Friday Night Pride Returns to Hastings-on-Hudson
Friday Night Pride Returns to Hastings-on-Hudson
The event will include music, activities, a cookout, and more
By Keith Berman, Ed.M., M.S.Ed.
Now in its third year, Friday Night Pride (FNP), an event with Broadway luminaries, local storytellers, a giant rainbow slide, and more, returns to the streets of Hastings on June 7th, from 6 to 9 p.m. As a prelude, the Good Witch Coffee Bar will have banner-making, fun activities, and festive treats starting at 3:45 pm with the all-female Brass Queens striking up their brass band at 5:45 p.m.
"It's an event that's geared towards all ages,” Jen DiBonaventura, a co-organizer of Hastings Rainbow Families, told the Rivertowns Current. “We have tons of activities for kids, and plenty for adults to do, all centering around a fantastic show at the VFW, with everything from middle and high school choirs to Broadway stars."
Like many of the participants, DiBonaventura discussed how important it is for young members of the community to see such a powerful, inclusive rally.
"I particularly appreciate that both the Hastings Police Department will be tabling and the Hastings Fire Department will do a cookout. One of the most meaningful pieces of the event is that LGBTQIA+-identifying kids show up and see our whole community supporting them," DiBonaventura said.
FNP co-organizer Brian Harris, a performer who annually sings at the event, described his role in shaping the entertainment: “Who I am in relationship to this – in addition to being a queer parent in town – is a music psychotherapist by trade, so my goal is to bring people into the emotional world of the LGBTQIA+ community through the arts.”
Harris added that the event’s mission of reaching younger people is particularly personal.
“I grew up in rural Illinois in the ’70s and ’80s,” Harris recalled. “The only thing I knew about being gay was that I would likely contract AIDS and was unlikely to survive. My goal is to do better for the Hastings community than what I had, so one of my favorite parts of the night are the stories that community members share.”
Catie Cho, Hastings High School ’23, is FNP’s stage manager, but has played a bigger part in realizing Harris and DiBonaventura’s vision.
“Part of my role as a former student in Hastings is that I provide perspective from someone who is part of the community that we are trying to reach,” Cho said. “I am able to connect Brian to younger people who want to participate in an event like this but don’t know how. I also give suggestions on how we use social media and find performers to engage people.”
She also discussed how impressed she has been by the event’s deep commitment to making a difference. “Because I grew up queer in Hastings, I was always hyperaware that we didn’t talk nearly enough about gender and sexuality,” said Cho. “I really felt very unseen and unaddressed. The first time I talked to Brian, I was like, ‘Oh, this is crazy. This isn’t just performative.’ It really struck me how sincere this was. The more I worked with them, the more invested I became in this project, because this is making me feel so seen and so heard, and I knew how incredible it would make other people feel. When it finally happened, it was the most beautiful day – like I was, for one day, in an ideal world.”
The event, co-hosted by the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson, Destination Hastings, and Hastings Rainbow Families, will include a wide variety of entertainment, including Broadway veteran and television and film actor Alison Cimmet (The Big Sick, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Lili Thomas (just off her role as the first Asian-American Mama Morton in Chicago), and Obie Award winner James Jackson, Jr. (fresh from his starring role in Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop).
Hastings Mayor Niki Armacost is slated to begin the festivities with a welcome. Attendees can then enjoy any and all of the following: a giant rainbow slide, face painting, kids’ crafts with Jodi Levine of Supermakeit.com, make-your-own spray paint art with graffiti artist Katie Reidy, a community paper-quilt project sponsored by the Hastings Public Library, rainbow bracelet making with the Hastings-on-Hudson PTSA, dance activities with hip-hop performers Brianna Luciano and Kiana Davalos, rainbow crafts with The Maker Hive, and much more. Village restaurants will be open for dinner, offering Pride-themed specials, and local vendors will be selling rainbow hair extensions, Pride flags and swag, rainbow bouquets, and LGBTQIA+ books for kids and adults, among many other Pride-themed items. Westchester LGBTQIA+ organizations including The LOFT, Center Lane, Pride Works, and Westchester Medical Center's Ally Care Center will all be in attendance, and Drag artists Angel Elektra and Shay D'Pines will be working their way through the crowd, ready for selfies.
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