Starting next week, people can head to the Mosaic District for drive-in movies.

The summer movie series will kick off on Friday, June 26, with “Captain Marvel,” according to a press release. People can expect a different movie on the fourth Friday of every month from June to August.

The drive-in series plans to screen “Toy Story 4” and “Jurassic Park” on July 24. The double features for Aug. 28 have not been announced yet.

People will be able to watch the movies from the seventh floor of the Market parking lot across from Moms Organic, according to the press release, which added that all of the films will have closed captioning.

Safety measures that movie-goers must follow include:

• remaining in their cars at all times
• designating one person per car to pick up food orders
• only one person at a time can use the restrooms by using a text alert system

Each car will have a $28 parking fee and people will listen to the movie audio via an FM transmitter on the radio. The Mosaic District urges people to buy tickets in advance because space is limited to 75 cars.

As for food and beverages, Mosaic District is partnering with Alta Strada to offer a movie theater-inspired menu with hot dogs, popcorn and sodas, the press release said.

“All guests who order directly from the Alta Strada website will receive a complimentary bombolini or tiramisu upon selecting the ‘Free Gift’ option at checkout,” the press release said. “Other restaurants will participate in the later showings.”

The Mosaic District drive-in series follows the announcement from The Boro that the new Tysons development will also offer drive-in movies. The Boro’s series will feature movies for four weeks, starting this Friday, June 19.

A rally will take place outside the First Baptist Church of Vienna Friday evening on Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.

“Many of us have been inundated by the news. We’ve watched the reports. We are in mourning,” Vernon Walton, the senior pastor at the church, said in a video. “We are upset as we’ve watched the death of George Floyd, as we watched the family of Breonna Taylor mourn, as we’ve watched the family of Ahmaud Arbery mourn. We mourn with them.”

Participants are asked to social distance, wear masks and bring signs. The “Juneteenth Rally of Remembrance” will offer time for prayer and protest to celebrate Black lives, according to the event description.

“Come expecting to be empowered by the fellowship by the brothers and sisters of our community,” Walton said in the video. “You don’t want to miss this experience.”

The rally is set to take place in the parking lot at 450 Orchard Street NW from 6-8 p.m.

New Park Authority Director — “Kurt Louis has been named the new Director for Park Operations for the Fairfax County Park Authority. The position has been vacant since 2019 following the departure of Todd Brown, current Director of Charlottesville Parks and Recreation.” [Fairfax County]

Input on Public Schools Reopening — Fairfax County’s School Board will meet this public hearing this afternoon at 5:30 on the proposals for returning to school this fall. [FCPS]

Summer Art Classes — “McLean Project for the Arts has announced plans to offer both in-person and online summer-camp programming for 2020. Designed for ages 3-18, the online camps are slated to run June 22 to Aug. 7, with in-person camps scheduled to run July 7 to Aug. 7 at MPA’s studio spaces.” [Inside NoVa]

Hotel for Sale — The 449-key, Sheraton in Tysons is now listed on JLL for sale. [JLL]

A power outage is impacting hundreds of Dominion Energy customers between Wolf Trap and Leesburg Pike.

Dominion’s power outage map says that 575 customers are affected by the outage, which spans from the McLean Bible Church down past the Dulles Toll Road. Dominion expects power to be returned sometime between 7-10 p.m.

Fairfax County put out a traffic advisory around 3:40 p.m. warning people to expect delays at Leesburg Pike and Trap Road. Police tweeted that Leesburg Pike is currently closed in both directions.

Downed lines from a broken pole are behind the road closure and power outage.

TRAFFIC ALERT: Leesburg Pike is closed in both directions near Trap Road in Vienna due to downed wires. Please use an alternate route. #FCPD pic.twitter.com/4G1WU8TYny

— Fairfax County Police (@FairfaxCountyPD) June 17, 2020

Map via Dominion Energy

“When we can’t do theater, what can we do?” Alex Levy, the artistic director of 1st Stage Theatre, posed during a recent Zoom conversation with local artists.

Levy was at his brother’s house while sharing his thoughts on what the future of 1st Stage during the hour-long “Cultural Tysons” panel.

More than 50 households logged on as Levy; local painter and teacher Deborah Conn; bookstore owner Jen Morrow; and Lori Carbonneau, the head of the McLean Project for the Arts, weighed in on various facets of COVID-19’s impacts on Tysons’ art scene.

Levy introduced himself to viewers by tackling a perception of Tysons — and Northern Virginia west of Arlington — as a “cultural wasteland.” His fellow panelists agreed that the pandemic is highlighting how small businesses and local artists and institutions contribute to the area’s culture.

“It reinforced how much people want local,” Jen Morrow, the owner of Bards Alley in Vienna, said during the Zoom panel.

The bookstore is currently offering curbside pick-up and online shopping. The “Take a Chance on Me” option for staff to recommend books in the store based on shoppers’ chosen genres and price points has “been a home run,” she said.

