Tituss Rising: An interview with Tituss Burgess - Metro Weekly, May 28, 2020

Contents

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Volume 27 Issue 4

RETURN TO SERVICE

LGBTQ-friendly bars and restaurants have adapted to cope with the pandemic, and are all eager to get back to a “new normal.”

By John Riley

TITUSS RISING

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With new music, TV projects, and a movie, the post-Kimmy Schmidt future is looking brighter than ever for Tituss Burgess.

Interview by Doug Rule Photography by Jeff Mills

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BESIDE HERSELF

Carly Rae Jepsen returns with an album of tracks you’d never know were scraped from the cutting room floor.

By Sean Maunier

SPOTLIGHT: UNCORKED p.5 CALIFORNIA GIRLS p.6 OUT ON THE TOWN p.9 THE FEED: HATEFUL PROTEST p.19 FALSE ACCUSATION p.20 VULNERABLE YOUTH p.21 RACIST COVER-UP p.22 WONDERFUL WORLD p.23 SENSELESS CENSOR p.24 COMMUNITY SUPPORT p.25 NO GLORY p.26 ANIMATED LOVE p.27 GALLERY: INSPIRATION IN ISOLATION p.43 FILM: HIGH NOTE p.45 TELEVISION: SPACE FORCE p.47 SELFIE SCENE p.48 LAST WORD p.49 Washington, D.C.’s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 26 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, 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 Reverend James Cleveland Cover Photography Jeff Mills 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.

© 2020 Jansi LLC.

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF SECO WINE

Spotlight

Uncorked

Steiner

Carlie Steiner created Seco Wine to “create a little bit of a f***ing positive moment in these days.”

W

HEN I OPENED POM POM, IT TRULY WAS THE Seco Wine, whose name derives from the Spanish word restaurant of my dreams,” says Carlie Steiner, who for dry that is also used in Bolivia for raising a toast, reflects launched the boutique operation last August in the the varied experiences of Steiner. The 28-year-old native of same Petworth locale as her previous outing, the nationally Virginia Beach has previously lived in Bolivia and got her start acclaimed Himitsu. in D.C. at the esteemed cocktail lab Barmini by José Andrés.

With Pom Pom, the Steiner, a member of the LGBTQ com- That two-year stint informs the cocktail kits that Seco offers, munity, rooted more avowedly than ever before for her queer providing recipes and “everything you need to make fresh home team. She conceived of the restaurant as “an elevated cocktails at home” — complete with whole lemons and limes. dining experience [especially] for queer people” and also as “We decided against juicing the limes for you [because] they’re “a safe space for queer people and for trans people, and a safe just never going to be as good unless you're juicing fresh that space for women and people of color.” Ultimately, though, day. It makes the world of difference.”

Pom Pom became “really a melting pot of gender and sexuality When it comes to its namesake alcohol, Steiner explains in a way that most restaurants don’t perfectly achieve.” that Seco Wine “is different than wine clubs and it's difUnfortunately, Steiner doesn’t really see a future for Pom ferent than buying wine in a store. It's a very experiential Pom in the emerging new world order of physical and social wine-buying process.” Seco features greater diversity and more distancing. “Even if I wanted, in my deepest female-produced wines, presented in a livelier Click Here to of hearts, to reopen it,” she says, “Pom Pom and more lighthearted approach, rather than wouldn't work in the space that it's in. Our Visit Seco Wine mere groupings by origin or varietal. For examdining room is 400 square feet. I don't have an ple, there’s “Horoscope Moods,” a pack of three opportunity to think about ‘what do I want’ because the num- wines selected to complement one’s particular astrological sign bers are telling me what I can't do. I've thought about every that makes a “really good birthday gift,” and a “Baby Makin’” possibility.” collection that “comes with lube and chocolate and three Instead, within days of Pom Pom’s closure due to COVID- amazing bottles of wine” — including a rosé from Send Nudes, 19, Steiner immediately seized on a new delivery and to-go a California winemaker who actually encourages drinkers to venture that allows a core team — a queer-led group with show pink in the revealing way suggested by its name.

Pom Pom’s chef Amanda Moll and sommelier Casey Rath of “It's just really fun,” Steiner says. “What we’re going for is Pineapples and Pearls — to continue “to cook for people in a just trying to create a little bit of a fucking positive moment in way, and to serve and teach them about wine and cocktails.” these days.” —Doug Rule Seco Wine offers grocery items as well as food and drink packages, all available for free delivery as well as pickup from 828 Upshur St. NW. Use the code “Metro” for $15 off all purchases. Call 202-321-4751 or visit www.secowine.com.

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Spotlight

California Girls T

Weinraub

Leilah Weinraub’s Shakedown reveals a liberating L.A. underground scene created by and for queer black women.

HE WOMEN ARE SEXY, THEY’RE FINE,” DECLARES that people who don’t find themselves represented in a space, one enthusiastic patron at the weekly underground have to create that space for themselves. ladies-for-ladies party that provides the title of “They had to know that it was not going to be something Leilah Weinraub’s acclaimed documentary Shakedown. The that someone else was going to do for them. They had to see Shakedown parties, featuring a tight team of it, and invent it, and make it happen,” she Click Here to female exotic dancers known as the Angels, says. “That's one thing I was trying to deliver are long since past. But Weinraub’s film, this Watch “Shakedown” in the film, is a legend or a map to autonomy month’s Reel Affirmations Xtra Film Series in a way. And that it's not really given. It's selection, captures the lightning-in-a-bottle thrill of freedom something you have to decide and make. And it comes together. and belonging that the events brought to an underserved pop- There's a genesis.” ulation within the Los Angeles LGBTQ community of the early Shakedown reflects not only the fruits of lesbian party pro’00s. As that same lovely partygoer points out in the film, “there’s moter Ronnie-Ron’s DIY labors, but the end of her party as well. not that many gay clubs where you can go and just be yourself, However, that might not spell the end of the story for Weinraub, and that’s in the hood. Every other club is in Hollywood or Santa who’s considering Shakedown for a narrative feature adaptation.

Monica. It’s like, you need somewhere that’s in the hood.”

“I love the story, and the people in it, and the world,” she says.

Weinraub, a biracial black filmmaker and artist who grew up “And it was a really important piece of work for me because it in L.A., says it took effort at the time to connect with a scene that taught me...a lot of different things. But the process taught me represented her and her preferences. “Shakedown was under- how to be a director. And so if I was to be able to work with the ground, and I had to look for it,” she says. And she recognized story more, I would be lucky, I think.” — André Hereford Shakedown is not rated, and screens virtually via online portal starting Friday, May 29. Virtual tickets are $12, and good for 72 hours. Visit www.reelaffirmationsfilmfestival.vhx.tv.

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VirtVual

Out On The Town

SORDID LIVES: ALL-STAR LIVESTREAM BENEFIT PLAY READING

Beau Bridges, Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, and Caroline Rhea are the headline names among a starry roster of performers participating in a special livestream reading to benefit 23 stage companies that have partnered with the newly established Del Shores Foundation and its mission to find and facilitate new southern queer artistic voices. The focus, of course, is on playwright Shores’ Sordid Lives, a 1996 “black comedy about white trash as a gay actor struggles to come out to his eccentric, dysfunctional Texas family.” Sordid Lives went on to inspire the cult-hit screen adaptation in 2000, the 2017 marriage-equality-themed sequel A Very Sordid Wedding, as well as LOGO’s prequel Sordid Lives: The Series. Produced and hosted by Shores with Emerson Collins, the one-night-only #SordidLiveStream will also feature appearances from Carson Kressley, Georgette Jones, Alec Mapa, Aleks Paunovic, David Steen, and Allison Tolman. Levi Kreis will perform, and a message to all will be dispensed by Olivia Newton-John. The artists are donating their time, with an auction of Sordid Lives memorabilia adding to the benefit. Sunday, May 31, at 8 p.m. on YouTube and Facebook. Visit www.delshoresfoundation.org.

Compiled by Doug Rule

FILM ALAMO ON DEMAND: CURATED LIBRARY OF INCREDIBLE ENTERTAINMENT

Launched shortly after COVID-19 forced the closure of its cinemas, including two in Northern Virginia, this national arthouse film chain’s Alamo-At-Home series was such a success, the company has decided to expand its eccentric virtual streaming offerings — with a focus on “challenging, provocative, and occasionally batsh*t insane films.” And the Alamo’s new video-on-demand platform features plenty of films that fit that outlandish bill, including Butt Boy, Tyler Cornack’s comedy/thriller

about a detective who is out to prove his wild theory about a mentor of his, one he suspects “uses his butt to make people disappear,” and Porno, Keola Racela’s 2019 scary tale about a group of repressed teenagers in a small conservative town “visited by a sex demon that gives them a taste of the dark side.”

Hereford, who concluded that this “spare pas de deux earns its prizes, as Marianne and Héloïse’s slow-burning romance portrays, with flush familiarity, how falling in love both pins the women down and sets them free.” All tickets purchased benefit the Alamo chain as well as featured filmmakers. Visit ondemand.drafthouse.com.

Also available for streaming is Portrait of a Lady on Fire, featured on Metro Weekly film critic André Hereford’s Best Films of 2019 list. Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s women-in-love feature, focused on a painter and her subject in 1760s France, “wants to look like a painting, and it does so beautifully,” wrote

AVALON THEATRE: VIRTUAL CINEMA

Among the new offerings to come on Friday, May 29, through the “Virtual Cinema” of the Avalon Theatre in Upper Northwest D.C. is Papicha, about an improbable fashion show an 18-year-old female student in Algeria puts together in spite of a rise in social conserva-

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tism during the height of the Algerian Civil War. Other Avalon offerings include Steve James’ 2014 documentary Life Itself, chronicling the life and career of Roger Ebert and based on the famed film critic’s bestselling memoir of the same title, and The Booksellers, D.W. Young’s 2019 look at an assortment of antiquarian merchants and the underappreciated role they play in preserving history. Tickets range from $10 to $12 for a three-day streaming period, with roughly half of sales going toward the nonprofit theater and the remainder for the general cause of independent filmmaking and distribution. Call 202-9666000 or visit www.theavalon.org.

CINEMA ARTS THEATRE’S VIRTUAL CINEMA

The arthouse movieplex in Fairfax continues offering streams of Military Wives, conceived of as a companion to director Peter Cattaneo’s previous hit The Full Monty. The feel-good, crowd-pleaser stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan and was inspired by the real-life tale of a ragtag group of women who came together to form a choir while their partners were away serving in Afghanistan.

Other titles available through Cinema Arts include And Then We Danced, Levan Akin’s well-crafted tale of two male company members in the National Georgian Dance Ensemble who become competitors, then partners, then lovers, with Levan Gelbakhiani starring as the quiet yet intense Merab; Sorry We Missed You, Ken Loach’s wrenching, intimate family drama from last year focused on the British working class and exposing the dark side of the “gig economy”; and Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, which focuses on the intense bond that forms between two women, both anti-aircraft gunners during World War II, who struggle to readjust to a haunted world and life in Leningrad after the war. In Russian with English subtitles.

Visit www.cinemaartstheatre.com.

STAGE 1ST STAGE: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS SERIES

Virginia’s 1st Stage is taking to Zoom to connect artists with patrons and keep everyone interested and engaged in its work. The troupe’s new series continues with “How 1st Stage Develops New Work,” featuring two playwrights whose works the company has premiered, Bob Bartlett and his Swimming with Whales and E.M. Lewis and Now Comes The Night, on May 30; “The Life of a Solo Artist,” featuring artists from the Logan Festival discussing

Weekends

AFI SILVER VIRTUAL SCREENING ROOM

While its physical venue in Silver Spring remains closed, the AFI offers a rotating crop of titles available for streaming. The lineup of new titles this week include the past four annual Animation Show of Shows, curated collections featuring inspiring and profound shorts from the 17th through the 20th annual editions; Sasie Sealy’s Lucky Grandma, a hip Chinatown crime caper in which an ornery grandmother becomes embroiled in a gang war; Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish, an emotionally wrenching documentary about an orca that killed several people while in captivity; and The Grey Fox, a 1982 revisionist western focused on an aging bandit and presented in a 4K restoration. Ticket purchases benefit the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, with additional support to independent filmmaking and distribution. Visit www.afi.com/Silver. their one-person productions, on June 6; and “Cultural Tysons,” a discussion about COVID-19 and its impact on the local arts community with panelists Lori Carbonneau of the McLean Project for the Arts, local artist and teacher Deborah Conn, and Jen Morrow of Bad’s Alley bookstore, on June 13. All conversations are live at 2 p.m., with recordings of each posted online for later viewing. Register for each Community Conversation at www.1ststage.org.

