Editor’s Picks: Rent, Anthony Ramos, Theater J’s Annual Benefit, and more!
Our picks of the best arts and entertainment in the D.C. area this week
RENT
Twenty-three years after it first took Broadway and pop culture by storm, the late Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning rock musical returns to D.C. as part of a 20th anniversary tour production that has been ongoing since 2006. A reimagining of Puccini’s La Bohème, the show follows a group of artists struggling to live, love, and pursue their dreams in New York. Cody Jenkins, Coleman Cummings, Aiyana Smash, Shafiq Hicks, Joshua Tavares, Kelsee Sweigard, Samantha Mbolekwa, and Juan Luis Espinal are the principal leads in the non-Equity production based on original direction by Michael Greif as restaged by Evan Ensign with choreography by Marlies Yearby. Opens Tuesday, Nov. 12. Runs to Nov. 17. National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Call 202-628-6161 or visit www.thenationaldc.org.
ANTHONY RAMOS
A native New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, Ramos is a favored performer of Lin-Manual Miranda, as part of the original lead cast of Miranda’s Broadway smash musical Hamilton and more recently in the lead role of the film adaptation to Miranda’s earlier Tony-winning hit In The Heights, set to be released next summer. (Ramos also played the best friend of Lady Gaga’s character in A Star Is Born.) He will no doubt sing from the Miranda oeuvre during his concert at the Rock and Roll Hotel, though the focus is on his just-released debut as a solo soulful pop artist, The Good & The Bad. Friday, Nov. 8. Doors at 8 p.m. Rock and Roll Hotel, 1353 H St. NE. Tickets are $15 to $18. Call 202-388-ROCK or visit www.rockandrollhoteldc.com.
LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE
The younger half-sister of both Rufus and Martha and daughter of Suzzy Roche of the Roches, Lucy Wainwright Roche may come from folk royalty but her talent is very much her own. She visits the area in support of Little Beast, a folk/singer-songwriter winner at the 2019 Independent Music Awards for its collection of songs offering urgent and poetic calls to a world gone awry. It’s a rare headlining gig for the artist who has spent many years opening for and/or performing with everyone from her mother to her brother, Mary Chapin Carpenter to the Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers. Thursday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. Jammin Java, 227 Maple Ave. E. Vienna. Tickets are $15 to $25. Call 703-255-3747 or visit www.jamminjava.com.
MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP: PEPPERLAND
The Kennedy Center welcomes the legendary modern dance troupe, led by innovative gay choreographer Mark Morris, for the D.C. debut of a colorful, exuberant work that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the classic album from the Beatles. Following a warm reception in the band’s hometown of Liverpool, Pepperland comes to the Kennedy Center as a co-commissioned, evening-length dance-theater piece set to an original score by Ethan Iverson and incorporating arrangements of six songs from the album — including “Penny Lane,” “With A Little Help From My Friends,” and “When I’m Sixty-Four” — as performed by a unique jazz ensemble. Performances are Wednesday, Nov. 13, through Friday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 16, at 2 and 8 p.m. Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $55 to $119. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.
TONY HINCHCLIFFE
Hinchcliffe has described himself as “a straight man with a gay face,” and has also attributed his skill with insult comedy as something that developed as a defense mechanism growing up in a tough neighborhood in Youngstown, Ohio. Over the past decade, the 35-year-old has been a key player behind the scenes as a lead writer for the enormously popular Comedy Central Roast series. (Hinchcliffe wrote the scalding roast of Justin Bieber delivered by Martha Stewart, for example.) Recently he’s focused his time and energy on building people up, specifically through Kill Tony, his live weekly podcast featuring amateur comedians competing before a panel of professionals. Friday, Nov. 8, and Saturday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. The DC Comedy Loft, 1523 22nd St. NW. Tickets are $22, plus a two-item minimum. Call 202-293-1887 or visit www.dccomedyloft.com.
