A New York-based pianist and composer, Dan Tepfer is a formidable jazz musician on the international stage. He'll perform at the Atlas with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Ted Poor. Wednesday, May 30, at 8 p.m. Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 202-399-7993 or visit atlasarts.org. ... [Read]

Daughtry, Natalie Cole, Trace Adkins and this year's American Idol finalist Jessica Sanchez will perform along with the National Symphony Orchestra as part of the National Memorial Day Concert on the U.S. Capitol grounds this Sunday, May 27. Colin L. Powell and actors Ellen Burstyn, Dennis Franz and Selma Blair will also appear at the concert, a tribute to military ... [Read]

L'Enfant Cafe and Bar's Speak Easy transforms the space into a Prohibition Era venue -- complete with back door entrance, dim lighting and drawn shades -- serving drinks, a three-course dinner and a live show that's very of this century, with singing drag queens, comedians and DJs spinning dance tunes. New York singing drag artist legend Joey Arias co-produces the ... [Read]

Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity explores the absurdities of modern masculinity from Time columnist Joel Stein. The funny and poignant book was provoked by Stein's original faulty notion that he needed to acquire more manly skills and habits to pass on to his newborn son. Tuesday, May 22, at 7 p.m. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. 600 I ... [Read]

Now in its 13th year, the Washington Jewish Music Festival winds down with at least one concert of definite LGBT appeal tomorrow, Sunday, May 20, when Schmekel, a transgender Jewish "schtick-rock" band combining bawdy humor and critical awareness, takes the stage at Chief Ike's Mambo Room in Adams Morgan. The festival then concludes on Monday, May 21, with a screening ... [Read]

The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts reprises last year's popular Dramathon tomorrow, Friday, May 18. The Dramathon features eight 10-minute plays, written in just 24 hours by some of the area's leading playwrights, including Ari Roth, Norman Allen, Renee Calarco and Jennifer Nelson. And some of the area's best professional actors, including Rick Foucheux, Kimberly Gilbert, Nancy Robinette, ... [Read]

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announced a one-night-only reading of 8, Dustin Lance Black's play about the trial over the constitutionality of Proposition 8, to take place at 7 p.m. Monday, June 4, to coincide with Capital Pride 2012. All tickets will be $5. The reading of 8 at Woolly Mammoth will be directed by Alan Paul, associate director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, ... [Read]

Artists who are part of the Mid City Artists collaborative open their studios for the public to meet, learn, enjoy and buy art as part of this bi-annual event. The 26 artists represented offer a range of work, from drawings to sculptures to photographs to mixed media, and include many of note to the LGBT community, among them occasional Metro ... [Read]

Gay-popular singing sensation Deborah Cox will close this year's Capital Pride festivities as headline performer on Sunday, June 10. The festival Main Stage lineup also includes the return of Pride regular dance singers Crystal Waters ("100 Percent Pure Love") and Pepper Mashay ("Dive In The Pool"). Before the dance divas, Main Stage mainstays the DC Cowboys will offer one ... [Read]

The Theater Alliance presents the world premiere of Nicholas Wardigo's Hum, an allegory of Orwellian proportions following a couple's journey to discover what life is like when the safety net is pulled down. The Alliance's Colin Hovde and Nathaniel Mendez direct the piece, which is also said to challenge expectations of storytelling. Opens this Monday, May 14, at 8 p.m. ... [Read]

Recently transplanted to D.C., this gay singer-songwriter offers a soulful blend of pop and folk that has been featured on many TV shows, including Dawson's Creek, Party of Five and Ghost Whisperer. So it's that kind of music. (Not that there's anything wrong with that kind of music.) He's previously opened for Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow and Ani Difranco. Next ... [Read]

Arena Stage's Molly Smith picks up where she left off with last year's stunning revamp of Oklahoma!, this time reviving Meredith Wilson and Franklin Lacey's musical classic The Music Man, featuring such timeless tunes as "76 Trombones" and "Ya Got Trouble" and "Shipoopi." Burke Moses (Broadway's Beauty and the Beast) stars as smooth-talking "professor" Harold Hill, out to swindle the ... [Read]

"Masculine Impressions," the current titillating exhibit to come to Vitruvian Gallery, the gallery devoted to male figurative art, closes tomorrow, so if you've wanted to see it, better hurry. Gary Fisher's latest series of artworks, mostly oil paintings and charcoal drawings, grows from the command "take off your clothes and make yourself comfortable." Fisher's strokes capture models doing exactly that, ... [Read]

Following on its insanely popular brunch house party La Boum every Saturday and the annual Bastille Day French Maid Relay Race, L'Enfant Cafe and Bar offers this social dining event on select Sundays each month. Speak Easy transforms the space into a Prohibition Era venue -- complete with back door entrance, dim lighting and drawn shades -- serving drinks, a ... [Read]

