Signature Theatre

Ever since we arrived in Washington DC I have been attempting to find a theatre to work for part time. I applied to numerous box office jobs but my upcoming fellowship precluded me from many of the positions. Then I started emailing and calling to volunteer. I have been sent usher packet after usher packet even thought most of my conversations began with- "I would love to volunteer in some way other than ushering. " You would think with 10 years of theatre experience I would be able to find an administration that needs some sort of assistance filing, organizing, typing, answering phones, or even sewing but weeks of inquiries left me with nothing. Finally I sent a short email to Signature Theatre in Shirlington VA that just said;

Hello, I just moved to Washington DC and I am looking for a place to volunteer. I have ten years of experience in theatre management including Stage Management, Tour Management, House and Company Management and experience in a variety of administrative duties. I would prefer not to usher. Can you use any of my skills?

And got a response back in 2 hours from their PR person asking "When can you come in?!"

So for the past few weeks I have spent 2 to 3 days a week at Signature Theatre doing cut and paste, organizing folders, writing PSA's, writing Press Releases, participating in meetings and generally helping out.

It's nice to finally be needed somewhere!

The National Zoo

Last Saturday we found ourselves at the Zoo. We had actually started out to go to the farmers market a few blocks from our house but one thing led to another and then a walk and then we were at the zoo.

We've been to the zoo before. Right when we moved in we took nightly walks and have found ourselves crossing the bridge and staring at the big concrete Z-O-O on the hill. The first time we were there it was 6pm and no animals were out. Well, correction the prairie dogs were in fine form enjoying the lush grass filled concrete planter they live in, but no other animals. This time it was a Saturday morning and although the prairie dog pit is now a dirt covered hole with wasps, there were animals out in full force.

We were able to hit the monkey house, invertebrates, small mammals and the great cats before the heat, lack of food and huge number of annoying tourist families and their massive strollers did me in. I wonder if they have an "Adult Swim" concept where no one under the age of 18 is allowed in the zoo. I think that's when I want to go next.

All in all it is a beautiful zoo and one of the items I am proud to sponsor with my tax dollars.

National Public Radio

Last week my husband and I went to NPR headquarters in downtown DC. As many of you know, he used to work at a radio station in San Antonio TX called KRTU 91.7. He was the Operations Manager and then later on the Station Manager before we moved to NYC. Because of his background and radio and our mutual love of NPR, this tour was particularly interesting.

On Tuesday mornings they give a public tour around 11am. You sign in on a computer by the front desk and get a printed nametag and wait with all the other NPR fans in the lobby. It seems to be a fairly relaxed work environment. People were coming in for their day around 10:45 and most people were dressed in a shirt and slacks or jeans. The only person we saw in a suit was Ari Shapiro and he covers the government so there you go! (He was also very handsome, the Anderson Cooper of radio)

Around 11 Alan our tour guide joined us and took us in and around the building. We saw most of the offices, a couple studios, heard a recording/interview of Dave Mathews that was being edited, met the technician for Morning Edition and were able to see the place that the "Tiny Desk" concerts are taped. We were even offered a seat at the concert that afternoon!

Unfortunately we had a lunch so we missed the concert taping but overall the tour was great- a must do on any vacation list for DC that includes intelligent adults. For Ry's view of the event check out his blog here.

Kramer Bookshop and Afterwords Cafe

This morning I had lunch at Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle (off the red line). It is a delicious cafe attached to a very non-Borders like bookshop called Kramer's. (Warning: the website is not nearly as cool as the venue)

My appointment was at noon but I arrived early and looked through their book selection. They have a very extensive travel section and I enjoyed their "classics" selection as well. The children's section was very small and I was a little put out by the amount of "Twilight" junky Young Adult Fiction was on display. But, my news reader tells me that movie just came out and has been very popular so I guess, when in Rome...

Afterwords Cafe also has a bar section, right past the Twilight books, but we ate on the back porch which thankfully has been glassed in. I ordered the Cafe Salad with Portobello which also came with a huge slice of cornbread. My lunch date ordered the Jamaican Chicken Salad which looked tasty especially the big piece of grilled mango on the side.

The waitstaff was pleasant and friendly and overall I would come back for lunch or perhaps to add to my enormous book collection!

