News & Politics

Robert Devaney • February 22, 2012

Bidding Goodbye to Antiques of Georgetown

A farewell party for Antiques of Georgetown is planned for March at the store, after it officially closes Feb. 29. 

“I have been very happy here,” said William Donahue, whose first antiques shop was four doors east on O Street. “I have loved being my own boss.”

As reported in the Jan. 25 Georgetowner, Donahue—who has operated an antique shop in Georgetown since 1967—is retiring.

An economics major, Donohue worked for Riggs Bank downtown until the antiques world became a business for him. “My wife Mary and I had three kids when I started,” Donahue said. “We lived in Foxhall Village.” Now, they have places in Bethesda and Georgetown, and wife Mary prefers to spend more time in Florida.

“One of my best clients was Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger,” said Donahue, who also recalled when First Lady Nancy Reagan visited his shop and was given two pieces of art she had admired—by the artist.

The most interesting piece he sold? A desk with nine secret compartments. His most sentimental item? A chandelier from his family’s R Street home, still in the shop.

The Donahue family—the father was a physician—grew up on 35th Street. The children were born in Georgetown University Hospital; that same building is now Loyola dormitory. A brother, Matt, who lived on Prospect Street, died Jan. 19.

Donahue remembers delivering newspapers in town when many black families lived on 32nd Street and elsewhere. Grown-up memories include Sunday brunches at Doc Dalinsky’s pharmacy with trays of food from the Georgetown Inn’s Collins Bird. One of those Sunday regulars, Ben Bradlee, might add: It has been a good life—antiquing and other adventures—for Donahue.

The store is having a half-price sale; check www.Georgetowner.com for details on the March send-off reception.

Say Hello to a 2nd Tu-O-Tu

On Feb. 20, owner Mino Sarano opened a second eatery, Cafe Tu-O-Tu Express, at 3421 M Street, N.W., right next to the Pie Sisters. The Regency Row spot on the west side of town complements his first Tu-O-Tu near the Fours Season Hotel at the east side. Manager Bora Akcakanat welcomes his new neighbors with wraps, sandwiches, salads and an all-day breakfast, which includes a “Key Bridge” egg, cheese and bacon sandwich. So, that’s area code 202 . . . 337 4455.

New in Town: Suitsupply and Noodles and Company

The Dutch outfit, Suitsupply, known for its quality suits at reasonable prices, will be opening its doors at 2800 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., at the Four Seasons. The only other U.S. location is in New York.

Noodles and Company is taking over the former Einstein’s Bagels location by the Safeway building at 1855 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W. Dine in or take out a wide array of menu options, all containing noodles, of course.

Jeff Malet • February 16, 2012

Thousands of Conservative activists from around the country gathered at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on February 9-11 for the three day Conservative Political Action Committe, also known as CPAC 2012. Most of the major Republican candidates and conservative leaders were on hand with one unifying mission, defeating President Obama in November. View our photos by clicking on the photo icons below.

View additional photos by clicking here.
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Georgetowner •

With Feb. 14 less than 24 hours away, last-minute gifts is on the mind of many. Here are a few places in Georgetown to pick up a gift for that special someone:

Buy a Heart This Valentine’s Day

J. Chocolatier will be offering heart shaped truffles dusted with 24-carat gold. J. Chocolatier is located near Cady’s Alley at 1039 33rd St., N.W.

Make It Last

Looking for something that will leave a lasting impression? Check out the Phoenix, located on 1514 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., which is featuring Lulu Designs. Lulu Designs offers fresh and inspired jewelry infused with the energy of gemstones and metal.

Perhaps a More Traditional Gift?

Ultra Violet is offering a romantic arrangement and box of handcrafted fleurir chocolates for $150. Visit ultravioletflowersdc.com for more information.

Networking Beyond Cupid

For those who like to make it a Valentine’s week, head over to the Georgetown Business Association’s “Heart-to-Heart Networking” event on Wednesday Feb. 15, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., at Cafe Milano (Wine Room). Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, compliments of Cafe Milano and wine, compliments of GBA. Event Free for GBA Members and $25 for Non-Members. Please RSVP by Tuesday Feb. 14: rsvp@GtownBusiness.com.

Georgetowner •

CPAC was in town, in case you didn’t notice, Thursday through Saturday. That’s the Conservative Political Action Conference to you, buddy. If you happened to live around the area of Calvert and Connecticut walking across the Duke Ellington Bridge to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on the hill near the Woodley Park Metro Station within the bluest part of the bluest city in the country, you might feel a little like Dorothy dropped on a Red Oz.

The hotel teemed with conservatives, many of them young people avidly waving banners, signs and placards, in every nook, coffeeshop, bar, room and speaking room. This was the 2012 gathering of the GOP which just by the look and sound of it was turning into the GOCP—the Grand Old Conservative Party.

