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Nico Dodd • August 8, 2011

MRP Realty, the company that purchased Washington Harbour last year, is planning a $30 million renovation that includes updated offices, new restaurant space and a rebuilt outdoor plaza featuring an outdoor ice-skating rink.

At 11,000 square feet, the proposed ice rink would be the largest in the city, according to MRP’s Robert J. Murphy. During the warmer months, the rink would be replaced by a 7,000 square foot fountain.

The plans are still being looked at by neighbors and community leaders, but once the plans are ok-ed, work could begin early next year, with completion in the spring of 2012. Work to renovate Washington Habour’s office space has already begun.

After April’s flood, Washington Harbour could sure use a boost like this. Several of the bars and restaurants located there are still waiting to reopen.

Nico Dodd •

According to the Washington Post, this July was the hottest month in Washington on record. The average temperature was 84.5 degrees, more than one degree hotter than the previous hottest month, July of 2010. The hottest day of all was July 29 at 104 degrees, the hottest temperature in 13 years. The hottest ever was 106 degrees, on July 20, 1930. Over the whole month, the temperature reached 90 degrees 25 times.

The month also had eight record days for warm low temperatures, including seven when the temperature failed to fall below 80 degrees, four of which came consecutively (from July 21 to 24). On July 23 and 24 the District tied for its warmest all-time low temperature of 84 degrees.

August is not showing any signs of relief, as today’s high was 98 degrees.

Gary Tischler • August 4, 2011

Mention sports in Washington to a sports fan and nobody laughs.

After all: The Washington Redskins’ Dan Snyder sues the City Paper, Donovan McNabb is benched, no playoffs yet again and wait, there’s a lockout of millionaires. There may yet be an NFL season. Sigh.

After all: The Washington Capitals, the best hockey team, and the best Russians never to make it out of the second round of the playoffs. Sigh.

The Washington Nationals, where being a game under even is a major accomplishment, a team that has Jayson Werth who gets millions for batting .216. Sigh.

The Washington Wizards, who may never make the playoffs in my lifetime—admittedly a modest goal.

The men’s soccer team which had a 0-0 tie in its last game, I think. What a thrill.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company and “The Complete World of Sports.”

Now that’s funny.

You’ve got a few days (till January 24) to see the radically funny comedy troupe’s take on the wide, wide, and even wider world of sports from cave man’s earliest tug of wars to naked wrestling in ancient Greece, to the origin of curling and the burning question of why bowling is a sport—among the hundreds of subjects, countries, centuries and box scores tackled by the current RSC troupe and trope of three.

If you go, be prepared to run on stage and participate in the parade of nations, or just participate. Audience participation is one of the hallmarks of the RSC—doesn’t that have the same initials as the Royal Shakespeare Company with the word Shakespeare?—and wacky irreverence, slapdash and sometimes slapstick comedy, and a willingness to tackle any subject no matter how small, how large how endless.

They are very good at reducing just about anything. Eric Cantor, are you listening? Reducing. Anything. No matter how large. Can they, is it possible that they could reduce the national debt?

Maybe not. But they could make it funny?

“We go back a ways,” Reed Martin, one of the earliest members (he cam aboard in 1989) said. “It’s kind of strange. Wherever we go, we’re sort of famous. We have this built-in audience, built, over the years, and yet, we’re not, I don’t know, famous-famous.”

But what they do have is a phenom, and it’s gone, if not exactly viral, pretty huge. Several troupes tour with the RSC brand and shows, their works are collected in book form, and they’ve been all over the world.

Martin, in a way, is characteristic of the troupe and its history: he’s been a real clown (is there such a being?) with Ringling Brothers, he’s been a sports referee and he is what he is here, the bald one, who lends a certain intense, zany seriousness.

