Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

Vincent Gray isn’t a natural politician.Maybe that’s why it took him so long to decide to challenge Mayor Adrian Fenty, taking on a man who’s much younger, who can tout progress and numerous achievements, who has a Midas-like war chest and who got into the mayor’s chair by winning every precinct in the District of Columbia.

“I like to think things over, carefully,” Gray recently told The Georgetowner. “It wasn’t an easy decision by any means. It’s a big risk. A lot of people were urging me, asking me to run. I’m still getting used to the idea that no matter what happens I won’t be on the council anymore in any capacity.”

Not to mention that if he should lose — and lots of so-called political experts say that’s likely — his political career is pretty much over. Gray, in short, made a decision not to run for re-election as city council chairman (for which he was a shoo-in), a position he had filled admirably by almost any measure.

I met Gray last week at Busboys and Poets (at Fourth and K Streets), which is near his campaign headquarters.

Asked how things were going, the mayoral candidate sounded enthusiastic. “Great,” he said. “It’s going great, really great.” When I suggested that things seemed to be getting testy, as evidenced in some of the exchanges at the Washington Hotel PAC candidate forum the previous week, he nodded. “Yes, they are,” he said, “It’s getting a little tense sometimes.”

In recent days, we’ve watched Gray several times, at the forum, on television, at the Ward 2 straw poll, and in person. If an election campaign is a drawn-out process, something like a boxing match of punches, counterpunches and dancing back and forth, Gray seems invigorated by the process, or at least he’s enjoying himself. For sure, candidates often repeat the same things over and over again, but Gray repeats some of his best stuff with relish.

As in: “When it comes to yard signs, the city’s turning blue, and the other side is green with envy.” It’s a hokey line, but it gets cheers from supporters every time, and a few laughs too. Gray laughs right along.

This an election campaign that seems to have been sparked not so much by a clash of ideas — although there are significant differences between the two — or even a conflict of wills, although that started becoming evident over the past year.

Rather, it’s a contest sparked by a growing unrest and dissatisfaction with the mayor’s way of operating, his style, his approach to dealing with the city council and constituents. Increasingly, Mayor Adrian Fenty, the executive leader as action figure, came to be seen as brusque, disconnected from voters (especially east of the Anacostia River), arrogant and unwilling to work with individuals or groups. Polls in January showed that while people appeared to like what he’d done in terms of school reform, public safety and development, they had serious reservations about his way of operating. Which doesn’t necessarily translate into support for Gray, a man who remains something of an enigma in large parts of the city. “I’ll say this,” Gray says. “I didn’t start out like some other people dreaming about becoming mayor or some such thing from the get-go,” he said. “I wanted to be a baseball player, and I was good at it, too.”

The self-described “through-and-through homey” grew up in a one-bedroom apartment at Sixth & L Streets N.E. He went to Logan Elementary, Langley Junior High School and graduated early at 16 from Dunbar High School, where he played first base, “hit over .500” and was scouted by professional baseball teams.

“It wasn’t in the cards,” he said. “But you know, I still think about it sometimes.” Gray still plays in a city softball league, apparently as reliable a hitter as ever.

In his younger days, politics wasn’t on his mind — he went to George Washington University, studying psychology and getting undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. From the beginning, he was passionately engaged in issues involving people with developmental disabilities. He worked at the Association of Retarded Citizens (now known as the ARC).

“Here’s a moment that affected me powerfully,” he said. “I was given a tour once of Forest Haven, a mental institution run by the District, a horrible place. I saw female residents and patients there, being herded outside, with no clothes, being hosed down. I’ll never forget that.”

Gray led the effort to finally close down Forest Haven, an achievement he still speaks about with pride. In 1991, Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly made him Director of the Department of Human Services, in an era when the District government was heading for its lowest points. Fenty and his spokesmen repeatedly criticized Gray for being a part of that administration, whose failures eventually led to the imposing of a Control Board on the city, which oversaw its operations and finances.

Gray chafes at the criticism, especially from Fenty. “What in the world do you know about the 1990s?” he said angrily at the hotel forum. “You have no idea, you need people to tell you what happened.”

To Gray, that period was about public service, which later would include his becoming director of Covenant House, a faith-based organization that serves homeless people and at-risk youth.

“You take pride in things like that,” he said. “I do. Because you can help people.”
He took a keen interest in education, almost naturally, given that his wife Loretta, who passed away from cancer in 1998, was a teacher in the D.C. Public Schools system all her professional life.

Gray, who has two grown children and two grandchildren, still lives in the family’s Hillcrest neighborhood home, pretty much by himself. “I’ve got a cat,” he said.

Hillcrest is in Ward 7, from which, in 2004, Gray launched his first political race for the council seat occupied by Kevin Chavous, who had run unsuccessfully for mayor. Less than midway through his term, he was encouraged to run for council chair by his supporters. “I said at first that maybe they were having a mental health problem,” he said. But run he did, winning a very tough and tense race against Kathy Patterson, the highly regarded Ward 3 incumbent.

He rolled into office with a triumphant Adrian Fenty, and several other new members, including Kwame Brown, Harry Thomas, Jr. from Ward 5, Tommy Wells from Ward 6 and Mary Cheh from Ward 3. It seemed, four years ago, like a fresh slate, a new beginning.

It was Gray who presided even-handedly — and forcefully — over the hearings for the legislation that would allow Fenty to take control of the District schools and initiate the school reforms that would culminate with the selection of Michelle Rhee as chancellor.

“This mayor voted against mayoral control when Mayor Williams tried to get that,” Gray pointed out.

Fenty announced the appointment of Rhee without consulting Gray or the council first; The Washington Post had the news before they did.

Gray dismisses the suggestion that this was an early catalyst for his decision to run. “A lot of things had already happened, and were continuing to happen.” he said. “It was an accumulation of things.”

But the school reform process, which included a delayed, drawn-out contract negotiation and the abrupt and controversial firing of nearly 300 teachers last fall over mysterious budget shortfalls, took its toll on Gray, and increasingly appeared to leave him at odds with both Fenty and Rhee.

“It’s not something I set out to do when I was elected chairman,” Gray said. “At first, a lot of people were urging me to run. And then, well, you feel compelled to do so.”
Gray sees it as another way to serve. He is known as the kind of chairman who will work hard to reach out to others and arrive at a consensus. And there is a way of doing that, as far as he’s concerned. “You respect people,” he said. “You work with them. You bring people together. You give and take. But especially, it’s about dignity and respect.”

He accused Fenty of cronyism during the parks and recreation fiasco last year, saying the mayor bypassed the council while giving contracts to his friends, a matter still under investigation. He’s clashed with District Attorney General Peter Nickles frequently over the issue, and has gone so far as to suggest that Nickles be fired.

Ray, who likes to listen to jazz and Motown oldies, is clearly energized on the campaign trail. He still slams Fenty for a recent no-show. “Here we are,” he said. “We’re going to hold a public forum on education, which is the mayor’s number one issue. He holds the cards, and what happens? He’s a no-show. He doesn’t show up. I was shocked, let me tell you.”

Clearly, there are style issues here. But it goes deeper than that — it’s generational. Fenty will be 40 this December, Gray is 66. If Ray has a political idol, it’s Walter Washington, the city’s first mayor under home rule. “He had such a difficult task, but he stood tall, he behaved with great authority and dignity, and he tried to do what’s best for the whole city. That’s what I intend to do.”