ACT’S OUT & ABOUT ONLINE FESTIVAL, NEW WEBSITE

Instead of its annual showcase of live, in-person LGBTQ theater during DC Black Pride, the African-American Collective Theater, naturally, moved everything online in the year of COVID19. On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the organization unveiled its “latest work-in-progress, our new Internet home and archive.” New short plays are being added to the website every night until Sunday, May 31, as part of a celebratory, all-virtual festival. A reimagined and expanded version of ACT’s annual Black Pride showcase, Out & About offers

staged readings featuring actors breathing life into a sampling of the many plays written by Alan Sharpe, the artistic director who founded the company 28 years ago, many of them playfully, provocatively titled. Early offerings include I’ll Show You Mine...If You Show Me Yours,” reenacted by Edwin Brown III and Darrell Johnson; Over Sex Ed, featuring Dolly Turner, Wilma Lynn Horton, and Abbey Asare-Bediako; The Tea… with August Bullock and Maggy Denise Lewis; and The OTHER One featuring Davon Harris and Jordan Brown. In addition to the “Now,” ACT offers, under the “Next” tab on its new website, a two-minute peek at a play now in production. Negotations focuses on an ominous, late-night encounter between two mysterious men, portrayed

by Morgan Duncan and Maurice T. Olden.

Visit https://a-act.org/.

AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE CENTER’S STREAMING OFFERINGS

Through a special agreement with Actors’ Equity Association, the professional theater troupe devoted to Shakespeare is one of the few able to stream full, filmed recordings of past productions. The cur-

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2. Performances stream from www.youtube.com/bravespiritstheatre on Mondays and Tuesdays starting at 7:30 p.m. Free, but donations are welcome. Visit www. bravespiritstheatre.com.

HOMEBOUND

JXJ VIRTUAL CINEMA

The Edlavitch DCJCC has teamed up with independent film distributors for select screening runs of new releases and restorations of classics, with 50 percent of all proceeds going toward its new (but currently shuttered) cinema space Cafritz Hall. Highlights include Fourteen, about two adult women who have been close friends since middle school; Agnieszka Holland’s thriller Mr. Jones, focused on a young Welsh journalist working to uncover the truth about Hitler’s rise to power and Stalin’s Soviet propaganda machine pushing their “utopia” to the Western world; and Outdoors, about a couple intent on fleeing the city for a fresh start in the countryside who can’t move quickly enough to save their relationship. Tickets are $10 to $12 for multi-day screenings per film, with passes also available. Visit www.jxjdc.org/virtualcinema. rent offerings are of two stagings from the past season of the center’s National Tour company, including a version of the Bard’s classic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A timelier, bolder, and more unexpected offering is Frank Galati’s stage adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. José Zayas directs a spare interpretation of the John Steinbeck Depression-era classic that relies on the 11-member ensemble for versatile storytelling enhanced with music, capped by “We Go On,” an original anthem from company member Madeline Calais that helps close out the show. Both productions are available through May 31 on the company’s streaming service BlkFrsTV, praised by the Wall Street Journal for its “webcasts [that] effortlessly convey the joyous experience of watching Shakespeare in Blackfriars Playhouse” — the center’s main, in-the-round theater space modeled after the original Globe Theatre and located in the historic Shenandoah Valley town of Staunton, Va. Tickets start at $10 per show in a “pay the price that works for you” scale that goes up to $100. Visit www.americanshakespearecenter.com.

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BRAVE SPIRITS THEATRE’S ONLINE STAGED READING FESTIVAL

Alexandria’s Brave Spirits Theatre, which puts a feminist twist on early modern English classics, is in the midst of a monthlong staged reading festival celebrating the history plays from Shakespeare’s era intended as a supplement to the company’s current two-year Shakespeare’s Histories project. By virtue of it being moved online due to COVID-19, the festival’s plays are being planned and performed not only by its ensemble cast but also by collaborators from across the world. Spanning historical events from 1199 to 1499, many of the plays provide sources for Shakespeare’s works and alternate versions of events and characters. The festival continues with The True Tragedy of Richard the Third, an anonymous Elizabethan play that may have influenced Shakespeare and performed by Fireside Shakespeare Company in a production co-directed by Rosemary Armato and Sarah Duttlinger, on Monday, June 1; and Perkin Warbeck by John Ford (‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore), about a man who claims to be a lost descendant of the House of York and provokes a challenge from Henry VIII, on Tuesday, June

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Round House Theatre won’t reopen its recently renovated space in Bethesda until the fall season, but the company has hired back nine actors who were slated to appear in three canceled spring productions for Homebound. An original web series that explores life under Stay-at-Home orders in the Nation’s Capital, the series stars Craig Wallace and Maboud Ebrahimzadeh and is progressing in a 10-episode “chain story” style, with each episode — one available for free every Monday — building off what came before but written by a different area playwright. The series kicked off with “Connect!,” a 12-minute episode written by humorist and Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri, and then continued with Karen Zacarías’ “Human Resources” featuring Ebrahimzadeh and introducing Alina Collins Maldonado as his HR manager, Farah Lawal Harris’ “We Wear the Mask” with Wallace and introducing Chinna Palmer as his niece, and Liz Maestri’s “Together Alone,” returning to Ebrahimzadeh in self-isolation and pursuing friendship with a character played

by Jamie Smithson. The series has now reached its midway point with ‘Double Entendre,” a 12-minute work from Psalmayene 24 featuring Wallace on the phone with Yao Dogbe, portraying a colleague breaking the news of a life-changing decision in response to the pandemic and the state of the nation. Subsequent weeks will offer episodes from Tim J. Lord, Audrey Cefaly, Dani Stoller, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, and Caleen Sinnette Jennings. The company’s artistic director Ryan Rilette and associate artistic director Nicole A. Watson are offering remote direction during rehearsals to the actors, who are filming their parts from home with additional guidance on home lighting by designer Harold F. Burgess II and wardrobe by Ivania Stack. Through June 29. Visit www.RoundHouseTheatre.org/ Homebound.

MOSAIC ALIVE

The Mosaic Theater Company has taken to Zoom and Facebook for twice-weekly discussions with its artists and other experts on relevant topics, all directly or indirectly related to productions and events in the company’s upcoming Season 6. Next up is “Season 6 Series: A Creative

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Conversation with the Artists of The Niceties” featuring playwright Eleanor Burgess, Angelisa Gillyard, and Naomi Jacobson, on Friday, May 29, at 4 p.m.

Still available for streaming is the Season 6 announcement, when artistic director Ari Roth unveiled the lineup for the season that starts up in the fall, followed by a live discussion and Q&A. Visit www. mosaictheater.org/alive.

MOLLY’S SALONS AT ARENA STAGE

Arena Stage is presenting an eclectic package of free online programming, mostly taped discussions and performances. Among the offerings is this free, weekly series of half-hour discussions led by the company’s artistic director Molly Smith and featuring a rotating mix of Arena artists, leaders, and outside affiliates. Available for streaming from Arena’s website every Thursday night at 7 p.m., the series continues with a Disney’s Newsies reunion with actors Daniel J. Maldonado, Erin Weaver, and Joe Montoya (May 28), and an artistic director confab including Stephanie Ybarra of Baltimore Center Stage, Barry Edelstein of San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, and Mark Clements of Milwaukee Repertory Theater joining Smith (June 4). The previous discussions in the series are also still available for streaming, with updates from choreographer Parker Esse, actors Nicholas Rodriguez and Edward Gero, playwrights Karen Zacarías and Craig Lucas, director Charles Randolph-Wright, singer-songwriter Mary McBride, and Maria Manuela Goyanes, artistic director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, among others. Visit www.arenastage.org/ tickets/intermission.

SPOOKY ACTION THEATER’S NEW WORKS IN ACTION: ONLINE READINGS

Spooky Action sets out to explore the online possibilities with its New Works in Action program, presenting free live streamed readings of four new plays, all one-timeonly offerings on the company’s YouTube channel — that is, they will not be recorded for posterity and archived, so you snooze, you lose. Audiences are invited to stay afterwards for talkbacks with the actors, director, and playwright. The series continues with Matthew Kelly’s We Victorians, billed as a radical interrogation of power in the #MeToo era as a 21-year-old assistant files suit against a respected attorney in a collision of queer empowerment and oldschool privilege, on Sunday, May 31; Jack Novack’s Transferal, about a woman who

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loses her partner in a plane crash and the parents who are trying to reconnect and move on, on Sunday, Jun 7; and Laura Shamas’ Circular, exploring what actually happened in combat between a soldier and her commanding officer, revealed gradually as part of the healing process, and portrayed by actors Lisa Hodsoll and Jonathan Holmes in a reading directed by Katherine Chase Bryer, on June 14. All performances at 3 p.m. Call 202-248-0301 or visit www. spookyaction.org.

STARS IN THE HOUSE

Since March, Seth Rudetsky, the afternoon Broadway host on SiriusXM Radio, and his husband, Broadway producer James Wesley, have been conducting two livestreamed discussions a day as a benefit for The Actors Fund and its services, with plans to keep going until the Great White Way reopens. The announced lineup for upcoming shows include a Variety Thursday program with guests Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf, Rob McClure, and Anneliese van der Pol, on May 28, at 8 p.m.; an evening with Cheyenne Jackson on Friday, May 29, at 8 p.m.; and a reunion of the Falsettos original OffBroadway cast with Stephen Bogardus, Janet Metz, Faith Prince, Michael Rupert, and Chip Zien, on Saturday, May 30, at 8 p.m. Highlights among the more than 100 past episodes, all of which can be viewed on on the Actors Fund YouTube channel, include reunions with cast members from hit TV shows Dallas, Desperate Housewives, Frasier, Glee, and Smash, plus discussion with cast members from Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood and Hulu’s Difficult People, reunions with the original Broadway casts of Les Misérables, Spring Awakening, Fun Home, and Urinetown, individual appearances by performers Kristen Chenoweth, Judith Light, Gavin Creel, Billy Porter, Varla Jean Merman, Randy Rainbow, and Matt Bomer and playwright/composers Jason Robert Brown, Benj Pasek & Justin Paul, and Marc Shaiman, plus castmates from West Side Story, The Rink, and The Visit as part of previous “Chita Rivera and Friends” discussions. Livestreamed daily at 2 and 8 p.m. Visit www.starsinthehouse.com.

THE SHAKESPEARE HOUR

Simon Godwin, the newly installed artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, and his creative crew have devised virtual solutions to keep audiences engaged during the region’s “stay-athome” confinement. Chief among these,

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a weekly videocast that finds the director and dramaturg Drew Lichtenberg in conversation with various theatrical luminaries discussing Shakespearean works. Extended through June 10, the upcoming lineup includes “Democracy & Empire” with James Shapiro of Columbia University discussing self-rule and sovereignty as depicted in Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, respectively, on June 3, and “Marriage & Mistrust,” focused on Othello and Much Ado About Nothing and featuring a guest artist to be determined, on June 10. Tickets are $10 for non-STC members. Visit www.shakespearetheatre. org/events/the-shakespeare-hour.

THEATER J’S ONLINE YIDDISH THEATER LAB READINGS

Online readings of two new plays will close out the third year of programming for Theater J’s signature Yiddish Theater Lab. Miriam, a commission from playwright Alix Sobler (Sheltered) that has been freely adapted from Peretz Hirschbein’s Miryam, will be livestreamed first, on Sunday, June 7, at 5 p.m., followed by Paula Prilutski’s One Of Those, adapted and translated by Allen Lewis Rickman, on June 18, at 5:30 p.m.

Free, but registration for tickets required; the streams will continue on-demand for three days after the reading. Call 202-7773210 or visit www.theaterj.org.

MUSIC KENNEDY CENTER COUCH CONCERTS

The Kennedy Center presents a free Millennium Stage concert every night at 6 p.m. under normal circumstances — that is, when the large campus is open to the public. Until it can reopen post-pandemic, the organization is offering Couch Concerts livestreamed direct from artists’ homes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4 p.m. Even better, all past Millennium Stage and #KCCouchConcerts remain online for streaming anytime — a treasure trove that includes recent livestreams including the double bill of Kennedy Center HipHop Advisory Council member Kokayi and up-and-coming local five-piece band Oh He Dead, and the Washington Women in Jazz Festival Showcase with Amy K Bormet, Christie Dasheill, and Nicole Saphos; plus recent Millennium Stage Encore shows from the 2013 concert by ’90s hit-making hip-hop group Arrested Development to the 2019 “Wind Me Up Chuck!” special tribute to the late godfather of go-go and featuring his namesake outfit

The Chuck Brown Band, or from the 2018 concert by the four-part-harmony-focused Australian indie-folk band All Our Exes Live in Texas, to the 2019 concert featuring Mexican starlet and past Best New Artist Latin Grammy Awardee Gaby Moreno.

Visit www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/ millennium-stage/couch-concerts.

