Sinatra + Tharp = Sexy Staging in ‘Come Fly Away’
• May 3, 2012

Pay attention, kids. The Chairman of the Board, Old Blue Eyes, the Voice is back and in the house.

The house being the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center, where Frank Sinatra’s music and voice provide a kind of electric muse, a poetic kick in the pants, to the dancers — couples coming together, falling apart and twisting and flying through the air — in “Come Fly Away,” Twyla Tharp’s dance homage and expression of the Sinatra musical essence and persona.

“Come Fly Away” — where a set of four couples never going far from the stage set of the kind of bar where you drown your sorrows and dance to the tune of your troubles, or fly like ecstatic birds to the tune of romance — has Sinatra in full voice, ever present, his great voice and songs bathing the performers with a knowing air.

Tharp, America’s greatest living choreographer, has always had a gift for blending the pop with dance, a fascination not held alone by her but also Mikhail Barishnikov, who worked with her on her first Sinatra effort. “Come Fly Away,”, rooted in “Sinatra Suite” and the earlier “Nine Sinatra,” is leaner, and physically meaner and tougher than the Broadway original. It runs at 80 minutes with no intermission and is a gift if you still can’t get Sinatra’s combination of brass and sass, hitched to rueful romance, out of your head. Some of Sinatra’s finest songs are here—and it’s saying a lot given that he recorded literally thousands of songs.

The hitch, the hook, here is love, all kinds of love, including tough love with a background provided by the genuine article of Sinatra’s recorded love, and a full orchestra, much of it brass, the piano, the mournful sax, the sweet muted horn you haven’t heard very often. The couples in question are all kinds of American lovers—the stormy weather , battling, bruising love of Hank (Anthony Burrell) and flaming-haired Kate (Ashley Blair Fitzgerald), the uneven infuation-style course of Babe (Meredith Miles) and Sid (Stephen Hannah), the All-American sweets of Betsy and Marty (Amy Ruggiero and Ron Todorowski), not to mention the high-flying efforts of Chano (Mattahew Stockwell Dibble) to find love.

Dancing to songs as varied as “Luck Be a Lady,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” the stained-napkin boozy, “Here’s to the Losers,” “One for My Baby,” the defiant “My Way,” “That’s Life” and the exuberant “New York, New York.” In the mode of Sinatra-in-past-midnight-trenchcoat-alone with “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week, the couples and the ensemble do something awesome. They embody the music, a lot of Sinatra himself, and a little and a lot of all of us. They do it with tremendous gifts of physicality, grace, buoyancy and dazzling acrobatics. They toss each other around like muscular confetti, they meet, they pounce and they battle.

This is also, it should be said, sexy stuff, as love less idealized, the I-love-you-I-hate-you brand expressed in turns that escape one partner and land with another. This is hot stuff. All the couples on stage make this dancing a full-contact body bouncing effort: so much so that it’s a wonder nobody gets engaged during the course of the show. Or divorced.

Dibble can startle you with his high-flying leaps. Tudorowski carries with him a confidence that is equal parts funny and romantic. Miles turns every male dancer on stages to mush with her languid, red-dress moves.

But it’s the romance of Kate and Hank that carry the show and set the pace: theirs is almost a Frank-and-Ava affair. Every time they hook up, mash against each other, you feel the heat emanating from the sleek, slick, muscled moves of Burrell and Fitzgerald’s sassy, defiant attempts to escape and inability to leave, her red mane flying.

In fact, flight in all its definitions is at work here. All the boys and girls, at some point, manage to fly, to appear headed somewhere. They, if not away, still fly, fancy free and all.

D.C. Home Run: the Nationals and Their Stadium Are Paying Off
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It’s spring time and one’s fancy turns to baseball. April 12 was the home opener for the Washington Nationals. At 1:05pm, the Nats took on the Cincinnati Reds at Nationals Park.

Since the Nats started playing baseball at RFK stadium in April 2005, I have attended every opening game. Although I had never attended an opening game for any team before and had been to very few baseball games, I have come to look forward to baseball season. This year, the Nationals should be better than in years past. Having finished toward the bottom of the division every season since 2005, I think we are poised to build on the improvements we saw last year.

Little is heard these days about the decision to bring a baseball team to Washington and to build a new stadium. The stadium has worked out better than anticipated. The District borrowed $584 million to build the stadium and identified several sources of revenue to pay off the loan: 1) a 1-percent increase in the commercial utility tax, largely paid by the federal government; 2) a tax on businesses with gross receipts of over $5 million; and 3) revenue generated from the stadium itself, including rent and sales tax on concessions, tickets, and apparel.

