The Georgetowner: February 14, 2024 Issue

SINCE 1954

VOLUME 70 NUMBER 5

For the Art of Love We dding le gend M onte D u rha m of “ Say Yes to the Dress”

GEORGETOWNER.COM

FEBRUARY 14 - MARCH 12, 2024

& the Love of Art A r ts Prev iew P u l l- Out

‘Secure DC ’ Bill Advances Georgetown’s Blac k Histor y Swedish Ambassador Urban Ahlin Social: Spring Gala Guide GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

1

THE

art of living well

®

As a resident at The Fitzgerald, you can enjoy dozens of activities and classes each week, all included as part of our whole-body health philosophy known as The Art of Living Well.

Led by our creative wellness team, each experience is designed to promote one of the nine dimensions of wellness, from physical fitness and intellectual stimulation to social connectivity and artistic expression.

O P E N I N G L AT E 2 0 2 4 O FFSI T E DI SCOVERY CENT ER 4418 M ACART HUR BLVD., NW WASHI NGTO N, D.C. 20007

EXP ERIENCE LIFE AT T H E FIT ZG E R ALD BY AT TEND ING O NE O F O UR S IG N AT U RE E VE N TS

202.935.5250 LIFEAT TH EFITZGE R ALD.COM

O PEN TO T HE PUBLI C M O NDAY - FR I DAY, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM WEEK ENDS BY APP O I NT M ENT O NLY The Fitzgerald of Palisades is currently under construction and is not licensed by the D.C. Department of Health. Upon completion of construction, The Fitzgerald of Palisades will apply to the D.C. Department of Health for a license to operate as an Assisted Living Residence.

The anticipated opening for The Fitzgerald of Palisades is Late 2024.

CURATED ART GALLERY | FIVE-STAR DINING | INDOOR SALTWATER POOL | WORLD-CLASS FITNESS CENTER | YOGA STUDIO | THEATER | PET SPA 2

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

A

AC

.

EEAA

H

E E B

CCCHH

H

With 11 waterfront communities and 85 miles of beaches, finding your own slice of paradise shouldn’t be too hard. Plan your summer getaway at CrystalCoastNC.org.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

3

IN THIS ISSUE NEWS · 6 - 9 Town Topics House Tour & Garden Club ANC Report Crime Report

EDITORIAL & OPINION · 10 THE VILLAGE · 11

ON THE COVER Monte Durham, of TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress,” owns Salon Monte in Old Town, Alexandria.

He donated multiple items to the National First Ladies Library and Museum, including a replica of Jackie O’s wedding dress. Photo by Andy Samplawski, photo courtesy of Monte Durham.

PUBLISHER Sonya Bernhardt

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Robert Devaney

DIRECTOR OF CONTENT & ADVERTISING Kate Oczypok

MANAGING EDITOR Christopher Jones

SENIOR CORRESPONDENT Peggy Sands FEATURE EDITOR Ari Post FASHION & BEAUTY DIRECTOR Allyson Burkhardt Lauretta McCoy GRAPHIC DESIGN Troy Riemer Laura Argentieri PHOTOGRAPHERS Philip Bermingham Bill Starrels

CONTRIBUTORS Mary Bird Susan Bodiker Allyson Burkhardt Didi Cutler Donna Evers Michelle Galler Amos Gelb Wally Greeves Kitty Kelley Rebekah Kelley Jody Kurash Shelia Moses Kate Oczypok Linda Roth Alison Schafer Celia Sharpe Mary Ann Treger

Sweden’s Ambassador

BUSINESS · 12 Ins & Outs Downtowner

1050 30th Street, NW Washington, DC 20007 Phone: (202) 338-4833 Fax: (202) 338-4834 www.georgetowner.com “The Newspaper Whose Influence Far Exceeds Its Size” — Pierre Cardin

ARTS · 13 - 21 Spring Arts Preview Artswatch

COVER · 23 White House Weddings

REAL ESTATE · 24 - 25 Auction Block

FOOD & WINE · 26 Latest Dish New L’Avant-Garde Chef

The Georgetowner is published in print monthly with an online newsletter supplement posted twice per week — On Mondays we highlight news and on Thursdays goings on about town.

The opinions of our writers and columnists do not necessarily reflect the editorial and corporate opinions of The Georgetowner newspaper. The Georgetowner accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs and assumes no liability for products or services advertised herein. The Georgetowner reserves the right to edit, rewrite or refuse material and is not responsible for errors or omissions. Copyright 2023.

Please send submissions of opinions for consideration to: editorial@georgetowner.com For advertising inquiries email advertising@georgetowner.com or call (202) 338-4833

SOCIAL SCENE · 28 Alvin Ailey Gala Spring Gala Guide

KITTY KELLEY BOOK CLUB · 30 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

4

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

The Georgetowner is a Certified Business Enterprise

Please recycle.

Your number-one source for everything Georgetown.

Subscribe to our e-newsletter at georgetowner.com.

WHAT’S ONLINE GEORGETOWNER.COM SUBSCRIBE to our twice weekly online Georgetowner Newsletter — place your email address in the subscription box on the front page of our website.

JACK EVANS WILL NOT RUN FOR WARD 2 SEAT B Y P E G G Y SAN D S Former Council member Jack Evans in front of his P Street home last month. Courtesy photo.

FEBRUARY 2024 REALTY REVIEW B Y K AT E OC ZYPOK 1236 27th St. NW, across from Rose Park.

Courtesy Bright MLS.

HAUTE & COOL: THE HEARTS OF GEORGETOWN B Y A LLY SON BU R KH AR D T

L.A. Burdick Chocolates at 1319 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Courtesy photo.

RUBENSTEIN TO LEAVE KENNEDY CENTER, BUY ORIOLES B Y T H E GEOR GETOWN ER

Philanthropist and billionaire David Rubenstein will leave his post as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and purchase a stake in the Baltimore Orioles. Photo by Monika Flueckiger.

Courtesy World Economic Forum.

Bring your Jewelry to Bonhams.

We’ll sell it to the world.

Jewelry specialists are regularly in your area offering in-person complimentary auction estimates of single items and entire collections.

Schedule your appointment Haley Jaras +1 (347) 754 0365 haley.jaras@bonhams.com sell.bonhams.com © 2024 Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Corp. All rights reserved. NYC DCA Auction House License No. 2077070

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

5

TOWN TOPICS

Black History Month Celebrated, Explored in Holy Trinity, Citizens Association Event

BY C HR IS TOP HER J O N E S In honor of Black History Month, Holy Trinity Church at 3513 N St. NW and the Citizens Association of Georgetown presented “Black Georgetown: The Story of a Proud Community with Historian Carroll R. Gibbs and Musical Performances by Duke Ellington Performing Arts Students” to a packed auditorium in Trinity Hall Feb. 7.

Featured lecturer Carroll Gibbs – popularly known as C.R. Gibbs – a specialist in the Black history of Georgetown, co-authored the 1991 book, “Black Georgetown Remembered,” that “chronicles and celebrates the rich but little-known history of the Georgetown Black community from the colonial period to the present.” Gibbs “wrote, researched and narrated “Sketches in Color,” a 13-part companion series to PBS’s acclaimed series, “The Civil War” and has received numerous awards and recognitions for his contributions to public education.

After attendees mingled, sampling from a spread of hors d’oeuvres provided by CAG, the evening’s formal program was launched by former ANC 2E Commissioner, Dr. Monica Roaché. A 5th-generation African American Georgetowner, Roaché did not hesitate to examine Holy Trinity’s segregated past and testify about her family’s proud story of religious rebellion during the Jim Crow era.

“Catholic African Americans attended Trinity for over a hundred years, starting as far back as 1790, and extending to the 1920s,” she said.

“However, they were often mistreated, not included, and forced to sit in the back, or in the balconies.” So, they said, “You know, we’ve had enough!”’ and “decided in 1923 to start their own church, Epiphany Catholic Church…”

Roaché’s great-great grandfather helped launch the new African American church at 2712 Dumbarton St NW, she said with pride.

Acknowledging Holy Trinity’s and CAG’s

6

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

efforts to bring Black History to light, however, Roaché thanked the church for “examining all aspects of their history and joining with us in wonderful programs like this where we celebrate the rich history of the African American community in Georgetown.” She also thanked CAG for “all the various activities they do like this in our community.”

Neville Waters, president of the Mount Zion Female Union Band Historic Park, Inc. then praised Holy Trinity’s efforts now to confront its racist past, by “reflecting, recalling, and rejoicing in their history – both the good and the bad.” Waters credited his African American grandmother, Gertrude Turner Waters, for having written about the breakaway of Black parishioners in 1923 for Holy Trinity’s website.

“It’s wonderful, touching, and sensitive,” he said, quipping about how proud she would be to see him “on stage this evening.”

Paul Maco, coordinator of Holy Trinity’s History Committee then described the church’s “restorative justice ministry” launched four years ago, designed to “confront the harm of racism” by means of “racial healing circles” that have proven to be highly effective in helping individual parishioners from Holy Trinity, St. Augustine’s and John Wesley AME Zion Church to air and discuss their personal accounts of racism and its effects, historically and today. “Many members of these circles are here tonight. And those circles have proven to be powerful, personal, intense experiences for each of us, expanding our lives, our community and our friends.”

After an inspiring performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” from vocal arts student S. Nicole at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the enthusiastic crowd was ready to hear from the evening’s main attraction, C.R. Gibbs.

In a stirring Powerpoint lecture, Gibbs surveyed the history of Black Georgetown from

Paul Maco of Holy Trinity Parish, Tara Parker of Citizens Association of Georgetown, featured speaker and author C.R. Gibbs, former ANC 2E Commissioner Monica Roaché and Neville Waters, president of Black Georgetown Foundation. Photo by Bill Starrels. pre-Revolutionary times to the post-Second World War era of racial gentrification and displacement.

Addressing skeptics who “don’t believe Georgetown should have a monument to the enslaved,” Gibbs provided over an hour’s worth of solid primary-source evidence not only of active slave-trading and abuse, but of Georgetown’s own Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws, and the insidious roles of the White business owners, churches and universities in propping up the abusive racial structures of the time.

51 YEARS Every Every Sunday Sunday 8AM 8AM to to 4PM 4PM

1819 35th St NW

Gibbs also focused on the heroic efforts of the enslaved to rise up, to escape, to resist, to found their own institutions and to forge the civil rights guarantees enjoyed by all today.

He praised the “generational fortitude” of those who engaged in these struggles and remarked repeatedly about the “love of liberty and willingness to risk everything for that one moment of freedom” that many resistors embodied.

TOWN TOPICS

91st Georgetown House Tour, April 20

BY R OB E RT DEVA NEY Since 1931, the Georgetown House Tour has raised millions to support charities that serve those in need in Georgetown and beyond.

On Saturday, April 20, St. John’s Episcopal Church will host the 91st Georgetown House Tour, believed to be the oldest house tour in the country. The annual event attracts more than 1,800 guests each year, gives locals and out-oftowners alike the opportunity to visit historic homes in a variety of styles. Tour co-chairs are Donna Leanos and Azali Kassum. The Patrons’ Party will be at Dumbarton House on April 17.

The self-guided tour — 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

— begins at St. John’s Church at 3240 O St. NW, where guests will receive a House Tour Magazine (which serves as the ticket to the tour) complete with an interactive map and historic information about each property.

Attendees will also receive complimentary admission to the Parish Tea, which will be held

in Blake Hall at St. John’s Church, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Advanced tickets for this event are priced at $60 per person ($55 per person for groups of 10 or more) and are available for purchase at georgetownhousetour.com. Tickets may also be purchased at St. John’s Episcopal Church on the day of the tour and are priced at $65 per person.

Henry J. Cooke House at 3007 Q St. NW for the 2019 Georgetown House Tour. Courtesy GHT.

100-Year-Old Georgetown Garden Club Preparing May 11 Garden Tour

BY ALIS ON SCHA F ER Though the weather’s still damp and chilly, there are a few spring buds and green shoots peeking out, here and there, all over Georgetown, and in some spots the bright yellow winter jasmine is starting to flower. Spring is coming, and the Georgetown Garden Club has been anything but dormant during the winter months, as it gears up for its busiest season.

Garden club members are already scouting out the hidden gems tucked behind high brick walls that bring neighbors and tourists to town for the garden tour on Saturday, May 11. The event will showcase an array of interesting plants, architectural features, and some grand spaces east and west (of Wisconsin Avenue, of course).

As part of its 100th anniversary celebration, the Georgetown Garden Club fills the garden beds at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library with native plants. The new plantings will (hopefully) attract pollinators like birds, butterflies and bees,

as well as non-pollinators like D.C. residents and library users. Later in the year, also part of the garden club’s centennial festivities, look for “flash flower” creations, unexpected street art popping up in trash cans. The garden club is also working on a brochure about local trees for children, designed to encourage their curiosity and love of the environment.

Finally, the Georgetown Garden Club is delighted that its past president and past Garden Club of America president Dede Petri will receive the Distinguished Service Medal at the GCA’s Annual Meeting in Hartford this April.

