Good morning, DMV. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 13.
First things first — a skywatching event this morning for the D.C. area: Shortly after 6:30 a.m., we might be able to see a rocket launch “space jellyfish” and the International Space Station, according to this Capital Weather Facebook post.
Hope you catch it! I’ll try. Take photos and share them here, please. 🚀
And now, back to our regular programming …
I love visiting cemeteries. I love the theater. And each year in D.C., we get both in one event at Soul Strolls — immersive theater in historic Congressional Cemetery that brings the stories of interred residents on the grounds to life. The Friday and Saturday evening performances begin this week and continue through the end of October.
Maya Catoe, of Temple Hills, Maryland, in costume for the character Ann Bell, who was born in the late 1700s to an enslaved mother in Prince George’s County. (Photos by Alisa Tang)
Last Wednesday, I went to the dress rehearsal of the event, just at the evening golden hour. The light was beautiful. The leaves were just beginning their fall blush. I felt bathed by the old trees on the grounds and lulled by the white-noise hum of traffic.
The actors, in period costume, went over their lines with A.J. Orlikoff, the cemetery’s director of programming.
A.J. Orlikoff, at left, runs through a rehearsal with Nancy Barnes, who plays Belva Lockwood, the second woman attorney in D.C. and a lobbyist for women’s rights.
The theme for this year’s Soul Strolls — as the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence — is “Becoming America,” which explores “the tension between the nation’s founding ideals and the realities of American history through the stories of people interred at the cemetery.”
D.C. resident George Kassouf as Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the fifth U.S. vice president. The term “gerrymander” was named after him.
My family and I went last year. It’s fun and such a quintessentially D.C. event.
Soul Strolls — which began in 2010 as Ghosts and Goblets and was redubbed Soul Strolls in 2015 — is the biggest fundraising event for the nonprofit that manages the cemetery. It typically sells out, but this year tour capacity was increased to allow for thousands more visitors.
John Wells in costume for his character Thomas Fitzpatrick, an Indian agent for the United States who oversaw relations with Native Americans as settlers expanded onto Indian lands.
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📰 News around the DMV
Capital Weather says: Warming up through midweek. Turning toasty with highs near to above 80 degrees today and tomorrow. Shower and storm chances return late week. Read the full forecast here.
👻 Things to do
26 things to do in the D.C. area this week and weekend (Washingtonian)
📷 Your joy
(Ken Lowenberg)
The leaves in our region are turning. Ken Lowenberg, 86, captured this image last week in his neighborhood in Potomac, Maryland.
“The first bright red leaves of autumn — on my next-door neighbor’s tree,” he wrote in his submission.
🪦
