MONDAY, AUGUST 14
FOOD The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s Summer Restaurant Week runs through Sunday. More than 250 participating restaurants are offering fixed price, multi-course meals; brunches and lunches are $22 per person, dinners are $35. Some restaurants are also donating a portion of their Restaurant Week proceeds to the Capital Area Food Bank. (See RAMW’s website for participating eateries.)
UPDATE: An appearance by BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen at Politics and Prose has been cancelled.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 15
THEATER Signature Theatre’s production of A Little Night Music opens on Tuesday. Winner of four Tony Awards, this Stephen Sondheim musical shows an interlocking web of current and former lovers in early 20th century Sweden; the show is famous for the song “Send In the Clowns.” Tickets $40-$104. Through October 8.
MUSIC Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding doesn’t usually play small venues around here, but she’s playing a benefit concert with Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee JD Souther at the intimate Mansion on O Street. Spalding was the first jazz artist to win the Grammy for Best New Artist and released her fifth album, Emily’s D+Evolution, last year. Souther is known as a songwriter for the Eagles (“Heartache Tonight”), Don Henley (“The Heart of the Matter”), and Linda Ronstadt (“Faithless Love”). Proceeds from the concert will support artist-in-residence and other programs at O Museum in The Mansion. Tickets $200, 6:30 PM.
THEATER The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s “Free For All” event has been a tradition since 1991, offering free performances of a Shakespearean classic. This summer, STC is presenting Ron Daniels’s Othello, starring Faran Tahir. Enter via an online lottery the day before the show, or stand in the ticket line which opens two hours before curtain time each day. Through August 27.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16
YOGA The Smithsonian American Art Museum hosts a “Yoga in Luce” event, in which participants can reflect on artwork of their choosing before a credentialed instructor from Flow Yoga Center leads a one-hour, all-levels class. Registration in advance is required. $10, 6 PM.
PERFORMANCE Cirque de Soleil’s show OVO opens at the Eagle Bank Arena for a weeklong run. The performance features 50 artists from 12 countries, set inside a colorful ecosystem where insects work, eat, and look for love in an environment of constant energy and movement. Tickets $30-$165. Through August 20.
FILM The Avalon screens the 2016 film A Woman’s Life. Based on the Guy de Maupassant novel Une vie, the film tells the story of a young aristocrat who marries a man who soon reveals himself to be miserly and unfaithful. As she navigates this new life and the struggles of young motherhood, the woman’s illusions about her privileged world are slowly stripped away. Tickets $12.50, 8 PM.
