The potential horror of sitting through terrible movies is more than made up for by the chance to read (or write) reviews skewering them for the caca they are. And so, for your sadomasochistic delectation, I’ve rounded up some of the most sneeringly enjoyable pans in history, concentrating on camp classics that, if truth be told, I happen to love. Well, some of them. Bon appétit.

“Showgirls is a cold, soulless, misogynistic motion picture. It has one aim only: to suck in money. Artistic integrity, intelligent scripting, heartfelt acting and sincere filmmaking are all absent. The final scenes are intended to teach something about ethics, but that’s a hypocritical stance for a motion picture without a moral compass.”—ReelViews

"It sucks when Mariah Carey sings. It sucks when she does not sing. That the nature of its sucking shifts in between does not register and does not matter."—Antagony & Ecstasy re: Glitter (2001)

"Britney Spears' technique indicates she's a graduate of the Brady Bunch Acting Academy."—Film Quips Online review of Crossroads (2002)

“A bore is starred.”—the Village Voice on the Barbra Streisand vehicle A Star is Born (1976)

“Things go downhill rapidly as the movie descends into horror material that is so laughably grotesque, yet so visually cool it remains fatally unfunny.”—Globe and Mail review of The Neon Demon (2016)

“Obscure and pointless personal fantasy, financed at great expense by a major film company as a rather seedy monument to Anthony Newley’s totally uninteresting sex life, and to the talent which he obviously thinks he possesses. The few mildly amusing moments are not provided by him.”—Halliwell’s Film Guide on Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)

“At Long Last Love never quite sinks, but then it never leaves the pier.”—Vincent Canby, New York Times (1975)

“This foolish attempt at recreating the lush musicals of the 1930s offers fabulous art deco sets, memorable Cole Porter songs, and slick production values, yet it goes down like a stricken elephant.”—TV Guide’s Movie Guide on At Long Last Love

“Cole Porter fans, steer clear. Actually, everybody steer clear.”—Film 4

“The success of a movie like The Sound of Music makes it even more difficult for anyone to try to do anything worth doing, anything relevant to the modern world, anything inventive or expressive.”—Pauline Kael (1965)

“…Square and solid sugar. Calorie-counters, diabetics, and grown-ups from eight to 80 had best beware.”—Judith Crist on The Sound of Music

“Jumpin’ Jack Flash is not a gas, it’s a bore. Anyone who’s been longing for a film in which an office worker talks dirty to a computer terminal should find Jumpin’ Jack Flash just what they’ve been waiting for.”—Variety (1985)

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a motion picture whose awfulness can hardly be imagined on a human scale; its derangement and crazy invention stretch beyond the limits of imagination….This film is so terrible that it goes ‘round the other side of terrible and comes back in some kind of unbearable psychotic beauty.”—Antagony & Ecstasy

“Despite boasting several important moral lessons, the period piece is more artificial than a polyester teddy bear stuffed with Splenda and Cheez Whiz-–and about as appealing.”—The Wrap on Little Boy

“When the end of Get Hard finally arrives, it’s 95 minutes too late.”—Vue Weekly

“Let’s pretend prison rape jokes are funny (they’re not) and cheap homophobia jokes are funny (also not). Even with all those concessions, Get Hard still isn’t that funny.”—Columbus Alive

“Oy! A lumbering, overwrought and somewhat risible production that in all its bathos cries out for a flurry of Woody Allen neurotic Jewish jokes. ”—Ozus’ World Movie Reviews on Yentl (1983)

“A movie whose chuckles (six, I counted) are outnumbered by helicopter shots of the Wynn resort in Las Vegas.”—The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde on Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

“Only Ross Hunter would remake a 1937 movie into a 1932 one.”—Judith Crist on the musical reworking of Lost Horizon (1973)

“It can’t even be enjoyed as camp.”—Newsweek on Lost Horizon

“Every joke is obvious, every joke is predictable, and strangely, every joke is repeated.”—Sky Movies re Vacation

“The movie doesn’t stick together in one’s head; this thing is like some junky fairground show—a chamber of horrors with skeletons that jump up.”—Pauline Kael on The Towering Inferno (1974)

“More fun than getting stabbed, at least”—Movies.com on The Roommate (2011)

“For those who like to watch folks pull the wings off flies.”—Judith Crist on See No Evil (1971)

“The question becomes, How much punishment can the audience take and still keep on howling?”—East Bay Express on The Room (2003)

 

WATCH CLOSELY NOW

But back to A Star Is Born, the 1976 Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson starrer that was the third incarnation of the story of an exciting woman with a rising career as her drunken husband’s stumbles in despair. (It could be the story of…well, a lot of real-life Hollywood couples, sometimes with the genders switched.) Two versions came before it—1932’s What Price Hollywood? (which became a model for the later incarnations) and 1937’s A Star Is Born with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March, a pungent drama that’s a great example of Hollywood on Hollywood. But it became a whole other animal—a glorious musical—in 1954, when George Cukor directed Judy Garland and James Mason in an erratically edited and uneven but beautiful oddball of a movie, with Cukor’s framing eye at its finest and Judy’s tremulous vulnerability and spirit reaching new levels with her rising-star spunk, sad-spouse histrionics, and delivery of the heart wrencher “The Man Who Got Away.” The Barbra version? Well, I wouldn’t say a bore was starred, but in bringing it into a more pop-rock-flavored world and making the plot more diffuse, that remake didn’t exactly result in a whole lot of cultural urgency. And that perm! And now comes Lady Gaga, about to star in one more remake, costarring and directed by Bradley Cooper. With new music (and, I’m sure, all new outfits), this could either be another unwittingly campy blowout a la Barbra’s or it could be a heartfelt answer to Judy’s. Gaga certainly has the drive and stretching muscles for the assignment, and the best bet would be something that would preserve what’s essential about the film while making the material relevant again. It’s possible a rewarding time is born, and if that isn’t achieved, it could be good for a laugh, and besides, a sixth remake can’t be far behind.

The Most Vicious Reviews Written About Glitter, Showgirls, and Other Camp Classics

The Most Vicious Reviews Written About Glitter, Showgirls, and Other Camp Classics

Hollywood loves nothing more than trotting a hit property out of mothballs and gussying it up again for some hot star to earn all new cash with. So I’ve got some ideas for remakes, and if they work out, seeing the result will be its own reward. Generally, I feel that good movies shouldn’t be remade—just bad ones, to make them better. But let’s mix up the field to make things broader, and give us some remakes we could live with—even of films that are fab enough to begin with. Here goes everything:

*THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTION with Meryl Streep. Just to see if she’s that versatile.

*Similarly, The DEVIL WEARS PRADA, THE IRON LADY, and DOUBT, starring any of a bevy of high-toned actresses, from Kate Winslet to Emily Blunt. To see if anyone else is that versatile.

*CHICAGO. Is it too soon for a remake of the flashy, trashy musical about celebrity justice? Probably not, especially since that show, about a pair of leggy criminals in tune with razzle dazzle, will obviously never die on Broadway (along with the Phantom menace). In the new version, set on the reality competition show circuit, Taylor Swift could rock it as Roxie, Demi Lovato might have the tough edge for Velma, and Adam Lambert could be slippery lawyer Billy Flynn. “And that’s good, isn’t it…?”

*MRS. MINIVER or any of those other noble pics that starred Oscar winner Greer Garson, complete with stiff upper lip. Adele would be perfection, dahling.

*MY FAIR LADY starring Laverne Cox. Laverne could turn it out as the volatile street urchin Eliza Doolittle, who, with the help of Professor Henry Higgins (Jamie Foxx), becomes a slick ballroom diva, wowing all of L.A. In lieu of papa Alfred P. Doolittle (Billy Porter) doing “Get Me To The Church On Time,” there will be Hozier singing “Take Me To Church.”

*WEST SIDE STORY, with Neil Patrick Harris as a gay former gang member (now the CEO of a hookup site) who falls in love with a straight guy, played by Aaron Eckhart. Both of their families wildly disapprove, but the dance-offs will be remarkable enough to win everyone over at the gym.

*BROOKLYNwith Lady Gaga (Let’s try out her cinematic acting chops with some pure dramatics. Though admittedly this would speed up the remaking process a bit.) Also, MAHOGANYwith Rihanna. (The Diana Ross original was not exactly a Renoir film, but a fun trashy flick). Or—once again—CHICAGOwith them two, plus Nicki Minaj. Helleaux.

*MAME starring Madonna. The high-living auntie could be a good fit for Madonna, and since the 1974 Lucille Ball version was greeted like a pile of soggy corn husks, there’s no harm in trying. And this would be a real, old-style star vehicle. If Madonna’s not into it, bring on Cher, who was long ago rumored for the part.

*MARTY, the Ernest Borgnine-starring Oscar winner about the sad sack butcher, this time starring James Franco. Give those ham hocks some glam!

*DEAD RINGER (or A STOLEN LIFE), two pretty obscure films in which Bette Davis played twins, thereby upping her dialogue. Bring on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who’d be a natural—and unlike Bette, they wouldn’t have to shoot their scenes separately.

*XANADU, the overblown musical fantasy that had a hit soundtrack, but couldn’t keep disco (or ancient mythology) alive. Again, this is perfect for Taylor Swift (who is sort of a nouveau Olivia Newton-John anyway). Also, Eddie Redmayne for the male lead, and a cavalcade of every other star on earth for the jaw-dropping musical climax on blades.

*WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?with Tilda Swinton, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick, and Casey Affleck. No joke here. The original film of the Edward Albee marital drama is a magnificent work, but this cast could put the “re” (as in “respect”) back in remake.

One of the staples of LGBT folklore is that gay guys always seek mirror-image boyfriends (or husbands), coming off insecure and/or narcissistic enough to crave an exact reflection of themselves. That’s had truth in the past, but it’s less so as gays don’t need as much artificial support. For a while, it seemed as if some gays were even looking like their dogs and their furnishings, but now that even varies. It’s possible that gays no longer need their own image looking back at them in order to feel validated. This might seem like another form of reductionism, but it’s more productive to say what gays don’t have to be rather than what they supposedly always are.

I’ve written about some of the stereotypes that are true—at least in my case, lol. But here are some other ones it’s time to send back to the gay warehouse.

*GAYS ONLY CARE ABOUT MOVIES AND TV SHOWS WITH QUEER CHARACTERS. Many gays are into all that, mind you—and binge-watch things that are gay-gay-gay—but hardly exclusively. If each demographic stuck to seeing things with “their own kind,” moviegoing would be as segregated as all-girl Bingo. Like I said, gays don’t want to only see mirror images!

*GAY GUYS ONLY LIKE STRAIGHT GUYS. That’s an old one from the self-loathing days.

*GAYS LOVE THAI FOOD. Yes, I’ve perpetrated that one, but it’s time for an expiration date on it. Give someone else a chance at that beef salad. Gays actually have a diverse palette, even if the restaurants in question don’t have the atmosphere of a bar in HK or WeHo.

*GAYS ADORE ATHLETICS. It’s hard to believe it, but stereotypes have come so full circle that the familiar feeling now is that gays absolutely love sports—a far cry from the days when the two were as separate as football jerseys and glitter tap shoes. So I now have to reverse the new stereotype and take it back to the old one, to remind you that gays don’t all love sports. I swear!

*GAYS ALWAYS VOTE FOR GAY RIGHTS. As we’ve seen through the years, that isn’t always the case, and it’s weird.

*THEY ALL LOVE GAY CRUISES AND FIRE ISLAND! THEY ALL LOVE KALE! THEY ALL LOVE ACCESSORIES!

*GAY GUYS ALL WANT TO GET MARRIED. No, not really. Some of them don’t even want to go to someone else’s wedding.

*GAYS ALL LIVE FOR SHOW TUNES  Not every gay male feels the constant urge to launch into numbers from Gypsy, Funny Girl, Little Shop of Horrors, Wicked, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Hamilton. No, wait a minute. On second thought…

AND SPEAKING OF MUSICALS….

In Transit, an a cappella Broadway show about 11 intertwining characters in the NYC subway system, is in previews, preparing for a December 10 opening. The book and score are by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth, and the cast includes Justin Guarini, Margo Seibert, James Snyder, and Telly Yeung. James-Allen Ford told me that he and the other three writers have an a cappella group (which originally had six members, but two of them left for other parts). He said they got together after 9/11 and started planting the seeds for this musical, which has 11 intertwining characters, including a gay couple (Guarini and Lueng) getting ready to get married. Not having musicians won’t be a controversy, said Ford, because it was cleared with the orchestra union. And he added that the set is pretty glam and doesn’t totally consist of the subway, and going downstairs when you enter the theater makes the experience all too apt. Thanks to the bounty of the musical theater, this is not a new idea at all, as it turns out. On The Town, (1944), Subways Are For Sleeping (1961), Metro, (1992), and off-Broadway’s Happiness (2009) are among the shows that feature mixed tunes and turnstiles. So get out your Metrocard for one more ride.

*Would the old Kander and Ebb mother/daughter musical The Rink be worth another look? I never thought so, but at her Carnegie Hall concert, Chita Rivera: Nowadays, last week (which I was there for much of), the two-time Tony winner razzled with a couple of songs from it (including one with guest Alan Cumming), and one got the feeling that with script revisions, this Rink could be far less extinct. Or maybe they can just magically find a whole new show by Kander and Ebb.

Michael York

York has always seemed up for a screen adventure, as in Cabaret, Bob Fosse’s dazzling adaptation of the musical about hedonism, sexuality, delusion, hopes, and despair as the Nazis rise. York was the writer who sleeps with guys and Sally Bowles.

Oliver Reed, Alan Bates

These two bright lights of 1960s British cinema exuded a muddy machismo when wrestling in Women in Love, Ken Russell’s visceral adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novella. Reed could also be counted on to exude a sullen danger in films like Oliver!, whereas Bates (TheRose, Broadway) is synonymous with a more cerebral angst.

David Hemmings

Hemmings starred in the arthouse hit Blow-Up (1966) and also was game for dizzy comic book mayhem (Barbarella) and an earthy musical (Camelot).

Malcom McDowell

Armed with a gleeful grin, McDowell went rogue in the boarding school drama if…. (1968) and the nihilistic romp A Clockwork Orange (1971), proving to be a far cry from the Douglas Fairbanks types of yore. The dangerous games of some of his early work still chill.

Dirk Bogarde

An earnest, dry actor, Dirk made his mark in films like Victim (1961) and Death in Venice (1971). As movies kept exploring, Bogarde became known as a pioneer.

David Bowie

The glamtastic rocker lent his surreal presence to films like The Man Who Fell To Earth and the vampire thriller The Hunger. His aloof allure generally gave them an artful imprint from outer space.

Tim Curry

A pricelessly vamping Frank ‘n Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tim’s also known for everything from Amadeus (onstage) to Spamalot and beyond. His wit takes the warped out of time warping.

Rupert Crosse

Exuding sass and humor, Crosse was the first African American to be nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar (for the western The Reivers).

Tom Courtenay

Courtenay was a familiar presence in 1960s films like Doctor Zhivago, often projecting a wiry intellect (and scoring in the ‘80s with The Dresser, a pas de deux for theatrical figures). Keeping on, he matched Charlotte Rampling every step of the way in last year’s marital drama 45 Years.

Ellen DeGeneres continued to make waves (or at least lead the masses in the wave) as the lesbian queen of daytime, while Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, and Anderson Cooper kept nighttime talk TV bright with questions and banter.

