Arts & Entertainment
Calendar: Jan. 20
Concerts, parties, events and more through Jan. 20


Rita McKenzie stars in ‘Ethel Merman's Broadway’ playing at the Music Center at Strathmore Saturday. (Photo courtesy of Strathmore)
TODAY (Friday)
Green Lantern (1335 Green Court) hosts Mama’s Trailer Park Dance Party tonight upstairs from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., “Pop Goes the World: International Dance Party,” and a $16 Smirnoff “All-U-Can-Drink” buffet from 10 to 11:30 p.m.
Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) hosts Bear Happy Hour tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. featuring $3 rail, Bud bottles and pint drafts. There is no cover for this event and attendees must be 21 or older.
Onyx Entertainment and A 2 Zee present “Capri-quarius” tonight at Love (1350 Okie St., N.E.) from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Cover is $12 before midnight at $15 after and $20 for VIP.
Tony Award-winning musical “La Cage aux Folles” starring Christopher Sieber and George Hamilton will be at the Kennedy Center (2700 F St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $65 to $130 and can be purchased online at kennedy-center.org.
Strathmore’s Friday Night Eclectic, a mash-up of music and art, returns tonight with the Oli Brown Band with Artist in Residence alum, Margot MacDonald at the Mansion at Strathmore (10701 Rockville Pike, North Besthesda) at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door, and include a pre-concert happy hour with drink specials.
Saturday, Jan. 21
Rita McKenzie stars in “Ethel Merman’s Broadway” tonight at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda) at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $65 and can be purchased online atstrathmore.org.
Mixtape D.C. is tonight at the Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.), a dance party for queer music lovers and their pals that features DJs Shea Van Horn and Matt Bailer playing an eclectic mix of electro, alt-pop, indie rock, house, disco, new wave and anything else danceable. There is a $10 cover for this event. Doors open at 9:30 p.m.
Spunk-E Productions presents “Ink” at Green Lantern (1335 Green Court, N.W.) tonight from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. featuring music by DJ T-one and a “Show Your Tats” contest.
Freddie’s Beach Bar (555 23rd St., S., Arlington) is hosting a winter champagne brunch today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The brunch buffet includes four mimosas, champagne or bloody marys or attendees can order a la carte. Fifteen percent of the proceeds will benefit Capital Queer Prom and Transgender Health Empowerment.
Queer electro-dance-rock band Glitterlust plays DC9 (1940 9th St., N.W.) tonight with J Street. Cover is $8 and doors open at 9 p.m.
The Imperial Court of Washington presents the Miss Faux Queen Pageant today at Remingtons (639 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.) at 4 p.m. Admission is $10 and all proceeds benefit the Imperial Court and Mautner Project. Doors open at 3 p.m. For more information, call 703-593-1282.
D.C. Lambda Squares is having its first community dance of 2012 tonight at Francis Scott Key Middle School (910 Schindler Drive, Silver Spring) from 7 to 10 p.m. featuring Betsy Gotta calling. Admission is $10 per dancer. For more information, visit dclambdasquares.org.
Sunday, Jan. 22
Judy Collins performs tonight at Wolf Trap (1645 Trap Rd., Vienna) at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased online at wolftrap.org.
Busboys & Poets presents “Mature Voices,” an open mic for performers 55 and older, hosted by Saleem Wayne Waters and featuring Queen Aishah tonight in the Zinn room of its Hyattsville location (5331 Baltimore Ave., Suite 104) at 6 p.m. For more information, visit busboysandpoets.com.
NOVA Gay and Lesbian Professionals and D.C. Ice Breakers are co-hosting a French wine tasting and social tonight at Total Wine (1451 Chain Bridge Road, McLean) from 6 to 8 p.m. featuring a tasting of eight wines. Tickets are $25 and RSVP is required by emailing [email protected].
Monday, Jan. 23
Bryan Adams performs at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda) tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $45 to $65 and can be purchased online at strathmore.org.