Sponsored by the American Conservative Union, this gathering of the like-minded and right-minded happens yearly, just as a similar conference of young liberal types was held in this neighborhood last year with Bill Clinton a prominent guest.

But this year was different. The Republicans — that is, in this case, the conservatives — were in a fractious primary battle, with all of the candidates left standing making prominent and critical speeches. This was a party in flux, and just about every word spoken meant something because, well, it seemed the Florida primary had not locked things up for Mitt Romney, after all, and because almost immediately thereafter Rick Santorum won three electoral events in Missouri, Minnesota and, most surprising of all, Colorado, considered a safe bet for Romney.

The electoral dynamics provided a passionate backdrop for the conference, where red meat was the only thing on the menu. The other was President Barack Obama, who did the gathered conservatives a huge favor by igniting a needless furor by proposing that — per his health care plan—religious institutions and affiliates must provide insurance coverage for birth control for their employees. This incensed Catholics like the suddenly resurgent Santorum, the fundamentalist Mike Huckabee and the Mormon Romney, not to mention Newt Gingrich, who declared that Obama had declared war on religion in his must-impress speech late Friday afternoon.

Huckabee, in a speech early in the week, proving perhaps he has been hanging out with John McCain way too much, said “tonight, we are all Catholics,” a heretical notion coming from a man who obviously had never had to go to confession in his youth. “It’s not about contraception, it’s about freedom of religion, its about liberty and we won’t stand for it,” he said with great and impressive indignation.

Romney came into the conference still needing to prove that he is real conservative as opposed to a conservative-for-the-duration-of-the-primary-process. The Tea Party, which had its very own room there, along with a host of other groups including the National Rifle Association, still mistrust him like an old Irishman whose daughter has brought home an Italian for dinner.

So, Romney pulled up his sleeves and tried to do just that, in ways that you often don’t even hear conservatives talk.

Speaking in the main ballroom, Feb. 10, just before 1 p.m., Mitt Romney used the word “conservative” more than 20 times in his address, as in being “a severely conservative governor” in liberal Massachusetts. He was trying to convince the receptive audience as much as he was convincing himself. He noted he is the only candidate who has never worked a day in Washington. Romney’s main target aws President Obama whom he said would be “easy to defeat.” After all, Romney said, “Obama is the poster child for the arrogance of government.”

“We should acknowledge President Obama, the conservative movement’s top recruiter. Turns out, he really is a great community organizer. Although I don’t think we were the community he had in mind. . . . I know this president will never get it, but we conservatives aren’t just proud to cling to our guns and to our religion. We are also proud to cling to our constitution.”

“The Obama presidency as the last gasp of liberalism’s great failure and a turning point for a new conservative era,” Romney continued. But it’s not enough to show how they have failed. We must prove we deserve to lead. ” He then listed how his leadership would save America. And, as with the other candidates, he said his first act as president would be to “eliminate Obamacare.”

Which, lest we forget, was once Romney Care. There might come a day that Romney will disavow ever having been a Massachusetts governor, if this race drags on. He might cheerfully, given his bank account, renounce being a Mormon.

While Romney got a very good reception and did win the CPAC straw poll (just barely beating Rick Santorum), a lot of the attendees said they want to believe that he is sincere but are not yet convinced. That surely includes Rick Santorum, who Sunday suggested that there might have been some cheating going on in the straw poll.

And that surely included Gingrich, who, introduced by his dazzling wife Callista (who he said would be taking on a much more active role in the campaign) and a thunderously martial music, promised to eliminate Obamacare—first thing—the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy on his first day in office or thereabouts. “What are our differences? We are either a country of food stamps or paychecks and I know what we prefer,” he said.

He said he would also set up American shop in Jerusalem by putting our embassy there, a sure-fire way to reassure Israel — maybe — and win the hearts and minds of Palestinians everywhere.

He declared his anti-establishment credentials — a rebel, he — and hinted that that Washington establishment he was fighting against was made up of some Republicans as well.

Yet the infighting and the negative campaigning that had characterized the whiplash primary process for the GOP was muted here. Obama always provides a better target when more than one conservative are together in the same room, let alone a hotel full of them.

Not when you’ve got Sarah herself in the house.

All sorts of conservative stalwarts were everywhere — Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Herman “9-9-9” Cain, whose candidacy is still on hold, actor Kirk Cameron, the right-wing blonde acid queens of the media Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Michele Bachmann, Andrew Breitbart and former Georgetowner columnist Grover Norquist.

Norquist, president of American for Tax Reform, gave a terse, pep-rally speech on specifics and numbers needed for conservatives (aka the GOP?) to take over the Senate and the White House. “The Left is made up of competing parasites,” said the tax-pledge lobbyist as he explained that the agenda was set and all that was needed was the pen (President Romney’s?) to sign the legislation.

