The Best Medicine: Paula Poundstone - Metro Weekly - November 14, 2019

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November 14, 2019

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CONTENTS

NOTABLE RISE

Pete Buttigieg leads a new Iowa poll, joining Warren, Biden, and Sanders in the upper tier.

By Rhuaridh Marr

THE BEST MEDICINE After 40 years of performing stand-up, Paula Poundstone has decided that nothing heals the soul quite like laughter.

Interview by Randy Shulman

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Volume 26 Issue 28

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PRODIGY

Folger’s Amadeus offers an entertaining f light of historical fancy in the fictitious battle of Salieri v. Mozart.

By Kate Wingfield

SPOTLIGHT: METROCOOKING DC p.7 OUT ON THE TOWN p.10 HORN STAR: BRIAN NEWMAN p.12 THE FEED: BASHING BIGOTRY p.20 COMMUNITY: BOARD CITY p.21 COMMUNITY CALENDAR p.21 FILM: MARRIAGE STORY p.32 STAGE: AMADEUS p.34 STAGE: AGNES OF GOD p.36 STAGE: A CHORUS LINE p.37 NIGHTLIFE: PITCHERS & A LEAGUE OF HER OWN p.39 NIGHTLIFE LISTINGS p.40 NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS p.41 LAST WORD p.46 Washington, D.C.’s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 25 Years Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrators David Amoroso, Scott G. Brooks Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Troy Petenbrink, Bailey Vogt, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla Patron Saint Joan Rivers Cover Photography Michael Schwartz Metro Weekly 1775 I St. NW, Suite 1150 Washington, DC 20006 202-638-6830 All material appearing in Metro Weekly is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publishers. Metro Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials submitted for publication. All such submissions are subject to editing and will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Metro Weekly is supported by many fine advertisers, but we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers, nor can we accept responsibility for materials provided by advertisers or their agents. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in Metro Weekly is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.

© 2019 Jansi LLC.

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Spotlight

MetroCooking DC & Entertainment Show

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OTH A HOLIDAY TREAT AND A SHOPPING PREserve, “The Ultimate Foodie Outing” is the area’s biggest specialty food and culinary event. Martha Stewart and Wolfgang Puck are the headliners on the James Beard Foundation Cooking Stage at the 14th annual showcase also featuring Lidia Bastianich, Myron Mixon, Justin Severino, Fernando Desa of Goya Foods, and Lauren Katz, a D.C. native and winner of ABC’s The Great Holiday Baking Show, as well as many of D.C’s best and newest chefs, including Amy Brandwein, Victor Albisu, Erik Bruner-Yang, Haidar Karoum, Daniela Moreira, Kwame Onwuachi, Kevin Tien, and Enrique Limardo.

Also on hand: Two hundred specialty food vendors, including a two-day Beer, Wine & Spirits section, a BBQ Bash on

Saturday, Nov. 16, and the 7th annual Grand Tasting Pavilion featuring over 50 local restaurants, with a portion of proceeds benefiting So Others Might Eat (S.O.M.E.) on Sunday, Nov. 17, and Cooking Classes and Workshops offered throughout.

The show starts at 10 a.m. both days. Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW. General admission tickets are $21.50 in advance, including admission to the James Beard Cooking Stage and the Exhibitor Marketplace. The individual classes and workshops as well as access to the Beer, Wine & Spirits Garden, the BBQ Bash and the Grand Tasting Pavilion are all special ticketed items and sold separately. Call 866-840-8822 or visit www.metrocookingdc.com.

– Doug Rule NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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Spotlight LOVERS’ VOWS

MARK WILLIAMS HOELSCHER

Although it plays a prominent role in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Elizabeth Inchbald’s play Lovers’ Vow is otherwise, particularly on stage, a “criminally forgotten show.” That’s according to We Happy Few Productions, which is working to transform classic texts for modern sensibilities. The company’s Kerry McGee directs a five-person ensemble reviving this moving comedy by Inchbald, billed as “a near-forgotten female playwright” from the 18th century. A story of love, class, and doing the right thing, Lovers’ Vows puts in stark relief the divide between peer or social expectations and one’s own needs and desires. The production features music from local band the North Country. To Nov. 23. Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 7th St. SE. Tickets are $20. Call 202-547-6839 or visit www.chaw.org.

CECE PENISTON

MICHAEL CREAGH

The gospel- and theater-trained vocalist’s biggest international hit “Finally” began as a poem that she wrote in college. Raised in Phoenix, where she still resides, Peniston, who’s had five Billboard Dance Chart No. 1s — including “We Got a Love Thang” — marvels at how “Finally” has become not just her signature tune but also part of the soundtrack of people’s love stories and coming out stories, and countless drag performances, thanks in part to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. “To see a little poem that you were writing when you were 21-years old turn into this big song that people still love to this day, and has become a classic, is always love for me,” Peniston told Metro Weekly before a March run at City Winery DC, where she returns as an early Thanksgiving treat. Friday, Nov. 15. Doors at 6 p.m. 1350 Okie St. NE. Tickets are $35 to $45. Call 202-2502531 or visit www.citywinery.com.

THE GAMER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

KEN RUBIN

Billed as “the first collegiate ensemble exclusively devoted to performing orchestral arrangements of video game music,” this student-run orchestra, founded in 2005 by Michelle Eng, now boasts a roster of more than 100 musicians. The Fall Concert features pieces from Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, and Fire Emblem, among others, all performed in arrangements created by orchestra members and alumni. Monday, Nov. 18, and Sunday, Nov. 24, at 7 p.m. Dekelboum Concert Hall in The Clarice at the University of Maryland, University Boulevard and Stadium Drive. College Park. Tickets are free but required. Call 301-405-ARTS or visit www.theclarice.umd.edu.

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Spotlight AN EVENING WITH SOPHIA LOREN

The legendary, Oscar-winning actress comes to the area for two intimate, live, on-stage evenings — purportedly out of only five nationwide — through which she’ll share stories and show clips from her life and career, and answer questions from the audience. Steve Parsall, the former film critic for the Tampa Bay Tribune, hosts the discussions, part of the Guest Artist Series presented by the Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center of Montgomery College and a complement to the organization’s Sophia Loren Film Festival (see Film section). Wednesday, Nov. 20, and Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m. Montgomery College’s Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center, 51 Mannakee St., Rockville. Tickets are $100 to $150, or $550 for VIP including premium seating, a Meet & Greet and professional photograph with Loren, official laminated badge, and film series pass. Call 240-567-5301 or visit www.montgomerycollege.edu/PAC.

RUBBERBANDANCE GROUP: VIC’S MIX

A contemporary company from Montreal that aims to bridge “the grace and structure of classical ballet and the raw, improvisational moves of hip-hop,” through a signature namesake dance technique.

In the program Vic’s Mix, the innovative ensemble showcases the creations by, as well as the evolution of, company founder Victor Quijada over a 15-year span, incorporating the Los Angeles native’s experiences from urban street and club dancing to his professional work with acclaimed post-modern and ballet companies. Friday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4373 Mason Pond Drive, Fairfax. Tickets are $29 to $48. Call 888-9452468 or visit www.cfa.gmu.edu.

BYRON SPENCER

KIM PETRAS

A performer at Capital Pride in 2018 along with Troye Sivan — whom she opened for last fall at the Anthem — the German-born, L.A.-based trans dance-pop artist Petras is a bubbling-under mainstream act you’ve no doubt heard here or there via hits “Heart to Break,” “I Don’t Want It All,” “All I Do Is Cry,” and “Broken.” Earlier this year, the 27-year-old stopped at the Fillmore Silver Spring on a tour supporting her full-length debut Clarity. Petras returns a mere few months later to promote a follow-up full-length set, Turn Off The Light. Alex Chapman opens. Wednesday, Nov. 20. Doors at 7:30 p.m. 8656 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Tickets are $38.50. Call 301-960-9999 or visit www.fillmoresilverspring.com.

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DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.

Out On The Town

NATIONAL TREASURE

The National Archives presents a 15th anniversary screening of the blockbuster about a good treasure hunter vs. an evil one (Nicolas Cage and Sean Bean) battling it out over the Declaration of Independence, which is housed in the Archives. Jon Turteltaub’s film increased the public’s awareness of the institution — while also causing some to erroneously believe the Declaration features a treasure map printed on its backside — and that is the reasoning behind this special screening, which will be preceded with “fun activities related to the film and the Declaration.” These include a post-Halloween costume contest (“Come dressed as your favorite National Treasure or Nicolas Cage character and you might win a prize,” touts the event’s official notice). Thursday, November 21, at 6:30 P.M. William G. McGowan Theater in the National Archives Museum, Constitution Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets NW. NW. Free, with reservations recommended, as it’s firstcome, first-seated. Call 202-357-6814 or visit www.archivesfoundation.org.

Compiled by Doug Rule

FILM CHARLIE’S ANGELS

It’s been 16 years since the Angels last graced our screens, which in Hollywood terms means it’s long overdue for a comeback. Enter Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, and Naomi Scott as the new trio, supported by three Bosleys: Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, and Patrick Stewart. Banks wrote, directed, and produced this film, which isn’t a reboot or a remake, but rather a continuation of the original TV series and the early 2000s films. Opens Friday, Nov. 15.

Area theaters. Visit www.fandango. com. (Rhuaridh Marr)

HONEY BOY

Critics have been sweet on Alma Har’el’s film ever since it was shown at Sundance back in January. Shi LaBeouf turned rehab into redemption by tackling his own demons and writing a semi-autobiographical drama based on his childhood as well as the relationship with his

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father during the time he took his first steps into acting and celebrity life. LaBeouf plays the father, while Noah Jupe and Lucas Hedges star as young and grown-up versions of Otis, a young actor navigating stardom and ultimately crashing into rehab and recovery. Opens Friday, Nov. 15. Area theaters. Visit www. fandango.com. (RM)

METROPOLIS

As part of its annual month-long Silent Cinema Showcase, AFI screens Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi masterpiece with live accompaniment from the eclectic instrumentalists in the Alloy Orchestra. This futuristic urban dystopia, featuring a city sharply divided between its working class population and city planners, will be shown via the 2010 restoration, considered the definitive edition due to its addition of more than 25 minutes of restored, previously lost footage. Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring.

Tickets are $18 to $20, or $150 to $175 for a Silent Cinema All-Access Pass. Call 301-495-6720 or visit afi. com/Silver.

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SOPHIA LOREN FILM FESTIVAL

The Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center on the Rockville campus of Montgomery College will screen 10 films in as many days starring the Oscar-winning Italian actress, half of them directed by Vittorio De Sica. The festival kicks off Friday, Nov. 15, with Marriage Italian Style from 1964 and continues with Sunflower from 1970 and A Special Day from 1977, both on Saturday, Nov. 16; Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, an Oscarwinner for Best Foreign Language Film from 1963, and Boccaccio ’70 from 1962, both on Sunday, Nov. 17; Two Women, the 1961 film that garnered Loren the Best Actress Oscar, a first for both a non-English-language performance and to an Italian actress, on Tuesday, Nov. 19; Melville Shavelson’s Houseboat from 1958, on Friday, Nov. 22; and Howard Deutch’s Grumpier Old Men from 1995, Martin Ritt’s The Black Orchid from 1958, both on Saturday, Nov. 23. It all concludes on Sunday, Nov. 24 with Stanley Donen’s Arabesque from 1966. Located at 51 Mannakee St.

in Rockville. Tickets are $5 per screening, or $550 for VIP including festival pass. Call 240-567-5301 or visit www.montgomerycollege. edu/PAC.

THE ’BURBS

Both Northern Virginia outposts of the Alamo Drafthouse are now toward the end of a series that the national theater chain has organized for the run-up to the big November holiday. No, not that one, but close: Hanksgiving, as in the famous Hollywood actor. ‘Tis the season, according to the Alamo, “to reflect on the things that give us warmth and good cheer [and] make life worth living. We’re speaking, of course, about Tom Hanks movies.”

The Alamo lays it on even thicker as it describes the series as one intended to “give Hanks to the most purely likeable man to ever grace humanity, and spend the holidays enjoying some of his finest films.”

Apollo 13 from 1995 is the last in the series (Saving Private Ryan kicked things off last week), but up next is this 1989 satire of suburban life from director Joe Dante (Gremlins) and co-starring Carrie Fisher as

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the other half of a normal, everyday couple whose very existence may be threatened by the (alleged) cannibals who move in next door.

Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 7 p.m. Alamo Drafthouse - Woodbridge, 15200 Potomac Town Place, Ste. 100, and One Loudoun - 20575 Easthampton Plaza, Ashburn. Tickets are $10.

Visit www.drafthouse.com/northern-virginia.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

COURTESY OF WOLF TRAP

Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins star as inmates who become improbable friends in this powerful adaptation of a Stephen King story set in Maine’s Shawshank State Prison. Written and directed by Frank Darabont (The Green Mile), The Shawshank Redemption is next up in the Capital Classics series presented by Landmark’s West End Cinema, in recognition of the film’s 25th anniversary. Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 1:30, 4:30, and 7:30 p.m. 2301 M St. NW. Happy hour from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $12.50 each.

Call 202-534-1907 or visit www. landmarktheatres.com.

STAGE BLUE CAMP

HORN STAR

Leading his band or blowing his horn alongside Lady Gaga, Brian Newman represents many styles of great American music. By André Hereford

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MUSICIAN’S MUSICIAN, JAZZ TRUMPETER AND BANDLEADER BRIAN NEWMAN can croon a Cole Porter tune, blast a sizzling horn solo at the bridge, then bring it home for the big finish alongside the other members of his tight quintet. Most nights, audiences in Las Vegas can catch Newman and his band — Alex Smith on piano, Steve Kortyka playing tenor sax, Daniel Foose on electric bass, and drummer Nolan Byrd — swinging at the NoMad Las Vegas, or backing up Lady Gaga at the Park MGM in her Jazz & Piano residency. As Gaga takes a brief hiatus, Newman and crew are taking their show on the road, and are set to shake, rattle, and roll next week at The Barns at Wolf Trap.