Petri is currently the president of the Olmsted Network, which promotes the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s great 19th century landscape architect and the designer of the U.S. Capitol grounds and New York’s Central Park, among many other spaces.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

7

The

G e o rG e t ow n House Tour 2024

P resented by s t . J ohn ’ s e PiscoPal c hurch , G eorGetown

Our doors are open

Celebrating its 91st year, this annual event graciously opens historic 18th and 19th century homes in Georgetown to Tour attendees.

Tickets are $60 per person online in advance, or $65 per person on the day of the Tour. Tickets include Parish Tea at St. John’s from 1:30 - 4:30 pm.

Group prices are available. For more information and to purchase tickets online, please visit: www.georgetownhousetour.com.

saturday, aPril 20, 2024 11 am - 5 Pm 3240 o street, nw

TOWN TOPICS

Crime: ‘Secure DC Omnibus’ Crime Bill Clears Council’s First Vote

BY C H R ISTOPH ER JON ES One vote down, one to go. With the mayor’s full endorsement, Ward-2 Council member Brooke Pinto’s “Secure DC Omnibus” crime package passed unanimously Feb. 6, with amendments, in the first of two rounds of DC Council voting on the massive crime initiative – combining 12 separate crime bills and including over 100 provisions designed to tackle the mounting crime crisis in the nation’s capital. A final vote on the package has not been scheduled but is expected in the next few weeks.

“In 2023, we saw a devastating 39 percent increase in violent crime and a 26 percent increase in crime overall in the District,” Pinto, Chair of the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety testified before the vote. “And, 274 people lost their lives to homicide. Residents live in fear of carjacking, thefts, and falling victim to crime across our city.

This is unacceptable. Today, by approving my DC Omnibus, the Council has the opportunity to take decisive and comprehensive action to make the District more safe and secure.”

Around 100 protesters wearing black teeshirts imploring “Don’t Throw DC Under the Crimnibus” disrupted the proceedings and had to be quieted by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson. “We can clear the chamber – which I really don’t want to do,” he said. “But this is not a public meeting.”

In live news coverage from the Wilson Building, WUSA 9 reporter Delia Gonzalez said after the vote the protesters were “celebrating a win because many amendments they were fighting for actually were debated upon and passed.” Most significant, the omnibus package’s proposal that DNA evidence could be collected from an arrestee who’s not yet been charged. But Ward-5 Council member Kenyan

McDuffie fought to claw that provision back.

“The Committee believes that the privacy rights of the innocent should be preserved… And let us not forget, we are all innocent until proven guilty,” he said to applause during the hearing, per a live report from Fox 5.

Another key amendment celebrated by protesters calling for more “evidence-based” public safety measures, according to WUSA 9, involved pre-trial detention provisions for youth.

Instead of a permanent rule, the Council will gather data for the next 250 days to measure the efficacy of holding suspects believed to have engaged in violence in prison before trial.

“We worked very hard over the last several weeks to work with all of our colleagues to incorporate some of the concerns they had,” Pinto told reporters following the hearing, per WUSA 9.

The omnibus bill will include provisions increasing penalties for gun possession, more broadly defining “carjacking” to facilitate prosecutions, expanding pretrial detention for youths, incarcerating more adults before trial, loosening police oversight, allowing police to create drug-free zones, changing the composition of D.C.’s sentencing panel and requiring more crime-fighting participation of city agencies.

“My Secure DC omnibus is the culmination of a robust and thoughtful public engagement process that makes me confident that taken together, the 100-plus interventions and solutions in the bill will make D.C. residents safer by preventing crime, ensuring accountability when crime does occur, and improving government coordination to meet the needs of District residents,” Pinto wrote on her website Brookepintodc.com.

We appreciate the generous support of our sponsors.

silver

bronze thegeorgetownhousetour

@gtownhousetour

GeorgetownHouseTour

Georgetown House Tour

Brooke Pinto urges D.C. Council to pass her “Secure DC Omnibus” crime package. Fox5 video screen capture.

8

Georgetowner print_vertical_draft.indd 4

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

2/13/24 9:22 AM

TOWN TOPICS

ANC 2E: DOJ Response to D.C. Crime; Schools Improve

BY PEG GY SA NDS The February meeting of the GeorgetownBurleith-Hillandale Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 2E), held Jan. 29, was filled with solid news, much welcomed civility and met in person for the first time at Mt. Zion United Methodist Church on 29th Street.

Still, some of the commissioners and almost all of the speakers attended remotely. Some of the items were very important to hear — too important, too long for an ANC meeting, it would seem.

FATAL CARJACKINGS

The meeting opened with a crime report by the Metropolitan Police Department, reported in person by police officers who are assigned to and know Georgetown. Car hijackings are the most visible concern, not only because they are increasing and happening in daylight but because of the gut-wrenching reality last week involving the shooting of two drivers (Alberto Vasquez Jr. died at the scene) and eventually the mentally ill car jacker. Former D.C. election official and member of Holy Trinity’s parish council, Michael Gill was reported to be in critical condition after being shot in the head while waiting to pick up his wife at work (he has since died of his wounds).

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RESPONSE

“Most of the carjackings are done by juveniles,” Wendy Pohlhaus, Director of Community Outreach, at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, told the commissioners. In fact, of the almost 200 carjackings in the District last year, 75 percent were juveniles and only 12 met the mandatory minimum requirements for punishment for armed assault of 90-180 months in prison. “Not having mandatory minimums for juvenile punishment is a real problem,” according to the DC Attorney’s office.

It’s hard to get a prosecution at all, according to Pohlhaus, even though some 88 percent of adult suspects of violent assaults are charged.

In a long and important report, the ANC was told that there were multiple reasons for not getting a prosecution, including that cases were dropped by victims, witnesses see things sometimes entirely differently, suspects have prior warrants for arrests and the like. “It’s very much up to the judge’s discretion,” she said.

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENTS

A general report on Georgetown schools found that the new McArthur High School “is off

to a very good start,” according to Commissioner Kishan Putta. “It’s on line for a large expansion to a four-year high school” with all the bells and whistles, he added. Hyde-Addison Elementary School is also fully enrolled with little of the absenteeism apparently that plagues other D.C. public schools. Hyde-Addison was named the number-2 best elementary school in the District, according to the Principal Calvin Hooks in his monthly report. “Parents are planning a gala findraiser for the school for the first time in years,” Putta said.

Georgetown University is also fully back to pre-pandemic normal, including excitement for their sports teams and newly matriculated mascot, Jack the Bulldog. “We may bring him to an ANC meeting, student Commissioner Joe Massaua announced. “We’re getting ready for a big St. Patrick’s celebration in March,” Commissioner John DiPierri also announced.

The commission unanimously passed two resolutions approving the extension of a temporary license to serve liquor at the Hilltop Tap Room, a bar and restaurant located in the Healey Family Student Center, an on-campus bar, until the approval process is completed for a full Class C liquor license, used for businesses that plan to sell alcohol and allow drinking on premises.

Breaking: Google’s Eric Schmidt Buys Jackie House

BY RO BERT DEVANEY Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy purchased the historic mansion at 3017 N St. NW, where widow Jacqueline Kennedy resided in 1964, Politico first reported. The Schmidts paid $15 million at auction in November.

The Newton B. Baker House has had famous owners — Miss America 1951 and, most recently, David Hudgens. The property includes three houses. The Schmidts also own homes in L.A., Montecito, Miami and New York.

Now chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project based in Arlington, Eric Schmidt is former chair of the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Last month, the Schmidts launched the nonprofit Schmidt Sciences.

Auctioneers & Appraisers

Consign with DOYLE Our Specialists will be traveling throughout the D.C. area collecting Jewelry, Watches, Art and more for auction consignment or outright purchase. Please contact us to schedule a private in-person or virtual appointment.

Information & Appointments

Samira Farmer & Reid Dunavant DoyleDC@Doyle.com 301–348–5282 Diamond Clip Bracelet. Est. $30,000-50,000. Diamond Ring. Est. $150,000-200,000.

Boucheron Paris Diamond Brooch. Est. $25,000-35,000. Auction April 18.

New York

Beverly Hills

Boston

Charleston

Chicago

Connecticut

New Jersey

North Carolina

Palm Beach

Pennsylvania

Washington DC

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

9

EDITORIAL & OPINION

Keep Georgetown Clean and Safe

BY JAC K EVAN S

Where Is the Vision for D.C.?

The proposed move of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals from the Capital One Arena in downtown D.C. to Alexandria’s Potomac Yards has rattled hometown sports fans, residents, pundits and politicians alike — with opinions back and forth — and prompted questions of what it means for Washingtonians.

Mayor Muriel Bowser responded to the decision by Ted Leonsis of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, owner of the Wizards, Capitals, to move the teams to Virginia.

“Throughout this process, much has been said about the challenges of city life — street artists, for example, and crime,” Bowser wrote.

“But I don’t believe for a minute that’s why Monumental has struck a handshake deal with Virginia. Their decision was about money and land. Period. Nor is it true that the District did not try hard enough. At every stage, we put forth the best deal we could offer at the time we could offer it.”

For his part, Leonsis wrote: “The decision to move the teams to Potomac Yard is about space and opportunity.... New room to innovate, more room to provide better services for our teams, services for the community and better experiences for our fans. What excites me about this opportunity is the land, the accessibility it provides and being part of the tech corridor that has been established in this neighborhood. The ability to build a smart campus from scratch....”

In the DC Line, columnist jonetta rose barras

wrote of Bowser’s Jan. 12 address of the sports divorce: “Mayor Muriel Bowser stood in a room inside the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall across the street from the Capital One Arena... Those optics may have given someone the impression the city’s threeterm mayor was preparing to make a gamewinning slam-dunk. Think again.

“Bowser and her team produced an underwhelming presentation that, I guess, had been intended to convey all is not lost in the Chinatown/Gallery Place neighborhood….

“After the potential move became public, many leaders and residents in the city began to panic, declaring the economic end of DC. They wanted to know Bowser’s plan. This week they learned it appears to be more of the same: another task force.”

We can cite more arguments, especially some choice criticism by Washington Post columnist Colbert King. Still, let’s check the conclusion of a Feb. 12 Post editorial: “But no amount of money will make up for failing to get the basics right: ensuring public safety and cultivating a business-friendly climate. D.C. can no longer assume that people and businesses want to locate in urban centers; the city and its leaders must compete for them. Even if it loses this round, Washington can rally for the next.”

Our city has not yet lost its mojo — but it surely needs a fresh vision of itself. The question is who or what will make that happen?

Dads, Brads & Chads: Let Taylor Swift Be! The Super Bowl may be over, but there’s a lasting argument popping up on the internet: does Taylor Swift detract from NFL games?

We believe the answer to be absolutely not.

Now that Swift is dating Kansas City Chiefs’ All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce, the mega popstar singer/songwriter made it to about a dozen of his games this season as the Chiefs looked to repeat their league championship. The newly crowned billionaire Swift was arguably the highest-profile fan at any NFL game this year.

While some men have voiced frustrations and concerns about how often Swift is shown at games, the reality is, she’s actually minimally shown. According to a report from the New York Times writer Benjamin Hoffman, Swift received less than 1 percent (just .46 percent to be exact) of screen time during the games she attended.

Most of the men who complain about her admit they don’t know much about who Taylor Swift is. They see her as a powerful, successful woman who doesn’t care about any criticism she 10

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

receives. She told Time magazine in her “Person of the Year” interview in December 2023 that, “she’s just there to support Travis,” and she “has no awareness of if she’s being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.”

So, to the men who grumble about a few seconds of a woman cheering on her partner, think about your own wives, daughters, sisters and friends. By complaining about Swift cheering for her boyfriend, you’re essentially telling women they should be pretty little things who are quiet and shouldn’t be interested in attending a football game. You’re telling them it’s just “for the guys.”

Swift has led to a spike in NFL interest among younger females. In fact, ESPN’s Chris Berman mentioned that he’s had conversations with women who found out they actually enjoyed football after initially watching just to see Swift. In such a divisive time, it’s quite refreshing to see Swift unite people. So, to the dads, Brads, and Chads out there, all we have to say is “you need to calm down!”

It is with great distress that I write to point out that our historic commercial streetscapes look terrible right now. On Wisconsin Avenue, I see concrete Jersey barriers jutting out into the streets. I see shoddy planters, used to mark outdoor dining areas, so called streateries, filled with trash and dead plants (and the occasional well-fed rat). I see plastic outdoor chairs randomly chained to streetlamps, and plastic deck-style sidewalk extenders with mismatched outdoor furniture. On M Street, pedestrians on these extended sidewalks often have to walk by large blue trash bins. Cyclists are forced into traffic by Jersey barriers. Delivery trucks are blocked from unloading. The overall look in our commercial district is cluttered, tacky and haphazard.

The views of most of Georgetown’s residents on streateries and sidewalk extenders have been ignored by the Georgetown Business Improvement District, ANC 2E, our Council members and the District government. The Georgetown BID received an emergency permit in 2021 during the Covid pandemic, but — like the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent — is now leveraging that initial emergency permit into the right to change the face of historic Georgetown permanently. The Georgetown Coalition for Public Spaces collected almost 1,400 signatures of Georgetown residents opposed to the cluttered, tacky, haphazard outdoor dining installations and sidewalk extenders.

