About Tonight

Photo by M.V. Jantzen

MOVIE: NoMa Summer Screen presents Lady Sings The Blues, the 1972 biopic starring Diana Ross in a role based on the life of Billie Holiday. On L Street NE between 2nd and 3rd, by the New York Ave. Metro. Free. DJ collective Fatback starts music at 7 p.m., film begins at sundown.

MUSIC: Local R&B singer Tamika Jones has put in a lot of work with other people (Amel Larrieux and Mya, to name just two) but is now top billing. She'll be at Bohemian Caverns for two shows. $10 in advance, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

FOLKLIFE FEST: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival (which we previewed extensively here) starts back up again today and lasts through Sunday. Tonight’s fare? A Circle of Love Storytelling Session at the Oratorium, highlighting the Giving Voice theme and a Pub Performance highlighting the Wales theme at the Rugby Club. 6 p.m. for both.

READING: At 7 p.m., Politics and Prose hosts debut novelist John Pipkin, whose book Woodsburner begins in the 1850s, when "Henry Thoreau inadvertently set fire to a forest near the beautiful town of Concord, Massachusetts."

THEATER: The ongoing Source Festival serves up "Mash-Ups" tonight, billed thusly: "Set up on creative blind dates, artists mesh disciplines to create inventive performance pieces." 8 p.m., tickets are $18.