There is also his long-time partner in time and crime, Austin Tichenor, who looks a little like Will Ferrell, only funnier (sue me, SNL fans). He has that puzzled look of a lawyer in over his head, wondering why he didn’t join a comedy troupe

Last, and perhaps least but probably not is Matt Rippy, the kid, who looks like a kid, as opposed to the adult family men Martin and Tichenor. He is oddly enough, also the webmaster for the group, acts in movies and, according to his bio, is studiously avoiding adulthood and so far succeeding.

The whole thing started with Daniel Singer, Jess Borgeson and Adam Long, the troupe founders who used to work their way, hat in hand, at Renaissance Pleasure Fairs in California, which were quite heady festivals back in the day. But they put together a show called “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) followed quickly by “The Complete History of America” and “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged),” which surfaced at Fringe Festivals, (what a nice coincidence) and then ran for nine years at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus.

All three have done improve, movies, television, voice over and a touch of standup. “I think all the credit in the world should go to our wives, our families,” Tichinor said. “They don’t get to so see us so much when we’re on the road.”

“People laugh no matter where we go,” Martin says. “We’re fresh, irreverent, whatever, naughty, there’s nothing we don’t make fun of but it’s not, like we dis what people value. You might think in the South where people take their Bible seriously something might happen, but it really didn’t. Noah in Baton Rouge, a little.”

“It’s hard work, sure,” Tichenor says. “But we get to play in great places. We come back here (to the Kennedy Center), all of the time. People get us. Maybe a little too much. The local sports radio people talked this up on their shows and a whole bunch of people showed up one night, they booed, they yelled, they argued, it got kind of lively. We loved it.”

So how do they pick people to bring on stage?“There’s two kinds of folks—there’s people who have that pick-me, pick-me look on their face and you have to pry them offstage, or there’s people with their head down, or they get that fear look on their face. We don’t pick them.”

In this town, the Nationals, love of ‘em or don’t ever go, are the team of the national past-time, which is baseball. Which is:

“Boring,” Rippy says. “That’s the funny part. You know, every time we mention baseball, one of us faints dead away.”

“One of the things about this is that every night, everywhere is different,” Martin said. “When you add the audience participation, it’s not just the people in the audience, but all three of us get surprised every time.”

Even when there’s boos on a Michael Vick joke.

“Too soon?” one of them asks.

Baseball has been very good to them. So has Shakespeare, the United States of America, God, the Bible, Hollywood—a lampooning of 187 of the best movies of all time, sports in general and coming to a theater near you soon, maybe in December:

“Christmas,” Martin says. “We’re going to do Christmas.”

The abridged version, which means you don’t have to unwrap the presents.

(“The Reduced Shakespeare Company in “The Complete World of Sports” will be at Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater until June 24.)

Now they’re funny.

Nico Dodd •

Friday night, now-former NBC 4 sports anchor Lindsay Czarniak celebrated her farewell party with co-workers and friends at sports bar Public in Tenleytown. Local media, celebrities and close friends wined, dined and made a toast to one of D.C.’s favorite media personalities who will be joining ESPN in Connecticut.

Czarniak, 33, has worked in Washington for 6 years since moving from Florida in 2005.

During her time in Washington, Czarniak covered all the region’s professional teams. As co-host of The George Michael Sports Machine and host of Lunch with Lindsay, she became a fixture of sports broadcasting in D.C.

Georgetowner •

Meet Phineas and Ferb with Radio Disney AM 1290!

July 30, 2011

11:00 AM | FREE

Verizon FiOS TV and Disney Channel are celebrating the debut of the animated Disney Channel Original Movie “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension.” Local area kids and families are invited to meet everyone’s favorite adventurous duo, Phineas and Ferb, along with Special Agent P, and enjoy themed activities, photo opportunities and games. The Radio Disney Road Crew will provide entertainment inviting guests to sing and dance to the latest Radio Disney hits.