“The question isn’t about firing people, or what I would do with Michelle Rhee. It isn’t about one person. It’s about the whole city. Education isn’t just about test scores, it’s about expanding vocational education and jobs, it’s about early education and special education and charter schools and community schools and equal resources.”

In fact, his education proposals aren’t so much different from Fenty or Rhee as they are more expansive and more inclusive.

“We’ve got to reach out to everybody, we can’t govern from some lofty hill and just do things without talking to people,” he said. “When I’m mayor, I’ll be mayor for the whole city, not just parts of it.”

Gary Tischler •

At the Playhouse
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Move over, New York. Here’s a look at some promising theater productions to send off Washington’s fall theater scene, rapidly securing status as one of the best in the nation.

The Return of Sarah Ruhl
The Woolly Mammoth Theatre on Sixth Street kicks off its season early and with one of the most intriguing productions of the season, “In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play,” which starts Aug. 23 and runs through Sept. 19.The play is about the unintended or unanticipated consequences of new technology.

Sounds dry, but it’s anything but, not when the new tech is a little electrical device that landed in the medical community around the same time that electricity started to be used everywhere. The device is supposed to calm female hysteria, but it creates havoc in the households of patients and doctors instead because …well, you can guess from the title.

But that’s about all you’re going to be able to guess, because the play is the work of Sarah Ruhl, one of this generation’s most gifted and unusual playwrights. Now in her 30s and a mother of young twins, Ruhl has been very, very good to Woolly Mammoth, the theater du jour for new and cutting-edge works, with productions of her celebrated “The Clean House” and “Dead Man’s Cellphone” enjoying popular and critical success there. “In The Next Room” was the talk of New York during its run.

Expect nothing: one of the hallmarks of Ruhl’s work is that her characters don’t say or do what the play’s situation might indicate they would do and say. The Woolly Production is directed by the very busy Aaron Posner and features Woolly regulars Kimberly Gilbert and Sarah Marshall.

A ‘Sanctified Show’ at the Lincoln Theatre
The new award-winning gospel comedy “Sanctified,” by Javon Johnson, hits the Lincoln Theatre in October, with original (and presumably with gospel flair) music by Derrick Sanders, running Oct. 21 through Nov. 14.

“Sanctified” won six 2009 Black Theater Alliance Awards. The play follows the fortunes of the East Piney Grove Baptist Church when it tries to stave off financial woes by entering a gospel revival.

I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am
No, this isn’t the Herman’s Hermit song, but it IS a rarely done production of “Henry VIII” by William Shakespeare, presumably the last of the Bard’s works, which comes complete with some authorship issues and the fact that the Globe Theatre burned down during its run. The Folger Theatre will be doing the royal honors beginning Oct. 12. Ian Merrill Peakes plays the king, who’s a big hit on Showtime’s “The Tudors.”

‘Something You Did’ is Something to See at Theater J
Theater J also gets an early jump on the season with its production of “Something You Did,” a new play by Willy Holtzman about a group of people trying to reconcile their youthful radicalism with who they are now. Rick Foucheux stars as a former radi-lib turned neo-con media star and Deborah Hazlett plays a woman serving a 30-year prison sentence for an anti-war bombing in which a police officer was killed. (Aug. 28 through Oct. 3).

‘The Scarlet Letter’ and ‘Dinner With Friends’
Something old and something new at Olney Theatre, where Artistic Director Jim Petosa presents the area premiere of Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize-winner “Dinner With Friends,” about two couples enduring a divorce (Aug. 25 to Sept. 26). The National Players, at 60 America’s longest-running touring company, will bring their production of an enduring American classic, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” (Sept. 17-18).

Checkmate at ‘Chess’
Signature Theatre in Shirlington got way ahead of everybody by resurrecting the popular rock musical of yore, “Chess,” for a run through Sept. 26. Directed by Signature’s guiding light Eric Shaeffer, with lyrics by Tim Rice (“Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Lion King”) and music by the folks who brought you “Mamma Mia,” “Chess” is about an American and a Russian competing not only for chess supremacy but the love of a woman. What else could it be?

A New Era for Studio Theatre
The venerable 35-year-old Studio Theatre will not have Joy Zinoman as its artistic director this season after her retirement. Instead, there’s young (35) star David Muse, who’s directed “Blackbird” and Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to be Pretty” at the Studio and scored successes at the Shakespeare Theatre.

Two on-the-edge and talked-about playwrights will kick off the season at Studio: Annie Baker’s “Circle Mirror Transformation” begins Sept. 8. In this play, all the world’s a stage, especially at an amateur theater class in Vermont. “Circle” is followed by “Superior Donuts,” a new comedy by the talented and ambitious Tracy Letts, who hypnotized audiences with her three-hour-plus family saga “August: Osage County.” (Begins Nov.10.)

‘Sabrina’ Is Back…
And she’s not a witch. Rather, it’s the charming, twice-made-into-a-movie play about a chauffeur’s daughter who manages to charm two brothers who are members of the rich super-business class. The play, 50 years old or so, is about things that still matter: class, race, economic divides and, of course, romance. (Audrey Hepburn dazzled William Holden and Humphrey Bogart in the first film.) “Sabrina” starts off the Ford’s Theatre season Oct. 1.

…So Is Sam Shepard’s ‘Fool For Love’
The Keegan Theatre — home of both classic Irish and American theater — is bringing back playwright (and sometime actor) Sam Shepard’s most popular play, “Fool for Love,” at the Church Street Theater Oct. 16. It’s a brawling, sexy play about the outer edges of love and hate, sex and violence when Eddie and May go at it in a hotel outside the Mojave desert.

Let Your ‘Hair’ Down at the Kennedy Center
The first true musical heralding the Age of Aquarius and rock ’n’ roll is coming to the Kennedy Center Opera House Oct. 16 for a run through Nov. 21. “Aquarius,” “Hair,” “Let the Sun Shine In” and a host of songs your parents (or grandparents) might still be humming are back along with really long hair, hippie girls, afros and the Vietnam War.

Paddy Chayefsky Was the Man
Paddy Chayefsky didn’t just author the screenplay of “Network.” He was a pioneering playwright for television (“Marty”), won Emmys and Oscars and was something of a prophet with some of his socially conscious plays. “The Tenth Man” is relatively mellow and optimistic, a fable about love and faith, of all things, even though it’s about a Jewish exorcism. It plays at the American Century Theater in Arlington’s Gunston Arts Center beginning Sept. 17.

A Lope De Vega Classic at Gala Hispanic
In “El Caballero de Olmedo” (“The Knight of Olmedo”), a play from Spain’s golden age by a playwright often compared to Shakespeare, two lovers get caught up in a tragic rivalry between two Spanish towns. Lope De Vega’s classic kicks of Gala Hispanic’s season at the Tivoli Theater in Columbia Heights beginning Sept. 17, a collaboration with the Spanish company Accion Sur.

‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ at Round House
Patricia Highsmith wrote nasty, quirky crime novels, of which “The Talented Mr. Ripley” — with its murderous anti-hero — is the most famous (Matt Damon played Ripley in the film version). Now it’s a play by Phyllis Nagy, adapted from the novel and gracing the stage at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda beginning Sept. 8. A regional theater premiere directed by Blake Robinson.

