Every Thursday, we round up Pay-Whats and other cheap seats at local theaters. Just so's your weekend is a little easier.

Before we start, remember the general rules: (A) Reservations for these? Not so much. (B) They're offered on a space-available basis, so have a backup plan. (C) Click each theater name for details and contact info. Oh, and you might tell ‘em City Paper sent you.

So—the theater season's still not back into full gear, though things do pick up this weekend with openings at the Shakespeare Theatre and Woolly Mammoth. (Let me just tell you now: Buy your tickets now for In the Continuum at Woolly. Bob Mondello’s back from his six weeks of vacation, the bastard, and he'll be reviewing it in next week's paper, but I saw the show earlier this year, and it's superb. And it's only here for four weeks.)

No Pay-Whats for either of those shows, though. Here's what I know about:

• In the Mood, Olney Theatre Center. A new play from D.C. writer Irene Wurtzel asks what happens when “till death do us part” gets tested by bipolar disorder; a sculptor and her diplomat husband wrangle with her growing fame and his growing illness. Chris Lane, MaryBeth Wise, and Halo Wines are in the cast; critics see it Sept. 9. Pay-What previews Tuesday, Sept. 5 at 7:45 p.m. At Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd. in Olney, Md.
• Spinning Into Butter, Journeymen Theater. Hate mail sparks an uproar (and some painful self-examination) on a supposedly liberal college campus. Jeff Keenan directs; critics see it next Friday. Pay-What previews Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 6 and 7, at 7:30 p.m. At Clark Street Playhouse, 601 South Clark St. in Crystal City.
• MacBird!, American Century Theater. LBJ meets the Scottish Play, in this ’60s-era satire. It's a musical, and the off-Broadway original starred Stacy Keach. ‘Nuff said. Critics see it next Saturday; Pay-What preview next Thursday, Sept. 7, at 8 p.m. (call 703-553-8782 or e-mail info@americancentury.org and use the code “JFK” if you wanna reserve in advance).
• Oh, and we don't typically review ’em, but if you're into the National Players (the venerable touring troupe based out at Olney), they've got an Importance of Being Earnest going up. Pay-Whats are next Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 6 and 7, at 7:30.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what's going on in local Internet discussion groups.

ustreetnews
If you're a beat cop, what's worse than getting chewed out by your commander? How about getting showed up by him at a crime scene. According to Councilmember Jim Graham, after a woman was robbed by a BB-gun-toting perp in Mount Pleasant, police found the firearm in a nearby abandoned house. Once 3rd District Commander Larry McCoy got a looksy at the gun, he “went to the house, talked to the officers, saw the gun and some stolen property.” The way Graham tells it, McCoy then showed the investigative scruples that had apparently eluded his officers: “McCoy asked if anyone had gone upstairs to make sure nobody else was in the house. There were holes through the floor, and the staircase was unstable. Yet, he went up the stairs. Commander McCoy found the suspect hiding in a back room. He was identified as Paul Henderson, a registered sex offender with a lengthy record. Henderson had a crack pipe in his hand.”

MPD-4D
Careful where you mark your territory in Petworth. According to a 4th District crime report, on Aug. 17 a man “was urinating in the alley, when a white truck pulled up. [The suspect] exited the vehicle, asked [the victim] why was [he] peeing on the side of his house.” The suspect then took “an [unknown] object and struck [the victim] in the head causing injury, while [the driver] sat in the truck. [The victim says that] while running to his vehicle, [the suspect] took an object & struck his vehicle causing damage. [The suspect and his driver] fled westbound into the 700 blk of Kennedy St. NW.”

hstreetdc
“I think having a block party or at least the concept is really a good idea,” one resident carefully writes of an upcoming bash just off H Street NE. Then comes the catch: “I think the parking rules are inconvenient and as a working resident, I do my shopping and normal house errands on Saturday.” In a response entitled “Sour Grapes,” party booster stainless_steel_justis plays the role of welcome wagon: “Good grief, it's just one day, get over it.…Also, why not just take a moment to meet your neighbors, then maybe you will be included in the planning next time.”

On July 13, the anniversary of the D.C. Circulator's first run, the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) issued a press release labeling the bus service the “Coolest Ride in Town” and calling it an “ongoing success.” But what's the definition of success? Well, there isn't one, which is why boosters of the shuttle-bus operation can claim to have achieved their goals.