Award winning actor/playwright Harvey Fiersteinspoke eloquently about the Orlando massacre and the kind of compassion it demands for our community, and on a more effervescent note, he dug back into his Edna Turnblad role for a Hairspray Live!that hardly had NBC screaming “No more musicals!” Based on the Broadway show (in turn based on the John Waters movie) that unseats Baltimore segregation with rollicking spirit, its candy-colored but socially conscious ebullience got a mostly favorable response from critics, though some pointed out the pitfalls of live TV. And it followed the mashup The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do The Time Warp Again (with a shimmying Laverne Cox as the sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania) for a one-two punch that made us wonder if Angels in America Live—or even Boys in the Band Live—might not be far behind. The New York Times said that Rocky Horror had lost quite a bit of its subversive magic, which isn’t surprising; even the original midnight movie has the audacity to come off endearingly quaint rather than flat-out frightening these days. But as a camp classic, it still needs to be produced, the way straights can have their…well, don’t say Rodgers & Hammerstein shows, because there’s nary a gay who doesn’t have fancy thoughts about those too!

In other potential future ideas, Laverne and Harvey duetting on “Bosom Buddies” from Mame would be a jolt for the masses, and of course Rosie O’Donnell (who was the gym teacher in Hairspray Live!) should somehow pop up in there as well.

Lady Gaga led an L.A. rally in the wake of Orlando, while Nick Jonas got flack for appearing at the NYC rally—though naturally, there should be room for everyone, as long as diversity is achieved within the time limit. Similarly, there was some controversy when Matt Bomer was cast as a trans female sex worker in movie, Anything, but again, there shouldn’t be limits on who can play what, as long as transgender men and women get the chance to play all kinds of roles, just like cis actors do.

Trans continued to be visible in March, when filmmaker Andy Wachowski came out as Lilly Wachowski, transgender like sister Lana.

Also in the movies, 2015’s Carol didn’t get a Best Picture Oscar nomination. (Not tragic enough?). But Moonlight—directed by Barry Jenkins, based on a Jenkins screenplay developed from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s story—seems to be aiming to blast last year’s shortage of African American Oscar nominees with a coming of age story that has gotten raves and Golden Globe nominations.

Channing Tatum’s sailor number in the old-Hollywood romp Hail, Caesar! had homoerotic touches that popped sensitive eyeballs out of heads, while in the animated Sausage Party, a lesbian taco voiced by Salma Hayek makes a move on a glamour bun played by Kristen Wiig. The bun spurs her advances in favor of a very phallic hot dog, but then…oh, wait till you see the food orgy.

Sulu (John Cho) in Star Trek Beyond was beamed out as gay, apparently in a nod to the original Sulu, George Takei. And in the entertaining Tallulah—full of quirky people, some more flawed than others—JohnBenjamin Hickey plays Allison Janney’s ex-husband who came out and settled down with a guy played by Zachary Quinto, as Janney seethes with rage.

Bridget Jones’s Baby had a few gay and lesbian bits here and there, none of them that enlightened. And there were other lesbian bits in art films, star vehicles, instant cult flicks, and some obscure indies that it’s possible no one will see but more critics. But there they were!

From Modern Family to The Real O’Neals, TV kept presenting visibility, and in the personal realm, Parks and Recreation’sAubrey Plaza told The Advocate,“I fall in love with girls and guys. I can’t help it.” No word on Grumpy cat.

Meanwhile, movie/TV/concert/everything star Bette Midler announced that she’s coming to Broadway this spring in a revival of Hello, Dolly!and people started hoping there would be tickets available on the actual staircase. (Even gayer, Bette is appearing in Freak Show, based on James St. James’ award winning novel.)

And somehow, things kept coming back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, whose creator/costar Richard O’Brien had been quoted saying trans people can’t become women. Hmm. Maybe he meant that some of them already are?

George Michael emerged in the 1980s as half of the zippy synth-pop duo Wham!, who served fluffy, infectious hits like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” with the blitheness of teenyboppers doing a number at the annual varsity show. As fine as bandmate Andrew Ridgeley was, it was George Michael who clearly had the star appeal, to the point where his “going solo” (a phrase from “Wake Me Up…”) was as inevitable as Beyoncé’s departure from Destiny’s Child. A shy, earnest sort of guy, Michael became emboldened by mixing the techno-kitsch sounds of the duo with deeper tones borrowed from R&B, rock, and dance, and becoming a true artist.

George's passing reminds us that 2016’s death toll was one of the darkest ever; between him, Bowie, Prince, and Natalie Cole, it’s been a truly lousy year for music. George’s dying on Christmas was an extra sad twist, making it his “Last Christmas”—the Wham! ditty that became a season perennial. I wish he’d held out for at least one more royalty check.

When he did go out on his own, George was personally unsure, but obviously felt confident enough to duet with the greatest of all singers, Aretha Franklin, on the hit “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).” After that, he cemented his status by coming up with diverse, textured work like “Careless Whisper,” “I Want Your Sex,” “Faith,” and “Father Figure,” knocking out the hits while astounding everyone with his versatility and charisma. (His dancing was always hopelessly awkward, but I found that kind of endearing, I guess. It was part of the eager, imperfect, but inspired package that George represented.)

George stepped into the popular NYC club the Limelight at one point in the ‘90s and everyone froze, especially as the VIP DJ zoomed in and engaged him in a long, serious talk about music. More than an idol looking for fan worship, George wanted to be taken seriously, while imparting wisdoms and soaking up trends. This night gave him the chance to escape into all those roles.

And all this time, I knew that George was as gay as that other George (Boy George O’Dowd of Culture Club) and in fact, Boy George angrily outed George Michael in the press for years, forgetting that he had been sexually ambiguous himself for an uncomfortable amount of time. And now it was George Michael who just wouldn’t say it. He had slick hair and a gyrating crotch and seemed gayer than a British fruitcake, but he was clearly going to stay in the career closet, unless catapulted out of there by scandal headlines. And that’s just what happened, as it turned out.

The only good thing about his being busted for lewd sex in the restroom of a public park in Beverly Hills in 1998—for which the authorities overly shamed him, knowing they had a celebrity by the tail—was that the incident outed him irrevocably. George had to come out and say he was gay, and after that, there was no turning back. He was “the toilet guy” forever and would never again dream of “dating” Brooke Shields. (In 2011, Brooke told an audience I was in that George had romanced her, but they basically talked a lot about fashion, with nary a kiss happening, before he decided they should break up. “I didn’t know,” said poor Brooke.)

The bad thing, though, was that in puritanical America, George never had another hit record, even though he mocked the whole incident with a video and was desperate to move on. The singer got busted again in England for the same thing, and by now the career damage was too strong to overcome, though he remained in the zeitgeist as a gay singer with vocal chops and lots of spunk.

In 2011, he was hospitalized with pneumonia, and his people were quick to tell everyone that speculations were “unfounded and untrue." What I got from that was, “In other words, he doesn’t have AIDS.” In writing, I urged them to keep quiet and just concentrate on George’s health rather than try to demonize HIV in the same way we’d heard from show biz and the government for years. We don’t know yet what killed George Michael yesterday, though his team now says that George hadn’t been sick at all, he was just overcome with heart failure. But we’ve already learned that his music is unkillable by anything.

Conspiratorially, with friends, we’ve often taken the bait to be bitchy queens, gleefully cutting down people with wisecracks and cynicism. Lord knows I’ve done so with a world full of such friends. Being able to do so might well be part and parcel of the gay experience, and as I’ve noted, gays’ outsider status contributes to the fact that we sometimes use humor to navigate our way more into acceptance—with each other and with THE other. As someone who relishes incorrect humor, from “Springtime for Hitler” to Joan Rivers on down, I never want to give up the chance to be able to toss off outrageous quips and bon mots, especially since there’s so much to criticize in the culture, and I don’t just mean the hairstyles. Besides that, an overabundance of political correctness can be suffocating, taking the life out of humor and observation in a way that challenges thought when it’s actually trying to encourage it.

That being said, when does a bitchy queen become too much? Calling someone old and fat isn’t exactly productive, especially if you’re old and fat. Going automatically for the jugular is too easy a response, when there are other, more reasoned salvos you can consider. A putdown can be a step down, unless it’s a matter of embracing dumb comments in order to simultaneously deflate them—a trick that requires an especially deft comic touch that various female comics are adept at, but not necessarily the gang at the office.

Lord knows I scream with laughter when Lady Bunny says that “slut shaming” is exactly what’s needed—after all, what’s the point of being a slut without being called names and told to do dirty things? But using bitchy wit to deflate individuals by name is less gratifying (unless they’re Republicans, of course). Just being bitchy for bitchy’s sake is a self-defeating act that puts the stereotype on in stereo. So perhaps we bitchy queens need to think twice before being so blithe. Or maybe we should just keep dishing it out, as long as it’s done with the proper perspective and wit. I don’t know. I’ll just do what Bette Davis says.

In the process, it’s also important to learn more sensitivity towards other members of the community, something we need to keep reminding ourselves as we get too comfortable with the dishing process. Trans people demand to be understood as those for whom their gender is not a choice. Bisexuals should be respected as those who genuinely aren’t restricted by gender when it comes to love and sex. And lesbians shouldn’t be subjected to demeaning jokes about looks and biology. (Lord knows I’ve offended when it comes to all three of those things. House parties are an evil thing.)

Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to suddenly run around being Mother Theresa, as I spout greeting card wisdoms about our brothers and sisters (and naughty uncles). That would be incredibly not fun—and non-productive too. But maybe at the very least it’s time to be more open minded about celebrities’ foibles. As bedazzled as their lives may seem, stars are human, with feelings, vulnerabilities, and often a willingness for improvement. On the smallest level, it might be wise to encourage them when they try something new. Broadway stars known for flamboyant performances should be commended for attempting to scale things down in roles that would normally lend themselves to over-the-top-ness (unless the scale-down just plain doesn’t work by any stretch). And the Madonna types who keep rocking deserves props for increasing the choices for artists as they mature, as well as for her powerful recent Billboard“Women in Music” speech in which she talked about the demeaning things a woman has to go through in show biz, especially in relation to the glorified males doing the same thing.

And that’s it. End of niceness. Meet me by the water cooler and we’ll dis that Voice contestant’s cowboy hat.

HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE

In a perfectly earnest, well meaning, and non bitchy fashion, let me run down some recent happenings in film and theater. A fancy Le Bernardin lunch for the well-made Eye in the Sky was capped by Helen Mirren, Gavin Hood, and host Tina Brown eloquently dissecting topics involving drones, national secutiy, and international politics. Compared to the usual fall movie event, it was a real winner.

Kudos to Ben Rimalower for his funny and insightful show Patti Issues, which only partially deals with his longtime fixation on Broadway diva Patti LuPone and her war paint. On a lighter note, I also enjoyed That Golden Girls Show—A Puppet Parody!, in which actresses playing Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose hold puppets (which stop at the waist) of the beloved characters and snap bon mots at each other with a glee that resonates times two. You get the actress plus the puppet. What could be more doubly delightful? And this way, you let them be the bitchy queens. Damn, they’re good.

We’ve come a long way. Singers like Sam Smith, Adam Lambert, and Mary Lambert have proven that in 2016, you can be open about your sexuality and sell lots of merchandise. The same goes for bisexual and trans performers, from music to stage to comedy. So I asked some queer and queer-friendly talents who’ve been at it before it was cool to see what advice they’d give to someone starting out today. They offered a worldly and wise mouthful.

TYM MOSS, gay singer/comic/writer (2 Queers and a Bitch)

“I am so excited to see the variety of LGBT performers coming out and coming up these days. The LGBT community is much more accepted and visible in society now. LGBT was not acknowledged or even spoken of when I was first starting out. In fact, in the early ‘80s, I was the lead singer of a group that toured the country and was based out of the Midwest. I got 'let go,' literally, in the middle of a cornfield in Ohio because they suspected I was gay. I didn't even know I was gay at that time!  

“My advice to any LGBT performers starting out is quite simple. BE AUTHENTIC! Today, you are allowed to be yourself. Let your heart guide you. Create your own look and style of performance. Be original. And above all: HAVE FUN!  Get yourself out there. Gain experience. Take jobs to get your art and your name in front of people. Do not expect it all to happen overnight. Study your craft. Excel at it. Become an expert at what you do. 

“No one has ever been you before. Bring you to the show! Be open to suggestions, but listen to your heart. You are the author of your life's journey. Write the rules to your own career. Be true to your word. Be the friend you would want to have as a friend. Now, get out there and be you.....and enjoy the hell out of the ride!”

ROBBYNE KAAMIL, “a straight sassy black girl from the Bronx” who’s the Playgirl Relationship Expert and DNA Magazine advice columnist

“You have to work hard. There are no shortcuts to success. Too many believe that if they throw a few videos up on YouTube, they’ll become rich and famous overnight. Even the Kardashians are not overnight sensations. Kris Jenner pimped out her hos (aka—Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall, and Kylie) for many years before they achieved the level of success they have today. Remember to stay off the drugs. Whitney was right: crack is whack. Too bad she didn’t listen to her own advice.”

ARI GOLD, gay singer

“I would probably give the same advice I have always given. Things haven't changed as much as people like to think—and I started before the advent of social media. But I always used to say that you just have to put the work out there and get out there as much as you can. Do I think it's important to be out? Sure it is. But would I tell someone I think they should be or need to be? No, I would not. It really all depends on what's important to you. For some artists, being gay is not central to their work and if someone wants to give them money or hard-found opportunity, who am I to judge them if all they wanna do is sing and perform?

"For me, my being gay and being the kind of artist I didn't have growing up was just as important as my need to sing and be on stage. It was not a choice for me—it was a calling. I couldn't imagine having the kind of obstacles I had and surviving them if I wasn't so passionate as I am about the cause. With that said, there does seem to be more of a market for it, more ways to get your work out there, and we do continue to need more LGBT voices and stories. So if our freedom and equality means something to your soul, go for it. We need you.”

MARGA GOMEZ, lesbian comic/performance  artist

“My advice to LGBT performers is be original, be excellent, be generous, and don’t take my gigs.”

AMBER MARTIN, new album, A.M. Gold. She’s performing a Janis Joplin show on January 19, Janis’s 74th birthday, at Feinstein’s/54 Below

“My entire performance career has been deeply embedded in the LGBTQ community. This is my community. I personally don't outwardly discuss my sexual orientation, because no one usually asks or cares. I am a private person, but I believe it is up to the individual young, queer emerging artist. My body of work is for everyone/anyone/all people. Why limit my audience to any one group? I especially feel that keeping my art available to all is good for the more conservative folk in my audience. My shows are sometimes controversial and wide open on a comedic level. I sneak powerful ideas into my sets through the vein of comedy and it hopefully seeps into the minds that need it most. Dig?

“If you feel your art is going to be for specifically LGBTQ audiences, more power to you. Speak out loud and proud about it now more than ever before! Folks have died for your right and ability to do so. I feel for me, keeping my LGBTQ community close at all times, but branding my art for all types, is best for my career. I prefer to speak not only to the choir, but also to the ones who really need the info I'm sharing. Love is the law!”

REAL SEX TIPS FOR A REAL HOUSEWIFE

How do you make it as a multimedia personality? You cause a sensation on Real Housewives of New York, then break out of your luxury kitchen and go legit in the hit off-Broadway comedy Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man. That’s just what my pal Sonja Morgan did, and she told me the Tips were well worth learning. Said she: “It was a true New York experience and reminded me why I moved to New York in the first place, as a young fashion student studying marketing at FIT in the late ‘80s and soaking in all the culture and arts I could. I‘ve always been an artist and entertainer close to the LGBT community and other artists who have a bawdy, sexy sense of humor. I felt I had come full circle in expressing myself through the well written script, that is an underlining story of romance that we all seek.” I should try it! Get that banana ready.

THREE ENSEMBLE MUSICALS! THREE!

