Getting Up Guide: New plays and bad owners

What are your plans tonight?

Every weekday in the Getting Up Guide, we'll offer our picks for the day's best happenings to help you answer that question before you've even finished your morning coffee. From concerts and plays with good seats still available to gallery openings, happy hours and restaurant deals, check back here each morning. Here's what's happening on Wednesday:

MFA Playwrights Workshop Readings

Just because the Capital Fringe Festival is over doesn't mean you're out of chances to familiarize yourself with the world of emerging theater. At the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage at 6 p.m., ascendant playwrights from Master of Fine Arts programs at Yale, Juilliard, New York University, Northwestern and the University of Southern California use D.C. actors to voice newly-written works whose titles might be seen in lights on a marquee before too long.

Dave Zirin on "Bad Sports"

We're not naming any names here; let's just say that fans of a few beloved Washington/Baltimore sports franchises are authorities on the subject of chronic mismanagement by team owners. So is Dave Zirin, the acerbic sportswriter for the Nation whose new book, "Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love," should ring true to anyone who has ever paid $40 to park on a dusty field more than a mile from the stadium; Zirin will discuss and sign copies of the book at 6:30 p.m. at the Busboys and Poets on 14th Street.

NoMa Summer Screen: 'Groundhog Day'

It seems like just yesterday that the e-mails announcing one outdoor film series after another began to populate our inbox. It's fitting, then, that NoMa Summer Screen's films have all concerned the passage of time since the showcase's 12-week run ends Wednesday, marking the beginning of the end for movies-under-the-stars season. Head L Street between Second and Third streets NE one last time in 2010 to watch Bill Murray re-live the same Punxsutawney day over and over again. The barbecuing starts at 7 p.m. and the film starts around 9 p.m. (Update: Because of an earlier rain-out, "Donnie Darko" is scheduled to be shown Aug. 4).

-- Alex Baldinger