A deeply divided ANC, however, ignored the

views of its constituents and supported the BID’s request for a two-year extension.

The Old Georgetown Board recommended only a one-year extension and much better aesthetic standards and enforcement.

Shockingly, the District’s Public Space Committee disregarded the Old Georgetown Board’s recommendation and the views of most Georgetown residents and gave the BID a twoyear permit.

Here are my suggestions: First, the District Department of Transportation, which is responsible for our streets and oversees the Public Space Committee, needs to immediately remove the extended sidewalks and restore M Street and Wisconsin Avenue to its pre-pandemic condition, parking and all. We can’t tolerate the status quo for two more years.

Second, most residents and businesses support the streateries — not the extended sidewalks, period. The community, not the BID, needs to come up with an idea that works for historic Georgetown.

Third, the BID needs to focus on its mission — CLEAN and SAFE. Together, we can create a beautiful and historic commercial corridor in historic Georgetown.

Jack Evans served as Ward 2 Council member from 1991 to 2020 and has been a Georgetown resident since 1992. He told The Georgetowner on Jan. 15 that he will not run for a seat on the D.C. Council.

Letter to the Editor PROTECT YOURSELF AGAINST CRIME When I moved to Georgetown 15 years ago, I was newly married and wanted something in my house for the protection of my infant child and newlywed wife, while I traveled.

Handguns, pepper spray and stun guns were all illegal in the District. So, how did I defend myself and my family?

A baseball bat at the front door and wasp spray in the car. Both items are unregulated, so anyone, including children, can be taught how to use them safely for defense.

Now that crime is rampant in Georgetown, we’re all looking for self-defense options, many of which were initially denied to us in the past.

The D.C. Council over time has responded to our concerns: Pepper spray was allowed in 2023, stun guns (nonlethal) allowed in 2015, and handguns allowed in 2006 with

handgun concealed-carry allowed in 2017.

All are now legal to purchase for selfdefense use in Washington, D.C. (except for children under 16.)

We must all be prepared for the day when we call the Metropolitan Police Department and they do not respond in a timely manner.

I have been watching the negative impacts of crime and interrelated homelessness and drug addiction within Georgetown ratchet up over the last 15 years. Our failed U.S. immigration-open border policy has clearly overloaded our urban environments with negative impacts. These negative impacts will linger on long after the U.S. policy is changed.

—David Morey, 33rd Street NW

Send Your Feedback, Questions or Concerns, Tips and Suggestions to editorial@georgetowner.com or call 202-338-4833.

DIPLOMATIC DIALOGUE

Sweden’s Ambassador Urban Ahlin, Perfect for the Job

BY DID I CUT L ER

Ambassador Urban Ahlin presented his credentials to President Joe Biden in August 2023. I met with Ahlin in his spectacular Georgetown office at the House of Sweden that overlooks the Potomac River. When I asked him how he likes living and working in Georgetown, he responded with a huge smile and said he absolutely loves it.

“It’s so green, so many beautiful houses,” Ahlin said. “It’s wonderful to have an embassy right on the river. I think we have one of the best locations in Washington.”

He now lives right above the embassy but misses, understandably, the large grounds of the old residence on Nebraska Avenue, which was sold to a developer, owing in part to the enormous cost of a much-needed renovation.

He is accompanied by his wife, Jenni Ahlin, who has published two books for children with a third on the way.

The ambassador is no stranger to the United States, nor to Georgetown for that matter. He used to wander up and down the streets here in his early twenties. As a a young politician, he was invited by the American Embassy in Stockholm to participate in the International Visitor Program of the U.S. State Department,

allowing him to travel extensively throughout America. He also participated in a Young Leaders Program with both Americans and Europeans to travel around the U.S. and Europe. It was organized by the Council on Foreign Relations under the leadership of Paula Dobriansky. He and his wife have been coming to the States for years and have a house in Florida.

Throughout his professional life, Ambassador Ahlin has served both as a politician and as a diplomat. When asked which he preferred, he made it clear that it was more fun to be a politician. “No question.

You are in the middle of everything, 24/7. See the news on TV, and you have known it for weeks. As a diplomat, you are often behind.”

There is no doubt that Ahlin was energized by being elected to Parliament. Reelected six times it was clear his constituents loved him as well. However, when he became Speaker of Parliament, he had to relinquish his party ties as — contrary to that of the United States — the Speaker in Sweden must be politically neutral. He found that this was good training to become a diplomat.

Ambassador Ahlin has always felt that

Washington, D.C., was at the heart of the global political scene. As a Social Democrat appointed by a conservative government, some people thought that he was sent abroad to be out of the way. He knew, however, that the Foreign Ministry was aware of his love for politics, and that in this respect felt that they were sending him home. He sees Washington as an open and easy place to debate politics.

Ahlin was a member of the East-West Institute which serves as a bridge between the United States and Eastern Europe, mainly Russia, and focuses on decreasing the risk of nuclear terrorism. As Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in Sweden, he worked closely with both Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar. They traveled together to Ukraine with the goal of stopping the proliferation of nuclear material.

Asked about his main goal he hoped to accomplish during his tenure as Ambassador, Ahlin said it is to deepen relations with the U.S. Not surprisingly he mentioned that Sweden’s membership in NATO was his highest priority. He is working to show that Sweden would be a trustworthy ally.

On Dec. 5, the Swedish Minister of Defense signed a defense agreement with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to allow American access to military bases in Sweden. Several days later, the Finnish government signed a similar agreement. Ahlin believes that Turkey won’t block Sweden’s membership in NATO but at the moment is partly caught up in a U.S.Turkey deal to sell F-16s.

During his career, Ahlin has also served as a mediator. He worked together with Bill Richardson in trying to work out problems

Swedish Ambassador Urban Ahlin. Photo by Didi Cutler. with the Rohingya in Myanmar. Convinced of the necessity for the European Union to work together with the rest of the world, he founded the European Council of Foreign Relations He is also a member of the Aspen Institute and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Ambassador Ahlin’s second goal is making sure Americans understand how important it is to support Ukraine. He stressed that if the U.S. shows weakness, the U.S. will be tested.

Concerning the current chaos in the Middle East, he said that Sweden feels that Israel has a right and a duty to defend itself in accordance with international law.

As our interview came to a close, I left feeling that the ambassador’s wide ranging experience, coupled with his infectious personality, will make for a very successful posting in Washington.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR MEETING OF THE COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS Feb. 15, 10:00 a.m.

401 F St. NW, Suite 312.

Filing deadline Feb. 1.

MEETING, ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION (ANC 2E) March 4, 6:30 p.m.

For agenda go to anc2e.com.

MPD COMMUNITY WALK Feb. 28, 2:00 p.m.

Start at 3050 Water St. NW.

MEETING OF THE OLD GEORGETOWN BOARD March 7, 9:00 a.m.

401 F St. NW, Suite 312.

Filing Deadline: Feb. 15.

LEAP DAY AT PINSTRIPES Feb. 29, 12-9:00 p.m.

1064 Wisc. Ave. NW. Leap into a day of extraordinary fun!

CARPE LIBRUM GEORGETOWN March 3, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Pop-up benefitting Turning the Page DC at the Chase Bank parking lot, corner of Wisconsin Ave. NW and P Street. Find thousands of books, CDs, and more – all for under $6.

SONG & DANCE FROM DC EMANCIPATION & THE VOTE March 7, 7:00 p.m.

CAG and the Alliance for New MusicTheater present composer Ronald “Trey” Walton and choreographer Dr. Anita Gonzalez plus cast members in a preview of song and dance selections. Mt. Zion UME Church, 1334 29th St. NW.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

11

BUSINESS

INS & OUTS

BY R OBE RT DEVA NEY

IN: LA BONNE VACHE

IN: SMOOTHIE KING

Smoothie King opened at 3122 M St. NW on Jan. 25 and featured an appearance by “Bachelor” star, Jason Tartick.

La Bonne Vache, “The Good Cow,” opened on Jan. 31. At the corner that held the beloved Booeymonger for 50 years, the renovated interior at 3265 Prospect St. NW is now a full-fledged French bistro. Claire and Ari Wilder (Chaplin’s, Kappo DC) are part of the business team.

A Tesla dealership is planned for 3307 M St. NW.

COMING: TESLA ON M ST.

A Tesla showroom will open in Georgetown.

“Plans have been filed with D.C.’s Old Georgetown Board for a new Tesla showroom along M Street in Georgetown,” Urban Turf first reported. “The luxury electric carmaker would be located at the Eastbanc-owned building at 3307 M St. NW. The space will

The first Greco location in Washington, D.C, opened on Jan. 15 at 1335 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Owners Demetri Tsolakis and Stefanos Oungrinis run Xenia Greek Hospitality that introduced the “Greco Truly Greek” concept in 2017 in Boston.

Catbird took over the former space of Lush at 3066 M St. NW. The 20-year-old business says: “Since 2004, we pioneered the idea of fine jewelry to be worn every day, pieces to be layered and stacked over time. Catbird jewelry is designed in our Brooklyn studio ...”

IN: RAILS

Another retailer of West Coast apparel has set up shop in Georgetown at 3239 M St. NW. “Founded in 2008 by Los Angeles native, Jeff Abrams, Rails has grown from a small label — started with just a single hat — into a full collection of women’s and men’s apparel,” the company writes.

IN: ICE CREAM JUBILEE

Ice Cream Jubilee plans to open on 3333 M St. NW (in the old Sweetgreen location) in early March. Founded in 2014, “Ice Cream Jubilee has won best ice cream in D.C. for nine years running ... Our ice cream is made at a dairy farm with milk from grass fed cows,” we’re told.

IN: OSTERIA MOZZA, STARR’S NEXT SUPER STAR, TO OPEN IN JUNE

Meanwhile, Osteria Mozza is looking at an opening by the end of June, according to Jessica Sidman of Washingtonian. This date is earlier than previously reported. Restaurateur Stephen Starr is partnering with Michelin star chef Nancy Silverton to bring an Italian restaurant to the former Dean & Deluca space at 3276 M St. NW and has said, “I am confident that what we create together will knock the socks off of D.C.” Osteria Mozza will include an Italian market, mozzarella bar and restaurant, spanning more than 20,000 square feet within the historic Georgetown Market building — next to the C&O Canal and less than one block from the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.

12

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

OUT: TORY BURCH

Tory Burch departed Georgetown last month. The store opened its doors at 1211 Wisconsin Ave. NW in November 2013.

IN: FAST CASUAL GRECO

IN: CATBIRD

have room to display four vehicles, along with individual offices.” Curiously enough, that same block in Georgetown boasted a car dealership for decades. The more things change …

OUT: AMIGO MIO

The Mexican restaurant, Amigo Mio, at 3057 M St. NW, next to the Old Stone House, has closed.

OUT: DISTRICT DOUGHNUT

District Doughnut closed its location at 3333 M St. NW after a June 2023 debut.

The M Street spot used to be a Little Tavern hamburger joint years ago.

Dr. Lee Morgan with Lucy in front of Georgetown Veterinary Hospital on M Street which will be moving to Prospect Street in April.

Georgetowner photo.

BY KATE OC ZYPOK

MOVING: GEORGETOWN VETERINARY HOSPITAL TO PROSPECT ST. IN APRIL

After more than 65 years as a veterinary clinic and 23 years as the Georgetown Veterinary Hospital under the leadership of Dr. Lee Morgan, the well-known spot for animal care at 2916 M St. NW will move to 3251 Prospect St. NW in April, according to Kris Morgan.

That space is part of the Georgetown Court complex that includes Cafe Milano, Peacock Cafe and Brasserie Liberte. The Georgetown Veterinary Hospital will be on the ground level inside the courtyard, where Georgetown Billiards was years ago. (No word about dogs and cats getting any fancy leftovers.)

It’s a busy time for the doctor. Morgan’s new book, “Four Thousand Paws, Caring for the Dogs of the Iditarod: A Veterinarian’s Story,” makes its debut on Feb. 27.

RENOVATING: GEORGETOWN WINE & SPIRITS

Relax, folks. The owner of Georgetown Wine & Spirits at 2701 P St. NW is just doing an update of the liquor store. Phase one included new refrigeration units and a terra-cotta floor.

Next up: new windows and exterior work.

A sign on the front door reads: “Excuse Us While We Get The Drinks Ready.”

D.C. LAW REMOVES WAITING PERIOD BEFORE DIVORCE

There’s a new law in the District jettisoning the waiting period for couples who want to divorce. The law is in response to an effort to help domestic violence survivors leave abusive spouses faster. Before the law went into effect, couples could divorce after living separately for six months, as long as both parties agreed.

If one half of the couple objected to the divorce, the duo would have to remain legally married for one year.

METRO AVOIDS CLOSING STATIONS BUT FARE INCREASES LOOM

If the WMATA budget is approved, riders will see a 12.5 percent increase in fares starting July 1. All Metro stations (98 to be exact) will stay open, but in addition to fare increases, riders will have to deal with more six-car trains running than eight-car ones. D.C.’s Metro system is distinctive in that its funding comes from three separate sources rather than just one, like most public transportation systems.

