Steppenwolf at Pride
Posted by Danielle O’Donoghue on 7/03/2008June 29th, 2008 was a big day in my life; it was my first EVER parade. I can “proudly” say that Chicago’s 39th Annual Gay Pride Parade was my first parade. This is a good parade to start from, because it’s definitely the Midwest’s largest and one of the country’s best Pride parades.
To get the full experience we decided to go straight to the heart of the activity, so we got off the train at Belmont and swam through the rainbow colored mob towards Halsted. We had a prime position and as the parade started you could feel the excitement, especially mine (I’m highly prone to adrenaline rushes).
Float after float went by; some promoting equality, some representing various restaurants and TV stations, and some with (almost clothed) people dancing to the beat of Miley Cyrus. All this time, I didn’t see one theatre company.
So it starts to rain and people start to leave. We’re sticking it out as long as humanly possible and finally when it starts to pour, we start walking towards shelter. It’s around this time that my ears perk up. I hear a really cool remix of a song that popular radio stations made me hate, “Umbrella” by Rhianna. I start to walk back towards the parade when I see a white van with a familiar insignia on it. When I shouted “Steppenwolf!” and started sprinting towards them, I think my friends got the idea and followed.
Steppenwolf rocked as hard as I knew they would. Everyone involved was wearing a black and red Steppenwolf t-shirt and there were choreographed dancers using red umbrellas as batons a la Dead Man’s Cell Phone. The dancers looked awesome but it was raining so hard I give them credit for not just giving up and holding the umbrellas over their heads during the whole parade! Around the back of the Steppenwolf van were familiar faces from around the office throwing Steppenwolf t-shirts and Superior Donuts buttons into the crowd (I got one of both!).
The day, in my opinion, was a wild success and any other parade will have a hard time following it. In fact, I don’t think I even want to go to any other parade besides this one next year. It’ll be a tradition. Or who knows, maybe I’ll even be in it!
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Thats weird, I can’t believe you’ve never been to a parade before, Danielle. I go to the 4th of July parade in my town every year and I’m actually going to be in the parade tomorrow as the Scarecrow from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz… the book, not the movie or musical…yeah. I get to sacrifice my dignity once again for the sake of theatre, even if it isn’t a conventional theater setting.
Oh well, there’s always next year
I’d really like to go to the Gay Pride parade next year though, too, cause it sounds like you had a lot of fun. i’m also now jealous i didn’t get to go because I had to work
July 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
You’re so lucky Cat! I would dress up as anything to be in a parade. We should all go next year, it would be a blast!