How do you make it on Broadway? Easy—do something adventurous in a smaller venue and keep growing and evolving until the big time beckons. And so, my third time with Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812—an inventive musical based on 70 pages of War and Peace—was the best of all, especially because the environmental staging worked so well with the theater transformed into a mass of runways leading to a circular stage with the band in the middle of it, twinkly lights ascending and descending on cue. With the constant swirling motion, the sung-through musical is clever, funny, sexy, and dizzyingly colorful, and blessed with a tip-top cast (including a very persuasive Josh Groban) that keeps your head Russian. I sat in one of the onstage seats and gamely kept bobbing my noggin around to catch the action. But that was much easier when a particular scene happened to be staged at my own table! Finally—Tony consideration for me! (But don’t forfeit your chance by hideously leaving your cell phone on. As a pre-show announcement warns you, “Nyet” to that.)

Another sung-through musical, the warm and moving Falsettos—written by William Finn and James Lapine—is back in a Lapine-directed production that serves it with respect and class. The 1992 show—consisting of two acts, the light-hearted "March of the Falsettos" and the meatier "Falsettoland"—concerns a NYC man (Christian Borle), the likeable narcissist he’s smitten with (Andrew Rannells), the guy’s put-upon ex-wife (Stephanie J. Block), their befuddled kid (Anthony Rosenthal), and the unorthodox therapist who tries to solve the neuroses of virtually every one onstage. The conceptual musical is a game of checkers, which evolves into tennis and aerobics, as the characters—backed by skylines and Pirandellian furniture—spar, rearrange, and iron out their neurotic needs in tandem. Act One starts on an impossible high, with the hilarious “Four Jews in a Room Bitching,” which is everything it promises. Act Two introduces an interracial couple (Tracie Thoms and Betsy Wolfe) in a fascinating foreshadowing of Rent, and it also draws in the harrowing rise of AIDS in a way that will have you needing that therapist. Block delivers, especially in a powerhouse “Trina’s Song” about breaking down, Rannells is cutely charismatic and touching, Uranowitz is wryly funny, and Borle gets to show a quieter side to his talent than usual. Thoms and Wolfe are also superb. It’s more like a “really nice” than a transformative “OMG,” but still, all these years later, Falsettos still deserves high-pitched praise.

Another musical about neurotic New Yorkers, In Transit, got some rough reviews, but I enjoyed it, maybe because I don’t usually hang around subway stations very often. The subterranean musical, conducted on an uncanny set of the Atlantic Avenue station (and environs), juxtaposes 11 intertwining characters with dashed dreams and resilient aspirations as they sing transportational tidbits about how “It’s time to move on” or “I’m not there yet.” The show is a cappella, not just to put musicians out of work, but to give it a throbbing, real NYC feel, which is well carried off, complete with a sort of narrator emitting sound effects (though one song sounds remarkably like “9 To 5”). There were several understudies instead of the regular cast members last week—it was New Year’s—but the actors were terrific, especially Justin Guarini (as a gay trying to uncloset himself despite his mother’s silent objections) and Moya Angela as that mother and a bitchy-for-the-sake-of-it token clerk, who’s hilarious. The resulting plots may be a little too Love American Style for comfort and the subway may seem a bit too sanitized (other than the rat eating pizza and the man relieving himself), but generally this is a slick and likeable excursion that advocates enjoying the ride, whether you’re getting to your ideal destination right away or not. Alas, I’m not there yet!

If anyone embodies a positive definition of the word “diva,” it’s Charles Busch. From his divinely campy Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, the avant-garde 1984 play he starred in, to his crackling, funny Broadway writing debut, the neurotic fest Tale of the Allergist’s Wife in 2000, the actor/author/cabaret performer has helped legitimize grand gestures, witty utterances and deadpan comebacks. Other credits include Psycho Beach Party, rewriting Taboo, the story of Boy George, and The Divine Sister. 

Now, he just happens to be a recording star on top of all of that, so Ariana Grande had better keep her pony tight. Charles Busch LIVE at Feinstein’s/54 Below has been released, and the diva’s fans can catch his witty whimsy in a whole new arena. I talked to Busch on the phone about his fancy new status.

Hello, dahling.

Hello. I’m channeling [late, great actress] Marian Seldes and am talking very quietly. Like many people with encounters with the celebrated, I saved their messages on my voicemail. She spoke in lethal, sepulchral tones.  

Marian once told me she wanted to reach inside my head. There was certainly plenty of room there.

I have one from Barbara Cook, where every other word is “fuck,” and one from Joan Rivers,  real sweet. 

Speaking of immortal recordings, so you’re a recording star now, right?

I’m the latest artist on the Broadway Records label. I signed with great fanfare. My first CD dropped this month. I keep waiting for them to announce which song will be the 45. I want a 45 with an A and a B side. I want to be on jukeboxes around the country. I like to keep up with the latest technology trends.

Is the CD based on a compilation of performances?

We recorded two live performances last June. I thought it very Streisand-like in taking a phrase from this night and a phrase from that night, but it was very clear the first night was the best, though there was one place where I told some inane shaggy dog tale from the first night that we cut out. I was dubious, skeptical about doing a record at all, and I was afraid that just hearing me may not be what one would want on a long car ride. I was thinking not to do it, but then I had played the tracks to a number of friends who are severe critics who don’t have much good to say about anybody. I felt, “My instinct is not to do it, so you’re not hurting my feelings,” but they were really encouraging. And the more I listen to it, the more I like it. The last five years began this latest incarnation as an international chanteuse. I come to these songs as an actor, and I think it really comes off on the CD.

Do you long to be so famous that the Internet crashes with your every red carpet appearance?

I just keep waiting and waiting to hear if the record’s gone platinum. I would be very pleased if we sold five more CDs than the others at the Leather Man on Christopher Street. Where do they sell cabaret CDs these days? Don’t they have a stack at the Leather Man? Me and Christine Ebersole, we’re neck and neck.

At Pleasure Chest too, in the back. When you do your cabaret act, what is your personal relationship with drag?

It’s a weird fucking act. My act is odd because I don’t really have a drag persona except when I’m in a play or a movie and playing a character. In cabaret, it’s odd because they introduce me as Charles Busch, and I come onstage looking like a rather weathered Tina Louise and I proceed to tell true stories about my experiences and sing Sondheim and Jerome Kern.

Does drag help you tap into your humor?

No, it really doesn’t. I could do the exact same show out of drag, and I’m thinking it might be interesting to de-drag in my act and see how it makes me feel. When I appear at benefits and sing one song, or recently, on a Playbill theater cruise to Sicily, I performed as myself, and it felt great. I never talk about drag or that I’m in drag. Without really trying, my act sort of evokes the tradition of what I call the lady of the mic—Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Dolores Gray--the idea of the glamorous nightclub singer. It would be a little challenging if I indeed take the drag out.

I like the way you’re thinking through your future career directions aloud. Who, as women, have inspired you as an artist? God, I hate that word. Not “women,” but “artist.”

In my plays, I’ve been very influenced by the great icons of the ‘30s and ‘40s. There are elements of Roz Russell, Bette Davis, Norma Shearer, Greer Garson. I always tend to be kind of a great lady. Often in my plays, I’ve played a dame who has a shady past and has elevated herself to being a great lady. In Shanghai Moon, I played a carnie girl who’s an assistant to a geek in a side show. When you see her, she’s married to a British nobleman. There’s usually a key point where I stand slightly left of center and start a monologue saying, “Let me tell you a little story.” That’s usually around Act One, scene three.

I still say you’d be great in a stage adaptation of The Naked Kiss, Samuel Fuller’s 1960s’s noir about a bald prostie on the lam working as a musical nurse for children.

I’ll see if I can option it. I’m sure Cate Blanchett has got her nails into it.

Ideas I offer performers don’t always work out, though, so be warned.

I’m often stopped on the street and people suggest movies I should spoof. I’ve never really done, in all the many genre parodies, a specific movie--it’s always a genre or even sub genre. Old hag suspense movies from the ‘60s. Oriental pre-code melodramas. Anti Nazi movies from the ‘40s. Rather than do Mildred Pierce, it would be womens’ suspense movies from the 40s.

Or Sudden Fear!

How nice that Joan Crawford is getting nice reviews for her acting and not just child abusing. It’s refreshing. One of the pleasant surprises of 2016 was that Joan’s acting was being reassessed in a positive way.

I love how, to you, a mention on TCM about Joan’s acting means her body of work is being reassessed. You probably get your headline news from The Daily Show. [We laugh.] Was she ever assessed in the first place?

I think she was always dismissed a bit as a glamorous movie star, while Bette Davis was always the actress, and there’s a truth to it, but when Crawford got a real chance with a decent script and director, she was so ambitious, she always rose to the occasion. I‘d only seen Sudden Fear once before. It really called on her strength. She has this ability to embody an emotion. She’s not a complicated actress who can play five things at once, but when she plays fear, she’s like fear incarnate.

Maybe Madonna should remake that movie, She can play fear. And there are Crawford parallels. In a way, Sean Penn was the new Franchot Tone.

Is there any way they can put her across as an actress?

I do think so.

If she doesn’t open her mouth.

Even if she does. I liked her in parts of Swept Away.

I liked her in A League of Their Own. I wonder if they can take that honest, fun, gritty side of her and make that the center of a movie. Maybe in 2020, the big news item will be Madonna is rediscovered as a great film actress.

I love that she has to wait four years.

Well, I don’t think it’s happening in 2017.

Happy new year, dahling.

IF YOU CAN MAKE IT THERE…

LGBT NYC is uncovered and not swept away at the Gay Gotham exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, where the two-floor showing of photos and information illuminates and entertains. Among the artists represented (and discussed) are Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Greer Lankton, Nan Goldin, Bill T. Jones and Mercedes De Acosta (an author and liberated woman). Along the way, there are fascinating glimpses of voguers (Willi Ninja), doorpoeple (Haoui Montaug), lesbian hangouts (Clit Club), and topics like Cruising, Posing, Printing (old Christopher Street magazines are on display), and the work of erotic photographer George Platt Lynes. Mostly, I appreciated learning that in the early 20th Century, gays migrated to neighborhoods with affordable, furnished housing for single people and found that these nabes were safe places to “put their gender and sexuality on display.” Among them were the Village and Harlem, whereas today, of course, it’s all about HK, especially with G Lounge—one of the last remaining Chelsea gay bars—having just shuttered its gay doors. I might still hang out in Chelsea, though--just to prove I’m not a gay sheep and also because the competition is way less fierce these days.

BOY MEETS WORLD

On Broadway, Dear Evan Hansen is creaming the competition, proving to be a thrillingly moving experience about the power of words, lies and delusions as they usher us into acceptance, but at what price? Evan is a fast-talking, sweaty-palmed, insecure high school kid who writes a pained letter to himself, which is then mistaken to be the suicide note of a fellow student—the unhinged bully Connor—when it’s found on Connor’s dead body. To appease Connor’s parents, who're looking for any comforting answers about their son, Evan goes along with this scenario, pretending he and Connor were close friends, as the folks glow, Connor’s sister romantically acquiesces and the entire student body becomes fascinated with Evan, whom they’d previously rendered invisible. Evan even pays a family friend to write and backdate email exchanges between himself and Connor, making sure to cut anything that might make them seem too close; they were just friends, after all, not gay lovers.

The resulting musical, with a book by Steven Levenson and a set consisting of emails and other communications, is a rivetingly dramatic study in ethics—at least until the somewhat pat ending—and it’s blessed with a rich, feeling score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (A Christmas Story: The Musical, La La Land), which is easily their most mature and affecting work to date. Michael Greif (Rent) directs persuasively, and it helps that—as in Waitress, where Tony winner Jesse Mueller sings Sara Bareilles’ pop/rock score—the voices we hear here aren’t Broadway-tinged, but radio friendly. It’s also a plus that the high school milieu is more suggested than recreated; most shows that try to reproduce classroom ambience fail miserably.

In the cast, Mike Faist and Will Roland are terrific as the suicidal bully and the sneaky family friend, who both play big roles in Evan’s self-advancement. Jennifer Laura Thompson, Michael Park and Laura Dreyfuss shine as the bully’s family members, all striving to be validated after his death. Rachel Bay Jones is superb as Evan’s mom, proving both believable and touching as a woman struggling to pierce through her son’s evasions and find some connection with him. And in the title role, Ben Platt is a revelation, giving a star-making, richly sung performance that takes us from Evan’s anguish to his awkward ascent and back again. Dear Evan Hansen: you rock.

A LOVELY “PRESENT” FROM CATE BLANCHETT

Another theatrical event is The Present by Andrew Upton“after Chekhov’s first play, Platonov,” and starring Upton’s wife, Cate Blanchett, in her Broadway debut. Chekhov’s play was discovered after his death, and here, Upton updates it to a 1990s country house full of regret, passion, and unfinished business. It’s a wild and woolly Chekhovian comedy, which grows darker in a second act populated by endless smoke and burning psyches. Blanchett acts the part of the widow Anna with a full-throttle theatricalism that’s vastly enjoyable, especially as she toys with a pistol, a rifle, and a detonator, while demanding the group play “Truth or Dare” and announcing, “Life makes us all craven. Have we no shame? Is there nothing we won’t do?” Richard Roxburgh matches her as the cutting Platonov, and with its inventive approach, this turns out to be the snob hit of the year, while also proving wildly accessible, especially when Blanchett and company launch into sexy and silly dancing moves to Tears For Fears. Chekhov must be rolling…with laughter. And Blanchett? What a diva.

A LION IN WINTER

Lion is an Oscar contender about the real story of an Indian boy who becomes separated from his family and spends his adult life using Google Maps to try to reconnect with them. Dev Patel is strong as the grown guy, and Nicole Kidman shines as the Australian woman who lovingly adopts him along the way. At a Monkey Bar event for the trippy and ultimately moving film, hosted by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Kidman said she initially liked the script, not knowing it was a true story. She was then told that the Australian woman, Sue Brierley, wanted Kidman to play her, so she sent a friend to meet with her (“I didn’t want Sue to close up”), later spending time with Sue herself, chatting about everything in Nicole’s Sydney home. They became friends, she said; “Sue will stay in my life forever.”

Patel, who’s British born, of Indian descent, said he grew up shunning his Indian roots “because I wanted to fit in.” But with Slumdog Millionaire, “all those preconceived conceptions I had as a child were completely dispersed.” He’s now doing his fifth film in India and happy about it.

Patel also revealed that roles are hard to come by for him, unless it’s something like playing a goofy best friend, so he went after the Lion part with aggression. “My resume worked against me,” he said. “‘He’s the dude from Slumdog.’ I ended up knocking on the writer’s door and persuading him otherwise.” He probably used Google Maps to find him.

One of show biz’s most colorful longtime personalities, Sean Young, is known for key films, like Blade Runner, Dune, No Way Out, Wall Street, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Now she goes gay—or at least gay indie.

Sean has shot some fun scenes for the in-the-works screwball comedy Nick and Nicky, in which Patrick Askin (who directed) and Ian Whitt play a gay couple getting married, while solving a batch of murders right out of the Thin Man series. Says Askin, "Sean plays Gloria Van Winterbottom, who is very wealthy, has had eight husbands and has one gay son, Nicky. Sean is really fabulous, as she conveys old school Hollywood glamour and exquisite comic timing. Although her character is a diva, she was hardly one on set. She is a joy to work with, plus she brings a lot of experience."

And it’s a hoot when Gloria tells her son,"I don’t mind you being a pansy, but can’t you find someone more suitable?" I got Sean on the phone to talk about her role in this gay indie and her surprising political choice.

First of all, I'm sorry about all the dumb stuff I wrote about you in the '80s. I was scandal-obsessed and trying to make waves, I guess. 

That's OK. I don't even remember. 

They say if you remember the '80s, you weren’t there. By the way, Patrick Askin really believes in you.

He’s nice. The film is a homage, but it’s really sweet. If he can find the rest of the money, it’ll be kind of a counter-culture thing. It’s cool—it has all the references to movies we love. It could be a cult classic, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

He approached you as a fan?

