Eventually, the crowd participation grew from a hesitant hum to full-blast accompaniment, and the most remarkable thing about the evening—Mangum's first of two shows in D.C.—was how he used his fans' goodwill as an instrument in its own right. At several points, he lead them in la-la re-creations of horn parts. In "The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three," Mangum sang, "Jesus Christ, I love you, yes I do," and the audience knew to hold the last word of the lyric as Mangum proceeded to the next line: "And on the lazy days, the dogs dissolve and drain away..." He pulled a similar trick midway through "Oh Comely."

Mangum was right: They do all sing along at home. Mangum disbanded Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998 and has performed only very occasionally since, so most of his fans had only heard his songs one way (or maybe two) before the past six months' acoustic gigs: on the studio albums. In his absence, Mangum became one of indie rock's favorite recluses, and Friday's gig was a testament to his fan's intimacy with the material and their empathy for the man.

Which, you know, still didn't rule out heckling. "Don't disappear for so long next time!" shouted one fan to nervous chuckles. "What did you want me to do?" Mangum shot back, and the crowd roared. He smiled. "I deserve a little shit. I was gone for 10 years." In other words: He had every right to disappear for as long as he did. But he was grateful to be back.

Sometimes, you were glad when the singing-along died down: Mangum's voice is still singularly nasal, evocative, and—when he stretches out a note—disarmingly free of vibrato. Other moments were straight-up group hugs. For his encore, Mangum performed "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" accompanied on musical saw by Julian Koster, of openers The Music Tapes. Much of the previously seated crowd rushed to the front of the theater, but after Mangum retreated with a smile and a wave, they stayed put, clapping for more music, even as the speakers began to play a go-home-now soundtrack. He came back with "Song Against Sex."

In the end, then, there was no ex-recluse freak show, no weirdness to pay off the 13-year absence's accumulated mystique. Instead, we got a concert that was, well, pretty gratifyingly normal. Mangum even looked kind of unremarkable, at least to my eyes: newsboy hat; stringy, inky black hair.

Well, maybe. A colleague who was in the audience sent me an email a few minutes after the show ended. "If he wants people to stop worrying about him, he should stop looking and dressing like Elliott Smith circa 2003."

In a press release, the commission—the theater's current overseer—calls Lincoln's Dragon Tattoo run "one of the strongest" in the District. That's certainly possible, since the theater seats more than 1,200 (three or four times the capacity of most D.C. theaters), but DCCAH has not released any box office numbers to support that. I requested ticket sales information from the commission and Landmark Theatres, and I will update if I hear back.

City Paper arts editor Jonathan L. Fischer saw Dragon Tattoo at Lincoln, and called the theater an "awkward" venue for movie showings—while it has fabulous potential, Lincoln could use more ticket windows, improved sound, and another option for ticket-buyers who get stuck in the back of the house.

A lot of the joy of seeing a movie in the Lincoln is the fact that, well, it's gorgeous. But if this former movie house wants to continue occasionally booking first-run films—and it should, since that doesn't have nearly the overhead of, say, staging a play—it might want to consider the following.

1. The Lincoln needs more ticket windows. At last night's not-very-crowded 7:30 p.m. showing, only one window in the tiny box office was open—and if you wanted to use your credit card, the clerk had to type it in number by number. That meant a longish line, which didn't get any relief until about five minutes before showtime, when a second window that wasn't taking credit cards opened. You don't need many ticket windows for concerts or plays; lots of folks either have their tickets already or pick them up from will call. But Fandango notwithstanding, moviegoers aren't used to buying tickets in advance. If you showed up just a few minutes before showtime, you got slightly screwed.

2. The sound is atrocious. Which is a shame, since the film has earned praise for its intricate sound design. The music more or less swallowed the dialogue, whose trebly mix wasn't helped by the room's slight echo (OK, plus the pseudo-Swedish accents). And because the sound wasn't in surround, I had to crane forward to listen closely. If the Lincoln's caretakers are serious about showing movies, they should invest in sound that's on par with the area's other movie theaters.

3. If you sit in the back of the room, you'll need opera glasses. Unlike most large movie houses, the Lincoln is deep, not wide. Not that that's fixable, but the Lincoln's large capacity—around 1,200—does present a serious challenge to keeping the venue consistently booked, since the District has a lot of venues that are around the same size. A Landmark rep didn't have gross numbers when I called this morning. "I know it’s been doing fine, but I don’t really know what fine means," she said, adding that she understands it was "decently full" on opening weekend. "But even less than half full is decent, since it's 1,200 seats." In contrast, Regal Gallery Place has a total capacity of 2,800—spread across 14 theaters. One fairly drastic solution could be bisecting the back of the Lincoln's spacious balcony into a second performance space.

Photo by Flickr user Steve Snodgrass, creative commons license.

