Category Archives: The Features

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Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts
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We Love Arts: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(left to right) Ensemble members Tracy Letts and Amy Morton in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Directed by Pam MacKinnon. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

We’ve all had those nights we don’t want to end, when the party moves down the street into the afterhours, only to sputter out around dawn when guests blearily enter back into reality. Sometimes those parties are wildly beautiful, other times they are the stuff of nightmares. Friendships implode, relationships fracture – the whole evening becomes a nuclear bomb which leaves you shaking at the end, repeating to the empty space, “What the hell just happened?”

You could say I’m familiar with those kinds of nights. Which is why I spent most of the three hours at George and Martha’s afterhours alternately laughing and crying in recognition of the ultimate power struggle party. Since its Broadway premiere in 1962, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf has continued to shatter audiences with the ugly truth – we’re all capable of total war in relationships. Some of us may even relish it.

Presented by Chicago’s brilliant Steppenwolf Theatre Company as part of Arena Stage’s Edward Albee Festival, this production is simply not to be missed. There’s a complete dedication to the realism of Albee’s script that makes everything passionately alive, from Todd Rosenthal’s tired living room set, crowded with books and booze, to the acting master class delivered by Tracy Letts and Amy Morton. That dedication sucks the audience in and makes us all culpable. You’ll feel dirty afterwards, like a host surveying the piles of empty bottles and broken glass.

Don’t let that stop you from joining this party. From “Hump the Hostess” to “Get the Guests,” it may be a night in a Machiavellian mine field, but it’s also hilarious.  Continue reading →

Five Favorites
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Five Favorites: Reasons to Bike to Work

Photo courtesy of
’15th St bike lane in use’
courtesy of ‘nevermindtheend’

Bike to Work Day registration is now open, so mark your calendar for Friday, May 20!  This awesome event, sponsored by WABA, is a great way to get your feet wet riding your bike around the city. At last year’s event, when I had just started out commuting by bike, I won a raffle for a fantastic messenger bag, got all sorts of great bike gear, and enjoyed free food all before 10 AM– all things that made it a bit easier to integrate biking into my daily commute. And no matter where you live or work you’ll probably be close to one pit stop, where you can pick up your free t-shirt and other bike-related goodies.  And best of all, it’s free!

If you need more reasons to dust off that bike and ride it to work, I’ve got ’em.  The past year of riding my bike to work has been fantastic, so here are my five favorite reasons to bike to work:

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Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of
‘Metro – Red – 3.1.11’
courtesy of ‘rpmaxwell’

I’m very fond of Ryan Maxwell‘s “street” portraits on the Metro. Black and white, almost always taken without the person’s knowledge, and almost always an interesting subject to look at.

This one is particularly good. It gives a glimpse into another subject, unsmiling, riding the Red line (an everyman, really). But it also gives a glimpse into the artist at work. Go look at it larger and you’ll see Mr. Maxwell clicking away.

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Smith Westerns @ Rock & Roll Hotel, 3/4/11


courtesy of Smith Westerns.

It was another sold out show at Rock & Roll Hotel on Friday night as the club continued its recent run of strong indie buzz-band bookings with Chicago’s Smith Westerns. Between the sold-out show downstairs and the mega-popular DJ night upstairs, there was actually quite a long line to gain entry to the club. As I stood in the pleasant evening air, waiting to get inside, I could not help but overhear the chorus of whining from the privileged and entitled who felt put-out by having to wait in a line for 10-15 minutes. I didn’t hear a single person talking about the band most of us were there to see.* This was a bad sign that foretold of an audience more interested in talking rather than in actually listening to the music we had paid to see.

Once inside, the audience did indeed talk through most of the opening set by O.M.U., which is a shame because they are a fun band with some pretty great guitar playing. Duing Smith Westerns’ set, the drunken crowd switched from talking to sloppily singing along. This was a welcome change in audience behavior and indicated Smith Westerns’ surprising mainstream appeal. Their set was a mix of inventive indie-rock and platitude-filled, teen romance anthems. While I enjoyed the majority of their set, I was left with the distinct impression that Smith Westerns are a band at a crossroads.

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News, Sports Fix, The Daily Feed
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Kastles relocate to Waterfront for 2011-12 Seasons

Photo courtesy of
‘Kastles Tennis’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

For each of the last three years, the Washington Kastles (The District’s World Team Tennis franchise) has played on a bespoke temporary court at the corner of 11th and H Street NW across from the Grand Hyatt.  This season, with construction slated to begin at the city center site in April, the team has had to put together other plans.

The Kastles will play in a temporary stadium on the new site at 800 Water St SW on the Waterfront, between Zanzibar and Phillips, for the next two years.  The temporary stadium will closely resemble the temporary stadium built at 11th & H, but will remain up year-round and be programmed by the Kastles and their partner PN Hoffman.

