Jeff Magnum made his long-awaited return to a D.C. stage on Friday and Saturday, and his memorable, mostly solo-acoustic performance was worth the wait. more ›

Citing a profitable run, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities announced it is extending The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at the Lincoln Theatre. more ›

After announcing last week that the Lincoln Theatre would play host to a four-week run of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Mayor Vince Gray and other District officials held a press conference today on their grand visions for the 90-year-old venue, which will soon be under the District's purview. more ›

The Lincoln Theatre will next week open what will presumably be a popular ticket. Starting Dec. 21, the Lincoln will begin running David Fincher's new film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. more ›

The City Paper reports this afternoon that the D.C. Commission for the Arts and Humanities has announced that it will take control of the Lincoln Theatre, which ran into severe financial troubles in late September. more ›

During a press conference held earlier today outside the Lincoln Theatre, the financially-strapped venue's board of directors unleashed several criticisms. Perhaps the loudest were about Mayor Vince Gray, who they claimed was refusing to take a meeting with them regarding the theater's funding situation. more ›

A large number of fire trucks, including a ladder unit, responded to the Lincoln Theatre on the 1200 block of U Street NW this afternoon after the report of an "unknown odor." We're informed, though, that no fire has been discovered in the area and the scene should be breaking up shortly. more ›

Whether due to his rabid fan base or well-chronicled psychogenic vomiting, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's psyche is plumbed every time he walks onto a stage. Judging by Tuesday night's performance at the Lincoln Theatre, things are going pretty well for the shaggy, self-effacing singer. After years of struggle and mid-level success, his band has outgrown the confines of critical-darling status, now enjoying the spoils of widespread recognition and the type of reliable, ever-increasing fan base that encourages a band to release its own brand of coffee. In short, Tweedy (the singer) is doing just fine. more ›

This past Saturday, the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company launched its 7th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts. That date, October 2, is the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's birth, and Dakshina celebrated the occasion with a poetry reading from local spoken word artist, Gowri Koneswaran, and a classical Indian recital from sitarist Alif Laila. The festival continues this weekend, with two nights of dance on Friday and Saturday at U Street's historic Lincoln Theatre. more ›

Nearly a year has passed since we saw Esperanza Spalding's joyous and soulful performance at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue. The soon-to-be 26-year old's star continues to shine with performances at the world's most prestigious venues and festivals, both as a leader of a very gifted band and as a bassist to jazz greats such as Joe Lovano. more ›

Despite that avuncular beard, Lucas was not a kindly mentor (like Obi-Wan Kenobi), but instead kind of a dick (like Grand Moff Tarkin). He wouldn't let her wear a bra, explaining matter-of-factly that "there's no underwear in space." (That didn't stop him from dressing her in chainmail lingerie for Return of the Jedi in 1983, kicking off my sexual awakening a decade or so ahead of schedule.) Fisher weighed a decidedly un-Hutt-like 105 lbs. when Lucas cast her; he told her to drop ten. Hollywood is a cesspool of bantha poodoo, no? Dude actually owns Fisher's likeness, too, so, sez Fisher, "when I look in the mirror, I have to send him a couple of bucks." But even after all that, she doesn't hold a grudge. more ›

This Thursday marks the start of the Fall Festival of Indian Arts, a program that is now in its fourth installment. This year's festival is entitled Celebrating Freedom, in honor of the 60th anniversary of Indian and Pakistani independence. Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh & Co., a local dance company, is staging the event and its mission is to mirror the modern South Asian experience by presenting traditional Indian dance forms in tandem with modern stylings. The... more ›

>> DAM! Fest kicks of with its first night of shows featuring a dozen different bands at three venues, including New York's A Place to Bury Strangers (don't miss our interview with the band) and Dirty on Purpose at the Rock and Roll Hotel, Vandaveer and Julie Ocean at the Red and The Black, and Foreign Islands at DC9, among many others. Check out our guide to the DAM! highlights. >> Two film festivals open... more ›

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Repertory: D.C. Labor FilmFest Strictly speaking, the D.C. Labor FilmFest isn't a repertory festival, but with over half of their programming falling into that category, plus a dedicated retrospective to the great Ken Loach, we'll go ahead and shoehorn it into the category this week. The festival is put on by the Washington Metro Council of... more ›

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day when gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are encouraged to be open about who they are. The annual observance began on October 11, 1988, exactly one year after the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. (The first one was held October 14, 1979.) While there aren't usually major events to commemorate the day, there are a couple of local events that coincide with... more ›

FRIDAY: >> Let it be known - any country with a holiday that translates as "party of music" (or "music party") is OK in our book. In celebration of the French holiday Fete de la Musique, as well as the summer solstice, French and American musicians will be performing at La Maison Francaise tonight. Local guitar and cello duo Janel and Anthony*** will play from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on the auditorium stage, but... more ›

>> The National are playing a sold-out show at 9:30 Club tonight, with Shapes and Sizes & Talkdemonic, doors at 7:15 p.m. If you don't have tickets, you have three options: Get thee to craigslist, park yourself at DC9 before the show and keep an eye out for folks who got stood up, or sit in the sweet, sweet air conditioning at home and tune into NPR's live streaming web cast of the headliners... more ›

