Put a nostalgic twist on your usual post-work plans and try the Roadsters and Sidecars happy hour at Tudor Place. The event, inspired by post-World War I America, features classic cocktails and a tour of the mansion’s historic-car collection. Advanced registration is required; click here. Thursday from 6 to 8. Free for Tudor Place members; $10 for nonmembers.
The days of cruising down Main Street and hanging out at the drive-in may be long gone, but they live on in George Lucas’s love letter to the early 1960s, American Graffiti. It’s playing at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s McEvoy Auditorium in conjunction with the museum’s Norman Rockwell exhibit (which features art from Lucas’s personal collection). Thursday at 6:30. Free.
Every day for a year, the blogger and designer Carolyn Sewell sent a hand-drawn postcard to her mother and father. An exhibition of her efforts, “Postcards to My Parents,” opens Thursday at the Fathom Gallery (1333 14th St., NW; 202-588-8100). Click here to RSVP for the opening reception. 6:30 to 9:30. $10 suggested donation to benefit Family Matters of Greater Washington.
Spend your Thursday night with an unusual crowd when the League of Mutants performs at the Palace of Wonders. It’s your last chance to see a show at the vaudeville bar before it merges with the Red & the Black next month. Doors open at 6, and the show begins at 9. $10.
Relax after a long work week at Portraits After 5, in the National Portrait Gallery’s Kogod Courtyard. View the “Americans Now” exhibit, listen to tunes by DJ Todd Threats, watch projections by artist Claire Scoville, and check out photographer Rob Northway’s pop-up photo booth. Friday from 5 to 8. Admission is free; food and drink are available for purchase.
National Geographic’s All Roads Film Festival runs through this weekend, giving Washingtonians a chance to see emerging global cinema. Catch New Zealand director Taika Waititi’s Boy, a coming-of-age tale about a child who meets his long-absent father for the first time, Friday at 7. Purchase your ticket ($10) here.
The annual Playwright Discovery Evening is this weekend, and this year it features two productions: The Marionette Effect, a one-act play by 17-year-old Laura Hogikyan, and Jack from Above, a darkly comic one-man show performed by Jack Hofsiss. The event takes place at the Kennedy Center’s Family Theater Friday and Saturday at 7:30. Call 202-628-2800 to reserve tickets. Free.
Mariage Blanc, a Pittsburgh-based band whose quirky use of instruments such as the organ and the trumpet has brought them critical attention, plays the Velvet Lounge Friday. The show also features the ambient-folk group Janel and Anthony and the local band Foreign Press. Doors open at 9. $8.
Saturday, six Penn Quarter bars are hosting the Cap City Fall Bar Tour, an all-day pub crawl featuring $2 Coors Light, $3 Blue Moon, and other food and drink specials. Participating bars include the Greene Turtle , Rocket Bar, and RFD. 1 to 9. Purchase advance tickets ($6) here; tickets at the door are $13 or $10 with two canned-food items.
Dust off your MC Hammer pants and head to DC9 for Kids, an old-school hip-hop dance party that starts at 9. You can get in free (and score some Olde English on the house, although you couldn’t pay us to drink that stuff) if you get there in the first hour. Otherwise, tickets are $6 at the door.
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