But nobody does it better than Palin, whose propensity for red meat rhetoric has no equal now that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will be retiring.

The woman herself walked onto the main ballroom stage, and the crowd went nuts. Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin can fire them up and shot off her typical verbal missiles: “Not just red America or blue America, but red-white-and-blue America . . . and Obama we are through with you.” “Hope and change? You better hope things change.” “He mucked it up.” “Win the future? W-T-F . . . I know,” she gladly sneered.

A few minutes into Palin’s speech, about eight protestors with the Occupy protestors yelled, “Mic check!” This is a so-called phrase for Occupy hecklers. The group was surrounded in seconds and whisked out of the ballroom. Upon hearing the noise, the audience thundered, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!,” as if they’d just beaten the Russians in hockey.

Palin continued on her roll. The Washington swamp should be declared a wetlands, she said. Thus, the EPA would slow its growth. “D.C.’s crony capitalism is the root of the problem,” she said and imagined — perhaps rightly — that the Washington cesspool is a tempting hot tub for politicians, serving and retired. “Drain the jacuzzi,” said Palin, as she ended her speech, which happened to be on her birthday, Feb. 11.

It appears that we haven’t heard the last of Mama Grizzly.

Or anybody else.

Outside, a woman with a Santorium poster saw a group of Washington Stage Guild members wave placards and shout, “We are the 99 percent.”

“That’s me, too, “ the woman said. Makes you almost think we’re not that far apart.

Not.
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Georgetowner • February 13, 2012

Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500- 1700

FEBRUARY 3RD, 2012 AT 10:00 AM | FREE | BEMELSON@FOLGER.EDU | TEL: (202) 675- 0342 | EVENT WEBSITE

Virginia Woolf famously evoked “Shakespeare’s sister” in A Room of One’s Own as she tried to imagine the difficulties women writers faced during the early modern period. In fact, Woolf was not aware of how many women actually were writing during that time, because many of their works were never published, and those that were, lay in relative critical neglect. This exhibition explores those women who were, in fact, writing during Shakespeare’s time.

February 3- May 20

Address

201 East Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC

20003

LOVE Show Reception

FEBRUARY 4TH, 2012 AT 06:00 PM

Celebrate that ultimate feeling between two people with the LOVE Show (poems, paintings and music)

Address

Mark Cottman Gallery

1014 S. Charles St

Baltimore, MD 21230

Fashion Takes Flight

FEBRUARY 4TH, 2012 AT 07:00 PM | $85 | EVENT WEBSITE

A ticket to this event includes cocktails, gourmet hors d’oeuvres, access to a fashion show with models and military service men and women sporting the District’s freshest new talent, a silent auction and an invitiation to the exclusive after-party at Lincoln. Come together to support an organization, Luke’s Wings, that aims to assist the families of those who serve.

Address

Washington Nationals Park

1500 South Capitol Street SE

Smithsonian at Little Washington

FEBRUARY 4TH, 2012 AT 08:00 PM | 10$-25$

Pièces de clavecin en concerts by Jean-Philippe Rameau, played by the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Rameau, the great French composer of the Baroque era, composed this music in 1741. This concert gives Theatre audiences the opportunity to hear some of the same concerts which are performed at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

Address

The Theatre

291 Gay Street

Washington

VA 22747

Women On Stage: A Conversation about Susanna Centlivre

FEBRUARY 5TH, 2012 AT 02:00 PM | FREE | RESERVATIONS@NMWA.ORG | TEL: (202) 783- 5000

In conjunction with Folger Theatre’s production of Susanna Centlivre’s The Gaming Table, director Eleanor Holdridge, head of the MFA Directing program at Catholic University of America and Georgianna Ziegler, the Folger’s Head of Reference, discuss the 18th- century playwright’s theatrical legacy.

Address

National Museum of Women in the Arts

1250 New York Avenue NW

Washington DC

Robert Devaney •

The dead, stuffed Potomac Phil predicted six more weeks of winter and nine more months of gridlock in Congress, reports Patrick Ryan of SnarkInfested.com. The rodent-meteorologist event was held at Dupont Circle, Feb. 2. Potomac Phil’s message was made about an hour after the famous Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania saw his own shadow and foresaw six more weeks of winter.

This first-ever D.C. gathering for a groundhog earned a resolution from the D.C. Council and announced the even easier prediction of gridlock in Congress. Local Council member Jack Evans joined event coordinator Aaron DeNu and others, as they leaned over the stuffed groundhog. There were groundhog-shaped cookies for the group, and a rabbi offered a prayer about light.
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Georgetowner •

The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) announced motorists will encounter single lane conditions and traffic stoppages along segments of Canal Road between Foxhall Road and Arizona Avenue in northwest Washington starting this Friday.

