Arts & Entertainment
Calendar: April 6
Parties, concerts, support groups and more through April 12


Video Games Live returns to the Music Center at Strathmore with ‘Bonus Round’ on Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.
TODAY (Friday)
Busboys & Poets presents First Fridays: A Local Arts Exploration today at 5:30 p.m. in the Zinn room at its Hyattsville location (5331 Baltimore Ave., Suite 104). This event combines a reception, artist talk and the opportunity to meet local artists and see their work. This month presenters are Aaron Sinift, MIchael Singletary, Song Byeok and Human Landscape Dance. Light hors d’oeuvres and wine will be served. This is a free event.
Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance, Alexandria Gay and Lesbian Community Association, GoGayDC, GayDigerati, NoVA GL Professionals and D.C. Ice Breakers are some of the groups that will be at a meet-up event at Kora Restaurant (2250 Crystal Drive, #B, Arlington) tonight from 6 to 8 p.m.
Town (2009 8th St., N.W.) presents “Madonnarama” featuring DJ Ed Bailey with performances by the Dance Camp and the Ladies of Town tonight at 10 p.m. Attendees must be 21 or older. There is an $8 cover before 11 p.m. and $12 after.
DJs Joey O and Chord Bezerra will be spinning at Cobalt (1639 R St., N.W.) tonight at 10 p.m. Free vodka drinks from 11 p.m. to midnight. There’s a $10 cover until midnight, then its $8.
Saturday, April 7
Blowoff, a dance party featuring gay DJs Bob Mould and Richard Morel, will be at 9:30 club (815 V St., N.W.) tonight. Doors open at 11:30 p.m. Attendees must be 21 or older. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at 930.com.
Code has its monthly installment tonight at Green Lantern (1335 Green Court, N.W.). Gear, rubber, skin, uniform or leather dress code will be strictly enforced. Music provided by DJ Frank Wild. Admission is $10. All attendees must be 18 or older. There will be an open bar from 9 to 10 p.m.
Strathmore presents “Video Games Live: Bonus Round” at the Music Center (5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda) with two concerts today at 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $76 and can be purchased online at strathmore.org.
Riot Act Comedy Theater (801 E St., N.W.) presents the graduates of Brad Trackman Comedy School at Riot Act in a show today at 3:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online atriotactcomedy.com.
Burgundy Crescent Volunteers will be working with the Lost Dog & Cat Foundation at Petsmart (6100 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church) from 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. as dog handlers for adoption events. All volunteers get paired with a dog to walk around inside and outside the store and be given basic information if someone shows interest in adopting the dog. To volunteer, email[email protected].
Sunday, April 8
Focus-In! Films presents “Howl” as its April Film of the Month and in celebration of National Poetry Month with a screening at Busboys & Poets’s 14th and V streets location (2021 14th St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. The film stars James Franco as a young Allen Ginsberg. This is a free screening.
LGBT science fiction, fantasy and horror group Lambda Sci-Fi is having its monthly meeting today, including election of officers and social with annual blind book exchange at 1425 S St., N.W., at 1:30 p.m. Attendees are asked to bring a snack or a non-alcoholic drink to share. For more information contact James at 202-232-3141 or Peter and Rob at 202-483-6369, email to [email protected], or visit the group’s website at lambdascifi.org.
The D.C. Kings are performing their New King show tonight at Phase 1 (525 8th St. S.E.) at 10 p.m. hosted by Rocky and Vintage Swag. Performers for the night include Avery Austin, Jamie Son, Sabastian Katz and more. Doors open at 7 p.m. and there’s a $10 cover. In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, this show will be a fundraiser for the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. ASL interpretation will be available.
Monday, April 9
Rude Boi Entertainment and Tomboyz Quarterly present a LGBT Reggae and Latin dance partytonight at Patty Boom Boom (1359 U St., N.W.) starting at 7 p.m. There is a $10 donation at the door. Proceeds will support Youth Pride Alliance.
D.C.’s Different Drummers Marching Band is kicking off its new season tonight with an open house at L2 Lounge (3315 Cady’s Alley, N.W.) at 7 p.m. For more information, email band director at[email protected].
Tuesday, April 10
D.C. Bi Women will have its monthly dinner at Dupont Italian Kitchen (1637 17th St., N.W.) tonight from 7 to 9 p.m.
Cobalt’s (1639 R St., N.W.) weekly “Flashback: ‘70s/’80s/’90s Retro Dance Party” is tonight with special guest, ‘80s pop star Tiffany performing live. There is no cover for this event and doors open at 9 p.m.
Kaiser Chiefs play Rams Head Live (20 Market Place, Baltimore) tonight with Spacecamp. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at tickets.ramsheadlive.com. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, April 11
Rainbow Response is holding its monthly meeting tonight at the D.C. Center (1318 U St., N.W.) from 7 to 8 p.m.
Busboys & Poets presents Wednesday night Open Mic Poetry hosted by “2Deep” the Poetess 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.
The Big Gay Book Group will meet tonight at 7 p.m. at 1155 F Street, N.W., Suite 200. The book discussed will be “The Boys in the Band” by Mart Crowley. For more information, visit biggaybookgroup.com or e-mail biggaybookgroup@
Thursday, April 12
D.C. Lambda Squares, a local gay square dancing group, is having its annual meeting tonight as well as its weekly club night with advanced and challenge at National City Christian Church (5 Thomas Circle, N.W.) from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Stonewall Bocce meets tonight at Nellie’s (900 U St., N.W.) at 6:30 p.m. For more information, visit stonewallsports.org/bocce.html
Touchstone Gallery (901 New York Ave., N.W.) presents two new exhibits “Spirit and Enigma” featuring ceramic sculptures by Bill Mould and “String theory” featuring works by Elena Tchernomazova. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit touchstonegallery.com.
Television
How this Texas drag king reclaimed their identity
Chicano performance art serves as inspiration