COMING: M.M. LAFLEUR

Women’s clothing store, M.M. LaFleur, is coming to 1344 Wisconsin Ave. NW where Doc Dalinsky’s Georgetown Pharmacy once stood. Founder and CEO, Sarah LaFleur teamed up with Miyako Nakamura (the former head designer of Zac Posen) and Narie Foster to launch M.M. LaFleur in 2013.

Mike Gill has died after a carjacking spree in downtown D.C. Photo by Marion Meakem.

TWO FATHERS, ONE A FORMER TRUMP OFFICIAL, DIE AFTER CARJACKING SPREE

Mike Gill, a father of three and former Trump official died nearly a week after a carjacking spree spanning the District and Maryland.

Former top exec in the Housing Policy Council, Gill was sitting in his car parked along K Street NW just before 6 p.m. on January 29. The suspect jumped into Gill’s jeep, shot him and left the scene, later carjacking and killing another person, Alberto Jasquez, Jr., 35, on the 300 block of N Street.

NEXT ROUND OF CICADA INVASIONS WILL (THANKFULLY) SKIP THE AREA

Cicada broods XIII and XIX, which come out every 17 years and 13 years, respectively, will not be gracing the area with their presence this summer. The first time both broods have synced arrival since 1803, the broods are set to meet in Illinois. Researchers plan to examine the bugs’ mating capabilities. Luckily, Washingtonians’ ears will be spared.

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS SAFEWAY BOOSTS SECURITY, INSTALLS GATES IN WAKE OF SOARING CRIME

The Safeway on Columbia Road has added security gates where customers will need to scan receipts to leave the store. The security measures come in the wake of an employee at the store hearing “unknown items” falling and being knocked over. Three suspects in ski masks demanded the employee get to the ground. The worker then ran to the basement of the Safeway and called 911. The suspects destroyed an ATM and took an undisclosed amount of cash.

SPRING ARTS PREVIEW

CELEBRATING 125 YEARS OF THE DUKE “Duke Ellington,” 1956. Peter Hurd. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

13

PERFORMING ARTS

PERFORMING ARTS

BY R ICHA RD S E L DE N

DUKE

ELLINGTON

125

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., orchestra leader and composer Edward Kennedy Ellington was nicknamed “Duke” early on for his sense of style. These events celebrate the 125th anniversary of his birth, on April 29, 1899.

Singer Lisa Fischer joins the Duke Ellington Orchestra, conducted by Ellington’s grandson, for two shows in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (March 15). In the Concert Hall, Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser leads the National Symphony Orchestra in “Symphony Swing!

An Evening of Duke Ellington” (March 15 and 16) and a family-concert version (March 17).

“Solo Ellington,” in the Eisenhower Theater, features pianist Jason Moran, Kennedy Center artistic director for jazz (April 10).

Three programs follow in the Terrace Theater: “Beyond Category: The Concert Music of Duke Ellington” by PostClassical Ensemble, led by Angel Gil-Ordóñez (April 16); “Celebrating Ellington,” a performance by cellist Tomeka Reid (April 24); and “Three Keys to Ellington,” two shows by pianists Justin Kauflin, José André Montaño and Matthew Whitaker (April 26).

On Ellington’s birthday, Cyrus Chestnut offers

his own piano interpretation of the “Sacred Concerts” in the Concert Hall (April 29).

In May, the Cathedral Choral Society, the Heritage Signature Chorale and Pershing’s Own U.S. Army Blues perform Ellington’s “Sacred Concert” in Washington National Cathedral, conducted by CCS Music Director Steven Fox (May 19).

JAZZ,

HIP

HOP,

LATIN

AND

ROCK

Jazz stars booked into Georgetown’s Blues Alley: soprano saxophonist Marion Meadows (Feb. 15 to 18), guitarist Lee Ritenour (April 11 to 14) and alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett (April 25 to 28).

The Capital City Blues Festival returns to DAR Constitution Hall (Feb. 23).

Along with famed jazzmen Arturo Sandoval (March 10), Emmet Cohen (March 15) and Pat Metheny (April 3), Strathmore hosts top artists from other genres, such as: Ladysmith Black Mambazo (March 8), Rhiannon Giddens (March 18) and Caetano Veloso (April 9).

Later that month: a concert version of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” Terence Blanchard’s

At Strathmore on March 8: Ladysmith Black Mambazo. “opera in jazz,” co-presented with Washington Performing Arts (April 26).

The Barns at Wolf Trap mixes things up with, among others: Ali Sethi (Feb. 24 and 25); Bria Skonberg and Benny Benack III (March 2); Rick Wakeman’s Final Solo Tour (March 27 and 28); Black Opry Revue (March 29); and Shawn Colvin and KT Tunstall (April 12).

Jazz in the Kennedy Center’s Studio K: saxophonist/bandleader Lakecia Benjamin (March 7) and Igmar Thomas’s Revive Big Band (March 29). Returning to the Eisenhower Theater: the NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert (April 13).

Closing out the Ken Cen’s inaugural “Hip Hop & …” festival, exploring connections between hip hop and jazz: the Rakim & DJ Jazzy Jeff & Ravi Coltrane Project in the Concert Hall (April 19).

An earlier NEA Jazz Master, violinist Regina Carter, performs at the Library of Congress with pianist Xavier Davis (April 11). ¡Atento a esto! In the Kennedy Center Concert Hall: Charlie Cruz with Puerto Rican salsa band La Sonora Ponceña (March 29) and singers Silvana Estrada, Silvia Pérez-Cruz and Susana Baca with fusion group Snarky Puppy (April 17).

Coming to the Warner Theatre: Jon Batiste (March 21), Adam Ant (April 10) and Joe Satriani and Steve Vai (April 11). Over at The Birchmere: Marty Stuart (March 28), Marcus Johnson (April 12) and Leo Kottke (April 14).

Bringing the rap to Capital One Arena: Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 World Tour (April 1) and Bad Bunny’s Most Wanted Tour (April 9).

Where we

belong

Tic on s kets start ale now ing a t just

$20

ON STAGE FEB 15 –MARCH 10

In association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Written & Performed by Madeline Sayet Directed by Mei Ann Teo

“Rich with eye-opening and (jaw-dropping) details. ”— NEW YORK TIMES “Deeply moving…achieves what live theater does best: a deeply human connection between performer and audience.” — CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Book today! 202.544.7077 folger.edu/wwb in our historic theater on Capitol Hill

14

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

Photo by Mark Garvin at Philadelphia Theatre Company

PERFORMING ARTS adapted from Barbara Park’s books, directed and choreographed by Ashleigh King. The book and lyrics are by Marcy Heisler and the music by Zina Goldrich (through March 30).

Tim J. Lord’s “Through the Sunken Lands,” a world-premiere musical directed by Cara Phipps in the Kennedy Center Family Theater, follows the interactions of wheelchair-using Artemis, Aunt Maggie and a talking heron. The original radio play was adapted by Lord, composer and co-lyricist Avi Amon, movement director Ronya-Lee Anderson and music director Angie Benson (March 2, 3, 9, 10, 16 and 17).

Also of parental interest: Discovery Theater puts on interactive educational shows, often with music, at 10:15 and 11:30 a.m. in the Smithsonian’s Ripley Center.

Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” is at the Keegan Theatre through March 3.

M

U

S

I

C

A

L

S

Ending soon at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre is Brian Yorkey’s “Next to Normal,” directed by Alan Paul, with music by Tom Kitt and choreography by Eamon Foley (through Feb. 25).

Now playing at the Keegan Theatre: Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” with a book by George Furth, directed by Christina A. Coakley and the production’s choreographer, Jennifer J. Hopkins. The music director is Nathan Beary Blustein (through March 3).

“Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations” closes Sunday in the Kennedy Center Opera House (through Feb. 18).

Next, another Sondheim and Furth musical, “Company,” starring Britney Coleman as marriage-wary Bobbie. Note: Bobby became Bobbie (with Sondheim’s approval) in 2018 (March 12 to 31). Then, a second London-born show: choreographer Kate Prince’s “Message in a Bottle,” set to the music of Sting (April 9 to 21).

Coming to the National Theatre: “The Book of Mormon” (March 5 to 17) and a new adaptation of “Peter Pan” by Larissa FastHorse, directed by Lonny Price, with choreography by Lorin Latarro (April 9 to 21).

Now onstage at Signature Theatre is “Private Jones” by Marshall Pailet, about a deaf Welsh sniper, performed in spoken English, ASL and BSL. The music director is Myrna Conn, the

choreographer is Misha Shields and the director of artistic sign language is Alexandria Wailes (through March 10). Next up, Eva Steinmetz directs Alex Bechtel’s “Penelope,” giving the wife of Odysseus her say. The book is by Bechtel, Grace McLean and Steinmetz (March 5 to April 21). And, at last, “Hair” is coming (but not combing), directed by artistic director Matthew Gardiner, with music direction by Mark G. Meadows and choreography by Rickey Tripp (April 16 to July 7).

Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s “Little Shop of Horrors,” directed by Kevin S. McAllister, is soon to sprout at Ford’s Theatre (March 15 to May 18).

At Arena Stage, Trip Cullman directs the “Unknown Soldier,” with music by Michael Friedman and lyrics by Friedman and Daniel Goldstein, who wrote the book (March 29 to May 5).

Set on a fictional Scottish island, “Islander,” coming to Olney Theatre Center, won Best New Musical at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The two-character show was conceived and directed by Amy Draper, with staging and associate direction by Eve Nicol, music and lyrics by Finn Anderson and a book by Stewart Melton (April 11 to 28).

For kids: Adventure Theatre at Glen Echo Park is presenting “Junie B. Jones, the Musical,”

T

H

E

A

T

E

R

Having recovered over $250,000 stolen by hackers, GALA Hispanic Theatre is open for business with “Las hermanas Palacios/The Palacios Sisters,” Cristina García’s reworking of Chekhov as a tale of 1980s Miami, directed

by Adrián Alea (through Feb. 25); and Patricia Suárez’s “Quijote y Sancho Panza, nuevas andanzas/New Adventures of Quijote and Sancho Panza,” directed by Claudio Aprile (March 9 to 23).

Opening Friday at Arena Stage, directed

by Psalmayene 24: “Tempestuous Elements,” Kia Corthron’s play about Anna Julia Cooper’s

rocky tenure as principal of D.C.’s M Street School, originally the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth (Feb. 16 to March 17).

Directed by Theater J Artistic Director Hayley Finn, Jonathan Spector’s “This Much I Know” — inspired by Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking Fast and Slow” — ends this month (through Feb. 25). Sharyn Rothstein’s world-premiere adaptation of the 1975 film “Hester Street,” with music by Joel Waggoner, rolls in next, directed by Oliver Butler (March 27 to April 21).

Another world premiere: “The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes” by Vivian J.O. Barnes, directed by Taylor Reynolds at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (through March 3), followed by “Amm(i)gone,” a personal and Quran-infused take on “Antigone,” created and performed by Adil Mansoor and co-directed by Lyam B. Gabel (April 20 to May 12).

“Love, Love, Love” at Studio Theatre, directed by Artistic Director David Muse, follows Ken and Sandra for four decades starting in 1960s London. Warning: Herbal tobacco will be smoked (show runs through March 3). Bryna Turner’s comedy “At the Wedding,” directed by Tom Story, is next in the receiving line (March 13 to April 21).

“The Lehman Trilogy,” in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall — written

by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power and directed by Arin Arbus — follows the

The Barns at Wolf Trap hosts Rick Wakeman’s Final Solo Tour on March 27 and 28.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

15

PERFORMING ARTS trajectory of one family’s American Dream (Feb. 22 to March 24). Although it’s bad luck to say the name of the “Scottish play,” STC Artistic Director Simon Godwin’s “Macbeth,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, has both sides of the pond abuzz (April 9 to May 5).

Bethesda’s Round House Theatre presents “A Jumping Off Point,” a world premiere

by Inda Craig-Galván about a Black woman screenwriter accused of plagiarism. Jade King Carroll directs (April 10 to May 5).

Not only is Bobby now Bobbie (see above), but she’s in excellent company. Ken Ludwig has turned his “Lend Me a Tenor” into “Lend Me a Soprano,” now at Olney Theatre Center, directed by Eleanor Holdridge (through March 10). And there’s more: Michael Shayan portrays his Iranian Jewish mother in his oneperson play “Avaaz,” directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (March 6 to April 7).

Who do you think “Nancy” is in Mosaic Theater Company’s next show, set in 1980s Washington? Directed by Ken-Matt Martin at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Rhiana Yazzie’s play also involves “a Navajo mother advocating for her community” (March 28 to April 21).

At Anacostia Playhouse, Deidra La Wan Starnes directs Dominique Morisseau’s “Sunset Baby.” Will “smart and sexy hustler” Nina reconcile with Kenyatta, her estranged father? (April 3 to 28).

O

Opening Feb. 16 at Arena Stage: “Tempestuous Elements,” about educator Anna Julia Cooper, shown in this c. 1902 Library of Congress photograph.

Jacqueline Bircher imagines the uproar when a dictionary editor is caught using profanity in “Webster’s Bitch,” directed by Keegan Theatre Artistic Director Susan Marie Rhea (April 6 to May 5).

