DCTRENDING

Written by Contributing Writer, Isaac Welch The Trump Administration signed into law Executive Order 14252, covertly titled Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful back in March.

(Please note: this content includes references to domestic violence and abuse.) Mention “opera,” and for many, it evokes a narrow cultural image—European, elitist, aging. The Washington National Opera’s revival of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which ran last month, subverts this stereotypical conception.

The Potomac River serves as a reminder that even nature has been used as a weapon of racism. Fryar writes about public beaches along the Potomac that existed in the early 20th century but were eradicated by white residents in the face of desegregation. Rather than share the natural world, white residents chose to eliminate the opportunity for everyone.

Juanita and Araceli clash over their different experiences and feelings about being Mexican-American. Does it define you? Should it? Does it change how you look at the world? Should it? The ghost, Paola (Lenny Mendez), is a Mexican immigrant who died attempting to cross the border. Juanita initially wants nothing to do with the ghost and tries to shut her out, but Paola persists. She insists on a proper burial, asking Juanita a pointed question: How different are we?

The 33rd Annual D.C. Environmental Film Festival (DCEFF) kicked off on March 20th, beginning a nine-day showcase of films that highlight developments and discoveries in the natural world, aiming to inspire audiences toward lasting changes for the health of Earth’s ecology.

Gunderson sets up a deceptively simple scenario with only three characters. Ophelia (Sabrina Lynn Sawyer) and Gertrude (played by Oneika Phillips) challenge each other and serve as foils for each other in myriad ways, representing, among other things, innocence and experience. To give Ophelia a confidante and Gertrude both pushback and community, Gunderson wrote an original character, Ophelia’s handmaid Anna (played by Burgess Byrd).

Award-winning novelist Bernice McFadden enters the memoir genre, explaining to a Politics and Prose audience that her writing, whether fiction or memoir, draws from her personal and familial experiences. McFadden joined entrepreneur Glory Edim at Union Market in Washington, D.C., bookstore this month to discuss her new book, Firstborn Girls. It was the third stop on a book tour from Brooklyn to Houston.

Key moments like this in the play are frozen in time by Xavier Pierce's lighting design as well as by Charles Coes and Nathan A Roberts' original music and sound design. During intimate moments between Ellen and Newland, the lights dim or turn red, and the music slowly builds with an incessant tick that makes you grip your seat. In these up-close moments and transitions, the artistic team at Arena Stage has created a theater experience that almost feels like you are watching a movie.

Everyone carries something: a secret, a shame, a weight tethered to their heart. In The Bedwetter, performed at Arena Stage and directed by Anne Kauffman, that weight is literal for ten-year-old Sarah Silverman—she still wets the bed. But as the musical unfolds, it becomes clear that Sarah isn’t the only one in the musical burdened by something they’d rather hide.

We’re living in an increasingly chaotic political climate, in which anti-immigrant rhetoric dehumanizes people who came to this country looking for a better life. That othering language is intentional and dangerous.Now, more than ever, it’s important to read and uplift the voices of immigrants. It’s also important to hold onto things like joy and laughter. For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus, a debut novel by Indian-born author Varun Gauri, does both.