Gay Pride events in Broward and Palm Beach counties – South Florida Sun Sentinel

Celebrating the love that dare not speak its name — at least in Florida — June is Pride month for LGBTQ+ communities and their supporters.

Organizations, bars, restaurants, museums, theaters and a whole host of other entertainment venues stage events throughout the month to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, a pivotal moment in gay and lesbian history.

Here’s a list of things you can do to help celebrate Pride here in South Florida. (And keep coming back to this post, as we will update with information as it comes in.)

The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale, 2414 E. Sunrise Blvd.; 954-463-4431; HistoryFortLauderdale.org

This display by History Fort Lauderdale features more that 40 drag artists on a Wall of Fame and will be up throughout Pride month. The exhibit — free and open to the public during mall hours — spotlights South Florida drag pioneers Latrice Royale, Daisy Deadpetals, Electra, Tiffany Arieagus, Nikki Adams and Cathy Craig.

The opening reception will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 31, at The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale and will include a show hosted by Joe Posa (as Joan Rivers) and nightlife personality Shawn Palacious, with performances from Joanna James, Erika Norell, Velvet Lenore and DJ Aulden Brown. There will also be light bites from Lips Fort Lauderdale supper club and Tulio’s Tacos and Tequila Bar. Tickets are $25 and available at Eventbrite.com.

150 N. Clematis St., West Palm Beach; DowntownWPB.com/events/pride-lights

Multicolored lights will illuminate the Centennial Fountain in Nancy M. Graham Centennial Park in downtown West Palm Beach to commemorate Pride month. The nearby Citizens Building, the marquee at Palm Beach Dramaworks and Brightline Station will also participate, according to the organizer, Creative Arts Enterprises. In commemoration, a free and open-to-the-public musical event at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, will include performances from cabaret artists Avery Sommers and Rob Russell as well as the Palm Beach Symphony and the Young Singers of the Palm Beaches. Before that, there will be a Pride Happy Hour from 6-8 p.m. at Bistro P at Pistache.

Xtreme Action Park, 5300 Powerline Road., Fort Lauderdale. 954-491-6265. XtremeActionPark.com/stonewall-pride-skate-nights.

There’s a LGBTQ+-themed skate night from 7-10 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month, an event thrown by Wilton Manors Entertainment Group, which is the company behind Hotspots magazine and the Stonewall Pride Parade & Street Festival (look below). This month’s skate night will be a fundraiser for Stonewall ($5 of each ticket goes to the June 18 event) and will have performances from drag artists Velvet Lenore and Rianna Petrone as well as DJ TPROMIX. Admission is $15 and includes skate rental. There is also VIP admission for $25 that includes two beers and/or wines.

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1300 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 561-297-0177; Stonewall-Museum.org

Fort Lauderdale’s Stonewall bills itself as the “largest LGBTQ library in the world,” with more than 27,000 books, and the archive with more than 6 million pages of LGBTQ history from the 1950s to now (not to mention clothing from the likes of Ricky Martin and RuPaul). Helping to kick off Pride month, Stonewall is offering a tour given by executive director Hunter O’Hanian on Friday, June 3, from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 for nonmembers and $20 for members. Space will be limited to 20 people. The deadline for registration is Wednesday, June 1.

Bailey Contemporary Arts Center, 41 NE First St., Pompano Beach; PompanoBeachArts.org/baca and ArtsUnitedFlorida.com

Members of ArtsUnited, an LGBTQ visual and performing arts organization, have created an exhibit of works using only black, white and gray. Presented at Bailey Contemporary Arts Center (BaCA), the art from locals includes photography, paintings, sculptures, pencil and metal works, and mixed media. The opening reception takes place during Pompano Beach’s art and beer festival, the Old Town Untapped, from 6-10 p.m. Friday, June 3. The exhibition — which is free and open to the public — runs through Wednesday, Aug. 17.

500 block of Clematis Street, West Palm Beach; PrideOnTheBlock.com

The annual block party returns to downtown WPB’s party-hearty Clematis Street from 1 p.m.-midnight Saturday, June 4, with an afterparty at Respectable Street from 1-4 a.m. There will be a drag queen story hour, fashion show, youth festival workshops, vogue battle, bingo, live music and open mic. This is a fundraiser for Transpire Help, which helps LGBTQ+ people with recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Drink bracelets are $30 in advance and $35 at the gate. The bracelets gets you drinks from spots including: Subculture Coffee, Kapow!, Hullabaloo, Lost Weekend, O’Shea’s Irish Pub, Respectable Street, Alchemy Juice Co. and BRK Republic Tap House & Dog Park. VIP passes are $150.

Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-462-0222; BrowardCenter.org

Slow Burn Theatre Co.’s season-ender in the Amaturo Theater inside the Broward Center is a campy comedy with themes of questioning sexuality and gender fluidity. The show features music from the iconic 1980s all-female rock band The Go-Go’s. Produced by the same team that brought “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “Avenue Q” and “Spring Awakening” to Broadway, the score includes The Go-Go’s hit songs, “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Vacation,” as well as Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth” and “Mad About You.”

Floatarama.org

Esplanade Park, 400 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale

Residence Inn Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal/Il Lugano, 3333 NE 32nd Ave., Fort Lauderdale

Starting at 12:30 p.m., a flotilla of Pride-decorated boats will depart from Esplanade Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale and cruise the New River and Intracoastal Waterway before culminating at Residence Inn Fort Lauderdale Intracoastal/Il Lugano at 2 p.m. for a Sailor’s Dance and Pool Party with San Francisco DJ Matt Consola. There will also be a charter boat available. To register, go to Floatarama.org. Tickets for flotilla vessel registration are $30. Tickets for the Sailor’s Dance and Pool Party are $15; VIP packages range in price from $100-$125.

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DelrayBeachFL.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/1438

Along Northeast Second Avenue, between East Atlantic Avenue and Northeast Second Street, Delray Beach

Old School Square Pavilion, 51 N. Swinton Avenue, Delray Beach

The festival takes place from 4-8 p.m. and is free and open to the public, featuring vendors, food trucks and a pet costume contest. There will be drag performances by Ariel Rimm, Adelaide, Angie Ovahness Pryce, Citris and Crystal Famouz (the current reigning Miss Palm Beach Pride), plus a concert by Almost Abba at the Old School Square Pavilion.

Meat Market, 191 Bradley Place, Palm Beach; 561-346-1263; PBCHRC.org/events

The PBCHRC’s annual happy hour event will take place from 6-8 p.m. at Palm Beach’s Meat Market restaurant, with free hors d’oeuvres. Ten percent of dinner proceeds will benefit the organization. Register at PBCHRC.org.

StonewallPride.lgbt

Returning to a blocked-off Wilton Drive in the heart of the bar/restaurant/retail part of Wilton Manors, this Stonewall event will have a festival marketplace from 3-11 p.m. and a parade at 7 p.m. Admission is $7 ($5 before 4 p.m.). There is also three-tiered VIP admission for $100, $200 and $5,000.

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A man wears a pride shirt at the Stonewall Pride Parade in Wilton Manors on Saturday June 15, 2019. Jennifer Lett South Florida Sun Sentinel (Jennifer Lett / Sun Sentinel)

The Parker, 707 NE Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale (in Holiday Park); 954-462-0222; ParkerPlayhouse.com

Judy Garland, superstar and some say the spark for the Stonewall Riots, will be celebrated in this one-woman show starring internet sensation Debbie Wileman backed by an orchestra. In addition to the Garland songbook, the British singer will also perform songs from Lady Gaga, Adele, Amy Winehouse and The Beatles as Garland would sing them. The show starts at 7 p.m., with tickets starting at $58.75.

Museum of Discovery & Science, 401 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale; 954-467-6637; MODS.org/2022pride

The daylong event for the entire family will have a rainbow science lab, exhibits, demonstrations, storytime with a drag queen, as well as make-and-take-home sessions for Pride flags, prisms and tie-dyed T-shirts (a white shirt costs $5). There will also be kiosks with health-care, legislative affairs and local community organizations. The event is free for museum members and Fort Lauderdale residents (with proof of address at the box office). For nonresidents and nonmembers, the cost is $5.

Cox Science Center and Aquarium, 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach; CompassGLCC.com

Some of South Florida’s most popular female impersonators — including Melissa St. John, Velvet Lenore and Rianna Petrone — will perform at this annual fundraiser for the Compass Community Center of the Palm Beaches. At the event from 7 p.m.-midnight, there will also be an award presentation, disco dance party and a silent auction. Tickets are $45 (disco dance party only), $300 and $500 (award and cocktail reception with open bar and hors d’oeuvres).

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NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd.; 954-525-5500; NSUartmuseum.org

This presentation from 3-4 p.m. is tied to the museum’s current exhibition, “Confrontation: Keith Haring & Pierre Alechinsky.” The discussion will cover how Haring’s exhibitions, parties, pop-up shops, activism and protests made this time and place historically important in context of the AIDS crisis, Reaganomics, the end of the Cold War and the rise of technology. The sociopolitical aspects of work from fellow East Village artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ashley Bickerton, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf, Peter Hujar, McDermott & McGough and David Wojnarowicz will also be featured.

There will be free tours of the exhibit before and after the event, but you must RSVP at Web.OvationTix.com. The art talk is free with museum admission: $12 for adults; $8 for seniors and military; $5 for students with valid ID; and free for museum members, NSU staff and children age 12 and younger.

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