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: TR3 @ State Theater, 3/3/11

Reynolds brandishing his double neck guitar
all photos by Andrew Markowitz.

I first heard Tim Reynolds on the double CD “Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at Luther College” back in 1999. Being a big Dave Matthews fan at the time, I was constantly on the lookout for anything and everything related to DMB, so I’ll never forget the day of my senior year in high school when I saw that bright blue CD cover staring at me from the rack at Best Buy.

I haven’t listened to that album in years, but the one track that always immediately comes to mind is “Stream”, a 5 minute acoustic guitar performance that blew my mind. Who was Tim Reynolds? How the hell did he play this? It was one of those moments that many music fans know, when you hear something that’s so unbelievable you play it again and again and again…and even rewind it to hear your favorite 10-15 second snippet again and again and again…and that’s the only track I really care about on that album. I’m not as much of a Dave Matthews fan as I used to be and I don’t know where that double disc album is but I still pull up that performance from time to time just to marvel at the skill Reynolds displays in that song.

I’ve been able to photograph Reynolds three times in the last year, twice in acoustic performances with Dave Matthews and once with the full Dave Matthews Band. The first performance I saw with Reynolds and Matthews last year was at Constitution Hall and it was nothing short of incredible, one of my favorite shows of 2010. So when the opportunity arose to photograph the Tim Reynolds 3 (TR3) at State Theatre in Falls Church I jumped all over it.

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We Love Music
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We Love Music: Middle Brother @ 9:30 Club, 3/2/11

Middle Brother-21

All photos by Erin McCann

Wednesday night’s show at the 9:30 Club was the start of a high-profile tour for Middle Brother. It’s a side-project for its members, all of whom have highly respected bands on the cusp of greatness of their own to tend to. For less-talented musicians, gambling time away from their primary projects might kill the hard-won momentum they’d built up. For the members of Middle Brother—Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, Deer Tick’s John McCaulay and Delta Spirit’s Matt Vasquez, all of them darlings of the indie music culture—the side project turned out to be a shot of adrenaline for a bunch of guys already riding pretty high on their own. Wednesday’s show took some seriously high-energy bands, tumbled their members together in a free-for-all of booze, musicianship and friendship, and spit out a rocket fuel concoction that propelled its members even higher. It ranked among the best I’ve seen on the 9:30 Club stage. So, first things first: Thank you, guys. That was a hell of a night.

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Arlington, Food and Drink, The Features
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Beer Dinners at Lyon Hall

Lyon Hall's Ommegang Beer Dinner

Beer dinners have been growing in prevalence and popularity in the area as the number of beer-inspired restaurants and bars continue to build. Pizzeria Paradiso, Birch and Barley, and Meridian Pint have all played host to beer-pairing dinners, and you may now add Lyon Hall of Clarendon to the mix.

Tuesday saw their first beer dinner since opening just under a year ago, and I was lucky to attend as a guest of the restaurant’s beer director, David McGregor. He’s long planned to do the pairings, which will occur on the first Tuesday of every month, and finally had the opportunity to start this week. Talk with David and you’ll sense his sincere passion towards all things malt and mash, and a genuine excitement to share in his explorations of their interplay with deftly prepared dishes.

For the inaugural dinner, David invited in Brewery Ommegang’s local director, Steve Cardello, and together with Lyon Hall’s chef de cuisine, Andy Bennett, put on a four-course meal catered to and built around the flavors and textures of Ommegang’s classic and unique offerings.

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Business and Money, Essential DC, Food and Drink, News, The District, The Features
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Sprinkles Cupcakes Comes To DC

There is a new edition to the saturated DC cupcake scene and it comes to M Street in Georgetown in the form of a pink and brown row house. Sprinkles Cupcakes, started in 2002 by Candace Nelson and her husband Charles, opened  in 2002 in Beverly Hills, is the Magnolia Bakery of the West Coast and has been featured on Oprah, Entourage and The Today Show.

With the proximity of so many other cupcake options (Baked & Wired, Georgetown Cupcake, Scoops, etc.,) offering high quality cupcakes and all priced relatively equally at $2.50 – $4 per cupcake, the principal question is: what makes Sprinkles’ sugary treats different? Continue reading →

Food and Drink, The Features, We Love Drinks
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Drinks Special: Sake at Kushi

Photo courtesy of
‘Kushi 02’
courtesy of ‘Max Cook’

In the whole wide world of drinks, there’s nothing more intimidating to me than a sake menu. Staring at the thirty-six selections at Kushi Izakaya & Sushi, my brain usually goes blank. Add shochu and my head really spins. It may be the Japanese. At least I can bumble my way through a French wine list, but sake? Forget it. So when my WLDC partner-in-photographic-crime Max Cook and I had the chance to spend some time with their beverage director, George Young, to learn about sake, we jumped. Well, I jumped, Max loves sushi more than sake. But after just an hour reviewing the basics of production and sampling the menu, I felt much less intimidated and am now eager to explore more.