Address

Fashion Center at Pentagon, Third Level Center Court

1100 South Hayes St, Arlington, Virginia 22202

Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra Small Group: Collaboration in Jazz, Featuring the Music of Ge

July 30, 2011 at 07:30 PM

Through such tunes as “Walkin’ Shoes,” “Line for Lyons” and “Apple Core,” this program celebrates historic horn duos—pairs that expanded the role of the “front line” in the small jazz group. In this setting, one horn might take an accompanying role, providing a melodic line or rhythmic figure as accompaniment to the other’s solo. The two horns might participate in a musical conversation, passing ideas back and forth. Or, in a process that is as old as jazz itself, they might solo simultaneously, improvising in counterpoint.

Address

Baird Auditorium

National Museum of Natural History

10th Street and Constitution Ave. N.W.

Art + Coffee: Luce Unplugged with Cephalopods

July 31, 2011

Free to the public

Join us today at 1:30 p.m. for a talk on William Alvin Blayney’s Mural No. GU-43752 (All Rights Reserved), selected by the musical group the Cephalopods, who will perform in the Luce Foundation Center at 2 p.m. following the talk. Cephalopods is a DC-based instrumental trio and is made up of veterans of DC’s DIY music scene, drawing on punk rock as well as folk and classical traditions from around the world.

The Luce Center has expanded Art + Coffee to bring you an exciting lineup of local musicians. Luce Unplugged, an acoustic concert series, invites emerging musicians to play after staff-led art talks.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Meet in the F Street Lobby

8th and F Streets

Bourbon Steak: Annual “Pig Out” Patio Party

August 14, 2011 at 03:00 PM

$35 per person

Tel: 202.944.2026

It’s time once again to “Pig Out” at Bourbon Steak (2800 Pennsylvania, NW). The modern American restaurant will host its second annual pig roast event on their spacious patio Sunday, August 14 from 12 to 3 p.m. Priced at $35 per person for food, and $50 inclusive of food and drink, guests at this year’s pork-centric party will once again enjoy a 300-lb spit-roasted pig from Eco-Friendly Foods, among other show-stopping offerings from Executive Chef Adam Sobel and his team. Bourbon Steak is partnering with DC Brau, the DC-based brewing company, to provide the perfect pork-pairing beers for the event. The restaurant will also make available special non-alcoholic punches available throughout the day for all guests. In case of rain, “Pig Out” will be held on Sunday, August 28. To purchase tickets to “Pig Out”, call 202.944.2026 or visit www.bourbonsteakdc.com for reservations.

Address

Bourbon Steak

2800 Pennsylvania, NW

Nico Dodd • July 28, 2011

Construction for new streetcars has been under way for two years along H Street but it won’t be until late 2013 that they will be they will be working, according to ABC 7 news.

The streetcar line was scheduled to be finished in 2012. Since the area is far from a Metro station, the streetcar line is an important component of the neighborhood’s development.

Road improvements, including streetcar tracks, are in place. But city officials concede it will take more time than expected to buy and install other parts of the system, like additional cars, overhead wires and build power stations necessary to run streetcars down H Street.

According to DCist, the construction of these is scheduled to begin in the beginning of next year.

Over the past few years, many new restaurants, bars, and night clubs have opened along the H Street corridor. The long-term goal is a network of eight streetcar lines criss-crossing the District, covering 37 miles of track. The overall cost from local, federal and private sources is estimated around $1.5 billion. [gallery ids="100220,100221" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner •

Dumbarton House: Jazz Dancing Night: “Swing into the Past!”

July 22nd, 2011 at 05:00 PM

$12-$15

Dumbarton House invites you and your dancing shoes to the Belle Vue Room ballroom and lower courtyard terrace for their first ever evening devoted to the Swing style of dancing on Friday, July 22 from 6 to 10 p.m. So, bring your favorite swing style – Jitterbug, East Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, etc. – for a fun filled evening of 20th-century dance. Restored in the late 1920’s through the early 1930s – the “Swing Era”! – Dumbarton House opened as a museum in 1932 and as the headquarters of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America. Dumbarton House pays homage to swing dancing, popularized at the same time Dumbarton House was being restored and open to the public for the first time. White wines by Tradewinds Specialty Imports and sumptuous cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes will be available for sale. Discounted tickets are only $12 for a limited time and $15 at the entrance if space is available.