At the DC Arts Center, Scena Theatre presents Australian playwright John Shand’s “The Last Drop,” directed by Robert McNamara. Mary and Joe are surviving the collapse of civilization by desalinating water and eating bugs. “Then, a shady couple arrives” (April 18 to May 12).

Whatever Mary and Joe are facing, at least it won’t go on forever — unlike “Shear Madness” in the Kennedy Center Theater Lab (through Sept. 29).

P

E

R

A

Washington National Opera’s “Songbird,” in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater, is an adaptation by Eric Sean Fogel, James Lowe and Kelley Rourke of “La Périchole,” relocating the Offenbach operetta to Prohibition-era New Orleans. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard portrays the street singer (originally Peruvian) of the title, with famed Phantom of the Opera Ramin Karimloo as her lover (March 9 to 23).

Washington Concert Opera’s spring performance in Lisner Auditorium is Puccini’s “La Rondine,” Italian for “the swallow” (the bird not the gulp), with WCO Artistic Director Antony Walker conducting and soprano Ailyn Pérez as Magda (April 7).

Later this spring, Opera Lafayette mounts the modern premiere of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s opera-ballet “Les Fêtes de Thalie” in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater (May 3 and 4).

C

H

O

R

A

L

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC presents “Exhibitions,” “a moveable feast of sound, harmony and dance” at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, with timed-entry between 4:30 and 8 p.m. (Feb. 17).

Sunday in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall: “Living the Dream … Singing the Dream,” the annual Martin Luther King Jr. tribute by the

WARNING:

— 2023/2024 SEASON —

MAY TRIGGER FEELINGS OF JOY AND HOPE

KEN LUDWIG’S ND ME A SOPRANO FEB 7– MARCH 10

Washington Performing Arts Gospel Choirs and the Choral Arts Society of Washington (Feb. 18). Also in the Concert Hall, Josephine Lee of Uniting Voices Chicago conducts a Choral Arts program, “E Pluribus, Una Vox: Out of Many,

Ángel Gil-Ordóñez MUSIC DIRECTOR “(An) unconventional musical program played by a chamber orchestra that...is unsurpassed.”

— The Georgetowner

BEYOND CATEGORY

The Concert Music of Duke Ellington April 16, 2024 • 7:30PM TERRACE THEATER AT THE JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS* An American icon and native son of Washington, DC, Duke Ellington is known around the world for his beloved jazz standards. But Ellington sought to break out of stereotyped boxes and explore broader creative horizons. This April, join PCE for a journey through Ellington’s extraordinary yet little-known concert pieces, including the orchestral masterwork Black, Brown, and Beige, music for film, ballet, and more. Featuring local jazz pianist Ellington Carthan, conguero Felix Contreras, and curated by John Edward Hasse, this concert celebrates the Duke’s 125th birthday!

Tickets On Sale Now! postclassical.com/tickets or call Kennedy Center Instant Charge (202) 467-4600

MARCH 6 – APRIL 7

* Performances are an external rental presented in coordination with the Kennedy Center Campus Rentals Office and are not produced by the Kennedy Center.

APRIL 11– 28

THE ANXIOUS EAR Free Performance

olneytheatre.org 301-924-3400

THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Melissa Wimbish, Soprano

16

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

Seven Deadly Sins

February 25, 2024 • 3:00PM Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon

PERFORMING ARTS Rossini’s “Petite messe solennelle,” excerpts from Brahms’s “Liebeslieder Waltzer” and Lori Laitman’s suffragist cycle “Are Women People?” (March 3).

Heritage Signature Chorale Artistic Director Stanley Thurston conducts the chorale’s 24th annual concert at First Congregational United Church of Christ (March 9).

In Series’ new production “brings together music, poetry, art and creative expression of over four centuries of mystical Mexican female artists.” With the Washington Children’s Chorus joining in, performances of “Las Místicas de México” are at Dupont Underground (March 9 and 10), the Mexican Cultural Institute (March 15 and 16) and Baltimore’s Emmanuel Episcopal Church (March 23 and 24).

The Cathedral Choral Society’s next performance at Washington National Cathedral is titled “Sonic Bloom: Music of Bruckner, Esmail and Gabrieli” (March 10).

C

“This Much I Know” closes at Theater J on Feb. 25.

One Voice,” featuring Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and Ted Hearne’s “Partition” (April 7).

The season finale for Washington Master Chorale at the National Presbyterian Church is “A Bel Canto Salon,” a program of

SEE THE SCHEDULE

L

A

S

S

I

C

A

L

A John Philip Sousa Band Festival is coming to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, appropriately in March (March 10).

Other conductors are keeping the Kennedy Center Concert Hall podium warm until National Symphony Orchestra Music Director Gianandrea Noseda returns for Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 (May 30 and 31 and June 1).

For instance: Simone Young, with pianist Lise de la Salle playing Mozart (April 18 and 20); and Vince Mendoza, overseeing a Leonard Cohen tribute, with Ben Folds, Bill Frisell, Trisha Yearwood and others (April 26 and 27).

More orchestras in the Concert Hall, presented by Washington Performing Arts: the Rotterdam Philharmonic (March 11) and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, under Simon Rattle (April 30).

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Strathmore schedule includes James Conlon conducting Wagner with soprano Christine Goerke (March 2); cellist Zlatomir Fung playing Saint-Saëns, Ken-David Masur on the podium; and Music Director Jonathon Heyward conducting “Carmina Burana” with guest soloists, the University of Maryland Concert Choir and the Maryland State Boychoir (March 16). Heyward will then tackle Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 (March 24). After “Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Concert” (April 5) and Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Lyric Symphony,” conducted by Conlon (April 20), Music Director Laureate Marin Alsop returns for a program of Rachmaninoff, Ives and Carlos Simon (April 28).

Piotr Gajewski conducts the National Philharmonic at Strathmore with soprano Talise Trevigne and cellist Zuill Bailey (March 9); and with soprano Danielle Talamantes and pianist Claire Huangci (April 6).

Also at Strathmore: the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by José-Luis Novo, performs with cellist Steven Isserlis (March 3); and with pianist Awadagin Pratt (April 14).

Capital City Symphony’s season at the Atlas Performing Arts Center includes “Battles Within,” part of the Atlas Intersections festival.

Led by Victoria Gau, the program addresses “the journey of veterans post-conflict (Feb. 24).

Next up for PostClassical Ensemble: a performance at the National Gallery of Art of Kurt Weill’s “Seven Deadly Sins” with soprano Melissa Wimbish (Feb. 25).

Like your music Early? The Washington Bach Consort presents recorder virtuoso Vincent Lauzer at Live! at 10th & G (Feb. 23) and at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria (Feb. 24). Folger Consort plays “Music of Medieval Spain” (March 22 to 24; preview seminar March 20) and “Ovid’s Metamorphoses” (April 12 to 14; preview seminar April 10). More in April, at the Library of Congress: Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI (April 2) and Quebec’s Les Violons du Roy with guitarist Miloš Karadaglić (April 30).

Here in Georgetown: Artefact Ensemble performs Copland’s “In the Beginning” with...

READ MORE ON GEORGETOWNER.COM

ATLAS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

INTERSECTIONS

FESTIVAL 2024 15th ANNUAL

Over 30 performances in STORY MOVEMENT SOUND

atlasarts.org

BOX OFFICE: 202 - 399 - 7993 ext 501

1333 H ST NE DC GMG, INC.

@atlaspacdc FEBRUARY 14, 2024

17

VISUAL ARTS

Visual ARTS

BY R IC H AR D SEL D EN

BUILDING

STORIES

NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM OPENED JAN. 21 Curated by children’s book historian Leonard S. Marcus, a founding trustee of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and featuring environments created by authorillustrators David Macaulay (“Cathedral”) and Oliver Jeffers (“What We’ll Build”), “Building Stories” is an immersive exploration of the world of architecture, engineering, construction and design found in the pages of children’s books. The first national exhibition of its kind, now on long-term view, it was created with children in grades K-3 and their parents and caregivers in mind. Highlights include a “Building Readers” gallery, looking at how the alphabet and simple shapes form the basis of storytelling and design, and “Your Home, My Home,” a theater experience in which visitors “enter” beloved stories to reflect on the meaning of “home.”

18

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

“Marian Anderson,” c. 1945.

William H. Johnson.

Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.

MARJORIE

MERRIWEATHER

POST’S

PARIS

HILLWOOD ESTATE, MUSEUM AND GARDENS FEB. 17 TO JUN. 16 Visitors to “Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Paris” will experience the City of Light through the eyes of Hillwood’s founding heiress. A dedicated Francophile, passionate about French culture, design and artistry, Post first visited Paris at age 13 to attend the Exposition Universelle of

VISUAL ARTS

1900 with her parents, returning in 1904 with her father, breakfast cereal entrepreneur C. W. Post. Over many trips to France as an adult via luxury liner, staying in the Ritz, the Claridge and the Raphael, she became an important client of Louis Vuitton, ordering almost 40 trunks, and of the leading French fashion designers, jewelers, art and antiques dealers and makers of luxuries for the home. Nearly 60 objects from Hillwood’s collection — furniture, porcelain, precious objects, tapestries and wardrobe items — are on view.

fashion designers underscore ikat’s ongoing appeal and illustrate this shared technique’s contribution to global interconnectedness.

IRRESISTIBLE:

THE

GLOBAL

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

PATTERNS

OF

IKAT

MAR. 1, 2024 TO JAN. 5, 2025

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MUSEUM/THE TEXTILE MUSEUM FEB. 24 TO JUN. 1 “Irresistible” explores the ancient resistdyeing technique of ikat, which developed independently in communities across Asia, Africa and the Americas. The exhibition displays more than 70 superlative examples created over the past thousand years in Japan, Indonesia, India, Uzbekistan, Côte d’Ivoire and Guatemala. While experiencing the bright colors and dazzling patterns of ikat, visitors will learn the sociocultural significance and symbolic meanings associated with these textiles. Various traditions of ikat production and usage are presented in separate sections, with short films providing modern case studies.

In addition, works by contemporary artists and

STAR

POWER:

PHOTOGRAPHS

FROM HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN AGE

BY

GEORGE

HURRELL

Drawing on the National Portrait Gallery’s holdings, “Star Power” features more than 20 images by Hollywood photographer George Hurrell (1904–1992), who developed a style that magnified the stars and influenced popular standards of glamour. Hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production chief Irving Thalberg in 1930 — after Thalberg’s wife, Norma Shearer, showed him Harrell’s photographs of her — Harrell advanced rapidly.

As MGM’s in-house portraitist, he produced memorable images of film royalty, from Joan Crawford and Clark Gable to Spencer Tracy and Greta Garbo. After operating his own Sunset Boulevard studio from 1933 to 1938, he became head of photography for Warner Bros.

In the late 1940s, Harrell moved to Columbia Pictures, where his photographs helped build Rita Hayworth’s career. Bonnard’s Worlds

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

19

VISUAL ARTS BONNARD’S

WORLDS

THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION MARCH 2 TO JUNE 2 Co-organized with Fort Worth’s Kimball Art Museum, “Bonnard’s Worlds” is the first major retrospective of the work of Post-Impressionist Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), a founding member of Les Nabis, at the Phillips Collection in two decades. Displaying some 60 paintings, arranged by “measures of intimacy,” the show transports the visitor from the landscapes of Paris, Normandy and the South of France to the intimate interiors of Bonnard’s dwellings. Most private are the images of the artist’s bedroom and bath, often featuring his longtime partner and muse, Marthe de Méligny Bonnard, with whom he lived for nearly 50 years. “Bonnard’s Worlds” unites some of the artist’s most celebrated works from American and European museums with rarely exhibited works from private collections.

FIGHTERS FOR FREEDOM: WILLIAM H. JOHNSON PICTURING JUSTICE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM MARCH 8 TO SEPT. 8 “Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice” is drawn entirely from the collection of more than 1,000 works by

An 1861 woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada in “Staging the Supernatural.”

Courtesy National Museum of Asian Art. William H. Johnson (1901–1970) given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum by the Harmon Foundation in 1967. Born into a poor African American family in South Carolina, Johnson studied at the National Academy of Design in New York, then absorbed the lessons of modernism in the late 1920s in France, where he met his wife, Danish artist Holcha Krake. Exposure to folk art in Scandinavia and re-immersion in African American traditions

while living in Greenwich Village led to his mature style. Johnson painted his “Fighters for Freedom” series in the mid-1940s as a tribute to Black activists, scientists, teachers and performers, as well as to international heads of state.

STAGING

THE

SUPERNATURAL:

GHOSTS

AND

THE

IN

JAPANESE

THEATER PRINTS

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ASIAN ART MARCH 23 TO OCT. 6 Deeply embedded in Japan’s culture, ghost stories have long been a ready source for the nation’s playwrights and an inspiration for its printmakers and illustrators. “Staging the Supernatural” brings together a collection of vibrant, colorful woodblock prints and illustrated books from the 19th and early 20th century that depict the specters haunting two theatrical traditions: noh and kabuki. A poetic A PL AY BY S H A RY N ROTH STEIN

AT

AFRICAN TUDOR

PLACE

TUDOR PLACE THROUGH APRIL 21 Curated in collaboration with descendants, “Ancestral Spaces,” an installation and guided tour, focuses on the individuals and families of African descent who lived and worked at this National Historic Landmark in Georgetown.

