Thursday, May 29
COMEDY: Bier Baron hosts Bier for Dinner, a standup comedy show featuring local and national comics. Your advance ticket includes a free draft beer (and you know Bier Baron has lots to choose from) to help you start the night. Tickets ($10) are available online. 6:30 PM.
FOOD: E Street Cinema hosts Hail to the V, which is not actually a movie—it’s a night celebrating women in the service and food industry. The night features Carla Hall from Top Chef and The Chew and 16 women in all sectors of the industry, including Washingtonian’s Anna Spiegel as a moderator. There will, of course, be cocktails, sweets, and bites from your favorite local spots, including Hank’s Oyster Bar, Sticky Fingers, and more. Tickets ($60) are available online. 6 PM.
HEMP: DC could become the next place to legalize marijuana, but its cousin, hemp, is also trying to make a move to the mainstream. Check out Mellow Mushroom’s Happy Hour for Hemp History Week to enjoy hemp food options (including hemp pizza), hemp beers, and talks from the Vote Hemp legislative liaison, who will give a quick update about the plant’s legality and initiatives being lobbied for in Congress. Free. 6:30 PM.
Friday, May 30
FASHION: Usanii House hosts Fashion on the Rocks, a one-night-only pop-up shop featuring an open bar with cocktails, a free snack buffet, and lots of local fashion and beauty vendors hawking their latest designs. Tickets are $5 online or $7 at the door. 6 PM.
COMEDY: It’s been four years since Wonderland’s Don’t Block the Box started, and the bar is celebrating with a huge birthday party. This week, local comic Lafayette Wright headlines, and Graham Hall and Jake Head of Funny or Die’s Oddball Tour open. $3. 7:30 PM.
MUSIC: After a freezing cold winter, Jazz in the Garden is finally back on the Mall. It’s one of DC’s most famous events, so you probably know the drill, but if you don’t, here it is: You get a free concert from internationally recognized jazz musicians in the Smithsonian’s lovely sculpture garden, and you can sip sangria and margaritas and other summer drinks. Make sure you get there relatively early. This week, Bruce Ewan, a blues harmonica player, performs. Free. 5 PM.
Saturday, May 31
BRUNCH: Mellow Mushroom hosts its Belly Dance and Burlesque Brunch—you’ll spend a half hour learning each of those dances, get a free mimosa, and still be relatively early for brunch, so you’ll already have a table when your less-adventurous friends are ready to join. Tickets ($10) are available online. 11 AM.
BEER & BIKES: New Belgium Brewery’s Tour de Fat is taking over Yards Park once again. The nationally touring bike-advocacy-and-beer party features a bike parade, a dance contest, a car-for-bike trade, vaudeville acts, bike giveaways, and a performance from Reggie Watts. Free. 11 AM to 5 PM.
TAG: SurviveDC is the city’s biggest game of hide and seek/tag/other things you played as a kid. More than 1,500 players will start at Stanton Park and rush throughout the city, trying to get to different checkpoints. If you get tagged, you become one of the chasers. The fun goes all night, or until you get bored after you’re tagged and go hit the bars instead. Free. 7 PM to 1 AM.
ART: The Corcoran’s Free Summer Saturdays program runs every week between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This week there’s a make-your-own-botanical-collage workshop in the morning, followed by guided tours all afternoon. Free. 10 AM to 5 PM.
Sunday, June 1
RECORDS: Artisphere hosts the DC Record Fair, which is exactly what it sounds like: Som Records, DC Soul Recording, and the Vinyl District will be on hand to sell new and used vinyl records, so you can stock up on some summer tunes. There’ll also be a deejay spinning records (duh), live music, a screening of Led Zeppelin Played Here, and all of the gallery’s exhibits (including “Fermata,” a sound exhibit) to explore. Tickets ($5 before noon, $2 after) are available online. 11 AM to 5 PM.
COMEDY: It’s too late to get improv classes from Upright Citizens Brigade’s touring company, but you can still catch perhaps the nation’s best improv troupe performing their craft at Sixth & I. If you’re somehow not familiar, the troupe’s early members included Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz, and a lot of talent has passed through the group. Tickets ($20) are available online. 9 PM.
Know of something cool going on around town? E-mail Jason Koebler at jasontpkoebler@gmail.com, or find him on Twitter.
