TONIGHT: Bed, Bath and Beyonce: Outloud Chicago Turns 2!

Bed, Bath and Beyonce: Outloud Chicago Turns 2 With A Beyonce Inspired Live Concert On Tuesday July 23rd 2013, Outloud Chicago turns two years old and is celebrating with a live concert at Revolution Brewery with proceeds benefiting its third year of shows. Outloud Chicago is a production effort that installs queer and queer friendly entertainment in mainstream Chicago venues. In the last two years, from comedy to music and spoken word storytelling events, Outloud’s shows have given a stage to queer performers and has been received by both straight and queer audiences to critical acclaim. The celebration includes some of Chicago’s most talented performers in a tribute to Beyonce affectionately called Bed, Bath and Beyonce. Performers include JC Brooks from JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound, Adam LeBlanc the lead vocals from 16 Candles, Jeff Award winning singer Bethany Thomas, Beyonce super fan Baron Clay and hosted by the dual drag sensations Xandra Fairlawn and Shea Coulee. For its third year, Outloud Chicago will continue the stand-up comedy show Queer Comedy at Zanies’ third season including hosting Stand Out: The National Queer Comedy Search in September which partners with The Advocate Magazine, Absolut Vodka and Sidetrack The Video Bar. As well as a second season of the spoken word storytelling show co-presented by In Our Words Blog, Word Is Out this time hosted at The Hideout. presenting the first film festival I’ll Be A Homo For Xmas in December. Money raised at the concert will benefit performers and crew of productions. Each production budget can vary from as little as $150 to $500 depending upon if the event has photography, out of state talent, venue rental and promotion materials. The film festival I’ll Be A Homo For Xmas will feature Chicago queer and queer friendly films on the big screen. As you can imagine, big screen rentals run for closer to a thousand dollars. We believe that Outloud Chicago brings invaluable exposure to Chicago’s queer talent as well as helps break down boundaries between the perception of queer and not queer venues. We’re hoping to raise enough money to cover the talent and crew budgets for Queer Comedy at Zanies and Word Is Out at The Hideout for the rest of 2013 to enable the profits of the shows to pay for the rent of I’ll Be A Homo For Xmas. It’s just a wonderful rainbow colored snowball effect of awesome culminating in a great third year of Outloud Chicago. Don’t worry, we’ll all have a blast while raising the money. In addition to the amazing talent and fun theme, we’ll have 2 hours of free drafts of multiple beers and food from Revolution Brewery as well as a photo booth, games, raffles and music videos. Tickets are $30 in advance (available at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7324237993) or $45 at the door. Season passes are also available for $75 and include admission to Bed, Bath and Beyonce as well as all Queer Comedy at Zanies and Word Is Out at The Hideout shows for the rest of 2013.