IN

MOTION

THE COLLABORATIVE: SOLSTICE THE KREEGER MUSEUM THROUGH FEB. 24

A WORLD PREMIERE BEGINS MARCH 27

T I C KE TS O N S A LE NOW

GMG, INC.

DESCENT

OF

ENDING SOON …

PRO D U CED IN A SSO CIAT IO N WIT H M IC H A EL R A B INOWIT Z A N D IR A D EUTC H M A N

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

PEOPLE

SPACES:

A celebration of six decades of 007 vehicles, “Bond in Motion” features cars, motorcycles and submarines used on screen by James Bond and his allies and adversaries, alongside props, scale models and film clips.

D IR EC T ED BY OLIV ER B UTLER

20

ANCESTRAL

INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM OPENING MARCH 1

BA SED O N T HE F IL M BY JOA N M IC K LIN S ILV ER

1529 SIXTEENTH STREET, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20036

ALSO OF NOTE …

BOND

WIT H O R IGINA L MU SI C A ND SO NGS BY JOEL WAG G ONER

theaterj.org | 202.777.3210

combination of music, dance and drama, noh — in which the performers wear masks — became the official ceremonial art of the Edo Period (1603–1868). Kabuki, born at the start of that period as an all-female dance-drama, went all-male after women performers were banned in 1629. Featuring elaborate costumes and makeup, it developed into a popular form of entertainment in Japan’s red-light districts.

“Merle Oberon” by George Hurrell in “Star Power.” Courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

As part of its guest-artist exhibition program The Collaborative, the Kreeger has installed “Model City (Constraint),” Kendall Buster’s 2016 sculpture of white-painted cardboard and paper, “a sprawling landscape of brute forms.”

Artswatch

BY R ICHARD S E L DE N Times has but one (Jesse Green) — Playbill referred to “a troubling downward trend.” No announcement has been made regarding a fulltime replacement for Marks; in the meantime, Thomas Floyd (“Writer-editor covering arts and sports”) and freelancers Rhoda Feng, Trey Graham, Chris Klimek and Celia Wren have been dropping into aisle seats. The Post laid off dance critic Sarah Kaufman in 2022.

2024 HELEN HAYES AWARDS: MAY 20 AT THE ANTHEM

¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States” is on view at the National Museum of American History. Courtesy Smithsonian.

LILLY GIVES $10 MILLION TO AMERICAN LATINO MUSEUM

The National Museum of the American Latino — with the American Women’s History Museum, one of two new Smithsonian units approved in 2020 — received $10 million from Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment last fall.

While significant, the amount is a fraction of what’s needed over the next decade. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016, cost more than $500 million, a 50/50 public/private split, as legislatively specified. The two museum sites chosen by the Smithsonian Board of Regents, opposite the NMAAHC and near the Tidal Basin, await a nod from Congress.

FOLGER LIBRARY’S GRAND REOPENING: JUNE 21 Closed since March of 2020 for an $80.5-million renovation and expansion, the Folger Shakespeare Library has set Friday, June 21 — a full moon — as the date of its grand reopening, postponed from last November. Timed-entry passes for that weekend will be available in May. The centerpiece of the revamped library, designed

by Kieran Timberlake with gardens by Olin, is the Adams Pavilion: over 12,000 square feet of public space, including a permanent display of the Folger’s 82 copies of the 1623 First Folio.

After the reopening, Dr. Michael Witmore will transition away from his 13-year directorship.

Theatre Washington will present the 38th annual Helen Hayes Awards on May 20 at the Anthem. At the nomination announcements last month, GALA co-founder Rebecca Medrano received the Victor Shargai Leadership Award. On May 20, the Helen Hayes Tribute Award will go to former Washington Post critic Peter Marks. Nominees for outstanding production of a play in the “Hayes” (Equity) division: Arena’s “Angels in America, Part One”; Studio’s “Fat Ham”; Shakespeare Theatre Company’s “Here There Are Blueberries”; Signature’s “King of the Yees”; and Woolly Mammoth’s “My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion.”

NATIONAL GALLERY GETS TROVE OF JOSEPH CORNELL ART

With the announcement last month of a major gift of works by Joseph Cornell (1903– 72) to the National Gallery — complementing the NGA’s existing Cornell holdings and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Cornell archive — Washington, D.C., became the hub of Cornell appreciation and scholarship.

Leading Cornell collectors Robert and Aimee Lehrman donated 20 box constructions and seven collages, examples of which are now on view. A reclusive Queens resident, Cornell is best known for the surrealistic shadow boxes he filled with clippings, maps, found objects and, in some cases, stuffed birds.

20 24

Spring Highlights at the Music Center

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO RHIANNON GIDDENS PAT METHENY CAETANO VELOSO DAVID SEDARIS CHRIS BOTTI

and many more!

Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Caetano Veloso by JP Sofranz,David Sedaris by Anne Fishbein, Rhiannon Giddens by Francesco Turrisi/Ebru Yildiz, Chris Botti

STRATHMORE.ORG | 301.581.5100 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, MD 20852

A MUSICAL SPRING AT SIGNATURE

An exhilarating musical adventure about a deaf soldier in World War I

NOW THROUGH MARCH 10 If we are going to talk about the Trojan War, we need a drink

A witty musical

MARCH 5 – APRIL 21 Let the Sunshine In

The rock musical

APRIL 16 – JULY 7 A father and son take parallel journeys across America 35 years apart blurring time and the distance between them in this beautiful folk-inspired musical

NO FULL-TIME THEATER CRITIC AT WASHINGTON POST?

Peter Marks, the Washington Post’s chief theater critic since 2002, took a voluntary buyout, exiting stage left on Dec. 31. Noting that the Post is now without a full-time theater reviewer — and that the New York

Coming to

SPRING

ARTSWATCH

where the mountain meets the sea MAY 21 – JULY 7 “A Parrot for Juan Gris,” winter 1953-54.

Joseph Cornell. Courtesy NGA. GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

21

A statement drop waist by one of Bridal’s early 2020’s breakout stars: Danielle Frankel.

22

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

COVER

Noteworthy Weddings ALICE ROOSEVELT

Roosevelt married Republican Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth (sound familiar?) in February 1906. Roosevelt was quite the rebellious woman for the time— despite being forbidden to smoke at The White House, she went to the rooftop and did so anyway. She carried around her pet snake and snuck whiskey into dry parties like a modernday Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian.

Roosevelt’s wedding was full of society’s elite at the time. Her gifts were equally opulent.

King Edward VII sent an enamel snuff box, and the Vatican sent a mosaic.

First Ladies & White House Weddings Bride Naomi Biden and husband Peter Neal are flanked by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden. White House photo.

BY KAT E OCZ Y P OK

M

any have been to elegant weddings, but a White House wedding is in a class of its own. The most recent, Naomi Biden’s wedding, was a happy day and shows that weddings are back in a big way. Sarah Fling, a historian with the White House Historical Association, said, “White House weddings are incredibly special opportunities, because they typically come about through a close relationship with the president and first lady—whether for family, close friends, or even White House staff. They also show the important role of the White House as a home, where special milestones and family moments are celebrated throughout history.”

There have been 19 documented White House weddings hosted by the President and/ or First Lady of the United States. The first one was on March 29, 1812: Lucy Payne Washington (the sister of First Lady Dolley Madison) married Supreme Court Associate Justice Thomas Todd.

The Fashion NAOMI BIDEN

The most recent wedding at the White House was President Joe Biden’s oldest granddaughter Naomi. She married lawyer Peter Neal in November 2022, they live in Georgetown.

Biden’s custom, long-sleeved Chantilly lace wedding dress with floral embroidery was made by Ralph Lauren. Reminiscent of Grace Kelly, Biden kept her makeup and jewelry simple. What made jaws drop though was a cathedral length veil made of silk organza with a custom lace border and embroidery.

TRICIA NIXON

Nixon, who married Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden in June 1971, chose a timeless gown with modern touches

by Priscilla Kidder. It included a white crepe molded underslip overlaid by layers of silk organza. It had a trumpet-style skirt with a

court train and embroidered florals for an early ‘70s flair. The choice of a sleeveless gown was considered “unusually revealing” for the time, according to The New York Times. By today’s standards, it was quite modest.

JACKIE KENNEDY ONASSIS

LYNDA BIRD JOHNSON

Johnson chose to marry in December for a holiday season wedding. She married Charles “Chuck” Robb, a U.S. Marine Corps captain in 1967. The White House was impeccably decorated with candles, white roses and winter greenery and around 500 guests attended the affair, dubbed “the wedding of the year” at the time. An altar was built for the ceremony, which was in the East Room.

President Johnson was reportedly nervous as he descended the Grand Staircase with Lynda.

After the brief ceremony, guests enjoyed dinner and dancing. Johnson and Robb’s cake was quite the centerpiece of the affair. Made by Chef Clement Maggia, it featured five tiers of pound cake and fruit cake and weighed around 250 pounds and stood over six feet tall.

Your Wedding If you’re getting married soon, we of course had to ask Durham about his best advice for brides who want to capture the magic and elegance of a White House wedding.

“The advice I would give to any current and future bride is to make sure your dress fits the location,” he said. “If you’re marrying in a cathedral, a cathedral veil and train or if you’re marrying on the beach, maybe wearing organza or tulle, and if you’re marrying in a garden or an outdoor facility, lace is always perfect.”

For brides planning to travel to a destination wedding, Durham mentioned that lace is ideal to pack. “You don’t have to press it, you can hang it up and it’ll fall right into place,” he added.

You can dive deeper into the world of White House weddings by visiting the White House Historical Association’s digital exhibit launched last year called “Something Old, Something New: Eight First Daughters’ Fashionable White House Weddings.” The exhibit was curated by Jillian Staricka, the association’s 2023 Digital Exhibits Intern and MA student at New York University for Costume Studies.

MORE WEDDING ARTICLES AT GEORGETOWNER.COM. • •

WEDDINGS AND WEGOVY THREE BRIDAL TRENDS

Jackie did not get married in the White House, but her dress is worth noting because it influenced so many brides. Recently, Monte Durham of the long-running TLC show, “Say Yes to the Dress,” had the dress reproduced for the National First Ladies Library, on display there now. He grew up loving the Kennedy family. His mother Rose would emulate Jackie’s look and style often. His grandmother gave Durham a souvenir plate featuring President and Mrs. Kennedy when he bought his first condo.

“That kicked it into high gear with me starting to collect Jackie Kennedy memorabilia,” he said.

The replica of Jackie’s wedding dress, made for him by couturier Priscilla of Boston. “It was shipped to me in two different boxes, as the skirt was so voluminous,” Durham said.

Jackie’s dress was an ivory silk-taffeta gown with a portrait neckline and a full bouffant skirt with almost 50 yards of fabric. The designer of the dress, Ann Lowe, was an African American woman who was one of the most in-demand garment makers of the time. Despite designing frocks for many in high society circles, she faced constant racial discrimination. You can read more about Lowe’s fascinating life at the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s website here: https://nmaahc. si.edu/explore/stories/ann-lowe.

Durham collected such an impressive array of Kennedy-related items (including the replica dress), he donated some of his items to The National First Ladies Library in Canton, Ohio, for an exhibit that runs through April 20.

Locally, his hair salon in Old Town Alexandria, Salon Monte, is a nod to Jackie O and provides the best in bridal looks.

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

23

REAL ESTATE DOYLE

February Auction Block

Long Gold, Multicolored Stone and Diamond Curb Link Chain Necklace

BY KAT E OCZ Y P OK First some auction news: One of the dresses Judy Garland wore in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz” can now be auctioned through the Catholic University of America. Also, Hindman and Freeman’s have joined forces. This month we feature auction items from Hindman, Doyle, Bonhams and Weschler’s.

DOROTHY’S WIZARD OF OZ DRESS UP FOR AUCTION

The famous blue gingham dress Judy Garland made famous in “The Wizard of Oz” can now be auctioned to raise money for an endowed professorship at Catholic University’s Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art. CUA had announced in the spring of 2022 it had partnered with Bonhams to display and auction the dress, but legal issues put the auction on hold. Now, however the sale’s back on – Oh, My! The late actress Mercedes McCambridge presented the dress to Father Gilbert Hartke, the head of the drama school in 1973. Bonhams shared that the dress is one of only two in existence that retain the original white blouse and only one of four extant pinafore dresses in blue and white. CUA’s dress was used in the scene where Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West face off in the witch’s castle.

24

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

HINDMAN MERGES WITH FREEMAN’S

Hindman announced in January that it will merge with 200-year-old Philadelphiabased auction house Freeman’s. The joining of both companies will boast a combined six salesrooms and 18 regional offices across the U.S., making it the biggest coast-to-coast presence of any auction house in the country.

Their new name will be Freeman’s | Hindman.

ESTIMATE: $10,000-$15,000 SOLD FOR: $17,920 An 18-kt. necklace adorned in 16 rectangularcut rubies, sapphires and emeralds. There are also round diamonds (approximately six-anda-half carats). The necklace’s length is 36 inches.