MARCEL DUCHAMP: THE BARBARA AND AARON LEVINE COLLECTION
The life and legacy of the conceptual French-American artist is honored at the Hirshhorn via an initial display of 50 seminal works, as well as a library of 150 books, recently acquired by the museum. As a result of the Levines’ gift, the Hirshhorn, which previously only had one piece by the late Duchamp, becomes a center for Duchamp scholarship — and the significance of the gift, along with examination of Duchamp’s artistic legacy, will be further explored in an overlapping exhibition tentatively set to open in April of next year. Mr. and Mrs. Levine will discuss their life together and their passion for Duchamp at a Collector Talk led by the Hirshhorn’s Melissa Chiu on Friday, Nov. 8, at 6:30 p.m. On display to Oct. 12, 2020. Hirshhorn National Museum of Modern Art, Independence Avenue and Seventh Street SW. Call 202-633-1000 or visit www.hirshhorn.si.edu.
ROY ORBISON & BUDDY HOLLY HOLOGRAM CONCERT
Next week, Washingtonians will get the chance to see the latest show directed by Signature Theatre’s co-founder Eric Schaeffer — a concert, co-presented by the Birchmere at Strathmore, featuring cutting-edge holograms of deceased rock icons Orbison and Holly. As Schaeffer explained to Metro Weekly earlier this year: “The company that does it, Base Hologram, they really are very creative and just do it with really great respect. [Each rock icon] has a live band behind him, but the hologram is the hologram. And it’s kind of wonderful, because you get to see these iconic people that I obviously never would have seen or got to see. And when you see older audiences who did know Roy, they just go crazy, because it is so real…. It’s so dimensional.” Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 7:30 p.m. Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, Md. Tickets are $58 to $68. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.
DC DIFFERENT DRUMMERS FALL CONCERT
“For The Children” is the title of this year’s fall concert by the organization’s Capitol Pride Symphonic Band, performing music exploring the early phases of life as well as offering hope for the future, particularly the next 50 years of the LGBTQ community. The band, led by Anthony Oakley, will perform a wide range of music, from classic pieces by Julius Fucik and Percy Grainger to those by contemporary composers Anthony J. O’Toole, Omar Thompson, and Yukiko Nishimura. Saturday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. Church of the Epiphany, 1317 G St. NW. Tickets are $15 to $25 plus fees. Call 202-269-4868 or visit www.dcdd.org.
STRATHMORE’S MUSEUM SHOP AROUND HOLIDAY MARKET
The annual Museum Shop Around is one of the best and most convenient places in town for finding unique, artsy holiday gift ideas. This weekend, 16 museums and art organizations will be represented at the event selling memorabilia and merchandise, including the Audubon Naturalist Society, International Spy Museum, the Jewish Museum of Maryland, the National Geographic Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Phillips Collection, the Supreme Court Historical Society, and Tudor Place Historic House & Garden. Each museum is given its own space, often its own room, in Strathmore’s historic Mansion. That’s enough for most shops to display as much as 40 percent of their normal inventory. The Mansion also offers a café with food and drink available throughout the event, including hot apple cider. Opens Thursday, Nov. 7, and runs through Sunday, Nov. 10, starting at 10 a.m. each day. 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Free, but suggested donation is $10. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.
THEATER J’S ANNUAL BENEFIT FEATURING ALEXANDRA SILBER
Alexandra Silber offers a special musical performance in the newly renovated Edlavitch DCJCC as the centerpiece of the annual benefit for Theater J, the institution’s nationally renowned professional stage organization. Silber performs from her debut novel, 2017’s After Anatevka: A Novel Based on Fiddler on the Roof, which imagines what happens to Sholem Alecheim’s beloved characters after they step off stage. Silber herself has played the show’s two eldest daughters: Hodel on the West End, Tzeitel on Broadway. Silber has appeared in the area twice in the past year — as Sally Bowles in Olney Theatre’s Cabaret and Guenevere in Camelot at Shakespeare Theatre Company. At the gala, Silber will perform three songs from Fiddler, including one cut from the musical, plus a host of showtunes from a new generation of musical theater talent. Monday, Nov. 18, starting at 6:30 p.m. 1529 16th St. NW. Tickets, which include food and drink, start at $350. Call 202-777-3210 or visit www.theaterj.org.
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