“I think people are really discovering how much they miss their access to the arts,” Conn, the local watercolor painter, said. “They need the arts. They need the theater. They need the books.”

With some of her art hanging behind her, Conn talked about the changes she’s experienced during the pandemic: better class attendance now that she’s teaching via Zoom, a greater demand for more demos and more creative ways to showcase art.

Conn, who is also the gallery curator at 1st Stage, shared that one of her friends started a fence post art gallery, while a few others are doing driveway galleries: “We have to be seen.”

The virtual meeting on Saturday (June 13) was part of the Community Conversations series that 1st Stage started five years ago.

“It’s a really popular thing that we did, and we realized it was one of those things that we can move to a digital platform during the pandemic,” Levy told Tysons Reporter earlier this week. “So we started that two months ago, doing these community conversations via Zoom.”

While success stories might make the pivot to online look easy, the panelists shared the uncertainties they still face months into social distancing, quarantine, stay at home orders and COVID-19 restrictions.

Some things haven’t been figured out yet, like how to offer in-person summer classes or host ArtFest online, Carbonneau, MPA’s executive director, said. While MPA missed an exhibition in the spring, the arts organization is moving forward with plans for a virtual exhibition.

1st Stage, in particular, has been grappling with how to reconcile its mission and atmosphere — “Our primary mode of work is to gather people in small spaces,” moderator Emily Wall, who is the theater’s associate producer, said — with state and local requirements to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

In March, the theater suspended its upcoming productions and closed its doors. A month later, the theater announced that “A New Brain,” which was supposed to run March 26-April 19, will be its next show, but the dates haven’t been determined yet. The Logan Festival of Solo Performance is canceled for July but plans to return next year.

Levy said during “Cultural Tysons” that institutions with video skills and equipment before the pandemic had an easier time adjusting. Even organizations that weren’t focused on tech before now have incentives to catch up.

Carbonneau noted that the switch to online programming allows for greater geographic diversity. For example, one of MPA’s students is in Italy, while one of its teachers is in New York opening a studio, she said.

The increased accessibility to audiences and artists is an “exciting” opportunity for the theater, Levy told Tysons Reporter.

“In our [Zoom panel] on Saturday, people from all over the county [were] part of the conversation, and that’s been a really cool benefit,” he said. “These virtual conversations have allowed us to open up to a whole group of people who would never be able to be a part of it because they’re just physically too far at any given time.”

For people who missed the Zoom panels or want to view them again, the recorded conversations are archived on 1st Stage’s YouTube channel — another perk of holding virtual events.

In addition to the Community Conversations series, 1st Stage is also planning a series of Zoom classes to address a longing for human connection.

“We are going to create a series of classes that are not really intended for professionals but intended for people to connect to art-making in ways where they maybe never have before and to do it with our artists and with each other,” he told Tysons Reporter.

Another idea, which is in the planning stages, would allow multiple organizations to co-produce a piece for Zoom. “We can break apart the way we make theater… and then see what happens when we bring it together and then let it be a live event so that it still has some of that feeling of theater where anything can happen,” he said.

While Zoom will make these ideas possible, Levy said the pandemic’s impact on the theater’s season has opened up time to reimagine future plans.

“Normally I think we need to be done by, you know, X days because we had to put it into our season,” he said about the co-production idea. “Now we can say, ‘Let’s let it go at the pace that feels like it’s creating the best work, and when it’s ready, we’ll do it.'”

Currently, the theater is using this time to talk about how to invest in artists in the longterm and “how we disrupt our own process every now and then.”

“We’ve been having conversations about like, ‘Well what would it look like to start talking to an artist, not six months before we do a show but two years before we do a show?’ and ‘What can we change about the way we build and create a show when we think like that?'” Levy said.

Questions about the use of space outside the theater — 1st Stage is currently looking into opportunities to perform outdoors — and how the relationship with the audience will change are also on the list.

While 1st Stage normally starts the theatrical process with a play, Levy said he wonders what would happen if they started with a blank page instead. The theater has also been reaching out to actors to see if they want to write plays and asking playwrights if they have an interest in directing.

“We have long believed that theater gets made in a certain way,” he said. “I think who’s in those power positions are going to be shaken up… Theater is no different than any other institution where those in power can hang onto that power and tend to reinforce it.”

Levy sees art institutions as a guide — “Our job is to be out ahead of governments and for-profit businesses and model what it can look like” — and the questions 1st Stage is tackling fit into a bigger query about how to disassemble power structures.

“I think the kinds of stories we tell are going to change. I think the kind of people that tell those stories are going to change. The ways in which we tell them are going to change,” he said.

Ultimately, Levy hopes the disruption will alter not only future art, but also the ways that art gets made.

“What this is really allowing us is to think about what years from now might look like too. So, to build something that is not about ‘Oh this is a cool show,’ but build something that says ‘This is a way in which we create cool shows’ for years,” he said.