“We're going to bring the electric band down,” says Newman. “That means the horns have pedals, and we're playing a little more modern music. It's still steeped in this American tradition, but I wouldn't necessarily call it jazz. Whether it's Sting, or Nirvana, or George Jones, or Willie Nelson, or Duke Ellington — to me, that's all part of that American vernacular that's so important to be showcasing, especially in these times in America.”

Inspired by music legends, Newman has also shared the stage with a few, from Wynton Marsalis to Gaga’s Cheek to Cheek album partner Tony Bennett. “Gaga had called me, and she was like, ‘I'm doing this record with Tony, and we want to do some tracks that are a little different, that aren't the big band orchestra,’” he recalls. “She said, ‘I'm going to send in Danny Bennett,’ Tony's son [and manager], and they were going to come in and hear us at the Rose Bar. I told the boys, ‘Listen, they're coming in tonight. We got one set to get on this record.’ Later, I found out that we already had the gig, but at the time I did not know that.”

Newman will return to Vegas in December to close out the year in style with Gaga for her New Year’s Eve Jazz & Piano set. Till then, fans can see the band on tour, making music “in our own style,” according to Newman. “There's elements of this that are jazz, but it's just making it vibrant, and making it feel good. Just having a good time with it. That’s the main goal.” —André Hereford Brian Newman and his Band appear Wednesday, November 20 at The Barns at Wolf Trap, in Vienna, Va. Tickets are $24 to $30. Call 703-255-1868, or visit www.wolftrap.org.

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D.C.’s LGBTQ-focused Rainbow Theatre Project offers the world premiere of Tim Caggiano and Jack Calvin Hanna’s play relating a reallife story from the Vietnam-era U.S. military. Blue Camp documents a baseball game that occurred between two groups of military outcasts: Soldiers suspected of being gay and confined for potential dishonorable discharge in what became known as the blue barracks, and those awaiting trial and potential discharge for actual crimes, held in the so-called green barracks. Weekends to Nov. 24. St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, 555 Water St. SW. Tickets are $35 plus service fee. Call 202554-3222 or visit www.rainbowtheatreproject.org.

D.C. TRASH

As part of its free Millennium Stage programming, the Kennedy Center presents an original musical satire about the upside, downside, and underside of D.C. and its denizens.

To be more specific, as you can guess from its title, D.C. Trash introduces colorful characters and local stories as performed by Ron Litman, a D.C. native and veteran trash truck driver. Saturday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

DISNEY’S NEWSIES

A band of underdogs become unlikely heroes when they stand up to the most powerful men in New York in this musical featuring a score by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, and based on a 1992 film that initially

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FAIRFAX SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: NOSTALGIC NIGHTS

One of today’s most praised classical guitarists, Berta Rojas is also a foremost interpreter of the music of Joaquín Rodrigo Vidre, best known as simply Rodrigo. Her skill will be on full display in a performance of the late 20th-century Spanish composer’s masterpiece Concierto de Aranjuez. Led by Christopher Zimmerman, the full orchestra will also perform Mozart’s Symphony No. 35, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess, and Hornegger’s Summer Pastoral.

Saturday, Nov. 16, at 8 pm., preceded one hour earlier by a More Than Notes discussion with Zimmerman and special guests. Harris Theatre in the George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4400 University Dr., in Fairfax. Tickets are $35 to $60 plus fees. Call 703-993-8888 or visit https://cfa.gmu.edu.

FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN

MATTEO LANE

Roughly a decade ago, after catching a show by Joan Rivers, Matteo Lane was inspired to try his hand at stand-up, which he took to right away as someone who “likes being on stage and coming from a funny family,” he tells Metro Weekly. At first, the gay Chicago native stuck to his guns in advertising, “drawing during the day and then doing stand-up at night. And then I got a job that moved me to New York for illustrating.” Soon enough, stand-up turned into Lane’s full-time pursuit, with guest or recurring spots on MTV and Comedy Central shows, plus enough overall media exposure to be recognized by the 2018 Logo30 — not to mention a steady touring schedule. The 33-year-old will next fly down to do “a traditional hour of standup,” where he’s expected to talk “about all things from dating to my favorite TV shows to things that piss me off.” Friday, Nov. 22, at 7:30 and 10 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 23, at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Arlington Drafthouse, 2903 Columbia Pike.

Tickets are $20. Call 703-486-2345 or visit www.arlingtondrafthouse.com.

bombed at the box office. Molly Smith puts her stamp on the show in a production at Arena Stage. To Jan. 12. Fichandler Stage in the Mead Center for American Theater, 1101 6th St. SW. Call 202-488-3300 or visit www.arenastage.org.

EVERYBODY

The Shakespeare Theatre Company offers a radical adaptation of the 15th-century morality play Everyman by Obie- and MacArthur “Genius” Award-winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon). In his revamped and rechristened Everybody, Death (Nancy Robinette) pays a visit to the overly optimistic and sanguine titular character to help knock some realistic sense into them. Everybody will be played by anybody and somebody among the other nine members of the cast, chosen at random, by lottery live on stage before every performance. Will Davis directs the resulting “irreverent, rollicking” comedy also touted as remixing “the archetypal medieval morality play into an explosive experiment of wit and emotion.” To

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Nov. 17. Lansburgh Theatre, 450 7th St. NW. Call 202-547-1122 or visit www.shakespearetheatre.org.

RENT

Twenty-three years after it first took Broadway and pop culture by storm, the late Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning rock musical returns to D.C. as part of a 20th anniversary tour production that has been ongoing since 2006. A reimagining of Puccini’s La Bohème, the show follows a group of artists struggling to live, love, and pursue their dreams in New York.

Cody Jenkins, Coleman Cummings, Aiyana Smash, Shafiq Hicks, Joshua Tavares, Kelsee Sweigard, Samantha Mbolekwa, and Juan Luis Espinal are the principal leads in the non-Equity production based on original direction by Michael Greif as restaged by Evan Ensign with choreography by Marlies Yearby.

To Nov. 17. National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Call 202628-6161 or visit www.thenationaldc.org.

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MUSIC CECILY

Known by her mononym, the young soprano and D.C. native Cecil Bumbray’s sound is rooted in a deep appreciation for mid-century soul and jazz, ’90s-era R&B and contemporary folk. More specifically, it’s rooted in influences from Chocolate City forebears, from Duke Ellington to Gil Scott-Heron, Roberta Flack to Meshell Ndegeocello. She returns to the Atlas Performing Arts Center for “Cecily Salutes DC,” a fifth annual toast to her forebears. You can also expect to hear original selections from her latest album Songs of Love and Freedom, which was named the Best Soul Album at this year’s Wammies and also “Best New Soul on Bandcamp” by the music site’s editorial team. Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7 and 9 p.m. Lab II Theatre, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $20 to $30. Call 202-399-7993 or visit www.atlasarts.org.

Increasingly regarded as one of the genre’s best contemporary bands, the local progressive bluegrass act earned a Grammy nomination for the 2015 album Cold Spell. Solivan and his Dirty Kitchen crew — banjoist Mike Munford, guitarist Chris Luquette, and bassist Jeremy Middleton — returns to the Hamilton for a show in support of this year’s album If You Can’t Stand The Heat. Opening the show will be Philadelphia’s bluegrass band Man About A Horse. Friday, Nov. 15.

Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $17.25 to $39.75. Call 202-787-1000 or visit www.thehamiltondc.com.

FRESH A.I.R.: STRATHMORE’S CLASS OF 2020 PREVIEW CONCERT

Next week offers the debut showcase of the next six budding artists who together comprise the 2020 class of Strathmore’s esteemed Artist In Residence program. Since its inception in 2005, AIR has has helped nurture the careers of 80 artists from far and wide, including Grammy-nominated Christylez Bacon, The Voice contestant Owen Danoff, Prince and Stevie Wonder collaborator Frédéric Yonnet, “queer pop” artist Be Steadwell, and gay classical-crossover composer/vocalist Chris Uruigua. The 2020 AIR Class features pop vocalist Ayo, early folk instrumentalist Niccolo Seligmann, singer-songwriter Christian Douglas, jazz violinist Nataly Merezhuk, folk musician Jake Blount, and composer/ percussionist Lucas Ashby, alongside their mentors Nitanju Bolade Casel, Tom Teasley, Ken Avis, and Cathy Fink. They’ll all take the stage for an evening of cross-genre collaborations at Strathmore’s intimate cabaret space in the new

Pike and Rose development near White Flint in Montgomery County.

Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 8 p.m. Amp

by Strathmore, 11810 Grand Park Ave. North Bethesda. Tickets are $19. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www. ampbystrathmore.com.

NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA W/RENÉE FLEMING & ROD GILFRY

Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming and Grammy-nominated baritone guest perform with the NSO, under the baton of Music Director Gianandrea Noseda, the D.C. premiere of Kevin Puts’ The Brightness of Light. Inspired by the letters between iconic American artist Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, this NSO co-commission comes as part of a program also featuring Richard Strauss, from the Symphonic Interlude No. 2 from the German Romantic composer’s Dreaming by the Fireside to his epic showpiece Also sprach Zarathustra, immortalized by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 23, at 8 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $15 to $99. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

THE WASHINGTON CHORUS: MOZART’S REQUIEM

Artistic Director Christopher Bell conducts the large, 160-plus member chorus, along with orchestra and soloists, in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s beautifully anguished choral masterpiece. The Requiem open the organization’s 59th season as part of a program said to explore the full range of human experience, including two recent works by American composers: Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond, written by Jennifer Higdon and This Mourning, a tribute to 9/11 written by Joel Puckett of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University that was commissioned and first performed by the Washington Chorus in 2006.

Saturday, Nov. 16, at 8 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $10 to $68. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

VIRGINIA OPERA: IL POSTINO

Crystal Manich directs a production of Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s tragic-comedic opera, based in part on Michael Radford’s 1994 Oscar-winning Italian film of the same name (The Postman in English) as well as Antonio Skármeta’s novel Ardiente paciencia in which a long-suffering and lovestruck courier turns to the writings of the great Chilean love poet Pablo Neruda for help in wooing the love of his dreams. Il Postino features an opulent score with arias, duets, and tonal music paying homage to

Puccini, rendered by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and conductor Adam Turner. Daniel Montenegro, Raúl Melo, and Danielle Talamantes lead the Virginia Opera cast performing in Spanish with English supertitles. Saturday, Nov. 16, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m.

George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4400 University Dr., in Fairfax. Tickets are $40 to $110.

Call 703-993-8888 or visit https:// cfa.gmu.edu.

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND

With their lineup of instruments, this Colorado-based string band may seem like a traditional bluegrass band, but they incorporate rock and other genres into a music stew that has earned them fans far beyond the bluegrass belt. The quintet features Ben Kaufmann on bass, Dave Johnston on banjo, Adam Aijala on guitar, Allie Kral on fiddle, and Jake Joliff on mandolin — and all five on rich, harmonizing vocals. Saturday, Nov. 16. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Hamilton, 600 14th St. NW. Tickets are $29.50 to $35.

Call 202-787-1000 or visit www. thehamiltondc.com.

ZOLTÁN FEJÉRVÁRI

Washington Performing Arts presents a pianist among the newest crop of acclaimed Hungarian musicians and protégé of Sir András Schiff, known for his work with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the chamber ensemble Musicians of Marlboro as well as for his solo recitals at major venues throughout Europe and the U.S. This weekend at the Kennedy Center, Fejérvári will offer a program featuring Janácek’s Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 “From the Street” as well as Schubert’s Drei Klavierstücke and Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor. Sunday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m.

Terrace Theater. Tickets are $45.

Call 202-467-4600 or visit www. kennedy-center.org.

display of emotions and artistry that gets to the essence of the art form.

The dancers Adame and Peral, who also serves as director, will be accompanied by music director and guitarist José Almarcha, singers Trini de la Isla and José El Calli, and Epi Pacheco on percussion in a production, presented in its U.S. premiere via a collaboration with Madrid’s Fundación Conservatorio Flamenco Casa Patas. Thursday, Nov. 14, through Saturday, Nov. 16, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. Tivoli Square, 3333 14th St. NW. Tickets are $30 to $55. Call 202-234-7174 or visit www.galatheatre.org.

MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP: PEPPERLAND

The Kennedy Center welcomes the legendary modern dance troupe, led by innovative gay choreographer Mark Morris, for the D.C. debut of a colorful, exuberant work that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the classic album from the Beatles.

Following a warm reception in the band’s hometown of Liverpool, Pepperland comes to the Kennedy Center as a co-commissioned, evening-length dance-theater piece set to an original score by Ethan Iverson and incorporating arrangements of six songs from the album — including “Penny Lane,” “With A Little Help From My Friends,”

and “When I’m Sixty-Four” — as performed by a unique jazz ensemble. Remaining performances are Thursday, Nov. 14, and Friday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 16, at 2 and 8 p.m. Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $55 to $119.

Call 202-467-4600 or visit www. kennedy-center.org.

MONICA BILL BARNES & COMPANY: HAPPY HOUR

In the dance work Happy Hour, choreographer and performer Monica Bill Barnes will be joined by Elisa Clark for gender-bending vignettes and performances in a wide array of dance styles, including jazz, tap, and ballet. They’ll chiefly work to portray two would-be studs — or really, average, awkward straight men — leading a karaoke-fueled cocktail party. Just as in real life, the party rarely ever lives up to even the lowest of expectations.

Barnes started her company over two decades ago with “a mission to celebrate individuality, humor, and the innate theatricality of everyday life.” The University of Maryland presents this “dance show turned into an after-work office party,” also featuring the company’s creative producing director Robbie Saenz de Viteri as emcee, at an affiliated though not official campus cafe/ cabaret venue, where the audience can enjoy snacks, sip cocktails, and serve as de facto participants in

DANCE FUEGO FLAMENCO XV: RAFAEL PERAL & MARISA ADAME: RAÍZ DE 4

Rafael Peral and Maria Adame, two of Spain’s most distinguished flamenco artists, make their D.C. debut in an imaginative new flamenco piece also choreographed by the duo, who are the featured performers in the closing week of this two-week festival, now in its 15th year. After launching with performances featuring the company named after the festival’s cofounder and director Edwin Aparicio, the festival presented by GALA Theatre concludes with Raíz de 4, which explores flamenco’s most primitive roots per its convergence of cultures and the folklore of Spain, for what is said to be an impressive

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Not Safe with Nikki Glaser is busy, among other things, hosting the daily morning show You Up on the Sirius XM station Comedy Central Radio. A month after Netflix premiered the feature-length stand-up special Bangin’, Glaser returns for yet another November weekend run of shows at the DC Improv. Ahri Findling and Andrew Collin open.