The casting director told me about it, and I read it, liked it and thought, "This is a good part." I love playing parts where they make me look really beautiful and they do my hair and I look retro and I’m playing a diva. I just finished a part with Ed Asner in a movie called In Vino. I play his third wife and they dressed me up really nice. He’s 87, sharp as a tack. I’m like a lot of people where every day I get older, I want a good dress. [laughs]

Well, you’re beautiful to start with.

That was the easy part. I had nothing to do with that. [laughs]

So you’ve been doing TV?

I’ve done some TV. I live in Austin now. I love my new jobs that I have here. I work for a production company called Production Four. Basically, they bought all my footage that I’ve been shooting for 30 years. I have a YouTube channel called MSYPariah. MSY is Mary Sean Young.

And Pariah must be for someone else. [laughs]

The last one I did was "Mary Sean’s Views on Trump." I was like, "No, I‘m not gonna vote for Hillary." Everybody got pissed off. But these are my views on it.

Wait, you voted for Trump?

Yes. All my little liberal friends were like, "What’s wrong with you?" But this was not about Trump, it was about not having Hillary. She’d had three years to pitch. I thought, "We know this isn’t going to change."

Funny, I was for Hillary because she wasn’t Trump and you were for Trump because he wasn’t Hillary. It’s a shame neither candidate could radiate enough excitement on their own.

They were the lesser of two evils. I don’t even think it’s an election, I think it’s a selection. These people get groomed and they put out their little fans.

So you’ve been telling your own story these days.

I wanted to put out my own narrative. All the shit people say, and who knows why they say it? Maybe I didn’t decline them gracefully. I’m a bit of a prude. I always was.

Weren’t you always a momma’s girl?

My mom was abusive, to tell you the truth.

I’m sorry.

No, she didn’t beat me with a hairbrush. You know what Jung said: "The unlived life of the parent." I think I lived the unlived life of my mother. She wanted fame and fortune and I just wanted to be liked. I like my job now. I recently went through all my mother’s stuff. They want to do a documentary on me. I didn’t really want to do it. But they said, "We’ll make an offer and give you a job." I said, "OK, that sounds better." Then it turns out I do know how to show up for the office. I have a skill set I was previously unaware of because being an actress for 38 years is more like captivity. They hire you and you’re captive for a while and then you’re free. It’s like getting out of prison, not that prison is that bad all the time.

Is it true what I read online, that you married the same man twice? How Liz Taylor.

It’s not true.

There are so many wrong things online.

About me in particular. They love skewering me. I left a lot of no’s in the doorway. I was married to Bob [Lujan]. We have two sons, who are now 18 and 22. Bob was a good choice in the middle of fame and fortune, but it’s scary. There are a lot of people coming at you. We divorced in 2001.

What’s your favorite film that you’ve made?

The best one is Blade Runner, of course. I loved making Cousins. It’s not the greatest film, but it was one of the best experiences. I loved making The Amati Girls with Mercedes Ruehl, Dinah Manoff,and Cloris Leachman.

And how was your Trump support greeted on the set of a gay indie?

Patrick was, "Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary." I called him up and said, "I’m a very loyal person to you and I‘m happy we can agree to disagree and respect each other," and if that’s not what I call an advanced, evolved relationship, I don’t know what is. To take politics and turn it into anything but stuffing—that’s what it is, and it’s stuffing for the turkey, which by the way is dead. It’s not for human beings to turn on each other because they have different political views. It’s never wise to ever put politics before your heart and mind. What a waste of time and energy. If you have bad breath, that’s another matter.

MAMA, I'M A POP STAR NOW! 

While Sean Young tries out a gay indie, I’ve rinsed with mouthwash and sung like a bird on a new gay single. Trax Records’ Screaming Rachael Cain likes my voice, so she hooked me up with singer/songwriter Tyler Stone, who produced me singing "I Got Ur Back," a bouncy song he concocted based on an idea of mine. Tyler gave the ditty a lovely reggae feeling, and I trilled my boyish tones on it. This is nothing new for me—way back in the '80s, I fronted a band, and I’ve dabbled in vocalizing ever since—but it’s my first bid at international stardom, or at least a couple of local hoots and hollers from friends and/or drunks. Click on the free link and see if I’m better than Florence Foster Jenkins.

A BRONX TALE GETS MORE THAN A BRONX CHEER

Doo-wop and other sounds permeate the Broadway musical version of A Bronx Tale—the play, then movie, written by Chazz Palminteri, about a boy torn between two father figures in the rough and tumble 1960s. The plot has it that young Calogero has a loving dad, who gave up on his show biz dreams in order to be a bus driver and take care of the family. But the boy falls into the clutches of Sonny, a charismatic gangster who teaches him the ropes while swathing him in cash and glamour.

The kid’s coming of age—and ongoing crisis deciding between love and fear—is well told in this appealing musical, which is expertly cast, slickly staged and dramatically involving. The boy’s Act Two romance with a black girl bogs down a bit in too many misunderstandings, and there may be too many songs about following one’s heart, but still, the creative team did a sturdy job in making this project sing. That’s not surprising, considering the names assembled: Palminteri wrote the book, Alan Menken and Glenn Slater did the score, Sergio Trujillo provided the zesty choreography, and the direction is by Robert De Niro, who directed and starred in the movie version, and four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks. Nick Cordero, who played a mobster in the musical of Bullets Over Broadway (another Palminteri role), does the same here, and is terrific. Hudson Loverro is also sensational as the very young Calogero. In fact, you wish they’d bring Hudson back for some more flashbacks in the second half, but the show actually has integrity and doesn’t pander like that.

Anyway, let me get back to singing—and not for Trump. And thank you, Jennifer Holliday, for feeling the same way. I loved your pro-LGBT rendition of "And I am telling you I’m not going!"

Classic Movie Star Sean Young on Doing a Gay Indie & Voting For Trump

No one takes on more gay roles and themes than James Franco, and in I Am Michael, he’s gone after a controversial, meaty subject based on a true story. From portraying virtually every kind of gay guy there is, he’s now praying it all away. Franco plays an Olympia, Washington-born man named Michael Glatze, who’s initially seen telling a teen that “gay” doesn’t exist and in fact happens to be a false identity. He insists the kid should choose to renounce his gayness and embrace God as a way to get to heaven. But Glatze wasn’t always like this. As we learn from the film, he was once a fiery San Francisco activist who fought for rights and even got arrested protesting a Christian Coalition event.

But after a health scare—and his founding YGA (Young Gay America) magazine with big aspirations—he starts reassessing things, feeling that the bible is full of loving messages and that God shouldn’t be rejected, especially by those longing for a heavenly reward. Glatze becomes disenchanted with his relationship as “unhealthy” (Zach Quinto plays the increasingly uneasy boyfriend) and more determined that God is the answer and he can only join his parents in heaven if he grabs that bible and turns his back on sodomy. Glatze no longer identifies as gay, and when he ends up at a Buddhist retreat and tries to avoid temptation, he decides that his past identity has vanished and “I was a heterosexual person with a homosexual problem.”

Written and directed by Justin Kelly (who also did the gay-themed James Franco film King Cobra, which is way racier), the film assumes a gentle, quiet tone, not going for sensationalism or cheap shots. In addition to Quinto, Daryl Hannah and Emma Roberts turn up as characters who have varying takes on Glatze’s sexual trajectory, making things complicated for him along the way. Meanwhile, Franco is very good, radiating conviction as he recites biblical passages about giving your life to God, but also allowing for the sense that Glatze might be unduly possessed and maybe even a little bit mad. The movie’s somber mood at first seems dullish, threatening to take a too-polite approach, but then it becomes more hypnotic and seems the right way to go with a story of misguided soul searching. By the end, you’ll be a believer—in your gayness.

Her, Her, She's First

The gay floodgates are open in post-Castro Cuba—only ex-closet cases are welcome—so the drag queens are quickly tucking, zhooshing and heading there with a cigar between their legs. Billed as the first American drag queen to hit their shores, Mimi ImFurst just told me about her Cuban experience: The club was packed and unairconditioned (but exciting), and the crowd was poignantly un-savvy, due to all those horrible embargos all these years. In fact, while they know very recent stuff (like Lady Gaga’s music), the Cubans had no idea what “Express Yourself” by Madonna was. So Mimi kindly introduced them to it, complete with male backup dancers spinning around her like dervishes.

Related | Mimi Imfurst Becomes First American Drag Queen to Perform in Cuba

"Everyone there is hustling in order to stay afloat," Mimi also told me. "They can’t afford a dollar to get into a bar, so they stand outside, waiting for tourists to pay their way. Inside, they can’t afford drinks, so it’s the same situation. For $20, they’re available the whole night—and they’re gorgeous." And now we know another reason why drag queens are tucking, zhooshing and heading there.

Gideon Glick is a "Significant" Somebody

Perhaps the first Broadway comedy about a gay guy who can’t find a husband, Significant Other arrives on the wings of off-Broadway raves for Joshua Harmon’s play and star Gideon Glick. At a meet-and-greet last week, Harmon told me the play concerns Jordan, a hopelessly single NYC gay who’s mainly friends with straight girls, all of whom seem to be getting married. "Would you call them ‘fag hags’?” I wondered, bright eyed. “We don’t use that in the play,” Harmon replied, “but feel free to use it.” The idea, Harmon said, “was to take the gay sidekick you see in movies—who’s in two scenes and has some funny quips—and make him the center of the story. What happens when it becomes his story” The result, he said, explores whether the character is doing something wrong or is just woefully unlucky—or maybe both.

I also met the charismatic Gideon Glick, and promptly asked if this happens to be his breakthrough role. “I can’t answer that,” he said, smiling. “It’s really the longest role I’ve ever had. It’s two hours and 15 minutes with intermission, and I’m onstage the whole time.” And his take on the character’s actions during all that time? “I think he is a perseverator,” Glick said. “An over thinker. He overanalyzes—and he comes on too strong sometimes. I don’t think he has many gay male friends, which is part of his isolation,” he added. “Is the play set in Hell’s Kitchen?” I wondered. “No,” Glick said. “Well, no wonder he can’t get a boyfriend.” I exclaimed. “I don’t think he wants a Hell’s Kitchen guy, not that there’s anything wrong with them," Glick said. “Yes, there is,” I cracked. “I always like watching the daddies walk around with their little puppies,” he volunteered. Human puppies? “No, not human puppies,” he responded. “Well, there is a phenomenon of daddies and their ‘pups’,” I instructed. “I’m well aware,” Glick said, grinning. I like this guy.

A Striking Bunch of Posers

They might not know “Express Yourself” in Cuba, but we definitely know it here, so here comes a Dutch documentary about Madonna’s Blond Ambition dancers, Strike a Pose. The film captures the excitement of such a tour, as well as the mixed message of self-expression, as the dancers grappled with various identity issues back in the groundbreaking '90s.

Last week, I hosted a Q&A for the film at the IFC Center, where the dancers told me they sued for promised remuneration on Madonna’s Truth or Dare doc and finally got paid. "I thought I was fighting for dancers’ rights," one of the guys told me, "but Madonna acted like she felt betrayed. In court, she threw me such a look of shade." Another dancer—who since died—sued the superstar for including a same-sex kiss of his in Truth or Dare, which he was supposed to have approval on. He also got reimbursed, but at the Q&A, his mother said that if he were alive today, he’d be pleased to know that his kissing image has become so iconic.

“Did Madonna ever get up in your business or try to matchmake for you?” I wondered. “Well,” replied a dancer, “if we were into a guy, she’d try to break it up by leaning over and saying, ‘He’s a slut.’ ” But she had good intentions, of course. Madonna simply wanted the guys to stay focused on the tour, with no unneeded distractions.

Lucas Hedges and Other Rising Stars

Speaking of dazzling show biz opportunities: The Artios Awards—hosted by Michael Urie—were presented at a Stage 48 gala last Thursday, where casting directors were honored for giving people jobs. The super talented Lucas Hedges was there, having not only scored as the nephew in Manchester By The Sea, but having finished a Greta Gerwig film, Lady Bird. “It’s a young girl’s coming of age story,” Hedges told me. “I play a musical theater actor. It was probably the most fun experience I’ve ever had making a movie.” And he’s all of 20 years old.

“Was the emotionally elaborate Manchester By The Sea grueling to make?” I wondered. “Absolutely,” Hedges said. “It was the most demanding role I ever had, at that time. But I found that doing the actual scenes wasn’t really grueling—it was all a release.” Well, I hope all the resulting awards hoopla has been cathartic as well. Has it gotten into the way of rehearsing Hedges’ current gig in the off-Broadway play Yen? “It hasn’t been at all,” he said, “in that we haven’t been at any awards shows since we started rehearsing. I’m immersed in the work, and that’s been a huge blessing.” Well, get ready, kid. The Oscar noms come out tomorrow.

Another awards person, the delightful Margo Martindale, was also there, telling me the difference between TV and movies. “TV, you don’t know the end of,” she related. “With movies, you know the beginning  middle, and end, but with television, you’re on a journey, crossing the bridge as you go along. It’s the most alive of the three medium.” Especially since she had just found out a half hour earlier that Sneaky Pete has been renewed.

August: Allegheny County

But theater is alive, too. August Wilson’s work is all the rage these days thanks to Denzel Washington’s film, Fences, and Washington’s vow to produce movies of all 10 of the late playwright’s works that comprise his 20th Century cycle. So we get a revival of Jitney—the first time it’s been done on Broadway—which is Wilson’s '70s-set play about a Pittsburgh “car service” headquarters filled with off-the-books drivers on the verge of possible extinction.

The play is character-driven, not plot-obsessed, creating a world of quirky ambience, filled with flawed but generally likeable individuals who love to hash things out. Wilson’s language is rich and the characters are deftly drawn as themes of relationships, dashed dreams, upward mobility and Lena Horne vs. Sarah Vaughn meld along with the sight of the characters continually sauntering in and out of the headquarters at will.

As directed by Tony winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the production starts with a mimed sequence (with instrumental jazz background music) in which various characters are introduced, and then it launches into chatter—lively, colorful chatter, often hilarious—about the characters’ jagged pasts and uncertain futures. The result may not have the dramatic heft of Fences, but it’s aiming for something more ambient and achieves it thanks to a committed cast. (Anthony Chisholm and Carra Patterson are particular scene stealers). Definitely worth the uber.

In the '70s and early '80s, Cindy Bullens emerged as a spunky rocker belting vividly created songs and earning a Grammy nomination in the process. On the road to success, Cindy was one of the Sex-O-Lettes (singing with the glittery ensemble Disco-Tex and the Sex O-Lettes, fronted by the campy Monti Rock III). Confirming her cult status, she also sang backup on Elton John and Kiki Dee’s duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” and toured with Elton, in addition to singing on three tracks of the Grease soundtrack.

In the '80s, I was a fan of Cindy’s and told her I loved her song “Jimmie Gimme Your Love,” a percolating bit of rocking romance. She ended up producing my band in a cover version of the song—and was delightful and a real pro about it, too.

Cindy dropped out of music in the '80s (No, not because of my band) and came back in the '90s with all new success. And in 2012, he surprised a lot of people by coming out as trans performer Cidny Bullens. Cidny has been touring the country in Somewhere Between: Not an Ordinary Life, an autobiographical solo show he wrote, which has been called sincere, funny, honest and moving.

I caught up with my old friend in a lovely phoner.

Hi, Cidny. It’s so great to reconnect with you.

It’s only been about 30 years or something.

Nothing’s changed. [We laugh] Tell me about your one-man show.

I debuted it in Santa Fe at the end of February '16. It seems to be taking on a life of its own, which is great. There’s interest all over now. I have pending dates all over the country.

It deals with your transitioning.

