ward Morrison)} ''Mrs. Claus is going to be very classy, with maybe just a hint of Karen Walker,'' says...

  • Up Town

    In the early '90s, nationally recognized club singers, from Crystal Waters to CeCe Peniston, were the chief draw for gay nightclubs. Soon after, DJs became...

  • Folksy Feeling

    If your idea of a fun Saturday night is popping a cold one and tuning the radio to A Prairie Home Companion, then you should...

  • Lingering Accents

    ''I think it's a universal story that's quite specific to this moment in time in America,'' says Arena Stage's artistic director Molly Smith, who directed...

  • Cox Appeal

    For the record, Deborah Cox does not think she's a gay man trapped in a straight woman's body. ''I've never looked at myself like that,''...

  • Bombs Away

    All My Sons opens with a terrible thunderstorm – made more ominous by incorporating the sounds of fighter jets and bombs bursting in air. It's...

  • Pop Symphony

    Will Madonna one day turn her hits into three-chord punk-rock blasts? Might Katy Perry relaunch ''Firework'' – or ''I Kissed A Girl'' – as a...

  • Off the Gay Grid

    As far as humorist Mike Albo knows, his older brother Dave Albo hasn't taken anti-gay stances as an elected official representing Fairfax County in the...

  • King of Pops

    Steven Reineke once played trumpet in a college production of Pippin. Decades later, Stephen Schwartz, the composer of Pippin, sat at Reineke's piano in New...

  • Operatic Obsession

    ''I've recently fallen in love with opera,'' says Alan Paul, conceding, ''I've been on an obsessive, opera-going mission over the last year.'' And he's not...