The Capitol Hill Restoration Society is hosting its 55th annual tour, this year highlighting homes constructed in the last quarter of the 19th century in near Northeast. The theme is "Windows on Our World," so expect homes with breathtaking views and spectacular gardens. Saturday, May 12, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, May 13, from 1 p.m. to ... [Read]

The D.C. Arts Center presents its biennial fundraiser this Thursday, May 10, in which visionary and culinary artists are paired to concoct edible art, from appetizers to dessert. Among the tapas-style main course chef/artist pairs: Diana Davila-Boldin of Jackie's Restaurant with artist Victoria Gaitan; Dean Gold of Dino with Megan Mueller; Carole Wagner Greenwood of Shelter with Jayme McLellan; Angel ... [Read]

Tony-Award-winning actress Judith Ivey (Steaming, Hurlyburly) plays Ann Landers in Theater J's one-night-only benefit performance of The Lady With All the Answers, a solo show written by David Rambo that Ivey performed Off-Broadway in 2009. Popular Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax will introduce the play, which will be framed by two receptions. Monday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m. The ... [Read]

Barry Manilow, Jewel, Peter Cincoitt and Chris Botti will all serenade the 16-time Grammy Award-winning composer and producer David Foster at the Kennedy Center's 2012 Spring Gala. They'll perform a sampling of Foster's many pop hits, accompanied by the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. Sunday, May 6, at 8 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $35 to $150. Call ... [Read]

Faction of Fools Theatre Company, the 2012 Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company, focuses on the Italian commedia dell'Arte theater style of physical comedy. And it concludes its third season with a stylistic interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet entitled with Hamlecchino: Clown Prince of Denmark. The show, directed by Matthew R. Wilson, who also plays the title character, ... [Read]

Luckily, you don't have to be Jewish to appear at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. In her new book, My Extraordinary Ordinary Life, Spacek offers up details about her personal and professional life, from growing up in small-town Texas to meeting her husband on the set of Badlands to eventually settling in the non-glamorous rural Virginia hills. Sara Nelson, ... [Read]

"I'm Hip!" is a solo cabaret show by gay D.C. performer Matt Howe featuring tunes by Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Dave Frishberg, Jeff Blumenkrantz and others. Helen Hayes Award-nominated composer Daniel Sticco accompanies Howe on piano. Thursday, May 10, and Saturday, May 12, at 8 p.m. Black Fox Lounge, 1723 Connecticut Ave. NW. Cover is $10 at the door. Visit ... [Read]

Springing to full-blooded life onstage at Ford's under the assured direction of Peter Flynn, the Founding Fathers of 1776 can be a horny, harried lot, yearning for their faraway wives as much as they yearn for liberation from a faraway tyrant. By the time the president of Congress, John Hancock, and his cohorts have agreed on a statement they can ... [Read]

Pianist Brian Ganz and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman perform with the National Philharmonic in an All Debussy program, part of a festival celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Impresssionistic composer's birth. Saturday, May 5, at 8 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Tickets are $37 to $81. Call 301-581-5100 or visit strathmore.org. Follow @metroweekly ... [Read]

Jason Gray Pratt wrote the Round House Theatre world premiere Crown of Shadows: The Wake of Odysseus offering a gripping, modern take on The Odyssey using contemporary language and leanings to paint a chilling portrait of the family the warrior leaves behind. Blake Robison directs. Starring Michael Morrow Hammack, Deborah Hazlett, Julia Proctor and Jefferson A. Russell. Closes this Sunday, ... [Read]

Actors from the Keegan Theatre will step outside of its Church Street home to perform in Dupont Circle this Saturday, May 5. The purpose of "Music in the Circle" is to entice the public in its productions by offering musical snippets from the now-running Working, the upcoming Spring Awakening and even a smattering of past hits from its many lauded ... [Read]

Ever hear of Jan Dismas Zelenka? Well, the Bach Sinfonia calls Zelenka "the Bohemian Baroque," and says his rich and colorful output equals that of his better-known European contemporaries, including Rameau, Handel and J.S. Bach. The Sinfonia presents the first hearing in North America of the German composer's complete cycle of The Capriccios, composed for the courts in Vienna and ... [Read]

The Tony Awards will bestow the prestigious outstanding regional theater company award to the Shakespeare Theatre Company at this year's June 10 ceremony, reported stage critic Peter Marks in this morning's Washington Post. This is the second time in recent years the award has gone to a local company. Arlington's Signature Theatre received the honor in 2009. Locally, the Tonys ... [Read]