(23 Jun 2023)
FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4441305
ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York - 23 June 2023
1. Hosts James T. Lane, L Morgan Lee and others counting down to the opening of “Playbill Pride 2023”
ANNOTATION: Pride weekend kicks off in New York City
2. Performer Brandon Contreras singing 'Sweet As I Dream'
ANNOTATION: A group of Broadway performers kicked off a weekend of Pride activities in Times Square in New York on Friday.
3. Madison Rose singing
ANNOTATION: The annual Pride parade will be held on Sunday with the theme “Strength in Solidarity.”
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Actor:
“I mean, it's incredible. I think, especially this year where there have just been unprecedented attacks against our community. I think it's so important for us to show up in numbers, especially when there are people trying to erase our existence sometimes. It's good to show Times Square that we exist. There are a whole lot of us and we're not going anywhere.”
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Eric Ulloa, Performer:
“I mean, that's it. Yeah. I mean, we're we're at the center of, like, the world here, and we got to just, like, talk loud and about it. And, like, you all take these messages and take them home with you if you're not from here and spread them far and wide, you know, that's how it keeps going.”
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Erik Bottcher, (D) New York City Council Member:
“There are people who do not want us to be up here right now. They do not want this to be happening right now. Because they have spent a long time trying to intimidate us, scare us, shame us into being quiet, and to staying home, maybe even into going back into the closet. So this weekend we're saying, Hell no, that's not happening. We're celebrating pride. We're going to be ourselves. We're going to express pride in ourselves and our community.”
++EDIT ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
A group of Broadway performers kicked off a weekend of Pride activities in Times Square in New York on Friday.
Throughout the weekend, there will be 270 performers, speakers and guests on stage.
The annual Pride parade will be held on Sunday with the theme “Strength in Solidarity.”
Organizers say they are putting a spotlight this year on the transgender community and drag queens, targets of the recent legislation in conservative states.
Often held in June, Pride events began as a way to commemorate the uprising by New York’s LGBTQ+ communities in 1969, known as the Stonewall Rebellion, and as a way to celebrate the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Trans women of color partly led the uprising.
Police say dozens of LGBTQ+ pride flags have been damaged and ripped down at the Stonewall National Monument, the site of the rebellion, in three separate incidents so far this month. The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating.
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