Luckily, George himself is newly converted to the joys of sake and proved the perfect host to de-mystify the nature of rice wine. Wait, let’s start with that phrase – sake isn’t actually “rice wine,” as wine implies production from fruit. Sake comes from rice, and therefore is considered its own category. But how does rice become sake? What’s the difference between those cloudy white liquids and the clear ones? And what about hot versus cold? George patiently explained it all for us. Continue reading →

We Love Weekends
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We Love Weekends, March 5-6

Photo courtesy of
‘(061/365)’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’

Michael: I’m hoping to stock up on rest this weekend because next week has a plethora of amazing shows for me. That said, I cannot resist Smith Westerns at Rock & Roll Hotel on Friday night. Their sophomore album “Dye It Blonde” is incredible and I think this show will live up to the high expectations it has fostered.

Tom: The first warm weekend of the year looks to be a wet one, so I’ll be mostly plotting to stay inside. Friday night I’ll be out at Iron Horse celebrating a friend who is starting her first business next week (Congratulations, Cheryl!) and Saturday afternoon we’ll be jaunting over to Siné for drinks with area sportsblogger WFY to talk about the future of the Nationals and get ready for the first telecasts and radiocasts of the year.  Sunday means bottomless mimosa at Rustik DC, followed by preparing for another long week of blogging. Continue reading →

Sports Fix
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The Wizards’ Building Blocks For 2011-2012

Photo courtesy of
‘Wizards v Jazz – 01.17.11’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’

Today the Wizards will lose yet another player as Al Thornton is expected to officially clear waivers after the team waived him earlier this week. He is expected to sign with the Golden State Warriors, the same team that defeated the Wizards last night 106-102. Meanwhile the team also made an addition this week, re-signing D-leaguer Mustafa Shakur to back-up John Wall at point guard.

We’ve mentioned before about the level of turnover that’s occurred this season, when you are a 15-45 team in the basement of the Eastern Conference that’s to be expected. Even owner Ted Leonsis knows that this rebuilding season means going through a lot of losses and I commend the team for sticking to their strategy of amassing picks and young talent to build upon instead of taking the Synder-esque approach of patching the team through expensive free agents.

The team tried that last year when they patched their aging core of Arenas/Butler/Jamison with Randy Foye and Mike Miller and we all know how that went: a 26-56 record. With 23 games left in the season it’s realistic that we could match that again without the expensive contract/lackluster performance of Gilbert Arenas or the injuries that have plagued Butler and Jamison this year. Who knows if Caron or Antwan would of been injured had they stayed with the Wiz, but the fact they are both pushing 30 doesn’t bode well in general.

Looking at the Wizard’s strategy of rebuilding through the draft and young talent, I took a look at the team to see who’s a part of winning the Wizard’s future. Who we should be watching the rest of the season, and who’s pretty much as good as gone come the end of April.

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Fashionable DC, The Daily Feed
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Solas Nua Brings Modern Irish Fashion to DC

Monday night, Solas Nua presented Paisean Faisean – a showcase of several new Irish fashion designers. Styled by DC-based blogging duo Birds of a Pleather (who also make up part of the wonderful Worn Magazine team), the show included pieces by Orla O’Connor, Katarzyna Wypych, Deirde Williams, By Yvonne, Ellis Boyle, Emma Manley, and Kathy Mooney – all upcoming Irish designers rarely seen in the U.S.

The always-lovely upstairs space at Fathom Creative was washed with harsh white light from all directions – including a series of raw florescent tubes on the floor used to demarcate the L-shaped runway. A video piece, “Dias A/W 2010,” by Soyna Lennon and Christian Ammann looped silently on a suspended screen and one wall was cloaked with gauzy white drapes, out from which the models would appear. Packed with camera crews and attendees, the room took on a hint of downtown loft.

The collections by Katarzyna Wypych and Orla O’Connor, in particular, seemed to really reference Ireland’s craft and fashion traditions with their use of wool knit materials as they use in this Kurta Pajama for Men, but transformed into much more experimental pieces. It was, however, Ellis Boyle’s dresses which seemed to really win over the crowd, achieving an elegant balance of wearability and modern design. The Caribbean-born, Spain-raised, and now Ireland-based designer showed a marvelous use of textiles cut to move with the models – who seemed to particularly enjoy flouncing the frothier skirts as they walked.

Solas Nua is a non-profit dedicated entirely to promoting contemporary Irish arts and bringing them to American audiences. This show, presented in conjunction with Ireland’s Year of Craft celebration, was one of a number of events the organization is hosting in Washington in the coming months. Today is the opening of their Irish Writers Festival and there are other arts and music events on the horizon.