Address

2715 Q Street, NW

Movies On The Potomac

July 24th, 2011 at 05:00 PM

National Harbor Waterfront

Enjoy entertainment moonlit on the outdoor screen along the waterfront at National Harbor. Fridays nights will be Date Night themed: June films will feature Divas of Song & Screen and Sundays will be Family Night themed: June- Tribute to Dad, July- Animated Films, August & September: Fantasy films. Bring your own chairs.

Address

137 National Plaza

Additional Information : There are 3 parking garages and one surface lot. Parking is paid. Bring blankets or lawn chairs

The Public Memory of 9/11

July 26th, 2011 at 06:30 PM

The upcoming tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks offers an opportunity to consider how the sites in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania are memorializing and interpreting this event. Leading representatives—Alice Greenwald, National September 11 Memorial & Museum; Jeff Reinbold, Flight 93 National Memorial; and Andy Ammerman, Pentagon Memorial—present the designs of the memorials and discuss the challenges in commemorating recent history. Brent Glass, director of the National Museum of American History, will moderate the program.

Editor’s Note: This event is free, but pre-registration is required. Visit www.nbm.org .

Address

National Building Museum,

401 F Street N.W. Washington, DC 20001

Baked & Wired: Nic Parrish Art Exhibit

July 27th, 2011 at 12:33 PM

Tel: 202.333.2500

On display from Wednesday, July 27 through Tuesday, August 16, Baked & Wired (1052 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW) presents an art exhibit by local D.C. artist Nic Parrish. Parrish’s post modern abstract style is alive with color and texture. Whether it’s for a cup of coffee or a need to satisfy your sweet tooth, stop by Baked & Wired to enjoy this exhibit and more. 202.333.2500

Address

Baked & Wired

1052 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW

Gary Tischler • July 27, 2011

Former President Bill Clinton stood up there on the podium in the Grand Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham Hotel and surveyed the audience, a sea of about a thousand young people, and you could’ve forgiven him if he’d erupted into a couple of bars of “Don’t Stop Believing,” the pop-rock song that was a part of his victorious 1992 presidential campaign.

For a minute, it looked like 1992 all over again what with the cheering young students, all of them there for the 7th annual Campus Progress National Conference with its theme of “Turning Truth to Power,” planning, paneling, work shopping, debating ways for the progressive youth movement to “debate, strategize and mobilize around the issues that matter to them.”

This was the same Clinton who could energize a room with an inspiring, confident message back in the day, the same Clinton whose party had lost both the House and the Senate two years into his first term, the same Clinton who ran dizzying strategic political circles around Newt Gingrich, the same Clinton who survived a devastating sex scandal to finish his presidency with a budget surplus, eight years of only nominal U.S. military involvement in international conflicts, eight years of what is now seen as a pragmatic, hands-across-the-aisle style and successful presidency.

Only now it’s different.

“I don’t live in the same world that I lived in when I was president,” he said. “You know what happened—we had a deficit when I came into office, and when we turned it around into a surplus. Damned if they (the GOP) didn’t turn it into a deficit again. Man, I hate deficit as much or more than anybody. But I gotta tell you. Have you noticed the only time the Republicans scream about the deficit and the debt is when they’re out of office?”

Clinton deplored the current focus on deficit reduction and the debt. “It’s destructive,” he said. “You can’t do that sort of thing until you’ve got the economy going again in a good place and it’s in a horrible place right now. If you focus exclusively on spending, you’re going to make things worse, I guarantee you. You’re not creating jobs if you’re firing state employees all over the place and you can see that happening at the state level already.”

