October 2009 Archives

Sir Ian McKellen gives a benefit performance of his one-man show a few nights after accepting the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre as part of the Harman Center for the Arts Annual Gala. McKellen's show weaves together early experiences in the theater, his advocacy of LGBT rights and his acclaim as a theater and film actor. Proceeds benefit the artistic programs of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, including its annual and very popular Free For All. Thursday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Harman Center for the Arts, 610 F St. NW. Tickets are $95 to $250. Call 202-547-1122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.

The “lez” in the name may be short for lesbian, but the four women in this New York-based Led Zeppelin tribute band don’t publicly disclose their sexual orientations. “Keeping a little bit of mystery to a group is very old fashioned, but in my opinion, it's much more intriguing,” Steph Paynes, the band’s lead guitarist, told Metro Weekly in 2007. “And besides, it's really about the music.” The women are as intense and powerful and sexy as you’d expect performing from the Page-Plant Company’s hard-rock songbook. If nothing else, the crowd should be publicly lezzie. Friday, Oct. 30, at 9 p.m. The State Theatre, 220 N. Washington St., Falls Church. Tickets are $19. Call 703-237-0300 or visit www.thestatetheatre.com.

Win tickets to see Lez Zeppelin. Click here for details on how to e-mail in your entry.

Despite what you might have heard on a recent Saturday Night Live skit, Parker is still “not afraid of no ghosts.” But these days, the Ghostbusters pop songwriter is more of a smooth-jazz/blues artist, and the singer-guitarist is touring in support of the musically eclectic I’m Free. Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Blues Alley, 1073 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Tickets are $35, plus $10 minimum purchase. Call 202-337-4141 or visit www.bluesalley.com.

Twice a year, a diverse group of nearly 40 professional artists who call Dupont/Logan neighborhoods home open their studios and allow everyone to see where they create and offer a firsthand look at their current works. Among artists opening their studios this weekend are Gary Fisher, Glenn Fry, Robert Dodge, Betsy Karasik, Brian Petro, Colin Winterbottom and Isabelle Spicer. Saturday, Oct. 24, and Sunday, Oct. 25. Visit www.midcityartists.com for locations and hours.

Pictured: Hanoi1 by photographer Robert Dodge.

Meet the Von Sterlingtons, the most powerful family in town and owners of Bitchwood Industries. Follow their lives and loves in America's most beloved primetime improvised soap opera as they struggle against the nefarious Guillotine Enterprises. Miss the pilot episode? Not a problem, as each episode of Bitchwood starts with a recap. Starring Mark Chalfant, Brian Coleman, Catherine Deadman, Dave Johnson, Mikael Johnson, Tyler Korba, Tara Maher, Colin Murchie, Molly Murchie and Michelle Swaney. Saturdays at 11 p.m. To Nov. 7. Source, 1835 14th St. NW. Tickets are $10. Call 202-204-7770 or visit www.washingtonimprovtheater.com.

The Grammy-winning, D.C.-based, gospel a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon, mother of lesbian blues singer Toshi, celebrates 35 years in a performance of Go in Grace with a special appearance by members of the Alvin Ailey dance troupe. Friday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW. Tickets are $27 to $57. Call 202-783-4000 or visit www.warnertheatre.com.

Elmer Rice’s expressionistic masterpiece about a man who loses his job to a machine gets re-imagined as a musical by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt. With jangling, percussive music reflecting period influences – including early-20th-century modernists, Tin Pan Alley and gospel – the work conjures a vision of American life in the 1920s at odds with that decade’s popular image as a happy-go-lucky era ended only by the Depression. It is a vision that feels eerily in tune with our own unsettled economy. Adding Machine: A Musical plays to Nov. 1. Studio Theatre, 14th & P Sts. NW. Tickets are $57 to $71. Call 202-332-3300 or visit www.studiotheatre.org.

Britain’s Eroica Quartet brings along four colleagues from Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique to give a period-instrument performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s masterly Octet, informed by the Library’s original score for the work. Monday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. University of Leeds musicologist Clive Brown gives a pre-concert lecture about the work at 6:15 p.m. The Whittall Pavilion at the Library of Congress, First & Independence Avenues SE. Tickets are free but required, available through Ticketmaster. Call 202-397-7328 or visit www.loc.gov/concerts.

Erin McKeown just released Hundreds of Lions, an album of all-new material on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. Jill Sobule, the original “I Kissed A Girl,” is touring in support of the Don Was-produced The California Years, an album she self-released earlier this year entirely funded by fan donations. Now that’s novel. Monday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. Jammin’ Java, 227 Maple Ave. E., Vienna. Tickets are $18. Call 703-255-3747 or visit www.jamminjava.com.

The Washington Ballet kicks off its new season with the Spanish classic Don Quixote, featuring new staging by Anna-Marie Holmes and featuring Ballet Nacional de Cuba star Viengsay Valdés. Through Sunday, Oct. 18. Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $20 to $125. Call 202-362-3606 or visit www.washingtonballet.org.

“Heels Up, Hoe Down” is the latest zany offering to come from this loose gay performance-art collective, founded four years ago by Chris Farris, Karl Jones and Shea Van Horn, who stars as drag host Summer Camp. Get ready for a wild, wild-western jamboree set inside a barn with square dancers, rhinestone cow-queens, randy grannies, and dirty pigs--all served up with a delicious twang. Saturday, Oct. 17, at 10 p.m. Town Danceboutique, 2009 Eighth St. NW. Tickets are $10, or $8 if in “country git-up.” Visit www.crackdc.com.