BONHAMS Blake’s Edition of “Night Thoughts” SOLD FOR: $5,376 Part of Bonhams “Fine Books & Rare Manuscripts,” William Blake’s edition of “Night Thoughts” was printed by R. Noble for R. Edwards in 1797. It includes 43 full-page engravings by Blake after his own design, surrounding the letterpress text.

WESCHLER’S Andy Warhol’s Mick Jagger Screenprint in Colors ESTIMATE: $80,000-$100,000 SOLD FOR: $95,000 This screenprint by Andy Warhol features Mick Jagger and is signed by both Warhol (in pencil) and Jagger (in black felt tip marker). It was acquired on January 31, 1976 by descent to current owner.

See the full list at georgetowner.com. Listed from highest to lowest sold.

PROVIDED BY WASHINGTON FINE PROPERTIES

FEB. 2024 REAL ESTATE SALES

REAL ESTATE ADDRESS 2438 Belmont Rd NW 3136 Newark St NW 2703 Dumbarton St NW 4435 Cathedral Ave NW 2122 S St NW 3602 Ordway St NW 1601 38th St NW 1111 24th St NW #61 1236 27th St NW 3726 R St NW 3720 S NW 2626 Garfield St NW 4200 Massachusetts Ave NW #112 4970 Rockwood Pkwy NW 4106 46th St NW 3339 P St NW 1437 Rhode Island Ave NW #801-802 2701 35th Pl NW 2021 Allen Pl NW 1831 Mintwood Pl NW 4825 Linnean Ave NW 3245 Nebraska Ave NW 3309 Runnymede Pl NW 1625 Hobart St NW 1420 Buchanan St NW 5316 43rd St NW 1211 O St NW 3916 Georgetown Ct NW 2916 Stephenson Pl NW 5106 14th St NW 27 Logan Cir NW #14 2908 R St NW 1177 22nd St NW #8J 1436 Corcoran St NW 4428 Greenwich Pkwy NW 1413 Foxhall Rd NW 920 I St NW #702 5543 29th St NW 3802 Military Rd NW 2555 Pennsylvania Ave NW #609 1611 45th St NW 4343 Westover Pl NW 1444 Belmont St NW #302 5403 39th St NW 2801 Kanawha St NW 68 Q St NW #A 5120 33rd St NW

H I G H A C R E FA R M

SUBDIVISION/NEIGHBORHOOD KALORAMA CLEVELAND PARK GEORGETOWN WESLEY HEIGHTS KALORAMA CLEVELAND PARK GEORGETOWN WEST END GEORGETOWN BURLEITH BURLEITH WOODLEY PARK WESLEY HEIGHTS SPRING VALLEY AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PARK GEORGETOWN LOGAN CIRCLE OBSERVATORY CIRCLE KALORAMA KALORAMA FOREST HILLS WESLEY HEIGHTS CHEVY CHASE MOUNT PLEASANT 16TH STREET HEIGHTS CHEVY CHASE OLD CITY #2 HILLANDALE CHEVY CHASE 16TH STREET HEIGHTS LOGAN CIRCLE GEORGETOWN WEST END LOGAN FOXHALL VILLAGE FOXHALL VILLAGE CENTRAL CHEVY CHASE CHEVY CHASE WEST END PALISADES WESLEY HEIGHTS COLUMBIA HEIGHTS CHEVY CHASE CHEVY CHASE TRUXTON CIRCLE FOREST HILLS

BEDS 5 7 4 6 5 7 5 3 5 5 5 6 2 4 4 3 3 3 2 7 4 3 4 4 4 3 5 4 5 6 3 3 2 4 5 4 2 3 5 2 3 3 3 4 5 3 3

S O U T H PA W P L A C E

FULL BATH 4 5 5 7 6 6 5 3 4 5 5 5 3 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 3 2 2 3 3 2 4 3 3 4 2 1 2 3 4 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 2 3 5 3 2

HALF BATH 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1

LIST PRICE $8,995,000 $4,895,000 $5,250,000 $5,100,000 $4,850,000 $3,489,900 $3,395,000 $3,090,000 $2,995,000 $3,300,000 $2,799,999 $2,499,000 $2,250,000 $2,250,000 $1,999,999 $1,950,000 $1,995,000 $1,849,000 $1,885,000 $1,899,900 $1,650,000 $1,850,000 $1,650,000 $1,685,000 $1,599,995 $1,350,000 $1,625,000 $1,595,000 $1,599,000 $1,598,500 $1,585,000 $1,595,000 $1,585,000 $1,500,000 $1,545,000 $1,450,000 $1,425,000 $1,299,000 $1,395,000 $1,350,000 $1,249,000 $1,349,000 $1,299,000 $1,350,000 $1,299,000 $1,245,000 $1,195,000

CLOSE PRICE $8,200,000 $5,350,000 $4,970,000 $4,925,000 $4,625,000 $3,325,000 $3,283,500 $3,000,000 $2,995,000 $2,985,000 $2,700,000 $2,300,000 $2,200,000 $2,125,000 $2,000,000 $1,950,000 $1,900,000 $1,890,000 $1,825,000 $1,800,000 $1,757,500 $1,750,000 $1,725,000 $1,691,000 $1,650,000 $1,602,000 $1,600,000 $1,585,000 $1,575,000 $1,570,000 $1,570,000 $1,550,000 $1,506,483 $1,500,000 $1,450,000 $1,440,000 $1,380,000 $1,380,000 $1,325,000 $1,325,000 $1,306,100 $1,300,000 $1,250,000 $1,237,500 $1,230,000 $1,200,000 $1,195,000

W R E S E RVO I R R OA D

The Plains, Virginia • $6,500,000

Leesburg, Virginia • $3,965,000

Woodstock, Virginia • $2,000,000

263 acres between Middleburg and The Plains | c. 1909 brick Georgian main residence | Gorgeous millwork & fine finishes | 7 fireplaces | 4 bedrooms | Lovely rolling and elevated land with mountain views | Open usable land and mature woods | Extensive stone walls, formal garden & terraces | 3 tenant houses and multiple farm buildings

Custom built brick home, 6,000 sq ft | 5 BR, 4 ½ BA, 2 FP, 3 car garage | 50.72 acres | 6 stall barn w/tack room, feed room & large hay loft | 3 run-in sheds,7 fenced paddocks, full size riding ring, trails throughout the property | Turn key equestrian facility | Farm office building w/ 2 oversized garage doors | Stone terrace w/fire pit

Retail parcel in Woodstock, Virginia, directly off I-81, corner of West Reservoir Road and Woodstock Commons Drive | Starbucks, Cracker Barrel, Walmart, Tractor Supply and Jersey Mikes all within eye shot | Zoned B2, potential restaurant, car wash, retail or office | Currently site plan approved for restaurant with pole signage

Paul MacMahon Helen MacMahon

Paul MacMahon Brian MacMahon

Paul MacMahon

(703) 609-1905 (540) 454-1930

GLENDONNEL

(703) 609-1905 (703) 609-1868

(703) 609-1905

Warrenton, Virginia • $1,500,000

Upperville, Virginia • $1,195,000

U P P E RV I L L E L A N D

N E W M O U N TA I N R O A D

Stone Neo-Tudor home built in 1918 | Features light-filled rooms, a center hallway with arched doorways | Kitchen gives the gourmet cook all the amenities for efficient food prep | 5 wood-burning fireplaces | A separate office and gym on the first floor | 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 2 half baths | Stone patio for outdoor entertaining | Detached garage with storage | 1.14 acres

44.55 acres in excellent Loudoun County location minutes to Upperville & Middleburg | Surrounded by large properties all mostly in conservation easement | Land is gently rolling, stone walls, mountain views, mature woods and decent pasture | 4-bedroom perc site and an existing well.

60 wooded acres on top of a ridge | In conservation easement, trails throughout, elevated building sites, 1500 ft of frontage on Little River | 25 minutes to Dulles, close to Aldie and Route 50

Lynn Wiley

info@sheridanmacmahon.com www.sheridanmacmahon.com

(540) 454-1527

Paul MacMahon Brian MacMahon

(540) 687-5588

(703) 609-1905 (703) 609-1868

Aldie, Virginia • $990,000

Paul MacMahon

(703) 609-1905

110 East Washington Street Middleburg, Virginia 20117

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

25

FOOD & WINE

THE LATEST DISH International Flavors and Influences

BY LINDA ROT H From the team who brought you Bar Chinois — Dean Mosones, Mark Minicucci, Margaux Donati — comes Bar Japonais, an izakaya restaurant at 1520 14th Street NW that blends Japanese and French culinary and beverage cultures. It complements what this team did with Bar Chinois, bringing Chinese and French food and beverage dynamics to a new level. Bar Japonais is slated to open before the end of Q1 2024.

Q2 2024 Openings: Kwame Onwuachi opens Dōgon where CityZen used to be in the Salamander hotel (formerly the Mandarin), on D.C.’s SW waterfront, featuring AfroCaribbean cuisine, leveraging Kwame’s Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian and Creole roots. The name refers to Benjamin Banneker’s heritage from the West African Dōgon tribe….

Roggenart European Bakery, Bistro and Café is slated to open its first Northern Virginia store in Ballston at 4401 Wilson Blvd. They currently have four Maryland stores in Columbia, Ellicott City, Savage and Towson. Roggenart translates to “the art of Rye” in German, and specializes in coffees, breakfast sandwiches, omelets, and oven-baked

melts…. From the folks who brought you Osteria Morini comes Cucina Morini, in partnership with Chef Matt Adler, at Mount Vernon Triangle at 901 4th Street NW. From H2 Collective’s Eric and Ian Hilton, who brought you Café Colline, Chez Billy Sud, El Rey, Players Club, Parc de Ville, Solace Outpost, Brighton at The Wharf, Gee Burger, comes Bar Colline, an elegant version of French bistro Arlington fave, Café Colline. It’s slated to open in Q1 2025 at 1900 Crystal Dr. in Crystal City.

Quick Hits: Daniella Senior will open her seventh Colada Shop in the region, in Alexandria’s National Landing neighborhood.

Current locations are in D.C. (The Wharf, Dupont Circle, 14th Street NW), MD (Potomac), VA (Mosaic District, Clarendon)....

Johnny Spero’s Reverie is slated to re-open in Q1 2024 at 3201 Cherry Hill Lane NW….

Hakan Ilhan’s Turkish restaurant, Alara, will open in Q3 2024 where Paolo’s Ristorante was in Georgetown.

Ashok Bajaj of Knightsbridge Restaurant Group (Bombay Club, Rasika, Rasika West End, Sababa, La Bise, Annabelle) plans to

open Rosedale, featuring rustic farmhousetype American food plus rotisserie, at 4465 Connecticut Ave., NW where Uptown Market used to be. It will have indoor seating for 100, and outdoor patio seating for 30.

Ch-Ch-Changes: Todd English’s MXDC Cocina Mexicana will relocate to 1610 14th Street NW in the Logan Circle neighborhood where Dolce Vita and its lower-level bar, Alias, used to be. MXDC is a partnership with the local hospitality group for Dupont’s Le DeSales and Baby Shank on U St NW. B Social Hospitality (Clarendon Ballroom, B Live, Coco B’s, the Lot, the Cove) is a partner in the new MXDC project.

Just Opened: Izum Isakaya, a new Japanese sushi restaurant has opened at 1832 Columbia Rd. NW in Adams Morgan…. The spirit of the legendary Pesce restaurant, founded by renowned chefs Jean Louis Palladin and Roberto Donna, rises again. Pesce Seafood House opens at 1800 Connecticut Ave. NW where Brine was, and before that, Russia House. Judita Doliveira, Brine’s former GM and a longtime Pesce employee, is the sole new operator. It seats 47 in its two dining rooms and bar, as well as a seven-seat private patio.

Linda Roth is Founder and CEO of Linda Roth Associates (LRA), a D.C.-based public relations and marketing firm that specializes in the foodservice and hospitality industries. Follow her at: @LindaRothPR; #LindaRothPR; or at Lindarothpr.com.

L’Avant-Garde Welcomes Partner Chef Sébastien Giannini

BY R OBERT D EVAN EY Georgetown’s French restaurant at 2915 M St. NW renews its commitment to an authentic French experience, partnering with chef Sébastien Giannini — “and inviting guests to fall in love, even more, with L’Avant-Garde,” it says. Closed since the holidays, the restaurant reopens on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. Fady Saba, operator and creative director of L’Avant-Garde, says: “I am extremely happy to bring on Sébastien not only as our chef but as our business partner. He is a master technician and incredibly passionate about French cuisine.

I can’t wait for L’Avant-Garde’s patrons to experience the generosity of his cuisine.”

Giannini succeeds L’Avant-Garde’s inaugural chef Gilles Epié, who helped to open the restaurant on Dec. 7, 2022.

Victoire, in Aix en Provence, and his favorite, the seaside L’Ile Rousse, Bandol, both with one Michelin star.

Giannini has called Washington, D.C., home since 2017, when he relaunched the Alhambra restaurant as Executive Chef of the St Regis, Washington, D.C. and then as Executive Chef of both the Watergate Hotel and the Four Seasons Hotel Washington, D.C., before taking the role of culinary director for a private family and foundation.