Yes. I had no idea I was going to transition until a friend of mine sparked the thought one day and I thought, “Holy shit, I’ve never dealt with this my whole life,” and there was no turning back. Starting in September 2011, it took about a year with therapy and I did start low dose testosterone. I wasn’t sure I was gonna go the whole way, but once I did, I changed my name and pronoun and came out. (There was an article in the Daily Beast in 2012), I thought, “I really have to write about my life.”

The show goes from 1974, when I showed up in Los Angeles and met [producer] Bob Crewe and Elton and he asked me to go on the road with him the night I met him. All those synchronistic things happened—I became an almost rock star, married Dan Crewe [Bob’s brother] and had two kids and lived in Westport, Connecticut and we moved to Maine in 1990 and then my daughter Jessie was diagnosed with cancer in ‘95 and she died in March ‘96 at 11 years old.

My Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth album, those songs were inspired by the death of my daughter. It turned out to be my most commercial and biggest seller, even though my intention was never to do that commercially. That’s what sent me back to the music business was that album, which I did as my own expression of grief.

Did it plant the seeds for your rebirth as a man?

No, because I never considered Cidny until 2011. You knew me--the androgynous person I was. The way I acted, the way I walked. I never really changed, and as I got older, I settled into that. Once I reached 60, I just went, “Well, that’s never gonna happen.” And what did happen in July 2011 was I got a message from a younger friend who I’d kind of mentored and she moved away and I got a call from her saying she’d started transitioning a year earlier from female to male, “and I’m living as a man.” I fell to my knees, I sobbed…something hit me over the head. Something exploded in my mind. I completely disintegrated at that moment. My whole life flashed before me and I cried for myself, I grieved for that part of me that I’d never awakened, that my friend woke up. So I called my surviving daughter and said, “I have to pick you up. We have to talk.” She already knew about my feelings, but I really got hit over the head with this thing. She said, “Mom, you have to do something about it. You have to go to gender therapy.”

That’s a very cool daughter.

Yes, and she provides some of the best lines in the show. She’s very acerbic and great. She’s 34 now.

Before this, she thought she had a lesbian mother?

No. I told her when she was 18 that I’d always felt like a man in a woman’s body, so she knew that. After I divorced Dan in 2001, I did have a five-year relationship with a woman, but she wasn’t a lesbian, and I never considered myself a lesbian.

When I met you in the 1980s, you knew you were a man?

Sure. I knew since I was four years old. My show describes different stages of my life, in three acts. For example, at 12, when I never wore a shirt, I felt a little bump and knew my days as a boy were over. I thought, “I’m going to have to pretend to be a girl the rest of my life.”

At 19, I went to the New York Public Library because I needed to find out if there was something there about the way I felt, and I found a book on gender and in those days, as you know, it was called “transsexuals”. I sent away and they were doing a study on gender and they had all this information on how to change your sex. I got all the information in the mail. I’m in this little hotel room in NYC working at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the summer, and I got all this information on the clinics and all that and thought, “Oh, my God, I can do that”. And two seconds later, I thought, “I can’t do that. I have no support, no money, who am I gonna tell?” And I abandoned it and went on with my life. Then I went to L.A. in 1974, and that’s when I became Cindy Bullens, the artist, and never considered changing it again. And then I married a gay man!

Dan Crewe! Was he a closet gay?

No. He was totally out.

Why did he marry a woman? Wait, you weren’t a woman.

I think he realized I was the closest thing to a guy he could marry and still have kids. We were married for 22 years, and we were monogamous.

When you were pregnant and giving birth, was it bizarre, knowing you’re a man?

Yes. It was crazy. That’s why I had to write the show.

Why did you break up?

We were divorcing right before Jessie got sick. When she was diagnosed, Dan and I put everything on the table and of course both had to be there for both of our children. Dan and I really did save each other after Jessie died. But it was funny how we’d tried to fit in in Westport as parents.

Tell me about the amazing gigs you had in your early career.

Bob Crewe basically discovered me. It was another coincidence kind of thing. My first real thing was starting to sing backup with Bob Crewe. The Sex-O-Lettes was just on the record—a studio gig. I also sang on Frankie Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You”. I was Bob’s protégé, his gofer, his driver. I lived with him and did everything for him. I met Dan through Bob.

As a studio singer, did you ever meet Monti Rock?

Oh God, yes. The summer of ‘74 was one of craziest summers I ever had. In Bob’s penthouse, it was Bob, Dan, Monti, and me all summer. Monti was hysterical. He was exactly the way he was onstage in person. He talked incessantly in that voice and waved his arms around and strutted around.

Speaking of flamboyant people: How did you meet Sir Elton?

I crashed a party at Cherokee Studios, where I used to hang out because it was my home away from home, and somebody would be there and they’d need an extra voice. I knew there was gonna be a press party for Elton at Cherokee in September 1975. I’m sitting in the control room with [rock singers] the Robb brothers, looking at the fishbowl of this press party, and I turn to the brothers and say, “I’m going in.” They said, “You can’t go in.” “Yes, I can.” I open the door and go right to the food and start to mingle, though I don’t know anyone. Elton walked right up to me and said, “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Elton.” I don’t remember anything else we said. We talked and somebody pulled him away and then a woman came over to ask what I do, and I said “a singer.” She comes back and says, “What are you doing for the next two months?” I said, “I don’t know. Why?” She said, “Elton wants to know if you want to go on the road with him.” The next day, a limo showed up at my little fleabitten apartment off Honey Drive in Hollywood and they handed me a stack of Elton Joh LP’s. I was starting rehearsal the next day! The next Friday, I’m in a private jet with Elton, off to San Diego to start a tour with him. We’re still great friends. He’s totally behind the show.

What would he have done if it turned out you couldn’t carry a tune?

Well, apparently they did some research and through connections found out I could actually sing.

So he was comfortable being gay?

Yeah. And we had a really good connection. I was his quote girlfriend for a while even though we didn’t do anything. He took me places. I was naïve. I guess it was my androgyny.

Wait—did the press actually treat you as if you were dating?

They did in England at that time. “Elton’s new girlfriend.”

If you had not transitioned, can you imagine where you’d be now?

It’s so interesting, and I’m so grateful every single day. After Jessie died, I went through 10 years of horror. You wouldn’t have known it after two years, but people who lose children, you’re never the same. You either become bitter, fade away, or you do something. For some reason, my personality was, “You think I’m gonna be quiet about this? I’m not.” I didn’t know I was gonna have a life after Jessie’s death, but not only did I have a life, but I got back into the music business, got back to my own core as a musician, a songwriter, my own creativity, which I believe was all leading up to 15 years after Jessie’s death, when I got the phone call from my friend who’d transitioned that sparked my opening. I said, “Screw it. I’m 60 years old.” It was literally two months between that phone call and my first shot of testosterone. It is not easy to change your gender—it’s physically easy, you take a shot, I had my breasts removed--but sociologically, it’s a bitch. But I thought, “Who am I living for? The worst thing that could happen to a human being has happened--I lost a child. And my older daughter had children and had a life.” I was single. It continues to this day—I feel more, more and more myself. Right now, my life is so full, so rewarding. I’m grateful for every minute. I feel like my true self. Of course it’s difficult and there are still awkward moments, but I have a full and total life. Let me stress—I have been very fortunate. I know that not all people who are transgender are fortunate like me. [After some initial uneasiness, Cid’s relatives came around to being supportive.] I have a girlfriend [his show’s director, Tanya Taylor Rubinstein]. The minute I changed to a man, I had people interested in me.

Would you say Tanya is a straight woman?

I’d say she’s bisexual, I guess, but she was married twice and has a 19-year-old daughter, so I don’t want to speak for her, but she feels the most comfortable with me.

And you feel great?

I really feel I can say I’m a complete human being for the first time in my life. I really feel I am who I should be. I never take anything for granted, so I am grateful for everything.

BRIAN IS TISH IS BRIAN AGAIN

Another trans friend of mine is up to great things. I met Tish Gervais in the 1980s when she was a voluptuous singer on the club scene and a lively party girl. Before that, I learned, Tish had been an army wife and before that, she had been Brian Belovitch. Well, 30 years ago, Tish told me—as my jaw dropped—that the heels were getting shipped to storage and Brian was coming back! He’s a two-time transgender person—and very happy, thanks to sobriety, a new career (as a counselor), and a husband. And now, his amazing story will be told in a book (agented by Tom Miller) and a movie. Brian is writing his memoirs, Trans Figured, for Skyhorse Publishing, and Karen Bernstein is directing a documentary about Brian’s various incarnations, called I’m Going To Make You Love Me. I sang that song with Tish at a nightclub way back when, but these days, I’m singing it with Brian.

AS IF WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE

Another '90s diva is refashioned in the imminent revival of Sunset Boulevard, which, as of Thursday, will be Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s fourth show running concurrently on Broadway. Glenn Close is reprising her role as faded ex-silent screen star Norma Desmond, and this time the set won’t be so mammoth, but the 40-piece orchestra will definitely be heard. At a meet and greet at the Palace Theatre last week, director Lonny Price said the show is about Norma’s attachment to fantasy, and as a result of that attachment, “Norma will lose her mind, Joe will lose his life, Betty will lose the love of her life, and Max will lose his reason for being.” The audience, he noted, will serve as the jury this time around—and let me add that deposed ‘90s Normas Patti LuPone and Faye Dunaway will not be serving the final verdict.

In the throng of press was NY1’s Frank DiLella, so I asked him if the new format of their theater show, OnStage, will stick. (They had shot two episodes at Chez Josephine, where Broadway stars popped up and the hosts feigned surprise.) “No,” he said. “The show we did from London—throwing to news packages from an actual theater—is how it’s going to be. And the venue will change. We’re doing one at BroadwayCon. [That would have aired by press time.] We’re doing one at [the cabaret] Feinstein’s/54 Below. Sometimes it’ll be on the street. We’re doing an all-Andrew Lloyd Webber one.” Will the “Hey, look who we just ran into!” shtick remain? “No,” he said. But despite rumors, there will certainly be reviews. And longtime participant Donna Karger. Will DiLella still do segments where he dresses up and takes part in the Broadway shows? “We’ll see. It all depends on who pitches what,” he replied. Well, I hope he doesn’t want to play the monkey in Sunset Boulevard. I already got a callback.

ONE LAST TIDBIT...

While I monkeyed around at Pieces Bar in the Village, drag queen extraordinaire Bootsie LeFaris told the crowd, “I love lesbians. They know how to fix a flat, they can sand your floors and they’ll babysit your cat when you’re away because they love pussy. And if they like you, they’ll fight for you more than any gay man.” They will? I’ve gotta get me one of them.

In 1973, I was a 17-year-old student who spent weekends with my parents in Brooklyn and looked forward to the wonders of The Mary Tyler Moore Show every Saturday night. Famous from The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary played Mary Richards, an all-around perfect person and liberated woman who came, without a man, to Minnesota and proceeded to become the central force at WJM TV’s news room. In the process, she emerged as a favorite of boss Mr. Grant (Ed Asner), best friend to the amusingly feisty Rhoda (Valerie Harper), and foil to narcissistic anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), his ditzy girlfriend, Georgette (Georgia Engel), and Mary’s haughty landlord, Phyllis (Cloris Leachman).

Related | TV Icon Mary Tyler Moore Dies at 80

The show brought flawed, but lovable characters together into a nouveau family fraught with wit, warmth, and zingers, the cast as perfectly chosen as their words were. And as Mary Richards grew in confidence at the newsroom and in her personal life, so did Mary Tyler Moore develop as an actress, playing each episode with what seemed like increasingly effortless elan. Various supporting players won acting Emmy awards before Mary did because they had flashier, funnier roles, but once everyone realized MTM was the glue on screen (like at WJM), she started copping trophies and increased national acclaim too.

The show’s seven-year run only faltered when Harper left for her own sitcom (in 1974) and they tried to pair Mary with Georgette; while girl-next-door Mary and caustic Rhoda were magic together, Mary and addled-brained Georgette just seemed too nice of a duo to be interesting. The show also slipped when tackling serious subjects in a heavy handed manner (like the 1972 episode about Mary battling an anti-Semite), but when it did so with subtlety, the result was devastatingly powerful and game-changing.

Let me explain that at this point, I knew I was gay, but I didn’t have any idea what to do about it. Most of the representation I’d seen about gays presented them as grimacing psycho killers, woefully sad victims, or closeted dandies. What’s more, a textbook I found had decreed that homosexuality was a mental disorder, making me extra ashamed and nervous about my plight. This was post-Stonewall, but the world still had a long way to go in recognizing any kind of LGBT equality or humanity, and open LGBT representation was severely lacking in volume and scope. There were glimmers of hope, of course. In 1972, I saw commercials for a TV movie called That Certain Summer, with Hal Holbrook as a divorced father exploring his homosexuality, and it seemed sort of positive, presenting a complicated, intelligent adult. Still, I didn’t get up the nerve to watch the movie, not convinced it wouldn’t show I was heading toward a very dark future.

But since I watched MTM religiously every Saturday, I was a captive audience as they laid the gay on me. And the episode that changed my life in 1973 was called "My Brother’s Keeper." I should have known it was going to be even more interesting than usual on learning that the guest star was Robert Moore, who had directed the landmark gay play The Boys in the Band and had costarred with Liza Minnelli in the 1970 film Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, in which he played a disabled gay man.

In the episode, Moore played Phyllis’s composer brother Ben, who came to town for a visit, prompting Phyllis to hope he and Mary would hit it off. But it’s Rhoda that he has chemistry with, and they end up spending a lot of time together, as Phyllis fumes, since she thinks Rhoda is a coarse New York vulgarian and not nearly good enough for her cultured bro. It all leads up to a pressure-cooker party at Mary’s house, where Phyllis gets worked up into a frenzy, convinced that Ben is going to marry Rhoda. Rhoda assures Phyllis, “Ben and I aren’t getting married. He isn’t my type.” Her pride wounded, Phyllis replies, “What do you mean, he isn’t your type? He’s witty, attractive, he’s successful, he’s single…” Responds Rhoda, “He’s gay!”

I was floored. I almost plotzed right then and there. It hadn’t occurred to me that the guy could be gay—or that if he was, someone would actually say it! Not to mention the fact that it was said in a gleeful, matter of fact, nothing’s-wrong-with-this kind of way that was stunning for its time! Even better was Phyllis’ reaction: “Oh, what a relief!” Yes, she was thrilled that her brother was gay because it meant he wouldn’t marry Rhoda, but still…she was thrilled that her brother was gay!

As the closing credits rolled, I knew I had just seen a half hour that had galvanized me by telling me that gays can be personable, sophisticated people who even divulge their sexuality to others and are still well liked. It said that someone’s gay sexuality can be spoken about in public without causing riots, horror, and recriminations. It said it was OK! Those few moments at the end of the episode succeeded in instantly washing away all the warped portrayals of gays that I’d seen, all the crap I’d read, and all the hate I’d heard from people in the neighborhood. I knew I had a future, thanks to Mary Tyler Moore. And ever since then, I've fantasized about throwing my beret in the air as someone sings, "You’re gonna make it after all.”

A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE

Another positive role model for me in the gay realm was two-time Tony winning actor George Rose—or so it seemed. The British thesp was a witty dandy who gave sublimely winning performances in shows like The Pirates of Penzance and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. When he played Alfred P. Doolittle in a 1976 My Fair Lady revival, he was so sublime, he was nominated for Best Actor—and won! But there was a dark side to the genius of George Rose. He openly liked “coffee colored boys”—and he did mean boys. Rose was reported to have died in a car accident in 1988, but it was later revealed that he was killed by the Dominican boy he’d adopted (and romanced), along with the kid’s father and two others. Rose had been funding the father and son—he basically bought the kid—but when they became anxious for the money promised in Rose’s will, they bludgeoned him with a baseball bat for hours, then put him in a vehicle and tried to make it look like a car accident. Still admire and/or envy George Rose?