Two Openings for The Shakespeare Theatre Company
Shakespeare Theatre will keep both of its stages busy this fall, starting with “All’s Well That Ends Well,” directed by Michael Kahn and featuring Marsha Mason at the Lansburgh Theatre beginning Sept. 7.

For something entirely different, and for anyone seeking some clue about what’s going on in Afghanistan, there is the visit of the Tricycle Theatre company from the United Kingdom, which is bringing the three part play (actually 12 short plays) “The Great Game: Afghanistan,” which traces Western involvement in Afghanistan from its English, Russian and American ventures. It’s at the Sidney Harman Hall Sept. 15-25.

And, A Shakespeare Special for Free
The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual Shakespeare Free For All is alive and well August 19-September 5 with a production of “Twelfth Night” at Sidney Harman Hall. Visit www.shakespearetheatre.org/about/ffa to enter the ticket lottery.

Scorched In Silver Spring
Along somewhat similar lines, “Scorched,” Lebanese-born playwright Jajdi Mouawad’s haunting play about twins going to the Middle East to search for their heritages, will premiere in D.C. at the Forum Theatre beginning Sept. 30 at the Round House Theatre’s Silver Spring venue. Forum received major critical praise and two Helen Hayes Awards for its awesome production of “Angels in America” last year.

From Page to Stage at The Kennedy Center
For anyone wanting to get an idea of the scope, range and volume of theater in the Washington area, the Ninth Annual Page to Stage New Play Festival at the Kennedy Center is worth a visit. It features the works of more than 40 metropolitan D.C. theaters in free readings and open rehearsals of plays and musicals under development. Take your pick with works by Adventure Theatre, the Doorway Arts Ensemble, the Folger Theatre, the Georgetown Theatre Company, the Hub Theatre, the Washington Improv Theater, Synetic Theater and a host of others. (Go to www.kennedy-center.org for a complete listing.)

Kid Stuff
Adventure Theatre at Glen Echo Park, Washington’s longest-running children’s theater, presents the American premiere of “Spot’s Birthday Party,” based on children’s book author Eric Hill’s hugely popular “Find Spot” books. The play is directed by Joe Banno, who has directed Shakespeare at the Folger and opera, and who finds himself returning to his roots. Spot is, of course, a very, very famous dog, with friends like Tom the crocodile, Helena the Hippo and Steve the monkey. What a party! Begins Sept. 17 running through Nov. 2.

At Bethesda’s Imagination Stage, dogs and cats figure prominently in “Bunnicula,” about the visit of a strange and menacing new member of the Monroe household , a creature with long ears and big teeth, with a taste for … what? A musical adaptation of Deborah and James Howe’s book. Begins Sept. 25.

Synetic Comes to Crystal City
Arena Stage, celebrating its 60th anniversary, will end its residency in Crystal City this year, but Synetic Theater, the handiwork of the dynamic, multi-award-winning Georgian husband and wife duo Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili, will celebrate its 10th anniversary by filling in the now-vacant play house. The company, which began life in Dupont Circle and moved to Shirlington, has garnered high critical praise from the start with its “silent” approach to classic and epic theater and plays. The season begins with “King Arthur,” which would appear to lend itself to the unique talents of this company, starting Sept. 30.

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Music
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The reason Washington arts patrons have the opportunity to see so many famous is that the area has two major world class performing arts centers. Here are some of the highlights:

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Kennedy Center, with its varied music, symphony, dance, theater and special programming, marks another major year with the first season of Christoph Eschenbach’s as music director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, which has its home at the center’s Concert Hall. This season also happens to be the orchestra’s 80th.

Expect a big season opening at the annual NSO Opening Ball Concerts on Sept. 25, where Eschenbach will make his debut accompanied by the country’s most noted soprano, the legendary Renee Fleming (performing Richard Strauss “Four Last Songs”) and renowned pianist Lang Lang, playing Liszt’s “Piano Concert No. 1.” Eschenbach’s official debut of the regular season comes when he conducts the Orchestra Sept. 30-Oct. 2 in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

But there’s more early on at the Kennedy Center. There’s the big Celebrate Mexico festival throughout the center Sept. 11-Oct. 3, commemorating Mexico’s 200 years of independence. The celebration will be part of the annual Kennedy Center Open House Arts Festival (Sept. 11), the Multicultural Children’s Book Festival (same date) and a host of other events.

The National Symphony Orchestra Pops Series, beginning its 11th year under Marvin Hamlisch, will debut Oct. 28 with an evening with singer, Broadway star, actress and all-around dynamo Patti Lupone on Oct. 28. Another highlight is the Thanksgiving salute to legendary Broadway lyricist Frank Loesser on Nov. 26 with music from “Guys and Dolls,” “The Most Happy Fella” and other great Loesser shows.

Major things to look forward to next year are the big India Festival in the spring and the all-performance art tribute to “The Presidency of John F. Kennedy: A 50th Anniversary Celebration Jan. 20-Feb. 11.

Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center
You’re also going to run into the Washington Ballet at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater Nov. 3-7 when Artistic Director Septime Webre brings his adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” (with music by Sergei Prokofiev) here.

The Music Center at Strathmore
The Music Center at Strathmore, on the outskirts of Bethesda, MD, has proven to be a major and welcome venue addition to the Washington area.

Its partners include the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Marin Alsop, splitting a portion of its season with Strathmore in addition to its season at its home base at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore. The Season for the BSO at Strathmore begins with a Prevue Concert Sept. 10 with Alsop and Ilyich Rivas sharing conducting of a program of Prokofiev, Mahler, Bach, Schumann, John Williams, Mozart, Barber and Shostakovich.

There’s also the National Philharmonic Orchestra, which kicks off its season at Strathmore with Mahler’s “Resurrection” on Oct. 9, under the direction of Piotr Gajewski.

Strathmore also partners with the Washington Performing Arts Society. Its own programming will feature the celebration of the guitar in a season-long guitar festival which will include performances by world-class guitarists in all fields: classical, jazz, country, acoustic.

A highlight early on will be an appearance by the legendary songwriter, actor, country/folk musician and guitarist, the gritty Kris Kristofferson (Nov. 13).

Also on tap in the fall: The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Callaway sisters (Ann Hampton and Liz) in “Boom,” a look at the 70-year jazz career of Brubeck, on his way to being an American icon.

On Nov. 14, the Washington Post will hold an intimate conversation with today’s most enduring creator of musicals, Stephen Sondheim. On Oct. 7, classical guitars Paul Galbraith will appear. “Asperia,” the soprano and lute duo will appear Sept. 23.

The renowned Academy of St. Martin in the Fields with Jonathan Bliss on piano will present an all-Mozart program at the Music Center Nov. 3.

It’s as big day for family entertainment on Oct. 30, when Grammy Award winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marx will present their 25th Annual Family Music party.

The Washington Performing Arts Society

The WPAS has been around for 40 years, providing education opportunities for young people and performance showcases for renowned world artists at theaters all over the Washington area.

The WPAS Men, Women and Children of Gospel choir will perform at the Arts on Foot Festival at Seventh and F Streets on Sept. 11 at 4 p.m. The festival, by the bye, offers a great opportunity for a sampling of many of the area’s performance arts groups. For more information, go to www.artsonfoot.org.

Renowned and glamorous violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall Nov. 13.

Sweet Honey in the Rock, the locally nurtured gospel-folk-blues group of long standing, will perform at the Warner Theatre Oct. 23.