METROPOLITAN OPERA’S NIGHTLY STREAMS

The Met continues sifting through its trove of “Live in HD” recordings of past productions for free nightly streams from its website. The upcoming lineup of encore presentations, starting at 7:30 p.m. and remaining available up to 23 hours later, includes the 2013 production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Bryan Hymel, and Dwayne Croft, on Thursday, May 28; the 2009 production of Bellini’s La Sonnambula starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez, presented as a “Viewer’s Choice” selection on Friday, May 29; Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, the 2018 production starring Pretty Yende, Matthew Polenzani, Davide Luciano, and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, on Saturday, May 30; and Strauss’s Salome, the 2008 production starring Karita Mattila, Ildikó Komlósi, Kim Begley, Joseph Kaiser, and Juha Uusitalo, on Sunday, May 31. Visit www.metopera.org. #PEARLSTREETLIVE CONCERT RECORDINGS, INCLUDING OH HE DEAD

Although live, in-person concerts remain on indefinite hiatus during COVID-19, Pearl Street Warehouse has been presenting the occasional concert livestream to its YouTube channel. The upcoming schedule includes a live concert from Sean Della Croce on Thursday, May 28, at 8 p.m. Yet #PearlStreetLive is also home to roughly a dozen recorded performances posted over the past month. Most of these are the kind of intimate and acoustic no-frills, at-home hour-long shows you’d expect from indie artists in quarantine, including singing guitarists Tim Cook from The Subdudes, Naseem Khuri of Kingsley Flood, and Brennley Brown. Yet one outlier is a concert fortuitously recorded at the venue last year, capturing the first hour of the New Year’s Eve performance by Oh He Dead.

The D.C.-based band’s amusing name captures the playfully wry and passionate sensibility of this group on the rise, a “rock ‘n’ soul band” distinguished by the vocal harmonies of founding members Cynthia “C.J.” Johnson and Andrew Valenti. Call

APO JUKEBOX: THE BEST OF THE AMERICAN POPS

Luke Frazier of the American Pops Orchestra will be accompanied by director Kelly D’Amboise in a virtual event reliving favorite moments from past APO productions including The Music of Jerry Herman, Let’s Misbehave: Cole Porter After Dark, You’ve Got a Friend: Singer-Songwriter, and Coat of Many Colors: The Music of Dolly Parton. Even better, they’ll be joined by many of the featured guest stars, all logging in for virtual visits offering performance insights and answering audience questions. The lineup includes Claybourne Elder, Nova Y. Payton, Alexis Michelle, Mauricio Martinez, Garret Clayton, Neyla Pekarek, MILCK, Kodiak Thompson, and Ally Dods. The whole event is a benefit to support the orchestra’s various outreach efforts during COVID-19, including the APO Kids Club initiative delivering free music kits to area food banks intended for families with young children. Ticket-holders and those who register for the show on Eventbrite.com will receive the private streaming link 24 hours prior to its launch. Saturday, May 30, at 8 p.m. Tickets are by donation, with suggested general admission costing $20 plus fees. Visit www.theamericanpops.org.

202-380-9620 or visit www.pearlstreetwarehouse.com.

STRATHMORE’S LIVE FROM THE LIVING ROOM

Every Wednesday, Strathmore offers livestreams primarily featuring solo performances of its multi-genre Artists in Residence, both those from the current 2020 class as well as a select few alumni of the esteemed A.I.R. program. Each concert presents bite-sized performances — roughly 20 minutes in length — captured live from the living rooms of local musicians and streamed via Facebook Live starting at 7:30 p.m. The lineup continues with traditional bluegrass and roots musician Patrick McAvinue on June 3, the local gay multifaceted singer-songwriter Chris Urquiaga on June 10, the soulful D.C. queerpop singer-songwriter Be Steadwell on June 17, and innovative string player and international recording artist Chelsey Green on June 24. In addition, recordings of past concerts in the series remain available on the Facebook page @StrathmoreArts, among them: Christian Douglas, a budding pop artist and theater artist who most recently performed in the ensembles of Arena

Stage’s Newsies and Signature Theatre’s Gun & Powder; Mark G. Meadows, another well-known local theater pianist and vocalist; Niccolo Seligmann, a gay artist merging the sounds of obscure folk instruments with early classical music; Christylez Bacon, the celebrated Grammy-nominated progressive hip-hop artist and multi-instrumentalist; and the Bumper Jackson Duo, Jess Eliot Myhre and Chris Ousley’s American roots project merging country and jazz. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

SUNSET SESSIONS AT THE PARK: LUKE JAMES SHAFFER

The Alexandria-based folk-pop singer-songwriter Luke James Shaffer is the next to get the virtual spotlight in a biweekly, five-event summer series being broadcast from the Great Lawn at the Parks at Walter Reed — in lieu of a live performance from the grassy knoll. Shaffer is expected to play selections from a forthcoming new album at his @TheParksDC concert, which will be livestreamed via Instagram on Sunday, June 7, at 5 p.m., and then featured on YouTube later. Visit https://theparksdc.com/events/sunsetsessions-at-the-parks/.

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THE NORTH COUNTRY

Until it can once again host live events under the dome in its acoustically rich former synagogue space, Sixth and I has launched a Living Room Sessions series, co-presented by DCist, featuring select artists in free livestream performances from their homes. Next up in the series is Andrew Grossman, the bandleader, guitarist, and lead vocalist for D.C.’s The North Country, said to blend polyphonic psychedelia, classic American songwritership, and soulful indie-rock compositions. Friday, June 5, streaming from Sixth and I’s Facebook page starting at 4 p.m. Free, although both RSVPs and donations, which will be shared evenly among the venue and the featured artists, are appreciated. Call 202-408-3100 or visit www.sixthandi.org.

DANCE CHAMBER DANCE PROJECT’S VIRTUAL CHAT SERIES

A month after launching its first-ever online auction to make up for a canceled spring gala, the young contemporary ballet company debuted another virtual component, “Get Closer to the Art.” This series of free multimedia Zoom sessions

features the company’s choreographers, dancers, and designers discussing and previewing their craft, particularly as it pertains to the company’s work and its upcoming seventh season, New Works 2020. Launched in mid-April with artistic director Diane Coburn Bruning’s “300 Years of Ballet History in 1/2 Hour” presentation and discussion, the virtual series continues every Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Coburn Bruning leads “The Rise of Ballet in America,” an overview of the people, companies, and organizations that drove growth of the art form in the 20th century, with a discussion following the presentation on June 2. Sessions are free, although donations are invited, and open to those who request the Zoom link by noon on the day-of with an email to RSVP@chamberdance.org. For more information visit www.chamberdance.org.

COMEDY TIGHT 5 LOOSE 5: A VIRTUAL SHOW

Working to bring the funny to Zoom is the D.C. Comedy Loft with a show featuring comics, all regulars at the venue’s intimate space near Dupont Circle. The premise: five comedians performing five minutes of old jokes followed by five

minutes of new. The lineup for the next scheduled show features Billy Sorrell, Ever Mainard, Tommy Taylor Jr., and “a surprise guest,” plus host Blaire Postman, on Sunday, May 31, at 8 p.m. The private Zoom link will be emailed to ticket-holders the day-of. Tickets are $5, with a portion of sales going to the Comedy Loft Employee Lay Off Fund. Call 202-2931887 or visit www-dccomedyloft-com. seatengine.com/shows/125909.

FOOD & DINING CLYDE’S, KNEAD HOSPITALITY: FOOD IT FORWARD INITIATIVE

The public is encouraged to “buy a meal for those in need” from participating restaurants in the Clyde’s Restaurant Group and Knead Hospitality chains — including Clyde’s, The Hamilton, Old Ebbitt Grill, Succotash, and Mi Vida.

The two local restaurant groups are also working to keep some of their restaurant workers employed through this initiative, a partnership also including the nonprofits Martha’s Table and MedStar Health, which will work to distribute the prepared meals to those directly affected by the COVID-19 crisis. A donation of $13 feeds an individual for one night while

SelfieScene Take a selfie, make it fun!

TEXT it to

202-527-9624 Be sure to include your name and city

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MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

$54 covers a family of four, with $91 covering an individual’s meals for a week and $378 feeding four for a week. Visit www. fooditforwarddc.com.

ART & EXHIBITS

Over the years, this exhibition, featuring works in various mediums and subjects, has grown to include 85 artists from D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. This year’s juror is Myrtis Bedolla, owner of Baltimore’s Galerie Myrtis. Bedolla selected 94 pieces of original hanging work, in any medium, submitted by 85 artists, all of which was moved online, giving it a longer shelf life than usual. Linda Lowery’s Aya was awarded 1st Place, while Jim Haller’s Triptych came in 2nd and Sally Canzoneri’s DC Stores: 1942 and 2014, 3rd. Honorable Mentions: Kasse Andrews-Weller (In The Beginning Quilt...), Sean Dudley (Dukochanmon), Chris Hanson (Early Morning Walk), David Harris (Thorny Issues), Maria Illingworth (Rosie), James Klumpner (#57), Sharon Malley (School Churns), Khanh Nguyen (Porcelain III), Felicia Reed (Choices), and Glenn Strachan (Woman in Recline, Siem Reap, Cambodia). To begin the buying process or to inquire about specific artwork, contact Galleries@HillCenterDC.org or visit www.hillcenterdc.org/artist/2020-regional-juried-exhibition.

SPRING DREAMS VIRTUAL GALLERY

Gallery Underground, the visual arts space for the Arlington Artists Alliance and part of Crystal City’s Art Underground, goes virtual for its May art exhibit, a display of new, colorful works made while featured artists worked in isolation and created with the intention “to inspire and offer respite in current circumstances.” Spring Dreams features artworks in a range of subjects, styles, and media, from painting to glasswork, sculpture to mixed media. On display through May 31. Call 571-483-0652 or visit www.galleryunderground.org.

TRUE TO NATURE: OPEN-AIR PAINTING IN EUROPE VIRTUAL TOUR

Open-air painting was a core practice for emerging artists in Europe in the late 18thand early 19th-centuries, and those artists skilled at quickly capturing effects of light and atmosphere often went to great lengths to capture breathtaking sites in person, from the Baltic coast to the Swiss alps to the ruins of Rome. The National Gallery

OLIVIA BEE

HILL CENTER GALLERIES: REGIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION

WHITNEY

The young Chicago-based indie-folk band Whitney is gearing up to perform a livestreamed concert presented by independent concert venues around the country, including D.C.’s I.M.P. Productions (9:30 Club, the Anthem), and intended as a benefit for new trade group the National Independent Venue Association (www.nivassoc.org), formed in the wake of COVID-19 as a way to focus attention and assistance on these local entities as they struggle to reemerge once concerts can resume. Thursday, June 4, with stream starting at 7 p.m. (A 36-hour rebroadcast period will start at 11 p.m.) Tickets are $15 to $20.

Visit www.noonchorus.com. of Art organized this exhibition of roughly 100 oil sketches by intrepid artists from the period, including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, John Constable, Simon Denis, Jules Coignet, and André Giroux. While the temporary exhibition’s run was cut short due to COVID-19, the gallery has worked to create a digital version by virtue of a dynamic virtual tour allowing users to zoom in on the works as well as click to read the wall texts and artist biographies. Supplemental materials available online include A Curator’s Quick Tour, or highlights as presented by curator Mary Morton; an Introduction to the Exhibition lecture from Morton, the head of French paintings at the National Gallery, in conversation with Jane Munro of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and private collector Alice Goldet; “Painting in the Open Air,” a conversation between artist Ann Lofquist and Morton; and “Weather in Art: From Symbol to Science,” a lecture from the National Gallery’s art historian David Gariff. Although available on mobile, the tour is best viewed on desktop or tablet.

Visit www.nga.gov/features/true-to-nature-virtual-tour.html.

ABOVE & BEYOND DIGITAL DRAG FEST 2020

Producer Entertainment Group and Stageit.com are presenting a series of online performances mostly featuring drag queens from the ranks of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The festival continues to feature a sizable contingent of queer celebrity creators in thirty-minute shows that “will never be recorded or re-released.”

Most tickets cost $10 and sales are limited to roughly 100 transactions, “to keep audience sizes small and the experience intimate.” Upcoming highlights include: Sherry Vine (“Mama Feelgood”) on Thursday, May 28, at 9 p.m.; ‘90s hitmaker Sophie B. Hawkins on Friday, May 29, at 7 p.m.; Jinkx Monsoon (“Jinkx Calls Her Friends”) on Friday, May 29, at 8 p.m.; Todrick Hall (“Todrick Hall Does Beyoncé”) on Friday, May 29, at 10 p.m.; and Laganja Estranja (“Up In Smoke”) on Friday, May 29, at 11 p.m. Visit www. digitaldragfest.com.

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COLORADO SPRINGS ANTI-FASCISTS

theFeed

Hateful Protest

Drewer

Colorado man protests gay governor’s lockdown with “Open Our Gyms F****t” sign. By Rhuaridh Marr

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MAN IN COLORADO IS REPORTEDLY PROTESTING Gov. Jared Polis’ stay-at-home order with a sign spray-painted on his truck reading, “OPEN OUR GYMS FAGGOT.” Polis made history in 2018 when he became America’s first openly gay elected governor.

Polis closed gyms in the state on March 19 — alongside bars, restaurants, and theaters — to try and limit the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. He eventually issued a statewide stayat-home order on March 25, which was later downgraded to a safer-at-home order last month.

Images of the truck were shared by the website Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists, which said that the truck belongs to 61-year-old Loveland, Colo., resident Michael Drewer, LGBTQ Nation reports.