In a remarkable one-man play, Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, in the Loft at the Davenport Theatre, actor/writer Ed Dixon does a brilliant job of talking about his friendship with the “unabashed homosexual” Rose, starting with their working together in a show, and continuing through the years, as Rose introduced Dixon to the two mountain lions he kept in his Village apartment; regaled him with hilarious anecdotes and witticisms; and finally, showed him the dark side.

Dixon is priceless as he acts out Rose’s assessments of people (“Richard Burton would fuck a snake if he could keep its mouth open [...] I may be the oldest white woman, but Rex Harrison is a fucking cunt”). He also performs snippets of Rose’s most joyous stage appearances, lavishing extra praise on the man’s Doolittle, which was so joyous (with a flash of rage) that it did manage to make the classic musical all about him.

But the tone changes dramatically when Dixon visits Rose in the Dominican Republic and notices a 12-year-old boy in the back of the car. It was Rose’s son/paramour, and Dixon is sick to his stomach as he realizes that. The last part of the show details Dixon’s revulsion at the reality behind the witty façade, and his own pangs of guilt for not dredging up the courage to try and intervene.

Dixon holds you in his thrall for the entire 90-minutes and proves not only a great interpreter of Rose’s life and work, but a worthy successor to his stage presence. Oh, what a relief!

AND THE CROWN GOES TO…

Photo via @CharlieHidesTV

Let’s now celebrate our current icons, who are psychologically healthier, thank Goddess. Remember when I predicted last year’s RuPaul’s Drag Race winner to win even before they were cast? Well, listen to mama when I say that this time, I’d put my money on Charlie Hides to go all the way; the celebrity impersonator is that talented and hilarious. And of course, I love the NYC entrants too, like belter Alexis Michelleand good-time gal Peppermint. There have been rumors that Peppermint has been transitioning, and when I asked her about it last year, she wouldn’t confirm or deny. But Pep did run a photo on Instagram of her holding a silicone breast implant. Hmm. Should they change the name of the show to RuPaul’s LGBT Race? Maybe—since, as you’ll recall, Carmen Carrerawas a drag queen who realized she was a woman. (After filming the show, she started transitioning.) And Sonique—who is now Kylie Sonique Love—came out as trans after being eliminated. The show is so good, it’s transformative.
 
SOMETHING APPEALING, A ”COMEDY” TONIGHT

Also having transitioned, Ken Ludwig’s 1989 Lend Me a Tenor—a door-slamming farce about opera divo antics gone awry—has spawned a sequel, Ludwig’s A Comedy of Tenors, at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. This time, a “three tenors” show in 1930s Paris falls apart due to various mistaken identities, and the comedy depends upon the main tenor (John Treacy Egan) thinking his younger rival (Ryan Silverman) is boffing his wife (Judy Blazer), not his daughter; and also on the arrival of a bellhop who happens to look and sound exactly like…Well, let me not give it away. It’s a real stretch, studded with implausibilities, which makes the play threaten to come off like a full-length Here’s Lucy episode. But laughs are there, director Don Stephenson never lets the giddy pace lag, and the cast—the original Paper Mill actors reunited—is spirited, especially Egan, who does fabulously with his complex role. Again, I’m so relieved.
 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show Changed My Gay Life!

The Mary Tyler Moore Show Changed My Gay Life!

Happy Black History Month! Happy NYC Fashion Week! In commemoration of both landmark events, stylist Christian Freedom and I picked the 10 most exciting black male models of all time, and the result is an embarrassment of gorgeous. Here goes:

TYSON BECKFORD

Says Christian, “Tyson was recruited by Ralph Lauren to be the face of his brand, Polo. He is without doubt the most famous black male supermodel of all time, scoring lucrative contracts similar to those of his female counterparts. His fame has also brought him into appearances on television and in films.” I feel Tyson is the most recognizable of all male models, and he’s always been surreally beautiful and exotic—sort of like a male Grace Jones.

DAVID AGBODJI

According to Christian, “The super sleek images of David for Calvin Klein’s 2009 campaign became immediate classics and put him firmly on the model map.” David has a unique look, brimming with a whole lot of character that makes him extremely photogenic.

RICHARD ROUNDTREE

Relates Christian: “Before he became famous as Shaft, Roundtree was a successful model, primarily appearing in hair care ads for magazines like Ebony and Jet.” Roundtree helped sell lots of product to African American men before igniting the big screen as a sexy private eye.

FERNANDO CABRAL

Christian: “With his megawatt smile and chiseled features, the Portuguese model broke barriers appearing in campaigns for Balmain and Givenchy. His only real competition seems to be his younger brother, Armando.” Together, they are truly unbeatable.

ALVIN CLAYTON

Says Christian: “With rugged good looks, hunky Clayton has been modeling regularly for the past 30 years. He also found time to open a restaurant, an agency, and create fine art paintings.” If he needs any help in handling all of that, I’m here!

URS ALTHAUS

Offers Christian: “Born in Switzerland, Urs finished his business studies before storming the runways of Paris and Milan. The openly gay model/author recently published his memoir, Urs, The Swiss Black Boy.” He’s so much more than just a pretty face.

VLADIMIR MCRARY

Christian says: “The powerfully built, bald headed Vladimir had all eyes on him, whether in skirts by Gaultier or in semi-nude ads for Versace.” He also looked steamily hot in the Bruce Willis movie The Fifth Element.

STERLING ST. JACQUES

Says Christian, “Sterling was known as the original male supermodel and adopted son and reputed lover of actor Raymond St. Jacques. He twirled down the runaways with Pat Cleveland, as well as burned up the dance floor at the legendary disco Studio 54. He died in 1984, tragically, of AIDS.” I would watch Sterling spin around at Studio 54 and wonder who the hell he was, while hypnotized by his charisma. I later learned his whole fascinating story.

RENAULD WHITE

Christian: “Renauld is the African American model of many firsts. The first to appear on the cover of GQ and the first to have mannequins made in his likeness. He has promoted everything from furs and luxury cars to grooming products and cologne. He’s gone on to star in soap operas and off-Broadway plays.” And “chiseled features’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

JASON OLIVE

Christian: “The multiracial beauty was omnipresent in the 1990s, appearing in ads for Banana Republic, YSL, and CK perfume. He’s since transitioned into acting, mainly in TV productions by Tyler Perry.” You’ll know him when you see him—Jason is a beauty for the ages.

BODY (OF WORK) BY JAKE

Broadway is also coming into its landmark period, when we’re overcome with revivals and new shows, all vying for customers and acclaim. One of the prominent contenders is the retread of the Sondheim/Lapine musical Sunday in the Park With George, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the fastidious artist Georges Seurat (and a sort of spiritual descendant) and Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford as his mistress/muse, Dot, and grandmother, Marie. Last week, the two stars and other creatives joined in cutting the ribbon for the Hudson Theatre, a long dormant place which has been refurbished and will fling its doors open again for George. Said producer Jeanine Tesori, “It’s the oldest newest theater in New York City. Like my face in 10 years when I have more work done,” she laughed.

Gyllenhaal was more somber, saying, “I can’t stress enough how important it is to have joy in the world. That’s what the show is about—it’s all about love and joy.” At that point, a cameraman angled for the best shot of the notables, and Jake got on the Tesori bandwagon and joked to him, “A lot of us are aging, you know!”
 

“BOULEVARD” OF BROKEN DREAMS

Glenn Close may be more than two decades older than when she did Sunset Boulevard on Broadway in 1994, but she doesn’t seem it, which makes the musical about a movie star romancing a way younger male writer seem less quease-making. (Besides, today, we welcome the idea of cougars, even if this one happens to be a barracuda. And furthermore, the show’s central relationship is supposed to be bizarre.) The musical is based on the brilliantly witty 1950 Billy Wilder movie, which is the best film ever made about show business. (Nope, it’s not La La Land. Sorry.) In it, fading gargoyle Norma Desmond ensnares a caustic writer named Joe into her lair, to the detriment of both of them, especially when the truth leaks into Norma’s decaying mansion.

Related | Glenn Close, Back on Sunset Blvd. and Ready for Her Close-Up

The musical—with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton—softens things a bit, so Norma isn’t quite as grotesque and Joe isn’t nearly as hard boiled. Fortunately, despite some so-so passages of recitative, it still retains power as it explores dark territory involving disappearing stardom and escalating illusion. Director Lonny Price’s scaled-down revival plants a 40-piece orchestra center stage, and in lieu of the sumptuous house from the ‘90s, there’s a winding staircase and a stack of hanging chandeliers. But no set at all is needed when Close breaks your heart, especially with her two showstoppers—“With One Look” (about the visual impact of the cinema) and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (her ode on returning to the old studio, though it’s for a way more degrading reason than she could ever imagine). Aside from Glenn, Joe (Michael Xavier) shows off his cleavage in his bathing suit scene, Fred Johanson convinces as her pervily devoted servant Max (another younger paramour of hers), and the dead monkey is OK. But I could have done without the flapping wrists of the flaming stereotype of a guy who sells Joe the vicuna.

PAR FOR THE “COURSE”

Another Tony winning musical—A Chorus Line—is back, but in a satirical version that has wannabe waiters competing for choice positions. At the Laurie Beachman Theatre, A Course Line hilariously reimagines the ultimate audition musical into a job hunt for people into tips, not taps. The creators are Michael Busted Fitzgerald (who plays Sheila, the chain-smoking 40-year-old who feels “Everything is beautiful at the ashtray”), Alfred McKeever as restaurant owner Zach Michael Douglas, and his sister Patty McKeever as Cassie, the ex head waitress who’s desperate to get her job back, though she’s too good for the lunch shift! All the familiar songs are funnily reworked, so the Puerto Rican girl (Susan Campanaro) sings about a customer who leaves her “Nothing”; a flamboyant gay waiter (Samuel Benedict) croons about “tips and sass”; and a new character (played by Edward Lynn Davis, aka drag queen Blackie O’Nasty) rattles off his credits, then takes pains to point out, “I’m a pedophile.” Best of all is the revelation that these aspiring waiters have no idea what the fuck gluten is “and why so many white people are afraid of it.” Take my tip—this show is the main Course.

AND AS LONG AS WE’RE HAVING FUN WITH SHOW TUNES…

At Marie’s Crisis—the long running piano bar in the West Village—pianist Kenney Green told the crowd, “By day, this is a gay bar. At night, it magically turns into…a gay bar. I want to thank all the straight people here for letting us tolerate you this evening. And for my LGBT brothers and sisters, welcome home!”

Then I went to my home away from home, the Howl Gallery in the East Village, where Heather Litteer was doing a slinky “My Heart Belongs To Daddy” for writer/cartoonist Anthony Haden-Guest’s 80th birthday. At the event, Litteer told me she was in Darren Aronofky ’s 2000 druggie drama Requiem for a Dream. “All I remember is the two-headed dildo,” I replied. “I was at the other end of that dildo!” she exclaimed. And in her one-person show, Lemonade, Litteer talks about recently running into Aronofsky, who brushed her off and kept going. How rude! But it reminded me of the time I asked Chloë Sevigny about her blow job in Brown Bunny and she ran, screaming. I’ll toast her again if there’s ever a Brown History Month.

And finally, filmmaker Chad Darnell tells me he’s going ahead with X-Rated, a feature flick about the life of fascinating gay porn star Joey Stefano (who died in 1994). I will have the exclusive on the biggest casting search since Scarlett O’Hara.

If I were to literally stick to my title (above), this would be a very short column. In fact, it would be over already and I’d be off typing up an invoice. But let me use a little hyperbole and a lot of imagination and say that there’s something quite delightful that’s resulting from Donald Trump’s Presidency: We’ve gone activist again! We’re angry, we’re mobilized and we’re taking to the streets in record numbers to shout out our horror!

Under Obama, things had become a little complacent, let’s face it. Once we got same-sex marriage in 50 states, a lot of gays started behaving cockily, as if we’d nabbed our place at the table and were ready to sit down and indulge. What’s more, between PrEP and meds, many gays wrongly started thinking AIDS was completely over, and happiness was a just a raw genital away. 

Sure, we started marching for Gays Against Guns in the wake of last year’s Orlando massacre, but one such rally—organized in DC last August—was not exactly overflowing with the amount of people you’d hope to see. We were hopping mad—and sad—but apparently not ready to fully explode yet.

Well, though we were taking baby steps, we are now all fired up again and ready to rock! Awesomely enough, we’re informed, we’re involved, and we’re seizing the opportunity our democracy grants us to voice our outrage. Trump’s views on women’s rights and immigration were hair-raising enough to get us going. And as he started appointing ‘phobe after ‘phobe to various key positions, we screamed and Tweeted and made it clear that we were not going to sit still and tolerate a reversal of our human rights. I rejoiced on January 31, when Trump said he wouldn’t overturn Obama’s ban on antigay discrimination in companies working with the government, but I was shouted down by people yelling, “You’re praising him for doing nothing?” Well, yeah, it seemed better than him doing SOMETHING. But now that we live in fear of potential legislature allowing religious people to bash gays, our marching feet are more ready than ever to revolt and make a scene. And when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly referred to a massacre in Atlanta—ostensibly meaning Orlando—it was chilling that the Trump administration doesn’t seem to know where the biggest attack on gays in the history of the U.S. happened! So we screamed again!

It’s awe-inspiring to see the change in the air as we all re-learn the art of expressing rage. Remember when The Dixie Chicks were crucified in 2003 because Natalie Maines made a casual, biting remark about Bush? It devastated their career for years! Well, in the age of social media, celebrities who generally only care about their next career moves have been politically energized and speak out constantly against Trump’s wicked ways. (The brunt of Cher’s career these days seems to be doing so, enjoyably enough.) And not just famous folk have become vocal. Everyday people have been electrified, and even those who never got more political than writing “Trump sucks” on Facebook are suddenly willing to take a stand for our lives. This reminds me of the old ACT UP days—starting in 1987—when Ronald Reagan’s murderous inactivity surrounding the AIDS epidemic was so galvanizing, we took to the streets with all kinds of activist actions that raised global awareness and made a significant change. I was openly gay and political way before that, but finding a community of like-minded people in ACT UP really ignited my ire, and I came alive with righteous protest against government injustice. At the same time, LGBT culture was on the rise, because anger begets art, so we were blessed with great works like Tony Kushner's 1993 double header Angels in America I and II—a thrilling condemnation of various closets—as well as other projects and personalities that made us prominent and noticed.

The same will happen now. LGBT culture and presence will rise in response to attempts to squash us down, and we will emerge embattled, but incredibly resilient and proud. The current insurgence feels like it has the heat of ACT UP plus the anti-Iraq-war movement plus Occupy Wall Street and everything else combined!

Of course I’d rather we not have to be all activisty and angry at all. I’d be thrilled if Trump had never gotten into office and we could just have nice lives, only fighting when it’s called for. But he did, so we’re on fire all the time—and that’s a good thing! Let’s scream till he’s impeached, and then we can scream some more when the hideous Mike Pence takes over! If we have to get 10 people impeached before we get someone decent, then fine—let’s do it!

KIND OF A DRAG

If you need any more proof that Trump sucks, the beloved Mark Zschiesche—A.K.A. Yvonne Lame, proprietor of the Lips chain of drag restaurants—was gay bashed in San Diego (where there’s a Lips) last week. “I blame Trump,” said a sobbing, bruised Mark in a video that went viral, “and those who support him.” Some people on Facebook wanted more elaboration on that, so I reached out to Mark/Yvonne, who explained: “After the assault, I was injured and emotional. I reached for the only weapon I had—my cellphone. In my video, I lashed out at a climate that we all find ourselves in today of increasing hate and intolerance for women, the disabled, people of different skin colors and religions and sexualities, but in the end, we are all American. Trump supporters have reached out in private with support and well wishes, and it is not them that I hold responsible. My anger remains with an intolerant and less than pretty time and those that have gone along with and carried out the rhetoric of a mis-leader who has made it vogue to hate.”

