Broadway star Frenchie Davis will headline the fourteenth annual PrideFest of the Palm Beaches being held on March 24 and 25, at Bryant Park in Lake Worth. The event plans to attract nearly 10,000 people from South Florida and the Treasure Coast. Davis, who was a contestant on season two of the hit show American Idol, is performing in “Rent” on Broadway, and played Effie White in the West coast tour of "DreamGirls.” She was removed from American Idol in 2003, and was recently was brought back into the Idol spotlight when a new contestant was not eliminated for the same reason. Davis will be performing on the Saturday of PrideFest. Saturday’s other featured entertainment includes a variety of folk rock, indie, and soulful music by Bev McClelland, Steph Taylor and Ashland Miller. Miami Beach's DJ Oren Nizri will return to spin soulful house music, rounding out Sunday’s wide range of entertainment, including Latin dance sensation Shelina and folk rock band Halcyon. “Our community celebrates PrideFest to express the importance of diversity in our county," said Nicole Leidesdorf, Compass executive director. “Every year the event expands with better entertainment and games, making it the fun, family festival we all enjoy.” More than 150 local businesses will showcase everything from jewelry and art to non-profit organizations. Washington Mutual, Sun-Sentinel, and Wild 95.5 are among the leading sponsors for this year’s festival. Michael Martini, who hosts a gay radio show on WPBF 1340 AM will be the MC of the event. Sunday’s Grand Parade will begin at noon at South J Street and will be marshaled down Lake Avenue to Bryant Park. Lorenzo Robertson, Deidre Newton and Kerry Gallagher are the grand marshals for the parade. Robertson, who works for the Department of Health as the Statewide Black MSM Coordinator, advocates for HIV prevention, especially for Black gay men. Newton is the vice chair of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council and Gallagher is the chair of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee for West Palm Beach. Newton and Gallagher will be celebrating their 16^th anniversary in April. Guests are encouraged to buy tickets in advance to avoid the lines at the gate. Pets are not permitted in the park. For more information, call 561-533-9699 or visit www.compassglcc.com. For more information, call 561-533-9699 or visit www.compassglcc.com. Entertainment Line-Up Saturday, March 24:1 p.m. - Steph Taylor, 2:30 p.m. - Ashland Miller, 4 p.m. - Bev McClellan,5 p.m. - Frenchie Davis and Sunday, March 25: 1 p.m. – Shelina, 2:30 p.m. – Halcyon, 4 p.m. - DJ Oren Nizri.

Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival will present the Florida Premiere of the new film BREATHE! at Cinema Paradiso, on Saturday, April 14. The event will be attended by actor/filmmaker Don Murray, who was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor in Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe and has since been in countless films and television series. Loosely based on Don Murray's own experience, Breathe! is a high-adventure, high suspense film on the high seas which Murray directed. The film fuses real-life images of nature-shot in high definition by award-winning cinematography Tom Campbell.  A pioneer of the Hi-Def movement, Campbell heightens the drama with incredible underwater shots of breaching Great White Sharks in South Africa. Breathe! bonds Murray and his three sons together in a joint production. The film stars the Murray's sons Christopher, and Mick. Mick also wrote the screenplay.  Sean Murray composed the music.  Cassidy Freeman (Finishing the Game), and Tim Abell (We Were Soldiers) co-star. The evening begins with a wine and cheese reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by an awards ceremony and the film at 7:00pm.  Don Murray and his sons will be on-hand for an audience discussion after the film. Tickets:  $10 general admission; free for FLIFF members. Cinema Paradiso is located at 503 SE 6 Street, Fort Lauderdale on the South bank of the New River, just East of Broward County Courthouse. Parking is free.

The Author of The Way Out: The Gay Man’s Guide to Freedom, No Matter if You’re in Denial, Closeted, Half in, Half Out, Just Out, or Been Around the Block, is Coming to Miami On Thursday, April 5^th, at 8pm. Chris will read and sign books from his celebrated memoir and work of philosophy for gay men at Books & Books, 933 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. For more information call 305.532.3222 or visit www.christopherleenutter.com

Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, the largest gay lobbying group in the state, was recently arrested in Largo, a small city west of Tampa.  She allegedly committed felony resisting arrest as four uniformed officers shoved her to the floor and pinned her down after she responded to a request for a “Don’t Discriminate” flier. The activist was one of hundreds of people who had come out to try to influence the decision of the Largo City Council as it considered termination of the city manager, Steve Stanton, after 14 year of highly regarded service to the city.  His failure?  He plans to transition from his male physique to his female self. On Saturday, March 24, Smith is scheduled to be honored at the Fourth Annual Valuing Our Families Conference at Sunshine Cathedral in Fort Lauderdale.  The award is in recognition of her work in supporting families of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender parents around the state.  “Nadine Smith has been a tireless campaigner for equal civil rights for all,” said Mark Adler, executive director of SunServe, one of the sponsors of Valuing Our Families.  “We are honoring Nadine for her ten years of service to our community and her commitment to our families.  We were stunned by the actions of the Largo police and we’re sure she will be exonerated when the case goes to court.”