“Michael Drewer’s car was seen on Garfield and Orchards in Loveland with a homophobic slur directed at Colorado Governor Jared Polis on Sunday, 5/17/2020, the same day as Reopen Colorado protest at the state capitol,” Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists wrote in a post accompanying images of the truck.

The website also shared images reportedly of Drewer wear-

ing a confederate flag t-shirt, saying he is “no stranger to bigotry” and “apparently doesn’t see any irony in supporting both sides of a war against the United States on the basis of slavery.”

Drewer’s Facebook profile also showed that he had liked a number of Trump-supportive Facebook pages.

“We don’t support the state, but we do support science and medicine,” Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists wrote. “Stay inside (if you can), wear a mask, be gay, and do crimes.”

Colorado has almost 23,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has registered almost 1,300 deaths. Despite Gov. Polis revising his stay-at-home order to a safer-at-home order to prepare for reopening the economy, several counties extended their own lockdown orders into May. Last month, a Republican lawmaker in the state refused to apologize after comparing Polis’ stay-at-home order to Nazi Germany.

Colorado House Minority Leader Patrick Neville (R-Castle), speaking on a conservative radio program, accused Polis of having a “Gestapo-like mentality” with regards to the order.

Polis slammed the statement during a press conference, saying MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed Jews and many gypsies and Catholics and gays and lesbians and Russians and so many others.”

Speaking to the Post after Polis made his comments, Neville refused to apologize, instead saying, “I should have said authoritarian, not Gestapo. And I think authoritarian is still accurate.”

TOPIC ON YOUTUBE

he was “offended” and noting that not only is he Jewish, but he lost family members during the Holocaust, the Denver Post reported.

“As a Jewish American who lost family in the Holocaust, I’m offended by any comparison to Nazism,” Polis said. “We act to save lives — the exact opposite of the slaughter of 6 million

False Accusation

Cooper

Christian Cooper, the victim in racist Central Park video, is a trailblazing gay editor. By Rhuaridh Marr

C

HRISTIAN COOPER, A HISTORY-MAKING GAY EDItor, went viral for all the wrong reasons this week after he was the victim of a racist tirade in New York City’s Central Park. A senior biomedical editor and keen birdwatcher, Cooper was in the Ramble in Central Park on Monday when he spotted a woman, Amy Cooper (no relation), walking her dog without a leash. Park rules require dogs to be leashed, and Cooper — who also sits on the board of bird conservation organization the National Audubon Society — informed the woman of the rules and asked her to leash her dog to protect ground-dwelling birds in the area, he told CNN. In a video of the incident recorded by Cooper, who is black, the white woman responds by running towards him, demanding he cease filming and telling him she will phone police, claiming that an “African-American man is threatening” her.

“I’m taking a picture and calling the cops,” Amy Cooper said.

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”

Christian Cooper remained calm throughout, telling her to call police and continuing to film her. The woman proceeds to 20

MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

call 9-1-1 while dragging her dog around by its collar. In the video, the dog can be heard choking and yelping for her to let go.

“I’m sorry, I’m in the Ramble,” Amy Cooper said during the 9-1-1 call. “There’s a man, African American, he has a bicycle helmet. He is recording me and threatening me and my dog.” Her voice continues to rise as she says, “I’m being threatened by a man in the Ramble, please send the cops immediately!”

While on the phone, she eventually let go of her dog’s collar and reattached the leash, at which point Christian Cooper said, “Thank you,” and ended his video.

Cooper posted the incident to his Facebook page, and it was subsequently shared to Twitter by his sister, Melody Cooper, where it quickly racked up millions of views.

“Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park,” Melody Cooper wrote in her tweet, “where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash.”

The exchange caused outrage on social media, with many

theFeed that to her advantage, and I wasn’t having it.”

While Cooper has gone viral for being the victim of a racist incident, he is notable in LGBTQ history for a number of reasons.

Prior to his current role at Health Science Communications, Cooper was a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, where he made history by penning a character that later came out as gay.

Cooper created the character Yoshi Mishima for comic Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, who became the first openly gay Star Trek character in the franchise’s history. Cooper told TVGEN in 1998 that he had written Mishima as “gay all along,” prior to his coming out, “but I just never came right out and said it.”

In addition to making Trek history, Cooper also made Marvel history with the superhero Victoria Montesi, Marvel’s first openly lesbian lead character. Montesi debuted in 1992 in the comic Darkhold.

Cooper is also a notable LGBTQ activist, having served as co-chair of the board of directors of media advocacy organization GLAAD in the late ’80s. He also created the New Yorkbased political action committee (PAC) No More REPublicans Toying with Your Life (No More REPTYLs), which aimed to elect Democratic state senators to Republican-held seats to stop the GOP from roadblocking pro-LGBTQ legislation.

SANDER VAN DER WEL

noting comparisons between similar videos and incidents of white people calling police officers to falsely accuse AfricanAmericans of threatening or illegal behavior.

The fallout for Amy Cooper was swift. The head of insurance investment solutions at Franklin Templeton was placed on administrative leave and subsequently fired by her employer, which issued a statement saying, “We have made the decision to terminate the employee involved, effective immediately. We do not tolerate racism of any kind at Franklin Templeton.”

She has also surrendered her dog to the shelter from which she adopted it, according to a Facebook post from Abandoned Angels Cocker Spaniel Rescue Inc. In comments to CNN, Cooper said she wanted to “publicly apologize to everyone,” and said she is “not a racist,” adding, “I did not mean to harm that man in any way.”

Christian Cooper told CNN that if Cooper meant her apology and kept her dog leashed in future, “then we have no issues with each other.”

“I videotaped [the incident] because I thought it was important to document things,” Christian Cooper added. “Unfortunately we live in an era with things like Ahmaud Arbery, where black men are seen as targets. This woman thought she could exploit

Vulnerable Youth Transgender youth more vulnerable to depression and suicidal feelings. By John Riley

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NEW PEER-REVIEWED STUDY FROM THE TREVOR Project’s research team finds that transgender and nonbinary youth are more at risk of depression and suicidal ideation than their cisgender peers.

According to the study’s findings, which are set to be published in the Journal of Adolescent Health next month, transgender and nonbinary youth are two to 2.5 times as likely to experience depression and seriously consider, or even attempt, suicide, compared to their cisgender LGBQ peers. That finding holds up, even when controlling for age, family income, and race or ethnicity.

The article on the study, titled “Understanding the Mental Health of Transgender and Nonbinary Youth,” finds that trans and nonbinary youth report higher rates of perceived discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. They are also twice as likely as their cisgender peers to report having been physically threatened or harmed due to their identity.

Transgender males were the most susceptible to depression and suicidal ideation, with 86% reporting feelings of depression, 62% having considered suicide, and more than 1 in 3, or 35%, having attempted suicide over the past year. Trans males, trans females, and nonbinary youth assigned female at birth were all MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed every day and we understand the detrimental impacts discrimination and harassment can have on their mental health and well-being,” Dr. Myeshia Price-Feeney, a research scientist at The Trevor Project, said. “We hope this data will encourage more robust nationwide data collection on LGBTQ youth mental health, and that policymakers and health care providers will use these insights to create policies and safe spaces that protect and affirm trans youth everywhere.”

For more information on The Trevor Project, visit www.thetrevorproject.org. The Trevor Project’s crisis counselors can be reached via phone at 1-866-488-7386, text at 678678, or via chat at www. thetrevorproject.org/help.

BIBB COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

significantly more likely to consider suicide than their fellow LGBQ peers.

“Prior to this study, there was a clear lack of research on the differences in mental health and suicidality within different sub-groups of LGBTQ youth,” Dr. Amy Green, the director of research at The Trevor Project, said in a statement.

“These results underscore that transgender and nonbinary youth are particularly vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes and suicide risk compared to their cisgender peers within the LGBTQ community,” Green added. “Furthermore, they show how LGBTQ-based discrimination and victimization contribute to these increased mental health disparities.”

“At The Trevor Project, we hear from trans youth in crisis

Racist Cover-up

Keys

Christian teacher charged with soliciting a male prostitute after claiming black men kidnapped him. By Rhuaridh Marr

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FORMER TEACHER AT A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN Macon, Ga., has been charged with solicitation of sodomy after claiming that he was in a hotel room because two black men had kidnapped him.

Christopher Keys, 56, was arrested by Bibb County police officers after they investigated a “rumor about a carjacking and kidnapping” at a CVS last week, the Macon Telegraph reports.

The rumor stemmed from a Facebook post — since deleted — which alleged that Keys was at a CVS on May 19 when “two black males quickly jumped in his vehicle and put a gun to his head.”

It then claimed that Keys — a former teacher at private Christian school Tattnall Square Academy — was driven to a nearby motel, where the men robbed him, stealing his cell phone and $70. The woman who wrote the original post told 13WMAZ that she had heard the story from her daughter, who had heard it from Keys.

But police say that, rather than kidnapped and taken to 22

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the motel against his will, Keys was at the Regency Inn on Eisenhower Parkway to meet another man, which is where he was reportedly robbed by two men. He allegedly fabricated the kidnapping to prevent family from finding out why he was at the motel.

Keys told police that, while in his room, a man knocked on his door. Keys allowed him to enter, after which the man reportedly told Keys to get on the bed and held a gun to his head.

A second man then entered while the first left the room to steal Keys’ wallet from his truck. After the men left, Keys reported the incident to the sheriff’s office “as a personal armed robbery,” according to a police release.

Keys attended the motel intending to meet another man after responding to a Craigslist ad, police said.

Per the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office: “An investigation revealed that Keys had been a frequent visitor to the Regency Inn & Suites since January.”

13WMAZ reported that Keys told sheriff’s deputies that he

theFeed Officers continue to investigate the robbery, though Keys’ cell phone was returned to him while still at the motel, after an “unknown individual” found it in a nearby parking lot.

Though Keys was reportedly still listed as a teacher at Tattnall Square Academy on the school’s website, a spokesperson told the Macon Telegraph that he no longer worked there.

“Tattnall Square Academy was only recently made aware of the charges against our former employee, Christopher Keys,” the spokesperson said. “We have no comment or information regarding the matter about which he is accused.”

INSTAGRAM

“liked to play around and was married to a woman.”

“Keys told deputies at the time of the initial report that he did not want this to get out and that he did not want deputies to talk with his relatives,” the Sheriff’s Office release states. “Keys said that he was going to tell his father that he was kidnapped from another location and brought to the motel.”

While investigating the robbery, police said they had uncovered information which led to Keys’ arrest on May 21. He has been charged with solicitation of sodomy, a misdemeanor offense, and was released on May 22 after posting $1,500 bond.

Wonderful World F

Alvarado

Mr. Gay World is a Spanish doctor who recovered from coronavirus. By Rhuaridh Marr

RANCISCO JOSÉ ALVARADO, A 30-YEAR-OLD Spanish doctor who recently recovered from COVID-19, has been named Mr. Gay World. His reign begins amid unusual circumstances for the competition, which seeks to find a global ambassador for LGBTQ rights, after it was forced to delay its 2020 contest until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the lack of a 2020 contest, and with 2019 winner Janjep Carlos’ year-long reign concluding at the end of April, organizers decided that Alvarado, last year’s first runner-up, would take over until next year’s competition.

“It is unfortunate that we are postponing this year’s event to

March 2021 but we will be back greater and stronger; in these unprecedented times we lead by example and by the ability to cope with change and adjust,” Eric Butter, President, owner and founder of Mr. Gay World, said in a statement. “The contest will take place in Johannesburg from the 21st to the 28th of March, 2021. I am very much looking forward to it as this is the second time it will be held in Johannesburg. The first was in 2012 and it was one of the best Mr. Gay World™ events ever.”

Butter thanked Carlos for his efforts during his time as Mr. Gay World, and said that Alvarado “will contribute and will ensure that a diverse range of projects and ideas are executed to MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed advance LGBTQ+ rights and the community in general.”

Alvarado, who previously won Mr. Gay Pride España 2018, spoke to Spanish media outlet Redacción Médica about being named to the title, and his recent experience with COVID-19.

The doctor, who works at Lavapiés Health Center in Madrid, said he first started to show symptoms on March 10, in a translation by Queerty.

“I began to notice them while on duty at the hospital,” Alvarado said. “It started with a dry cough, but we were in a moment of collective chaos, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

Alvarado said that the next day he was hit with fatigue and muscle aches, but said that after coming off a 24-hour shift it was “normal that you have the feeling that you have been beaten.”

“It was hard to tell if that usual tiredness was from work or the symptoms,” he said.

After his symptoms worsened, he was tested for COVID-19 on March 12. The test came back positive, and he quarantined in his room at his shared apartment for 19 days, though Alvarado said his symptoms only lasted for the first six days.

“When I told my grandmother she burst into tears,” he said.

“Little was known about the disease at the time and there was fear of uncertainty.”

On March 31, he was tested again. It came back negative, and Alvarado was able to return to work on April 3, which is where he learned that he would be stepping into the title of Mr. Gay World.

“I was at the health center when they told me,” he said,

calling the news an “injection of fresh air in the circumstances we’re living.”

In addition to warning about the severe nature of the virus, Alvarado said that conditions at the hospital have started to take their toll on staff.

