Arts & Entertainment
12 LGBTQ events this week
Parties, panels and parades to celebrate Pride

It is time for the Capital Pride Parade, Capital Pride Festival and several parties in and around D.C. For information on Capital Pride official events, click here. For information on Latinx Pride events, click here. For information about Pride parties on Saturday, click here. Below are our picks for some of the most fun and creative things to do this week in D.C. that are of special interest to the LGBTQ community.
JR’S Monday Night Showtunes: Pride Edition

Monday, June 6
8 p.m. – midnight
JR.’s Bar
1519 17th Street, N.W.
Facebook
Join Citrine for a Pride Edition night of showtunes with music by Landon Cox.
FTSC Summer of Freedom Opening Party

Tuesday, June 7
6-9 p.m.
Kiki (second floor)
915 U Street, N.W.
Facebook
The Summer of Freedom league play for the Federal Triangles Soccer Club begins with an opening party at Kiki on Tuesday.
RENT Singalong celebrating Capital Pride

Wednesday, June 8
8 p.m.
Shaw’s Tavern
520 Florida Avenue, N.W.
Facebook
Celebrate Capital Pride with a RENT musical singalong at Shaw’s Tavern on Wednesday. Song sheets are available if needed.
Live at the Library: “Secret City” discussion with James Kirchick

Thursday, June 9
7 p.m.
Library of Congress
Thomas Jefferson Building
Coolidge Auditorium
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Join the Library in Celebrating Pride Month with a discussion from journalist James Kirchick on his new book, “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington,” and Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart at 7 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium. Visitors can also explore Library collection items that Kirchick consulted in researching his book.
D.C. Dyke March

Friday, June 10
6 p.m.
Franklin Square
1332 I Street, N.W.
Facebook
The D.C. Dyke March returns this year. Activists will march for “body liberation and saying Hands Off Our Bodies!”
Drag Underground

Friday, June 10
8:30 p.m.
Dupont Underground
19 Dupont Circle N.W.
Eventbrite
Drag is back at Dupont Underground every Friday in June. Performers that evening include Shi-Queeta Lee, Logan Stone, Crimsyn and Pico Rico!
Futures Cypher: Pride 2050

Friday, June 10
6:30 p.m.
Smithsonian Arts + Industries Building
900 Jefferson Drive, S.W.
Eventbrite
The Arts + Industries Building of the Smithsonian Institution hosts an interactive discussion and performance art exchange about the future of Pride.
6:30-7:30 p.m. Interactive panel featuring: editor and co-owner of the Washington Blade, Kevin Naff; founder of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute, Elle Moxley; interdisciplinary spoken word artist and filmmaker, The Dainty Funk; and intimate performances by queer pop performer, Be Steadwell.
7:30-8:30 p.m. Immersive DJ + rhythm experience featuring DJ Alex Love and Twink Drumz
8:30-9:15 p.m. Performance by The CooLots
9:30 p.m. Closing performance
Capital Pride Weekend Drag Brunch

Saturday, June 11
Two shows: 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
The Hamilton Live
600 14th Street, N.W.
18+
$63.40
Tickets
The Hamilton Live is partnering with Tito’s and Ommegang Brewery for an all-you-can-eat drag brunch experience. Tickets include a brunch buffet and your choice of a Tito’s Bloody Mary, Ommegang beer, or a soft drink. Tito’s will donate $1 of every cocktail sale to the Capital Pride Alliance. Ommegang will donate $1 of every beer sold to the Cyndi Lauper Foundation.
Pride on the Pier & Fireworks Show

Saturday, June 11
2-9 p.m.; Fireworks at 9p.m.
The Wharf
101 District Square, S.W.
Free & Open to the Public. VIP Tickets Available.
VIP Tickets
The Washington Blade, in partnership with LURe DC and The Wharf, is excited to announce the 3rd annual Pride on the Pier and Fireworks. Pride on the Pier extends the city’s annual celebration of LGBTQ visibility to the bustling Southwest waterfront with an exciting array of activities and entertainment. The event will include the annual Pride on the Pier Fireworks Show presented by the Leonard-Litz Foundation at 9 p.m.
Mosaic Pride Parade

Saturday, June 11
6-7:30 p.m.
Mosaic
2910 District Avenue
Fairfax, Va.
Facebook
Are you in Fairfax and don’t feel like braving the crowds into D.C.? The inaugural Mosaic Pride Parade will begin at 6:00 pm in front of Praline Bakery and will end at Mom & Pop. Hang around for a post-parade celebration on Strawberry Lane with drag queens, a performance by Kazaxe, pretzels, and more!
Lights On, Barks Out! Pride Brunch & Tea Dance

Sunday, June 12
11 a.m.
Astro Beer Hall
1306 G Street, N.W.
$10
Facebook
Join Doming0, Bootsy Omega, Sirene Noir Sidora Jackson, Chata Uchis, Velassa Rapta and Sahava Novaj for a Pride Drag Brunch at Astro Beer Hall on Sunday.
Yes Homo! Pride Edition

