Samuel J. Seymour, who was a five-year-old boy who was in the audience at Ford’s Theatre the night President Abraham Lincoln was shot, lived long enough to appear on a television game show in 1956.

Walking down H Street NW in D.C.’s small Chinatown, I don’t give much consideration to the past of the buildings. While surely the few block stretch wasn’t always Chinatown, I didn’t realize that one of the buildings, that now hosts restaurant Wok and Roll, is where John Wilkes Booth conspired to kill Abraham Lincoln.

The idea that the Nationals might be a cursed franchise is hardly a revolutionary thesis. After all, they were birthed from the embers of a somewhat cursed team, the Montreal Expos. (The long sequence of events that began with that team’s potentially epic 1994 season being cruelly wiped away by the players strike and ended with the franchise being owned by the league and drawing crowds in the low four-digits just had to be guided by the hand of something more devious than man.) You could make the argument that there’s a young pitching curse right now at the Park, considering that 2010 is the second straight season when the team’s most promising young pitcher is set for a long-term stay on the shelf with arm surgery. Well, all you Nationals fans should feel free to blame John Wilkes Booth, apparently.

“Books,” wrote the poet Philip Larkin, “are a load of crap.” No doubt Larkin, one of the most gifted lyric poets of the 20th century and a career librarian at the University of Hull, was being ironic. But irony or no, the participants and sponsors of this Saturday’s National Book Festival vehemently disagree. Held every year for the last six years on the National Mall — rain or shine — the festival brings together marquee-name…

Tonight, the D.C. theater community will descend on Warner Theater, decked out in tuxes, kilts, ball gowns and whatever else the artsy crowd comes up with to approximate “black tie” attire. It’s the night each year they get the chance to party their brains out and recognize the outstanding contributions they’ve made this year; it’s the Helen Hayes Awards. As busy theater critics with day jobs, we don’t get the chance to attend and review…

Today DCist begins a new supplement to our weekly agendas. If you still don’t have plans for tonight we’ve got an assortment of activities to get you off the couch and out enjoying all the area has to offer. >> Jumping on the cherry tree bandwagon, Black Cat hosts The Cherry Blossom Jam. Rap artists Marsha Ambrosius, of Floetry fame, Chrisette Michelle, Frestile and MN8. [1811 14th St. NW, $22, Doors open at 8…

People have been asking us: What’s that big film crew doing downtown today? Why must my commute be ruined by greedy Hollywood movie producers? The answer: Why it’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the sequel to the polarizing Nicholas Cage swashbuckler, of course. Here’s the details on the filming for today, though circuses of production vehicles will likely be popping up elsewhere around the city for a while longer. The D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT),…

With a title like Assassins, theatergoers probably walk into Signature Theater’s latest production thinking that they’re going to be witnessing something very removed from their everyday lives (well, unless one of them happens secretly to be planning a political murder). After all, how much does the typical D.C. resident really have in common with John Wilkes Booth? Then the American-flag curtain is raised, and we find ourselves staring back at a mirror image of a…

In May, the D.C. theater community has devils, Dorian and the deformed — and in Round House Bethesda’s case, an affection for alliteration that we apparently share. We love the work that Actors Theatre of Washington does, and their latest effort is “Mondays In May”, where for three days this month, they showcase new talent. We Wildephiles are particularly interested in what they’re going to do with The Picture Of Dorian Gray on May 8….

His lyrics have poignantly expressed everything from the inner turmoil of assassin John Wilkes Booth to the life lessons Jack learned when climbing the beanstalk. And the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washingtonis kicking off its 25th Annversary season by giving DC audiences the chance to appreciate his incomparable career. The man in question, of course, is the almost universally-admired Stephen Sondheim, and the chorus’ latest production, “Everything’s Coming Up Sondheim,” takes a one-song sample…