Together, these taxes have raised millions of dollars more than necessary to pay the annual debt service obligations. All contingency funds have been fully funded, and I support using the excess revenue to pay off the bonds early. Our stadium financing method is used as a model by other jurisdictions.

Development around the stadium has occurred but has been slowed by the recession. Recently, with the credit markets becoming available, development is proceeding. I stated at the time that it would take 10 years to build out the area. Keep in mind that it took that long to develop the area around the Verizon Center, a part of town which was much further along than the baseball stadium area.

So, as we look forward to another season, if you are a baseball fan, make sure to run over to a game after work or on a sunny weekend. Play ball.

Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House at the Folger (photos)
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Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. took place on Sunday April 22, 2012. Young and old alike were on hand to enjoy jugglers & jesters, music, song & dance, and stage combat workshops. It was also the one day of the year when the Folger reading rooms would be open to all. The highlight of the day was a cake-cutting ceremony in honor of Shakespeare’s birthday presided over by Queen Elizabeth I.

View our photos of the event by clicking on the icons below. [gallery ids="100752,122355,122346,122338,122331,122323,122314,122305,122297,122289,122373,122280,122380,122270,122387,122261,122393,122364" nav="thumbs"]

‘Veep’: HBO’s Comedic Take on Our Number 2
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Before its April 22 Sunday night cable debut, the cast of HBO’s comedy series, “Veep,” checked into Washington April 11 at the United States Institute of Peace for red-carpet poses and interviews along with a reception and preview of the first episode.

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best know for “Seinfeld,” stars as Vice President Selina Meyer with her office more or less in its own bubble, with the president never shown on screen, and with Washington seen as much as a popularity contest as high school. At the preview, Louis-Dreyfus and a few of her co-stars said that they were happy being actors and did not envy the lives of politicians. Nevertheless, the D.C.-Hollywood connection continues in film, in lobbying efforts and with the increasingly exclusive White House Correspondents Association Dinner April 28. And, while Louis-Dreyfus talked to several politicians in her research for the role, but not Sarah Palin, the subject of an earlier HBO political show. [gallery ids="100750,122249,122225,122239,122235" nav="thumbs"]

Rain Does Not Dampen Spirits on Earth Day
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Rain poured down on the Earth Day Celebration on Sunday April 22 on the Washington Mall, but that did not dampen the spirits of those who attended. View our pictures from the weekend which featured a sculpture of the Earth made from recycled products by renowned sculpture Tom Tsuchiya, a rally from the group iMatter, and a concert headlined by rock group Cheap Trick.

Atlas Recycled is a 7-foot-tall sculpture by Tom Tsuchiya depicting the mythical Greek titan Atlas bearing the earth on his shoulders doubles as a recycling receptacle for aluminum cans and plastic bottles. In addition to being a recycling aid, Altas itself was made primarily from reused materials. Pieces of 14 used atlases and road maps cover the entire surface of the sculpture. Most of the rigid foam, polymer and steel that form the structure were reused from the creation of some of the artist’s previous sculptures.

iMatter, which marched on the Mall in the rain on Sunday, is a campaign of Kids vs Global Warming, committed to creating opportunities for the voices of youth to be heard on the climate crisis issue. Five 16-17 year old plaintiffs have sued the US government for jeopardizing their future by failing to address climate change. The government has a legal responsibility to protect the atmosphere as a public trust, for all generations. Youth from the iMatter network across the country have taken legal action to demand that the courts recognize the atmosphere as a commons that needs to be protected.

View our photos by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="100753,122480,122488,122496,122504,122512,122520,122528,122537,122544,122552,122560,122568,122574,122472,122464,122456,122610,122381,122603,122391,122597,122398,122592,122408,122416,122424,122432,122440,122448,122582" nav="thumbs"]

Bioterrorism: One Monkey Short of 12?
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James Cole: Look at them. They’re just asking for it. Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.

Jeffrey Goines: Wiping out the human race? That’s a great idea. That’s great. But more of a long-term thing. I mean, first we have to focus on more immediate goals.

– “Twelve Monkeys”

If you’re ever looking for an intelligent science fiction movie that has a timeless and cogent– if terrifying– message, “Twelve Monkeys” is a classic. Replete with great actors like Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt, “Twelve Monkeys” was produced in 1995 about a convict (James Cole, played by Bruce Willis) living in a post-apocalyptic future who’s sent back in time to stop a deadly plague released by a terrorist organization known as “The Army of the Twelve Monkeys.”

If a remake of the movie were made today, the opening scene might have Bruce Willis’s character returning to alert a governmental committee about a laboratory-constructed virus that kills 60 percent of all its victims. The scene would have him warning of a plan to openly publish the recipe for the pathogen—a virus with all the virulence of the seasonal flu, and vastly more lethal than the 1918 pandemic that killed more than 40 million people. In his testimony, Willis would warn (in colorful language) that open publication of the study would be tantamount to providing Al Qaida with the operational blueprints for a nuclear weapon. Ultimately, though, his concerns would be dismissed “in the interest of scientific research,” and the recipe for the deadly pathogen would be published openly for all to see.

