Though February often feels like the longest month, the sun is now setting later, even with the frigid weather. If one must find indoor activities, theaters, galleries and museums and film houses are a fine place to spend an afternoon or evening.
Art and Museums
Young artist Sophie Pineda infuses her work with vibrant hues and, recently, techniques from Chinese watercolors have captured her imagination. Pineda’s work is hung at Pozez JCC’s Bodzin Gallery in conjunction with ReelAbilities Film Festival, which shares stories and art of people with disabilities. Sophie happens to have Down syndrome and severe heart defects, and she keeps painting. Through March 10: thej.org/learning-culture/fine-arts.
The Jewish Museum of Maryland, located in the heart of Baltimore’s historic Jewish community 10 minutes from the Inner Harbor, reopened this week. Its core exhibit, “Picturing Past & Present,” is a call for Jewish Marylanders to share their local family history in photos and stories to weave a tapestry depicting Jewish lives in the state. jewishmuseummd.org
Coming in May, the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum, located near the Penn Quarter in the District, celebrates the history and legacy of “LGBT Jews in the City.” It draws on artifacts, personal stories, photographs and ephemera collected from generations of LGBT Jews who settled in and around Washington, D.C., and contributed to the federal workforce, as well as Jewish cultural and religious institutions while also building an active queer Jewish community across the 20th century and into the 21st century. capitaljewishmuseum.org/exhibition/lgbtjews-in-the-federal-city
Dance
The annual Israeli Dance Festival DC returns to Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville on March 30 with a family-friendly performance featuring Israeli dance groups from local Jewish schools and social and dance clubs. israelidancefestivaldc.com
Film
“La Lucha” follows the 35-day, 250-mile journey of activists Feliza, Mareele, Rose Mery and Miguel, who marched across the Andes to La Paz advocating for disability rights. The film closes ReelAbilities Film Festival at the Pozez JCC. March 6. thej.org/learning-culture/reelabilities-film-festival
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Edlavitch DCJCC is screening the documentary, “Janis Ian: Breaking Silence,” which chronicles the Jewish singer-songwriter’s career from her teenage years on the Greenwich Village folk scene to jams with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Interviewees include Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Lily Tomlin. March 6. edcjcc.org/jxj/show/janis-ian-breaking-silence
March 20, “Diane Warren: Relentless” explores the creative process of Grammy, Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning composer Warren through firsthand commentary and interviews with Cher, Gloria Estefan, Common, Jennifer Hudson and Kesha. edcjcc.org/jxj/show/diane-warren-relentless
Music
Merging Jewish and Afro-diasporic melodies, The Afro-Semitic Experience uses rhythms and grooves to build a live concert experience that promotes shalom (peace) through power, action and unity. Feb. 9 at the Edlavitch DCJCC. Kids under 7 are free. edcjcc.org/jxj/show/the-afro-semitic-experience
Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) songwriter Nani Vazana’s new album “Ke Haber,” or “What’s New,” intertwines what she calls the ancient matriarchal language with socially relevant lyrics that celebrate female empowerment, gender and migration. March 2 at the Edlavitch DCJCC. edcjcc.org/jxj/show/nani-vazana
It’s been nearly three decades since violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman brought classical and klezmer musicians together for “In the Fiddler’s House.” Perlman returns to Bethesda’s Music Center at Strathmore April 10 joined by the Klezmer Conservatory Band, its music director Hankus Netsky and some of the most accomplished klezmorim in the country, including clarinetist Andy Statman, vocalist and violinist Michael Alpert, singer/percussionists Lorin Sklamberg and Judy Bressler and trumpet player Frank London. strathmore.org/events-tickets/in-the-music-center/itzhak-perlman-in-the-fiddler-s-house
Acclaimed Israeli-American violinist Gil Shaham returns to Strathmore on April 27 joined by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a concert focused on 20th-century classical storytelling featuring Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” and opera and film composer Erich Korngold’s dramatic and lyrical Violin Concerto. strathmore.org/community-education/our-partners/bso/gil-shaham-petrushka
Theater
Dirty-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman’s bestselling memoir is now a musical running at Arena Stage through March 16. “The Bedwetter” in print was subtitled “Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee.” For stage, it features a book by Silverman and Joshua Harmon (“Bad Jews” and “Prayer for the French Republic”), music by Adam Schlesinger and lyrics by Silverman and Schlesinger. With her wry sensibility and potty mouth, Silverman milks laughs out of mortal embarrassment and depression. arenastage.org/tickets/the-bedwetter-a-musical
This weekend and next, Laurel Mill Playhouse presents playwright Anna Deavere Smith’s searing “Fires in the Mirror,” featuring ripped-from-the-headlines monologues dealing with the fallout after the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s car accidentally struck two children of Guyanese immigrants. The resulting riot lasted three days in August 1991. Feb. 7-9, 14-16 and 21-23. laurelmillplayhouse.org
A nice Jewish boy falls for a “Shiksa Goddess” — one of the songs — in composer Jason Robert Brown’s Sondheimesque “The Last Five Years,” produced by the Sterling (Va.) players through Feb. 9 and 14-16. Following two twentysomething New Yorkers as they fall in and out of love, one from beginning to end, the other from breakup to first meeting, makes this intriguing and poignant. sterlingplaymakers.org/the-last-5-years
The Jewish Plays Project has promoted Jewish subjects and voices in theater for a decade. On March 9, the annual competition returns to the Pozez JCC as new works by three playwrights are read in excerpt and put up for an audience vote. Similar events are held around the country and culminate in a New York producer’s reading for the winner. The 2025 finalists in Virginia are: Jennifer Maisel’s “Provenance,” about a theft of an unusual portrait; Marshall Botvinick’s “The Missionaries,” featuring a pair of Christian missionaries disguised as Hasidim; and Motti Lerner’s “On the Edge,” a father/son argument about the family business and their nation. thej.org/jewish-playwriting-contest
Frequent Theater J actor Naomi Jacobson (“Dr. Ruth”) returns to the Edlavitch DCJCC’s Goldman Theater in playwright/director Jose Rivera’s “Your Name Means Dream.” This tragicomedy wrestles with what it means to be human in a world where AI robots replace human caregivers. But can they replace human touch? Part science fiction, part magical realism, Rivera has the audience ponder what it means to be human as we age. March 12-April 6. edcjcc.org/theater-j/show/your-name-means-dream
Last year, playwright Sharyn Rothstein revived the classic film “Hester Street” for the stage, where it ran successfully at Theater J. Her latest, “Bad Books,” comes to Bethesda’s Round House Theatre from April 2-27. When a troubled teen borrows a controversial book, his mother takes on the local library about “appropriate” reading material. The clash turns heated. roundhousetheatre.org/on-stage/explore/bad-books
Lisa Traiger is Washington Jewish Week’s arts correspondent.