Flagger-controlled alternating lane closures and five-minute traffic stoppages will be in effect between 10:30 am and 2 pm on Friday, February 4 and between 7 am and 7 pm on Saturday, February 5, weather permitting, to allow crews to resurface the roadway.

Motorists are advised to use an alternate route or add extra time for travel to avoid delays.

Temporary signs and traffic control measures will be in place to alert and guide the traveling public through this area.

For additional traffic advisories please visit DDOT’s Traffic Alerts page or visit GODCGO.com for more information on transportation options in the District

Jeff Malet •

At a special ceremony marking the opening of the new Warner Bros. Theater at the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian presented Clint Eastwood with the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal in honor of Eastwood’s contribution to the American Experience through film. The Warner Bros. Theater is a modern facility with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, incuding 3-D capability, made possible by a $5 million donation by Warner Bros. Entertainmemt. Barry Meyer, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros., and US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) were on hand for the ceremony. View our photos of the ceremony by clicking on the photo icons below. (photos by Jeff Malet) [gallery ids="100482,117113,117105,117098,117089,117081,117070,117061,117053,117043,117035,117130,117026,117136,117142,117017,117148,117122" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

During the course of our telephone conversation with Christopher Siebert, who has the flamboyant, star turn of Albin in the touring company of “La Cage Aux Folles,” winding up its Kennedy Center run at the Eisenhower Theater Feb. 12, we told him that he seemed to embody the essence of a Broadway pro.

Specifically, we said, “You’re a Broadway baby.” That means Siebert is never far from a rehearsal, a road trip, an audition, a star turn, a song in his heart in a musical, a night on the stage.

“Yup,” he said. “I believe that’s true.”

Of course, there’s a lot more to Siebert than show biz per se, in the sense that the business, a world which he inhabits as a genuine star, is never far from intersecting with real life, especially with “La Cage Aux Folles,” which first exploded on the Broadway scene in the 1980s. With music by Jerry Herman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, who also starred as Albin, it became an instant classic, spawning revivals and even a hit, non-musical film, “The Bird Cage” with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

Siebert was a teen in Minnesota when “La Cage” erupted on the scene. Nevertheless, he is keenly aware of its status and history in Broadway lore and feels closely connected to it on several level.

“That show meant a lot then, and it means a lot more now, in a different way,” he said. “Plus, Harvey has been a great friend of mine. So, there’s almost no way of avoiding it anyway.”

Siebert isn’t just alive in the lights of the Great White Way or on the road. He’s something of a pop culture icon with some of his Broadway roles as well as having starred in the television series, “Two of a Kind,” with The Olsen twins, and you don’t get anymore pop culture than that.

But on Broadway he made his real mark, initially playing in shows full of characters already embedded firmly in the buzz-and-cool minds of several generations of youth culture. He was Gaston in “Beauty and the Beast,” Rapunzel’s prince as well as the wolf in “Into the Woods” and Sir Dennis Galahad in “Monty Python’s Spamalot.”

But Siebert really hit the jackpot when he got the role of Lord Farquaad in “Shrek, the Musical,” for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, an Outer Critics Award Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award and a Drama League Award.

He was playing the stylishly sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn in “Chicago,” when he got word that there was an opportunity to play Georges the other and much, much less flamboyant member of the couple in a road company of the successful revival of “La Cage.” And who was playing Albin? None other than the frog-voiced Fierstein who had originated the role and written the book for “La Cage.”

“Well, Harvey’s my friend, so in a way, playing Georges to his Albin let me see how the pair functioned as a couple, so it really gave me a heads-up on the role. There’s nobody like Harvey. He’s a true original,” Siebert said. “I don’t think anybody can make their voice go that low. So, I don’t try that much.”

Eventually, George Hamilton, the suavest movie star ever outside of Cary Grant, took over the role of Georges, and Siebert became Albin and his oft-altered ego Za Za. The crowds have come, and they have roared.

“Georges is, I think, fantastic, he gives a presence in the role you don’t often find, and he acts it in a subtle way that makes you understand the relationship between the two men,” Siebert said.

Still, it’s different now.

Watching the show, you can see that how much has happened historically. “You’ve got to remember back in those days, it was primarily about the glamour, the glitter, and gay men who had not come out would come see the show with women dates. We’ve come a long way. I think the show now is more about character, the relationship, the love story. It is about a married couple for all intents and purpose, to the point where Albin has to pretend to be a mother, wig and dresses and all.”

The plot’s emotional underpinnings, as well as those holding the costumes together, resonate differently in the age of the battle over gay marriage.

Siebert himself married his long-time partner Kevin Burrows, an actor and a chef, last Thanksgiving.

We asked him if Burrows cooks at home. “Never,” Siebert quipped. “Except at Thanksgiving. That’s his high holidays.”