He told the gathered students that he liked the theme of the conference: “Turning Truth to Power.” “We used to talk about speaking truth to power, and yes, now, you’ve got to turn truth to power. But what’s happening? You’ve got to get the truth out. I mean, do you know at some basic level, besides the fact that it stopped a depression, that the stimulus plan worked? But nobody knows it? Because nobody has really gotten the word out.”

“There’s information about the health care reform bill that got out there that was just plain wrong, a lie, the death squad thing and a whole lot of other things,” he said. “The truth is we didn’t let people know what was in the bill, we didn’t pare it down to what it really did. It’s the same thing about the GOP budget, the Ryan budget. It’s not going to work. But nobody knows that. And you won’t turn truth into power if you don’t get the truth out and tell it.”

“What you’ve got to do is…turning basic facts into power,” he insisted.

He warned that GOP strategists would try to do everything they could to keep students like them from being able to vote in the state where they’re going to school “You’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got know this stuff,” he said.

“There are always reasons why people hire Democrats and when,” he said. “When there’s a mess, and there was a mess in 1992 and they hired me, and there was a mess, God was there a mess, in 2008 and they hired Barack Obama. But the mess is still there, because people don’t know the basic facts.”

“The Republicans who control the House and want to control the Senate are now decided that all of a sudden the debt is the biggest problem in the world, after having tripled the debt in the 12 years before I took office, and doubled it since I left.”

That this conference was a progressive-liberal one was pretty easy to spot by the rainbow colors of the participants and reflected in what Clinton told the attendees: “Why in the world are people complaining about immigration? It’s what we are and who we are, immigrants, legal ones, make this country great. What in the world are we afraid of?”

It was also a sharp, active and motivated gathering of folks who may give the lie to claims by experts that young people disappointed with the Obama administration won’t vote. Look at some of the subjects being strategized, discussed and debated all over the hotel on the first day: “Social Media as a Catalyst for Change: Overseas and at Home”; “Understanding Social Justice Movements”; “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom in a Conservative Congress”; “The Journalism of Racial Conflict”; “Recession Generation”; “Green Jobs and the Political Impediments to a Clean Energy Economy”; “America’s Role in the World after Two Wars.”

The agendas alone make you think that just maybe the kids are all right. And so on this day, gray suit, white hair, fit and trim and combative, was William Jefferson Clinton.

Gary Tischler •

The touring version of “Rock of Ages” now at the National Theater for a short stay is probably critic-proof, bullet-proof, and any other kind of proof. You could probably find a hundred things wrong with it and none of it would matter because it’s sort of like one of those insistent puppies that jumps in your lap with muddy paws, slobbers over your fresh white shirt, and slurps your face until it shines.

If you’re immune to the charms of big hair, eighties music and the like you could of course try to ignore it and sort of nod off. Oh wait, you can’t do that either because the music, singers and guitars in this show are really loud and who knows, some jacked-up frizzy-haired guy might be running down the aisle trying to high-five you.

You might as well give it up. “Rock of Ages” is infectious and emblematic of its time, the time of the eighties, the time of stadium rock, of amped up anthems, of big-voiced, leather-booted girl singers AND guitar players, the time of Bon Jovi, Journey, Poison, and Kiss and lead singers who stuck their tongues out and wiggled them, something you don’t see the Bieber doing.

“Rock if Ages” us a big hit Broadway musical which celebrates eighties rock and roll the only way you can—by being as raunchy as possible, and as loud as possible, by screaming and pelvis pumping and guitar riffing and holding on to the scream notes for dear live.

And underneath, there’s actually a story, and it’s still the same old story, a fight for love and groupies, boy meets girl, boy meets girl in a rock blub, boy loses girl to a rock star in the men’s room (don’t ask), boy loses his way for a time, boy finally meets girl again at a strip joint. Well, it’s not the most wholesome of romances, but basically they’re sweet kids and, like the song goes, “she’s just a small town girl and ….it goes on and on and on” and “don’t stop believing,” you betchya.