As entertaining as such a remake would be, the story would likely now be dismissed by studio executives for requiring little suspension of disbelief—because all of the story elements are now actually transpiring.

The virus? Avian Flu, or H5N1–a pathogen that the United Nations Coordinator for Influenza warned could cause a pandemic with the potential to kill 150 million people.

The government committee is also real: The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB)—a panel of experts formed after the 2001 anthrax attacks that advises the government about “dual use” research with legitimate public health purposes, but also potentially used as a bio-terror threat. Paul Keim, current NSABB head, and a world renowned authority on anthrax, recently said of H5N1, “I can’t think of another pathogenic
organism that is as scary as this one. I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.”

The World Health Organization recently reported that of the 566 confirmed human cases of H5N1 to date; 332 have died. That number has been kept low up to now only because H5N1 does not spread easily between humans. And yet, the possibility that it could mutate to a more virulent form continues to keep government leaders awake at night. Yi Guan, the virologist at Hong Kong University, recently stated what he would do if the highly infectious H1N1 virus combined with the extremely deadly H5N1 virus: “If that happens, I will retire immediately and lock myself in the P3 lab. H5N1 kills half the people it infects.”

In November, Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam reinforced that a combined H5N1-H1N1 strain of flu is “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”

He made it anyway.

In an effort that went largely unnoticed until recently, and using very simple steps, Fouchier successfully mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus in his laboratory, creating an airborne form of the virus that spread swiftly among laboratory ferrets–the standard animal model for human influenza research.

Fouchier sent his research paper to the NSABB and the journal, Science. The NSABB quickly branded it too dangerous to publish, demanding entire sections of the report redacted to prevent the recipe for the virus falling into the wrong hands. Keim explained the rationale as a buying-time maneuver, to “slow down the release of the specific information that would enable somebody to reconstruct this virus and do something nefarious.”

But soon, the scientific community mobilized and scuttled the NSABB’s best-laid plans, crying foul over government censorship of science. “It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers,” said Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature.

Late last month, after a two-day meeting, the NSABB reversed its decision and supported open publication of the research once the report clarified that not all of the laboratory ferrets died from Fouchier’s H5N1 strain. Still, one- third of the panel members refused to endorse full publication.

“Rational Man” theory has generally been cited to discount the potential for bio-terrorism. With a pathogen’s inability to be precisely employed or controlled as a weapon, viruses have traditionally been viewed as unlikely
weapons of choice. Since the 9-11 attacks, however, lone wolfs like Bruce Ivins, and terror groups like Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaida have forever shattered those assumptions. With HHS approval secured last week, the
editors-in-chief of Nature and Science plan to publish the research and mutated H5N1 recipe without redaction.

D.C. Theaters as Economic Engines
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This week, I want to focus on the arts, which is timely both because it is a budget priority of mine and because I recently presented a resolution recognizing theatre: Washington’s “Theater Week” at the Helen Hayes Awards. I am proud to celebrate the legacy, excellence and cultural contribution of theatre in the District of Columbia, and Theater Week provides a great opportunity to do that.

Everyone knows that the District of Columbia is a center for tourism. We as a city must build on this strength by attracting visitors as well as residents into our world-class arts venues. There are 44 professional theater companies operating in the District of Columbia, making us the second most prolific theatre town in the United States based on the number of productions per year. While the theater landscape has grown, I am concerned that dwindling funding could have an adverse impact on potential future growth.

Neighborhoods throughout D.C. have been transformed by establishing and promoting theaters within their communities. From the Arena Stage in Southwest, to the Tivoli Theatre in Columbia Heights, to the Shakespeare Theatre in Penn Quarter, to the renovation of the Atlas on H Street, N.E., and the Studio Theatre in Logan Circle, it is clear that the arts are not simply relevant from an aesthetic or cultural standpoint. The arts provides economic engines for the community, capable of revitalizing entire neighborhoods. I am proud that the District was also the major donor to Arena Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre, Ford’s Theatre and many other performing arts groups like the Washington Ballet and the Washington Performing Arts Society.

The theater industry supports more than 11,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the District, and arts and culture organizations spend over $600 million annually throughout the region. The nearly 2 million audience members that attend theaters in the District annually also generate more than $100 million into the District’s economy — demonstrating that theater is a critical part of the economic engine with benefits
flowing directly back to area businesses.