ELLE FANNING'S TRANS FILM IS COMING OUT!

No wonder a friend of mine just ran off to Europe! Of course it was to cover the Berlin International Film festival, but still! His report to me had some interesting LGBT touches. To wit: “Remember the movie About Ray, with Elle Fanning as a transgender teen, going from female to male? Susan Sarandon was her wisecracking feminist grandmother. The downbeat reviews came out and Harvey Weinstein pulled the plug and it never opened. Well, now it's called Three Generations and it opens in May, and no one is mentioning the old title or troubled history.” I guess they feel that now’s a good time to cash in on trans mania—especially after they re-edit the film!

Continued my friend, “Also, you mentioned to me that the great Cherry Jones has run around saying she basically can’t get a job. Well, she got one. She’s one of the seven-actor ensemble in Sally Potter's The Party as a lesbian with a ditzy preggers lover (Emily Mortimer). I liked it, especially because it's funny and 71 minutes.” 

DON’T BE CRUEL, TO A HEART THAT’S TRUE

At Le Poisson Rouge, I caught Cruel Intentions—a work-in-progress musical version of the 1999 movie about decadent teens manipulating people a la a miniature Les Liaisons Dangereuses, this time with '90s hits studding the plot. Perhaps the most fascinating development has two same-sex shenanigans carried out, one of them done to boy band songs. And Jenn Harris is a scream as the uptight lady who sings “No Scrubs” on finding out that her daughter is dating a black guy.

Off-Broadway, Wallace Shawn's Evening at the Talk House has Matthew Broderick as a playwright (not his first time in such a role; remember It’s Only A Play?) who celebrates the 10th anniversary of his Midnight in a Clearing With Moon and Stars with some very chatty peers in the title establishment. This is an excuse for some conversations about the dark side of human nature (and, sort of, “extreme vetting”) and ruminations on self-worth and relevance, as well as a chance to get a few name actors together and toss a macabre twist into the mix. 

FASHION! TURN TO THE LEFT!

Fashion Week brought out some kicky fun and celebrities, the prevalent theme being sparkly escapism, appropriately enough. Georgine's show trotted out a lively assortment leather and sparkles, as I sat in the glittering front row with legendary model Pat Cleveland (who told me her daughter is having a blast in the fashion biz) and dandy Patrick McDonald, with whom I commiserated over the absence of the late, great photog Bill Cunningham.

Fur designer to the stars Adrienne Landau did a brilliant presentation called LANDAULAND, with the help of party goddess Susanne Bartsch. It consisted of glamorous tableau featuring Chinese and Indian-style brocades and including a bride on a (fake) horse and trans diva Amanda Lepore prancing about a faux playground with some kids as she laughingly told me, “I couldn’t get a babysitter!” (Amanda also informed me that her memoir, Doll Parts, is finally coming out on April 19. Yes, she’s due!)    

Christian Cowan scored with a “Free Caitlyn Jenner” jacket, and also with a silver gown and tiara for model Paris Hilton, who looked like she was sporting the world’s largest paillettes. And The Blonds—beautiful duo David and Phillipe Blond—triumphed with a dazzling show of fake fur, baubles, bangles and beads. After walking, each model would stop by a large column and pose, creating various gorgeous images throughout the room. The crowd—including Adam Lambert—smiled until they practically burst.

Related | Paris Hilton & Caitlyn Jenner at Christian Cowan's Glittery NYFW Debut

I celebrated another blond when I went to the legendary Stonewall Tavern, where the World Famous Bob was having her going away party. (The glam burlesque performer is moving to Austin). Seen there were Basil Twist, Chris "Go Go" Harder, Julie Atlas Muz, Dirty Martini, Glenn Marla and Cate Blanchett. You heard me—THAT Cate Blanchett. It turns out the Oscar winner was scoping out the place because tonight, she’s doing a benefit there for the Newtown Action Alliance, an anti-gun-violence group founded after the Newtown, Connecticut shootings. Cate will be surrounded by a bevy of gussied-up drag queens at the event. Take that, Donald Trump.

Yesterday, I got an email from a colleague, critic Brendan Lemon, who said, “I’m starting to think that Moonlight could pull off an upset tonight. As a friend of mine says: "Just like in '05, (when Crash upset Brokeback Mountain), too many people have been saying that they have not voted for La La Land as number one. It needs to get over 50% to avoid a preferential ballot, which, like last year's The Revenant, it will most certainly lose. (It is too divisive to be a consensus winner.)" And as I say: "If Moonlight upsets tonight, it is: Brokeback payback!”

Well, I pretty much laughed off his suggestion—though I did admit this was, after all, a year with greater visibility for people of color in Hollywood, and besides, surprises are what make the Oscars fun—and I was content with my stodgy correctness when La La Land won Best Picture. At least that’s what it seemed, after Warren Beatty stared at the card for a long time, then his Bonnie and Clyde costar Faye Dunaway declared that bittersweet musical as the absolute winner. But they’d been given the wrong card (for Best Actress Emma Stone) and halfway through the gushy La La Land acceptance speeches, it was revealed that Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice—I mean Moonlight—had really won! With mock nonchalance, the La La gang had to give back their trophies and crawl off the stage in tears, as the Moonlight clan took over the awards and the podium! As another friend of mine, actor Ryan Spahn, tweeted, “Why didn’t this happen on November 8?”

Related | In Shocking Twist, Moonlight Wins Best Picture

Two thoughts: 1) When I saw Janelle Monae up there, I mused, “Wait! Was it Hidden Figures that actually won?” Then I remembered she’s in Moonlight, too. 2) Bruce Vilanch, who has written many Oscar shows, Facebooked, “This was pretty epic. Almost as good as The Oscar.” In the over-the-top 1966 film, the Best Actor winner is announced as “Frank….,” upon which Stephen Boyd’s character, Frank Fane, excitedly stands up and prepares to accept. Then they say “Sinatra.” 3) Faye could have spared us all of this drama by saying nothing at all—except for, “Don’t you dare watch Feud, people. There’s only one way to play Joan Crawford and that’s MY way, bitches!”

I guess I should have known that, despite winning every award in the world and copping a record-tieing number of Oscar nominations, La La Land wouldn’t go all the way. Not one person I’ve talked to liked it! (Then again, Donald Trump won, lol.) Congrats to Moonlight—the acclaimed coming of age story of an African American male, told in three acts—which also copped Best Supporting Actor (for Mahershala Ali) and Adapted Screenplay (for Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney). But while there was a wonderful same-sex kiss in a clip and McCraney did mention support for gender nonconforming kids, I wish the speeches had more aggressively emphasized just how gay the film’s story is.

Other gayish moments included Vince Vaughn saying he didn’t realize “a young, unshaven Sal Mineo was hosting tonight.” (He meant Jimmy Kimmel, who was composed and quite amusing throughout, especially when declaring that overrated Meryl Streep always phones her performances in). There was also a Zootopia winner who thanked his husband, and La La Land co-composer Benj Pasek thanking his mom for letting him take part in musical theater, but other than that, for gay content, we had to rely on the commercials for the miniseries When We Rise. But who cared? Moonlight won Best Picture! It’s the first gay movie to win, and the first black one too! (I’m not counting 1967’s In The Heat of the Night, which dealt with race issues, but centered on a white/black partnership. The same goes for Driving Miss Daisy).

My other thoughts on the evening:

- I’m glad I wasn’t sitting behind Halle Berry. But I’m not glad that I don’t own Janelle Monae’s dress.

- Kenneth Lonergan’s wife, J. Smith Cameron, tweeted me from inside the theater! Yes, me! Who needs Janelle Monae’s dress when you’re that special?

- In La La Land, John Legend plays the schlock sellout singer, except that the song he does (and cowrote) is the best one in the movie. They didn’t push it for the Oscar, so it wasn’t nominated, but they were smart enough to get him to go on the telecast and sing the songs done in the film by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Alas, one of them sounds like “The Rainbow Connection”.

- Viola Davis going for supporting was shady, but maybe it’s a comment on the systematic racism at work here. After all, only one black person (Halle) has ever won Best Actress, whereas six had won Best Supporting Actress (and now seven). Her chances for Fences were way better in this category. It also makes up for the fact that her supporting role in The Help was nominated for Best Actress. (Interestingly, the real Best Actress in that film was Emma Stone, who won last night for La La Land. Twice.) But racial issues aren’t required for category fraud, mind you. Last year, Alicia Vikander won Supporting for The Danish Girl, even though she was the film’s leading actress.

- As for Viola’s speech, it was described by someone on Twitter as a master class in acceptance speeches, but that was the problem with it. It was too rehearsed, too grand, and tried too hard, IMHO. In light of her speech, I won’t joke that Warren and Faye were “exhumed” from the graveyard—they were fab and very welcome. But being an artist “is the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life”? How about medicine? Or my little field (journalism)? And thanks for the God messages, but how about something political? Still, the oration was well delivered—and was even shot like a movie monologue--and acting students for decades will probably bring it to auditions, along with the “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” song from La La Land.

- The Iranian director of The Salesman boycotted, but he probably wouldn’t have gotten into the country anyway, lol! I knew the film would win its category. I also was convinced that The White Helmets (about rescue workers in Syria and Turkey) would win. In this climate, they were locks. Duh. This is the new Holocaust.

- Speaking of which: A cleaned up Mel Gibson seems almost cute these days—or am I just going soft?

- The tour bus shtick threatened to be this year’s suitcase, but the payoff was way better, if coming off a tad canned.

- The billowing sails being lofted around by dancers in the Moana number made me wonder if Debbie Allen was back aboard.

- The In Memoriam segment was the gayest thing ever televised! They included Patty Duke (and used a clip from the camp classic Valley of the Dolls)! Zsa Zsa Gabor! Debbie Reynolds! Carrie Fisher! Lupita Tovar, who was the mother of Susan Kohner (Imitation of Life) and grandmother of the Weitz brothers! John Hurt, who played British dandy Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant! And Nancy Davis Reagan! Whoops, skip that last one.

And just as I was about to turn off the TV, someone ran onstage and announced that Moonlight hadn’t actually won—it was Hacksaw Ridge! Kidding. The shitshow was already legendary enough as it was—the biggest upset in Oscar history and the biggest mixup too. Praise God.

CIS ME, CATE

A certified Oscar winner, Cate Blanchett, turns out to make a great drag queen. In fact, she’s so good, she totally passes for a woman! Let me explain: Last week, at the legendary Stonewall Inn, Cate was one of the stars of a drag-filled revue created by Jason Hayes, who does hair and makeup for Cate’s Broadway play The Present and who organizes Disarm Hate rallies. He also happens to be an accomplished drag queen named Margeaux Powell, so he put together a spectacular evening of tucking and syncing to benefit the Newtown Action Alliance, an anti-gun-violence group that does great work. Margeaux started the night doing a version of Adele’s “Hello” addressed to Paul Ryan, who never seems to be home when we call about health care. (Blanchett was one of two backup gals at the end of the number, though she was so dolled up, drag style, that I wasn’t totally sure at first). 

Related | Cate Blanchett Lip-Synched Adele at a Stonewall Inn Drag Show

Also performing were NYC bombshells Brenda Dharling and Tina Burner, who wowed the crowd with their showmanship, plus an assortment of other dazzling performers like trans icon Candice Cox, Tia Douglas, and Aurora Sexton (two of whom did Madonna numbers, proving the old dame’s still got it). The night wasn’t preachy and even better, it presented drag that was celebratory and woman-loving without any of the misogyny that sometimes permeates the field. And at the very end, Margo brought out Cate Blanchett, decked out in a gold bustier, tuxedo jacket, and bejeweled drop earrings, for her spotlight number. Cate walked through the crowd while deftly lipsynching to the 1960s feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me” as people held out money for her to grab. At this point, I was convinced that instead of “Broadway Revue,” the evening should have been called “Gowns, Not Guns.” Fabulash.

My old nightclub cohort James St. James, who’s an acclaimed author, is thrilled about the new movie version of his book Freak Show, and so am I. The award winning book detailed a flamboyant teen who boldly runs for homecoming queen at his uptight high school. I asked James how he feels about the movie and he replied, “I’m over the moon, of course. It took a loooong time to get made—eight years! But the bullying theme feels really timely. And all the credit goes to [director/co-producer] Trudie Styler. She is a force of nature. She got shit DONE.”

Freak Show by James St. James

Max Irons got stuff done at the premiere of Bitter Harvest—as the film’s star, he posed and gave interviews—while we discovered a movie that lives up to its official description: “Set in 1930s Ukraine, as Stalin advances the ambitions of communists in the Kremlin, young artist Yuri battles to save his lover Natalka from the Holodomor, the death-by-starvation program that ultimately killed millions of Ukrainians.” At the after-party at the Leopard at des Artistes, we all decided to give the film a thumbs up, especially when someone noted, “Donald Trump would probably think this is a romantic comedy.”

PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES

And now, an Oscar nominee—Jake Gyllenhaal—comes back to Broadway, along with my realization: One of the few good things about being older is that you got to see the lavish original productions of classic musicals en route to the current scaled-down ones. Unlike the original Sunday in the Park with George, the new one—expanded from a series of concerts at City Center—has spare furniture and a hanging scrim on which artistic images are projected. Fortunately, it’s a solid production, and the show remains a brilliant exploration into the mind of artist George Seurat. At times you think creators Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine overreached by trying to include thoughts on every aspect of an artist’s work—from how to fill a canvas to how it’s received to how it’s remembered. But in the age of jukebox musicals, a show that overreaches is extremely welcome, especially since it’s filled with such glistening insight, humor, and music, all centering on the attempt to make harmony out of chaos.

Gyllenhaal brings arresting gravitas (and some wacky lunatic genius) to George, an obsessive renegade pointillist who doesn’t paint to please, though he certainly would like his work shown and appreciated. Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford exhibits dry humor and passion as Dot, his girlfriend and model, who adores the brooding George, but grows tired of standing still in the heat, only later realizing that he was trying to tell her to inhabit the moment in a meaningful way. Looking for security, Dot marries a baker she doesn’t love (because there’s nothing wrong with him), and there are other characters floating in and out with their needs, resulting in Seurat completing his landmark painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. In Act Two—which catapults us to 1984—George’s great grandson (played by Gyllenhaal) is a conceptual artist doing a presentation on Seurat with the help of his granny, Marie, who was the baby Dot had via Seurat. (She’s played by Ashford.)

It’s one of the more audacious leaps in musical theater history, and when it leads to a dazzling light show called “Chromolume #7,” things suddenly seem far less scaled down—and the lights flash along with heady themes of connections, family, and history. Also wonderful in the cast are Brooks Ashmanskas, Phillip Boykin, Penny Fuller, and Robert Sean Leonard, Liz McCartney. The original production remains the best, but this one—directed by Sarna Lapine (James’ niece)—has an interesting take on the concepts of “putting it together,” “finishing the hat,” and moving on. By the way, the producers have taken the show out of Tony consideration, which—after last night—seems like the most sensible decision in ages!

Movie companies are always about 40 years late to the table with allegedly groundbreaking material, and then they always make sure to congratulate themselves on the incredible courage involved in what they’ve done. So I was wary upon hearing all the hoopla about how Le Fou, the clowny sidekick (played by Josh Gad) of the preening Gaston (Luke Evans) in the new Beauty and the Beast film is openly gay. And I wasn’t alone. In advance of the film being seen, people were already kvetching on social media that the character happens to be a fool and invokes the tired trope of being in love with a hunky straight guy, namely Gaston. And indeed it was only last November that I declared an end to the stereotype that gay guys always lust for hetero studs; “That’s an old one from the self loathing days,” I wrote right here.

