Connect with us

Arts & Entertainment

Calendar: Nov. 2-8, 2018

Reel Affirmations fest, HIPS anniversary, Wanda Sykes and more for the week ahead

Published

on

LGBT DC events Nov. 2018, gay news, Washington Blade

Wanda Sykes plays the Strathmore this weekend. (Photo by Derek Wood)

Friday, Nov. 2

The D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) presents Exile Fridays featuring the D.C. Eagle’s Birds of Prey tonight at 10 p.m. This is the only 18-and-over weekly drag show in the District. Ba’Naka hosts the night with performances by Brooklyn Heights, Iyana Deschanel, Sasha Adams Sanchez and Gigi Paris Couture. Linda Lector will appear as a special guest. DJ Ryan Doubleyou will spin tracks. Showtime is at 10:30 p.m. For more information, visit dceagle.com.

Reel Affirmations Film Festival screens “Eva+Candela” at GALA Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. The film tells the story of two professional women who start a love affair. The Six-Pack Film Pass is $65 and includes entry to six films and priority and reserved seating. The Festival Pass is $150 and includes entry to 14 film screenings; the All Access Festival Pass is $175 and gives access to 14 film screenings and entry to the filmmaker reception; the MovieStar Pass is $225 and includes an All Access Pass and complimentary cocktails, non-alcoholic beverages, popcorn and movie candy. The Moviemogul Pass is $350 and includes all MovieStar perks and a six-month pass to Reel Affirmations films. For more details, visit reelaffirmations.org.

HIPS celebrates its 25th anniversary at the Whittemore House (1526 New Hampshire Ave., N.W.) tonight from 6:30-9:30 p.m. “Pose” star and transgender rights advocate Angelica Ross will receive the Hero Award. There will be a reception, auction and a main program. Tickets are $75. For more information, visit hips25th.com.

Saturday, Nov. 3

Stonewall Kickballs’ District Jocks hosts Cornhole for a Cause, a tournament benefitting SMYAL, at Stead Park (1519 17th St., N.W.) today from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Registration fee is $50 per team of two people. The fee includes tournament entry, 15 raffle tickets for each players, two drink tickets to JR.’s, a day pass to VIDA and a drink bracelet for specials at JR.’s and Nellie’s Sports Bar for the after party. Tournament prizes include three free months at Vida, three free training sessions at Vida, a $100 gift card to Aura Spa, Washington Capital tickets and more. Deadline for registration is midnight on Nov. 2. 

Reel Affirmations Film Festival screens “Trans Youth” at GALA Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St., N.W.) tonight at 7 p.m. The documentary follows seven transgender young adults as they deal with family, love, transition, hormone therapy and more. Tickets are $12. Film passes are also available. For more information, visit reelaffiramtions.org.

Reel Affirmations Film Festival Screening presents “Fun in Girls Shorts” at the Gala Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St., N.W.) tonight from 6-8 p.m. The women’s short film showcase will include the films “Momo,” “Marguerite,” “Freedom,” “Foxy Trot,” Getting Started” and “Lesbehonest.” There will be a director talkback after the screenings. Tickets are $12. Film passes are also available. For more details, visit reelaffiramtions.org.

Wanda Sykes performs at the Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Ln., North Bethesda, Md.) tonight at 7:30 p.m. General admission tickets range from $35-115.VIP tickets are $215 and include a premium seat and a meet and greet with Sykes. For more information, visit strathmore.org.

Sunday, Nov. 4

Reel Affirmations Film Festival Screening presents “Genderqueer Shorts” at Gala Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St., N.W.) today from 4-5:30 p.m. The films focus on gender non-conforming/genderqueer subjects and include titles such as “Mrs. McCutcheon,” “Femme,” Mimicry” and more. Tickets are $12. Film passes are also available. For more details, visit reelaffiramtions.org.

New Orchestra of Washington celebrates Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with a performance of “Mozart’s Requiem” at the Mexican Cultural Institute of D.C. (2829 16th St., N.W.) today at 4 p.m. New Orchestra of Washington will be joined by the Choral Arts Society of Washington and the Aeolus Quarter. Tickets are $95. For more information, visit neworchestraofwashington.org.

Monday, Nov. 5

The D.C. Center (2000 14th St., N.W..) hosts coffee drop-in hours this morning from 10 a.m.-noon for the senior LGBT community. Older LGBT adults can come and enjoy complimentary coffee and conversation with other community members. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.

Tuesday, Nov. 6

Lesbian singer/songwriter Jennifer Knapp performs at the Wine Garden in City Winery (1350 Okie St., N.E.) tonight at 9 p.m. General admission tickets are $14.VIP tickets are $85 and include access to Knapp’s pre-show soundcheck, a pre-show meet and greet, one item of merchandise and reserved show seating. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit citywinery.com.

Rogue Cornhole hosts a drag bingo fundraiser at Nellie’s Sports Bar (900 U St., N.W.) tonight from 7-9 p.m. Sasha Adams and Brooklyn Heights hosts the show. Nellie’s will donate $1 for every Tito’s Vodka and soda or Nellie’s beer sold. All proceeds raised will benefit charities such as the Trevor Project, Casa Ruby, the D.C. Center, SMYAL and more. Nellie’s will also be airing the midterm election results. 

18th & U Duplex Diner (2004 18th St., N.W.) hosts Election Night Drag Bingo tonight from 7-10 p.m. Goldie Grigio hosts the show. Guests can win prizes and shots playing bingo. The major news channels will be on the TVs all night. For more details, visit facebook.com/duplexdiner.

Wednesday, Nov. 7

The D.C. Eagle (3701 Benning Rd., N.E.) hosts karaoke tonight at 9 p.m. D&K Sounds will host the event. Drink specials include $3 rail cocktails and domestic drafts and $4 wine. 

The Tom Davoren Social Bridge Club meets tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Dignity Center (721 8th St., S.E.) for social bridge. No partner needed. For more information, call 301-345-1571.

Thursday, Nov. 8

Bookmen D.C., an informal gay men’s literature group, discusses “Insult and the Making of the Gay Self” by Didier Eribon at Cleveland Park Library (3310 Connecticut Ave., N.W.) tonight at 7:30 p.m. All are welcome. For more information, visit bookmendc.blogspot.com.

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Television

ICYMI: ‘Overcompensating’ a surprisingly sweet queer treat

A sweet, savvy show about breaking free to embrace your true self

Published

on

Holmes, Benito Skinner and Wally Baram in ‘Overcompensating.’ (Photo courtesy of MGM Amazon)

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.

Continue Reading

Photos

PHOTOS: Independence Day Weekend in Rehoboth

Wicked Green Pool Party, fireworks among festivities

Published

on

A fireworks show was held in Rehoboth Beach, Del. on Saturday, July 5. (Washington Blade photo by Daniel Truitt)

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)

Continue Reading

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.

Published

on

Beyoncé performs on July 7. (Washington Blade photo by Joe Reberkenny)

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.

Continue Reading

Popular