Pride Celebration at the Senate: The Cockettes (2002)  

Sat. Jun. 27 

Doors – 4:00 PM  

Organ Overture – 4:30 PM  

Film – 5:00 PM  

Drag show – 7:00 PM (after the film) 

Tickets – $6 (Bundle with Multiple Maniacs – $10) 

1hr 42min | R | Documentary | USA 

Drag queen Sirinity Sapphire will perform! 

Presented with the Motor City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Larry the T-Shirt Guy 

Come to the Senate for an evening of pride, featuring two divine movies celebrating outsider performance! This event kicks off our annual summer series of cult and B-movies we call Hot, Sweaty & Weird. But this first show is going to be Hot, Sweaty & Queer!  

First up is The Cockettes, a fascinating and detailed look at the infamous performance group of the same name. This engrossing and exuberant documentary outlines the rise and eventual dissolution of a band of misfits, hippies, radicals, and gender revolutionaries. In 1970s gay San Francisco they rose from the come-down of the psychedelic 60s trip to create a theater experience as liberated as their utopian dreams and as free as their anarchic spirit. The result was a wild and drug fueled drag show that aimed to alter minds and shock sensibilities. 

They bore it all, quite literally. They scoffed at boundaries and rejected the constraints of good taste. They burned bright and fast in a flash of rapturous irreverence; their flame kept alive in the (sometimes fuzzy) memories of the people that were there.  

See the story of The Cockettes on the big screen at the Senate! There will be a drag performance after the film, the Senate’s excellent concessions offerings, and the warm glow of pride and free expression. Stick around for John Waters’ first feature Multiple Maniacs at 8:00 PM, starring the incomparable Divine, a sometime member and friend of The Cockettes. 

From our partner organization: 

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty. 

Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. We use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency, and guilt that chain the human spirit. 

The Cockettes, a San Francisco-based psychedelic performance troupe active from 1969 to 1972, paved the way for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (founded in 1979) by establishing a foundation of "gender-fuck" drag, queer communal living, and unapologetic public spectacle that utilized satire for social critique. The Cockettes' influence directly informed the aesthetic, theatrical, and counter-cultural approach that the Sisters would later adapt to tackle political issues and community service. 

Parking is available in our gated lot, on Gilbert, and Michigan Avenue