Looking for gay things to do in New York? Whether you’re looking for drag shows, parties talks & lectures, film screenings, theater, or cultural outings, Metrosource has got you covered. Our complete list of LGBT things to do is just a click away, but here are a few handpicked favorite queer events:
What’s your pleasure? This week, you can take part in a retro-themed dance party that harkens back to the glory days of MTV when MJ, Madonna and the Eurhythmics ruled the world, check out the hot plates and sweet sounds of a live drag musical or visit the Whitney to witness the work of Andy Warhol firsthand!
Revisit: 1983
Friday, November 9
Theatre C, Zach Job and Chad Ryan, in association with Daniel Nardicio Productions, have come together to create a new series of retro-themed dance parties called Retro Factory. This first event sets out to create something missing in New York City nightlife: A space for queer people of every demographic that could be celebrated and who could witness their story reinterpreted through dance and a party with a throwback twist: 1983 was a huge success and turned into quite the amazing and inspiring night!! We got to participate in and celebrate queer art made by queer artists. It was something we at Retro Factory are immensely proud of and will strive to continue to produce. The night will be filled with with surprise immersive live performances and visuals in the style of The Donkey Show and Here Lies Love. This Retro Factory event will take place at Bedlam Bar in the East Village, and reimagined in a more intimate space to really get in the groove.
We #FlashbackFriday to our Retro Factory event, called 1983 – an homage to the legendary gay dance party held at The Pyramid Club in the East Village until 2011. Full out dance to the rad music of Madonna, the Go-Gos’, Wham!, A-Ha!, Janet Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson, Billy Ocean and more!
The Hell’s Kitchenettes
Sunday, November
The Hell’s Kitchenettes return to the Laurie Beechman Theatre for a night of serving up hot plates and wholesome harmonies in an all-live drag musical. Local NYC Queens Jackie Cox, Michael Lamasa, and James Mills bring you a hilarious original musical comedy featuring songs from the Andrew Sisters as well as other popular pop and musical tunes. It is unlike any drag show you have ever seen before! Tickets start at $22 with a $20 food/drink minimum.
Andy Warhol — From A to B and Back Again
Monday, November 12
Few American artists are as ever-present and instantly recognizable as Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Through his carefully cultivated persona and willingness to experiment with non-traditional art-making techniques, Warhol understood the growing power of images in contemporary life and helped to expand the role of the artist in society. Andy Warhol — From A to B and Back Again is the first Warhol retrospective organized in the U.S. since 1989 — reconsiders the work of one of America’s most inventive, influential and important artists. Building on a wealth of new materials, research and scholarship that has emerged since the artist’s death in 1987, this exhibition reveals new complexities about the Warhol we think we know, and introduces a Warhol for the 21st century.
The exhibition positions Warhol’s career as a continuum, demonstrating that he didn’t slow down after surviving an assassination attempt that nearly took his life in 1968, but entered into a period of intense experimentation. The show illuminates the breadth, depth and interconnectedness of the artist’s production: from his beginnings as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s to his iconic pop masterpieces of the early 1960s, his experimental work in film and other mediums from the 1960s and ’70s, and his innovative use of readymade abstraction and the painterly sublime in the 1980s. His repetitions, distortions, camouflaging, incongruous color and recycling of his own imagery challenge our understanding of images and the value of cultural icons, anticipating the profound effects and issues of the current digital age.
This is the largest monographic exhibition to date at the Whitney’s new location, with more than 350 works of art, many assembled together for the first time.
Donna Gottschalk: Brave, Beautiful Outlaws
Ongoing
This exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art features the work of Donna Gottschalk, a photographer active in the early period of radical lesbian organizing in New York and California during the 1970s. Gottschalk came out as a lesbian right at the formation of the radical lesbians and Furies collectives on the east coast, where she met lesbian artists JEB (Joan E. Biren), Flavia Rando and others, then later moved to California to join lesbian-separatist communities. In both locations, Gottschalk photographed herself, friends, lovers and activists in radical lesbian communities. Gottschalk also documented the life of her sibling, formerly a gay man named Alfie who transitioned to become a woman named Myla.
The Donna Summer Musical
Ongoing
Where were you the first time you heard “I Feel Love?” In the world of Hot 100 radio, that track cut through everything around it — the arena rock of Fleetwood Mac and Bruce Springsteen, the disco of the Commodores and Jacksons — all of it. For those who were there, it sounded like a transmission from another galaxy.
But Donna Summer began her career in the musical “Hair,” becoming best known for refusing to take off her clothes in the show’s much-ballyhooed nude scene. She was a girl from Boston with a voice from heaven, who shot through the stars from gospel choir to dance floor diva. But what the world didn’t know was how Donna Summer risked it all to break through barriers, becoming one of the signature voices of an era and the inspiration for many who followed in her path.
Tony Award winner LaChanze (The Color Purple), Ariana DeBose (Hamilton, A Bronx Tale) and newcomer Storm Lever play the many facets of Donna Summer, taking audiences through her tumultuous life, tempestuous loves and mega-watt musical hits. From “Love to Love You, Baby” to “Last Dance” and beyond, her story and her music pair for a night of memories — or discovery. It’s The Donna Summer Musical.
Head Over Heels
Ongoing
Variety‘s review of the show when it was in San Francisco says Head Over Heels could have been called “A Very LGBT Thing Happened on the Way to the Masque” (masque as in 17th century court performance, and Masque as in the Hollywood punk club where the Go-Go’s learned their chops — take your pick). That’s one juxtaposition that’s really anything but odd, since the Go-Go’s and Carlisle have ended up amassing a huge gay fan base over their decades of breaking up and reuniting. The plot of “Head Over Heels” really gets underway well into the first act, when the lowly shepherd Musidorus (Andrew Durand), banished by the king from pursuing the princess Philoclea (Alexandra Socha), cross-dresses as an Amazonian warrior to get quality time with his unsuspecting sweetheart. It’s a setup right out of “Some Like It Hot” or “Tootsie,” if not time immemorial, but imagine a “Some Like It Hot” that just gets less and less straight until it ends with a succession of same-sex marriages.”
Head Over Heels is directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) with musical arrangement by Pulitzer Prize and Tony winner Tom Kitt (Next To Normal, American Idiot) and choreography by Emmy Award nominee Spencer Liff (So You Think You Can Dance, Hedwig and the Angry Inch). With a wickedly funny original book by Tony winner Jeff Whitty (Bring It On: The Musical, Avenue Q) adapted by James Magruder (Triumph of Love), this new production also includes scenic and puppet design by Tony Award nominee Julian Crouch (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), costume design by Academy Award and Tony Award nominee Arianne Phillips (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), lighting design by four-time Tony Award winner Kevin Adams (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, American Idiot, Spring Awakening), sound design by Tony Award nominee Kai Harada (Follies), and projection design by Andrew Lazarow.
Looking for more? Check out our complete listing of events.
Metrosource’s Big Pride Guide — US and Worldwide.
Last modified: November 8, 2018
