Leading this week’s Washington City Paper is sage advice from Ally Schweitzer and Michael J. West on how to not screw up the Howard Theatre, the newly restored historic venue that reopens this month. Also in the feature well, I have an essay in which I untangle the contradictions of supporting arts scenes simply because they’re local. At the top of the arts section proper is Lindsay Zoladz‘s essay about the history, indie-rock influence, and digital-age legacy of chickfactor, a zine covering the pop underground that began in D.C. in the early ’90s. Joe Colly reviews the highly anticipated, mostly successful new mixtape from rapper Fat Trel, Nightmare on E Street. Marcus J. Moore listens to the RAtheMC‘s mixtape The Grace Jones Experiment, on which the Largo MC streamlines her sound. Trey Graham empathizes and laughs his way through Eugene O’Neill‘s stirring and notoriously difficult epic Strange Interlude at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Rebecca J. Ritzel has heaps of praise for Synetic Theater’s stylish, silent adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew. Chris Klimek reviews American Century Theater’s inventive, slightly troubled take on On the Waterfront. Tricia Olszewski says the bleak crime comedy Thin Ice has way too much Fargo in its DNA. And in One Track Mind, Mike Paarlberg talks to Opera Lafayette about its resurrection of an obscure French work centered on Sancho Panza, the bumbling sidekick of Don Quixote.