Tickets remain only for the show at 9:45 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21. DC Improv, 1140 Connecticut Ave. NW. Tickets are $25 to $30, plus a twoitem minimum. Call 202-296-7008 or visit www.dcimprov.com.

NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED

Nevertheless, She Persisted....Celebrating America’s Women Composers is the full title to a program opening the 33rd season of the Congressional Chorus, which strives to shed light on issues of equal rights through its performance of choral music. The latest program offers a journey from Amy Beach’s groundbreaking Festival Jubilate, circa 1892, up to some of music’s most prolific and innovative women composers today, with selections from Jennifer Higdon, Libby Larsen, Alice Parker, Joan Szymko, and Undine Smith Moore. The program also includes Jenni Brandon’s America Belongs To Us, a work reflecting on the uprooted immigrant experience that the 85-voices-strong Congressional Chorus and the 14-piece Columbia Flute Choir will perform with guidance by the California-based composer herself. he Flute Choir will stick around to perform Serenade as composed and conducted by Alexandra Molnar-Suhajda. Additional performances will come from the local, lesbian AfricanAmerican singer-songwriter Crys Matthews, highlighting songs from her recent album Battle Hymn for an Army of Lovers, while the organization’s 24-member a cappella chamber ensemble will perform the jazz-tinged work Same Birds by Elizabeth Alexander. Four additional choral selections — by Susan LaBarr, Gwyneth Walker, Jocelyn Hagen, and Rosephanye Powell — will be enhanced by virtue of classical and interpretive movements by dancers Aaron Jackson, Darryl Pilate, Helen Hayes, and the women of Joy of Motion’s Youth Dance Ensemble. Sunday, Nov. 24, at 4:30 p.m. Church of the Epiphany, 1317 G St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $39. Call 202629-3140 or visit www.congressionalchorus.org. the party. Thursday, Nov. 21, and Friday, Nov. 22, at 8 p.m. MilkBoy ArtHouse, 7416 Baltimore Ave., College Park, Md. Tickets are $10 to $25. Call 240-623-1423 or visit www.milkboyarthouse.com.

COMEDY JANEANE GAROFALO

Well into her third decade in the business, the liberal firebrand best known for her work in screen comedies was also instrumental in launching the first liberal radio network, Air America Radio, where

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she hosted The Majority Report.

The 55-year-old New Jersey native spent her early years as a cast member on everything from Saturday Night Live to The Ben Stiller Show to the Larry Sanders Show. Garofalo got her start as a stand-up comic, and it’s her work in stand-up that brings her to the Kennedy Center.

Friday, Nov. 15, at 7 and 9 p.m.

Terrace Theater. Tickets are $29 to $39. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

NIKKI GLASER

These days, the creator, producer, and star of Comedy Central’s former

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

READINGS & DISCUSSIONS JOHN BECKER AND MEGAN SCOTT: JOY OF COOKING, 2019 EDITION

An indispensable guide for millions of cooks since its original publication by Irma Rombauer in 1931 is about to get another revision, this one overseen by Rombauer’s great-grandson and his wife.

Bolstering the original focus on home-style American cooking, Becker and Scott have updated the content for modern tastes and lifestyles, introducing 600 new recipes, many of them vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free, including the latest nutrition and food safety guidelines, and offering tips on “streamlined cooking, among other changes.

The duo will discuss the new edition of Joy in conversation with Bonnie Benwick, the Washington Post’s deputy food and recipe editor. Friday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Call 202-364-1919 or visit www.politics-prose.com.

MARK MORRIS: OUT LOUD: A MEMOIR

Regarded by many as the country’s greatest living contemporary choreographer, Morris connects the dots in a new memoir between his upbringing in Seattle absorbing folk dances, to his teenage pursuit of studying flamenco in Spain, to his early, influential collaborations with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Yo-Yo Ma, among other aspects of his fascinating life and career.

After a run of performances at the Kennedy Center featuring his Mark Morris Dance Group, the gay choreographer will conclude a week in Washington in a staged conversation with the co-author of his just-published book, the novelist Wesley Stace (aka folk musician John Wesley Harding). Sunday, Nov. 17, at 5 p.m. Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Call 202-364-1919 or visit www.politics-prose.com.

ART & EXHIBITS ARABICITY|OUROUBA

In September, the Middle East Institute launched a new contemporary art gallery in its newly renovated headquarters in Dupont Circle that aims to put a spotlight on leading visual artists from the region. The gallery has opened with a Pan-Arab exhibition featuring 18 artists and works exploring the aesthetic, conceptual, and socio-political concerns of the Arab world over the past 20 years — including the so-called Arab Spring, or Arab uprising. Curated by Rose Issa, the pan-Arab Arabicity/ Ourouba features works, ranging from photography to sculpture, by Chant Avedissian, Ayman Baalbaki, Hassan Hajjaj, Susan Hefuna, Tagreed Darghouth, Adel Abidin, Raeda Saadeh, and Said Baalbaki.

Runs to Nov. 22. MEI Art Gallery, 1763 N St. NW. Call 202-785-1141 or visit www.mei.edu.

EXHIBITION OF FINE ARTS IN MINIATURE

Strathmore hosts the 86th annual show featuring more than 700 intricately detailed works of art, painstakingly produced in miniature. The exhibition, presented by the Miniature Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers Society of Washington, D.C., draws viewers into a concentrated universe that traces it roots to the 7th century. Opening reception is Sunday, Nov. 17, 2 p.m. On display to Jan. 5. The Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

LINDSAY MULLEN: ADAPTIVE MEASURES

In her second solo exhibition at Georgetown’s Calloway Fine Art, the British post-impressionist Lindsay Mullen aims to create heightened awareness of the effects of climate change on natural elements, expressed through her paintings’ material surfaces. Taken together, according to publicity from the gallery, the artworks urge the viewer to come closer and to recognize both the current deterioration of our climate as well as the potential hope for future action.

Opening Reception is Saturday, Nov. 16, from 5 to 8 p.m. On display to Dec. 14. Calloway Fine Art & Consulting, 1643 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Call 202-965-4601 or visit www.callowayart.com.

STEPHEN BENEDICTO

Works by the D.C.-based abstract fine artist are next up to be featured at Art14, the seasonal art series at the Coldwell Banker Dupont/Logan office on 14th Street NW. Benedicto creates works that are unique, dynamic, multidisciplinary, and polymathic, combining traditional hand-made practices with automat-

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St. NW. Tickets start at $100. Call 202-265-3767 or visit www.keegantheatre.com.

PHOTO COURTESY DQCF

THE DC WEIRDO SHOW: WEIRD AF!

Totally Boys ft. Festival Organizer Kelsie Anderson (right)

DISTRICT QUEER COMEDY FESTIVAL

Produced by Comedic Pursuits, a local web resource, and LGBTQ AF, a recurring all-queer variety comedy show, this festival’s mission is to provide local performance and learning opportunities for queer comedy performers, whether emerging or incipient. The 2019 festival features more than two dozen (mostly local) stand-up, improv, or podcast acts performing across four shows the evenings of Friday, Nov. 15, and Saturday, Nov. 16, at the DC Arts Center in Adams Morgan. That’s followed by after-parties both nights, with Friday night’s at the Mellow Mushroom pizzeria next door to the DCAC, and Saturday night’s down 18th Street to the Duplex Diner. The festival also offers two free afternoon workshops on Saturday, Nov. 16: one focused on improv and led by Mark Chalfant of Washington Improv Theater, the other a guide to stand-up and joke writing overseen by nonbinary queer writer and comedian Maddox “MK” Pennington, and both held at Source Theater on 14th Street. Things draw to a close with an open mic event intended to give festivalgoers a chance to try out their own comedy, set for Sunday, Nov. 17, starting at noon at Petworth’s Colony Club. Tickets are $12 to $15 for each stand-up show, and a suggested $5 donation to Casa Ruby for the closing event. Visit www.comedicpursuits.com. ed systems and machine-rendered designs, all intended “to express the complex ideas of fetishism, transhumanism, and the design of self.” On display all season. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, 1617 14th St. NW. Call 202-387-6180 or visit www.facebook.com/CBRBDupont.

Lucy Stone of the American Woman Suffrage Association, and Mary Church Terrell, founder of the National Association of Colored Women. To Jan. 5. 8th and F Streets. NW. Call 202-633-8300 or visit www.npg.si.edu.

VOTES FOR WOMEN: A PORTRAIT OF PERSISTENCE

The National Geographic Museum currently has on display a timely, temporary collection of powerful images from famed National Geographic photographers. Taken together, the photographs offers a glimpse of both what it means to be a woman in the world today and how that’s changed in the 100 years since American women gained the right to vote. The exhibition also includes stories and commentary from female luminaries, among them Melinda Gates, Gloria Allred, Jane Goodall, and Christiane Amanpour. Now to Spring 2020.

1145 17th St. NW. Tickets are $15.

Call 202-857-7700 or visit www. ngmuseum.org.

The American suffragist movement’s most influential leaders — Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton among them — are, of course, prominently featured in this special exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Yet Votes for Women takes pains to shine a spotlight on the many lesser-known, or at least less-heralded, women and organizations — many of them African-American — who helped advance the voting cause in tandem with efforts to abolish slavery, fight racism, or promote civil rights. Such a list includes Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune,

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WOMEN: A CENTURY OF CHANGE

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ABOVE & BEYOND KEEGAN THEATRE’S 4TH ANNUAL GALA: ’80S MYSTERY EVENT

A murder mystery, stage performances, a special awards presentation, a live auction, and food and drink are all in the offing at the fourth annual fundraising gala for D.C.’s Keegan Theatre, now in the midst of its 23rd season. Keegan company member and co-founder Sheri S. Herren will be bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award, while actor/director Duane Richards will be recognized with the Emerging Artist Award.

Guests are encouraged to don ‘80s-themed attire for the benefit, which helps support initiatives including the ticket giveaways via KeeganConnects, play readings such as the Boiler Room Series, and the Keegan PLAY-RAH-KA’s family- and youth-oriented productions and programming. Monday, Nov. 18, starting at 7 p.m. 1742 Church

The DC Weirdo Show bills itself as the longest-running variety show in the city — and also, as “Queen Weirdo and Producer” Dr Torcher puts it, “increasingly the D.C. go-to show for local performers of color, queer performers, and womxn in the circus, sideshow, and variety performance arts.” The organization is now readying its final show of 2019, dubbed “Weird AF: End-of-Year All Star Weirdness.” Dr Torcher hosts the show at Brookland’s Dew Drop Inn featuring Buhnana Gunz, “cigar box juggler” Saymo Saymo, bellydancer Ophelia Zayna Hart, the “fantastically weird drag” act div0id, “sworn-worthy drag king” Majic Dyke, yo-yo stunts with Oh Yes Yo, Coffin Nachtmahr, and Sassafrass Cambrella, indigenized performance artist Xemi The Two Spirit, the fireeater Max Snax with a spoof of The Great British Baking Show, and the debut of “vaudeville dangerqueer duo” They/Them Mayhem. Friday, Nov. 15. Doors at 8 p.m. 2801 8th St. NE. Tickets are $16 to $20, or $26 for VIP including front-rows seating, a raffle ticket, and goodies. Call 202-791-0909 or visit www.dcweirdoshow.com.

THEATER J’S ANNUAL BENEFIT FEATURING ALEXANDRA SILBER

Alexandra Silber offers a special musical performance in the newly renovated Edlavitch DCJCC as the centerpiece of the annual benefit for Theater J, the institution’s nationally renowned professional stage organization. Silber performs from her debut novel, 2017’s After Anatevka: A Novel Based on Fiddler on the Roof, which imagines what happens to Sholem Alecheim’s beloved characters after they step off stage. Silber herself has played the show’s two eldest daughters: Hodel on the West End, Tzeitel on Broadway. A decade after appearing in the Kennedy Center’s Master Class with Tyne Daly, Silber has returned to the area twice in just the past year alone: to portray Sally Bowles in Olney Theatre’s Cabaret and Guenevere in the record-breaking run of Camelot at Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Now at Theater J, Silber will perform three songs written by composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick, including one song cut from the classic musical, plus a host of showtunes from a new generation of musical theater talent — including Matthew Sklar, Amanda Green, and Will Reynolds and Eric Price — all accompanied by pianist Ben Moss. Monday, Nov. 18, starting at 6:30 p.m. 1529 16th St. NW. Tickets, which include food and drink, start at $350. Call 202-777-3210 or visit www.theaterj.org. l

GAGE SKIDMORE

theFeed

NOTABLE RISE

Pete Buttigieg leads a new Iowa poll, joining Warren, Biden, and Sanders in the upper tier. By Rhuaridh Marr

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ETE BUTTIGIEG HAS TOPPED A NEW POLL IN Iowa, besting his main rivals and cementing his position as a frontrunner in the state. The South Bend, Ind. mayor is supported by 22% of 451 likely caucusgoers in a Monmouth University poll, released Tuesday. Buttigieg, the first viable openly gay candidate for president, has jumped 14 points since August, when he was polling at 8% according to Monmouth.

The results put Buttigieg firmly in the top tier of candidates in the state, leading former Vice President Joe Biden (19%) and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (18%) and Bernie Sanders (13%). However, the poll’s margin of error is +/- 4.6%, so while Buttigieg technically leads, he, Warren, and Biden are effectively tied at the top.

Montmouth also found that Buttigieg has the highest favorability rating among Democratic candidates, with a 73% favorable and 10% unfavorable rating (+63), an identical +63 spread to Montmouth’s August poll.

Second is Warren, with a 69%-23% rating (+46, down from +62 in August), with Biden in third on 65%-26% (+39, down from +52). The poll brought bad news for Sen. Kamala Harris, who has slipped from 12% support in Iowa in August to 3% in November, with a drop in favorability from +55 in August to +25 now (50% favorable, 25% unfavorable).