The classically trained pianist and host of NPR’s From The Top, Christopher O'Riley performs instrumental interpretations of works by bands such as Radiohead and Nirvana, bridging the gap between classical and contemporary rock/pop, visually enhanced by a sea of multicolored strobe lights. Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. The Barns at Wolf Trap, 1645 Trap Road, Vienna. Tickets are $25. Call 703-255-1900 or visit www.wolf-trap.org.

The AFL-CIO’s Metropolitan Washington Council, the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute and the American Film Institute present an array of new films and beloved classics about work and workers from Oct. 13 to Oct. 19, including: last year’s Frozen River, which earned Oscar nominations for Best Actress (Melissa Leo) and Best Screenplay (Courtney Hunt); John Ford’s award-winning 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; Bound for Glory, the 1976 biopic about workingman-advocate folk singer Woody Guthrie, starring David Carradine; and a 10th anniversary screening of Mike Judge’s Office Space. Opens with Manufactured Landscapes, Jennifer Baichwal’s 2006 film about photographer Edward Burtynsky, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 7 p.m. Festival continues through Oct. 19. AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $10 to $12 general admission. Call 301-495-6720 or visit www.afi.com/Silver.

Before he spins with Rich Morel at his Blowoff dance party later in the evening, Bob Mould will strap on his guitar to perform on the 9:30 Club's stage songs from this year's Life and Times. The Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman's ninth solo set in a 30-year career certainly ranks among his very best. Its songs are as pithy and tight as ever, and the entire set is concise -- 10 songs clocking in at just over a half-hour. With lyrics that are thoughts on life and times - both his own and those of people around him - Life and Times finds Mould in a better state than his previous outings -- not happy, exactly, but content. Expect the contentment to rub off live. Indie-darling Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson opens. Saturday, Oct. 10. Doors at 7 p.m. Nightclub 9:30, 815 V St. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-265-0930 or visit www.930.com.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess presents the world premiere of Island, a groundbreaking multi-media dance in the round, which tells the story of Asian immigrants trying to enter America through Angel Island, Calif., in the early 20th century. The program also includes a performance of Hyphen, an exploration of Asian-American identity through the use of inspiring images from video pioneer Nam June Paik. Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10, at 8 p.m. Also Sunday, Oct. 11, at 7 p.m. Dance Place, 3225 Eighth St. NE. Tickets are $22. Call 202-269-1600 or visit www.danceplace.org.

Burgess Photographed in 2003 by Todd Franson for Metro Weekly

A two-time audience award-winner at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis revolves around a woman driven to reassemble the fragments of a life plagued by unsuccessful therapies and endless medications. It was Kane’s final play before committing suicide at the age of 28. The new local theater collective Factory 449 stages the production, directed by John Moletress. Opens Thursday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. To. Oct. 25. Warehouse, 1021 Seventh St. NW. Tickets are $20. Call 202-783-3933 or visit www.warehousetheater.com.

Audrey Tautou (Amélie) stars as the famed French fashion designer, who was a headstrong orphan before becoming the embodiment of the modern woman and a timeless symbol of success, freedom and style. Anne Fontaine directs the French biopic. Opens Friday, Oct. 9. Landmark’s E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW. Call 202-452-7672 or visit www.landmarktheatres.com.

Considered one of the greatest American plays of the past 25 years, Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America is a daunting feat for any theater company to stage, but Forum Theatre is up for the challenge. Later this month through mid-November, the company will stage in repertory both parts of this epic on national themes, the AIDS crisis and spiritual and political morality set in Reagan-era New York City. First up, however, Jeremy Skidmore directs Part I: Millennium Approaches with an all-star local cast including Alexandar Strain, Jennifer Mendenhall, Ro Boddie, Daniel Eichner, Nanna Ingvarsson and Casie Platt. To Nov. 22. Round House Theatre-Silver Spring, 8641 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $25. Call 240-644-1099 or visit www.forumtd.org.

Richard Gere narrates Blessings, a documentary about the Tsoknyi Nangchen Nuns of Tibet, a world of women dedicated to wisdom and compassion. Director Tsoknyi Rinpoche III introduces the film, being shown on the day the Dalai Lama comes to town to speak at American University, in conjunction with the organization Heart of Change. Saturday, Oct. 10, at 8 p.m. Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert St. NW. Free and open to the public. Visit www.dalailamadc09.com.

With tasteful, inviting décor, and just as tasteful, inviting food, Level One, the newest addition to 17th Street's immensely popular restaurant row has quickly become one of its darlings. The menu is diverse, 21st century-style American, and the charming and amicable servers guide you to the best things, from the best bottle of wine to the best way to top a popular Level One burger – the Southern way, with bacon, BBQ sauce and cheddar. At half-price on Sundays, your Southern burger will come to just over $5. With the average entrée priced at just $15, chances are, you’ll leave with fond memories all around.

LEVEL ONE 1639 R St. NW Washington 202-745-0025 Cost: $$

Pictured: Level One's Salmon. Photography by Todd Franson / Metro Weekly.