Weekly Arts Round Up, April 29, 2021
By • April 29, 2021 0 1153
Direct from London: the Donmar Warehouse production of “Blindness,” presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company. “Soapbox,” Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s free virtual gala, will take place on Monday. And the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center will reopen on Wednesday with timed-entry ticketing. For details, click on the headings below.
Renwick Gallery: Online Conversation
On April 29 at 7 p.m., the Renwick Gallery — the branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum devoted to contemporary craft and decorative arts — will host a free online conversation between guest curator Emily Zilber and Lauren Fensterstock, one of the artists featured in “Forces of Nature: Renwick Invitational 2020.” Fensterstock’s large-scale installation was inspired by “The Book of Miracles,” a 16th-century German manuscript. Registration via Eventbrite is required.
Dina Thomas plays Lisa in the one-woman show “2.5 Minute Ride,” directed by Joanie Schultz, which Studio Theatre will make available for streaming starting April 30. Written by Lisa Kron, who wrote the Tony-winning book and lyrics to the musical “Fun Home,” the show recounts the Kron family’s annual pilgrimage to roller-coaster heaven in Sandusky, Ohio, and Lisa’s once-in-a-lifetime trip to Auschwitz with her father, a nearly blind Holocaust survivor addicted to roller coasters. “2.5 Minute Ride” runs through May 23. Tickets are $37.
Glen Echo Park: Exhibition Closing
“Fleeting, Fled,” a Washington Sculptors Group exhibition featuring work in a variety of media by more than 30 artists, is on view in the Popcorn and Stone Tower Galleries at Glen Echo Park, 7300 Macarthur Boulevard in Glen Echo, Maryland, through May 2. Juried by independent curator Laura Roulet, the exhibition — postponed for a year due to the pandemic — combines an examination of the temporal with gratitude for the healing power of art. Hours are Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Admission is free, with social distancing in effect.
Dance Place: Online Panel and Film Clips
On May 1 at 6 p.m. (with a rebroadcast on May 2 at 6 p.m.), Dance Place will live-stream a free panel discussion about the making of the forthcoming documentary “Class: The Carla Perlo Story,” executive produced by Karen Hopkins, accompanied by a preview of the film and a live performance. The feature-length documentary about Dance Place Founding Director Emerita Carla Perlo and her long-standing Saturday-morning modern class will be screened in the spring of 2022.
Shakespeare Theatre Company: Sound Installation
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW, will reopen after more than a year to present the immersive sound and light installation “Blindness.” In the show, running May 1 to June 13, the audience is onstage, but actors are not; along with face masks, socially distanced patrons wear binaural headphones that plunge them into a dystopic, pandemic-induced world. English actor Juliet Stevenson plays the narrator in the production — adapted by Simon Stephens from Nobel Prize-winning writer José Saramago’s novel and directed by Walter Meierjohann — which sold out London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2020. “Viewing” times are Tuesday to Friday at 7 p.m., plus a Wednesday matinee at noon, and Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are $49 ($44 for matinee performances).
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Artistic Director Maria Manuela Goyanes and Managing Director Emika Abe will host “Soapbox: A Mammoth Spring Celebration” on May 3 at 8 p.m. This virtual gala, a round of applause for Woolly’s resiliency, will feature online performances and sneak peeks into next season’s offerings. Attire is “dress to impress” and admission is free.
The National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, 14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway in Chantilly, Virginia, will reopen on May 5, with admission by free timed-entry pass. The museum is open daily, with the first time slot at 10 a.m. and the last at 4:30 p.m. Face coverings are required for visitors aged 2 and older and social distancing will be in effect. The maximum group size is six.
Goethe-Institut: Multimedia Street Concerts
The Goethe-Institut Washington, Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, In Series Opera Theater and Spooky Action Theater will present “Kept Under Glass: Unheard Women’s Voices,” 30-minute pop-up performances of works by Austrian and German women composers, on May 5 and 6 at 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. at the Corner at Whitman-Walker Health, 1701 14th St. NW. Three performers in three bay windows will sing to a socially distanced audience on the sidewalk on the other side of the glass. A live projection show has been designed for each singer and song. Admission is free and no registration is needed.
The Art League, 105 North Union St. in Alexandria, Virginia, will open its next exhibition, “Seated,” a solo exhibition by Alexandria artist Jennifer Allevato, on May 6. The show, which consists of mixed-media paintings of interior spaces with unoccupied chairs, created spaces that offer the viewer an open invitation to sit and rest, will be on view through June 6. Hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Pyramid Atlantic: Virtual Workshop
Pyramid Atlantic in Hyattsville, Maryland, will offer “Screenprinting on Fabric,” a two-session virtual workshop for beginners taught by Artistic Director Gretchen Schermerhorn, on May 19 and 26 from 6 to 9 p.m. In addition to purchasing a prepared screen from Pyramid Atlantic (see below), students will need to supply their own fabric, such as tea towels or T-shirts; a squeegee; masking tape; Speedball screenprinting fabric ink (at least one color); a spatula or a plastic spoon; an iron; a sponge; and a water bucket. They will also need a smooth tabletop surface and a water source (shower, bathtub, outside garden hose or utility sink). Tuition is $205 (10-percent discount for members), plus the cost of a screen: $50 if picked up (registration deadline: May 9) and $77 if shipped (registration deadline: May 4).