It also casts doubt on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to enter the 2020 race. He has a net unfavorable rating of -31, with only 17% of Iowa caucusgoers having a favorable view of him. Bloomberg was added to the poll on the second day of its five-day period, and recorded support from less than 1% of Iowans planning to vote in the Feb. 3 caucus.

Buttigieg has risen dramatically since first announcing an exploratory committee for president in January. The mayor is currently polling in fourth place nationally, behind Biden, Warren, and Sanders, and ahead of Harris, according to Real Clear Politics’ tracker.

However, Buttigieg’s campaign has struggled to gain support among African-American voters, a key Democratic demographic. He is currently polling at 1% among black voters in South Carolina, where they comprise over 60% of the Democratic electorate.

Not helping matters was the release of a report from focus groups conducted on African American voters in South Carolina for Buttigieg’s campaign which found a number of reservations about him, including low name recognition, concerns about his youth, and noting that he lacked “passion, anger, and ‘pizzaz.’”

The headline item was a finding that “being gay was a

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed “[T]o suggest that African-Americans are homophobic or that there [is] transphobia in the black community as a community,” she continued. “That’s just nonsense.”

She added: “The reality is that, sadly and unfortunately, in all communities bias occurs, and in particular homophobia and transphobia — I’ve spent my entire career fighting against it, so I know it is a fact. But to label one community in particular as being burdened by this bias — as compared to others — is misinformed, it’s misdirected, and it’s just simply wrong.” l

@KONOPACO / TWITTER

barrier for these voters” — though the report also noted that Buttigieg’s sexuality was not a “disqualifier.”

Buttigieg’s campaign later tried to distance itself from the report, with traveling press secretary Nina Smith tweeting that the “campaign doesn’t buy into the homophobia narrative floating out there.”

Sen. Kamala Harris rejected the notion that black voters would be less likely to vote for Buttigieg because he is gay, calling it a “trope that has evolved among some Democrats” during an appearance on CNN.

BASHING BIGOTRY

Gay Indiana teen suspended from school after punching homophobic bully. By Rhuaridh Marr

A

Warning: This article contains strong language.

GAY TEENAGER IN INDIANA HAS BEEN SUSpended after fighting back against a homophobic bully. In a viral video posted to Twitter, Laporte High School student Jordan Steffy confronts a fellow student who shared an anti-gay Snapchat containing a photo of Steffy. Speaking to Insider, the junior — who has been bullied regularly since coming out in seventh grade — said he’d finally had enough of being called a “faggot” and snapped.

“He made an anti-gay post with a picture of me on it saying how he hated gays and a bunch of throwing up emojis all over it,” Steffy said. “I walked up to him and said ‘Why did you post this?’ He said, ‘It was just a post.'”

Steffy responded that it wasn’t “just a post,” it was “a post about me, saying how you dislike who I am, and I don’t appreciate that.”

He continued: “[The boy] went on to say, ‘Okay, but what are you going to do about it?’ I said ‘I’m not going to deal with this, this is the last time I’m called anything.’ And then he said ‘What are you going to do about it, faggot?’ And that’s when I was like ‘No, I’m not doing this.'”

In the video, Steffy tells the boy — who is standing very close to him — to “back the fuck up out of my face now, ’cause I’m not playing with you.”

“Why you in my face, faggot?” the boy responds. Steffy pushes the boy, saying, “Don’t fucking play with me.”

“Don’t fucking put your hands on me, faggot,” was the response. Steffy then swings at the boy, knocking him sideways.

“Call me a fag one more fucking time and I’m gonna

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NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

fucking pop your ass,” Steffy says, and then starts repeatedly hitting the boy as classmates watch. The video then abruptly ends.

“It’s crazy the amount of hatred I received just for liking who I like and being me,” he told Insider.

Following the fight, Steffy was sent to the principal’s office, where he was subsequently suspended. In a follow-up tweet, he said that his mother “doesn’t agree with how it was handled” and is considering homeschooling him.

Responding to a mother who tweeted praise for his actions, Steffy said that his own mom “told me that she does not condone fighting but this is something she told me it was ok to use to stick up for me and many people who are who they choose to be.” He also noted that the other boy had been suspended, but not for as long as he had.

LGBTQ Twitter has, perhaps unsurprisingly, cheered Steffy on for standing up to a homophobic bully. “I’m sorry you had to go there, but I love that you stood your ground,” comedian and drag performer Miss Coco Peru tweeted.

“Keep being you!” “Thanks for standing up for yourself and for all of us,” @barrybri tweeted. “I threw a kid against a locker in grade 9 after years of homophobic crap. He never did it again. Sad that it still happens. Stand tall, Jordan. And don’t let them tell you where you can or can’t go to school.”

Others pointed out that an adult can be heard in the background of the video saying, “Jordan, that’s enough.”

Users asked why they failed to intervene earlier, given that Steffy was being called a “faggot” repeatedly prior to hitting the other boy. l

Community FRIDAY, NOV. 15

ing testing after 2 p.m. Call 703823-4401. www.kiservices.org.

GAY DISTRICT, a group for

GBTQQI men between the ages of 18-35, meets on the first and third Fridays of each month.

8:30-9:30 p.m. The DC Center.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www.gaydistrict.org.

METROHEALTH CENTER

The DC Center hosts an LGBTQ GAME NIGHT where participants can play board and card games and socialize with other people from across the LGBTQ spectrum. All welcome. 7-9 p.m.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

Visit www.thedccenter.org.

affirming social group for ages 11-24. 4-6 p.m. 1419 Columbia Road NW. Contact Tamara, 202319-0422, www.layc-dc.org.

offers free, rapid HIV testing.

Appointment needed. 1012 14th St. NW, Suite 700. To arrange an appointment, call 202-8498029. www.metrohealthdc.org.

PROJECT STRIPES hosts LGBT-

BOARD CITY

The DC Center presents its

Various LGBTQ board game groups offer a fun and relaxed way to make friends and play games.

ANNUAL WOMXN’S PARTY,

celebrating the LGBTQ+ womxn of D.C. This social event will feature a silent auction including items from Hank’s Oyster Bar, Miss Pixie’s, Yoga Heights DC, the Newseum, and more. Tickets are $25 per person and include one drink ticket. 7-10 p.m. The Outrage, 1722 14th St. NW. For more information, visit www. thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events ANDROMEDA TRANSCULTURAL HEALTH

offers free HIV testing and HIV services (by appointment). 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Decatur Center, 1400 Decatur St. NW. To arrange an appointment, call 202-291-4707, or visit www.andromedatransculturalhealth.org.

BET MISHPACHAH, founded

by members of the LGBT community, holds Friday evening Shabbat services in the DC Jewish Community Center’s Community Room. 8 p.m. 1529 16th St. NW. For more information, visit www.betmish.org.

DC AQUATICS CLUB holds

a practice session at Howard University. 6:30-8 p.m. Burr Gymnasium, 2400 6th St. NW. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

HIV TESTING at Whitman-

Walker Health. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at 1525 14th St. NW. For an appointment, call 202-7457000 or visit www.whitman-walker.org.

KARING WITH INDIVIDUALITY (K.I.) SERVICES, 20 S. Quaker Lane, Suite 210, Alexandria, Va., offers $30 “rapid” HIV testing and counseling by appointment only. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Must schedule special appointment if seek-

I

LOVE VIDEO GAMES, BUT THAT’S SOMETHING YOU DO by yourself,” says Denis Largeron, an organizer of a biweekly Board Gamers event held at Panera Bread in Dupont Circle.

“With board games, there’s a face-to-face connection, where you actually spend time with someone. It’s an inexpensive way to have fun and a very efficient way to open up those who are introverts.”

The Board Gamers Meetup group, which convenes every other Monday, typically draws up to 20 people, with attendance increasing as the weather grows colder. And its not alone in breaking out the dice, cards, and colorful boards in group settings. One such group, which markets itself as trans-friendly, meets at The DC Center for the LGBT Community once a month on Fridays, and another group, Black Queer Women Nerds, holds a monthly event that doubles as a happy hour.

“People aren’t really looking for a date or to find partners. They are looking for a fun time and to meet new people,” says Largeron.

“You have a bit of everything coming to play, from the people who are more competitive and out to win, to those who are here for the social aspect. We have everyone from geeks to very social people, all playing the same games.”

And whether you’re seeking relaxation or something intellectually stimulating, Largeron says that the diversity of board games ensures attendees don’t just have to settle for playing old standards like Monopoly, Parhceesi, or Settlers of Catan.

“The strength of this group is that there’s a range of games, so everybody can find the type of game they love,” he says. “A lot of more modern games are extremely interesting and more collaborative, so you have to work together against the game, or solve a puzzle. It’s social, it’s fun, and it helps you get to know the other players.” —John Riley The Board Gamers Meetup group’s next get-together is Monday, Nov. 25 from 6-9 p.m. in the basement level of Panera Bread, 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW. Visit www.meetup.com/DC-LGBT-Board-Gamers.

The DC Center’s nex monthly Board Game Night is Friday, Nov. 15 from 7-9 p.m. at The DC Center, 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

Visit www.thedccenter.org.

Black Queer Women Nerds next Board Game Happy Hour is Friday, Nov. 15 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at The Boardroom, 1737 Connecticut Ave. NW. Visit www.meetup.com/Black-Queer-Women-Nerds.

SATURDAY, NOV. 16 KHUSH DC, a support group for

LGBTQ South Asians, hosts a meeting at The DC Center. 1:303 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/khushdc.

The DC Center holds a

FACILITATOR TRAINING

session for those interested in leading or facilitating discussions for The Center’s many support groups. 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, email justin@thedccenter.org or visit www.thedccenter.org.

The DC Center hosts a monthly

LGBT ASYLEES SUPPORT MEETING AND DINNER for

LGBT refugees and asylum seekers. 5-7 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

The DC Center hosts a meeting of its LGBTQ PEOPLE OF COLOR SUPPORT GROUP, facilitated by Dakia Davis. 1-3 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a

practice session at Montgomery College Aquatics Club. 8:3010 a.m. 7600 Takoma Ave., Takoma, Md. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

DC FRONT RUNNERS running/ walking/social club welcomes runners of all ability levels for exercise in a fun and supportive environment, with socializing afterwards. Route distance will be 3-6 miles. Walkers meet at 9:30 a.m. and runners at 10 a.m. at 23rd & P Streets NW. For more information, visit www. dcfrontrunners.org.

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SUNDAY, NOV. 17 ADVENTURING outdoors group

takes a moderate 6.5-mile one-way hike with 900 feet of cumulative elevation gain across sometimes muddy terrain on the Bull RunOccoquan Trail in suburban Va. Bring beverages, lunch, mud-worthy boots, and a few dollars for fees. Carpool at 9:15 a.m. from the Kiss & Ride lot of the FranconiaSpringfield Metro Station. For more information, contact David, 240-938-0375, or visit www.adventuring.org.

The DC Center, along with Center Faith, Center APA, and Center POC, host GOD LOVES LGBT ASIANS, a workshop on religious acceptance for LGBTQ Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islanders. 2-4 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www. thedccenter.org.

Volunteers are needed to help prepare CASA RUBY’S MONTHLY DINNER. Held on the third Sunday of each month, in conjunction with The DC Center and Food Rescue DC, the event provides a hot meal to those housed at Casa Ruby. Homemade or store bought meals welcome. 7-8 p.m. Casa Ruby Shelter, 1216 Kennedy St. NW. For more information, contact lamar@ thedccenter.org, jon@thedccenter. org, or visit www.casaruby.org.

Weekly Events BETHEL CHURCH-DC progressive and radically inclusive church holds services at 11:30 a.m. 2217 Minnesota Ave. SE. 202-248-1895, www.betheldc.org.

DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a

practice session at Wilson Aquatic Center. 9:30-11 a.m. 4551 Fort Dr. NW. For more information, visit www.swimdcac.org.

DC FRONT RUNNERS running/

walking/social club welcomes runners of all ability levels for exercise in a fun and supportive environment, with socializing afterwards.

Route distances vary. For meeting places and more information, visit www.dcfrontrunners.org.

DIGNITYUSA offers Roman

Catholic Mass for the LGBT community. All welcome. Sign interpreted. 6 p.m. St. Margaret’s Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave. NW. For more information, visit www.dignitywashington.org.

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST wel-

comes all to 10:30 a.m. service, 945 G St. NW. For more info, visit www. firstuccdc.org or call 202-628-4317.

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NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

HOPE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST welcomes GLBT community for worship. 10:30 a.m., 6130 Old Telegraph Road, Alexandria.

Visit www.hopeucc.org.

Join LINCOLN

CONGREGATIONAL TEMPLE – UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST for

an inclusive, loving and progressive faith community every Sunday. 11 a.m. 1701 11th Street NW, near R in Shaw/Logan neighborhood. Visit www.lincolntemple.org.

METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA services at 11 a.m., led

by Rev. Emma Chattin. Children’s Sunday School, 11 a.m. 10383 Democracy Lane, Fairfax. For more info, call 703-691-0930 or visit www.mccnova.com.

NATIONAL CITY CHRISTIAN CHURCH, inclusive church with

GLBT fellowship, offers gospel worship, 8:30 a.m., and traditional worship, 11 a.m. 5 Thomas Circle NW. For more info, call 202-232-0323 or visit www.nationalcitycc.org.

ST. STEPHEN AND THE INCARNATION, an “interracial,

multi-ethnic Christian Community” offers services in English, 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and in Spanish at 5:15 p.m. 1525 Newton St. NW. For more info, call 202-232-0900 or visit www.saintstephensdc.org.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF SILVER SPRING

invites LGBTQ families and individuals of all creeds and cultures to join the church. Services 9:15 and 11:15 a.m. 10309 New Hampshire Ave. For more info, visit www.uucss.org.