The original consultants’ report that endorsed the Circulator concept projected 40,000 daily riders on four lines. But in an interview last fall, Circulator godfathers Dan Tangherlini and Joe Sternlieb explained that those numbers were obsolete—and had not been replaced by any new ones. (At the time Tangherlini was the director of DDOT, which provides most of the Circulator's $6 million annual budget, and Sternlieb was deputy director of the Downtown Business Improvement district, one of four private organizations that kick in a total of $600,000 a year. Tangherlini has since become acting director of Metro, and Sternlieb has gone to work for local developer EastBanc.)

Currently, the system is said to be carrying 7,000 riders daily on three lines, with a goal of 11,000 daily by the end of 2008. But the claim of 7,000 riders a day appears to be overstated. While detailed ridership numbers are available only through the end of May, those statistics indicate that in its best month, April, the Circulator attracted an average of 7,176 passengers per weekday. Overall, daily ridership was only 6,062, a number that declined slightly to 5,899 in May.

In addition, according to DDOT spokesperson Karyn LeBlanc, the ridership studies do not address how many Circulator riders have switched from Metrorail or other Metrobus routes. It's possible that much of the Circulator's paltry ridership is being diverted from other services—and thus decreasing Metro revenue. Some unmeasurable, but perhaps significant, percentage of the Circulator's funding is simply increasing Metro's need for subsidy.

One aspect of the D.C. Circulator has been an unqualified success: the public relations campaign. Aside from my skeptical feature on the service in City Paper last fall and a July 24 article in the Common Denominator, the local press has greeted the bus service mostly with puff pieces. The Washington Post has been particularly flattering, perhaps because—as Sternlieb testified at a June 7 roundtable before the D.C. Council's Committee on Public Works and the Environment—"so many Circulator riders were not bus riders until they were attracted to the new service.” In other words, the Circulator has snob appeal.

Only one person testified against the shuttle bus service at the lightly publicized June 7 roundtable (which was supposed to be a public hearing, but had to be downgraded because insufficient notice was given for it to be a legal hearing). Kerry Stowell, who lives near a K Street Circulator stop, argued that “the numbers just do not work.” Noting that she had never seen more than five riders per bus, she calculated that based on fuel costs alone the Circulator costs “$42,336 per passenger per month.”

The estimate of five riders per bus is a little low, at least on the Union Station to Georgetown route, which is the most popular of the three. But even the Circulator's supporters admit that the buses are nowhere near full. The Post's new Dr. Gridlock, Robert Thomson, inadvertently damned the buses while offering much more than faint praise. On Aug. 13, he wrote that he had tried the service and found it “a model” with a “distinctive” look that offered “a swell trip.” He rode for the first time on July 28, when the Circulator offered free rides all day to commemorate (a little late) its first anniversary. Thomson noted that he later took several more Circulator journeys, on all three lines, and reported happily that “it's never been crowded.”

And that's the story. Not that the Circulator is innovative, cool, or swell. It's that ridership is low, well below projections, and—to judge from the latest available numbers—no longer growing. The 7,000 daily ridership that the transportation department touted in July shows no increase over April.

Of course, different lines are performing differently. In May, the Union Station to Georgetown route carried 128,599 passengers, while the 7th Street line carried only 42,049. (Ridership on the Mall loop was a mere 12,222, but that service had just been introduced in March.)

Sooner or later, the ridership figures will sink in, and much or perhaps all of the service will be cancelled. For the 7th Street route, that can't happen soon enough. Almost entirely redundant with the 70/71 Metrobus line, the 7th Street Circulator is an unmitigated flop. It's a favorite of the BIDs, because it's supposed to move Convention Center visitors to other parts of town, but it is clearly not doing that.

Logically, the Circulator “brand” would be redefined for tourist areas that have little transit service. Thus the Mall loop should survive, and perhaps be expanded. (Currently, it goes only as far west as 17th Street NW.) Maybe the proposed fourth line, the White House–Capitol Hill loop, should be given a tryout, although it would cover areas that already have substantial Metrorail and Metrobus service.

And what about the 5,899 (as of May) daily riders on the Union Station–Georgetown line? They can be accommodated with some juggling of Metrobus service, which would likely produce higher ridership overall. The D2 and D6 lines could be rerouted to run the Circulator's more direct route: from Union Station via Massachusetts Avenue and K Street to Wisconsin and K, then up Wisconsin and onto to Q Street to complete their current routes to Glover Park and Sibley Hospital. Of course, the new routes would have to be adequately publicized and marked, but that's an enduring problem with all Metrobus routes. And there's no reason that the buses’ electronic signs can't provide more information: “Glover Park via G'town and K Street,” say.