There is sub-plot too, involving a German developer who wants to destroy the strip and the city that was built on rock and roll, and he has a dubious blond son named Franz who wants with all his heart to become a confectioner before the age of cupcakes. If only. Franz, who’s blonde, sweet and a little light on his feet, is aghast when the girl thinks he’s gay. “I’m not gay,” he explains, “I’m German.”

The plot convolutions shouldn’t concern audience members too much because they go completely off track in the second act. What never stops is the music, the energy, the push-push and pounding of the guitar and the house band, full of riffs that could give “Edge” a run for his pick.

The tempo and high energy of the show and the campy atmospherics of 1980s rock club and strip bar seem authentic and reek of nostalgia and draft beer, not to mention the general wretched excess which characterized the decade.

It’s an audience show—it’s as much fun to watch the audience members as it is to keep track of the performers on stage and what they’re up to. Just for fun, you’re equipped with tiny little plastic flashlights which you can wave so that it seems like 1985 all over again. If you should happen to experience a flashback to the time, be afraid, be very afraid.

All being said, here’s a few surprises: Constantine Maroulis, the nominal star of this production and an American Idol grad is a gangly, high-hair, appealing performer, with a voice pitched perfectly to the rockers and anthems he sings. Leather seems to be a major accessory for everyone, including blonde Elicia MacKenzie, who can knock a song like “I’m Gonna Harden my Heart” at least out of the theater and probably a ballpark. She seems equally at home as a heartland naïve would-be actress as a tough-chick Pasadena employee of the Venus Club.

Still, some things are bewildering, most notably what they’ve done with Pat Benator’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” which for reasons not to be pursued, features Franz and his father. But then there’s Peter Deiwick as Stacee Jazxx, an aging out-in-front-of-the-band star a la, I don’t know, whoever fronted Poison or Def Leopard. Apparently Tom Cruise is doing the role in the movie version. For real. Risky business, that.

If the eighties were or are your greatest decade ever, then “Rock of Ages” is, well, “Nothing but a Good Time.”

Suzanna Nelson •

Experience something like nothing else before; a place of performance and theater that holds no judgment and standard. Capital Fringe Festival, running from July 7 through July 24, is a show spectacular with over 200 productions including comedy, dramas, puppetry, dance, music, and every other genre possible, even ones that don’t exist. Variety for families, new theater adventures, or old critics, Fringe is an all day adventure down the rabbit hole of performance and production.

Leave your traditionalism behind because once you enter The Fort (the ticket office and administration building) famously known from past Capital Fringes. Get ready to lose all concept of theater when you enter The Gypsy Tent, the main social area for viewers and performers with a bar and grill, dancing area, live music and performance space.

A few blocks from Chinatown and the Convention Center, Capital Fringe is an escape from D.C. daily adventures. Actors and viewers alike comment that the best part of Fringe is the people. “Everyone is so nice and energetic,” says Michael Bergman, the producer of “Moby Dick, An Adaption for Theater,” husband of one of the actresses in “Moby Dick” and father to technical manager of the play.

Fringe festivals started back in the mid-20th century in Scotland, where performance companies that were not allowed to perform on regal stages, banded together and created a place where they could perform. Here they were free from societal censorship, and were welcoming to all who wanted to participate. Somewhat castaways from society, they were on the fringe; hence the name.

With great Happy Hour specials, “sublime” food (according to Freelance Visual Art Critic and Curator David Tannous, an avid Capital Fringe viewer) the heart of the Fringe, The Gypsy Tent is where it’s at. Not only is it a social scene, but it also is the central location of performance, with three venues on location.

Having already seen more than 10 shows, Fringe has blown all of my expectations out of the water. What seems too many theater purists as just a hipster post-contemporary production, I think that Fringe has just as much credibility as Shakespeare or the American Ballet Theater.
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