L’AVANT-GARDE PROVIDED CHEF BIO:

Sébastien Giannini was born and raised in Toulon, France, Giannini’s first culinary experiences were shopping at the seaside fresh food markets with his grandmother.

Giannini’s culinary career started in Michelin-starred restaurants of the French Riviera and Courchevel, including at the two Michelin-starred Le Kilimanjaro and Leï Mouscardins by Chef Laurent Tarridec in St Tropez. Chef René Bergès at Le Relais de la 26

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

L’Avant-Garde’s Sébastien Giannini.

Courtesy L’Avant-Garde.

LIVE A LIFE BEYOND IMAGINATION

INSPĪR IS WHERE YOU WANT TO LIVE. HOW YOU WANT TO LIVE. Inspīr Embassy Row will redefine opulence for the distinguished residents who will call it home. Every detail is finished to the highest standards — from the fine dining selections and palatial aesthetics to the enriching programming and best-in-class care.

Schedule your private appointment today.

Leasing Gallery Now Open 1417 22nd St NW, Washington, DC 20037 202.293.2100

www.InspirSeniorLiving.com | 2100 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008 | 202.293.2100

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

27

SOCIAL SCENE

Alvin Ailey Gala Raises $1.2 Million Plus

BY R OBE RT DEVA NEY On Feb. 7, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual Washington, D.C. Gala Benefit marked the company’s week-long engagement at the Kennedy Center during Black History Month. Approximately 550 guests raised more than $1.2 million in support of Ailey’s Washington area programs, including

the creation of new works, Ailey’s educational programs for young people and scholarships for local students to attend the Ailey School in New York City. The gala co-chairs were Lyndon Boozer, Sela Thompson Collins, Lisa Warner Wardell and Yelberton Watkins.

Spring Gala Guide

BY KATE OC ZYPOK

FRIDAY, MARCH 15

Spring is fast approaching! Prepare for Washington’s blooming social season with this gala guide featuring the parties and events from late February through mid-June. On our website, we’ll update the list in real time as event details are announced.

TOGETHER IN ART AND COMMUNITY: THE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS GALA

FEBRUARY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24

THE MAKE-A-WISH MID-ATLANTIC’S ANNUAL WISH BALL 6 p.m.-midnight, Waldorf Astoria, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW The annual event raises awareness and funds for children battling critical illnesses.

MARCH

SUNDAY, MARCH 24

THE KENNEDY CENTER MARK TWAIN PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR The Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW This year’s awardee is Kevin Hart.

APRIL FRIDAY, APRIL 12

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24

THE IRELAND FUNDS NATIONAL GALA The National Building Museum, 440 G St. NW There will be a special tribute to Paul S. Quinn with remarks by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).

Gala co-chairs Yelberton Watkins, Sela Thompson Collins, Lisa Warner Wardell and Lyndon Boozer. Photo by Tony Powell.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Enjoy an evening of performances, dinner, dancing, an auction and more, all to support arts education programs and outreach initiatives to connect our community.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS SPRING GALA 6:30 p.m., The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW Celebrate after a two-year hiatus in the newly renovated building. This year, actor Tracee Ellis Ross will be honored.

FOR A FULL LIST OF GALAS PLEASE VISIT GEORGETOWNER.COM.

A highly trained and experienced Nurse Practitioner.

Suzy French, MS, CRNP

LET ME HELP YOU LOOK YOUR BEST! Our services include IPL, Laser Hair reduction, Laser Vein treatments, Chemical peels and non-ablative skin resurfacing and more. Call or book online!

WWW.HELIOSLASERCENTER.COM (202) 4502230 4900 Massachusetts Avenue NW Suite 320 Washington, DC 20016

28

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

Meet the Breast Medical Oncology Team at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

Every patient is unique, and so is their cancer. Our nationally recognized breast cancer specialists are here to diagnose and treat your cancer, offering a variety of treatment options that address your specific cancer.

Through our research partnership with Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center—the area’s only comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute—we are offering tomorrow’s treatments, today.

Our multidisciplinary team prioritizes compassion, respect, and empathy through every interaction because that’s the kind of care we’d want for our family members.

Meet our team.

Seated: Elaine Walsh, MD; Beth Strand, NP. Standing from left: Theresa Harrington Stukus, NP; Candace Mainor, MD; Miriam Jacobs, MD; Joyce Slingerland, MD; Nadia Ashai, MD; Claudine Isaacs, MD

If you would like to schedule an appointment or consultation with a member of our breast medical oncology team, part of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute, please call 202-444-2223.

Georgetowner Oncology Ad 10 x 11.25.indd 1

GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14,3/2/23 20242:10 PM 29

KITTY KELLEY BOOK CLUB

‘Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl’ A DEVASTATING EARLY MEMOIR THAT SPOKE THE TRUTH ABOUT SLAVERY. R EVIEWE D BY KIT T Y K E LLE Y Any roll call of saints must include the name of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), who escaped from slavery in North Carolina and documented its pernicious evils in her extraordinary book, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.” First published in 1861, the memoir smashed the Southern euphemism of slavery as a “peculiar institution” and pulverized the myth of the so-called Free North, which, she writes, also “aped the customs of slavery.”

Like most abolitionists, Jacobs dedicated her freedom years to helping others flee bondage.

She wrote her book “to arouse the women of the North” to realize “the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage.” She wanted to convince people in the Free States that slavery was a foul pit of abomination.

American slavery began in 1619 when a Dutch man-o-war docked in Jamestown, Virginia, and sold the 20 Black men onboard to white colonists. By 1860, one-sixth of the population of the United States consisted of slaves. To read “Incidents” in 2020, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, when the president of the U.S. cheers the

30

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

Confederate flag, is to experience a time warp forcing reflection on the decades since Jacobs published her searing narrative.

Did she ever imagine that it would take four years of Civil War, three “slavery” amendments to the Constitution (the 13th, 14th, and 15th), plus the 24th Amendment in 1964 (outlawing poll taxes) and the Civil Rights legislation of 1960, 1964, and 1968, to give African Americans a path to equality?

Jacobs also established the Jacobs Free School, knowing that literacy led to liberty.

The fact that an enslaved woman could read and write is, in itself, phenomenal because the Anti-Literacy Laws in most slave states made the educating of slaves a criminal offense punishable by fines, floggings, and imprisonment. These laws arose out of the fear that, once slaves became literate, they could forge the documents required to escape to freedom.

Jacobs writes with amazing style and grace, saying she was taught by “a kind mistress” with whom she lived until she was 12. Jacobs then went on to secretly teach others, including

“an old black man” [age 53] named “Uncle Fred,” who begged her for “learnin.” Within six months, he had read through the New Testament, and she marveled at his progress.

Here she adopts a dialect of the unlettered, which jars modern sensibility, but it was her way of differentiating between the literate and illiterate: “Lord bress you, chile,” said Uncle Fred.

“You nebber gibs me a lesson dat I don’t pray to God to help me to understan’ what I spells and what I reads. And he does help me. Bress his holy name.”

Jacobs tells readers there are thousands like Uncle Fred, who “are thirsting for the water of life, but the law forbids it, and the churches withhold it.”

She beseeches missionaries who go abroad to instead stay home and preach to America’s slaveholders that “it’s wrong to traffic in men, to sell their own children, to violate their daughters…And to shut their brethren [from] the light of knowledge.”

She centers her story on the villainy of her master, a white doctor who tries to bed her as a young child while his wife, although jealous, looks the other way: “Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation.”

The physician’s wife was “totally deficient in energy [to work] but she had the strength to sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped ‘til the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash. She was a member of the church.”

Young and pretty, Jacobs frequently “passed” because “in complexion my parents were a light shade of brownish yellow, and were termed mulattoes.” But being attractive was a heavy burden for a slave: “If God has bestowed beauty on a slave, it will prove her greatest curse. That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave… Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women… [T]hey have wrongs and suffering and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

Writing with 19th-century decorum, Jacobs shrouds the grisly rapes and violent sexual assaults endured by female slaves as “the guilty practices of the Master,” “his unspeakable acts,” and “wrongs which even the grave does not bury.” She enraged her master by taking a white lawyer as her lover and having his two children. The lawyer, who became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, purchased the children from the doctor and let them live with Jacobs’ grandmother, a freed slave.

The lawyer did not free the children, however, because, as she writes, a white man “may have a shoal of colored children without any disgrace, but if he is known to purchase

them with the view of setting them free, the example is thought to be dangerous to their ‘peculiar institution,’ and he becomes unpopular.”

At the age of 27, Jacobs engineered her escape, which so enraged her master that he hired bounty hunters to chase her down. She managed to evade capture, though, even when she secretly returned to North Carolina.

With sly cunning, Jacobs wrote a letter to the doctor indicating she was walking free on the streets of New York. She got it smuggled to a fleeing slave, who, in turn, had it posted in the North and delivered back to North Carolina, where Jacobs was hiding — splayed in the crawlspace of her grandmother’s attic — a few hundred yards from the doctor’s home. Her ruse ensured her safety as she waited for the opportunity to free her children.

Jacobs hid in her grandmother’s attic for seven years — and could barely stand up straight when she finally emerged — before abolitionists purchased freedom for her and her children. But while she was grateful, she writes, “I despise the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or his.”

Her grandmother, who protected the family, lived to rejoice in Jacobs’ freedom, but soon Jacobs received a somber letter with a black seal. She writes that her beloved grandmother had gone “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” She concludes her narrative by cherishing what she had fought for in bondage: “Readers, my story ends with freedom, not in the usual way, with marriage… or a hearth or home… which is still my dream… [but] I and my children are now free.”

(Note: A collection of slave narratives, part of the WPA Federal Writers’ Project of the Great Depression, is housed at the Library of Congress. Visit www.loc.gov/collections/ slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writersproject-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection.)

Georgetown resident Kitty Kelley has written several number-one New York Times best-sellers, including “The Family: The Real Story Behind the Bush Dynasty.” Her most recent books include “Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys” and “Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the March on Washington.” She serves on the board of BIO (Biographers International Organization) and Washington Independent Review of Books, where this review originally appeared.

Retired or semi-retired?

Looking for something different?

New to the area?

Want to recharge your intellectual batteries?

TAKE CLASSES WITH US This spring, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at AU is offering over 90 eight-to-tenweek courses on a broad range of subjects, including history, politics, literature, languages, arts, music, STEM, economics, social sciences, and more. We offer both in-person, and online classes—something for everyone!

CLASSES BEGIN MARCH 4.

SIGN UP FOR THE LOTTERY

BY FEBRUARY 20.

202-895-4860

www.olli-dc.org

olli@american.edu GMG, INC.

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

31

202.944.5000

WFP.COM

D DOWNSCREST

$8,700,000

1015 Basil Rd. & 1019 Savile Ln., McLean, VA

W. Ted Gossett 703-625-5656

$4,990,000

MCLEAN

6116 Old Dominion Dr., McLean, VA

Piper Yerks 703-963-1363 Penny Yerks 703-760-0744

GEORGETOWN

$6,850,000

KENT

$6,550,000

1633 31st St. NW, Washington, DC

3065 University Ter. NW, Washington, DC

Nancy Taylor Bubes 202-386-7813 The NTB Group

Ben Roth 202-465-9636 The Roth Team

GEORGETOWN

$4,745,000

COUNTRYSIDE

GEORGETOWN

$5,500,000

2900 K St. NW #607, Washington, DC

Nancy Itteilag 202-905-7762 Chris Itteilag 301-633-8182

$4,250,000

GEORGETOWN

$3,100,000

3318 N St. NW, Washington, DC

903 Countryside Ct., McLean, VA

3253 P St. NW, Washington, DC

Liz D’Angio 202-427-7890 The NTB Group

W. Ted Gossett 703-625-5656

Nancy Itteilag 202-905-7762 Chris Itteilag 301-633-8182

JUST SOLD CLEVELAND PARK

$2,700,000

GEORGETOWN

$1,480,000

2609 Klingle Rd. NW, Washington, DC

2802 N St. NW, Washington, DC

Nancy Itteilag 202-905-7762 Chris Itteilag 301-633-8182

Jamie Peva 202-258-5050

GEORGETOWN

$1,399,000

1604 32nd St. NW, Washington, DC

Ethan Drath 202-258-5120 The NTB Group

CHEVY CHASE

$1,295,000

4100 Ingomar St. NW, Washington, DC

Robert Hryniewicki HRL Partners 202-243-1620

UNDER CONTRACT GEORGETOWN

3241 Prospect St. NW #413, Washington, DC

$995,000

Jamie Peva 202-258-5050

GEORGETOWN

$615,000

3120 R St. NW #207, Washington, DC

Cailin Monahan 804-874-1847 The NTB Group

WATERGATE EAST

Nancy Itteilag 202-905-7762 Chris Itteilag 301-633-8182

BRINGING YOU THE FINEST AGENTS • PROPERTIES • EXPERIENCE

32

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

GMG, INC.

$599,000

2510 Virginia Ave. NW #2C-N, Washington, DC

GEORGETOWN

$895K-1.439M

1305-1315 30th St. NW, Washington, DC

Nathan Guggenheim 202-333-5905 HRL Partners 202-243-1620