I am committed to advocating for the arts and reminding my colleagues that the arts are integral to the fabric of our neighborhoods and city. Their importance cannot be overstated, and I will keep working to ensure that our arts community continues to grow and thrive. I have had conversations with the mayor, the chairman and my council colleagues and will be promoting amendments to the budget to move us in the direction of a quantity of funding that will more adequately sustain this important facet of our city.

Ins & OutsMay 2, 2012
• May 2, 2012

**STACHOWSKI MARKET AND DELI OPENS AT 28TH & P**

Stachowski Market and Deli has opened in the former Griffin Market space at 1425 28th Street (at the corner of P Street). Jamie Stachowski has been selling his sausages and other meats at nearby Rose Park and elsewhere. The shop is sparsely decorated for now but offers sandwiches, including Italian sausage, pastrami and kielbasa. Its cases displays various cuts of beef, duck and pork. Chairs, coffee and other sundries are on their way. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

**BETSEY JOHNSON DECLARES BANKRUPTCY; M STREET STORE LOOKS TO CLOSE**

News reports and Facebook updates flashed: fashion designer Betsey Johnson?s chain of stores went bankrupt April 26. Most of the 63 freestanding boutiques will close. The fate of the M Street store is uncertain, according to a store employee, but it does not look good. ?Johnson won?t be losing her job ? but as many as 350 store workers will after the May 8 liquidation,? reported the New York Daily News. Women?s Wear Daily reported the designer will retain control of the Betsey Johnson clothing label. The flashy, pink and fun scene near the Old Stone House may soon close. Stop by this week to say good-bye.

**TASTE OF GEORGETOWN MOVED TO JUNE 2**

The popular Taste of Georgetown, usually held in October, will next set up its serving tables along Wisconsin Avenue on June 2, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Participants include many of the best and most liked So, be sure to tag the date in your calendar. Visit (http://GeorgetownDC.com)[www.GeorgetownDC.com] or (http://TasteofGeorgetown.com)[TasteofGeorgetown.com] for details.

**NEW RESTAURANT COMING TO GLOVER PARK:** The empty space at 2317 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., which once held Margarita?s, is slated to become a District Noodles. The Vietnamese restaurant is owned by Jennifer Hoang and her fianc?, Marc Farmer. Next to the Tennis Zone store and Whole Foods, the eatery will serve sandwiches along with rice bowl dishes and should open in four or six months.

**MOVED: MERIDIAN HEALTH & RELAXATION** moved from The Shops at Georgetown Park to Book Hill on 1673 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.

**URBAN DADDY D.C. PICKS ALL GEORGETOWN SHOPS FOR DERBY DAYS**

The hip, up-to-date website, Urban Daddy, listed shops for Derby Day clothes last week. All the shops it cited are in Georgetown: ?The Right Clothes for Derby Day . . . you might be headed to the Gold Cup. Or you might ensconce yourself at a downtown hotel bar to take in the Derby. Either way, horses will be involved. (Also: bourbon.) And you?ll want to look the part. No, not like a jockey. With this stuff.? The UD list: Rag & Bone at 3067 M St., N.W.; Vineyard Vines, 1225 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.; Jack Wills, 1097 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.; Lost Boys, 1033 31st St., N.W.; Brooks Brothers, 3077 M St., N.W.

Wisconsin Avenue Roadwork Begins in Glover Park
• April 19, 2012

With neighborhood concerns on traffic congestion and pedestrian safety, groundbreaking for the Wisconsin Avenue streetscape has begun. The project is expected to be completed before October 2012. The District Department of Transportation maintains that the changes will improve traffic flow and increase safety.

The $3.8 million project will place a median on Wisconsin Avenue, put up new “Martha Washington” or globe street lamps and upgrade underground electrical service as well as widen sidewalks in some spots. The construction area goes from Whitehaven Street north to Calvert Street.

The Glover Park advisory neighborhood commission told residents to contact Alberta Paul, DDOT Community Outreach Specialist, at alberta.paul@dc.gov. It also reported: “The community has identified significant concerns about the construction and the new traffic pattern diverting additional traffic onto 37th Street and about the project failing to include pedestrian safety improvements at 37th St. and Tunlaw Rd. The Mayor’s office has indicated that addressing concerns about the intersection of 37th St. and Tunlaw Rd. will be a top priority as the project moves forward.”

Stylin’ with Brad at Brooks Brothers
• April 18, 2012

Television personality and celebrity stylist Brad Goreski stopped by Brooks Brothers on M Street April 13 during his seven-city book tour, signing copies of “Born to Be Brad: My Life and Style, So Far.” Patient fans lined up to meet Goreski, get his new book and pose with him. Fashionable Brooks Brothers employees helped with the reception that included champagne, finger food and tunes from DJ Ben Chang.