I thought I was getting such a good deal on my salon visits. A shampoo, a good cut, some pleasant conversation. They have good music playing, and everyone's friendly. Most importantly, the price is low enough not to seriously offend a sense of haircut-related frugality instilled through years in childhood spent getting bargain cuts in wood-paneled barbershops where grizzled Vietnam vets with fewer than 10 fingers cut hair with brisk efficiency while Hank Williams Sr.... more ›

FRIDAY: >> The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception offers its annual Christmas Concert for Charity tonight. The Basilica's professional choir (featuring our very own DCist Charles!) will perform, followed by the choirs and orchestra of Catholic University. Admission is free, with a free-will donation to benefit the Spanish Catholic Center, a haven for immigrants to the Washington, D.C., area since 1967. The center provides services at locations in Mount Pleasant and... more ›

FRIDAY: The DAM! Festival doesn't start until next weekend, but the organizers rightfully want you to be psyched for it to start already. They're hosting a Kickoff Party tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel, with Exit Clov, The Dance Party, Dirty on Purpose (pictured), and DJ Geologist (who we interviewed earlier this week). $9 gets you in the door. >> Reel Affirmations, the D.C. area's Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered film festival, wraps... more ›

Written by DCist Contributor Christopher Durocher In commemoration of National Coming Out Day it’s time to set the record, er, straight. It’s time to admit what every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered person already knows – mainstream, gay-themed cinema is, at best, a mixed bag. But don’t despair. Beginning October 12, the Reel Affirmations International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, is going to show D.C. that there is more to queer cinema than gay... more ›

Well folks, today is 06/06/06. If you're unaware of the old wives tales associated with this date, Livescience.com may shed some light on it. And since it's somewhat hard to avoid an entire day, just watch out for any folks named Damien, the apocalypse, or devilish things today. Officers Placed on Leave after D.C. Jail Break: In what sounds like a Hollywood storyline, the D.C. jail break continues to make news. WJLA tells us that... more ›

"Bread is Satan," Eve Ensler declares definitively early on in the production of The Good Body, her one-woman show and follow-up to the wildly popular Vagina Monologues, now playing at the Lincoln Theatre. As she nevertheless waxes on about the joys of bread and dismisses such derivatives as flatbread as the mere "memory of bread," Atkins aficionados, South Beach slaves, and whole-grain worshippers in the audience can’t help but grin with understanding. The tension between... more ›

December may have been classic musical central, but January brings a new year and host of exciting options, heavy topics and renowned playwrights showcased by local theatres. Opening this week is Studio Theatre's anticipated Neil LaBute Festival, highlighting the work of the often-caustic man responsible for, among other things, The Shape of Things and In The Company Of Men. The festival kicks off with Fat Pig, which explores whether a man can overcome his friends'... more ›

The first ever Duke Ellington Jazz Festival kicked off last night, and the District is all a buzz with what's in store for the weekend after what we've heard was a thrilling performance by the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Lincoln Theatre. The rest of the schedule, put together by Dizzy Gillespie's former producer and manager Charles Fishman, looks to be equally goosebump inducing. We can't tell you how many e-mails and comments we've already... more ›

Catherine Andrews contributed to these picks FRIDAY: >> It's your duty as a local music loving citizen: you must make it out to the Black Cat tonight to catch the line up of Washington Social Club (read our interview here), Monopoli, and Cartel. Their live shows range from frenetic to slowburning to melodious, and they're all a treat. DCist will be there with stacks of t-shirts to sell and info about the site. 9:30,... more ›

A lot, if a story in today's WaPo is any indication. It seems that Shaw's African American community is balking at the notion of officially designating a stretch of 9th Street NW, between U and T streets, as "Little Ethiopia." The area has in fact been commonly referred to as such by a lot of District residents (including by DCist) since a whole bunch of Ethiopian restaurants and markets opened there in recent years. more ›

DCist considers ourselves fortunate enough to have been part of the 1,200 invite-only crowd at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW last night, where D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams delivered his the annual State of the District address. Part policy proposals and part campaign stump speech, the address clearly identified a city on the up-and-up but with still much to do. Williams listed problems and solutions, yet the genius was more in the underlying message... more ›

Sad News at the Zoo. No, we don't have any word about the status of possible panda babies at the National Zoo, but you can check for pregnancy watch updates here. Sadly, we must turn to camels. The Post reports that the zoo's only camel died. It was an 18-year-old Bactrian camel, an endangered animal native to northwestern China and Mongolia that typically lives 35-50 years. Just to be clear, we don't know if... more ›

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams will deliver the annual "State of the District" speech next Monday at 7 p.m. from the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW. In District politics, this is about as big as it gets, and DCist only naturally wants in on the action. There has been a lively debate in recent months over what, if anything, bloggers do. Are they journalists? Should they be granted similar access to media events? Can they... more ›