Tree Lighting Ignites Pride Week
Parties and parades follow tonight's Pridelights Tree event
This year’s Pride Week, 10 days of LGBT pride events in Boston, is being celebrated from June 6 through 15. While parties and parades mark most of the Pride Week events around the city, the unofficial kickoff requires standing still — flipping the switch of the 60-foot-tall Pridelights Tree. This year’s tree lighting is tonight, June 10, at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Since 1993, the Pridelights Tree Lighting has highlighted AIDS Action’s Pride Week prevention and education initiatives. The free entertainment starts at 7 p.m. at the BCA, 539 Tremont St., and includes Bravo TV’s Top Chef winners, Jen Biesty and Zoi Antonitsas, as well as David “Scarbie” Mitchell from the Crown & Anchor Cabaret in Provincetown, Mass., Megan Love from Ryan Landry’s hit play Whizzin! and the Legendary Hat Sisters. Verna Turbulence will be mistress of ceremonies and AIDS Action’s marketing manager Keith Orr will co-emcee. Together, they will present a host of entertainers and the 4th Annual Spirit of Stonewall Award, being given to Frank Ribaudo of Club Café.
This year’s tree-lighting also includes energy-efficient LEDs, which will reduce energy use by 75 percent while doubling the number of bulbs, honoring Boston Pride’s 2008 eco-friendly theme, Sustaining Our Community, Conserving Our World. The Hat Sisters will flip the switch on the 60-foot pine tree, with pink lighting provided by Sylvania.
For more information, call 617-262-9405, or visit the event Web site.
Kimberly Cornuelle can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu.
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