The re-routing leaves parts of the D2 and D6 lines unserved, but that can be fixed by expanding two lines that were cut back years ago, principally for budgetary reasons. Frequencies should increase on P Street's G2, offering better service from Dupont and Shaw to Georgetown, and compensating for moving the D2 and D6 off Q street east of Wisconsin Avenue. And the 42 should be restored to Stadium-Armory either via its old route through downtown and across Capitol Hill, or via the roughly D6 parallel route.

Would these changes be as cool as the Circulator? Perhaps not, but they would carry more riders, which is one reasonable definition of success.

What’s the District’s chief exec really up to today?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2006

No public events scheduled.

The Lowdown: Well, Tony, if you change your mind, Linda's going to be attending the BeBar grand opening tonight. Great chance to reconnect with the evangelical community.

In tomorrow's City Paper, you'll find:

• Dave Jamieson on the city's new crime cameras. Dave hung out at several of the camera sites and reports why not everyone in these neighborhood is as jazzed about the cameras as the politicians.
• In Loose Lips: James Jones on Adrian Fenty’s ill-advised commercial filming in Southeast. The shoot tied up traffic and pissed off a bunch of voters. Plus: More on Tony Williams’ potential school in Ghana.
• Sarah Godfrey on the latest complaints about CVS: Their delivery trucks occupy parking spaces and fill up the sidewalk with crap
• In Show & Tell: Ryan Grim on how Black Cat plans to deal with the smoking ban
• In Young & Hungry: Tim Carman with news on 100 King, Palena, and the Eden Center
• Plus film (Jenkins on Idlewild), music, art (Cudlin on Henri Rousseau), and more

Nearly 100 city fire hydrants were out of service as recently as Aug. 23, according to D.C. Water and Sewer Authority records. That represents more than 1 percent of the 8,700 city-owned hydrants.

One of them was involved in a fire two weeks ago in Stanton Park. On the afternoon of Aug. 12, firefighters responded to an electrical blaze on the 1300 block of Emerald Street NE. According to witnesses, when firefighters tried to tap the nearest fire hydrant, located just a few doors down, nothing came out. A second company of firefighters ran down the block, across 13th Street, and connected the hose to another hydrant about 600 feet away.

That the only mid-block fire hydrant on the street didn't work came as no surprise to residents. Of the five hydrants in the vicinity, Lacey Bigelow, a resident since 1971, says he knew of only one that worked. “We used to joke that if there's a fire, it's gonna be hell,” he says.

The hydrant misstep didn't prevent firefighters from successfully extinguishing the fire. Once the scene had calmed down, another neighbor asked a fire technician to test the hydrant. No water. The technician told her that it wasn't uncommon for there to be dead hydrants in the city.

According to fire department spokesperson Alan Etter, WASA has sole responsibility of inspecting and maintaining the city's hydrants. When WASA finds a hydrant in need or repair, it notifies the fire department's communications division, which then relays the information over the radio. Firefighters at the affected stations typically write down the location of the hydrant on a chalkboard. The same process occurs then the hydrant comes back online.

“Obviously, we'd like to have all of them working, but it's not a perfect world,” says Etter. “We understand that when you maintain 8,700 hydrants, some will go out of service. You do the best you can.”

But, as Lt. L.A. Matthews of Engine Company 21 in Adams Morgan says, “Even one [inoperable hydrant] is too many, especially if it's in front of my house.”

WASA currently has a two dedicated crews repairing and replacing hydrants on a daily basis, supplemented by six crews that flush the water mains, which involves opening up fire hydrants. Last August, the agency embarked on a massive evaluation of the city's hydrants, hiring an outside contractor to inspect and make minor repairs. The goal is to maintain over 99 percent operational.

After the fire, a WASA crew investigated the Emerald Street hydrant, along with hydrants at 13th and E, 14th and F, and 16th and E, and found all to be in good order. Spokesperson Michele Quander-Collins says she could find no record of any of them malfunctioning. “I just don't know what they're talking about,” she says. “We cannot find any inoperable hydrants in that area. We can't explain why it was reported as not working. We didn't get a call from fire department or a citizen, which is usually how we find out about these things. That's not something we'd leave as a longstanding problem.”

Look for a detailed investigation into the city's broken hydrants in next week's City Paper.

Bikes for the World has a problem: Its bikes are too nice. The nonprofit's mission is to collect donated bikes here and ship them over to Africa. It's already sent more than 7,000 this year, says director Keith Oberg. The organization prefers to send mountain bikes, he says, considering that many roads in Africa make your average District streets look as smooth as a runway. Top-shelf road bikes, then, aren't appropriate. Why send a thousand-dollar set of wheels across the Atlantic where it'll just get trashed in a few weeks?