Ravi Shankar, now famous not only as an iconic sitar player, but also the father of two famous performing offspring (Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones), will be at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall Nov. 7.

Yo-Yo Ma will appear at the Kennedy Center Oct. 21.

Pianist Andras Schiff will perform at the Music Center at Strathmore Oct. 20.

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Through the Opera Glass
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Washington Concert Opera
The Washington Concert Opera opens its 2010-2011 season on Oct. 24 with Francesco Celia’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.” WCO Artistic Director Anthony Walker will conduct the performance at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium.

Featured performers are James Valenti as Maurizio, Mary Elizabeth Williams as Adriana, Elizabeth Bishop as Princess de Bouillon and Donnie Ray Albert as Michonnet.

Walker has headed the Washington Concert Opera since 2002, makes his New York Metropolitan Opera Debut in 2011, conducting Gluck’s “Orleo.”

Washington National Opera
Five productions, all new to Washington, mix with a grand old tradition in the Washington National Opera’s 2010-2011 season, its 55th.

Under the leadership of General Director Placido Domingo, the season begins Sept. 11 with Verdi’s dramatic “Un Ballo in Maschera” (“The Masked Ball”), a soaring, powerful story of forbidden love and revenge which takes place during the 18th-century reign of Sweden’s King Gustavus III.

In this opera, King falls for Best Friend’s wife, a not unfamiliar theme in opera and theater. Best Friend plots his murder and things move forward. But it’s a Verdi opera, which means the kind of musical embellishment that heightens every emotion in the story, with soaring orchestration and straight-to-the-heart melodies.

In Europe, this opera startled many patrons at a time when most of the countries and empires of Europe were ruled by kings and emperors and a plot about a king’s murder did not sit well with the ruling class. This prompted the setting to be moved to America, where there are no kings. Some productions still do the American version.

Tenor Salvatore Licitra returns to Washington in the role of King Gustavus, sharing the part with American Frank Porretta. Also in the double-cast production are sopranos Tamara Wilson and Irene Theorin, and baritones Luca Salsi and Timothy Mix. James Robinson directs, and Daniele Callegari conducts the WNO orchestra. The production runs through Sept. 25.

October will feature Richard Strauss’ still astonishing operatic telling of the tale of “Salome,” with the gifted Francesca Zambello returning to direct Deborah Voigt in her WNO debut. Voigt is considered by many critics to be “one of the great Strauss interpreters of all time” and the definitive Salome of her generation. Strauss shocked the world with his opera, which includes a score that’s highlighted by “Dance of the Seven Veils”, as is, of course, any version of the Salome tale British tenor Richard Berkeley-Steele is Herod. In this story, Salome is a temptress who not only turns heads but causes at least one to fall. (October 7-23.)

That’s not all. The WNO will again offer a free simulcast, this year at the Washington Nationals Park, called “Opera in the Outfield” on Sept. 19, of “Un Ballo in Maschera.”

This season also inaugurates the Placido Domingo Celebrity Series, a concert series featuring opera’s most exciting popular stars. They’ll be performing their best-known works alongside the WNO orchestra. The concerts will start in the spring with Peruvian Tenor Juan Diego Florez on Feb. 11 and Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel on March 12.

“Series O,” a specially discounted subscription series for audiences 35 and under, is also being initiated this year as a way to bring younger audiences to the opera.

The National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors will be held Oct. 22 at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, with the WNO as the producing partner for the awards ceremony and concert.

The spring portion of the season includes “Madame Butterfly,” Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Touride” and Donizett’s “Don Pasquale.” [gallery ids="99189,103299,103310,103306,103303" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Every election campaign is a process, an ongoing ebb-and-flow epic, punctuated by candidate forums, straw votes, polls and news. Campaigns also heat up at various times, beginning with candidacy announcement, going through polls, attacks and counter-attacks, policy debates and the waning days running toward the climax and voting.

In the case of the District of Columbia primary — the Democratic Party primary, which in this city is tantamount to the election in November — that would be September 14. A lot has happened already.

Four years ago, a young, ambitious Ward 4 councilman named Adrian Fenty was taking on veteran and heavily favored city council chair Linda Cropp, criss-crossing the city hellbent on knocking on every door of every house. Cropp and her managers weren’t paying close enough attention and the result was a devastating victory for Fenty, winning every precinct and ward in the city. He brought with him a new chairman — Ward 7’s Vincent Gray — and other new faces, including Harry Thomas Jr. in Ward 5, Mary Cheh in Ward 3, At-large Councilman Kwame Brown and Tommy Wells in Ward 6.

This time around, things seem a little resonant of the previous run: Fenty is once again facing a city council chairman in self-dubbed candidate Vince Gray, who finally entered the race in the spring, prodded by supporters and a polled dissatisfaction with Fenty’s style and way of operating.

But it’s also different: where the 2006 election seemed almost dreamily sleepy and below the radar in the summer months, this race has a daily, electric and strange feel to it, covered almost 24-7 by a blogosphere that never lets up. Gray has polled well, but there have been no recent polls. He’s won big citywide straw votes, although straw votes, because of their size, are rarely true indicators of results. The campaign has turned surprisingly negative, with periodic outbursts of anger and hostility flaring up. With Gray’s mayoral candidacy, the new chair will be either Kwame Brown or former D.C. Councilmember and mayoral candidate Vincent Orange, after Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans chose not to run. The Brown vs. Orange choice now seems like slim pickings to some observers, especially after news that Brown carries an unpaid $50,000 credit debt and owns a boat called Bulletproof.

And all that is before last week’s firings of 241 teachers for “poor performance” under a new and still controversial evaluation program called IMPACT launched by Michelle Rhee.

Over the last few days, we peeked in the candidates at a Hotel PAC forum, at the Penn Quarter Association forum for non-mayoral candidates and a Ward 2 Democratic straw poll.

Under the prodding of moderator and WRC reporter Tom Sherwood, Fenty and Gray engaged in some heated exchanges notable for what appeared to be genuine anger on Gray’s part. When the mayor in a boilerplate statement thanked the Hotel PAC “for this opportunity to debate the issues,” Gray responded in turn by saying angrily, “You’ve had lots of opportunities to debate the issues. You just haven’t shown up.” He called the mayor’s failure to show up at a recent education forum “shocking … That’s his issue, for heaven’s sake.”

When the mayor again criticized Gray for his human services gig in the 1990s, Gray said “what in the world could you possibly know about the 1990s?”

At the Penn Quarter forum, Brown and Orange both touted themselves in different ways: Brown talking endorsements, including several organizations around the city and “all of my fellow councilmen,” Orange touting his experience on the council and his rise from a poor family. In the at-large council race, Clark Ray came across as experience-hungry and energetic, Phil Mendelson as experienced. Tommy Wells touted his experience and progress in educational reform, which he’s supported. Challenger Kelvin Robinson promised to push for more choices in education. The former chief of staff to Mayor Anthony Williams proved articulate, vocal and knowledgeable, though without highlighting failures, it’s always tough to topple an incumbent at the ward level, and Wells seems anything but complacent.

At the Ward 2 Democratic straw poll in Thomas Circle, it was politics and campaigns as theater. While supporters showed their signs outside with a sea of bobbing blues and grays held high for drivers to see (with much honking ensuing), Gray and Fenty appeared one after the other to give their stump speeches and engage with supporters. Fenty, it turned out, won the vote by about a 30-point margin, enough to breathe a sigh of relief, but not big enough to free himself of worry.

