Hip retailer Mexx is closing its two DC stores in July (3229 M Street, NW and in Tysons Corner).  Don’t blame it on Washington women who have an undeserved rep for frumpiness—Mexx is also closing its New York stores.  Parent company Liz Claiborne is reportedly going to put its resources behind its Kate Spade and Juicy Couture brands instead.

Got Date Night ideas of your own? Feel free to submit your date plans to candrews AT washingtonian DOT COM.

I have a black bob wig I've used as part of a costume the past couple of years for Halloween. It originally cost $25, and has come in very handy, seeing as I'm the sort of person who plans her Halloween costume, oh, approximately 4 hours in advance. Flapper? Spy? Lady in a black wig? Anything goes!

The rest of the year, though, the wig sits in the back of my closet, either gathering dust or occasionally freaking me out as I glimpse it and think it's some sort of creature. But now it can serve another purpose: getting me wine on the cheap! 

Arnie Burton as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Photo by Stan Barouh.

I Am My Own Wife won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for drama—and now it's playing in town at the Olney Theatre Center. Thinking about going to check it out? Read William O'Sullivan's review first:

"Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a male transvestite who adopted a female name and identified herself as a woman, lived most of her life in Germany, surviving the Third Reich and the Cold War. Her primary claim to fame was a museum she founded, in what was then East Berlin, devoted to German furnishings from the late-19th-century period called the Gründerzeit. She later recreated, in the basement, an East German gay bar that had been closed by Communist authorities. For her preservation work, she was awarded a medal of honor from the reunified Germany. She also endured persecution, including by neo-Nazis—and, it turned out, was an informant for the East German Stasi.

Clearly, she was a person of contradictions—and one whose life story (which she recounted in an autobiography) may well have been bolstered by fabrications. That possibility is one of the challenges that faced playwright Doug Wright, and which he incorporated into the text."

For the full review, click here, and as always, check out our full archive of reviews of current plays here.

Young Washingtonians on the rise—they're everywhere, in every field, from politics to arts to sports to medicine. Two of those we featured in the May issue of The Washingtonian in our feature, 40 People Under 40 to Watch? They happen to be two of my favorite business people in the city: Alishia Frey and Grace Wang, who run the online boutique Unsung Designers. Read more with Frey and Wang below, and pick up the May issue of The Washingtonian, on stands now, to read the other fascinating profiles.