The superstar has unveiled her 2023 North American and European tour dates, and she’s including a stop in the D.C. region.

She’ll be putting on a show at Capital One Arena on Sept. 2.

JUST ANNOUNCED! : The Celebration Tour. Four Decades of Music – featuring her greatest hits live at Capital One Arena on Sept. 2, 2023!

Tickets go on sale Friday, Jan. 27 at 10am.

— Capital One Arena (@CapitalOneArena)

Tickets are scheduled to go on sale Jan. 20.

According to the tour announcement… Madonna will “be highlighting her unmatched catalog of music from the past 40-plus years.”

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Miska complied with the order, but claimed the covering violates a state law banning the takedown of Confederate monuments. He was not arrested.

After Miska stopped and walked a few steps from the statue, he made an impassioned plea to about four dozen onlookers to uncover the statue and keep it in the park. He argued that removing it erases American history.

“This was an American,” said Miska referring to Lee. “He fought for the wrong ideas. He fought for the wrong ideals.

“But we need him to be here, so we can point to him and say he fought for the side that lost. He repented. By covering up this statue, we’re committing a great wrong to anyone who’s an American.”

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Monday evening, after a loud and contentious session involving hundreds of angry statue opponents, the Charlottesville City Council voted to cover the Lee statue, along with a statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson located in another city park.

City workers covered the Lee statue early Wednesday afternoon.

As Miska cut away at the covering, one onlooker called him “a coldhearted bastard.”

But later Miska argued, “If they can do this to this memorial, what’s to stop them (from saying) John Kerry was right, we need to go down and cover the Vietnam War memorial,” referring to Charlottesville’s monument to Vietnam vets in McIntire Park.

Former Secretary of State Kerry, a Vietnam Vet, became famous in 1971 for a speech before Congress where he denounced American involvement in that war as immoral and “barbaric.”

Several onlookers argued with Miska, saying the statues were divisive and needed to come down.

Miska countered by saying the main problem in Charlottesville wasn’t the statues themselves, but “failure of discourse” about the subject.

Miska, of Barboursville, Va., was one of several plaintiffs of a federal lawsuit against the government early in the decade, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated when they banned from passing out literature on the National Mall. They won the suit.

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Every July, tiny Shepherdstown, tucked away in the state’s Eastern Panhandle, becomes a hothouse for some of America’s most innovative live theatre.

The 27^th annual Contemporary American Theatre Festival (CATF) is running now through July 30 at Shepherd University. Six new plays, some of them world premieres, are staged in rotating repertory on the campus stages near the banks of the Potomac.

“We’re outside the glare of the urban spotlight,” founder and producing director Ed Herendeen told ������Ƶapp. “So our artists, playwrights, actors, directors and designers can take the kind of risk in the safe atmosphere of Shepherdstown. I’d like to think we’re creating dangerous, and sometimes important, disturbing works of art.”

Apparently, it’s paid off. CATF’s reputation and reach has grown so much over the decades that the New York Times listed it this year as one of its for summer theatre festivals. Last year, theatre-goers from 37 states took in the festival’s plays, lectures and post-show discussions, which take on diverse and sometimes difficult subjects.

“Let’s make America think again,”Herendeen said. “We like to say ideas are powerful and essential, but stories are more powerful.”

For example, the world premiere of Chelsea Marcantal’s “Everything Is Wonderful” explores how an Amish family fights to maintain faith after two sons are killed in a car accident. Evan Linder’s “Byhalia, Mississippi” follows a white couple in a small town haunted by its racially-charged history.

Herendeen says the goal is to have all six plays create a moment for a debate, dialogue or living conversation.

“Theatre provides that opportunity to really hear, to see and to listen,” Herendeen said. “Maybe we can go home and talk to one another about the issues raised.”

Other plays on this year’s program include:

• “We Will Not Be Silent” by David Meyers. The world premiere tells the real -life story of Sophie Scholl, who lead the only act of civil disobedience in Germany during the Nazi reign.
• “The Niceties” by Eleanor Burgess. The story highlights a baby boomer versus millennial ideas clash between a liberal college professor and one of her prized left-wing students.
• “Welcome to Fear City” by Kara Lee Corthron. This world premiere looks at the start of hip-hop culture in the Bronx during an explosive time in the late ’70s.
• “Wild Horses” by Allison Gregory. This production is a girl’s coming of-age story as seen through the eyes of her adult self.

The schedule is spaced out so that patrons can see all six plays in two days if they wish. There are also breakfasts, lunches, lectures and staged readings with the festival’s participants.

An added benefit is the array of shops, restaurants and bars in the charming downtown. A few years ago, Budget Travel magazine named Shepherdstown as one of “America’s Coolest Small Towns.” You can also combine the festival with side trips to nearby Harpers Ferry and Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

“It’s great that this magical, historical town is home to contemporary stories and contemporary plays,” Herendeen sad.

Click for more information. Listen to the full conversation with founder Ed Herendeen below:

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WASHINGTON — She directed the acclaimed documentary “Blackfish” (2013), exposing the controversial treatment of killer whales at SeaWorld theme parks.

Now, delivers a true-life army tale in the narrative feature

Co-written by screenwriters Pamela Gray (“Conviction”), Annie Mumolo (“Bridesmaids”) and Tim Lovestedt (“Parenthood”), the film follows Megan Leavey (Kate Mara), a young Marine corporal whose loving bond with her military combat dog Rex saved many lives during a deployment in Iraq.