Gary Tischler •

For the performing arts in Washington — as elsewhere — fall is a big deal; it’s the start of a new season, its festival time, its gala time, its opening night for theaters and performing venues, for dancers, actors, directors, musicians, and orchestras all over the city.

It’s also fair to say no event quite resonates with so much history and meaning for the future as Arena Stage’s return to its old home on the Southwest waterfront.

As Arena’s Artistic Director Molly Smith put it, “We are finally home again.”

Well, the old homestead isn’t exactly what it used to be. Smith made those remarks recently on the occasion of a 60th anniversary celebration for Arena Stage, which also served to unveil the new stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, its old Southwest location. The ceremony — presided over by Mayor Adrian Fenty, other elected officials, Smith and her Arena compatriots — seemed appropriate to the place and time, looking forward and backward all at once.

The new site, as you get off the Waterfront Metro station, appears almost immediately to the eye like a glass-curved visitor’s vehicle from some nifty galaxy far, far away.

Modern, expensive and two-and-a-half years in the making, the Mead Center manages to be warm and inviting, a multi-task kind of venue which serves as performing space (three theaters), keeper of the historic flame (not to mention education and research) and community center in its role as cultural jump-starter for revitalization and development in Southwest Washington.

The new Mead Center marks yet another turning point for Arena, which in 60 years has seen many such key moments. Most of them, in one way or another, are part not only of the history of Arena Stage, but are literally embedded in the $135 million center, whose core remains the Fichandler Stage’s theater-in-the-round auditorium, a 683-seat space perfect for big-scale theater such as, for instance, “Oklahoma,” which starts off Arena’s fall season on Oct. 23.

The new theater also sports the Kreeger Theater, a 514-seat space with a thrust stage, the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle, an oval-shaped 200-seat theater with flexible seating, a space where new plays are workshopped and talent, new ideas and ways of creating are nurtured.

“The Arena Stage as we have it now will be a major center not only for the production and performance of theater, but for the study of theater. It will be a research center, a truly all-purpose theater center,” Smith said.

It was designed by famous Chinese-Canadian architect Bing Thom, who sees the space as “accessible, warm, modern and historic at the same time, intimate, vast, a part of the community.” The center reflects Arena’s past, but its transparency and structural impressiveness speaks to the future. “We hope for everlasting life for our hometown theater,” a local said.

Hometown is exactly what Arena is and has always been, even as it’s grown to a theater of national stature. “In 1950, the only way you could see theater here was at colleges, or through touring companies of Broadway plays,” Smith said. “Zelda Fichandler and her partners were pioneers; they created the first regional theater in America and the only professional theater here.”

From its first theater, which was called the Hippodrome on New York Avenue, Arena has moved and gone through various stages and incarnations. Five years after Hippodrome’s founding in 1950, it moved to a 500-seat theater called “The Old Vat” in Foggy Bottom.

In 1961, the 800-plus-seat theater-in-the-round Arena Stage opened at the current location with a production of Brecht’s “The Caucasian Chalk Circle,” an ambitious, difficult play that spoke to founder and artistic director Zelda Fichandler’s ’s theatrical vision.

It was evident that Arena was bound to enlarge or move. “There was serious consideration about moving to Seventh Street, where there was already a bustling theater scene,” Smith said. “But we decided to build here.”

Spurred by a $35 million donation from trustees-for-life Dr. Jaylee M. Mead and her late husband Gilbert Mead (the largest gift of this sort by individuals for a not-for-profit regional theater), the project to revamp Arena took hold two and a half years ago. This necessitated that the company and the institution scatter its offices and performing spaces all over the city. “We were a nomadic enterprise,” Smith said. “It was difficult, but it also increased the profile of Arena, acquiring new audiences, both in Crystal City and at the Lincoln Theatre in the historic U Street District.”

For Smith the new center is also a personal homecoming (again). An American University grad, she was picked to succeed Douglas Wager (who took over as artistic director after Fichandler retired) 12 years ago after leading the Perseverance Theater in Alaska for 19 years.

She dedicated herself to building on a standing — and pioneering — tradition at Arena. While she focused on American plays and the American theatrical canon, she continued to reach out to the community at large and build an African American audience, a hope that became a larger reality after the stint at the Lincoln.

“I think we have always encouraged new plays, new playwrights, new ideas that reflect the great creative energy in this community, as well as its diversity,” Smith said. She continued a process where two Arena productions, the spectacularly successful “Next to Normal” and “33 Variations” went to Broadway, a tradition that began with “The Great White Hope” in the 1960s.

She also started directing musicals. “I kind of surprised myself,” she said. “I never did them before. You know, I’m part of that generation that thought musicals, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, were kind of square.” She began with “South Pacific,” a big hit, which looked and felt not old-fashioned, but fresh and big of heart.

The inaugural season at the Mead Center can be expected to embody what Arena, Smith and the building itself stand for. So it begins with “Oklahoma,” a rarely revived musical that revolutionized musicals when it was first staged in the 1940s, building book and music into a seamless whole.

“We recognize the diversity that existed and the show, with all of its great music, will also embody that spirit. It’s not just an exercise in nostalgia,” said Smith In short, it will be a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic cast that will sing and perform the show. “It is THE great American musical. All of Arena’s optimism, hopes and dreams will be embodied in this moment of fierce individualism.”

Gary Tischler •

In Washington, you can find lots of choirs and lots of orchestras, big and small. You can find choral societies, string quartets, dance and dance companies. But we also have institutions, organizations and individuals that are beyond category. Here’s three that are Washington treasures:

The Embassy Series

Sixteen years ago, Jerome Barry, a noted baritone, concert singer, teacher, scholar and man of many languages, had the idea to organize a series of concerts at various embassies throughout the city. It was a pretty good idea, small to begin with, but it grew like mad.

“We had six concerts, two or three embassies, and it’s fair to say it was pretty Euro-centric,” Barry said as he prepares to begin the 17th season of what was then called and still is “The Embassy Series in October.” “I thought it was a way for the embassies and people who loved music to meet one another. In the back of my head was always the idea that if it worked, this could turn out to be a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, for bridge building. This is a unique city, after all, we have a whole international community here, close to 200 embassies.”

Initially, European embassies, specifically Austria, Germany, and Poland, were the primary participants — these were the countries of Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and Chopin, after all. The events would feature a concert, usually veteran or up-and-coming musicians from Europe, but also locals (and sometimes featuring Barry himself) to be followed by a reception with food, which provided opportunities for embassy officials and audience members to mingle and meet. It worked.

“We’ve had 58 embassies participate at one time or another so far,” Barry said. “And it has been a great opportunity for homegrown diplomacy, especially in these tense times were cultural gaps are so wide in the world.”

Barry’s Series have not only broadened, increased and widened the audience, they’ve broadened the horizons of the participants. While European embassies remain strong presences and supporters, the scope of the series has reached out Latin America, Africa, Israel, Asia and, perhaps most importantly, the Middle East. “Music is the great door opener,” Barry has said in the past. Last year’s season included a major concert at the very large and new Chinese Embassy, which proved to be a major cultural and social event. There were also concerts at the Embassy of Bahrain and the residence of the Ambassador of Syria, an inveterate blogger and culture consumer, which featured Kinan Azmeh, performing both traditional and contemporary Middle Eastern music with strong and appealing pop strains.