“This is my sixth year working and I’ve never seen patients so bad every day,” he said. “There were patients who were fine one day and the next they had very high fever spikes and low oxygen saturation.”

Of his fellow health care workers, he said, “The tiredness…is already noticeable. We are more irascible and [have] much less patience.”

Spain has been heavily impacted by the pandemic, with more than 280,000 confirmed cases of the virus and almost 28,000 deaths.

However, there are signs that the worst of the pandemic might be over, as the country registered its lowest daily death toll in more than two months.

Regarding what he might focus on during his time as Mr. Gay World, Alvarado noted that work needs to be done to combat discrimination in health care, as well as wider society. “[Thirty] years ago, the World Health Organization [delisted] homosexuality [as a] mental illness,” he said. “Today, in 2020, there is still talk of conversion therapies to cure homosexuality.”

He also called out health care professionals who “are not able to set aside their moral judgments” when treating LGBTQ patients.

Senseless Censor F

God’s Own Country distributor Samuel Goldwyn censors film on Prime Video. By John Riley

RANCIS LEE, THE DIRECTOR OF THE GAY ROMANtic film God’s Own Country, took umbrage after learning that some of the sex scenes in the 2017 movie had been removed on streaming platforms. The movie, which stars Josh O’Connor and Alec Secăreanu, chronicles the relationship between a sheep farmer in Britain’s Yorkshire region and a Romanian migrant worker. Due to the film’s exploration of 24

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homosexuality, the film was banned in some Arab and Eastern European countries.

Lee took to Twitter on Wednesday to call out Amazon Prime, which he believed was responsible for deleting the scenes.

“Dear friends in USA, God’s Own Country appears to have been censored on @PrimeVideo (Amazon Prime),” he tweeted.

“Until this is investigated please do not rent or buy on Amazon

theFeed is the correct version of my film. I would like to thank Amazon Prime for being supportive and I would caution any film maker of working with the aforementioned ‘distributor.’ Thank you EVERYONE for all your support.”

According to IndieWire, a film industry and review website, sources close to Amazon Prime say that Goldwyn Films uploaded the movie through its Prime Video Direct service. But films uploaded through Prime Video Direct that contain depictions of pornography, nudity, or explicit depictions of sexual acts are labeled as featuring “sexually explicit content,” preventing the title from appearing on certain carousels on the Prime Video website.

To avoid that, the sources allege, Goldwyn Films removed the controversial scenes, which allowed the film to bypass an explicit rating and increase the film’s visibility to Amazon Prime users.

The censored cut has since been removed from the streaming service, but the original theatrical version is still available for rent or purchase. Neither Amazon Prime Video or Samuel Goldwyn Films responded to requests for comment.

TODD FRANSON

Prime. It is not the film I intended or made. I will report back.”

Lee followed up with a tweet asking viewers in the U.S. if they had any evidence of Amazon Prime censoring naked women, or sex scenes within heterosexual stories on their streaming service, or whether it was just queer films that have been censored.

Some Twitter users pointed out that the version of the movie that streams for free for Amazon Prime members was censored, but the version available for purchase was unedited.

A representative for Amazon Prime later pushed back against Lee’s claim, telling the New York Daily News that Amazon Prime was not involved in censoring the movie, and that the edited version had been uploaded by the film’s distributor, Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Faced with this information, Lee reversed course and issued a follow-up tweet, writing, “After investigation [God’s Own Country] was not censored by @PrimeVideo (Amazon USA) but by the US distributor @GoldwynFilms who butchered the streaming version without consultation to get more ‘revenue.’

“The rental version of God’s Own Country on @PrimeVideo

Hickson

Community Support Even a pandemic won’t stop Us Helping Us from servicing the community. By John Riley

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S HELPING US [HAS] REMAINED OPEN SINCE THE beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says DeMarc Hickson, executive director of Us Helping Us, People Into Living, Inc., a community organization dedicated to promoting holistic health among black LGBTQ people, particularly those living with HIV. Us Helping Us has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by moving some services and programs online, while still maintaining in-person appointments where necessary. For instance, clients in need of HIV and STD screenings, which are usually provided in-person, will instead meet virtually with a nurse practitioner to assess their symptoms and whether they need to pursue a follow-up in person.

The organization’s support groups, which cater to specific segments of the LGBTQ community, have also moved their meetings online, connecting through Zoom or other video chat

platforms — though that has proven to be logistically difficult for some clients.

“We have been seeing some barriers with our transgender support group,” notes Hickson. “Those barriers include one having access to a phone that will allow for the downloading of the Zoom app, or a data plan that allows for it. One of the concerns that has been expressed has been prioritizing the use of data or the minutes. So we’ve tried Facebook Live, but then others don’t have Facebook Live. So there have been a number of barriers that we’ve been working to address.”

More recently, Us Helping Us took its intervention programs online as well. The programs seek to educate and inform specific populations about behavioral and biomedical interventions to promote healthy living, HIV prevention, and HIV treatment.

That includes RAW, or Raising Awareness Within, a program designed to educate opinion leaders in the black LGBTQ comMAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed our seniors who are living with HIV, is a sense of increasing isolation.

“When we deliver the bag, we actually engage and try to have a five- to 10-minute conservation, just to check in with our clients. This allows us to engage with them, even if it’s from a distance.”

UHU has also begun delivering emergency food assistance packages, which provide about a week’s worth of groceries and personal hygiene products, to vulnerable community members.

(Some elderly clients will qualify for both food assistance and senior kits.)

In total, Hickson expects to deliver 500 senior kits and about 300-400 food assistance packages by the time stay-at-home orders are lifted.

“Us Helping Us isn’t just our name, it’s our mantra, and we want people to know that we’re always here for the community,” he says. “And we will continue to be involved in the community, despite this global pandemic.”

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munity about the importance of testing and HIV/STD prevention measures, and the “Crossroads” intervention program, for HIV-negative gay and bisexual men, which touches on a number of heretofore ignored topics, including sexuality and sexual fluidity, navigating serodiscordant relationships with partners who are living with HIV, HIV stigma, and other sensitive issues.

To help vulnerable LGBTQ people during the pandemic, the organization has launched its “senior care kit” program, where employees fill boxes with materials designed to help protect LGBTQ elders from the spread of COVID-19. Those kits, which are care packages distributed every two weeks, include N95 masks and washable face coverings, over-thecounter pain medications, and personal hygiene products to help seniors get through the pandemic without having to venture out as much.

“We also include a crossword puzzle and a word find in the kits,” says Hickson. “Just some things to keep seniors busy.

Because one of the things we’ve been hearing, especially among

No Glory

Gay sex club forced to close after allegedly violating Michigan’s lockdown orders. By Rhuaridh Marr

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GAY CLUB AND ADULT TOY STORE COMPLEX IN Lansing, Mich., has been forced to close after authorities alleged it had violated the state’s COVID-19 lockdown measures. The Fantasies complex, which includes Club Tabu and sex toy and adult video store Fantasies Unlimited, was served a cease-and-desist letter by Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail, Lansing City Pulse reports.

Vail told the Pulse that the retail portion, Fantasies Unlimited, “hasn’t been allowed to be open yet under the executive order.”

“On top of that, there’s [Club Tabu] in the back room which has been opening and there’s a lot of close contact,” Vail added.

“No way they are 6 feet apart.”

Club Tabu describes itself as an “alternative lounge” for gay, bi, and trans men “with a BDSM flavor.”

It features “a large maze” with “an extensive network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has

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MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

to find a way, and in our case, it is very dark and made with walls that have a few holes in them.”

Per the Pulse, Club Tabu also has monitors showing adult films and a sex sling, according to one patron.

A sign on the door reportedly urged patrons to take steps to “minimize the risk of spreading the covid-19 virus,” including wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing.

It said: “While the business celebrates inclusivity and association amongst its private members as well as members of our greater community, proactive steps must be taken to minimize the risk of spreading the covid-19 virus.”

The club reportedly ignored an initial cease-and-desist letter, served earlier in May, and was finally shuttered after a second letter was served by police on May 22.

PinkNews reports that social media posts shared by the club have characterized the lockdown, implemented by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), as a “deprivation of rights.”

PIXAR

theFeed

Animated Love Pixar tackles coming out as gay in new Disney+ short, Out. By Rhuaridh Marr

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IXAR’S NEW SHORT FILM OUT FEATURES THE ANI“These films are unlike anything we’ve ever done at Pixar,” mation studio’s first gay lead character. The nine-minute Pixar president Jim Morris said in a statement, “providing an film, released last week on streaming service Disney+, is opportunity to unlock the potential of individual artists and part of Pixar Animation Studios’ SparkShorts their inventive filmmaking approaches on a program, which is intended to “discover new smaller scale than our normal fare.”

Watch the Trailer storytellers [and] explore new storytelling Out also makes history as the first producfor “Out” techniques,” Deadline reports. tion from Pixar to feature a gay lead character.

Written and directed by Steven Hunter, Out focuses on The studio has offered background characters and minor repreGreg, a young gay man preparing to move in with his boyfriend sentation in its previous films, including a lesbian police officer Manuel. It’s a matter complicated by his parents dropping by for in Onward, released earlier this year. a surprise visit, forcing Greg to deal with coming out to them The studio was also the subject of a boycott by anti-LGBTQ probefore they uncover the truth behind his move. test group One Million Moms, which responded with typical rage “With some help from his precocious pup, and a little bit of over two scenes in Toy Story 4 depicting a child with two moms. magic, Greg might learn that he has nothing to hide,” the film’s official description notes.

Out is available now on streaming service Disney+.

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TODD FRANSON / FILE PHOTO

Return to Service

Pitchers

LGBTQ-friendly bars and restaurants have adapted to cope with the pandemic, and are all eager to get back to a “new normal.”

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By John Riley

VER SINCE D.C. ENTERED LOCKDOWN, CLOSING all nightclubs and restaurants except for takeout and delivery, David Perruzza has used the opportunity to spruce up the interior of his building, which houses both the gay sports bar Pitchers and its lesbian companion, A League of Her Own. “We used this time to repaint probably 85 percent of the bar,” says Perruzza. “We ripped apart every bar and cleaned it from top to bottom. Often you don’t get time to do that. We’ve changed some colors in some areas, and I redid a lot of the floors.”

At first, Pitchers and ALOHO remained closed, even though the bar has a restaurant license and could have remained open for takeout over the past few months. But Perruzza decided that the drastic decline in sales he’d experience wasn’t worth it.

“Honest to God, I think our food’s good, but I didn’t think people were going to come all the way over to Adams Morgan just to get chicken tenders and fried food,” he says. “The cost wasn’t sustainable for me to open, because the minute you open, your landlords think you’re making money, but you won’t make enough to pay your rent and stuff.”

Pitchers recently announced a partnership with Grassfed

Griddle, which would typically sell its “farm-fresh” produce at farmer’s markets, but was looking for a business that could help showcase their wares. Under the arrangement, Pitchers/ ALOHO will be open and selling food from 5 to 10 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.

“Their sales are so low because of social distancing and everything that they needed a kitchen for prep,” says Perruzza.

“I was like, ‘Why don’t we do this until we open? And, if it works out, we might partner with them for good.’ Their food is delicious, and if I’m going to open and serve food, I want my customers to have a good experience and give them something that they can't get other places.”

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced many local establishments to get creative and adopt new business models centered around takeout service. Trade and Number Nine, for instance, have opened themselves up for carryout four days a week, offering cocktails and mixed drinks that customers can take home in a 32 oz. container. And, because of licensing laws, both establishments are offering food along with the beverages.

“At Number Nine, we’re offering popcorn because we make it on site,” says Ed Bailey, one of the sister bars’ co-owners.

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“Mostly what is being sold, beyond the drinks or food, is the opportunity to go to the bar and EXPERIENCE THE ATMOSPHERE FOR A BRIEF MOMENT, SEE SOME FACES YOU MIGHT KNOW, AND HAVE SOMEWHAT OF A SOCIAL MOMENT.” — Ed Bailey, Number Nine and Trade

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“At Trade, we’re offering what we call a ‘deconstructed grilled cheese sandwich,’ which means it’s a piece of bread and a slice of cheese, with instructions on what to do to make grilled cheese once you get home.

“Mostly what is being sold, beyond the drinks or food, is actually an opportunity to go to the bar and experience the atmosphere for a brief moment, see some faces you might know, and have somewhat of a social moment,” says Bailey. “Everyone’s yearning for some semblance of normalcy, and it’s been a nice moment to see the number of people who have stopped by to say hi and wave at a bartender or the door person they know. So that’s what we’re doing, and going to continue to do on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the foreseeable future.”

Similarly, The Dirty Goose, which also has a restaurant license, has been selling chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, as well as liquor and wine by the bottle and pre-mixed craft cocktails for takeout.

“We were talking to our general manager about the longevity of things, and figured, with the continued extensions, that we had to find a more viable option,” says Justin Parker, the bar’s co-owner. It allowed Parker to “get some of our employees who really needed the work into some sort of position at Goose where they could be paid hourly.”