MONDAY, NOV. 18 AGLA, the nonpartisan nonprofit

organization for LGBTQ people in Northern Virginia, hosts its Monthly Board Meeting at Federico Ristorante Italiano. Those interested in joining AGLA are welcome to attend. Those who attend are encouraged to bring along travel-sized unused soaps, shampoos, lotions and other toiletries for A-SPAN, a local organization serving homeless people, or unused nonperishable food items for the Arlington Food Assistance Center. 6-7:30 p.m. 619 23rd St. S., Arlington, Va. For more information, visit www.agla.org.

The Metro D.C. chapter of PFLAG, a support group for parents, family members and allies of the LGBTQ community, holds its monthly meeting at The DC Center. 7-9 p.m.

2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events DC AQUATICS CLUB holds a

practice session at Dunbar Aquatic Center. 7:30-9 p.m. 101 N St. NW. For more information, visit www. swimdcac.org.

DC’S DIFFERENT DRUMMERS

welcomes musicians of all abilities to join its Monday night rehearsals. The group hosts marching/color guard, concert, and jazz ensembles, with performances year round. Please contact Membership@DCDD.org to inquire about joining one of the ensembles or visit www.DCDD.org.

The DC Center hosts COFFEE

DROP-IN FOR THE SENIOR LGBT COMMUNITY. 10 a.m.-noon. 2000

14th St. NW. For more information, call 202-682-2245 or visit www. thedccenter.org.

US HELPING US hosts a black

gay men’s evening affinity group for GBT black men. Light refreshments provided. 7-9 p.m. 3636 Georgia Ave. NW. 202-446-1100.

Visit www.ushelpingus.org.

WASHINGTON WETSKINS WATER POLO TEAM practices 7-9

p.m. Newcomers with at least basic swimming ability always welcome.

Takoma Aquatic Center, 300 Van Buren St. NW. For more information, contact Tom, 703-299-0504 or secretary@wetskins.org, or visit www.wetskins.org.

TUESDAY, NOV. 19 CENTER BI, a group of The DC

Center, hosts a monthly roundtable discussion around issues of bisexuality. 7-8 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. Visit www.thedccenter.org.

THE HEALTH WORKING GROUP

of The DC Center hosts a “Packing Party,” where volunteers assemble safe-sex kits of condoms and lube.

7-9 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105. For more information, visit www.thedccenter.org.

The DC Center holds a monthly VOLUNTEER NIGHT for those interested in giving back to the local LGBTQ community. Activities include sorting through book donations, taking inventory, or assembling safe-sex packets. 6:30-8:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

For more information, visit www. thedccenter.org.

Weekly Events DC AQUATICS CLUB practice

session at Takoma Aquatic Center.

7:30-9 p.m. 300 Van Buren St. NW. For more information, visit www. swimdcac.org.

DC FRONT RUNNERS running/

walking/social club welcomes run-

ners of all ability levels for exercise in a fun and supportive environment, with socializing afterwards.

Route distances vary. For meeting places and more information, visit www.dcfrontrunners.org.

DC SCANDALS RUGBY holds prac-

tice. The team is always looking for new members. All welcome. 7-9 p.m.

Harry Thomas Recreation Center, 1743 Lincoln Rd. NE. For more information, visit www.scandalsrfc.org.

THE GAY MEN'S HEALTH COLLABORATIVE offers free

HIV testing and STI screening and treatment every Tuesday.

5-6:30 p.m. Rainbow Tuesday LGBT Clinic, Alexandria Health Department, 4480 King St. 703746-4986 or text 571-214-9617. www.inova.org/gmhc

OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS

holds an LGBT-focused meeting every Tuesday, 7 p.m. at St. George’s Episcopal Church, 915 Oakland Ave., Arlington, just steps from Virginia Square Metro. Handicapped accessible.

Newcomers welcome. For more info, call Dick, 703-521-1999 or email liveandletliveoa@gmail.com.

Support group for LGBTQ youth ages 13-24 meets at SMYAL. 4-7 p.m. 410 7th St. SE. For more information, contact Dana White, 202567-3156, or visit www.smyal.org.

US HELPING US hosts a support

group for black gay men 40 and older. 7-9 p.m., 3636 Georgia Ave. NW. Call 202-446-1100. www.ushelpingus.org.

Whitman-Walker Health holds its weekly GAY MEN’S HEALTH AND WELLNESS/STD CLINIC. Patients are seen on a walk-in basis. No-cost screening for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. Hepatitis and herpes testing available for a fee.

Testing starts at 6 p.m, but should arrive early to ensure a spot. 1525 14th St. NW. For more information, visit www.whitman-walker.org.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 20 BOOKMEN DC, an informal men’s

gay-literature group, discusses The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman at The DC Center. All are welcome. 7:30 p.m. 2000 14th St. NW, Suite 105.

Visit www.bookmendc.blogspot.com.

Come to the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. to remember and memorialize those transgender people who have been lost to violence or suicide as part of the annual TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE. 6-8:30 p.m. 474 Ridge St. NW. For more information, visit www.capitalpride.org/events/tdor-2019. l

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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The Best Medicine After 40 years of performing stand-up, Paula Poundstone has decided that nothing heals the soul quite like laughter.

'M VERY USED TO THE FACT THAT I WILL ALWAYS BE second banana on my own show when Paula is around,” says Peter Sagal, the longtime host of NPR’s popular news-quiz-comedy show Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! “When I show up to make a personal appearance somewhere, people are looking behind me to see if Paula is lurking there, because that's who they really want to see. I can't blame them, because I feel the same way. Whenever Paula is on the show, and I go backstage prior to her going on stage and there she is, I'm like, ‘Oh, great, Paula is here. This is going to be fun!’ She's one of the funniest people I've ever known.”

Paula Poundstone built her career on serving up funny. She’s been doing stand-up comedy for four decades with hardly a break, in the process developing a passionate following of fans, 24

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

some of whom have been made during her tenure as a panelist on NPR’s popular weekly show. Her own shows are largely improvised — unlike many comics, she doesn’t adhere to a single memorized routine.

“I've been a comic for forty years now,” she said over the course of two hour-long conversations, both on recent Sunday mornings. “I have, somewhere in my head, forty years of material floating around. I figure the inside of my head looks something like one of those arcade games where you stand in a glass booth and they throw paper money around you, and you can keep whatever you can catch. I have no organization to it, on paper or in my head. And so I grab what I can when some circumstance reminds me of it.”

Poundstone — who will play three shows at The Birchmere

GOODFOTODESIGN

I

Interview by Randy Shulman

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

25

this weekend (Friday and Saturday are sold out, Sunday’s show still has tickets available as of press), and will appear at the Rams Head On Stage in early December — is a regular visitor to the area. She’s a big fan of The Birchmere, in particular, and it’s one of her preferred venues.

“I was just talking with somebody about election day, and I was saying that I had worked The Birchmere that week in 2016.

I did Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and there was something so great about being able to be in a room laughing with these people, because we had collectively been traumatized [by Trump’s election]. We didn't even know how bad it was going to get at that point — we thought the election itself was the bad part. People were literally coming up thanking me after the show, because we all laughed so hard. It was a reaction, I think, to the shock of Trump being elected.”

Poundstone is, in fact, a big believer in laughter as therapy.

“I love the sound of laughter, I always have,” she says. “I don't know why we get to have a sense of humor and other species don’t have it. We're just lucky. And it really, really is healing. It's the best thing for you, and I have no doubt that it's part of the reason I remain very healthy. A lot of times — and this is a crazy idea — I am the most mentally stable person in the room. Now I sound like Trump.”

Almost defiantly single, and a self-proclaimed asexual, Poundstone has raised three adopted children and fostered five more. Her otherwise sanguine life was briefly marred by controversy in 2001, when she was charged with felony child endangerment after driving while intoxicated with children in the car. (She was sentenced to probation and six months in alcohol rehabilitation, and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.) To this day, she addresses the incident with a regret that is audible. Her tone, generally spry, upbeat, and convivial, turns reflective, quiet, somber. You hear the pain in every syllable. But she has learned to live with her mistakes after nearly 20 years, and her career survived the controversy.

Her children, two daughters and a son, are grown and forging their own paths. None are following their mother’s footsteps into stand-up comedy.

At 61, Poundstone continues to write books, tour extensively, and appear monthly on Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! “We usually record about 90 minutes, which is cut down to about 52 minutes of content,” says Sagal. “When Paula is on the show, we're like at two hours. She does go on, Paula. She refers to her own shows as hostage situations because she just won't stop. It's how much she loves performing. She never runs out of steam. She's amazing.”

These days, Poundstone is as much on edge about the looming Constitutional crisis as the rest of the nation.

“I'm beginning to suspect that the tentacles of this corruption run a lot deeper than we have discovered yet,” she says. “The mystery of the lies will just eat away at me. I really would want to know, what happened?

“Sadly, everything is colored by Trump now,” she continues.

“I'm not giving up until they're all in jail. And by the way, in a very self-serving way, I have a bet with my assistant. I get five bucks for every Trump [associate] who goes to jail. And if no such thing happens, I have to give him a mini-Bundt cake. He often describes to me what flavor he wants, and that he wants sprinkles. I'll just say, ‘You're not getting a goddamned Bundt cake!’ I'm getting my five bucks. And he's getting no Bundt cake.”

METRO WEEKLY: Let’s start with a brief personal history. Where

were you brought up?

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PAULA POUNDSTONE: I was born in Huntsville, Alabama, but I

only lived there for a month before my family moved to Sudbury, Massachusetts. The night I was born, my father was actually not there. He was in Massachusetts, getting his job. It only occurred to me last year that I was raised by Southerners in New England.

I consider myself a New Englander, but my mother didn't cook anything without a big, huge chunk of fatback to begin with, no matter what it was she was making. If she was making a wedding cake, there would have been a big, huge chunk of pork fat somewhere in the center of it.

I consider myself pretty lucky, because Sudbury was a really beautiful town, a lot of woods. When me and the kids in the neighborhood would decide what we were going to do, a common suggestion was, "Do you want to climb a tree and read?"

If you ask a kid nowadays if they ever climbed a tree and read, they’d have no idea what you're talking about.

MW: What kind of kid were you?

POUNDSTONE: The first sentence of the last paragraph of the summary letter written by my kindergarten teacher in May of 1965 says, "I have enjoyed many of Paula's humorous comments about our activities." I was very proud of that summary letter when I was a kid — I liked the idea that I had somehow amused an adult. I was always interested in making people laugh. I always loved the sound of laughter. I think that was a big part of who I was my whole life. I wasn't really familiar with stand-up comedy. My parents didn't enjoy my company well enough to keep me up watching The Tonight Show with them. I didn't really get what stand-up comedy was. When I was little, I wanted to be a comic actress. I still want to be a comic actress.

MW: Would you say you were a naturally funny child?

POUNDSTONE: I don't know if I was naturally funny, but I certainly gravitated toward the reaction of laughter. I don't know if anybody's natural in anything.

MW: How did you get into stand-up? That's a very unusual career choice for anyone, really.

POUNDSTONE: I was a terrible student when I was in high school. I was very depressed and just stopped functioning as a student probably by halfway through my freshman year. After that, I was just in the building. I didn't have a lot of academic prospects. So when I left high school, I just got jobs. I was busing tables for a living in Boston, and damn good at it, I might add. It was really just serendipitous that someone happened to begin a comedy scene in Boston right while I moved there. I really did kind of get in on the ground floor. I contacted the guys that ran a place called Comedy Connection. I did an audition for them, which was just a painful experience, because I didn't know what I was doing and they didn't know what they were doing.

Soon thereafter, they called me up and said, "We're doing an all-woman show," which is just a laughable idea anyways. “We would have you come perform on that night." So I did. I was terrible, but the great thing about stand-up comedy is, the first time you go up, you have no idea that you're terrible. It's sort of like how you forget the pain of giving birth. Well, I never gave birth, but I'm told that you forget the pain of giving birth.

MW: And you've been doing it now for 40 years?

POUNDSTONE: Yeah, 40 years.

MW: That's a long time to be in the business.

POUNDSTONE: It is a long time. When a lot of comics first come to Los Angeles — and certainly I was one of these — we come with the idea that it's important to be in town for pilot season and we're going to showcase for an agent. And we want to be seen in Los Angeles and in Hollywood and it's important to be seen in the clubs in Hollywood, because somebody's going to see

“No matter what happens in my life, I go on stage and I talk about it and people laugh. They laugh largely out of recognition, largely because they go, ‘Oh my god. I had that.’ It's such a healing thing.” you. Then you're going to have this and have that as part of your career. You're going to get a stand-up special and you're going to get a television show and all these things are going to happen.

That's not what happened.

You know, there was a period of time maybe 20 years ago, where I began to resent being a stand-up comic. Where I felt it wasn't good enough, because I wasn't a big, huge television star, or I wasn't a big, huge movie star. I don't know how long that period lasted, maybe a year. I didn't stop doing stand-up, but I just felt like it wasn't good enough.

Somewhere along the way, and I don't entirely know why, other than the wisdom of getting older, I realized, "I am the luckiest performer in the world." Anything that happens in the world, I can go on stage and talk about it. One of the challenges of living in the world to begin with is we have an epidemic of depression and loneliness and people feeling isolated, or they somehow feel like they don't belong, or people feel like they are somehow different. No matter what happens in my life, I go on stage and I talk about it and people laugh. They laugh largely out of recognition, largely because they go, "Oh my god. I had that."

It's such a healing thing.

I think that's just part of the human condition, but I have to say, I have this healing regime — I'll never need another therapist again as long as I live. I have this great thing that I get to do. I get to go talk to a crowd of people and laugh about some of the shit that we all struggle with. I consider myself a proud member of the endorphin production industry. Not only does it serve me — and it absolutely serves me — but it's good for the audience. I usually do a meet and greet after the show. I have people come up and ask if they can get a hug. I say, "Absolutely."

As I hug them, they'll whisper in my ear, "My son died a year ago and I thought I would never leave the house again. This was so much fun. Thank you." Whoa! Who wouldn’t want my job? It's the greatest job in the world.

MW: Peter Sagal said an interesting thing about you. He said when they do meet and greets after Wait Wait tapings, you’re often there talking to fans long after everybody else has left.