This year’s series begins with two concerts that all but characterize what the Embassy Series and Barry are all about.

The series opens Oct. 1 at the Iraqi Cultural Center with an evening of Iraqi music performed by ensemble of three Iraqi musicians called Safaafir, performing the country’s urban classical music, called Iraqi Maqam, as well as more traditional music.

This will be followed Oct. 17 by a concert at the Embassy of Austria, in which Till Fellner, who performed there last year, completes his major tour of the United States, during which he performed all of Beethoven’s sonatas. The internationally acclaimed pianist was born in Vienna, Austria and has played all over the world.

Taken together, the two concerts represent what the Embassy Series have been all about, a marriage of classical European music with an expansion to the music of the great world out there and here as performed in embassies and ambassadorial residences. It’s probably fair to say that Barry’s lone invention has influenced other recent efforts at cultural diplomacy such as Passport DC and the upcoming EuroKid festival.

The In Series

The In Series — a hard-to-describe series of performing arts events that combine just about everything performance has to offer — is celebrating its 10th anniversary at its 14th Street home at the newly renovated Source Theatre.

It will kick off its season with a double bill of American mini-operas, Leonard Bernstein’s strikingly contemporary and haunting “Trouble in Tahiti” and William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein’s “Casino Paradise,” beginning Sept. 18 and running through Oct. 2.

It will be a season of so-called “pocket” operas for the In Series, with a pairing of Zarzuela, a Spanish musical in the form of the Cuban “Maria La O,” and the iconic “Pagliacci” by Ruggiero Leoncavallo.

Carla Hubner, the series’ producing artistic director, is also its founder and heart and soul. Nick Olcott, a veteran Washington theater director, is the series director and Francis Conlon is the music director. Look for a 10th Anniversary Big Birthday Bash Oct. 23 and 24 at the Gala/Tivoli theater, and a music performance by Soprano Fleta Hylton, pianist Tom Reilly and actor Jenifer Deal exploring the music and life of Robert Schuman on the bicentennial of his birth, Sept. 26 and Oct. 2.

The Folger Consort

The Folger Consort, a unique group of chamber musicians performing classical music from distant centuries are a unique group, offering yearly consorts focusing that evoke not only gorgeous music but history and historical culture itself.

This year’s season opens with “Pastime with Good Company,” music from the court of Henry VIII, featuring the vocal ensemble “Lionheart,” Oct. 1-3. It’s presented in conjunction with an exhibition on Henry VIII, which commemorates the 500th anniversary of the larger-than-life king’s accession to the English throne. Not coincidentally, there’s also an upcoming production of Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theater.

At Christmas Time, the Folger Consort will present “A Renaissance Christmas” at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall with the Augsburg Cathedral Boys Choir of Germany, Dec. 10-12.

Gary Tischler •

It’s fair to say that “Mary Poppins” (the Sir Cameron Mackintosh/Disney-produced hit musical now ensconced at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House) has pretty much engulfed Anthony Lyn’s life.

Lyn is the tour director of the popular musical version of the old Disney movie musical which won Julie Andrews an Oscar as the super-cali— well, you know — nanny, and is the current director of the long-running (four years) Broadway production. For Lyn, it’s Mary here and Mary there pretty much all the time.

So what else is there?

“Well, I did just get married recently,” Lyn offered in a telephone interview. “There’s that.”

After congratulating Lyn, we wanted to know just what a tour director does. In the past, we knew that a stage director has a big part in the casting, runs rehearsals and then sits in the back of the theater biting his or her nails on opening night.

That doesn’t apply to Lyn or any tour director of major Broadway musical bonanzas, where you’re more like a visiting CEO visiting the plant regularly, changing this, overseeing that, making sure things are running properly and that the product is fresh and appealing.

“I’m here in Washington right now because as these kinds of shows go, with kids in them and all, we’re doing a bit of recasting, adding new performers,” he said. “The thing about kids is that they grow, they change.”

Lyn has a certain kind of show business in his veins, to put in British terms. He’s Welsh (the Lyn without the extra “n” says so), and that puts him in good theater company: think Catharine Zeta-Jones, Richard Burton and so on. He cut his theater teeth at Swansea Grand Theater in Wales, where they remember him fondly on the company’s Web site, charting his career from doing pantomimes to hosting musical shows to appearing with Zeta-Jones in a Swansea production of “The Sound of Music.”

From there, he went on to performing on cruise ships, getting a part in a production of “Anything Goes” with Elaine Paige, and landing a role in “Les Miserables.” That’s about the time he got interested in directing and talked his way into a job with Cameron Mackintosh. Next up: an assistant to Julie Taymor, who was directing the spectacularly successful “The Lion King” for Disney.

“She is just an amazing talent,” he says. “You have never seen such an eye, such creativity, it was an absolutely wonderful experience for me to work with the likes of her.”

It wasn’t that far removed from “Mary Poppins,” which now occupies a big part of his life.

“I know what critics think of Disney, that it’s this big business, giant corporation, heartless bottom-line and hokey stuff,” he says. “It’s nothing like that. You go to the Disney offices in New York, and it’s all theater folk like me.”

Still, the logistics of doing a national tour of “Mary Poppins” can be problematic.

“Everywhere you go is different,” he says. “Some of that has to do with the size of the venue. The theater in St. Louis, for instance, has 4,000-plus seats, and that requires a different level of projection. There are casting changes all of the time — actors sign a contract for a certain length of time and leave — the children, the sets, the physical opportunities and constraints. I think being a performer myself before has helped me in what I do. I know what it’s like, the whole touring thing, the changes, the pace, all of that.

“You know what it is about ‘Mary Poppins’?” he asks. “In all honesty, the show is full of heart, it’s about change and the parents, and the children, about that bond and imagination. I don’t mind saying so: it moves me still. You stay with a show long enough, all that coming and going, you form attachments. Every time there’s a cast change, there are goodbyes. You get to know people.

“It’s a funny thing that happens sometimes when there’s changes. An actor, even a child actor, will have their own views of things and they’ll make suggestions, and often it fits. You learn to listen. That way, you make sure things don’t get stale or change radically. I remember a long absence once, and an actor was playing his part in a way that changed everything. I didn’t recognize the show.”

Most of the time, “Mary Poppins” is a way of life for Lyn. A life a long way off from the Swansea Grand.

“Mary Poppins” runs at the Kennedy Center Opera House through Aug. 22.

Gary Tischler •

Dr. Lee Morgan is, in many ways, the most satisfied of men.

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing, anyone I’d rather be, except maybe an astronaut,” he says.

Morgan seems like a man who has found his niche, not like a safety net, but rather a place to be everything all at once: husband, father, family man, scientist, doctor, pioneer, responsible community person and a person who loves what he does.

“It’s not just my job, it’s my life,” he says of the Georgetown Veterinary Hospital, which he bought eight years ago and now runs. Love and empathy for animals, a key curiosity about advances in the veterinary field and interaction with person and pet alike coalesce there at 2916 M Street, the heart of Georgetown.

You might think when you first go into the greeting room at the clinic that Morgan is something of a celebrity doctor: there’s signed pictures of rocker Sheryl Crow, Karen Feld, who’s always brought her toy poodles and George Stevens Jr., the Georgetown resident who’s also producer of the Kennedy Center Honors.