Customers can order their cookies and cocktails online beforehand or in person. For those wishing to avoid the potential spread of COVID-19 and all human contact, prepaid orders will be left on a table, where they can be picked up throughout the course of the day.

Last month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser extended the District’s lockdown to June 8. But on Wednesday, the Mayor announced that select businesses or establishments would be allowed to open on Friday, May 29 as part of the first of four phases, following recommendations contained in an 80-page report issued by the Reopen DC Advisory Committee last week.

Under the guidelines of Phase 1, as enumerated in a mayoral executive order, restaurants and establishments offering food can continue to provide takeout and delivery service, but will also be allowed to open up outdoor spaces, limiting groups to six per table with tables spaced at least six feet apart. The mayor’s order will remain in effect until at least July 24, although Bowser reserves the right to extend or amend that date based on the number of new infections and hospitalizations from COVID-19.

Once Phase 2 is implemented, establishments will be allowed to fill up to 50 percent of their indoor total capacity, although people will still be expected to maintain significant distances.

Phase 3 is almost identical to Phase 2, with case-by-case approvals for expansion consistent with physical distancing. Finally, Phase 4 will mark a “new normal,” where there are no restrictions but restaurants may opt to enforce their own measures to reduce overcrowding prior to a potential second wave of COVID-19 infections, expected to take place in the fall. (No start dates for Phases 2, 3 or 4 have been provided as of yet.)

The Reopen DC report recommends that D.C. bars and nightclubs remain closed until Phase 3. At that point, they will not be permitted to exceed 50 percent indoor capacity and will be required to space people apart so that there are only five individuals filling a 1,000 square foot space.

Kelly Laczko, manager of the Adams Morgan-based Duplex Diner, notes that the restaurant has coped with the pandemic by emphasizing its takeout and delivery services.

“In the beginning, we only really had about two people in the kitchen and one person up front,” she says. “But we were able to get the [Payment Protection Program] loan, which meant

we were able to hire back all the employees, and, because of the additional days that people brought in more business, we were actually able to add one additional person in the kitchen.”

Duplex has been selling its trademark Lemon Squeeze cocktails in party-pack form, and has opened itself up for delivery through the online food ordering website GrubHub, a shift in the restaurant’s business model that Laczko believes is likely to continue in the coming months.

“Even if we manage to open up, we are still going to have to heavily rely on our to-go service, because we only have a 100-person capacity inside the diner,” she says. “So we’re hoping that for Phase 1, we can still rely heavily on the to-go and delivery for customers who might not be comfortable coming in yet. My plan is to use the read-only thermometer for people when they start coming in, just to check their temperatures. And the plan right now is to not let any groups larger than four sit together.”

Doug Schantz, owner of Nellie’s Sports Bar, says due in part to its location at the intersection of U and 9th Streets NW, the bar was the “perfect candidate” for shifting over to the takeout and delivery model, and has been selling ready-made cocktails for home consumption, as well as a limited menu of some of the its more popular items, such as chicken tenders, tater tots, and curly fries.

“When we first got the notice to close, I continued to pay everyone that was on salary” — about 15 kitchen staff — “and then, all of the bartenders and the other staff went on unemployment right away,” says Schantz. “And then there was the threeor four-week process of ‘All right, you can now sell alcohol out of your window with a food item.’ And we actually have a to-go window, and we're perfectly situated with that corner, so people started to come because there was nothing else to do but go to the grocery store and stand in line, six feet apart, and all that sort of thing.”

Schantz is cautious about the prospect of opening up too quickly. He notes that Nellie’s has a sidewalk café permit, but doesn’t feel it’s necessary to utilize it at the present time.

“I honestly think the smartest thing to do would be to see how it sort of plays out in the first month or two,” he says. “We’re starting to do some of the things that we do best, like our slushies and the food that’s popular. And we’re going to hone in on that and try to be able to make a profit off of that and not introduce people back into the bar until maybe Phase 2 or so.”

Nellie’s, along with neighboring bars and restaurants like Uproar, Shaw’s Tavern, and Bistro Bohem, has also been delivering 200 meals to first responders and local hospitals for each of the last ten Fridays — something that mirrors the approach being taken by Freddie’s Beach Bar, in Arlington, on the other side of the Potomac River.

As previously reported, Freddie’s has partnered with retail giant and soon-to-be neighbor Amazon to prepare and deliver meals to first responders and frontline workers in the area. Last Friday, the bar opened up for the first time to the general public for carryout and delivery services.

“We wanted to make sure that we didn’t spread ourselves too thin,” says manager Tony Rivenbark, referring to the preparation of care packages for frontline workers. “We’re basically going to make a slow transition so that we don't do anything too quickly and mess anything up.

For Northern Virginia, where COVID-19 infections are higher than the rest of the state, bars and restaurants are lagging behind in terms of what steps they can take to reopen.

“In the rest of the state, the restaurants are allowed to open their back parking lots or their front parking lots, use sidewalk

“We’ve been doing virtual trivia every Saturday night and virtual drag bingo on Sundays.

PEOPLE SAY IT'S BEEN THE HIGHLIGHT OF THEIR WEEK TO HAVE SOMETHING FUN TO LOOK FORWARD TO. WE'RE HAPPY TO PROVIDE THAT.” — Rob Heim, Shaw’s Tavernn

spaces that they weren’t able to use in the past, and now people can have drinks out in the parking lots or sidewalk,” notes Rivenbark. “We’re a week behind on that, so we won’t actually be able to do that until Friday, May 29. We’re not in a hurry to get people inside.”

Rivenbark says that, once they can move people indoors, the MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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“After 8:30 or 9 at night, the street is dead. Nobody’s coming, nobody’s ordering anything.

THERE’S NOBODY WALKING ON THE STREET, NOBODY DRIVING. AND THERE’S NO TOURISTS IN TOWN. SO WE ARE MISSING THEM, TOO.” —Tony Askarinam, Dupont Italian Kitchen

bar will follow any local regulations designed to enforce social distancing measures to the letter, “and then some.”

“I don’t want a single employee or customer to get sick,” he says. “But at the same time, we also have rent to pay so we've got to make sure that we have the right balance there.”

Back across the river, Tony Askarinam, co-owner of 17th Street’s Dupont Italian Kitchen says his restaurant has been open seven days a week for carryout and delivery, though for a limited number of hours, from 3 to 10 p.m. Nonetheless, he says, the restaurant is only getting about 20 percent of the business it was getting prior to the mayor’s stay-at-home order.

“Right now, we are working with a minimal staff. We have two people in the kitchen, two people in the dining room, and a cleaner,” Askarinam says. “We are, this week, going to be calling some of our staff to come back one by one as long as the business keeps up. But usually, after 8:30 or 9 at night, the street 32

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is dead. Nobody’s coming, nobody’s ordering anything. There’s nobody walking on the street, nobody driving. And there’s no tourists in town, and this is a time of year that tourism booms in Washington D.C., so we are missing them, too.”

Like Dupont Italian Kitchen, a steep decline in sales has been the reality for other establishments. Rob Heim, general manager of Shaw’s Tavern, says that the restaurant has been open for pickup and delivery, but the pandemic is taking its toll.

“We’ve been doing the best we can,” he says. “I was just looking at the sales numbers from March 15, which was the last day we were open, until just a couple of days ago, and in that time, we have lost almost $400,000 in sales,” he says. “It’s usually the busiest time of the year with Howard’s graduation, which we missed out on, with the annual Funk Parade, with Pride coming up, which we’ll also miss out on — all those big events.”

Heim says the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington has been good about updating restaurant and bar owners about the latest recommendations for reopening, and believes Shaw’s Tavern will be able to comply.

“We do have a nice-sized patio, which will help hopefully, as well as ABRA’s extending of the selling of alcoholic beverages through the window until November,” he says. “I think they’re doing that with the thought that it might take a long time till we get back to a hundred percent capacity. So we'll definitely take advantage of that.”

The restaurant’s weekly drag shows and musical performances have moved online — and will remain virtual for the foreseeable future — but continue to attract large numbers of viewers, who have been generous with tips through Venmo, PayPal and other online payment platforms.

“We’ve been doing virtual trivia every Saturday night and virtual drag bingo on Sundays and they've just been very popular,” he says. “A lot of people say that it's been the highlight of their week to have something fun to look forward to when they're kind of cooped up in their homes, so we're happy to provide that.”

Howard Hicks, manager of the Green Lantern — which does not have a restaurant license — says the bar is taking advantage of the closure to take care of maintenance issues, and is waiting for more guidance from the city about when it can reopen.

“One of the things we benefit from is we have the second floor that can space people out, so we have square footage that’s typically only utilized on the weekends,” Hicks says. “Weekends will be much harder for us as well, as they will for every bar or club in the city, as far as how to socially distance. So we may be looking at how to encourage people to come out during the week when we typically have fewer people. So if we were allowed to be at 50% capacity, we have a way to keep our business at the levels it was at, with the exception of Thursday, Friday, or Saturday nights.”

In the meantime, the bar has been holding fundraisers to help its employees, including a GoFundMe page, and providing a virtual tip jar, complete with employees’ Venmo or PayPal usernames, so patrons can leave a little something for their favorite bartenders or barbacks. Hicks says that, fortunately, most of the employees were able to sign up for unemployment benefits in a fairly timely manner.

“Right now, a lot of us are just in a holding period,” he says.

“I think we're all just sort of waiting for that green light from the city to reopen. We want to make sure that the staff is well taken care of, as far as their health. We don’t want any of our customers getting sick either, so we’re looking at everything we can possibly do that’s within our control to ensure that.”

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With new music, TV projects, and a movie, the post-Kimmy Schmidt future is looking brighter-than-ever for Tituss Burgess.

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BSOLUTELY NO ONE EXPECTS TO HEAR A ROUSing, soaring cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.”

“I didn't expect it either! That was the first time I had ever heard that song,” says Tituss Burgess, who puts his soulful spin on the Southern rock anthem in the new special episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. While the quirky hit Netflix show, created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, officially wrapped last year with its fourth and final season, they decided to give fans one last hilarious hurrah, creating an interactive special as an encore. Kimmy vs. the Reverend allows viewers a number of choose-your-own-adventure options straying from its chief plot, focused on a wedding between Ellie Kemper as Schmidt and Daniel Radcliffe as Prince Frederick.

It’s all the fun, absurdist escape from reality you’d expect from the show, and becomes even more fun the further you stray, with the show’s characters popping up to chide you for making bad choices and hitting another dead end. If you play your cards right — which is to say, wrong — you might even get Burgess in character as Titus Andromedon ribbing you: “Who are you, me at Chipotle?

Because you made some bad choices that are going to affect everyone!”

“We filmed that last summer, so I've been anxious for the world to see it,” Burgess says, “and also eager to begin my bittersweet departure from that role [and] to embrace new ways to reintroduce myself to the people who already know me, and introduce myself to the people who don't.”

While Burgess had already established himself on Broadway in the decade leading up to his work in Kimmy Schmidt, the role — which was tailor-made for him by Fey — turned him into a star. From the get-go, Burgess spawned hundreds of GIFs and memes as a result of his exaggerated expressiveness in the role of Kimmy’s over-the-top roommate and best friend. And all the attention Burgess has generated as a result of his breakout success with the show has slowly, surely started to parlay into other ventures.

Those include Central Park, a new animated musical sitcom from the creator of Bob’s Burgers about a four-unit family in which Burgess gives voice to son Cole. The year will end with Burgess playing a key role in Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson. In between should come a new Netflix project. “I've been told that it will happen this year, that it will premiere this year,” but that’s the extent of what Burgess can say for now.

At the very least, you can be sure to see Burgess through regular posts to his Instagram. He turns to the site whenever he feels the need to burst into song, or 36

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Interview by Doug Rule Photography by Jeff Mills to share a funny moment from his quiet life with his two dogs, Hans and Micah, whom he refers to as “my best friends.”

“I use it mainly as an outlet for myself to be silly, and to try and put a smile on people's faces.”

METRO WEEKLY: Let’s start with “Dance M.F.,” your sultry new song with a message that should resonate with all who hear it. Was it inspired or motivated by the current pandemic?

TITUSS BURGESS: It's ironic — it didn't start off being about the current global crisis, because I started writing this with Dan Edenberg and Imani Coppola back in September. And I didn't know what my intentions were for the project. And at that moment, I was doing a lot of soul-searching and was trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world, so I wrote something that I could put on that would calm me down.

I wasn't so much thinking about the rest of the world at the time. And by the time we had finished what we were trying to say, we were entering what we now know to be the global pandemic. I also had no intentions of releasing the song, at least not right now. I was going to wait until I had a body of music all together, and then make sense of what should go on what would be a future album.

But it became quickly apparent that we were all in need of a remedy, a vaccine of the soul if you will. And so I thought, if this makes me feel this much better, if this puts a smile on my face, and I know what comes next, maybe it could do the same for listeners. So that's why I released it.

MW: I like how you directly address the listener in the first verse, and then immediately tease us with

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“blah, blah, blah.”

