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Social agenda for April 2

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Friday, April 2

RAW returns to the Green Lantern, 1335 Green Court N.W., from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. RAW is inspired by gay parties of the early 80s, filled with fog, strobe lights and throbbing music, along with go-go boys. The hosts for the evening are Karl Marks and resident DJs, Shea and Bil. DJ RAD (of Pink Sock) will be the special guest DJ. Catch his set on the 1st floor from 10 p.m. to midnight. Entry is free before 11 p.m., and $3 after that. 21+

Gay District, a weekly, non-church affiliated discussion and social group for GBTQ men between 18 and 35 is held from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave., N.W. For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Nada Surf plays the 9:30 club, 815 V St., N.W., at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20.

“Little Shop of Horrors” is on stage at Ford’s Theatre, 511 10th St., N.W., at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $39-$55; call 202-496-4200 for information.

Friday Night Erev Shabbat Services are held from 8:30-10 p.m. at the Washington Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th St.

Saturday, April 3

Cherry Fund’s annual Cherry Weekend HIV/AIDS Fundraiser will be held at Freddie’s Beach Bar, 555 23rd St. S., Arlington, VA. A $5 donation is being asked that will help HIV/AIDS Prevention & Education Efforts in the region. DJ JFX returns from L.A. to throw down your favorite anthems, vocals and progressive house vibes. The party starts at 9 p.m.

The HomoSonic dance party will be held at the Black Cat Mainstage, 1811 14th. St., N.W., from 9:30 p.m.-3 a.m. The event is co-ed gay/mix, trans inclusive and straight friendly. Cover charge is $10.

CODE returns to Motley Bar above EFN Lounge, 1318 9th St. N.W., for its monthly installment. Gear, rubber, skin, uniform or leather dress code will be strictly enforced. Music provided by DJ Michael Hades. Admission is $10. Code is an 18+ event. There will be an open bar from 9-10 p.m.

The first Saturday of each month is ladies night with JAM at Mova, 1435 P St., N.W. Entry is free plus the first 50 people get a free beer courtesy of Miller Lite. Music will be provided by DJ GEMZ with a little something for everyone.

‘Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett’ at the Lyric Opera House, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave., Baltimore at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $42-$72, call 410-685-5086.

The Great Vigil of Easter is celebrated at the National Cathedral, a ministry for all faiths, at 8 p.m. Easter Sunday services at 8 and 11 a.m. Massachusetts and Wisconsin avenues, N.W. Visit nationalcathedral.org for more information.

Sunday, April 4

Easter services at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, 474 Ridge St., N.W., at 9 a.m.

Dignity Washington, a group for LGBT Catholics, celebrates Easter Mass at 6 p.m. at St. Margaret’s Church, 1820 Connecticut Ave., N.W.

BurGREENdy – recycling during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. BCV is going to be working to encourage recycling during the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Volunteers will encourage festival attendees to recycle their empty beverage containers by placing them in recycling containers that are located around the Tidal Basin. There will be two shifts between 3:30-6:30 p.m. Visit burgundycrescent.org for more information.

Monday, April 5

The DC Center invites bears and their allies for the first “Bears do Yoga,” starting today. This four-week class will serve as an introduction to yoga for all different body types and physical abilities. Classes will take place four consecutive Monday evenings: April 5, 12, 19 and 26. Classes begin at 6:15 p.m. in the DC Center Activity Room and last for one hour. There is a suggested $5 donation. To RSVP for this class e-mail [email protected].

Vivian Green, a former backup singer for Jill Scott, plays the Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave. in Alexandria at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35; call 703-549-7000 for information.

Tuesday, April 6

Packing Party at EFN Lounge/Motley Bar, 1318 9th Street, N.W., from 7-8 p.m. Volunteers will be assembling safer sex kits and enjoying drink specials at Motley.

Wednesday, April 7

Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler will speak about his recent legal opinion regarding recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages at 6:45 p.m., Govans Presbyterian Church, 5828 York Rd., Baltimore. A meal will be served at 5:45 p.m.; RSVP required for the meal, 410-435-9188.

Join the D.C. chapter of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association for happy hour at Nellie’s Sports Bar, 900 U St., N.W., from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Get to know other professionals working in journalism, communications and related fields. Information on the 20th anniversary NLGJA convention this September in San Francisco will be available.

The Rainbow History Project presents readings from “Persistent Voices”: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS. Starting at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Hall at Summer School Museum and Archive, 1201 17th St., N.W. The anthology includes works by several D.C.-based poets, including Essex Hemphill. The evening will be moderated by Philip Clark, Rainbow History board member and co-editor of the book. Clark, Richard McCann, Kim Roberts and Bernard Welt will read selected poems from the anthology. For more information call 202-821-7532.

DC Ice Breakers, a GLBTQ social group, will meet and ice skate at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston, on top of the Ballston Common Mall parking garage, 627 N. Glebe Road, Arlington. The ice skating events take place on first and third Wednesday nights, with a social after at a local bar. Skating is from 7:45-8:45 p.m. Ice skating novices are welcome. No membership fees and no RSVP needed (for most events), simply show up.

Verdi’s Rigoletto will be shown at 7 p.m. as part of the Opera and Ballet in Cinema series at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St., N.E. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the box office, at atlas arts.org/tickets or by calling 202-399-7993.

Career Development at the DC Center, 1810 14th St. N.W., from 3-4 p.m., brings trained and experienced volunteer human resource professionals to offer support with job searches, interviews skills, resume writing and individual career goal counseling. For more information, contact the Center at 202-682-2245 or careerdevelopmentthedccenter.org.

Thursday, April 8

The Cherry Fund presents “Cherry Weekend: A Return to Tradition.” The events of the weekend kick off on April 8 with the Opening Party at Mova, 1435 P St., N.W. from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Music by DJ Jason Royce. Complimentary admission. The event is 21+.

DCBiWomen, the area’s social group for bisexual and bi-curious women, will meet from 7– 8 p.m. at Cafe Luna, 1633 P St., N.W., at 7 p.m. The group’s goal is to create an accepting, encouraging environment for bisexual women regardless of the gender of their partner or what they are looking for, meet other cool bi women and affirm the existence of the bi-identity. For more information visit http://www.dcbiwomen.org/index.asp.

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Television

ICYMI: ‘Overcompensating’ a surprisingly sweet queer treat

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

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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.

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Photos

PHOTOS: Independence Day Weekend in Rehoboth

Wicked Green Pool Party, fireworks among festivities

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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)

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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.

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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.

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