POUNDSTONE: I know the janitorial staff at the bank where we

do the show, because I am always the last person there. That's more a reflection of me who can't stop talking. Honestly, the people in the line are probably going, "Oh, shit. We just wanted an autograph, for God's sake." But yes, I am always the last person there.

MW: Why is laughter important in our society?

POUNDSTONE: There's no question in my mind that it's healing, because other people tell me so and because I have experienced it that way, as well. I don't know what the chemicals are that get released, whether it's dopamine or oxy-something. I forget.

Sometimes I think maybe dogs have some form of laughter and I think maybe raccoons and, of course, animals that we're directly related to, like chimpanzees, but outside of that, I think we're the only species that gets to have laughter. It's a very strange system.

I don't understand where it comes from, or why, but it's great.

MW: Humor is a varied thing. Something that may be funny to one person isn't necessarily funny to another person. Sure, something can be funny to everybody en masse, but at the same time, I don't know how many times I’ve sat through a comedy with the audience roaring around me, and I'm like, "I didn't think that was funny at all." Humor is not an absolute.

POUNDSTONE: You're right. When you're aiming for it, it's a hard target. I don't work comedy places. I did in the past, but I haven't in years. I'd prefer it that way. I like, for example, the Birchmere or Ram’s Head — they generally have music there.

There's something about the fact that there's been music in that room. Sometimes, I feel jealous of musicians, because you can go on stage as a musician and get all sorts of responses, all of which fit into a category of success.

MW: For instance?

POUNDSTONE: Someone can feel as you’re playing music. It can make people happy. It can make people feel a little sad. They can chat for a second while you are playing and it doesn't really take away from what you're doing necessarily. Whereas comedy is not like that at all. People can't be talking while you're working.

It doesn't work. They can't feel sad. There's just one emotion that you're going after. And it's a hard target when you're going after it.

MW: What is your take on humor that goes up to the edge, that’s considered by some as inappropriate? Do you feel humor can go too far? Is there a line that comedians should not cross? When I grew up, my father loved Don Rickles. He would insult everyone. He was racist and misogynistic and everything under the sun. That was his shtick. Of course, in this day and age, I'm not sure a Don Rickles would fly at all.

POUNDSTONE: I don't know if he would or he wouldn't. You know, what I would say to “can a comic go too far?” It entirely depends who's talking and, to some degree, who they're talking to. There are unspoken — maybe even subconscious — rules about who we will hear what from. It's unfair. It's not right. But it's true. Look at what Donald Trump has done. Remember the rasher of shit Obama took for wearing a brown suit once? Or Howard Dean for going "Woo"? Lordy.

But Trump can say and do absolutely abhorrent things and continue to have the support of people for reasons I'm unclear about. I don't get it. For example, I take a lot of flack for cursing.

People telling you, "Oh, you used the F-bomb." Like, oh, please with the bomb. What a weird term that is. Yet, someone else could do it and it wouldn't raise an eyebrow. There is just something about human beings. We'll hear one thing from someone and be comfortable with it. You can hear the exact same thing from somebody else and people will react negatively. I don't think it's necessarily a conscious thing. It’s just that way.

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

27

ow l y r e v s “ Sex i priority on my have list . . . . I have I to pack.k. I have to unpacto work. to go 't figure n I just ca ever yone n out whe having all else is It doesn't this sex.any sense make 'm happy to me. I rest of for the t get me ' n o d , u o y wrong.”

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NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

MW: But what is too far for a comic?

POUNDSTONE: Well, I don't feel the need to come up with a joke

on every subject. I don't generally even set out saying to myself, "Here's a subject. Let me think of a joke on it." I have done that, but generally speaking, that's not the process I use. I can't imagine that, for example, in the ’80s, every now and then, some comic would decide to make AIDS jokes. I just don't get where that's going to get you very far. That's like in the Indiana Jones movie where you can only step on certain things in a cave. If you step on the wrong one, you fall in this big chasm. That, for me, is like trying to come up with an AIDS joke, you know? You think you got it, then you step on it and it's the wrong one, and you go away forever. What was the point of it? Why did you feel the need to come up with an AIDS joke? It isn't even worth the risk.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

For me, again, that's not my process for the most part anyways. I don't say to myself, "I must have a joke on such and such a subject." It's really the other way around. Some things struck me as funny, and subject be damned. I want people to go away from a show of mine feeling more a part of the human connection than not. I don't accomplish that in a conscious way, but that is my goal. I don't want someone to feel like they're the brunt of the joke.

When I lived in San Francisco years ago, there were people that would relentlessly do very stereotypical gay jokes. I kind of look at that and say to myself, "You know, I just don't want anyone in the room to feel ostracized by that." Therefore, that's not the tact I would take. It's also not what makes me laugh. I think if we're all laughing together, then we can hear funny things about ourselves and not do the thing that everybody likes to do now, the pearl-grabbing, you know?

MW: My original assumption of you, long ago, was, very much like Suzanne Westenhoefer and Kate Clinton, you were an out LGBTQ person. But in fact, you’re not. You assert yourself as asexual.

POUNDSTONE: I don't even know if that's the right scientific term. I just have no interest in sex. I mean, every now and then I think, “Oh, I should really experiment,” but I'm happy for the rest of you, meaning the rest of humanity, the rest of the world, who have sex. I don't know, I'm busy and I've made it this far. I have no desire to be in a partnership. I'm pretty happy being by myself.

MW: Do you ever date?

POUNDSTONE: No. I have in the past.

MW: Does it ever annoy you that people automatically assume you’re lesbian?

POUNDSTONE: Sometimes it annoys me. I don't think about it a lot. The good news is, I have this great LGBTQ following, and that makes me really happy. And as to what my sexuality is, I always tell people, because I do get the question, “When I know, I'll let you know.”

Look, it's not a burning question for me. I don't much care. I remember one night being on stage, probably in San Francisco, many years ago. And I said something about not liking sex. And a woman in the audience, who thought that she had me all figured out, said, "How about with women?" And I said, "Ma'am, can you see that that would still be sex?"

I don't need sex. I don't know at what age I realized that's fine, too. Basically, I'm happy enough with the way that my life is that I feel no need to rock the boat. There's only 24 hours in the day and mine are all full. I have a joke in my act where the idea that I would go into my bedroom and there'd be someone in there with whom I had to have an activity, it's just upsetting to me. I can't even imagine. I wouldn't consider having sex until

I have finished cleaning the grooves of my space heater with a Q-tip. Sex is very low on my priority list.

MW: Don't you miss having that possible intimacy with another person?

POUNDSTONE: No, I really don't. When I'm in bed, I want to sleep or read.

MW: You're just not wired that way.

POUNDSTONE: I guess I'm not. In fact, it just seems every second of my day is taken. There's stuff I have to do, like sift the litter boxes and feed the animals, those kinds of things. And a relatively low level of personal hygiene. But I have shit I have to write. I have 1,000 phone calls to make. I have to pack. I have to unpack.

I have to go to work. I just can't figure out when everyone else is having all this sex. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm happy for the rest of you, don't get me wrong. Plus I have allergies.

MW: Our art director noticed something. We were looking at the pictures of you for the cover and he said, "She's wearing a wedding ring."

POUNDSTONE: [Laughs.] Oh, isn't that funny? It's just a ring.

And it's just the finger that the finger fit on. There's no symbolism to it at all. I got it in Africa. It belonged to the tour guide. I complimented it and she gave it to me. Since then, trust me, I compliment everything.

MW: You've raised many children including three who are adopted.

POUNDSTONE: I have three kids I adopted. I was a foster parent for a number of years. I had eight kids altogether for various lengths of time.

MW: Maybe that’s what replaced your need for a romantic relationship.

POUNDSTONE: Maybe, yeah. I swear to god, anybody who gets all fulfillment from children in terms of emotional connection, my hat's off to you. I realized just yesterday, you know the book The Giving Tree? I'm a fucking stump. My kids are young adults now and I’ve got nothing more to give. They've taken everything. There's nothing more. My branches are gone. They made a canoe of me. They built a fucking house from me. I'm done.

MW: What made you decide to foster?

POUNDSTONE: Total ignorance more than anything else. Like anybody else who has children, you don't know what it is until you do it. Even then, what happens with one kid, is not necessarily the same thing that happens with another kid. If I had my life to do over again and I had the choice, I would want my same children. Having said that, oh my god, they're hard! But I would still want them again. I wish I could do the whole thing all over again. I wish I could do it with what I know now, because I'm assuming in my fantasy life that I would do a better job.

The truth is, if that were really possible, if you really could relive things, I would probably make and do different mistakes, but that could be fun. Might be better than my old mistakes. I don't know. It wasn't until I was thirtysomething that I became a foster parent. I just wanted to give somebody a leg up. That was my thought. Looking back, it was a little naïve, but that was my thought. "I could give somebody a leg up."

MW: There were some mistakes and one of them was very public, involving a DUI with your children in the car. It’s in the past, but I’m curious: How did you weather the publicity at the time? How did you cope with it?

POUNDSTONE: I don't know the answer. It was a nightmare and I think the hardest thing about the whole thing — take the press and my career and everything out of it entirely, just for now — the hardest thing about how badly I fucked up is that it was entirely the opposite of how I feel. Looking back, I endangered my children. I endangered other people, too, but I endangered NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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my children. That is abhorrent to me. It's not who I set out to be.

It's not what I would have sketched out on paper. Do you know what I mean? It is the polar opposite of my intentions and of how I saw myself. There's just no taking it back. All I can do is move forward. Have I spoken to the courts? Yes. I have apologized and said that I was entirely at fault.

I was a drinker. And it's a weird thing about alcohol — it gets away with a reputation, alcohol does, that it doesn't deserve.

I don't know how it sustains other than it's a big business, but we all tell ourselves all sorts of things about what a good idea drinking is. The same thing with pot. I loathe pot. I don't feel it should be illegal, but I don't understand its celebration for all the same reasons. Then, you're driving around, or you're making your decisions, or whatever, in an impaired way. It's just going to lead to problems.

You don't want to hurt someone you love. And, by the way, I love people in general. Even if I hadn't driven with my kids in the car, which I did, the possibility that I would have hurt someone else is heartstopping to me. Yet, I did it. Here's the really hard thing. Obviously, I was supposed to be a responsible adult at that point. I had people in my care, children in my care.

MW: How old were your children at the time?

POUNDSTONE: They were little. Too little.

MW: Have they forgiven you?

POUNDSTONE: I don't know.

MW: That's an interesting answer.

POUNDSTONE: Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they know. I've asked them to, but that's a lot to ask, because it also caused layers and layers and layers of disruption.

MW: What is your relationship with them like now?

POUNDSTONE: Like most, I guess. They're all young adults.

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They're all figuring out how to do this adult thing. I figure, at this point, my best parenting is just when I go, "Well, I hope that works." When I talk to them, I try very hard to keep my opinion to myself. It’s a massive struggle for me to do that. Or I'll say, "Okay. I'm going to say this one time," because their choices are up to them now.

MW: Are you proud of them?

POUNDSTONE: Yes. I absolutely am proud of them. I wish they were little again.

MW: Let’s end on a positive note. Name something that brings you joy.

POUNDSTONE: Ping-pong. I love ping-pong. I have parties in my house playing ping-pong. We used to do it several times a year, now we do it a couple of times a year, just because without the kids at home it's too much work for me to do by myself. And we play doubles, we pull the names out of the hat, we have a tournament. It's a longstanding Poundstone tradition. My brother and I figured out that I think we've given about seventy such parties, and it's so much fun.

I like the sound of the ball. It's something, you know when you play with the ball it's cracked, and you figure out that it's cracked, you get rid of it, yet the whack of satisfaction of the sound of the cracked ball just goes through my body. I love the sound. So, ping-pong. That makes me happy. l Paula Poundstone appears at The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria, on Sunday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $49.50. Call 703-549-7500 or visit www.birchmere.com.

She will also appear at Rams Head OnStage, 33 West Street in Annapolis, Md., on Friday, Dec. 6, at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $56. Call 410-268-4545 or visit www.ramsheadonstage.com.

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NETFLIX

Film

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Breaking up is hard to do for two married New Yorkers in Noah Baumbach’s raw, real Marriage Story. By André Hereford

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ESCRIBED AS A LOVE STORY TOLD THROUGH A COUPLE’S DIVORCE, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story (HHHHH) reflects the aims of its central couple, striving to remain fair and balanced in a situation that is inherently unfair and leaves everyone involved feeling at least a little unbalanced. The love that still binds actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and director Charlie (Adam Driver) as family is their son Henry (Azhy Robertson). For him, and for their own sense of self and pride, both try to maintain some grace as their marriage ends. But grace is a struggle.

As the film captures with remarkable exactness, the world makes it easier for two splitting exes to tear at each other’s throats, especially after lawyers get involved.

Whereas Baumbach’s Oscar-nominated The Squid and the Whale tackled divorce from the perspective of two sons watching their parents’ marriage come apart, Marriage Story rests on the shoulders of the adults in the room, and often those adults charge by the hour to battle on Nicole or Charlie’s behalf.

Meanwhile, the camera doesn’t so much rest on Johansson and Driver’s expressive faces, as probe them at every angle for the fear, guilt, regret, and hope that yank New Yorkers Nicole and Charlie in a million relatable directions. She’s like an open wound who can’t stop considering Charlie’s feelings. He seems to only absorb the full impact of their split sometime after it’s done — but once it hits, it hurts like hell. Following

lighthearted intros of his and her most lovable traits, the movie allows ample room for Johansson and Driver’s exceptional performances to find each character’s less likable attributes. Nicole returns with Henry to her hometown of L.A., Charlie follows in order to be near his son, and they engage in a constant, contentious negotiation of time — and blame.

Structured like a play around rich monologues and pointed confrontations, the movie hits its stride in scenes between Nicole and her lawyer Nora, played by a fierce (isn’t she always?) Laura Dern. Nora proudly and professionally embodies all the rage that Nicole hides behind tears.

Charlie’s options for counsel run from ruthless shark Jay, played in a bluntly droll turn by Ray Liotta, to Bert, the compassionate Alan Alda of divorce attorneys played by Alan Alda, in fine form. As raw as the emotion gets, the movie’s still dryly funny — funny enough to render Randy Newman’s incongruously jolly score even more distracting as this sensitive, somewhat overlong saga portrays the woefully heavy toll of even an “amicable” divorce. l

Marriage Story is rated R, and opens November 15 at Landmark’s E Street Cinemas.

