On June 11, the New York Irish Center in Long Island City will host a screening of “Who We Love,” Graham Cantwell’s tender coming-of-age dramedy about a young woman who navigates Dublin’s gay scene with her flamboyant best friend. After the screening, stay for a chat with Cantwell and one of the movie’s stars, the actress Amy-Joyce Hastings. newyorkirishcenter.org
The lesbian bar might be facing an uncertain future, but it’s alive and well at the Metrograph Theater. On June 17, the Lower East Side movie house kicks off Muff Dives: The Dyke Bar in Cinema, its series exploring real and fictional lesbian watering holes as seen in films like Robert Aldrich’s “The Killing of Sister George” (1968) and Dee Rees’s “Pariah” (2011). Also starting June 17, the theater will host a weeklong run of Leilah Weinraub’s documentary “Shakedown,” about the Black lesbian strip club scene in Los Angeles. The film hits theaters after PornHub released it in 2020 as the website’s first non-pornographic film. metrograph.com
Music and Performing Arts
Celebrate Judy Garland’s 100th birthday with the 10th annual “Night of a Thousand Judys” at Joe’s Pub (June 5). Written and hosted by Justin Elizabeth Sayre, the event will feature skits and songs by a roster of Garland devotees, including the Tony-winning singer Frances Ruffelle and the Grammy winner Nathan Lee Graham, all in honor of Garland’s rainbow-colored musical repertoire onstage and onscreen. The show benefits the Ali Forney Center, an agency dedicated to helping L.G.B.T.Q. homeless youth. publictheater.org
ChamberQueer, an organization that highlights historically underrepresented L.G.B.T.Q. figures in classical music, will present two shows at National Sawdust in Brooklyn (June 10-12). The first night’s program includes pieces from the emerging composers Connor D’Netto, Alexis Lamb and Rosśa Crean; the second night features a string septet performance of “Gay Guerrilla,” a minimalist work by the queer composer Julius Eastman. Both concerts will also be available to livestream at no cost on the ChamberQueer website. chamberqueer.org
On June 17, the DJ Honey Dijon and the singer Tinashe will headline Ladyland, an outdoor music festival that returns this year at the Brooklyn Mirage. Organizers describe the evening as an “intentionally queer space,” and they promise “stunts” from Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, a fan-favorite “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum. ladylandfestival.com
Words and Pictures
On June 8, the historian George Chauncey, who teaches American history at Columbia University, will present a talk called “Gay New York: 1930-1970” at the New-York Historical Society. Chauncey will draw on the decades covered in his long-awaited follow-up to his groundbreaking 1994 book “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940.” nyhistory.org