Image via 1st Stage Theatre/YouTube

Madeline Taylor contributed to this report 

On Friday, local Lions clubs donated nearly $20,000 to Merrifield-based Food for Others.

The Fairfax Lions Clubs, along with several other local clubs and the Lions of Virginia Foundation (LOVF), raised $19,525 to support Food for Others’ mobile food program for people impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Food for Others and the Fairfax Lions Club.

“LOVF matched donations of individual Lions clubs,” the press release said.

The contributing clubs included:

• Fairfax Lions
• Falls Church-Annandale Lions
• Burke Lions
• Springfield Global Lions
• Clifton Lions
• Alexandria Asian-American Lions

“It is deeply gratifying how the various Fairfax area Lions Clubs quickly teamed together and partnered with LOVF to contribute this money to put help put food on the table and provide some comfort to our neighbors in need in these hard times,” Mike Rumberg, the president of the Fairfax Lions Club, said.

Food for Others’ mobile food program delivers emergency food to people who can’t get food from distribution centers, according to a press release.

People who want to support Food for Others can donate items like canned chili, canned chicken, rice, pasta sauce and canned fruit; start a vegetable or herb garden to grow produce; and spread the word about Food for Others’ efforts.

Photo via Food for Others/Facebook

Chi Mc is now serving up Korean fried chicken from its new location in the Town of Vienna.

About one year after permits first surfaced for the eatery, Chi Mc is now cooking up food in its new location in Danor Plaza (126 Branch Road SE).

The eatery was tentatively expected to open in the winter following delays with the permitting process, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit Northern Virginia in March.

Currently, Chi Mc is offering pick-up and delivery. Its online menu features a variety of chicken combos, starters like fries and onion rings, kimchi, pickled radish, pork belly buns and several Korean dish entrees, including japchae and pa jun.

Recently, Chi Mc has posted on Facebook about free samples at the Vienna location.

Chi Mc, which means “chicken and beer” in Korean, also has locations in Chantilly and Alexandria listed on its website, which notes that the Annandale spot is no longer a part of Chi Mc.

According to the Vienna location’s Facebook page, Chi Mc is open from 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

Photo via Chi Mc Vienna/Facebook

Plans to Make Juneteenth a State Holiday — “Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said Tuesday he will propose legislation to make Juneteenth, a celebration observed on June 19 commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, be recognized as a paid state holiday.” [Vienna Patch]

Transportation Webinars Start Today — The Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling, the City of Fairfax, Fairfax County, the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Mason’s Department of Parking and Transportation teamed up on a series of webinars on active transportation. The series kicks off today at noon. [George Mason University]

No Phase Three Yet — “Virginia won’t enter Phase Three of its reopening plan this week, Gov. Ralph Northam said Tuesday. Speaking during his twice-weekly news conference in Richmond, Northam said that although the state’s health metrics are trending in the right direction, he’s not ready to lift restrictions further that were designed to stem the spread of the coronavirus.” [Inside NoVa]

Robert Ames Alden was a “walking institution” in the D.C. area, Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust recently told his fellow county officials.

Alden died at the age of 87 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease on June 7, the Washington Post reported. Foust shared highlights of Alden’s career and life during the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ meeting last week.

Born in D.C., Alden worked as a sportswriter for the Cleveland Press before joining the Washington Post in 1952, Foust said. Alden covered wars, riots, natural disasters and more during his nearly 50-year career at the Washington Post.

Alden was a founder of the National Press Foundation. Foust noted that Alden, who was the National Press Club’s president in 1976, was a “leading advocate” in the 1960s and 1970s to allow women to join the Press Club.

Foust remembered Alden as a “living legend in McLean.” On the local level, Alden advocated for the community complex that houses McLean Central Park, the Dolley Madison Library and the McLean Community Center.

Foust said that the then-governing board of the community center wanted to name the building after him.

“If you knew Bob, you know he refused,” Foust said. “That would not be acceptable to him. He wanted it named the McLean Community Center.”

The community center’s auditorium and theater were named after him instead.

“He was an amazingly successful, amazingly accomplished and unbelievably nice, friendly, courteous, kind guy,” Foust said. “We are going to miss him so much.”

Photo via Alden Theatre/Facebook

Law firm King & Spalding plans to come to Tysons, per Fairfax County officials.

The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority announced the newcomer at 1650 Tysons Blvd today.

“Firms that bring global expertise in corporate law are absolutely essential for a strong business and technology ecosystem, so we are delighted to welcome King & Spalding to Fairfax County and Northern Virginia for its 22nd worldwide location,” FCEDA President Victor Hoskins said in a press release.

Hoskins noted that this announcement adds to the growing business community in Fairfax County. Last month, Microsoft said that it will create a new technology hub in Reston.

Based in Atlanta, the corporate law firm will have a 25-person team in Tysons, according to the press release.

King & Spalding Chairman Robert Hays, Jr. said in a statement that the new office will allow the law firm to serve the tech sector in the D.C.-area.

Image via Google Maps