Naked Girls Reading (Todd G. Photography via Facebook)
By DCist contributing writer Miriam Berg
Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar, the rambunctious H Street NE hideaway, was all set to host another installment this Thursday of Naked Girls Reading, a literary performance series that delivers precisely what it advertises. But the Valentine’s Day show was pulled because the District laws that govern the bar’s liquor license can’t tell the difference between performance artists and strippers.
Naked Girls Reading is exactly what it sounds like: A group of women stand on stage in the buff—save for high heels and theatrical makeup—and settle on cushions as, one by one, they open a book and read excerpts. The concept is produced in a variety of venues in 18 cities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The D.C. edition started last October and made a home at the D.C. Arts Center through December. When the troupe needed another venue one particular night in January, Mark Thorp, Little Miss Whiskey’s owner, opened his door.
The erotica-themed show on January 18 packed the tiny upstairs bar and stage area with about 50 people, several of whom stood amid the glow-in-the-dark concert posters, gilded fleurs des lis, and purple lights while listening to tales of school girls getting spanked and Sleeping Beauty seducing other women.
The show may have attracted so many people because of the amount of press it got, including Washingtonian’s mention of it in its weekend entertainment guide, says the night’s emcee, “Hot” Todd Lincoln.
“Little Miss Whiskey’s is a very intimate venue with a great atmosphere. It’s one of the hidden jewel spots on H Street,” Lincoln says. “The crowd was really responsive and excited to be there that night, so I would like to have a show there again.”
That next show was set to happen on Thursday, Valentine’s Day, with a vampiric “Love Bites” theme. But last Friday, with less than a week before the show, the management at Little Miss Whiskey’s told the girls that the show would violate the bar’s license and canceled the show. The spotlight that Washingtonian and other press shined on the January performance turned what might have been seen by Little Miss Whiskey’s as a just-for-friends (and friends of friends) event into a very public event.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must announce we have canceled this month’s show,” Cherokee Rose, the producer of Naked Girls Reading D.C., wrote on the event’s Facebook page. “There were unfortunately licensing issues that came up with the venue that have made it impossible for the show to go on as planned.”
Little Miss Whiskey’s July 2008 license agreement with the Alcohol Beverage Control Board states that the venue can only have live entertainment such as bands, karaoke, comedy shows, poetry readings, and disc jockeys.
While at a theater like D.C. Arts Center, where actors can get as naked as they want while the lobby serves overpriced wine in plastic cups, performers at a bar can’t get naked unless the venue also holds a nude dancing license, which strip clubs obtain.
D.C. regulations define a “nude performance” as any “dancing or other entertainment by a person whose genitals, pubic region, or [anus] are less than completely and opaquely covered and, in the case of a female, whose breasts are less than completely and opaquely covered below a point immediately above the top of the areola.”
If a bar wants to do something close to nudity—like burlesque, in which dancers often strip down to pasties and thongs—it needs a CX license, which defines the venue as “multipurpose” and supports cabaret-style performances. But Little Miss Whiskey’s CT-02 Retail License defines it as a tavern—and definitely not a venue for live, nude women on stage at a public event.
In an email, Thorp denies that Little Miss Whiskey’s was scheduled to host Naked Girls Reading, but the advertising for the show is quite clear that his bar was slated to play host to the R-rated reading session. He was unavailable to comment further.
But Naked Girls Reading isn’t bitter toward Thorp.
“We appreciated being at Miss Whiskey’s. Mark was good enough to give us a place to be last month, and it really helped us out,” Rose says in an interview, adding that she is looking forward to the next Naked Girls Reading show, which likely will be back at D.C. Arts Center on March 18.