News, The District, The Features
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Campaign Update: 54 Days Until Election Day

Photo courtesy of
‘Candidates for DC Council At-Large Seat’
courtesy of ‘luisgomezphotos’

There are 54 days until election day in the At-Large special election to fill Kwame Brown’s empty At-Large seat, but that’s not the only deadline left.  This past week, the public had the opportunity to inspect the signatures gathered by each candidate and decide if they were valid, or if they deserved a challenge.  The deadline for challenges was Monday at the close of business, and several petitions were challenged.

Lawrence Guyot, nominally of the Lopez campaign, challenged signatures gathered by the Mara campaign.  Bandele McQueen, nominally of the Biddle campaign, challenged signatures gathered by the Mara, Weaver and Patterson campaigns.  The moves are high risk (could alienate voters), but also high reward (could disqualify strong competition), and won’t be ruled upon until the 15th.  It’s been revealed in the last day or so that some of the signatures that have come under scrutiny are themselves interesting. DCist has a fairly fun list which includes Bryan Weaver’s own wife, ANC Commissioner Bob Summersgill, Mayors Fenty and Williams.  In total, 6,516 signatures have been challenged.

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We Love Arts
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March 2011: SAAM and NMAI

courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum

As spring unfolds in DC and the cherry blossoms begin to bloom, the crowds will come to the Tidal Basin area. So if you’re looking for something else to do in town to avoid the tourista hordes, check out some of the great programs at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian.

This month at SAAM:

Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition
March 3, 7 p.m.
Wanda Corn describes the neoclassical Woman’s Building at the 1893 Exposition in Chicago—which celebrated modern woman’s progress in education, the arts, and science at the end of the nineteenth century—and how the building’s content was used to promote the expansion of opportunities for women. A book signing follows.

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Comedy in DC
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Comedy in DC: Jessica Brodkin

Jessica b

I braved the cold last Wednesday evening and found refuge in Dupont Circle’s Teaism to meet with DC comic Jessica Brodkin. I was there pretty early and had a pot of World Peace tea. I must say that Michael Jackson’s “We are the World” started playing in my head. Once all seven of my chakras aligned, Jessica arrived and we had a pleasant dialogue.

Jessica, 29, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, speaks Russian, and has been living in DC for the past seven years. She loves this city and said that her favorite parts are Chinatown and U Street. “There’s a lot going on and I like the vibe. All the people you run into.” She likes that DC is full of intellectual people and enjoys the smart crowds. “Lots of people here are really educated and trying to do good things.” She’s kind of educated too. She went to M.I.T. in Boston. Maybe you’ve heard of it it? I think smart people go there. Anyway, she said that she was raised in Brooklyn, but DC  is where she became an adult in her own right. Continue reading →

Sports Fix
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Nationals Beat: The Start of Spring

Photo courtesy of
‘9TH_7847’
courtesy of ‘MissChatter’

Spring Record: 2-0

With an off-season that was both hit and miss, the Nationals have arrived in Viera, Florida, and have begun workouts and spring play for the 2011 season.  In 29 days, the Nationals will open their season against the Atlanta Braves at Nationals Park.  Between now and then, though, let’s get ready for the drama of the springtime.  The Nationals have some hard decisions to make between now and then, especially in the outfield.  Let’s take a look at the state of things, shall we?

The Outfield

Welcome to Thunderdome, er, Viera, Outfielders! There are 11 of you in camp, seven on the 40-man roster, and four more non-roster invitees. We’re fairly sure that Jayson Werth will be one of the five or six carried forward at the end of the month, and that means ten of you are fighting for four more slots. Bryce Harper, despite his presence on the 40-man won’t make it to Opening Day (sorry big guy, but congratulations on your first hit yesterday), so we’re down to 9.

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Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

The reunited, reinvigorated, UK New Wave sensation Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark are performing in the United States for the first time since 1988! Tune in to We Love DC next week for our great interview with OMD’s founder Andy McCluskey. In the meantime, we have a pair of tickets to their show at 9:30 Club, on Thursday 3/10, up for grabs!

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Music, The Features, We Love Music
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We Love Music: White Rabbits @ Rock & Roll Hotel, 2/27/11


courtesy of White Rabbits.

Sunday night might have belonged to the Oscars but those that stopped by Rock & Roll Hotel weren’t paying attention. White Rabbits were in town to end a week-long mini-tour of the northeast and showcased their dual (sometimes triple) percussion attack. The band is currently recording a new album and used the show to preview some of that material. It was a gutsy move (they could have easily lost their audience during those moments) but it paid off as the new songs sounded good and the band rewarded the audience’s patience with a strong finale to the whole affair.

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