So the organization figured it would sell its best road bikes and use the cash to buy mountain bikes, parts, and whatnot to support its operation. Problem is, the lease it has for its free digs in the Waterside Mall doesn't allow for retail.

The big sale was scheduled for Aug. 22. By 6:30 p.m., about a dozen people had already arrived to snap up a cheap bike, responding to a Craigslist posting. But then some customers got lost on the way and called mall security for directions. And that was it for the bike sale—security came by and shut down the fundraiser. Mall management could not be immediately reached for comment.

“This was gonna be an informal thing, but a lot of people showed up,” says Oberg. “I totally blew it. I hope I didn't blow our lease.”

ADDENDUM, 5:03 P.M.: Oberg says that the management company called him to say there was no problem and that his lease is not in jeopardy. "Things are real cool," he says. Management spokesperson Mara Olguin confirms that all is cool.

What’s the District’s chief exec really up to today?

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2006

No public events scheduled.

The Lowdown: What, no presser? Afraid you might inadvertantly say more nice things about Adrian Fenty?

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what's going on in local Internet discussion groups.

Brookland
Dissatisfied with cops’ sluggish response to non-emergency 311 calls, Brian tries to buck society's commonly held notions of what constitutes a 911 emergency. With a touch of semantic massaging, the Brooklander can turn a noisy Catholic U party into a five-alarm crisis. “[D]rinking alcohol in public, public urination, littering, DWI, etc. these are immediate, *SERIOUS CRIMES* covered by specific statutes in the DC Code,” he writes. “If you are losing sleep (i.e., your health), your ‘peace’ is being disturbed after say, 10 p.m. at night...than I would argue that it is an exigent, criminal event, worthy of a call to 911.” Anyone bother to think about this for more than a few seconds? Oh, there you are, Kelly: “What if ya'lls calls diverted a cop from an armed robbery, car jacking or was the difference between apprehending a murderer and leaving a crime unsolved?” Nice effort, but Brian's not persuaded. “One person's indigestion may just as easily be another's fatal heart attack in progress,” he rationalizes, after looking up “emergency” on his Mac's dictionary. “Accordingly, ‘emergency’ may rightfully be given very broad interpretation by the victim (or Samaritans) calling.”

Mount Pleasant DC
Councilmember Jim Graham heralds the addition of two more crime-fighting surveillance cameras to Ward 1. “We already have a crime camera at 14th and Girard,” he boasts. “That will now be joined by a camera at Georgia and Morton, which will scan the area of the small mall there. And another will be on 18th Street just north of Belmont. I think both locations are excellent choices which I hope will soon be joined by others.” Then, perhaps in a wink to his civil-liberties-minded voters, Graham takes the opportunity to express his rather mealy-mouthed, cover-all-the-bases stance on said cameras. “Let me repeat that I am opposed to cameras used for surveillance of First Amendment expressions. I have consistently voted against such use. However, to my mind, cameras do have an appropriate though limited utility to dislodge embedded crime. However, police must be prepared to give chase once that dislodgment takes place.” Got that?

WardOneDC
Laurie Collins e-mails the group a Washington Post op-ed article in which Colbert I. King chides a Linda Cropp supporter for delivering the columnist a 146-page, dirt-filled dossier on Adrian Fenty (and requesting anonymity). Dominic Sale, a known Cropp booster and former Mount Pleasant advisory neighborhood commissioner, then chastens Laurie for disseminating the King column. “Laurie, I understand how someone as zealous as you are about Fenty could see this article as advantageous to...his campaign, but have you even considered the downside?” he asks. “The sad fact is that negative campaining has been proven again and again to work, and you have become the unwitting messenger of information that could do more harm than good to your candidate's prospects.” But Laurie seems to have gotten just what she wanted. “Ok, whatever you say Dominic,” she writes. “You are so bait-able.…”

Us media types hate being accused of bias. So we just love it when two rivals both manage to look embarrassing at the same time:

Photo courtesy of Mark Segraves/WTOP

What’s the District’s chief exec really up to today?

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2006

No public events scheduled.

The Lowdown: Hope you weren't out too late last night, Mr. Mayor.

Whenever I watch a Nats game it's hard not to notice that the entire outfield wall is covered in what appear to be fans that are not powered, but spin whenever there's a breeze—what the hell are those and why are they there?