Green Lantern (1335 Green Court, N.W.) hosts Bears Do Yoga from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. upstairs followed by Queer Pong hosted by Andy from 8 p.m. to midnight.
WEAVE, a support group for LGBT survivors of intimate partner violence/abuse will be meeting from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Lighthouse Center for Healing (5321 First Place, N.E.). For more information and to register, call 202-280-6391.
SAGE Metro D.C. is hosting a presentation on discriminatory treatment of older LGBT persons and same-sex couples and how an attorney can help, by Henry Nash, an estates, trusts and elder law attorney, at the D.C. Center (1318 U St., N.W.) starting at 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Jan. 24
Black Cat (1811 14th St., N.W.) presents “Bare!: True Stories of Sex, Desire and Romance” tonight at 8 p.m. featuring J.T. Bullock, Derek Hills, Jennifer Luu, S.M. Shrake and musical guest Kimi Lundie. The night’s theme is “firsts.” Admission is $8.
Join Burgundy Crescent Volunteers to help pack safer sex kits from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight at FUK!T’s packing location, Green Lantern, 1335 Green Ct., N.W.
Wednesday, Jan. 25
Aimee Mann performs tonight at the Birchmere (3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria) with John Roderick at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $49.50 and can be purchased online at ticketmaster.com. For more information, visitbirchmere.com.
Busboys & Poets presents Sparkle Open Mic Poetry, a queer-friendly reading series hosted by Regie Cabico and Danielle Evennou in the Cullen room of its 5th and K location (1025 5th St., N.W.) at 9 p.m. Wristbands are $4 and will be sold in the Global Exchange store beginning at 11 a.m.
The Lambda Bridge Club meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., SE — across from Marine Barracks) for duplicate bridge. No reservations needed; newcomers welcome. Visit lambdabridge.com if you need a partner.
Thursday, Jan. 26
Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) holds its monthly meeting tonight in the main room at the D.C. Center (1318 U St., N.W.) from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
The Lambda Sci-Fi Book Group meets today at 1425 S St., N.W. This month’s book is “Kushiel’s Dart” by Jacqueline Carey. Attendees are asked to bring a snack and/or non-alcoholic drink to share. For more information, email [email protected], [email protected] or visit the group’s website lambdascifi.org.
Television
ICYMI: ‘Overcompensating’ a surprisingly sweet queer treat
A sweet, savvy show about breaking free to embrace your true self

Pride month 2025 is now behind us, and while it’s safe to say that this year’s celebrations had a darker edge than usual, it’s also true that they came with a particularly rich bounty of new queer movies and shows to entertain us – so many, in fact, that even if we are facing a lull until the fall another harvest of fresh content, there are still plenty of titles – which, for whatever reason, were off your radar – for you to catch up on in the meantime.
One of the most notable of these – the bingeworthy series “Overcompensating” (now streaming on Amazon Prime) – will most definitely have been ON the radar for the plentiful fans of creator and star Benito Skinner, the actor/comedian who rose to viral fame through his content on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. For anyone else, it might have easily slipped through the cracks.
Created and written by Skinner as a loosely autobiographical “college comedy,” it aims for the kind of raucous, explicitly sexed-up tone one expects from the genre as it centers on Benny (Skinner), newly arrived as a freshman at prestigious Yates University. A former football jock and “golden boy” at his midwestern high school, he’s the picture of idealized youthful masculinity; he’s also deep in the closet, struggling to keep his sexuality hidden and maintain his macho front under the intense scrutiny of the college’s social scene – and under the resentful eye of his older sister Grace (Mary Beth Barone), who has already secured her own place at the top of the pecking order.
