Spotlight: Upcoming events in D.C — February 8-14
Highlights from everything arts and entertainment in D.C. this week!
La Boheme, with Live Musical Accompaniment
This year’s Valentine’s Day-themed offering in Atlas’ “Silent Film Series” charts the same famous fraught bohemian love story between an avant-garde writer and a poor seamstress that fueled both Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera and, exactly 100 years later, Jonathan Larson’s hit Broadway musical Rent. King Vidor’s 1926 film features two silent era stars: John Gilbert as Rudolphe and Lillian Gish as Mimi. Composer and pianist Andrew Earle Simpson, also a music professor at Catholic University, performs an original score composed for the silent romance. Sunday, Feb. 11, at 4 p.m. Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $18 to $20. Call 202-399-7993 or visit atlasarts.org.
Chess
The Kennedy Center presents a new production of the complex rock opera that ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson first developed with lyricist Tim Rice in 1984. Broadway star Raúl Esparza (Company) stars as American chess champion Freddie and Ramin Karimloo (Anastasia) is his rival Russian grandmaster in a production helmed by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening). The incredible Tony-winning actress Karen Olivo (West Side Story) completes the Cold War drama’s love triangle as Florence, a Hungarian refugee torn between the two men as they prepare for the tournament of their lives. The musical features an entirely new book by Hollywood scribe Danny Strong (The Butler) that revamps Rice’s problematic original. Opens Wednesday, Feb. 14. To Feb. 18. Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are $69 to $199. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.
Handbagged
Playwright Moira Buffini imagines what might have been said during Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s private meetings in an Olivier Award-winning British comedy now making its American premiere. The show’s original director Indhu Rubasingham has crossed the pond for a Round House Theatre production that comes as the Maryland company’s contribution to the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. Kate Fahy, Jennifer Mendenhall, Beth Hylton, and Susan Lynskey portray older and younger versions of the incredibly powerful women who had, to say the least, a complicated relationship. Cody LeRoy Wilson and John Lescault take on various minimal supporting roles as the men in their lives. Extended to March 3. 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Call 240-644-1100 or visit roundhousetheatre.org.
GMCW’s Genout Chorus: Youth Invasion
The 20-member ensemble of the Gay Men’s Chorus, representing 15 area schools, performs its second annual “Youth Invasion” concert featuring soloists and small ensembles in addition to the entire chorus. Also joining GenOut is the local ensemble MusicianShip Washington Youth Chorus. Led by GenOut’s director C. Paul Heins, the program features affirmative songs from Broadway and beyond, including anthems from Billy Elliot and Dear Evan Hansen, such as “I Am What I Am,” “Beautiful,” “Be Like the Bird,” and “Shut Up and Dance.” Saturday, Feb. 10, at 8 p.m. Lang Theatre in the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $20 to $35. Call 202-399-7993 or visit gmcw.org.
NSO Pops: West Side Story In Concert
Steven Reineke, the National Symphony’s principal pops conductor, and Francesca Zambello, the Washington National Opera’s artistic director, lead a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s monumental musical, a modernized take on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, featuring the full orchestra and more than 20 performers from Broadway and D.C., including members of WNO’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. The lead soloists are Corey Cott (Newsies), Solea Pfeiffer (Hamilton), Krysta Rodriguez (Smash), and Joel Perez (Fun Home). Wednesday, Feb. 14, Friday, Feb. 16, and Saturday, Feb. 17, at 8 p.m. Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets are $24 to $125. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.
Awkward Sex…and The City
Comedians from New York relive their most awkward sex/dating/relationship moments on stage at this raunchy storytelling event, which returns to D.C. at the Black Cat. Gay comedian and Towleroad columnist Bobby Hankinson will add his awkward gay tales on an otherwise all-female show featuring Jen Keefe, Anita Flores, and Karolena Theresa, with host Natalie Wall. Friday, Feb. 9. Doors at 9 p.m. Black Cat Backstage, 1811 14th St. NW. Tickets are $15. Call 202-667-4490 or visit blackcatdc.com.
To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall was only 19 when she was plucked from the fashion world to make her auspicious film debut in this 1944 wartime romance by Howard Hawks. A fitting Valentine’s Day offering, To Have and Have Not is regarded as the film in which a sultry, alluring Bacall not only seduced her future husband, co-star Humphrey Bogart, but the rest of America as well. Jules Furthman and William Faulkner strayed far beyond Ernest Hemingway’s original novel in adapting a screenplay to drastically boost Bacall’s role and frame the tale as a love story — bolstered by the real-life romance and natural chemistry of its leads. Part of the weekly Landmark Capital Classics series. Screens Wednesday, Feb. 14, at 1:30, 4:30, and 7:30 p.m., at the West End Cinema, 2301 M St. NW. Happy hour from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 to $12.50. Call 202-534-1907 or visit landmarktheatres.com.
Tedeschi Trucks Band
It’s a crowded stage whenever the headline act is this Jacksonville, Florida-based blues/rock supergroup, with a large, 12-member ensemble formed from the merger of bands led by married couple Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi. It’ll be crowded all around at the Warner Theatre this weekend and next, when the Birchmere and Live Nation present a four-night run that is close to selling out. Tickets remain for only the Friday night shows, Feb. 9, and Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. Warner Theatre, 513 13th St. NW. Call 202-783-4000 or visit warnertheatredc.com.
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