Sunday, June 12
12:30-3:30 p.m.
St. Vincent Wine
3212 Georgia Avenue, N.W.
$10
Facebook | Eventbrite
Watch a hilarious lineup of queer comics and enjoy a Pride brunch at St. Vincent Wine on Sunday.
Books
New book goes behind the scenes of ‘A League of Their Own’
‘No Crying in Baseball’ offers tears, laughs, and more

‘No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of ‘A League of Their Own’
By Erin Carlson
c.2023, Hachette Books
$29/320 pages
You don’t usually think of Madonna as complaining of being “dirty all day” from playing baseball. But that’s what the legendary diva did during the shooting of “A League of Their Own,” the 1992 movie, beloved by queers.
“No Crying in Baseball,” the fascinating story behind “A League of Their Own,” has arrived in time for the World Series. Nothing could be more welcome after Amazon has cancelled season 2 of its reboot (with the same name) of this classic film.

In this era, people don’t agree on much. Yet, “A League of Their Own” is loved by everyone from eight-year-old kids to 80-year-old grandparents.
The movie has strikes, home runs and outs for sports fans; period ambience for history buffs; and tears, laughs and a washed-up, drunk, but lovable coach for dramady fans.
The same is true for “No Crying in Baseball.” This “making of” story will appeal to history, sports and Hollywood aficionados. Like “All About Eve” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “A League of Their Own” is Holy queer Writ.
Carlson, a culture and entertainment journalist who lives in San Francisco, is skilled at distilling Hollywood history into an informative, compelling narrative. As with her previous books, “I’ll Have What She’s Having: How Nora Ephron’s three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy” and “Queen Meryl: The Iconic Roles, Heroic Deeds, and Legendary Life of Meryl Streep,” “No Crying in Baseball,” isn’t too “educational.” It’s filled with gossip to enliven coffee dates and cocktail parties.
“A League of Their Own” is based on the true story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). From 1943 to 1954, more than 600 women played in the league in the Midwest. The league’s players were all white because the racism of the time prohibited Black women from playing. In the film, the characters are fictional. But the team the main characters play for – the Rockford Peaches – was real.
While many male Major and Minor League Baseball players were fighting in World War II, chewing gum magnate Philip K. Wrigley, who owned the Chicago Cubs, founded the league. He started the AAGPBL, “To keep spectators in the bleachers,” Carlson reports, “and a storied American sport–more important: his business afloat.”
In 1943, the Office of War Information warned that the baseball season could be “scrapped” “due to a lack of men,” Carlson adds.
“A League of Their Own” was an ensemble of women’s performances (including Rosie O’Donnell as Doris, Megan Cavanagh as Marla, Madonna as Mae, Lori Petty as Kit and Geena Davis as Dottie) that would become legendary.
Girls and women still dress up as Rockford Peaches on Halloween.
Tom Hanks’s indelible portrayal of coach Jimmy Dugan, Gary Marshall’s depiction of (fictional) league owner Walter Harvey and Jon Lovitz’s portrayal of Ernie have also become part of film history.
Filming “A League of Their Own,” Carlson vividly makes clear, was a gargantuan effort. There were “actresses who can’t play baseball” and “baseball players who can’t act,” Penny Marshall said.
The stadium in Evansville, Ind., was rebuilt to look like it was in the 1940s “when the players and extras were in costume,” Carlson writes, “it was easy to lose track of what year it was.”
“No Crying in Baseball” isn’t written for a queer audience. But, Carlson doesn’t pull any punches.
Many of the real-life AAGPBL players who O’Donnell met had same-sex partners, O’Donnell told Carlson.
“When Penny, angling for a broad box-office hit chose to ignore the AAGPGL’s queer history,” Carlson writes, “she perpetuated a cycle of silence that muzzled athletes and actresses alike from coming out on the wider stage.”
“It was, as they say, a different time,” she adds.
Fortunately, Carlson’s book isn’t preachy. Marshall nicknames O’Donnell and Madonna (who become buddies) “Ro” and “Mo.” Kodak is so grateful for the one million feet of film that Marshall shot that it brings in a high school marching band. Along with a lobster lunch. One day, an assistant director “streaked the set to lighten the mood,” Carlson writes.
“No Crying in Baseball,” is slow-going at first. Marshall, who died in 2018, became famous as Laverne in “Laverne & Shirley.” It’s interesting to read about her. But Carlson devotes so much time to Marshall’s bio that you wonder when she’ll get to “A League of Their Own.”
Thankfully, after a couple of innings, the intriguing story of one of the best movies ever is told.
You’ll turn the pages of “No Crying in Baseball” even if you don’t know a center fielder from a short stop.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Theater
Rupert Murdoch’s powers on full display in ‘Ink’
Media baron helped pave the way for Brexit, Prime Minister Thatcher

