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My mother, like every Korean woman of a certain age, loves her Korean soap operas. I occasionally ask her what they’re about. “Oh, there is a boy, and he loves a girl, but the boy is from a poor family and the girl is from a rich family so their parents do not approve.” “That’s what the last one was about,” I’ll say. “Oh no no no, last time the girl was from a poor family and the boy was from a rich family so their parents did not approve.” Some plots are timeless, and universal. Such is the plot for La Rosa del Azafrán (The Saffron Rose), a 1930 zarzuela (a half-sung, half-spoken form of Spanish musical theater) based on a 1618 play by Félix Lope de Vega, the great poet of Spain’s Golden Century. Read more >>> The play runs Oct. 9 to 10 at GALA Hispanic Theatre, 3333 14th St. NW. $50–$60. (202) 360-3514. teatroliricodc.com. (Mike Paarlberg)
EAT THIS
Get a taste of more than 60 D.C.-area restaurants, food trucks, plus dozens of beers and wines at Taste of DC this weekend. The street festival will take over a section of Pennsylvania Avenue NW Saturday and Sunday with live music, cooking demonstrations, a Ben’s Chili Bowl chili eating competition, and more. General admission tickets are $20, and kids between the ages of 6-12 get in for $10. (Younger than that and it’s free.) Buy tickets in advance here. Taste of DC, Pennsylvania Ave. NW between 3rd and 7th streets. tasteofdc.org. (Jessica Sidman)
OH AND ALSO
Friday: The Reel Independent Film Extravaganza, the annual gathering of filmmakers and fans of small, independent cinema, launches tonight with a screening of Robert Rippberger’s 7 Days in Syria at the Angelika Pop Up Union Market. 7 p.m. at 550 Penn St. NE. $10.50.
Friday: Local choreographer Robert J. Priore and his company present “Speak Easy,” a new multimedia work that explores the positive and negative aspects of human love, as part of the Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project. 6 p.m. at 2700 F St. NW. Free.
Friday: Celebrate D.C.’s first annual pop equinox at Rock & Roll Hotel with performances by electro-pop acts Pebble to Pearl, Skyline Hotel, Stereoriots, and Near Northeast. 9 p.m. at 1353 H St. NE. $12.
Friday: Musician, poet, and icon Patti Smith discusses her latest book, M Train, with Maureen Corrigan of NPR at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium. Read more in our Fall Arts Guide. 7 p.m. at 730 21st St. NW. $35.
Saturday: When the world feels like it’s crumbling around you, does love have the power to turn everything around? That’s the central question posed in Irish playwright Ursula Rani Sarma’s play The Magic Tree, making its U.S. debut at Keegan Theatre as part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival. The action revolves around two characters, a lonely man in search of any form of human connection and a woman so frustrated with the state of her life that she wants to disappear, who meet in an abandoned home. Read more >>> The play runs Oct. 10 to Nov. 17 at Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St. NW. $25–$36. (202) 265-3767. keegantheatre.com.
Saturday: The National Portrait Gallery presents “IDENTIFY,” a performance by artist Wilmer Wilson IV in which he will turn himself into a living sculpture by applying Crest White Strips to his skin, temporarily bleaching it. 4 p.m. at 8th and F streets NW. Free.
Saturday: Soulful Canadian pop artist Sean Nicholas Savage headlines an intimate show at the Paperhaus with British experimental pop act Promise Keeper and local dream pop band Go Cozy. Find more details on Facebook. 8 p.m. at 4912 3rd St. NW. Donations accepted.
Saturday: The newly revived Dance Theatre of Harlem returns to D.C. with a company of 14 dancers performing both D.C. premieres and old classics at Sidney Harman Hall. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at 610 F St. NW. $35–$70.
Sunday: Over the course of ten albums, Lucero’s sound has morphed quite a bit. From the scrappy country-punk anthems on early albums like Tennessee and That Much Further West, to the more honkey-tonk tunes on 1372 Overton Park and Women & Work, the Memphis, Tenn. outfit has managed to become more commercially appealing without losing touch with its roots. That much is evident on its excellent new record, All a Man Should Do, which finds the band harkening back to its early sound with ten stripped-down tunes about life, love, and one’s own mortality. Read more >>> Lucero performs at 7 p.m. at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $25. (202) 265-0930. 930.com. (Matt Cohen)
Sunday: Culinary icon Alice Waters discusses her career and the state of food politics around the world with readers and eaters at Politics & Prose. 2 p.m. at 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free.
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