“Not so much celebrity,” he says. “We just have a lot of good clients, the residents in Georgetown especially. Mr. Stevens is one of them, and they’re the kind of people that go that extra mile for their pets. They’re willing to do anything that’s needed.”

After a conversation with Morgan in the back room at the clinic, and taking into account his record, achievements and story line, you could get all sorts of impressions of the man: he’s gregarious, he loves to interact, and he’s high-energy. He’s well trained, smart, warm and a complete sucker for Buddy, the in-house part Rottweiler and Husky he and his family rescued. During the course of our hour-long talk, Buddy managed to cajole three treats out of Morgan.

“That means he wants to be petted,” he said as Buddy sidled up to me, nudging my hands with his head. Sure enough, Buddy struck a sit-down, heads-up pose perfect for petting, which he rewarded with a paw-shake.

“This is where it all happens,” Morgan said, showing me around. It’s a classic family operation — his wife Kris runs the office and his son Spencer works and helps out part of the time. There are a few other assistants and staff members, but on the whole, this is a perfect example of what folks mean when they say “small family business.”

Not too small, mind you: “We deal with about 100-200 issues a week, I’d say. Mostly, it’s the kind of things you find common to pets, to cats and dogs — diarrhea, eating disorders, vomiting, accidents, the things that you have to deal with pets on a regular basis. Dogs especially will get into anything.

“But I have to tell you, I get to do some pretty exciting things around here too, things you wouldn’t believe,” he says, telling how he was called by the Smithsonian to examine, with modern technology, a mummified pet. “That was very cool.”

When it comes to the science and advances in the field of animal health care, Morgan is right there, always keeping up. These days, he — and a number of others in the field — is quite excited about the use of stem cells to treat pets with degenerative diseases associated with age, such as arthritis and bone and cartilage degeneration.

“The idea is to inject stem cells, derived from fat from the dog, into the affected cartilage or joints. It can lead to repairing the damaged cartilage or bone,” he says. An early version of the treatment was used on a German shepherd who worked with his master, an American solider in Afghanistan. In an attack, his owner was killed and the dog suffered severe shrapnel wounds. The dog would not leave the soldier’s side but was brought to the United States, where he was a recipient of the stem cell treatment and improved remarkably. “That was an amazing thing,” Morgan says. We’ve had good results with this.”

He is the first doctor in the D.C. area to use stem cell treatment for dogs. “It has a great deal of potential for other pets. It’s not a guarantee because all cases and all dogs are different, but it’s been effective.”

It’s also an expensive treatment entailing a complicated three-day process that varies from dog to dog. “But now you have more hope for the issues that bigger dogs fall prey to, and that all of the dogs we love eventually have to deal with as they get older.”

Morgan didn’t start out wanting to be a vet — he started out as a marine biologist, which led to a stint at a dolphin training center in Mississippi where he met his wife, both of them working with dolphins up close and personal. “They are very, very special animals,” he says. “Everything you’ve heard about them is true.”

Eventually, he changed his major and decided on a career in the veterinary industry. “That was quite a while ago. It was a very different field than it is now — there was none of the technology that we have now, no MRIs, no advanced imaging or X-ray, all those very important things that let you know for sure what’s wrong. There wasn’t very much regulation of the industry when I started. That explosion in the pet industry, in interests in dogs and cats and the importance of the roles they played in people’s lives, that was just beginning. So it’s been fascinating to see all the changes. But I think dogs and cats have remained constant in their relations with us.

“I really believe in the power and importance of diagnosis,” he says. “So I believe in running tests. You should be sure about what’s wrong so that you apply the proper treatment. Blood tests, imaging, I believe in using and knowing about all the available tools.”

But Morgan has another important tool at hand: he has a deep curiosity about his patients and the people, and how they relate to each other, which makes him very much like a family doctor. That’s usually the sign of the very best veterinarians.

And he’s appreciated: in 2008 he was named Veterinarian of the Year by Veterinary Practice News, to go with the Washingtonian Magazine “Best Vets” Choice (2006), the IAMS Veterinarian of the Year Runner-up (2004), the American Veterinary Medical Association Practitioner/Researcher of the Year Award (2005) and the Best Veterinarian in American for the 2008 Northeast Region Thank Your Vet For a Healthy Pet Contest.

Not only that, he’s helped raise money for a mobile clinic serving injured police service dogs.

“We live in a major city, but we’re part of a community,” he says. “That’s one of the things in my role that I can help with.”
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Gary Tischler •

In a 2010 election campaign where the focus and news coverage seems to be almost exclusively on the combative struggle between incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty and council Chairman Vincent Gray and, less so, the two-man race between At-large Councilman Kwame Brown and former Ward 5 Councilman Vincent Orange, the numerous races for other city council seats sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

The recent D.C. Tenants Advocacy Coalition city council candidates forum at the venerable Sumner School tried to pack in all the council candidates, including Brown and Orange, into one forum, a process that proved to be both unwieldy and illuminating, a kind of fasten-your-seatbelts night with lots of placards outside while a picture of political diversity emerged inside.

As is often the case with any forums sponsored by particular groups, the focus often tends to be on the interests and concerns of that group. TENAC is a coalition of groups focusing on the concerns of renters, which make up a majority of D.C. residents. That includes protection from landlords, the preservation and extensions of rent control laws, legal representation against landlords, tenant rights issues, development, condo conversions, the need for affordable housing units and so on.

The issues of affordable housing and the rights of tenants is a kind of arena where we-the-people populism clashes with age-old economic interests, usually big and small business developers, construction companies, lobbyists, and property owners with deeper pockets and what are often seen as heartless tactics (hence the mention of the plight of people evicted from their domiciles, their property and belongings strewn all over the sidewalk).

The issues vary throughout the city, and they’re very much a part of today’s economic climate of failed mortgages, a housing market that’s stalled, condos that aren’t selling, buildings that are either being converted to condo status, or re-converted to rental units with higher price tags. TENAC confronts these issues as an advocate for tenants, and that often includes battling developers, promoting mixed use projects and, above all, preserving rent control.

“There is no substitute for rent control,” said Jim McGrath, the dynamic, eloquent TENAC president with a bit of an Irish lilt and bent in his voice. “All of you who came here tonight have a stake in this, and we want to hear from the folks who are running all over the District and their stands on this and other issues.”

You see all sorts of people at forums — the homeowners worried about more taxes, students, bankers, landlords and developers, hotel managers, tourist workers, restaurant owners, teachers and educators, city workers and advocates for the homeless. The rich, the poor, people with a lot, people struggling, people with visions for the city’s future, and people who see things others don’t, people who want to keep what they have, and people afraid they’ll lose just that.

Renters make up a large body of potential voters, but they’re also some of the most economically vulnerable people in the city. They have to deal with regulations and regulators, officialdom and bureaucracies in maintaining some semblance of day-to-day living security. So you’ll find elderly people on fixed incomes living in endangered rent control apartments, or families living in complexes or units where owners have decided to convert to either much higher rents or condominiums. Some of those situations conspire to erupt into all-out legal warfare and tactics in which landlords have been known to reduce basic services in order to drive current renters out.

Lots of people showed up to tell their stories, and even more candidates showed up, some of whom many people around the city are probably not aware. The forum was also hurt by the fact that it competed with a D.C. Night Out event. “National Night Out is Fine,” McGrath said. “Tenants’ night in is better.” Both Brown and Orange were absent at the start of the forum.