In the first episode, Benny’s difficulties are eased when he meets Carmen (Wally Baram), another freshman trying to navigate the politics of college life; a gamer from a home marred by tragedy, she’s an outsider who feels like she’s putting on an act, too, and they click – giving him the convenient “cover” of female companionship while providing them both with much-needed support and encouragement. He’s also befriended by a handsome film major from England (Rish Shah), who has already caught his eye, stirring other kinds of feelings and possibly even reciprocating them. Meanwhile, he’s being courted by the school’s “exclusive secret society” – headed by his sister’s aggressively “alpha” boyfriend Pete (Adam DiMarco) – and trying to stay interested in his studies, despite a growing realization that a career in business doesn’t actually appeal to him all that much.
That’s a lot to juggle for anybody, even an overachiever like Benny – whose “lucky” life so far has largely been the result of playing a role he is finding harder and harder to maintain. As the series goes on through its eight-episode arc, it becomes clear that he’s not the only one who is “keeping up appearances,” and he, along with the other confused and damaged young people in his orbit, begins the painful (but often hilarious) process of evolution that is required in order to become truly oneself.
Directed toward appealing to a younger demographic, “Overcompensating” is the kind of show that requires a few episodes worth of invested time to make an impression that feels like substance. Full of the bawdy farcical antics that go hand in hand with stories about hormonally charged college kids, it’s not above leaning into the formulas and tropes that have always driven these kinds of comedies. At first, while its broadly comedic strokes and frequently explicit sexual hijinks might elicit plenty of chuckles, the show might easily feel tiresome for more mature audiences; there’s a nostalgic fun to it, made even more appealing, somehow, by the “political incorrectness” of its frequently sexist and homophobic humor, but for a while things may feel like an unnecessary attempt to reinvent “Animal House” for the Gen Z crowd.
By the time the season reaches its halfway point, however, things have started to get real. The antics of these horny almost-adults take on a more pointed absurdity, informed by the increasingly tangled web of defensive deceit they weave among themselves – and, as things draw toward a cliffhanger climax, the consequences of maintaining it – until it achieves a sense of empathy toward them all. There’s a wisdom that smacks of lived authenticity underlying the whole affair, transforming it from the “sexploitative” teen comedy of its surface into something deeper. To be sure, things stay expectedly wacky, and the soap-operatic melodrama of its twists and reversals continue to maintain the show’s “mature YA” appeal; but beneath those trappings, by the end of the season a truer identity has begun to emerge, just as its characters have begun to find their own levels of self-actualization for themselves.
As creator, primary writer, and star, it’s obviously Skinner who deserves much of the credit. While it might be tempting, early on, to dismiss the show as an “ego project,” the internet-spawned sensation proves his talents quickly enough to get past such judgy suspicions, delivering a pitch-perfect blend of sauciness and sensitivity that extends its appeal toward both ends of the taste spectrum; just as crucially, he brings the same aforementioned “lived authenticity” to his winning performance – after all, he’s essentially playing himself in a fictionalized version of his own life – while also making sure that equal time (and compassion) is afforded all the other characters around him, each of whom are pushing at the boundaries of their own respective “closets,” too. It’s unavoidable to notice that – like most of his co-stars – he’s plainly a decade too old to be playing a college student; but by the time we reach that crucial halfway turning point, we’ve become too engaged by him to care.
The show is full of excellent performances, in fact. Relative newcomers Baram and Barone offer layers of complex nuance, while the more familiar DiMarco (“White Lotus”) is close to heartbreaking as the toxic BMOC clinging to the illusion of power as his life begins unraveling around him. Other standouts include the mononymic actress Holmes as Carmen’s “wild child” roommate, solidly likable turns as Benny’s parents from mature veterans Connie Britten and Kyle MacLachlan (whose presence, along with stylish elements in several key scenes, hints at an homage-ish nod to the late David Lynch), and podcaster Owen Thiele as an openly gay fellow student who has Benny “clocked” from the moment they meet. Finally, Lukas Gage makes a deep impression as a former high school teammate at the heart of Benny’s most haunting memory.