BURGESS: I mean, people are inundated with information that is constantly cross-examining itself, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find sources of information and even entertainment that don't condescend or don't — how do I articulate it? — create emotional porn out of all of the havoc that has been wreaked on the world right now. So I wanted to make it as poignant but as light-hearted as I possibly could.

MW: Are there any plans to do an edited version, or release a radio mix that doesn’t include the repeated chant of “motherfucker?”

all of the music that I’ve made. But again, it gets to the people that seek it out. Not being on a label and being an independent artist, even with my modest amount of celebrity, doesn't necessarily produce number one hits. The people that know you, know what you're doing and then they go and consume what you put out.

MW: In regards to what you said about managing expectations, and at the risk of overhyping or overstating things, it’s hard to imagine your level of celebrity not increasing significantly over the course of the next six months, given the mix of projects you’ve got coming up.

BURGESS: Oh, man. It's interesting, brother. I am very fortunate to have projects that were generated before all of this nightmare began, and to be a part of projects that have not been stalled or affected by our isolation. And even projects that were affected, I can now finish in isolation. So my art was pandemic-proof, if you will.

And I say that in the most humble way. But it is true. In many ways, I feel busier during this time than I did when I was actually going all over the place flying here and there. In some ways, this Zoom meeting here, recording remotely there, is a different type of fatigue that I have never experienced. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that. It requires an entirely different type of focus. But to that end, there is a wealth of projects that I have been able to be a part of that are coming down the pipeline.

MW: The highest profile of those is also a project that will launch you into 2021, the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, set for release over Christmas. Tell us about the film and how you got to be involved?

BURGESS: Well, it is a beautifully written piece and it is directed so brilliantly by Liesl Tommy. I had worked with Liesl about 15 years ago. She was directing a reading at an NYU graduate musical theater writing program, and I participated in one of the readings. And when I walked through the door to audition for Respect, I was like, “God, I recognize this woman but I cannot remember when or how.” At the end of my audition, it came to me. She gave me a note, an adjustment, and all of a sudden all of the memories came flooding back and I was like, “I know how I know this woman!” So I subsequently was afforded the opportunity to play the role and it was kismet, if you will, because my first day of filming was Reverend Dr. James Cleveland's birthday, December 5th. It was almost like having his blessing.

MW: In fact, you play Dr. Cleveland, the King of Gospel, who was the Queen of Soul’s church choir director growing up. Did it impact your portrayal in any way, the fact that you’re an out gay actor and singer who grew up in the church and with gospel music? Or is there anything our LGBTQ readers should know in particular about your role and the film overall?

BURGESS: They should know that Liesl Tommy thought that I

“I feel busier than I did when I was actually going all over the place flying here and there. This Zoom meeting here, recording remotely there. It’s a different type of fatigue that I have never experienced. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that.”

BURGESS: Well, if I'm so lucky as to get radio play, we have

already created a radio edit and a little snippet of it was played on the Elvis Duran show [on New York’s Z100] last week. I'm hopeful that it gets that far. But I will say this: I've learned to manage my expectations. I think at this point in my life — at this point in my career — the people that follow me, those are the members of my church, and it’s my job to give them the good word as I know it. If it only reaches my half-million followers, or however many people in the world look to me to make them feel better — as a source of inspiration or entertainment or a feel-good pick-me-up, if you will — if those are the only people who hear it, then my job is done. But if it spreads, it spreads, and great!

But I hope that the song takes on a life of its own outside of me so that you put it on and, sure it's good if you think of Tituss, but if you are your own narrator listening to it, then make it yours. Use it as you see fit. Because I don't know your personal circumstances and you don't know mine, but when we both listen to that, hopefully we both want to dance it out and exorcize whatever it is that is plaguing us.

MW: I feel like that could also serve as a pretty good characterization of the six songs released on your EP, Saint Tituss, last summer.

BURGESS: I was unable to give Saint Tituss the attention that I feel it deserves. I quickly went into production for a project that will be coming out on Netflix that I shouldn't really speak to because I don't have the date or how much they've told the press. Then I went into production and began to film Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic with Jennifer Hudson.

So, one day, when I rule the world, hopefully I get to revisit 38

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COURTESY OF NETFLIX

was right for the role. She thought I was a good enough actor to do this legend justice. And I guess time will tell if I did it. But the similarities have nothing to do with my sexuality. He's a writer, I'm a writer. He was a choir conductor, I conducted a choir when I was 12. He's a man of faith, I am still very much a man of faith, and I have reconciled my own sexuality with my maker.

And he mentored Aretha Franklin, I love Aretha Franklin. Plus, they played his songs in my church. So it was an easy fit in my book. And, once I was in hair and makeup, we look surprisingly similar.

MW: I knew you had grown up with gospel, but I understand you also became an early devotee of Broadway, and the music of Stephen Sondheim in particular.

BURGESS: Oh, yes. That's exactly what my show at Carnegie Hall was about. It's kind of a long story. When I was a kid, I would spend my summers with my grandparents while my mom, who was a single parent at the time, worked. Most of my days with my grandparents were filled with doing chores and being on their farm down in Lexington, Georgia. And they raised chickens and hogs and hens and they grew corn, collard greens, watermelon, you name it. And so I would be down there helping my grandparents in the field.

One particular Sunday there came a huge thunderstorm. So we all ran into their house, and their roof was made of tin, so the rain just sounded like it was this gorgeous, dramatic symphony.

My grandparents decided to take a nap, and I decided to turn on the TV. They got three channels: ABC, NBC, and PBS. And on PBS, they were airing one of the Great Performances, Sunday in the Park with George starring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. I remember watching, not fully understanding the plot, but completely understanding the music, and I was able to follow where it was headed, and also surprised by the places it went when I couldn't follow where it was headed. It filled me with such joy and peace and was quite spiritual. My experience and response to the music was not entirely unlike what my grandmother and my mom expressed when we were in church. And so I had found my own God, if you will, and now I refer to him as Godheim.

MW: I imagine you’d like to do more Sondheim, and just more theater and live performance in general. At the moment, however, it’s unclear when you might be able to do any of that again.

BURGESS: Well, whenever the spirit moves me, I get on Instagram Live and I sing a song or two. But I do worry for theater, and I worry for my friends and fellow actors who were in shows or who were about to be in shows. Who knows when we will all be able to be together again and enjoy theater the way we want it? But I'm hopeful that the higher-up scientists will be able to protect us and come up with a way for individuals to both enjoy a version of life as we knew it but also keep us all safe while we're doing it.

I also worry about the pandemic’s big domino effect. All the lovely restaurants — and I'm speaking straight to the fact of theater being down, as it relates to businesses that surround it.

They rely on that traffic and the transient nature of the flow of tourists [and] people who are diehards or repeat offenders that see shows over and over again. And that has been compromised, if not completely halted, for those businesses. And unless you're backed by a big corporation or unless you're a big ol’ food chain that can afford to pay rent for months and months and months without any business, there's a grim outlook as it relates to one's future, because that will impact what you do for a living. So it is sad. And it's frightening.

I've not done a Broadway show in over a decade, but I had

planned to begin mining for a property that would be appropriate for my return. Who knows when that will happen? So, for now, we wait. And we raise money for each other, and try and keep each other afloat so that we can all come back together, because no one is an island.

MW: On a lighter note, and on the topic of past live performances, is it true that you turned last year’s Kennedy Center concert into an elaborate surprise birthday party for your mother and her friends and family?

BURGESS: Oh, yeah! That was my solo Kennedy Center debut last July. My mom didn't know that was happening, and she also didn't know she was being flown to Washington, D.C. And she didn't know I was hiding an entire concert planned around her musical tastes, and that it would be one big birthday present to her. So I flew her and her sisters and my cousins up. And when she got there, mid-concert, I surprised her. She was really shocked and overwhelmed. She had such a wonderful time, and she looked beautiful. And so yeah, that was that. I was so pleased that I was able to curate a concert, both specifically to her musical likes, but also broad enough that it would still be satisfying for the audience.

MW: It sounds like quite the feat. Would you say you're still really close to your mother? Does she watch and know all of your stuff?

BURGESS: She watches some of it. I may be one of the odd ones, but I don't go around telling my friends and my mom, my family, “I'm going to be on this channel this day, and that channel that day.” When I first started, I did that somewhat. But things come so fast and furious now and they have their own lives. And she keeps her tabs on me. She'll go, “Oh, I caught your performance in this or that or whatever.” She lets me know what she's seen and what she hasn't seen. And some stuff I feel comfortable with her watching, and some things I don't.

MW: That brings me to another project I wanted to ask you about, which I’m not sure even your mother might know of — your narration of the Apple Books audiobook, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. BURGESS: Oh, are you serious?! No one's ever asked me about that. I had so much fun narrating that!

MW: You can hear that in your delivery. It's fun to listen to, and it also turns out to be a great way to rediscover Oz, especially for those who may be intimately familiar with the tale, but only as it has been adapted on film, with The Wizard of Oz, or on stage, with The Wiz. Were you familiar with the book before taking on the project?

BURGESS: No, I wasn't. And when I read it, I was so shocked that there were so many different [versions] and totally different areas that Dorothy and her friends visit that were not in the wonderful story that was immortalized on the big screen. It was fun to imagine how the people sounded, and what must be going through her head, and what this alternate universe that this poor girl found herself in looked like. And all she wanted to do was go home. But as Dorothy learns lessons, and even as the secondary players learn their own personal lessons, I found it quite cathartic and therapeutic even as I read it.

MW: Do you have a favorite character from the book, one that was your favorite to embody?

BURGESS: Hmmm. I guess the witch. That was probably my favorite, because I wanted to try and create something that was a tad different than the witch that we came to know on screen.

MW: You’re talking about Glinda the Good Witch, who we meet at the very beginning with the munchkins. It’s also noteworthy just how descriptive the book is, especially in the beginning — sharing little details that, for obvious reasons, the movie simply showed and otherwise glossed over. And you work to bring those written

words vividly to life.

BURGESS: I will say this, it's a lot harder work than just sitting there reading. I mean, Lord have mercy. I could only do a few chapters at a time before I became so fatigued, because you have to read it almost as though it's going to be animated, but in fact it's the mind that ultimately is animating it as you read it. But you have to give it as much fervor and excitement and energy as though it were going to be turned into a cartoon.

MW: Which is why I thought you might single out the lion as your favorite character to bring to life, because you do it so masterfully.

“I do worry for theater, and I worry for my friends and fellow actors who were in shows or who were about to be in shows. Who knows when we will all be able to be together again and enjoy theater the way we want it?”

BURGESS: Oh! Well listen, if there were ever a reiteration of

either The Wiz or The Wizard of Oz, I'd love to be the lion. I played the lion when I was in middle school. So it's a character that has always been close to my heart. And then I played it again in The Wiz under the direction of Des McAnuff at La Jolla Playhouse in 2006. And so it is never far from my heart.

MW: We’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss the “queer” elephant in the room, which is to say the frequent use in the book of that word as well as the occasional use of “gay” — at least as old-fashioned adjectives.

BURGESS: Right, it's not in the way that we have mainstreamed the words in what we refer to. “Queer” just meant “strange,” and “gay” just meant “happy.” It is interesting to think about, for kids today to hear those words — I wonder if they might get confused or not know the intention that was behind them when it was originally written.

MW: Have you gotten much feedback about how kids are receiving it?

BURGESS: Oh, no. You're the first person that’s ever spoken to MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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me about it.

MW: Speaking of voiceover work, you’re in the new Apple TV+ show Central Park. Tell us more about what that is exactly.

BURGESS: Central Park is a wonderful cartoon from Loren Bouchard and Josh Gad, and it's filled with lovely messages. It's about a familial unit, the Tillermans, who live in Central Park. And the patriarch takes care of Central Park, and the matriarch is a journalist, and desires to pursue bigger and better stories.

And then there's the kids, played by myself and Kristen Bell, and we get to sing the best songs by a multitude of composers, not excluding the creatives.

MW: When did you start working on that?

BURGESS: We've been working on it for about a year now. We've completed the first season, but season two has already been ordered.

So we are expecting to soon begin work on that.

MW: We’re also coming up on an election. Do you have any thoughts about how to motivate LGBTQ and progressive people to do the right thing and vote?

BURGESS: I’m praying that more people, who aren't already, get registered to vote, and that they apply for absentee ballots if they are finding the idea of voting and waiting in line with other people uncomfortable. And that hopefully we exercise our right and we vote for the safety of our country and the safety of ourselves.

Vote your conscience. I'm not going to try and sway anybody.

I know what I believe, and I know that I want to be happy, but everyone has their own individual right, so everyone should act on it.

MW: True, and yet it is — or, at least it should be — pretty clear who and what to vote for, generally speaking, if you’re gay or progressive and concerned about all the setbacks and threats we’ve faced in recent years and the certainty of worse to come if we don’t vote in greater numbers.

BURGESS: We should all just register to vote, and all of us who those issues affect, know that those issues affect us. And I think with my work, I’ve made it very clear where I stand politically. I want to see someone in the White House that reflects the needs of brown people, black people, and minorities everywhere, not just those of mainstream America and not just billionaires.