Three out of ten drag kings who were cast for this first season of King of Drag self-identified as Latinx and after episode two, only one Latinx king remains in the running for the competition.
Buck Wylde, a king from Dallas, Texas delivered a performance that took inspiration from their Catholic upbringing and Catholic school days to put together this persona. During the episode, they shared that they like to “play with religion.”
Murray Hill responded by adding, “sometimes we can’t afford to go to therapy for the Catholic guilt, so we do drag.” Buck Wylde says their therapy and their church is drag.
Buck Wylde, cancer sign, goes by Trigger Mortis when they are outside of drag and present more on the femme side. Along with Big D—another drag king on the series—they are the only two who are more femme outside of their drag persona.
During this episode, Buck Wylde also spoke about the difficulty of performing drag in a red state. They live in conservative Dallas, so they still struggle to find large-scale acceptance and support in the midst of statewide legislation targeting the LGBTQ community in Texas.
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel [as] safe as [I] would like it to be. There’s protesters all the time and we don’t have as many spaces to perform as kings there,” they said in the interview.
Buck Wylde says that for them, the most important thing about drag, is that it is and always has been a protest.
Living in a conservative state is a challenge to them as a drag king, but they say that it’s important for them to stand their ground and not only bring that representation to these areas, but also intentionally keep it there.
“So many people leave Texas for their safety and mental health to go to Portland, LA, or Colorado Springs or you know, anywhere but here.”
During the episode, Buck Wylde also opened up about how their religious background and cultural heritage added an extra layer to their identity issues growing up where they did. Their family wanted them to assimilate and even prevented them from speaking Spanish and they say that through Buck, they are able to re-examine what it means to be a part of that culture.
Buck Wylde is a third generation Mexican-American and they say that though their Spanish is not fluent, they say they do prefer their horchata without (ICE).
“I kind of straddled different worlds there, because I was sort of assimilated but I still had my Mexican culture. I always felt like I wasn’t connected enough because of the assimilation and it was through drag that I was able to reclaim my culture.”
In the first round of competitions for the second episode, the kings broke up into three teams of three for an improv skit where they would have to mansplain a topic and whichever team did it the best—won the group Weenie Challenge.
The winning team included Buck Wylde, Alexander the Great and Henlo Bullfrog. Together they improvised a skit where they mansplained the Amelia Earhart story.
For the solo show, they dressed up as ‘The Devil’ for the improv solo challenge, cracking a joke about how they are dressed like the person currently living in The White House.
Dressed as the Devil, sporting a Zoot Suit for the final competition, Buck Wylde improvised a skit with food.
Buck Wylde says they felt the pressure to perform because along with the other nine kings who were cast, they are the first ten kings to make it to the mainstream and represent king culture.
“We call ourselves the first ten because whatever happens, we’re responsible for how the kings are viewed and how we move forward together, being the blueprint for what’s to come,” said Buck Wylde in an exclusive interview with Los Angeles Blade.
Back stage before the solo improv competition, Buck Wylde says they felt their drag persona “crumbling” away.
They felt like Buck had abandoned them prior to their big moments to prove to the judges that they should stay in the running for the competition. They went up against Perka $exxx, who gave a king-based Dave Chappell performance.
In the end, it was Perka $exxx who received a 4-1 vote from the judges.
Buck Wylde left the show with some advice for the kings and the audience: “No matter what life throws at you, always remember who the Buck you are.”
King of Drag is now available to stream on RevryTV, an LGBTQ streaming platform for queer movies, TV shows, music and more — all for free. New King of Drag episodes will premiere weekly on Sundays.

The Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs will host “Black LGBTQ+ History Preservation Committee Public Meeting” on Wednesday, July 16 at 6 p.m. at 899 North Capitol St., N.E.
Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Black LGBTQ+ History Preservation Committee will discuss their upcoming grant project. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and network with committee members. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Theater
Exciting lineup on tap for theater festival in Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Queer artists play prominent roles in various productions

Contemporary American Theater Festival
Through Aug. 3
Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Catf.org
As a queer Latino freelance costume designer, Christopher Vergara’s work has taken him from Broadway to a multitude of regional outposts and companies worldwide. Over the last decade, he’s lent his prodigious talents to theater, opera, TV, and film, and beyond.
Currently the native New Yorker is costuming playwright Mark St. Germain’s new two-hander “Magdalene,” now making its world premiere at the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in historic, queer-friendly Shepherdstown, W.Va. (just a 90-minute drive from D.C.).
“Magdalene”is the story of Peter reconnecting with the banished Mary Magdalene and discussing their widely divergent memories of Christ. At 90 minutes without costume changes, it may not sound like a big job, but Vergara applies his usual meticulous consideration.
“It’s not the Bible pageant you might see at church,” he says. As a costume designer, Vergara approaches all new works by delving deep into the script with collaborators.
“I like to do what I call a visual dramaturgy, to read the script and take it in aiming to arrive at a sort of truth, not necessarily historically accurate.
“Without being period, I get to what their world was like in some way. And because the play’s conversation is contemporary, I’m inspired by both old and new lines and fabrics. It’s speaking to us now but set in a different time.”
Born and raised in New York, Vergara learned to sew at the side of his Panamanian grandmother. “Growing up I was enthralled. She had an amazing Singer machine that could sew through steel. But it was always a covert thing. Boys shouldn’t be sewing.”
He put his skills to use at Valparaiso University in Indiana where while majoring in music he found a well-paying and flexible job in the costume shop. After graduation he returned to New York and entered a Juilliard apprentice program concentrating on a costume track and a busy career has ensued. His vast résumé includes Broadway shows like “Here Lies Love” and the revival of “The Color Purple”among numerous others; he was associate designer for a production of “Ben-Hur” in Rome that featured a cast of more than 200 with 1,000 costumes.
Vergara is enjoying his introduction to CATF. “Initially I was feeling a little apprehensive. I’d never been to West Virginia before, but when I saw all the Pride flags lining the main street in Shepherdstown, any misgivings were dispelled,” he says.

CATF also presents “Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular” by Lisa Sanaye Dring with Rogue Artists Ensemble. Based on true life events, it’s the story of queer Hollywood stuntmen navigating the dangers of exposing their love. Living up to the “spectacular” bit in the title, the guys’ story is told through video, puppetry, illusions, and live stunts.
The playwright says “I’m queer so I’m interested in queerness, and I’ve also been interested in masculinity for some time. I lived in LA for 10 years so the play is a love letter to Hollywood and the weirdness of the industry.”
Also, of interest to Sanaye Dring is the interracial and intergenerational relationship at the play’s center: Clay is a white man in his late 40s and Felix is mid-20s and Asian (played Aubrey Deeker and Glenn Morizio, respectively).
Her transition from actor (including commercials and some TV) to playwright can be traced back to her one-woman show titled “Death Play,” a work spurred by the passing of her parents and grandmother. “It wasn’t easy. I hadn’t anticipated just how emotionally difficult that five-week run would be. It was after that when people started asking me to write plays and direct.”
CATF Artistic Director Peggy McKowen describes this year’s festival as being “about understanding the things that make us unique, but also the things that make us similar,” adding that it also explores “questioning who are as people and how we fit into our community.”
Here are the other new works in the festival’s exciting lineup.
West Virginia-born playwright Cody LeRoy Wilson’s “Did My Grandfather Kill My Grandfather?”It recounts the unlikely journey of his blended family from Vietnam to Plum Run, W. Va.
In “Kevin Kling: Unraveled” NPR commentator Kevin Kling tells the story of finding his way as a disabled artist. With humor, he reflects the life challenges he has surmounted, including a congenital birth disorder and partial paralysis from a near-fatal motorcycle accident.
And finally, playwright Lisa Loomer’s “Side Effects May Include…,” a work that takes audiences on a frightening and complex trip into the world of psychiatry as a mother tries to help her son on his journey to wellness.
CATF runs through Aug. 3 in three varied venues on the Shepherd University campus: Frank Center, Marinoff Theater, and Studio 112.