‘Ink’
Through Sept. 24
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814
$46-$94
Roundhousetheatre.org
Yes, Rupert Murdoch’s loathsome traits are many, but his skills to succeed are undeniably numerous.
In the first scenes of John Graham’s West End and Broadway hit drama “Ink,” an exciting year-long detail from the life of a burgeoning media baron, Murdoch’s powers of persuasion are on full display.
It’s 1969 London. Over dinner with editor Larry Lamb, a young Murdoch shares his plan to buy the Sun and rebrand the dying broadsheet, replacing the Daily Mirror as Britain’s best-selling tabloid. What’s more, he wants to do it in just one year with Lamb at the helm.
Initially reluctant, Lamb becomes seduced by the idea of running a paper, something that’s always eluded him throughout his career, and something Murdoch, the outsider Australian, understands. Murdoch taunts him, “Not you. Not Larry Lamb, the Yorkshire-born son of a blacksmith, not the guy who didn’t get a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, who didn’t get a degree from anywhere. Not you.”
Still, Lamb, played convincingly by Cody Nickell in Round House Theatre’s stellar season-opener, a co-production with Olney Theatre Center, remains unsure. But Murdoch (a delightfully brash Andrew Rein) is undeterred, and seals the deal with a generous salary.
Superbly staged by director Jason Loweth, “Ink” is riveting. Its exchanges between Lamb and Murdoch are a strikingly intimate glimpse into ambition involving an ostensibly average editor and a striving money man who doesn’t like people.
Once on board, Lamb is trolling Fleet Street in search of his launch team, played marvelously by some mostly familiar actors. He makes his most important hire — news editor Brian McConnell (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh) — in a steam bath. The remainder of the Sun’s new masthead falls handily into place: Joyce Hopkirk (Kate Eastwood Norris) the women’s page editor whose forward thinking is marred by her casual racism; Zion Jang plays Beverley Goodway, an awkwardly amusing young photographer; persnickety deputy editor Bernard Shrimsley (Michael Glenn) who learns to love ugly things; and an old school sports editor who proves surprisingly versatile, played by Ryan Rillette, Round House’s artistic director.
At Lamb’s suggestion, the team brainstorms about what interests Sun readers. They decide on celebrities, pets, sports, free stuff, and —rather revolutionarily for the time —TV. Murdoch is happy to let readers’ taste dictate content and the “Why” of the sacred “five Ws” of journalism is out the window.
Murdoch is portrayed as a not wholly unlikable misanthrope. He dislikes his editors and pressman alike. He particularly hates unions. His advice to Lamb is not to get too chummy with his subordinates. Regarding the competition, Murdoch doesn’t just want to outperform them, he wants to grind them to dust.
Loewith leads an inspired design team. Scenic designer Tony Cisek’s imposing, inky grey edifice made from modular walls is ideally suited for Mike Tutaj’s projections of headlines, printed pages, and Rein’s outsized face as Murdoch. Sound designer and composer Matthew M. Nielson ably supplies bar noises and the nonstop, pre-digital newspaper clatter of presses, linotypes, and typewriters.
From a convenient second tiered balcony, the Daily Mirror’s establishment power trio Hugh Cudlipp (Craig Wallace), Chris Lee Howard (Chris Geneback) and Sir Percy (Walter Riddle) overlook all that lies below, discussing new tactics and (mostly failed) strategies to remain on top.
Increasingly comfortable in the role of ruthless, sleazy editor, Lamb is unstoppable.
Obsessed with overtaking the Daily Mirror’s circulation, he opts for some sketchy reportage surrounding the kidnapping and presumed murder of Muriel McKay, the wife of Murdoch’s deputy Sir Alick (Todd Scofield). The kidnappers mistook Muriel for Murdoch’s then-wife Anna (Sophia Early). Next, in a move beyond the pale, Lamb introduces “Page 3,” a feature spotlighting a topless female model. Awesta Zarif plays Stephanie, a smart young model. She asks Lamb if he would run a semi-nude pic of his similarly aged daughter? His reaction is uncomfortable but undaunted.
For Murdoch’s purposes, history proves he chose well in Lamb. By year’s end, the Sun is Britain’s most widely read tabloid. Together they give the people what they didn’t know they wanted, proving the pro-Labour Daily Mirror’s hold on the working class is baseless and paving the way for things like Brexit and a Prime Minister Thatcher.
“Ink” at Round House closes soon. See it if you can.
Out & About
CAMP Rehoboth’s final concert of the season is almost here
Chorus performs ‘Music of the Night’

CAMP Rehoboth Chorus will perform “Music of the Night” on Friday, Sept. 29 and Saturday, Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church.
The chorus will sing more than 36 song selections, including “Fly Me to the Moon,” “I Could’ve Danced All Night” and “In the Still of the Nite.”
Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased on CAMP Rehoboth’s website.
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