Mario Correa was born in Chile, grew up in Bethesda (Walt Whitman High School class of 1987) and spent the first part of his career working on Capitol Hill. Now a screenwriter and playwright in Los Angeles, the 55-year-old recently wrote N/A, a two-woman play inspired by the tense political relationship between U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I was interested in the intersection of two things I really care about, which is women in politics and the role of Latinos in American society,” Correa says of the off-Broadway show that had a summer run in New York City. Correa says he hopes to find other venues to host the play, including theaters in the Washington, D.C., area.
As a mom of two young boys, Rockville’s Brooke Washington says she knows how hard it can be to find someone to watch the kids when you need time to yourself. In August, she opened The Tot Space at 1321A Rockville Pike in Rockville. Parents can drop off their 3- to 6-year-olds there to do yoga, art or just play. “It’s an interactive place that is like a social club for toddlers,” says Washington, 36, who graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, studied psychology in college and has experience with startups. When filling up the nearly 4,000-square-foot space before opening, she says her sons, Zyere, 6, and Zaron, 4, picked out many of the cars and trains, and gave the thumbs up on the climbing dome and basketball hoop.
In June, Dawson’s Market lost its lease in Rockville Town Square and closed down. The grocery store’s owner, Bart Yablonsky, pivoted. The 54-year-old decided to go into the dog care business as an operating partner at Scenthound, which offers routine hygiene and wellness services (baths, ear cleanings, nail trimming and teeth brushing). “I’ve had horses, cats, dogs and fish, so I’ve always loved working with animals,” says Yablonsky, who grew up in Baltimore and lives in North Potomac. He now oversees five franchise locations (Kentlands and Clarksburg in Maryland; Fairfax, Reston and Lansdowne in Virginia) and says there’s been some overlap with some of his former grocery store customers. “We still have that connection, so that’s great,” Yablonsky says. “Close to half the population has a dog, so hopefully we’ll see more of those people coming in.”
Peter Lovenheim says he was initially annoyed, but then inspired, when a tour at the home of impressionist painter Claude Monet in France required visitors to leave through the gift shop. “We’re all going to exit this life at some point,” says the 71-year-old journalist and author who lives in Chevy Chase. “If you think of the items in the gift shop as symbols of the gifts we’ve received in life, then exiting with that in mind, with a notion of gratitude, that’s not a bad way to exit.” His book Gift Shop of Gratitude: A Journal to Explore the Journey of Your Life (G&D Media, November 2024) is full of writing prompts that weave snow globes and playing cards into invitations for readers to reflect on meaningful moments and people. Adds Lovenheim: “I hope readers will end with a really priceless record of the best parts of their lives that they can hand down to their children and grandchildren as a legacy of who they were.”
Charlotte Gaiser has been playing music and performing since she was a toddler—often alongside her dad, Sean Gaiser, owner of GIGS, a music studio in Kensington. The 12-year-old plays guitar and ukulele, sings and writes music. “An idea just comes in my head and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to say this’ or ‘I have to write this down.’ And I record it right then,” says Charlotte, a seventh grader at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda. This past summer she recorded three original songs at Buzzlounge Recording Studio in Baltimore and released them on her debut EP, Songbird, available to stream on Spotify. Charlotte performed the songs—and many others—alongside her dad and three other professional musicians during a nearly three-hour show in July at GIGS Courtyard with an audience of more than 250.
After a long day of caring for her terminally ill mother, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS) in 2010, Cyndy Mamalian says she used to find herself drawn to her computer to write. “It was my way of processing everything going on in the house,” says the 54-year-old. Her mother, Barbara Nahabedian, lived the last two years of her life in Mamalian’s Potomac home—along with Mamalian’s father, husband and three children. Those late-night notes became a collection of essays and advice on managing end-of-life care in her book, Scratch My Itch: A Caregiver’s Honest, Humorous, and Healing Stories About the Horrors of ALS (Resource Publications, June 2024). “It’s OK to have all the emotions—the good, the bad, and the ugly—they’re all part of it,” she says. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to ALS research.
Watching the TV show Name That Tune with her family, listening to all types of music, and doing practice rounds of the game show on road trips paid off for Gavriella Kaufmann, who lives in Potomac. The 26-year-old graduate of Winston Churchill High School recently won $85,000 on the Fox show. “After filming, you forget you did it and think, ‘Was I really on a game show?’ ” says Kaufmann, an influencer and digital content creator with a focus on fashion, lifestyle and beauty. The show was shot in Dublin in December 2023, and when it aired in August, she says it was a “full-circle moment” to have friends and family rooting for her at watch parties. “It was something I always wanted to do,” she says.
Have an idea for People Watching? Email editorial@MoCo360.media.
This story appears in the November/December 2024 issue of Bethesda Magazine.