“It’s a unique way into a story we think we’ve heard before,” Cowperthwaite told ������Ƶapp. “It’s a female marine story and we don’t hear those a lot, and the K-9 unit is something we don’t hear about a lot. I knew nothing about either one of those, so it was interesting to me and kind of a unique opportunity.”

In order to maintain authenticity, Cowperthwaite collaborated with the real Megan Leavey.

“Megan was there during the boot camp scenes and actually plays a drill sergeant,” she said. “She was actually there, consulted on the script and so forth, so she was part of the shaping of the narrative.”

That narrative includes a compelling character arc for the protagonist.

“As we depict in the film, [she] starts off feeling like she has a challenging life with really no prospects, flunks out of school, loses her job and joins the Marines,” Cowperthwaite said. “This is a story, in my mind, of someone coming to value themselves by virtue of valuing something else, loving herself because she ends up loving something else [her dog]. … She doesn’t feel quite whole without him.”

This human-animal bond adds a unique spin to the battle sequences in Act Two.

“It’s a brothers-in-arms story with no brother,” Cowperthwaite said with a laugh. “It’s a female, it’s a K-9, but really, it’s the story of this bond formed. … They bonded and had an unlikely friendship in the beginning. He’s very aggressive; I think she saw some of herself in him when she first joins the K-9 unit. But they went out and wound up saving hundreds of lives and going on the tours together.”

As the film nears Act Three, don’t be surprised if it tugs on your heartstrings.

“Of course, she comes back and [the dog] redeploys and he goes back in country, so that obviously is the Third Act, where the question is: he saved her and now it’s her turn to save him,” she said. “The Third Act to me is really important about a service member coming home and what she has to go through. As civilians, I’m not sure we completely understand what it is that they need. … The aspect of coming home and the PTSD was so important for me to try to just … hint at what that might be like.”

“House of Cards” star Mara was already attached to the project when Cowperthwaite came aboard.

“I knew her from ‘Blackfish,’ my previous movie; she became involved in that and an animal advocate as a result,” Cowperthwaite said. “[She’s] a tough soul in this beautiful, lovely, petite body and veneer. She can channel the whole spectrum of emotions that Megan has in this narrative trajectory and nails each one of them. I was impressed. One of my favorite things about the movie is Kate’s performance.”

While the “Blackfish” advocacy introduced her to her lead actress in Mara, Cowperthwaite said there were other distinct advantages to shooting a narrative feature film as opposed to a documentary.

“Much bigger toys,” Cowperthwaite said with a laugh. “Really, just the help was amazing. There’s a production designer who built a base for me from the ground up! So all these people, these pros dedicated to executing my creative vision, was amazing. I was blown away by that.”

At the same time, there were also inherent challenges.

“I come from a world of spontaneity and not knowing what’s going to happen,” Cowperthwaite said. “There’s a magic and adrenaline rush that comes with that, having to be spry and agile — I love that part of filmmaking. With [‘Megan Leavy’], there’s a script, there’s a document and you have to adhere to it. So I was finding myself trying to find spontaneity in the performances and doing things to keep it fresh and to make it feel authentic, because those are the types of films and characters that I love.”

What does she want audiences to take away from the movie?

“Sometimes this human-animal bond, if properly depicted, can crack open some empathy and make us understand this world of war in a fresh way,” Cowperthwaite said. “Maybe this can access a whole audience that wouldn’t see a movie like that otherwise, because we have these fresh agents we’re telling a story through. To understand both the human sacrifice and K-9 sacrifice in these situations.”

In the end, you’ll reconsider the sacrifice that military dogs go through.

“These animals have evolved alongside us for 10,000 years,” Cowperthwaite said. “There’s never been a war where we haven’t had K-9s there to protect us. And they’re not choosing to be there in the way that we are [as humans]. So in a way, it’s kind of unfathomable to imagine their sacrifice. With the K-9 unit in particular, a line that I made sure got in there is that they’re ‘in front of the front lines,’ clearing swaths of land so that everyone behind them stays safe. Imagine that level of sacrifice!”

Listen to ������Ƶapp anchor Shawn Anderson’s full conversation with filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite below:

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It’s just a 90-minute drive from Washington to the 26th annual Contemporary American Theater Festival, that runs now until July 31 on the campus of Shepherd University. Last year, The New York Times named CATF as one of America’s 50 essential summer festivals. And Germany’s Worldguide placed it as a top ten international summer theatre event.

“Shepherdstown is the oldest town in West Virginia doing the newest plays in America,” said Ed Herendeen, founder and producing director of the festival.

Five new plays by some of the nation’s most promising playwrights are staged on three venues in a rotating repertory. Most of the actors are veterans of the New York and Washington theater scenes. But Herendeen finds the bucolic atmosphere of the West Virginia panhandle a distinct creative advantage.

“We’re outside of the glare of the urban spotlight,” Herendeen said. “It allows us to be held captive here for 10 weeks, where we focus on the work and … really take the kind of risk needed outside that glare.”

Three of the five CATF plays this year are world premieres, including “20th Century Blues” by two-time Obie Award winner Susan Miller. Other works making their debuts include “Not Medea” by Allison Gregory, and ” The Wedding Gift ” by Chisa Hutchinson

Also in production, “pen/man/ship” by Christina Anderson, and “The Second Girl ” by Ronan Noone.

Herendeen says the schedule is arranged so theater lovers can see all five plays in two days. Along with the stage works, the festival also features breakfasts, lunches, drinks and lectures where the plays and the state of American theater are discussed.

More information, including tickets and the play schedule, can be found on the .

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