Gray says that $1 million will be committed to physical upgrades to the theater. After an initial three- to four-month renovation period, the venue will be prepared to roll out much-needed arts programming, though few present offered any meaty details. Thomas, along with Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and D.C. Film Office head Crystal Palmer, were on hand to discuss potential film and Kennedy Center partnerships in fairly vague terms. But in a nutshell, they say future programming at Lincoln could include 1) more partnerships with Landmark Theatres, which has already brought a four-week run of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to Lincoln, 2) additional partnerships with movie chains AMC and Regal, 3) co-presentations with the Kennedy Center, 4) a second run of Arena Stage's Sophisticated Ladies (a hit there in 2010), 5) and a production by the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Most plans are still up in the air, and Thomas says the commission is in talks with arts groups about these and other ideas.

According to Thomas and Gray, programming at Lincoln will reflect the overall history and diversity of U Street NW. When a reporter from the Washington Afro-American asked pointedly whether the Lincoln was going to become yet another "white theater," Gray responded that it would be open to anyone who chooses to patronize it. The overarching goal, says Gray, is to create a "consistent arts identity"—something Lincoln has struggled to build in the years since it reopened to the public.

Running the theater, in total, will cost the city between $1.7 million and $2 million annually, Thomas says. Responding to a reporter's question, Gray said turning a profit would be nice, but right now, the priority is to simply pay the theater's bills.

Meanwhile, the search continues for a new board, staff, and an executive director to replace outgoing director Eilene Lifsey.

Photo by Flickr user Steve Snodgrass used under a creative commons license.

But forget all that: Where do we buy tickets?!

Starting Wednesday at 10 a.m., you can buy Dragon Tattoo tickets at Ticketmaster for $10 plus $2.30 in fees. Or you can jog over to the Lincoln Theatre box office and buy them for $10 with zero service fees. Not a bad deal!

If you cannot wait to see how brutally Fincher hacks up the first book in Stieg Larsson's series (just kidding! He might do a good job!), the film opens Tuesday evening at some area theaters. It opens Wednesday everywhere else. Lincoln Theatre's showings begin Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Landmark Theatres will sponsor The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher's $150-million Hollywood adaption of the wildly popular book, one in a trilogy of novels by the late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. In an effort to assist the city's efforts to animate the historic building, Landmark will donate all proceeds of ticket sales to the city. Screening will begin next Wednesday, the date of the film's release, with 3 screenings planned per day.

The film, which will be the first first-run movie shown at the Lincoln in recent memory, will screen for four weeks.

For a space that's too large to accommodate anything remotely alternative—there are 1,225 seats in the Lincoln—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a smart choice. The much-hyped film will almost certainly be a blockbuster, and for residents of the U Street NW corridor, walking a few blocks will surely trump a trip downtown.

The Lincoln hasn't had an easy time recently; on Dec. 31, operations of the theater will change hands from the U Street Theatre Foundation to the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities. But DCCAH will only run things temporarily, and will seek out an artistic director for the space.

Photo by Flickr user Steve Snodgrass used under a creative commons license.

From the press release:

Today, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Victor L. Hoskins took the first step in moving the Lincoln Theatre towards a new long-term sustainable plan for the future. Oversight of the new direction of the Lincoln Theatre has been delegated to the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH), the District's agency for arts and culture. "Creating a long-term sustainable structure for the management and operations of the theatre is one of the District's highest priorities. I felt it was important to move in that direction by asking DCCAH to develop a comprehensive plan for its future operations in consultation with community members and the outstanding arts related organizations we have in the city," said Victor Hoskins.

Plans are in the works to hire an artistic director to "facilitate the long-term artistic vision for the theatre and work on needed upgrades within the theatre itself."

Photo by Flickr user Steve Snodgrass used under a creative commons license.

Recently, DC Advocates for the Arts chair Robert Bettmann beat a familiar drum on the issue of the theater's still unsolved fiscal crisis: Throw more public money at it. Last week, Eli Lehrer, a vice president of the libertarian think tank Heartland Institute, countered that the Lincoln should be dumped because it's not "culturally notable."

Both Bettmann and Lehrer are wrong. The Lincoln Theatre should not be propped up indefinitely, nor should it be abandoned. Lincoln has hosted strong programming recently, including two Arena Stage seasons, an NEA Jazz Masters concert, the go-go awards, and a two-day Indian arts festival. But promoters I spoke to said it desperately lacks a competitive edge.

Mayor Vince Gray was right when he called the Lincoln's business model "not sustainable." In FY 2009, the Lincoln didn't pull in enough to cover its payroll. The theater was dark for more than half of 2010. Lack of programming revenues has left the theater's board scrambling, evidenced by its recent, unfulfilled request for a $500,000 emergency cash infusion. Fortunately, changes may soon come to the U Street Theatre Foundation, the 501(c)(3) that operates Lincoln Theatre. Victor L. Hoskins, the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, is supposedly coming up with a plan to restructure the theater's governance and operations. Those negotiations began more than two weeks ago. (Hoskins did not return my requests for an update.)