Visit www.landmarktheatres.com/washington-d-c.

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Stage

Prodigy

Folger’s Amadeus offers an entertaining flight of historical fancy in the fictitious battle of Salieri v. Mozart. By Kate Wingfield

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N THE CURRENT CLIMATE OF FAKE AND THOROUGHLY FERAL NEWS, Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (HHHHH) touches something of a nerve. A comic-tragic flight of historical fancy, it offers some very unsubstantiated ideas about some very real people. In Shaffer’s vision, the elderly and ailing 17th-century composer Antonio Salieri recalls a rivalrous, dangerous obsession with the young and far more talented Mozart. It may be a vehicle for a robust, sometimes amusing display of ruinous envy, but in this unironic, anti-fact age, the 1979 play feels in need of a very big disclaimer: “Just messing around folks; it didn’t really happen!”

Assuming Shaffer’s folly is taken for what it is, there’s a cerebral entertainment in playing witness to Salieri as he wallows in his outrage at the immense talent bestowed on Mozart. Conceived here as a precocious, immature brat who, by all rights, seems wholly unworthy, there is comedy as well as chagrin to be had. And the characterization goes some way in making sense of an actual truth about Mozart: that he enjoyed some pretty base scatological humor when he wasn’t composing some of the most beautiful music the world has ever known.

If not exactly a witty knee-slapper, Shaffer brings a wry voice and a style of story-telling that is light on its feet. There is schadenfreude aplenty in watching not just the arrogant Mozart go down (as Salieri orchestrates his professional demise), but also Salieri himself, as he ages into regret. But what intrigues most in Amadeus is Salieri’s heartache in being just smart enough to recognize his own mediocrity. His monologues — on the fine line between talent and genius and the way in which great music feels supernatural in its power — are potent.

Less exciting is Salieri’s increasingly feverish conviction that life’s unfairness is due to a cruel (and personal) God, with Shaffer showing his own hand in letting God have the last word. Although it may be a crowd-pleaser, it limits the play. There are far more interesting ideas in the offing, such as how religion might serve as a defense mechanism 34

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

for vulnerable egos navigating a harsh and capricious world, the reaction this Salieri might have had to such a possibility.

The choice to stop at God versus the psyche also leaves the play with the challenge of keeping Salieri’s agony worth watching. With the Folger production clocking in at nearly three hours, it’s a challenge that goes into bold italics as the evening draws out. For Ian Merrill Peakes, it is met in delivering his Salieri with an indefatigable agitation that ebbs, flows and reaches crescendos as if anger could be scored like an opera. As a performance in one key, it is accomplished, but to try and connect with it is another matter. The agitation is almost too unrelenting, and it argues with Salieri’s pleasingly sarcastic and ironic edge. And it is a fine line — at times the lily is gilded with too staged a look here or a too long a pause there.

Peakes can be a very subtle actor, but it feels as if this Salieri drives too hard.

As his unwitting nemesis, the young and giddy Mozart, Samuel Adams’ portrayal is intriguing and quite memorable with its blend of arrogance, naiveté and a disarming, hyena-like laugh. But the necessary frisson with Peakes’ Salieri appears only in fits and starts and his chemistry with wife Constance doesn’t convince.

This isn’t necessarily on Adams; Shaffer’s treatment can feel more like vignettes than an emotional journey and there aren’t many scenes in which to get a fuller sense

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of this strange young man. Of course, therein lies the challenge for director Richard Clifford. One can sense the overall goals, but the execution doesn’t always work in the moment.

Case in point is the scene in which Amadeus finds Constance caving into the saucy parlor games of the two gossips, the Venticellos. The moment is probably meant to reveal Amadeus’ philandering and his complex relationship with Constance, but it falls completely flat. The deadly serious Mozart seems suddenly out of character, Constance’s moment of humiliation is overly indulged, and the Venticellos’ snipe at the end is too forced.

This unevenness appears again with Count Orsini-Rosenberg, a quietly disapproving member of court. Orsini doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s prime real estate. James Joseph O’Neil gets that Orsini’s comments needs laser-like timing but

writes him too small to deliver either the laughs or the venom.

As for the court gossips, who set the scene and serve as tonal bookends, if Louis Butelli gives his Venticello some foppish flair, Amanda Bailey offers no discernible snark. And if Lilli Hokama’s Constance is a strong presence and eventually gives some sense of a personality, her playfulness with Mozart never rings true.

Without more of a connection, it’s very hard to believe her grief when Mozart eventually dies. Although none of these issues rise to the level of bad, taken together, they do little to carry the tale or complement Peakes’ intensity.

All told, it’s a longish evening that nevertheless entertains, provokes some thought, and offers a few moving moments courtesy of Mozart’s music. Just resist the urge to edit Wikipedia after seeing it. l

DJ COREY

Amadeus runs through Dec. 22 at the Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Tickets are $42 to $95. Call 202-544-7077 or visit www.folger.edu.

Divine Intervention Factory 449 puts forth an impassioned, if occasionally overwrought, Agnes of God. By André Hereford

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HE INSCRUTABLE SISTER AGNES, UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR MANslaughter in John Pielmeier’s Agnes of God ( ), presents a fascinating enigma that’s never firmly resolved in the play. Even after carefully guarded details of her shocking case are revealed, and forgotten events are painfully recalled, Agnes remains obscure, as unknowable as the secrets of the spiritual universe. It’s one of the 1979 play’s many virtues, rendered well by Rick Hammerly’s taut Factory 449 production and featuring a deft performance by Zoe Walpole in the title role.

Accused of taking the life of the newborn apparently no one was aware she was carrying, Agnes might be as simple and timid as she seems, or she might be a devious liar. She seems sincerely devout but it’s unclear whether she truly believes she’s a holy

vessel of God’s love, as some in her convent choose to believe. She could just as likely be insane, or traumatized by abuse, or all of the above. Walpole responds to the multi-faceted question of Agnes by making all these possibilities at some point or another feel true. She gives Agnes the awed, airy voice of a dyed-in-the-wool lamb of god, yet in a grounded fashion lays bare this woman’s flesh and blood fragility.

The production focuses on the quandaries Agnes’ divine or disguised pregnancy, and murdered child, raise for her Mother Superior Miriam Ruth (Nanna Ingvarsson) and the court-assigned psychiatrist, Dr. Martha Livingstone (Felicia Curry), who valiantly tries to determine what actually happened. Hammerly and set designer Greg Stevens focus the actors’ energies, and the attention of the audience towards the center of a three-sided stage.

Still, the performers’ best efforts don’t always sync up.

The ball passes quickly between Martha, Miriam Ruth, and Agnes, as they volley big ideas and bigger emotions, and Ingvarsson could stand to tighten her grip. However, she has a powerful grasp on Mother Miriam’s climactic breakthrough, and warms up nicely alongside Curry’s Dr. Martha in a lighter scene, that originally appeared only in the Oscar-nominated 1985 film adaptation. Curry’s shrink, oddly attired for this assignment in a leather moto jacket and jaguar-print pumps, serves a solid purpose throughout as audience surrogate, working to unravel the mystery of Agnes. Curry’s performance aptly expresses the doctor’s frustration, a not uncommon one, that even if she learns all the facts, she still might not ever know the truth. l

Agnes of God runs through November 24 at the Anacostia Arts Center, 1231 Good Hope Rd. SE. Tickets are $23. Call 202-335-9449 or visit www.factory449.org.

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C. STANLEY

Stage

A Fine Line

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Everything is beautiful at Signature Theatre’s high-kicking production of A Chorus Line. By André Hereford

ESS IS MORE IN MATTHEW GARDINER’S SIMPLY TERRIFIC PRODUCtion of the quintessential Broadway musical about Broadway musicals, A Chorus Line (HHHHH). Gardiner plants the show’s lead interlocutor Zach (Matthew Risch) amidst the audience at Signature Theatre, just where a musical director might sit as he or she peers godlike from the darkness at a line of performers auditioning onstage. Thus, we’re all party to Zach’s gloriously grueling process of demanding that the seventeen assembled actor-dancers — or, are they dancer-actors? — bare their talents and weaknesses for the sake of pleasing him enough to get hired for the potentially career-making show he’s casting.

Aside from the meta touch of big-time Broadway director Zach seated several rows deep in the house, the ebulliently entertaining presentation is pretty straightforward.

Or rather, it’s straight sideways, as that long, gorgeous line of dancers extends across Jason Sherwood’s broad, paneled music box set. Lit becomingly from beneath and above by Adam Honoré and costumed with distinctive personality by Sarah Cubbage, the main cast of auditioners creates a formidable line, whether still or in motion.

Gardiner is full of clever ideas about where each character should move or be at any given moment. And Sherwood ensures they’re always seen, via a stripe of mirrored panels lining the rear of the set, reflecting the performers from every physical angle, even from above when the time arises.

Then it’s up to the cast to reflect as sharply as possible all the angles and aspects we can’t as readily see, and almost uniformly they do so generously. From the start,

Risch’s Zach sets a brisk, straightforward tone as the man in charge of how things will proceed. He approaches the eager assembly with care and knowing humor, yet Zach is just enough of an asshole to maintain a fearful authority. He’s also alternately kind and encouraging enough to earn the performers’ confidence. In short, he’s a credible director, and a vital key to unlocking the stories behind every hopeful artist onstage.

There’s Sheila, spicy veteran of many a chorus line — and maybe she’s not hopeful anymore, so much as fully present in her attitude that a job is a job and she wants this one. Maria Rizzo, fiery veteran of many a Signature musical, gives Sheila a grit that feels earned, plus that little chip on her shoulder that you just wish she knew how to brush off. It’s a riveting portrayal of sweet and sour self-sabotage, wrapped in a glam black leotard, accented by the unexpectedly touching softness of Sheila’s solo in “At the Ballet.”

She shares the “Ballet” stage with Jillian Wessel’s appealing Bebe, and an intriguing Maggie, played by Kayla Pecchioni, who sings the part superbly.

Adena Ershow delivers a darling Val, the

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surgically enhanced center of one of this nine-time Tonywinning show’s most memorable tunes, “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three,” otherwise known as “Tits ’n’ Ass.” With little more than well-aimed withering glances, Ershow and Rizzo fabulously embellish the minor subplot of an ongoing rivalry between pert, blonde Val and snarky Sheila. On the other hand, as married auditioners Kristine and Al, Elise Kowalick and Vincent Kempski beautifully demonstrate on “Sing!” the art of working in perfect time with your partner.

Gardiner and choreographer Denis Jones have the cast flowing in pretty much perfect time, and making the hard stuff look effortless, as in the moment when the “Ballet” trio of Maggie, Sheila, and Bebe each step smoothly back into position, as the line opens to include them. This cast looks great spinning and kicking in thrilling unison through “One,” the signature number of Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban’s celebrated score, or in impressive solo numbers like Trevor Michael Schmidt’s exhilarating turn as Mike performing “I Can Do That.”

Song after song, the dances fill the stage with grace and athletic prowess, set to the exquisite sound of music director Jon Kalbfleisch’s 10-piece orchestra. Gardiner and company strike the powerful frequency of blending life into art, in a show that demands actors play dancers being themselves, freely baring their souls and insecurities for the sake of pleasing an audience. l A Chorus Line runs through January 5 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington. Tickets are $40 to $103.

The show is nearly sold out, though some single tickets remain, and there is a daily online lottery at TodayTix.com.

Call 703-820-9771, or visit www.sigtheatre.org.

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NightLife Photography by Ward Morrison

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Scene

Pitchers & A League of Her Own- Friday, Nov. 8 - Photography by Ward Morrison See and purchase more photos from this event at www.metroweekly.com/scene

DrinksDragDJsEtc...

Friday, November 15 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-3am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 Rail and Domestic • $5 Svedka, all flavors all night long • Rough House: Hands On, Lights Off, 10pm-close • Featuring DJ Lemz • $5 Cover (includes clothes check)

DC EAGLE Meaty Fridays Happy Hour 5-9pm • Free Hot Dogs all night and Pizza at 7:30pm • $2 off all drinks until 9pm • $5 Cover starts at 7pm, $10 after 9pm • Birds of Prey Drag Show at 10:30pm • Open until 3am

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Open 3pm • Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Weekend Kickoff Dance Party, with Nellie’s DJs spinning bubbly pop music all night

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm

NUMBER NINE Open 5pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover • Friday Night Piano with Chris, 7:30pm • Friday Night Videos, 9:30pm • Rotating DJs

PITCHERS Open 5pm-3am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Capital Laughs Comedy Show, Second Floor, 7:30pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $5 • Otter Happy Hour with guest DJs, 5-11pm

Destinations A LEAGUE OF HER OWN 2317 18th St. NW 202-733-2568 www.facebook.com/alohodc AVALON SATURDAYS Soundcheck 1420 K St. NW 202-789-5429 www.facebook.com/ AvalonSaturdaysDC 40

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ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets, 9pm • Guest dancers • Rotating DJs • Kristina Kelly’s Diva Fev-ah Drag Show • Doors at 9pm, Shows at 11:45pm • Music by DJ Jeff Eletto • Cover 21+

set by DJ Mike Babbitt • Proceeds benefit The Cherry Fund • $4 Absolut Drinks, 10pm-midnight

Saturday, November 16

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Saturday Breakfast Buffet, 10am-3pm • $14.99 with one glass of champagne or coffee, soda or juice • Additional champagne $2 per glass • Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Freddie’s Follies Drag Show, hosted by Miss Destiny B. Childs, 8-10pm • Karaoke, 10pm-close

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-3am • Video Games • Live televised sports AVALON SATURDAYS @Soundcheck 1420 K St. NW Avalon Saturdays and Chorus DC/Fruityboi host DJ Joe Gauthreaux, 10pm-4am • Opening

FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR 555 23rd St. S. Arlington, Va. 703-685-0555 www.freddiesbeachbar.com GREEN LANTERN 1335 Green Ct. NW 202-347-4533 www.greenlanterndc.com

