‘Cinema is my religion and the Castro is our Vatican’: shakeup at landmark San Francisco venue stuns locals

The city's biggest arthouse cinema may become a live entertainment venue just shy of its 100th birthday

For years, the San Francisco underground drag performer and cinephile Peaches Christ has filled the city's renowned Castro Theatre with her Midnight Mass series, juxtaposing cult film screenings with live, drag-parody re-enactments and onstage interviews. These loving but irreverent late-night events have been a staple of LGBTQ+ culture at the city's pre-eminent arthouse theater, itself one of the most visible landmarks in San Francisco's most famous gayborhood.

As Peaches Christ puts it: Cinema has been my religion, and the Castro is our Vatican."