But in his HuffPo piece, Bettmann sidesteps any discussion of restructuring in favor of a guilt-trippy plea for public cash. The District has invested millions in new arts infrastructure, but it should cover basic operating expenses, too, he says. Why? Arts venues like Lincoln can't weather the crunch on nonprofits and an increase in competition:

Rental revenues are a critical component of budgets for the majority of theater venues, and with more available venues there has been increased competition for a shrinking number of rentals. The general recession has reduced the ability of outside non-profits to rent theater space. The Lincoln and other theaters are suffering from a Trickle-Up Effect of reduced earned revenue.

OK sure, nonprofits are hurting, and that probably does have an impact on some rentals. Until two years ago, the city awarded Lincoln a subsidy that would allow the theater to cut a better deal for nonprofits. Rahim Muhammad, chief instructor at the Hung Tao Choy Mei Kung Fu Academy on U Street NW, told me that he got a "slight" discount when he hosted fundraisers at the theater. No more.

But nonprofits are not the only entities who rent venues in this town. What about private promoters, like IMP, which co-hosted a Civil Wars concert there yesterday? Some of them think the Lincoln is too expensive to rent. In a public tweet she declined to elaborate on, Live Nation talent buyer Stacie George said of the Lincoln: "I tried so many times to do shows there. Most expensive theatre in all of D.C." Birchmere promoter Michael Jaworek agrees that Lincoln's price is high for its seat count (around 1,200). "It's smaller and not significantly less expensive in the marketplace," he says, which is part of what renders it "not financially competitive to entice promoters and artists' reps and artists to perform there versus other alternatives." Lincoln's one-day base rental fee is $3,450, on top of a combination of other fees that cover staffing, cleanup, and technical services, among other costs. Lincoln's general manager Darlene Brown says a single event generally costs $7,500 and above. (The 1676-seat National Theatre, by comparison, charges a rental fee of $5,000 per night, and its labor expenses are higher than Lincoln's—stagehands at National are unionized under IATSE Local 22.)

For highbrow promoters, that rate might be pretty doable. Debra Harrison, CFO of the Washington Performing Arts Society—which booked Esperanza Spalding at the Lincoln last year—told me it's "viable." She doesn't recall the crew being that expensive, either. Compare $7,500 to the Kennedy Center's astronomical rates, and the Lincoln starts to look pretty good.

What complicates matters is Lincoln's lack of a robust promotional strategy. Without marketing chutzpah, says Jaworek, the Lincoln is not able to even "minimally compete with the strongly entrenched promoters and other theaters that are funded in the marketplace." The Lincoln Theatre employed a marketing staffer as recently as 2010; when she left, she was not replaced. To make matters worse, wealthy arts patrons still view U Street NW as a scary, crime-ridden place. "It has an old reputation of being in a tough neighborhood where people don't want to go," says Harrison. She calls Lincoln Theatre one of D.C.'s "best-kept secrets." For an attractive venue located right in the center of a bustling entertainment district, that is pathetic.

Public money alone can't solve that problem. But new management and a strong public relations strategy could help.

Photo by Flickr user Steve Snodgrass used under a creative commons license.

Illustration by Brooke Hatfield
This post originally said that the U Street Theatre Foundation was scheduled to meet with the mayor's office on Tuesday. Councilmember Graham's media director clarifies that the meeting was with Deputy Mayor Hoskins. The information has been corrected.

Robbins and Lee at today's press conference at Lincoln Theatre

There was a lot of blame swirling around at today's press conference outside the Lincoln Theatre. Okay, the blame wasn't exactly swirling—it was pointed directly at Mayor Vince Gray.

Without an immediate source of funding, the historic theater on U Street may be forced to shut down—and soon. "Shame on the District for knocking the theater instead of helping it," said board member Rick Lee, who also owns Lee's Flower & Card Shop at 11th and U streets NW. He went on to criticize Gray for letting the theater "fall apart," possibly enabling it to fall into the hands of "insensitive individuals." Earlier on, Lee described the Lincoln Theatre's relationship with the District government as "a dysfunctional partnership that needs to be fixed," adding that the mayor had not returned any of the board's phone calls, preferring to speak to them "through the media."

The board is asking for a $500,000 cash infusion from the District government before the start of the next fiscal year. In other words, by Monday, the first business day in FY 2012. Board secretary Cynthia Robbins said that money would go toward simply "keeping the doors open." She could not specify when exactly the theater would shut down if it did not get immediate funding.

The mayor's office has no official response just yet. A staffer says a press release may be in progress.

Update: The mayor's office says they never received the board's request for a meeting. Mayor spokesperson Dr. Linda Wharton-Boyd said the administration tried to contact the board, but never heard back.

The original version of this post misquoted board member Rick Lee. He criticized the mayor for potentially letting the theater fall into the hands of "insensitive individuals," not "less sensitive individuals."