Still, here was Ward One incumbent Jim Graham pointing all of his legislative and one-man endeavors to keep rent control and its extensions and efforts to make it permanent, and explaining how elected officials, advocates for tenant rights and realtors work in an arena that is full of “Faustian deals.”

This is a world in which there is—in spite of the claims of officialdom—a decreasing affordable housing lot, and as Ward 3 Councilperson Mary Cheh and others pointed out, the very definition of affordable housing “might surprise you.”

“We are not talking about people at or near poverty-level earnings, were talking high five-figure salaries that qualify.”

It’s a slippery world where the rules change all the time. These forums where the tumult of the Gray and Fenty campaigns have receded open up still another world — where Graham, for instance, has two very viable challengers in Bryan Weaver and Jeff Smith, easily the two best dressed men in the room. It’s a world where Phil Mendelson, facing a tough challenge from Clark Ray for an at-large council seat, doggedly presented himself as a defender of rent control, of renters and vox populis, and where Ward 6 contender Tommy Wells faced his challenger, the eloquent Kelvin Robinson, once again.

It is a different world, this kind of forum—a world of struggling people trying to sort out the words of candidates who seem closer to them than the more large-scale politicians battling for the top spots.

Even so, things happen. An alarm went off. Literally. The building had to be evacuated. As we walked down behind a woman slowed by ailing joints, you could hear a man say “Somebody did this. I just know it. They didn’t want things to go right here.” Firemen walked through the building checking alarms. There was no fire, although there was a lot of fiery oratory.

News From the Campaign

Earlier in the campaign, after a mayoral campaign, TENAC ended up endorsing challenger Vincent Gray over Fenty because “he will look out after tenants’ rights better than the incumbents,” among many reasons offered up by McGrath.

TENAC wasn’t alone in supporting Gray. Both the D.C. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO offered up their endorsement of Gray, as did the Latino community and other groups recently.

Fenty, on the other hand, received an early and glowing endorsement from the Washington Post which has supported almost uncritically his stand on school reform and his unstinting support in that direction of Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who most recently and controversially fired over 200 teachers based on untried and locally developed evaluation systems, a development that so far has been met with almost total silence on the campaign trail.

Lacking regular polls, straw polls, themselves not necessarily reliable, have been used by observers on the campaign trail to try and make some sense of the ebb and flow of the campaigns. Fenty wins Ward 8, surprisingly, has a too-close win in Ward 2, drops Wards 3 and 6, and most recently suffered a startling loss in Ward 4, Fenty’s home district, where long-time residents appeared to rise up in revolt against him.

That straw poll event included by all account a loud, raucous forum, accompanied by imported supporters, some rough back-and-forths between the candidates and their supporters. It’s uncertain whoever’s ahead, but it’s also certain that the level of civility has fallen among the main contenders and their followers and the level of hostility has risen.

Straw polls are notoriously unreliable as indicators, but the Ward 4 results seem to have sent ripples through the media, votes, and the camps of all the candidates. Stay tuned for storms and loud political noises.

Gary Tischler •

Cool and hip may not be the first things you think about when you think of the Music Center at Strathmore.

After all, the gorgeous, nearly 2,000-seat acoustic paradise is a haven for classical music fans and performers, from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to the likes of Joshua Bell and Yitzhak Perlman. Rockers come — there’s been nights where you can catch the still-there Beach Boys or Jerry Lee Lewis — but full-scale rock-a-mania isn’t usually on the menu.

Except in the summer, except in August. That’s when Strathmore hosts its annual tribute concert, produced by Bandhouse Gigs, the major local musician group that often showcases (and assists) local artists, of which there is an abundance.

The tribute concert, held every year now for seven years, is an occasion for gifted local musicians, young and new, veteran and seasoned, famous or not, to pay tribute to the rock and roll and pop giants of old. This year — specifically, tonight and tomorrow — the causes for tribute and celebration is the British Invasion, that sudden outburst of British musicians whose work and personas hit our shores in the middle and late 1960s, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, to posters and hit-tine stars like Tom Jones, Petula Clark and the incomparable Dusty Springfield.

This year marks the first time — due to popular demand — that the tribute concert has expanded to two days, and there are plenty of reasons to celebrate that turn of events.

“We sold out last year’s concert so that a lot of people actually couldn’t come,” Ronnie Newmyer, a veteran local musician and spokesperson for Bandhouse Gigs, said. “Although, just so you know, we have a CD that from last year’s concert that will be sold at [this year’s] concert. I think things have just gotten bigger and bigger every year, so this represents an opportunity to honor some really terrific performers, bands and singers. This is what the tribute concert is always all about — you can see the influence these performers have had on present-day musicians.”

Past tributes have included — as performed specifically in the concert hall where proceedings moved from free outdoor concerts — Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and the spectacularly triumphant Woodstock concert of last year.

Actually, the concerts, which in and of themselves are always a parade of great music and songs — just run the Dylan canon through your head sometime— do something else, which may transcend the individual tributes. All of the songs — with some exceptions —are performed by local musicians. Some of them are nationally well known — Jon Carroll and Bill Danoff who came up with half a reunion of their Starland Vocal Band (“Afternoon Delight”) last year, for instance — but others are legends in specific arenas of, say, acoustic folk music circles. All of them perform regularly in the region, and many have recorded with major labels. After witnessing the last three tributes I can say all of them are gifted, professional musicians, many of them revealing themselves to be up-and-comers, including The Craving Dogs, newcomer Margot MacDonald or the gravelly voiced Patty Reese, who practically channeled Janis Joplin in last year’s Woodstock Concert.

“It’s a great showcase, it sure is,” Newmyer said. “I think it really shows off the local music scene, the people in it, how talented they are.”

Some of the performers, like MacDonald, have been Artists in Residence at Strathmore, a yearly program there for new and talented musicians and artists. Others have performed both locally and around the country, sometimes top billed, sometimes opening for other acts. They’ve been at the Birchmere and often at Jammin’ Java in Virginia.

The British Invasion Concert is a good way to have your eyes and ears opened to just what’s been going on around here musically. The music features, besides The Beatles and Stones and Jones and Clark and Springfield, the work of Peter and Gordon, The Who, The Hollies, The Kings, The Animals, the Zombies and many others. “These were people who wrote and recorded great individual songs, they practically perfected the genre,” Newmyer said. “The big bands like Cream and Led Zeppelin, with the long guitar work and numbers came right after when we got into Woodstock and everything that happened.”

Reese will be handling (perhaps uncharacteristically) the stylings of Petula “Downtown” Clark. Other artists include Carroll, Julia Nixon, The Hall Monitors, Tone Rangers, MacDonald, Last Train Home, 5 Doctors, The Lofgren Brothers, Billy Coulter, Marti Brom, David Kitchens, Tom Lepson, Jeff Watson and Brian Simms, to name a few among a total of over 60 performers.

They’ll be doing such hits as “You Really Got Me,” “She Loves You,” “Needles and Pins,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Satisfaction,” “Doo Wah Diddy,” “She’s Not There,” “To Sir With Love,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “We Gotta Get Outta This Place,” “Go Now” and a personal favorite, “Ferry Across the Mercy,” as well as a Herman’s Hermits Medley.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m., with tickets ranging from $19 to $22. For information go to [www.strathmore.org](http://www.strathmore.org).