Written by DCist contributor Angela Olson. The Washington Ballet aims to engage families with young children in the world of ballet with its current production of Where the Wild Things Are. Undoubtedly, they achieved this goal with colorful sets and costumes ripped from the pages of Maurice Sendak’s book, and energetic choreography by Artistic Director Septime Webre. It is difficult to criticize such a worthy goal, indeed the children sitting near me were dancing in…

Hollywood, rock and roll and reality TV are all subject to artist Jeremy Blake’s critical eye in Wild Choir: Portraits by Jeremy Blake. The Corcoran Gallery of Art, where the show opens tomorrow, calls his work “psychological pop portraits” — trippy digital videos depicting the lives of cultural figures. Flashing images, voice overs, music and explosions of color are typical in the three videos on display — 2003’s Reading Ossie Clark, 2005’s Sodium Fox, and…

MONDAY >> Were you out of town this weekend, wishing you were home soaking in the goodness that was the DAM! Festival? Fear not. Tonight there is one more show, and it happens to be the festival’s biggest. The chanteuse to give all other indie chanteuses a run for their money, Cat Power, is taking the 9:30 Club stage with the Dirty Delta Blues, and a little help from openers Childballads. $25 or your…

Early in Sean Penn’s new film, Into the Wild, a pickup truck driving across a frozen landscape drops a young man off at the literal end of the road. The young man is Emile Hirsch, who portrays Christopher McCandless, the Annandale native who sent his $25,000 life savings to Oxfam and disappeared abruptly after graduating from college in 1990. The man driving the truck is James Gallien, who also happens to be the same man…

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Indie: Into the Wild Annandale native Chris McCandless had just graduated from Emory University in 1990 when he donated his substantial life’s savings to charity and set out on the road under the name of “Alexander Supertramp.” His highly publicized disappearance ended two years later when his body was found in the Alaskan wilderness, and the…

The Washington Times brings us the most, ahem, alarming piece of news we’ve seen this morning: that D.C. fire officials are investigating whether some firefighters have been running a prostitution ring out of several of the city’s firehouses. Around a dozen employees from at least four firehouses are being investigated for involvement in the prostitution ring, which fire officials first learned of after a criminal investigation last month into claims that a sergeant exposed himself…

>> A singer-songwriter showcase featuring Martin Royle of Washington Social Club, Mick Coogan of The Dance Party and Stephen Kilroy of Middle Distance Runner is being billed by MDR as “Steve, Martin tonight at the Black Cat!” Which is technically true, though we’re guessing the show will be a little more earnest guitar playing and a little less Wild and Crazy Guy. Black Cat’s back stage. $8, 9 p.m. >> Redskins CB Carlos Rogers…

>> Having drawn comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel since recording their debut album in D.C. last summer, Donny Hue and the Colors, featuring members of the Carlsonics, Nethers, Washington Social Club and Meredith Bragg and the Terminals, will play for free at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage at 6 p.m. If you can’t make it there in time, the performance will also be broadcast live on the web. >> Check out our review of…

One rule of writing is that your best material tends to come from your experiences. If this isn’t true about Dominic Cicere’s Near Wild Heaven, then he’s damn good at faking it. Cicere’s book — which contains a collection of poems, a short story and a screenplay — provides some wonderful flashes of the sort of affection that exists between a writer and what they know, especially in the short story “Split Decision,” in which…

MONDAY: Oliver August will be at Politics and Prose to discuss his latest book Inside the Red Mansion, which chronicles the hunt for China’s most-wanted fugitive, Lai Changxing. For more information, check out this short film on the making of the book. 7 p.m. TUESDAY: Writer Dominic Cicere will be holding a book release party at Galaxy Hut for Near Wild Heaven, which contains a collection of poems, a short story and a screenplay on…