Boy Culture is the candid confession of “X,” a wildly successful male escort. After ten years of sex-for-pay, “X” gets romantically entangled with his two hot roommates and a reclusive elderly client, Gregory. But before Gregory will agree to sex, he tells an unsetting love story spanning fifty years and dares “X” to try something he hasn’t felt in years: emotion. From the director of Eating Out and based on the best selling novel by Matthew Rettenmund, Boy Culture opens in theaters only March 23 in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Visit www.boyculturemovie.com for theaters, additional cities and to watch the sexy trailer.

Wrapping up a season of sold-out performances, the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus now has tickets available for its June musical revue, to be held Saturday and Sunday, June 16-17 in the Amaturo Theatre of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The chorus’ popular annual season finale will be, as always, a high-energy musical night to remember. “The chorus is dedicated to diversity in its members, its audience and in the types of music and performances it offers,” said Todd Wiley, FTLGMC director. “Nowhere is the musical and theatrical diversity and talent of the FTLGMC more in evidence than in our June revue.” Titled “Time to Take Our Place,” the show will featuring a rousing trip down memory — and melody — lane. Songs and dances will range from ’40s boogie woogie to the ’50s’ Blue Suede Shoes, more boogie — Boogie Nights, that is — from the ’80s, a Queen (what else?) medley, songs from the hit musical Miss Saigon, and even a bit of classic Rodgers and Hammerstein thrown in for good measure. “There’s truly something for everyone in this show,” Wiley noted. “We enjoy all of our performances, but our members particularly look forward to demonstrating their showmanship in the June revue.” Shows will begin at 8 p.m. both June 16 and 17 in the intimate Amaturo Theatre of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW 5^th Ave., downtown Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $40, $30 and $20, plus any handling charges that may apply. Tickets are available from the Broward Center’s AutoNation Box Office (www.browardcenter.org), by calling the box office at (954) 462-0222, from www.ftlgmc.org or through chorus members. The Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus is funded in part by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Division. The chorus’ 21st season is also sponsored by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and Pride South Florida. “Time to Take Our Place” is also sponsored in part by FAB! — Funding Arts Broward.

San Francisco-based poet Paul Flores returns to Miami to launch the second year of Tigertail Productions WordSpeak, an ongoing spoken word program for South Florida teens. Flores will be here from March 26 through March 30 for a residency that includes school and community-based workshops and readings culminating in a youth open mic and slam. All events are free. For more information and a full schedule of activities visit www.tigertail.org or call Tigertail Productions at 305 324 4337. During his residency week, Paul Flores will perform and lead workshops for students at William Turner Tech High School, Miami Senior High School, North Miami Beach High School and Abriendo Puertas. These WordSpeak events provide Miami teens the opportunity to learn more about spoken word as a way to express themselves, in an appealing medium that blends poetry, theater and hip hop culture. Paul Flores’ Miami visit culminates in a WordSpeak open mic and slam for teens led by Flores and South Florida-based guest artist Ray Dominguez, at the Miami Beach Regional Library, 227 22nd Street (just west of Collins Avenue) on Friday March 30 at 6:00 pm. This is an opportunity for teens from 13 to 19 years old to read and perform their own poetry in front of an audience. In addition, the slam is the first in a series of competitions for a place on the Miami team sponsored by Tigertail Productions that will travel to San Jose this summer for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival.  Paul Flores will also give a reading for the general public while in Miami at the Coral Gables Books and Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, on Thursday, March 29 at 7:30 pm. Flores will be reading from his new book of poems, La Mezcla and his hip hop theater work-in-progress Representa. “As a society we need to devote more resources to education, and with WordSpeak we do this through the power of the word – written, sung and spoken,” says Tigertail Executive Director Mary Luft.  “We are privileged to be able to bring back the wonderful Latino poet Paul Flores to work with us in Miami this year.” Paul Flores is a published poet, novelist and one of the nation's prominent spoken word performers. Raised on the Tijuana/San Diego border, issues of immigration, border experience, and Latino identity are central to his work. For the last ten years, Flores has resided in the Bay Area, producing and mentoring teen poets in youth spoken word performances and publications as the former Program Director of Youth Speaks. In 1996 Flores co-founded the Latino poetry performance ensemble Los Delicados with whom he has recorded the CD Word Descarga. He is artistic director of Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word, and author of the novel Along the Border Lies, awarded the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2003, and a new book of poetry, La Mezcla. A theater artist as well, Flores is currently working on Representa!, a bilingual hip-hop theater project about immigration, Cuban hip-hop and the future of revolution with Cuban rapper Julio Cardenas, directed by Danny Hoch. He has performed at the National Hip-Hop Festival in Havana, Cuba and was featured on Season 4 of Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry Jam on HBO. Tigertail Productions, founded in Miami in 1979, is Florida's pioneer of innovative cultural work, and produces a full season of contemporary performance, along with projects in the literary and visual arts.  Besides Paul Flores and WordSpeak, the 2006/2007 season has already included the Mexican musical cabaret of Astrid Hadad, guitar great Bill Frisell, Brazilian Marcia Milhazes Dance Company and the gay writer Emanuel Xavier. The season continues with groundbreaking international dance companies from Montreal and New Zealand, and the launch of the fifth edition of the Tigertail Poetry Annual. For more information about Tigertail and full season details visit them on the web at www.tigertail.org or call them at 305 324 4337.