There’s no official word yet on whether “Overcompensating” will be renewed for a second season, despite the multiple loose ends left dangling at the end of its first; it has proven to be popular, and Skinner’s large fanbase makes it likely that the story will continue. Even if it doesn’t, the place of uncertainty in which it has left its characters rings true enough to serve as a satisfying endpoint.
As for us, we hope that won’t happen. For all its sophomoric humor, generic plot twists, and purposefully gratuitous sexual titillation, it’s one of the sweetest, kindest, and most savvy shows we’ve seen about breaking free from conformity to embrace your true self – and that’s a message that applies whether you’re queer, straight, or anywhere in between.
Photos
PHOTOS: Independence Day Weekend in Rehoboth
Wicked Green Pool Party, fireworks among festivities

Vacationers and residents alike enjoyed Independence Day Weekend activities in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The Wicked Green Pool Party drew hundreds to the CAMP Rehoboth fundraiser on Saturday. That evening, revelers went to the rooftops to watch the fireworks display.
(Washington Blade photos by Daniel Truitt)













Music & Concerts
Red, White, and Beyoncé: Queen Bey takes Cowboy Carter to D.C. for the Fourth of July
The legendary music icon performed on July 4 and 7 to a nearly sold-out Northwest Stadium.

Just in time for Independence Day, Beyoncé lit up Landover’s Commanders Field (formerly FedEx Field) with fireworks and fiery patriotism, bringing her deeply moving and genre-defying “Cowboy Carter” tour to the Washington, D.C. area.
The tour, which takes the global icon across nine cities in support of her chart-topping and Grammy-winning country album “Cowboy Carter,” landed in Prince George’s County, Maryland, over the Fourth of July weekend. From the moment Beyoncé stepped on stage, it was clear this was more than just a concert — it was a reclamation.
Drawing from classic Americana, sharp political commentary, and a reimagined vision of country music, the show served as a powerful reminder of how Black Americans — especially Black women — have long been overlooked in spaces they helped create. “Cowboy Carter” released in March 2024, is the second act in Beyoncé’s genre-traversing trilogy. With it, she became the first Black woman to win a Grammy for Best Country Album and also took home the coveted Album of the Year.
The record examines the Black American experience through the lens of country music, grappling with the tension between the mythology of the American Dream and the lived realities of those historically excluded from it. That theme comes alive in the show’s opening number, “American Requiem,” where Beyoncé sings:
“Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but
If that ain’t country, tell me, what is?
Plant my bare feet on solid ground for years
They don’t, don’t know how hard I had to fight for this
When I sing my song…”
Throughout the performance, Beyoncé incorporated arresting visuals: Black cowboys on horseback, vintage American iconography, and Fox News clips criticizing her genre shift — all woven together with voiceovers from country legends like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. The result was a multimedia masterclass in storytelling and subversion.
The “Cowboy Carter” tour has been a social media sensation for weeks, with fans scrambling for tickets, curating elaborate “cowboy couture” outfits, and tailgating under the summer sun. At Commanders Field, thousands waited in long lines for exclusive merch and even longer ones to enter the stadium — a pilgrimage that, for many, felt more like attending church than a concert.
One group out in full force for the concert was Black queer men — some rocking “denim on denim on denim on denim,” while others opted for more polished Cowboy Couture looks. The celebration of Black identity within Americana was ever-present, making the concert feel like the world’s biggest gay country-western club.
A standout moment of the night was the appearance of Beyoncé’s 13-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. Commanding the stage with poise and power, she matched the intensity and choreography of her mother and the professional dancers — a remarkable feat for someone her age and a clear sign that the Carter legacy continues to shine.
It’s been nearly two decades since Beyoncé and Destiny’s Child parted ways, and since then, she’s more than lived up to her title as the voice of a generation. With “Cowboy Carter,” she’s not just making music — she’s rewriting history and reclaiming the space Black artists have always deserved in the country canon.
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