MW: I do like the way you touch on that with the opening song on Saint Tituss, “45.”

BURGESS: Yeah, it’s a call to action. That's why I say I don't need to preach it. I worry that under the current administration, there have been some issues that affect the trans community, that affect queer [people], that affect black men and black women and black transwomen — they're murdered disproportionately, and nothing is being done. We have to make a big stink, and we have to raise all this money, and we have to do all of these things — wave our hands — to create an SOS to get the higher ups to pay attention and punish those that are hurting us. We need someone in the White House who is going to speak on our behalf and would help bring charges for people who commit those crimes.

MW: Are you hopeful for Joe Biden?

BURGESS: Well, I suppose he's the presumptive nominee. I know that I won't be voting for Donald Trump, I know that much.

MW: Any thoughts about who you would like to see as Biden’s running mate?

BURGESS: I'd like to see a woman. I want to see a woman who has worked in government and who understands legislation, because she is seconds away behind the president. She could be leading us.

I'm sick of men running the world. I want women to run the world. I just want more women in government everywhere — local level, state level, and federal level.

“I’ve made it very clear where I stand politically. I want to see someone in the White House that reflects the needs of brown people, black people, and minorities everywhere, not just those of mainstream America and not just billionaires.”

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and its interactive special Kimmy Schmidt vs. the Reverend are available to stream on Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com.

Central Park is available to stream on Apple TV+.

“Dance M.F.” and Saint Tituss can be streamed from your favorite music platform. Visit www.tv.apple. com.

Search for @instatituss on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, or @titussburgess on Facebook.

Gallery

Inspiration in Isolation D UPONT CIRCLE’S STUDIO Gallery presents this new, all-digital, multi-artist exhibition exploring human existence and behavior during this unique moment in history. The role and work of over 20 artists during quarantine and isolation, and in the emerging online world, are featured in the exhibition, a showcase of artworks ranging from abstract paintings to mixed-media panels to digital photocollages. The MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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lineup includes Gary Anthes, Gordon Binder, William Bowser, Kimberley Bursic, Pam Frederick, Suzanne Goldberg, Thierry Guillemin, Miriam Keeler, Freda Lee-McCann, Jo Levine, Susan Raines, Elena Stamberg, and Suzanne Yurdin.

Now to May 30. Call 202-919-2429 or visit www.studiogallerydc.com.

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MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

Movies

as Grace’s assistant to full-fledged music producer, bucking a sexist system and her own insecurities along the way. Her riseof-the-assistant dramedy is pleasant but predictable.

Where the film rises above is in its Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson make a formidable team depiction of Maggie as a true-blue music lover, driven by a passion to create emoas a pop diva and her girl Friday in sweetly soulful tional moments through songs like the The High Note. By André Hereford soul classics that grace the soundtrack.

Any script can talk the talk of rock ’n’ ADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MISS ROSS HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING. roll trivia and obscure B-sides, but Late That would be Tracee Ellis Ross, of course — a consistently leading light on ABC’s Night director Nisha Ganatra — working long-running hit sitcom Black-ish, and a believable singing superstar in her fluid astutely in the vein of female bonding performance as fictional pop/R&B artist Grace Davis in The High Note (HHHHH). One and ambition — grounds these characters could imagine that from the start of her award-winning acting career, Ross might have in a world that sincerely appreciates the dreamed of and dreaded playing a role that would invite such exact comparisons to her power of the right lyric or melody. Musicsupremely famous mother. Yet, she carries that legacy with apparent ease, offering a love underscores the film’s sexy romance sharp, nuanced take on a legendary songstress who may be aging out of the pop spotlight. between Maggie and an enigmatic R&B While singer/songwriter Grace Davis still has her heart set on creating new music, up-and-comer named David (Waves star Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) whom she her record company is ready to shuffle her act off to a lucrative Click Here to angles to produce.

Vegas residency performing her old hits. Think of Celine Dion, Thanks in part to the they tell her. The movie makes a strong but subtle point by setWatch the Trailer soundtrack’s actual producer, ting Grace up against a roomful of young dude record execs to defend her continued relevance as a black female artist over forty. She doesn’t get much hitmaker Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, support in the room from her longtime manager Jack, played by Ice Cube, another David’s throwback soul (and Harrison’s smooth vocals) have the ring of music accomplished actor with inside knowledge of the music business.

Cube wrote and rapped hip-hop’s most notoriously scathing diss of a music manager you might hear from an indie artist in the (“No Vaseline”), but he didn’t write this. His Jack Robertson, the only sort-of villain in the age of Drake and The Weeknd. Similarly, piece, doesn’t read as authentically as the Grace Davis character, and Cube, saddled with Grace Davis — celebrated here on magazine covers framed alongside her gold a bag of half-funny comebacks by Flora Greeson’s script, isn’t a great fit as the bad guy.

For one thing, the hyper-territorial Jack lets Grace’s hard-working, yet sneaky, and platinum records — dresses, acts, and personal assistant Maggie, well-played by Dakota Johnson, get away with more than sounds like the revered diva she’s intendwhat seems credible, even in a Hollywood fairytale. Maggie gets away with every- ed to be, not an imitation of a legend, but a thing because The High Note primarily is her story of hustling a path from serving true original in her own right.

Grace Notes

L

The High Note is available on VOD starting Friday, May 29. A 48-hour rental is $19.99. Visit www.WatchTheHighNote.com.

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Music

coming as close as she ever has to just directly laying out the appeal of her entire approach to pop.

Despite its formulaic nature, Jepsen does deliver a few unexpected hits on Side B, notably “Solo,” a call to revel in the freedom of single life that features what is Carly Rae Jepsen returns with an album of tracks you’d never know arguably the strongest chorus of the entire collection. “So what, you’re not in love?” were scraped from the cutting room floor. By Sean Maunier is a sentiment that might seem to run counter to her entire ethos, but it is very ’M BAD AT KEEPING SECRETS,” CARLY RAE JEPSEN CONFESSED WHEN Carly Rae Jepsen to celebrate love in all its dropping Dedicated Side B after weeks of swirling rumors. She has a point. All that forms, even its absence.

Jepsen may be a famously prolific speculation around this release was far from unwarranted, seeing as this isn’t even the first time Jepsen has put forth a series of outtakes one year after the main album. songwriter, but that she had such a stellar Following the runaway success of Emotion Side B, it stands to reason that she would collection of tracks left over from her last repeat that success. And considering that it was released almost exactly a year after album is a sign of more than an ability to write songs in bulk and then curate a few Dedicated, this is a surprise release only on a technicality.

However, that should dampen none of the enthusiasm for this series of outtakes standouts. With Dedicated Side B, Jepsen from her last album. True to her brand, the songs feel like exactly the shot of joyous once again proves what we had already pop escapism that a scared, anxious world needs right now. While Dedicated Side B seen on Emotion Side B, that her power (HHHHH) does not reach the shockingly good heights of Emotion Side B, it more than as an artist is in her ability to start with holds up next to Dedicated. Though it does raise the question of why some of its songs simple, universal feelings and experiences and build glorious earworms never made the cut for Side A. Click to Watch around them with unforGiven that it is a collection of outtakes, it should be no surprise that for the most part, these songs find her in the same “This Love Isn’t Crazy” gettably catchy hooks. She brings a visceral, intuitive headspace she was in on Dedicated. This is apparent right from the glitzy, incredibly catchy opener, “This Love Isn’t Crazy,” a collaboration with understanding of relationships at their Jack Antonoff that is strong in all the ways we would expect from Jepsen. She indulges beginnings, endings, and all the grey areas in joyful, occasionally wistful or nostalgic, but always clear-headed musings on love in between, along with a relentlessly, stuband relationships. “I don’t know how to swim, but let’s breathe underwater,” she sings bornly celebratory attitude to love that is on “Fake Mona Lisa,” an ode to impulsively, and perhaps recklessly, giving in to love, impossible to resist.

Beside Herself

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Dedicated Side B is available for purchase on www.carlyraemusic.com and for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

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Television

pronunciation. The actor did much the same memorably and hilariously as a persnickety CIA analyst in the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading. Let’s just say that the performances — including those by Jane Lynch, Patrick Warburton, Noah Emmerich, and Diedrich Bader as Naird’s fellow Joint Chiefs — hold few Space Force goes not-that-boldly where plenty of shows to no surprises. If anything does surhave gone before. By André Hereford prise, it’s the show’s tortured pace and shocking under-use of Lisa Kudrow as HE NEW NETFLIX MILITARY SPOOF SPACE FORCE TAKES SEVERAL Naird’s wife, Maggie, sidelined early on half-hour episodes to lift off into its shaky orbit as workplace-dramedy-meets- in a subplot that unfolds too slowly and Trump-era satire. Co-created by Steve Carell and Emmy-winning producer Greg without much payoff.

Daniels, the standard-bearer of sitcoms that take their time to marinate (The Office The description applies as well to the and Parks and Recreation), Space Force (HHHHH) is never bad, but it’s not that funny, show, which tries to be many things at which registers as a major disappointment given its cast of comedic heavy-hitters and once, all well-meaning and well-consida seemingly sure-fire premise. ered, but the rhythm and temperature of Carell stars as General Mark Naird, elevated in episode one to the rank of four-star the comedy (and the commentary) feel general and the command of POTUS’s hastily assembled Space Force, the sixth branch miscalculated. Even the good bits run of the U.S. military. Naird represents only a slight variation on long, while gags and patter tend Click Here to Carell’s comic persona of affably dim and unfailingly decent, to sit there, or worse, sink into although the general does frequently exhibit the characterisWatch the Trailer pockets of dull air. From the tics of good leadership. He’s adaptable, courageous, and he’s a jokes to the camerawork and shrewd reader of people. He just has a hard time getting the quirky lot around him to editing, the series lacks the snap of winfall in line, starting with chief scientist, Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich). ning comedy — that is, until a brisk, brief Tweedy, persnickety Mallory has devoted his career at NASA to advancing man- peak through episodes five and six, both of kind’s exploration and understanding of space, and gets righteously teed off at the which were directed by Oscar-nominated idea of nations turning the cosmos into a war zone. But, as he and Naird are constantly queer filmmaker Dee Rees. Not every compelled to work together — on everything from lunar war games to coordinating viewer will have the critic’s fortitude or an emergency satellite rescue-mission with a “chimpstronaut” named Marcus — they incentive to slog through Space Force’s begrudgingly come to complement one another. They’re an unlikely but likable duo. early hit-or-miss trajectory to reach that At one point, Naird half-jokingly refers to Mallory as his aide-de-camp, leading intended target — so strap in for a low-revto Malkovich repeatedly over-enunciating (under-enunciating?) the proper French ving launch and keep a finger on the eject.

Alright Stuff

T

Space Force is available for streaming on Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com.

MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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SelfieScene

Be Scene! Take a selfie, and make it fun if you like, and TEXT to 202-527-9624.

Be sure to include your name and city. YOU could appear in next week’s Selfie Scene!

Mason (Fort Washington, MD)

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Jose Gutierrez (Washington, DC) Chris Griffin (Washington, DC)

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MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“[She] didn’t understand that that was a gay thing, that that was a person saying, ‘I’m coming out of the closet.’ She didn’t even get that.”

—NILE RODGERS, speaking to the New York Post about Diana Ross’ LGBTQ anthem “I’m Coming Out.” Rodgers said that Ross didn’t make the connection between the lyrics and LGBTQ people coming out of the closet until a radio DJ asked if the song was Ross coming out as lesbian.

“Today we celebrate freedom, equality and democratic institutions.”

—Costa Rican President CARLOS QUESADA, in a tweet celebrating the legalization of marriage equality in the country, making it the first Central American nation to allow same-sex couples to mary. “May empathy and love be the compass that allows us to get ahead and build a country where all people fit,” Quesada added.

“What I’ve learned during this pandemic is that shit like this just doesn’t matter.”

—CHEYENNE JACKSON, in an Instagram post revealing that he has had five hair transplants to maintain his hairline.

Jackson said he was admitting to the surgeries to release the “shame & anxiety I’ve had about people finding out for years.” He added, “I’m trying to teach my kids to accept themselves & to be proud of who they are...so as their father, the example should start with me.”

“This finding speaks to the need for bullying prevention efforts and supportive interventions to foster esteem and belonging for LGBTQ youth.”

—Yale University epidemiologist KIRSTY CLARK, speaking to UPI about a study she co-authored which found that LGBTQ youth who die by suicide are more likely to have been bullied. Clark added, “Anti-bullying policies that explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity are critical to reducing bullying and are associated with lower risk of suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth.”

“It was a hard day, but we are extremely happy that so many rainbow masks will be worn in LGBT-free zones.”

—JAKUB KWIECINSKI, a Polish gay man, speaking in a YouTube video after he and boyfriend Dawid Mycek traveled to so-called “LGBT-free zones” in the country to distribute homemade rainbow masks in an effort to promote tolerance and fight the COVID-19 pandemic. While they were able to distribute a number of masks, they also met some pushback, including one man who said, “Get the fuck out of here or I will punch you in the face.”

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