DC EAGLE Open at 5pm • Happy Hour until 9pm • $5 Cover •Hummer & Xavier Entertainment

GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $5 Bacardi, all flavors, all night long • The Bear Cave: Retro to Electro

Dance Party, 9pm-close • Music by DJ Popperz • No Cover NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Drag Brunch, hosted

by Chanel Devereaux, 10:30am-12:30pm and 1-3pm • Tickets on sale at nelliessportsbar.com • House Rail Drinks, Zing Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-3am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs playing pop music all night NUMBER NINE Doors open 2pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • THIRSTY, featuring DJ Chord Bezerra, 9:30pm

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR 900 U St. NW 202-332-6355 www.nelliessportsbar.com NUMBER NINE 1435 P St. NW 202-986-0999 www.numberninedc.com PITCHERS 2317 18th St. NW 202-733-2568 www.pitchersbardc.com

JULIAN VANKIM

NIGHTLIFE HIGHLIGHTS Compiled by Doug Rule

PEACH PIT @DC9 1940 9th St. NW ’90s Thanksgiving Edition, 10:30pm-3am • DJ Matt Bailer • $5 before midnight, $8 after • 21+ PITCHERS Open Noon-3am • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 2am SHAW’S TAVERN Brunch with $15 Bottomless Mimosas, 10am-3pm • Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Noche Latina, 11pm-2am • Drink and Food Specials

TRADE Doors open 2pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 2-10pm • Beer and wine only $5 • Gay Bash: The Alt Dance Party and Home for Unconventional Drag in the Nation’s Capital, 10pm • Hosted by Donna Slash • Featuring JaxKnife Complex, Salvadora Dali, Jane Saw, and special guests • Music by The Barber Streisand ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS Men of Secrets upstairs, 9pm-close • Guest dancers • Ladies of Illusion Drag Show with host Ella Fitzgerald in Ziegfeld’s • Doors open at 9pm, Show at 11:45pm • Music by DJs Keith Hoffman and Don T. • Cover 21+

SHAW’S TAVERN 520 Florida Ave. NW 202-518-4092 www.shawstavern.com TRADE 1410 14th St. NW 202-986-1094 www.tradebardc.com ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS 1824 Half St. SW 202-863-0670 www.ziegfelds.com

SHADY PINES DEBUTS AT DC9 An unexpected cold snap delayed the launch of this new, standalone ’80s-themed party, created in the mold of Matt Bailer’s massively popular ’90s-focused party Peach Pit (the latest installment of which is this Saturday, Nov. 16, at DC9). Named after the retirement village where the gay-popular TV series The Golden Girls took place, Shady Pines distinguishes itself as a daytime, outdoor kind of party at the venue. “We're going to try DC9 on the roof from 3 to 7 in the afternoon, so people can do their kind of ‘Sunday Funday’ outdoors thing, and not go too late.” Bailer (pictured) already knows the most popular song that will get played at the free party — Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Shady Pines debuts this Sunday, Nov. 17, at 3 p.m. Peach Pit is the night before, starting at 10:30 p.m. DC9 is at 1940 9th St. NW. Call 202-483-5000 or visit www.dcnine.com.

UPROAR’S ONESIE PARTY Two weeks after Halloween, Uproar is still encouraging patrons to don costumes, even promising a contest, a raffle, and food and drink specials to those who follow suit — as in union suit, or a similar one-piece attire, from kigurumi to basic pajamas or sweatpants. “Let’s Get Comfy!!!” commands the official invitation to the Onesie Party, open to all aged 21 and up, and hosted by DJ StrikeStone! It’s set for this Saturday, Nov. 16, starting at 9 p.m. Uproar is at 639 Florida Ave NW. Call 202-4624464 or visit www.facebook.com/uproarloungedc.

RUCK THE RUNWAY 3 Members of the Washington Renegades, a gay-inclusive amateur rugby team, will ditch their cleats for heels at the third annual drag affair. The theme is “Dungeons and Drag Queens,” and organizers promise “a new crop of rookies, veterans, and a guest star or two,” all of whom will work the crowd for fundraising dollars dressed as “warrior princesses, evil queens, witches good and bad,” and other characters from fairy tales and the world of fantasy. This year’s event also adds lip sync battles.

Saturday, Nov. 16, starting at 8 p.m. At Red Bear Brewing, 209 M St. NE. Call 202849-6130 or visit www.redbear.beer.

THE BIG BOARD: MARKET CRASH THANKSGIVING LGBTQ residents of the H Street Corridor — and their admirers all around — flock to this neighborhood watering hole on a bi-monthly basis, when they turn it gay, at least for the night, every other hump day. A first and third Wednesdays affair, the next round features music by guest DJ Baronhawk and special performances in which local drag queen Desiree Dik “tells The Story of Thanksgiving in her own twisted way.”

Drink specials include $2 specialty shots all night long and $5 draft and rail offerings until 11 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, starting at 9 p.m. The Big Board is at 421 H St. NE. Call 202-543-3630 or visit www.thebigboarddc.com.

GAY/BASH Over the past couple of years Josh Vogelsong’s monthly alternative drag-focused party has helped spawn a coterie of monthly alternative drag-focused events at Trade, including Pussy Noir’s Sissy That Tuesday and KC B. Yoncé’s Slay My Name. “People show up in looks, everybody comes dressed up,” Vogelsong says about Gay/Bash, the spunkiest of the bunch. At the November bash, shows will come from Alastor, Ana Latour, Pussy Noir, Jane Saw, and, last but not least, Donna Slash, Vogelsong’s other-persona. Jams from the Barber Streisand, with Connor serving as “Stage boy.”

Saturday, Nov. 16. Doors at 10 p.m., with shows at 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. Trade is at 1410 14th St. NW. Call 202-986-1094 or visit www.facebook.com/gaybashdc. l

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Sunday, November 17 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 2pm-12am • $4 Smirnoff and Domestic Cans • Video Games • Live televised sports DC EAGLE Open at Noon • Happy Hour until 9pm • Food served 4-7pm, $10 a plate • Cigar Sundays and Cruisy Sundays • $3 off all Whiskeys & Bourbons, $5 Chivas Regal, $15 bottomless Bud/Bud Light, $20 Bottomless Premium Drafts

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FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Fabulous Sunday Champagne Brunch, 10am-3pm • $24.99 with four glasses of champagne or mimosas, 1 Bloody Mary, or coffee, soda or juice • Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close • No Cover GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Karaoke with Kevin downstairs, 9:30pm-close NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Drag Brunch, hosted

by Chanel Devereaux, 10:30am-12:30pm and 1-3pm • Tickets on sale at nelliessportsbar.com • House Rail Drinks, Zing Zang Bloody Marys, Nellie Beer and Mimosas, $4, 11am-1am • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Guest DJs

NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 2-9pm • $5 Absolut and $5 Bulleit Bourbon, 9pm-close • Multiple TVs showing movies, shows, sports • Expanded craft beer selection • Pop Goes the World with Wes Della Volla at 9:30pm • No Cover

SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Dinner and Drag with Miss Kristina Kelly, 8pm • No Cover • For reservations, email shawsdinnerdragshow@gmail.com

PITCHERS Open Noon-2am • $4 Smirnoff, includes flavored, $4 Coors Light or $4 Miller Lites, 2-9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm

TRADE Doors open 2pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 2-10pm • Beer and wine only $5

SHADY PINES @DC9 1940 9th St. NW A 1980s rooftop tea, 3-7pm • DJ Matt Bailer • No Cover

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

Monday, November 18

DC EAGLE Manic Mondays • Happy Hour until 9pm, $2 off all drinks • Free Pool play • $2 Bud & Bud Lights, $15 bottomless premium drafts FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Singles Night • Half-Priced Pasta Dishes • Karaoke, 9pm GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long • Singing with the Sisters: Open Mic Karaoke Night with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, 9:30pm-close

NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer, $15 • Half-Priced Burgers • Paint Nite, 7pm • PokerFace Poker, 8pm • Dart Boards • Ping Pong Madness, featuring 2 PingPong Tables NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover SHAW’S TAVERN Veterans Day Brunch, with Bottomless Mimosas, 11am-3pm • Happy Hour, 5-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Shaw ‘Nuff Trivia, 7:30pm

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TRADE Doors open 5pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $5

Tuesday, November 19 A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports DC EAGLE 2-4-1 Tuesdays • All Drinks, Buy one, Get one free • First Drink Free for Guys in Jockstraps FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Taco Tuesday • Karaoke, 9pm GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long • Tito’s Tuesday: $5 Tito’s Vodka all night NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • Buckets of Beer $15 • Drag Bingo with Sasha Adams and Brooklyn Heights, 7-9pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close

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NUMBER NINE Open at 5pm • Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover PITCHERS Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Burgers and Pizzas, 5-10pm TRADE Doors open 5pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $5 • Sissy That Tuesday: A Monthly Cabaret hosted

by Pussy Noir with special guests, 8pm • Music by WesstheDJ

Wednesday, November 20

NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover

Thursday, November 21

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

PITCHERS Open 5pm-12am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm

A LEAGUE OF HER OWN Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Live televised sports

DC EAGLE Happy Hour until 9pm • Karaoke by D&K Sounds from 9pm-1am • $4 Rails, Wines & Domestic Drafts FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • $6 Burgers • Beach Blanket Drag Bingo Night, hosted

by Ms. Regina Jozet Adams, 8pm • Bingo prizes • Karaoke, 10pm-1am GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4pm-9pm • Bear Yoga with Greg Leo, 6:30-7:30pm • $10 per class • $3 rail cocktails and domestic beers all night long • Karaoke, 9pm NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR SmartAss Trivia Night, 8-10pm • Prizes include bar tabs and tickets to shows at the 9:30 Club • Absolutely Snatched Drag Show, hosted by Brooklyn Heights, 9pm • $3 Bud Light, $5 Absolut, $15 Buckets of Beer

NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

SHAW’S TAVERN Debate Night Watch Party with Drink Specials • Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers TRADE Doors open 5pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $5

DC EAGLE $4 Rail and Domestics for guys in L.U.R.E. (Leather, Uniform, Rubber, Etc.) • Lights Dimmed at 8pm FREDDIE’S BEACH BAR Crazy Hour, 4-8pm • Karaoke, 9pm-close GREEN LANTERN Happy Hour, 4-9pm • Shirtless Thursday, 10-11pm • Men in Underwear Drink Free, 12-12:30am • DJs BacK2bACk NELLIE’S SPORTS BAR Beat the Clock Happy Hour — $2 (5-6pm), $3 (6-7pm), $4 (7-8pm) • $15 Buckets of Bud Products all night • Sports Leagues Night NUMBER NINE Happy Hour: 2 for 1 on any drink, 5-9pm • No Cover • ThurSlay, featuring DJ Jack Rayburn, 10pm

PITCHERS Open 5pm-2am • Happy Hour: $2 off everything until 9pm • Video Games • Foosball • Live televised sports • Full dining menu till 9pm • Special Late Night menu till 11pm • Thirst Trap Thursdays, hosted by Venus Valhalla, 11pm-12:30am • Featuring a Rotating Cast of Drag Performers • Dancing until 1:30am SHAW’S TAVERN Happy Hour, 4-7pm • $3 Miller Lite, $4 Blue Moon, $5 House Wines, $5 Rail Drinks • Half-Priced Pizzas and Select Appetizers • Half-Priced Bottles of Wine, 5pm-close TRADE Doors open 5pm • XL Happy Hour: Any drink normally served in a cocktail glass is served in an XL glass for the same price, 5-10pm • Beer and wine only $5 ZIEGFELD’S/SECRETS All male, nude dancers, 9pm-close • “New Meat” Open Dancers Audition • Music by DJ Don T. • Cover 21+ l

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LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“We’re real estate people. If I don’t have to build dual bathrooms I could actually save a lot of money.”

— DONALD TRUMP JR., telling the right-wing talk show Rubin Report that he supports gender-neutral bathrooms. Adding that his philosophy is “live and let live,” Trump said it would be “wonderful” and that “no one cares” which restroom trans people use, Out reports. But far from a change of heart on trans matters, Trump painted his support in monetary terms — and it comes after numerous instances of transphobia from the president’s son, particularly with regards transgender athletes.

“Nobody should have to endure this kind of abuse at their job and we plan to hold Dunkin’ Donuts responsible for their actions in court. ” — JUSTIN ROBINETTE, an attorney representing a transgender woman in Pennsylvania who is suing her former employer Dunkin’ Donuts, Lehigh Valley Live reports. The woman, known as Jane Doe in court filings to protect her identity, alleges that she was repeatedly misgendered and discriminated against by her supervisor, and then illegally fired when she reported customers who attacked her, called her “faggot,” and threatened to kill her.

“Old Compton Street was much better before you lot turned it into a gay street.”

— An excerpt from a postcard sent to the Admiral Duncan, a popular LGTBQ bar in London’s queer-friendly Soho neighborhood, which was shared on Twitter. In addition to including an anti-Semitic slur, the writer of the postcard said that Soho was “great” before the bar opened (it has been trading since the 1800s), adding that they now “have to wear a chastity belt to feel safe.”

“I would have no choice but to pull out

unless they very quickly make a solid, committed pledge or donation to the LGBTQ community.

”

— Singer ELLIE GOULDING, in a comment on her Instagram page, threatening to pull out of an NFL halftime show on Thanksgiving Day due to the involvement of the Salvation Army. Goulding initially posted in support of the organization, but her fans quickly pointed out that it has a history of anti-LGBTQ politics and stances. “I am a committed philanthropist as you probably know, and my heart has always been in helping the homeless, but supporting an anti-LGBTQ charity is clearly not something I would ever intentionally do,” Goulding wrote. “Thank you for drawing my attention to this.”

“Kristen’s character is definitely gay in the movie. ” — Charlie’s Angels director ELIZABETH BANKS, speaking to Pride Source about Kristen Stewart’s character Sabina.

“I mean, she wanted to be gay in the movie and I’m like, ‘Yeah,’” Banks continued. “I made sure we kept that little moment in so that you understand what she was attracted to.”

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NOVEMBER 14 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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