The fans lackadaisically spinning behind Nats outfielder Alfonso Soriano’s back are a relic from a bygone era, when the paint, engineering, and other trade shops housed below RFK's bleachers were not air conditioned and needed fresh air circulation.

However, even with the fans—which are not powered and are only used to promote circulation—the shops were undoubtedly hot and humid, says RFK Stadium Manager Troy Scott.

“Years ago, it must have been very rough down there,” says Scott.

So why stick fans in plain sight when there must be countless other places to put them? The fans are located in the shops’ only openings and are invisible beneath the stands when RFK is in its soccer or football configuration, says Scott.

And the more than $15 million in renovations to RFK included no plans to get rid of the fans, according to D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission spokesperson Tony Robinson.

“It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how much money we put into it, this place is still a dump,” Robinson says, as he passes the renovated Terrace Food Court.

Every Monday, the ‘Huh?’ Bub takes your questions. Got one?

On Saturday, Colbert I. King took to the Washington Post opinion page in another attempt to wrest D.C. politics from the grip of modernity. This time, he lashed out at the trend of candidates and/or their supporters doing personal opposition research. The lament was brought about by the anonymous deliverance to King of a 146-page dossier on mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty. It was given to him, he writes, by “a longtime supporter of council chairman and mayoral hopeful Linda Cropp.”

While some of his ire is directed at the Cropp campaign and others that might muck up the D.C. political scene, he reserves his real scorn for members of the media that play along. And not just any media: King, it turns out, was largely referring to his own paper's reporters.

Here's the shot across the bow of the Metro desk:

I don't know whether copies of the “research” have been slipped to other journalists or whether contents of the dossier have been parceled out to individual reporters as “tips.”

Between now and Election Day, other anti-Fenty stories may turn up in the media. It's a good bet that some of them will be based on information in the dossier. The only question is whether news organizations, if they use the information, will disclose to the public that the source is a Fenty opponent. Or will they pretend they dug it up on their own? Never mind, I'm not the ombudsman or a news editor.

King wouldn't have to wait long for his question to be answered. The same day that the column ran, the Metro section fronted a story by Yolanda Woodlee that looked like it could have come from the opposition dossier—with no explanation of where the info originated.

King, deputy editor of the Post editorial page, says he didn't know it was coming out the same day but was aware that Metro reporters were working on the story and probably wouldn't follow his advice. “They said they wouldn't discuss their sources with me, and, I assume, in the paper as well,” he says. A Post source says that Woodlee's story did not originate from the dossier, but from a tip (or is that “tip”?) that led her to search civil records in Montgomery County. Woodlee wouldn't comment about the chastising.

Just as King knew the story was in the works, King says the reporters also knew their knuckle-rapping was around the corner. “I told them what the thrust of my column would be,” he says. “Fair warning is fair play.”

What’s the District’s chief exec really up to today?

MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2006

Event: Remarks, back-to-school press conference with DCPS and United Black Fund

Time: 9 a.m.

Location: Davis Elementary School, 4430 H St. SE

The Lowdown: All right, Tony—wanna help Linda out? Give her a head start on her campaign promises.

At around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, a fire burned down the wooden patio/stairway connecting the gallery and theater at the D.C. Arts Center (DCAC) in Adams Morgan. Patrons on the roof at The Reef saw smoke rising from the building and alerted the fire department.

“We haven't received the report from the fire department as to what the cause was, but the most popular theory is that it was from a lit cigarette,” says Kristina Bilonick, the office manager at DCAC. “That's the only theory, unless the fire department says there was some electrical thing.” (The D.C. fire marshal's office could not make any comment about the fire.)

DCAC is forced to close the gallery and theater for the weekend for repairs. Though neither space was affected, the entrances to each were slightly warped, and firemen were forced to break the lock and pry open the front door to get to the fire.

David William, the membership and development director for the Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran, says that this is not the first time there's been trouble in the breezeway between the space. “[DCAC director] B. Stanley already has some MacGyver, jury-rigged thing—‘Nail this board here to secure that door, then this board goes here’—so some similar event has happened in the past.”

The arts center is replacing the entire stair system, says Bilonick, and normal hours should resume by Wednesday. The Saturday and Sunday performances of Cannibal! the Musical, a show written by the creators of South Park and performed by Landless Theatre, will be shown at the Universalist National Memorial Church at 16th and S Streets NW. No word on whether scheduled performances of Home Fires—a one-woman show whose connection to the fire is in name alone—will also be rescheduled.

---Kriston Capps