Activities planned for Pride Month on Maui

A number of activities are scheduled in June to celebrate Pride Month on Maui.

On Monday, June 6, the Tony Award-winning play “Love! Valour! Compassion!” written by American writer Terrence McNally will have a staged reading at the ʻĪao Theatre, as a part of the celebration of Pride Month.

The doors open at 6 p.m. before the play’s opening at 6:30 p.m.

The play is directed and narrated by Vinnie Linares. Linares has produced plays and has acted in the international touring play “Father Damien” written by Aldyth Morris.

The play takes place during three summer weekends at a country lake house in New York, with eight gay men — all privileged and threatened, speaking difficult truths, sometimes with acid grace.

Readers include Dale Buttons, Ricky Jones, Dexter Hostetter, Jefferson Davis, Todd Van Amburgh, Barry Kawakami, and Geronimo Son.

Admission is free but attendees should reserve seats by going to to mauionstage.com.

On June 16 and 17, ProArts Playhouse in Kīhei will hold the “Boys In The Band Staged Reading” to celebrate Pride Month. The reading starts at 7:30 p.m. Organizers are suggesting attendees make a donation for the event.

On June 25, the group Aloha Maui Pride is also holding a “Stonewall Anniversary Gathering” at Kamaʻole III in Kīhei from 3 p.m. to sunset. Attendees are asked to pack their own food and beverage. For more information, go to alohamauipride.org.

The Stonewall uprisings occurred in June, 1969 in protest and after raids on the Gay community gathering at the Stonewall Inn in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Spontaneous protests occurred after the arrests on June 28 by patrons in other gay and lesbian bars in Greenwich Village.

The uprisings are considered a period that helped to transform the fight for LGBTQ+ movement in the United States.

A number of men and women forged a path ahead for the LGBT+ community, including astronaut Sally Ride, American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, chef James Beard, Florence Nightingale, blues singer Ma Rainey, and Alan Turing, a mathematician considered the father of artificial intelligence and computer science, according to Reader’s Digest.

Turing was a British citizen who broke the Nazi codes during World War II. He was arrested in 1952 for the “crime” of homosexuality. He was posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in 2013.

The British government pardoned thousands of people unjustly convicted of historical sexual acts no longer considered a crime.

For a weekly listing of Maui music and other events, go to Maui Entertainment, Arts, Community, June 2-8 and click here.