{"id":165303,"date":"2026-04-14T10:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/165303\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:46:12","slug":"a-new-art-festival-comes-to-philly-this-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/165303\/","title":{"rendered":"a new art festival comes to Philly this June"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Philadelphia is getting a new arts festival this Pride season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Philly Pride Arts Festival, or Philly PrideAF (we see what they did there), is running throughout June with LGBTQ+ musicians, choirs, opera singers, drag artists and actors coming together to put on a lineup of queer programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six arts organizations are joining forces to make PrideAF a reality. They include:<\/p>\n

Altissimo Arts<\/p>\n

Cross Keys Theatre Collective<\/p>\n

East Passyunk Opera Project (ePOP)<\/p>\n

Liberty City Arts (LCA)<\/p>\n

Prismatic Arts Ensemble<\/p>\n

Wear Yellow Proudly (WYP)<\/p>\n

Alice Chung and Helen Zhibing Huang, co-founders of Wear Yellow Proudly, noted that the festival is \u201ca reflection of what makes Philadelphia so special\u201d in a joint statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"(Courtesy of ePOP)<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilly is home to an incredible wealth of artists and small arts organizations that place deep value on community, and it felt like the right moment for all of us to come together,\u201d they said. \u201cIn many ways, this collaboration feels like an \u2018Arts UN\u2019, a space where grassroots arts organizations unite to uplift one another and celebrate the richness of our city\u2019s cultural landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to organizers, the festival will be a \u201cmonth-long, citywide celebration\u201d of queer artists and stories. The idea is to partner with local artists, business and queer community members to put on a variety of performances and art events that celebrate Philly\u2019s LGBTQ+ scene.<\/p>\n

WYP and ePOP, for example, are collaborating on a \u201cMemoirs of a Gaysian\u201d show that will delve into the queer-Asian experience on June 12. The musical night will also highlight works from queer and Asian composers and librettists.<\/p>\n

\"\"(Courtesy of Wear Yellow Proudly)<\/p>\n

Another June 25 show, \u201cOpera is a DRAG!\u201d examines the relationship between two highly dramatic artforms \u2014 opera and drag. The next day, the festival is putting on a \u201cShakesqueer\u201d event, a special drag cabaret celebrating the bard himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Philly Pride Arts Festival grew out of a desire to celebrate queer artistry while also caring for one another as a community,\u201d said Katrina Thurman, General and Artistic Director of East Passyunk Opera Project, in a statement. \u201cAt ePOP, we\u2019ve always believed that art is most powerful when it\u2019s shared, accessible, and rooted in connection, and this festival brings that belief to life through collaboration with incredible Philly artists and organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A production of Hansel and Gretel from (Courtesy of Liberty City Arts)<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Pride has evolved in recent years. Corporate sponsors \u2014 including banks and box stores \u2014 that grew ubiquitous during Pride in the 2010s, were not a given last year<\/a>. And neither is a big celebration.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Billy Penn reported that the annual Philadelphia Pride parade was thousands of dollars in debt to the city<\/a>, ultimately leading to a cancellation that damaged small businesses. Last year, the federal government restructured NEA funding<\/a>, making it more difficult to back LGBTQ+ celebrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Pride as it\u2019s meant to be\u2014joyful and deeply rooted in community,\u201d Philly PrideAF organizers said. \u201cWe\u2019re not just presenting work; we\u2019re building infrastructure for collaboration, visibility, and mutual support across Philadelphia\u2019s queer arts scene.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. \u2014 Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74476,74477,74478,8987,74479,69,71,70,74480,74481,17549,74482,74483],"class_list":{"0":"post-165303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-altissimo-arts","9":"tag-cross-keys-theatre-collective","10":"tag-east-passyunk-opera-project-epop","11":"tag-lgbtq","12":"tag-liberty-city-arts-lca","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","15":"tag-philadelphia-news","16":"tag-philadelphia-pride-arts-festival","17":"tag-philly-prideaf","18":"tag-pride","19":"tag-prismatic-arts-ensemble","20":"tag-wear-yellow-proudly-wyp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}