The Fourth of July

Last night we were attended a 4th of July event at our friend's house. We know him and his housemates but since our local friendship circle is pretty much limited to those 6 people, we try to attend his house parties in order to continue to get to know his friends. Plus, its a very cool house, they have a big second story deck, everyone plays cornhole and beer pong and the food cooked in that residence is amazing.

My husband has been on a big cornbread kick ever since we made vegan chili last week, so we brought 2 kinds of cornbread; sweet and green chili. We also brought some Wacko Beer which is our current summer drink of choice, it's made from beets!

For dinner the group had made, buffalo and beef burgers with onion, garlic and peppers, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed mushrooms, cornbread, roasted pepper dip, bruschetta, a amazing grilled carrot and wilted greens with goat cheese salad and a toffee banana cream pie.

After stuffing ourselves to the brim we climbed up the ladder and watched the Capitol Fireworks from the roof. It was great.

Happy Fourth of July!

Note: I will be traveling until the 19th so the blogging will be limited. Instead I hope to have shared adventures with most of the people who read this in the first place!

Convention Center Gig

So I was going to the zoo today and then I was going to blog about that. However, getting up off the couch yesterday I ran my little toe into some hand weights and I am pretty sure I broke it. It still moves up and down, but it is huge and putting weight on my foot is painful. Hopefully it won't hurt so much soon and I will be able to visit with the lions, tigers and bears in the near future.

Since my zoo trip is postponed, I will instead write about my event planning gig yesterday at the convention center. I applied for work with an event planner who was looking for a few people to work registration for an event happening at the convention center in DC. I had a phone interview and after she had asked me to work the job she mentioned that the convention was for Expungement Candidates.

I later realized that the convention I was working was for convicted persons who were working on re-entry into society. The organizer was the Public Defenders office, and they had set up a system by which registrants could get appointments with lawyers to discuss Civil Liberties, Social Assistance, Child Support and how to get their records Expunged or Sealed. There were also workshops for assistance in housing and job recruitment as well as a large fair for lawyers and other professionals to extend their services to the registrants.

They had planned on having around 700 people attend, however I think the numbers only got as high as 400. That meant that most of the day was spent sitting at a table waiting for registrants. The variety of registrants and the other staffers were interesting and overall the day was fairly pleasant.

On the way home (3 stops on the metro green line) we were informed that my stop was closed because of a suspicious package and a bomb threat. Apparently there was a bus or a shuttle but since I never found it I just walked the mile or so home. After NYC, Washington metro system feels very inefficient.

Buckminster Fuller @Arena Stage

Last night we made the trek down to Crystal City to attend the Buckminster Fuller Salon hosted by Arena Stage. Crystal City is a complex of buildings all connected by underground passages. It has a lot of restaurants and is home to a somewhat erratic supply of shops. It looks a little like a forgotten suburban 80's mall. Each hallway seems to have a theme. One hall was decorated to look like a "Knights of the Roundtable" village, another looked like clinic hallway and then the other side was more "normal" mall-like decor with the big plastic looking plants in the tiled planters.

From looking at the Yelp and Google Map reviews of the stores and restaurants in the center the big draw seems to be that you don't have to go outside in bad weather as the metro station lets you out in the mall center.

Part of the staff at Arena Stage has called this center home for the past few years as their new Mead Center is under construction. The Lincoln Theatre is where they host the musicals, and this smaller more utilitarian theatre next to the Marriot, is for the plays.

Arena Stage has assembled three experts to be the speakers along with a facilitator who had been on the directorial staff for the production of the show. Each speaker talked about their individual area of expertise and then they began to take questions from the audience. The audience was comprised of season subscribers and many of them were extremely interesting. I thought the discussion was thought provoking. It stayed near the topic at all times and both sides of many arguments were addressed. You can read more about the show- here. or read Bucky's Wiki page here.

Upon leaving the theatre we realized that a Star Trek movie night was happening just around the corner from our current location. We walked over to a small square covered in blankets, chairs and people all facing a portable movie screen. I think my husband would have liked to stay for the movie but we decided to go home as we were not wearing our sit-on-the-ground-for-2 hours clothing and it looked like the movie would not be starting for another 45 minutes or so. They are showing the Star Trek movies in order each Monday night at 7 for the rest of the summer so we may attempt to go later in the year.

MLK Library

Today we went to the MLK Library. It is very near the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro Station and the Verizon Center. The library is extremely large and divided into separate rooms for each subject. The rooms are on the outsides of the building so each has a great view of the DC area. In the center of the building there are conference rooms, offices, elevators and the restrooms/ water fountains. We have another library close to our apartment but as it is currently under-construction their books are pretty limited to fiction and children's lit.

We went to the library to pick up a few books on Theatre Management in the Arts, Music and Recreation Center. While I wait for my fellowship at Arena Stage to being at the end of August I decided to read all I can on Arts Management and American Theatre with a concentration on Edward Albee who is the focus for the Arena Stage season. I have picked up or purchased several books to begin reading this week.

Old Town Alexandria

I had a coffee meeting this morning in Old Town Alexandria. It was a pretty easy metro ride from our apartment, just a long sit on the yellow line train. The metro let me off on King Street and I strolled down to Misha's Coffee to meet my work acquaintance for some delicious coffee. This place is cute, the baristas are friendly and it has plenty of seating.

After my meeting I took a walk down King Street into Old Town proper. The town tried to keep the historical feel but has been modernized with lots of shopping, both chains and boutiques, as well as a ton of restaurants and bars. You can take King Street all the way down to the water and look over into the downtown district. They have a very active Farmer's Market and Art Scene in this area. The Torpedo Factory is a large building full of different artists right on the river. I walked in and wandered through several studios. It reminded me of The Blue Star Complex in San Antonio.

I forgot my camera this morning so the following image was found on google. If you get a chance to go to Old Town Alexandria, take it. And as a bonus you travel right under the Pentagon on the metro on the way down!

For more information check out the Wiki site- HERE.

National's Game

Sunday we went to a National's Game with Ry's old friend Mike. It was very hot. Mike got us great seats on the 3rd base line and we had a good view of the field and the big screen. It was a father's day special and the place was packed. Mike lives about 2 blocks away from the field and attends regularly and he was surprised at the amount of people that had shown up.

The Nats played the White Sox and lost 5 to 3. Earlier in the week President Obama had shown up to watch a game as he is apparently a fan of the White Sox. Some highlights of the day included; The President's race, where actors in costume with huge bobble-heads run around the field dressed as Presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson. The big sausages covered in chili, cheese and onions that Ry and Mike ate, GROSS! And the kids with their fathers who ran the bases after the game- very cute.

That's THREE for last week! This week may include Old Town Alexandria, the MLK library and possibly the drum circle at Meridian Park. Week one of the challenge is done.

Sophisticated Ladies

On Thursday night my husband and I went to see Sophisticated Ladies at Arena Stage. Since Arena Stage is undergoing a rebuilding they have been using two local stages for the past few years. The musicals have been held at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street and the plays are being held in Crystal City.

Sophisticated Ladies is a celebration of the life and music of Duke Ellington who is originally from Washington DC and was actually raised on U Street. My husband is in the middle of editing a book on Duke Ellington for Phil Schapp and Jazz at Lincoln Center. While this made him more interested in the performance, it also made him a bit of a know it all when the dates, music or images weren't exactly correct.

The show was very well done. The costumes were amazing, the dancing fantastic and I was very impressed with the technical aspects of the set. It was a standard bandstand and stairs set up; but the usage of sliding screens along with projected images was interesting and with the age of the building and the limitations thereof, challenging.

You can read more on the Arena Stage blog here, or read about their new residence program for American Playwrights at the Washington Post website.

First Visit to the Mall

On Thursday we took a trip to the National Mall to wander around the monuments. Our dear friend was in for a conference on International Health and decided to take the day off to come out with us. We started by wandering down past the Washington Monument to the Reflecting Pool and ended up at the Lincoln Memorial.

After braving the crowds at the Lincoln Monument, we took a trip down by the river to the Jefferson Memorial that overlooks the tidal pool.

Finally we walked up to the Smithsonian Castle and took at look at Madeline Albright's pin collection. You can read more about it and her new book "Read My Pins" here. To end the day we returned to Columbia Heights for a Thai dinner at Zagat rated Pho14.