Related | Beauty & the Beast to Feature Disney's First 'Exclusively Gay Moment'

But then I saw the film, directed by an old Columbia College chum of mine, Bill Condon, the openly gay director of Chicago and Dreamgirls. At first it was irritating to see Le Fou simply imply that he’s hot for Gaston. I know this story takes place in a time way before Stonewall, ACT UP, and Grindr, but I hoped there’d be more to the story than him simply trying to keep Gaston away from various women, ending up in his arms in the middle of a shtick, singing an appreciative song about him (which the same character did in the animated movie and the Broadway show), and declaring that he’s only not married (to a woman) because he’s been called too clingy. Those are all lovely hints that Le Fou bats for the other team, but nothing more than that. But then something happens at the very end of the film that I won’t give away. It’s something you’d better not blink through or you’ll miss it, but it’s pretty special and it eliminates the previous vagueness and also takes Le Fou away from his love of Gaston, on to something greater. And by the way, I don’t mind that the character is supposed to be a sort of jester; I didn’t find him a buffoon, just a fun wacko. So, congratulations, Disney. Now how about an updated movie about Chip ‘n’ Dale?

Related | Beauty and the Beast Gay Character Sparks Outrage from Small-Town Alabama to Russia

As for the alleged backlash against the gay character, does anyone really care if an Alabama drive-in is planning to ban showing the movie, and the Russian government is considering doing the same? If a solitary dumbass theater wants to use hate and exclusion to diminish their own business, then great! People will simply go to the other 4000 or so theaters showing the film to see it. Since the drive-in doesn’t approve of gayness, sex, or cursing, I can’t even imagine what they WILL show—probably feature-length commercials for Lalaloopsy? And the Russian government? The folks who regularly destroy gays and dissenters and women and human rights (and which Trump seems to be a fan of)? Does anyone really want their endorsement? The movie will rake in kazillions, as these bigots and losers fume by the sidelines, watching the world change, from a ridiculous distance.

THE REAL AMERICAN HORROR STORY

Related | Jessica Lange is Joan Crawford in Ryan Murphy's Feud

Two same-sex people in love is certainly a nicer occurrence than serious hating going on. But Ryan Murphy’s Feud series is appealing to gays of a certain age because of the inherent camp value in digging up the mutual distaste of Oscar winners Bette Davis (played by Susan Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange). And there are so many other delicious rivalries Murphy can excavate, some of them inherent in this season already. Two of the real-life people portrayed in the show—actress Olivia de Havilland (played by Catherine Zeta Jones) and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Judy Davis)—had long running feuds of their own, Olivia with her sister Joan Fontaine and Hedda with rival columnist Louella Parsons. Let me hereby propose them for future seasons. And then there’s Donald Trump vs… everybody.

Related | Ryan Murphy Interviews Jessica Lange on Fame, Feuds & the Feminine Mystique

Last night’s first episode? As I sat down with my case of Pepsi, the hour-plus has-been showdown proved to be such high camp it almost turned me straight again. It was delicious to watch Jessica Lange’s Joan snarling about Marilyn Monroe, “I’ve got great tits too, but I don’t throw ‘em in everyone’s face!” and summon her best Faye Dunaway to yell at director Robert Aldrich that she wants more expense money than Bette Davis. Epithets like “queen bitch” and “cunt” got tossed around, and as Joan’s maid, Jackie Hoffman got to bark suggestive lines like “It was an honor to prune Miss Crawford’s bush.” Yes, this thing is done by gay men—including co-writer/coproducer Jaffe Cohen, who used to be one of the standup group Funny Gay Males—and advertisers knew just who’d be turning in; there were commercials for War Paint, the Broadway musical about feuding cosmetics divas. While Lange did tremendously, I was a little disappointed with Sarandon’s Bette, though at least she wasn’t trying to do an impersonation. Next season will be about Prince Charles and Princess Di, but last night, Catherine Zeta Jones’ Olivia putt dramatic weight on her contention that feuds are rooted in pain. Sounds like Ryan Murphy is already onto my idea for a future season!

THE PAGE MASTER

Someone who feuded with more than one person in her pursuit of art, Geraldine Page was one of the bravest, most original, and brilliant actresses of her time. She is colorfully remembered in Turning Page, in which daughter Angelica Page says how wrong it is that Geraldine hasn’t been aptly memorialized via a book, an American Masters special, or a star on the Walk of Fame, so she’s going to personally make up for that via research, performance, and channeling. In the impressive show, Angelica is overcome with the presence of her mom as she dons a headwrap, scarf, and dark glasses and captures her wonderfully crooked mouth, which could switch from coquettishly girlish to frighteningly growling in the bat of an eye. Angelica’s Geraldine tells us about her obsession with theater (mainly conducted because, as a repressed Methodist, she wanted to immerse herself in characters other than herself) which led her into the realization that Hollywood is built on phoniness. (When she did Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke and Sweet Bird of Youth on Broadway, Geraldine wore tatters, but for the big screen, suddenly she was bedecked in glorious gowns tragically ill-suited to the characters.) She had steamy romances with studly rebels Marlon Brando and James Dean (“Jimmy was not gay—at least not when I was around”). But not as felicitous was a contretemps with Hondo costar John Wayne, who tried to tell her how to say every line. Geraldine responded by telling the press what a reactionary creep he was. Wayne was horrified when she bagged the only Oscar nomination for the film.

And not surprisingly, Geraldine was a big slapper. She slapped Amanda Plummer onstage during Agnes of God, and supposedly Plummer was brilliant after that. “Slap me tomorrow night!” costar Elizabeth Ashley urged Geraldine. And Geraldine also slapped Rebecca De Mornay when they were doing a Sam Shepard play together; De Mornay had gotten too into her fellow actress’s space and was fired, though today, I bet, she’d be able to take Geraldine up on charges.

De Mornay had appeared in the film of The Trip To Bountiful, which won Page her Oscar after eight nominations. (When presenter F. Murray Abraham announced that the winner was someone who “I consider to be the greatest actress in the English language,” I’m surprised all five nominees didn’t run up to the stage.) In this show, we learn that Anne Bancroft was nominated for playing Geraldine’s stage role in Agnes of God, which was denied Geraldine because director Norman Jewison felt she wasn’t a film actress. (“I guess he didn’t know about all my Oscar nominations.”) But that’s OK; she got to do Bountiful, which was a perfect valedictory venue in which to show off her glorious gifts.

Not so bountiful was the time a gossip item alerted Geraldine that her husband--and Angelica’s father—actor Rip Torn had impregnated a younger actress. This leads to a bitter take on “shadenfreude”—whereby people enjoy the misfortune of others—and results in Geraldine sardonically feeling that her heart condition was caused by her hubby breaking her heart with his shady antics.

Angelica Page does brilliantly, as directed by Wilson Milam. The result is a real Page turner.

HIS HEART WILL GO ON

Another terrific vehicle is Significant Other, the Joshua Harmon play (directed by Trip Cullman) about a 20-something gay guy who remains poignantly dateless as his three female besties get hitched. You’ve heard the expression “Always a bridesmaid.” Well, Jordan Berman can’t even be a bridesmaid! He’s always left out, ignored, dissed, and dumped. On a sort of date with a hot guy, he keeps saying the wrong things, and he even ends up sending off a gushy email that backfires, since—like Evan Hansen—he hasn’t learned proper communication skills. The play is nothing new—the eternal bachelor who has problems with the dating game is a familiar theme—but it’s done with wit and pathos, and having a lead character who just happens to be gay gives the whole thing a fresh twist. Gideon Glick is tremendous as the quirky outcast who puts apple stickers on his neck for connection and who fancies himself still fat even though he only used to be. Glick makes Jordan adorably appealing, while also letting us see how his self-pity can turn to rage and jealousy. There are wonderful musical snippets involving Celine Dion and Joni Mitchell—and best of all, Lee Ann Womack, whose “I Hope You Dance” is hilariously mimed to by Jordan and two girlfriends (Lindsay Mendez and Rebecca Naomi Jones) as the third gal (Sas Goldberg) does her spotlight wedding dance with her new hubby. (Sam Pinkleton did the choreography.) There’s also Barbara Barrie as wise, old granny, urging Jordan to never get old, but not to die young either. Significant Other is light and snappy, but pretty irresistible. Bring a date.

ATTEND THE TALE OF SWEENEY TODD

And finally, here’s something you should probably see alone: the Tooting Arts Club production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Bill Buckhurst, at the Barrow Street Theatre. “As if we haven’t had enough scaled down Sondheim,” I moaned on entering the theater. But this was different. The space had been transformed into a replica of Harrington’s Pie and Mash Shop, London’s oldest continuously operating pie shop, where this production happened to have started out. It was bright and lived-in, with long tables and lots of ominous atmosphere. Just like people did in London, we arrived early and were greeted with a meat pie with mash, along with a beverage. (Waitress should be doing the same—with cherry pie, of course). The orchestra turned out to be just three players (a pianist, a violinist, and a woodwind guy), but the second the show started, all doubts went flying like a barber’s used razor. With the actors right up in your grill—and prancing on top of tables—the feeling is immediate and accessible, capturing the dark humor of the piece (score by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond), with all the wit, pathos, and weirdness intact.

Jeremy Secomb is powerfully brooding as the demon barber with a taste for blood, Siobhan McCarthy is wonderfully adorable and grotesque as the pie lady who figures out how to make Shepherd’s pie with real shepherd, and everyone else is in top form too, abetted by deft lighting effects and clever staging. With three of Sondheim’s most hauntingly beautiful songs (“Johanna,” “Pretty Women,” “Not While I’m Around”) bejeweling all the musky antics, this may be Sondheim’s most fabulous work, and by stripping things to the bone, this production makes it soar again. And it’s even scarier than What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?

Disney's First Gay Character: Is This Actually a Step Backwards?

Cheers to survival. Charlie Hides is the oldest contestant ever to appear on RuPaul’s Drag Race, and he’s in top form. I first became aware of the British performer—who’s on season nine, premiering March 24 on VH1—through his YouTube channel, where he impersonates Cher, Christina and other icons with a dryly amusing precision. Friday night at the Triad, his TransAtlantic Dame show confirmed that he’s gifted and riotously funny.

Related | Ruveal: Meet the Queens of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9

Looking, by his own admission, “like a zebra fucked a smurf,” Charlie dove right into the old-age jokes, claiming “I’m so old, that my ears are still ringing from the Big Bang.” When a scrim descended and almost hit him on the head, he quipped, “I already have onset dementia. I don’t need another concussion!”

And then came an onslaught of quotable quips and numbers about his experience on Drag Race:

There was a song that went, “You ain’t shit till you’re picked by Ru,” featuring lyrics like, “I’m flying first class; I’ve got glitter and sequins coming out of my ass.”

Charlie said, “I was warned, ‘Don’t attack Michelle Visage. She’s RuPaul’s best friend.’ But in my audition video, I said, ‘Michelle has her tongue so far up Ru’s ass, she could tickle his tonsils with it.’ Well, RuPaul saw it and still hired me!”

“They probably hired me to get some use out of the bathroom bars they put in for Kasha Davis and Tempest DuJour.”

“When I walked onto the set and saw Kimora’s and Trinity’s asses, I wasn’t sure if I was on Drag Race or Botched.”

“The delightful Farah Moan told me, ‘You look pretty good for your age.’ I don’t look pretty good. I look fucking fabulous—and not just for my age, for any age!”

Hides also scored portraying different female figures, like Marge Simpson (“What do you call Susan Boyle with a rape whistle? An optimist”) and Joan Rivers (“When Anne Frank played hide-and-seek, she hid in the oven.”) Oh, by the way, Hides is unrepentantly un-p.c. and doesn’t care who he offends. His best bit had him coming out as Cher and conversing on the phone to other icons (on video), including the real Kylie Minogue, plus himself as Madonna. “We have a lot more in common than you think,” said Hides as Madge. Replied Hides as Cher, “Did your daughter become a man? Do you have an Oscar? We have nothing in common.”

Fellow season 9 star Alexis Michelle—who Charlie was staying with—scored with a beautiful “Somewhere That’s Green” (ending with “Somewhere that’s Ellen Greene”). Then Hides gave a lovely speech about friends he lost to AIDS (and the accompanying homophobia), urging the gay kids out there to realize they’re beautiful and loved. This led to an audience singalong on “True Colors,” and then Alexis Michelle re-emerged to duet with Charlie on the Golden Girls theme. A wonderful evening of release without remorse—just what we needed.

Related | Cyndi Lauper on Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ Activism & Music's Political Power

After the show, I asked Charlie if he’s really older than Victoria “Porkchop” Parker. “Yes,” he assured me. “But she’s 100!” I blurted. Hey, I can get away with it. I’m 101.

RISE AND SHINE

Another Season 9 star, the fabulous Peppermint, was in the audience for Hides, and the next night, as if by magic, she was onstage at the annual Night of 1000 Gowns gala, hosted by the imperial Court at the Marriott Marquis, all done to a Casino Royale theme. Pep performed and said how great it was that the evening’s beneficiary was TLDEF (Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund) because she’s used their services in her transition.

Photo via Wilson Models Photography

Also performing—en route to Royal Harrington and Madison Mansfield being crowned the new Emperor and Empress—were disco/R&B singers Linda Clifford and Sarah Dash, who teamed up for a rousing “It’s Raining Men.” And it was raining Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, one of the evening’s honorees, who told me he loves the Imperial Court “because they represent the ‘we’ in When We Rise. When they come after trans people, we will rise. When they come after immigrants, we will rise.” “Excuse me,” I interjected, “but by ‘they,’ do you happen to mean ‘he?'” Dustin nodded and smilingly said, “The Cheeto bigot!”

TAKE A GANDER AT SOME GAYS

Not only is Come From Away a timely show about kind people welcoming foreigners, it’s also sort of a feel good musical about 9/11. It centers on the real story of planes that were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland on that hideous day, thereby almost doubling the population of the rustic town. But that’s not even the most shocking thing—it’s that the town welcomed the influx of people to the point where, even when the newcomers stole barbecue grills from lawns (as instructed), the homeowners helped them do it and welcomed them in for tea. 

 

Watch the cast of #ComeFromAway perform "Welcome To The Rock" at @CBCQ's studio! Pre-order our cast album now! Link in bio.

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The musical—with book, music and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, directed by Christopher Ashley, with musical staging by Kelly Devin—manages to tell this story without mawkish sentimentality or manipulation, keeping things moving with a fluid staging that incorporates group numbers, solo spots, narration, heart, humor and a finale by the band. 

Among the characters stranded in Newfoundland are a gay couple (Chad Kimball and Caesar Samayoa)—both named Kevin—who try to be coy and closety, until they’re totally clocked, at which point they realize this is one of the gayest towns on the continent. Their relationship hits some turbulence, and there’s also religious profiling against a Muslim man—plus there’s a character desperately trying to find out what’s happened to her son in New York—but other than that, things are generally sunny, yet believable. Finally, a musical not based on an old movie, but on an actual occurrences—it feels fresh and welcome.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

But back to fiction: The Sense of an Ending is a well-made drama with Oscar winner Jim Broadbent as a man who “reconnects with the first love of his life and in the process clarifies his relationships with his ex-wife and daughter,” as director Ritesh Batra described it at a Lotus Club event last week. Aside from jokey references to a group of pregnant lesbians, this is a movie about straight people and how revelations from the past dramatically redefine their connections.

Explained Broadbent about his character, “He’s a grouch and self satisfied, but he’s also gentle and loving to his family. But he’s fairly obnoxious at times. He behaves like a teenage boy. He hasn’t grown up—but in the end, he has, I think.” Charlotte Rampling plays his ex love, which is interesting, since two years ago, she was acclaimed for 45 Years, also about revelations from the past affecting marital relationships. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery appears as Broadbent’s pregnant daughter and talked about the inspiring way women rule certain movies these days. Dockery remarked that as brilliant as Ryan Gosling is, “Emma Stone drives La La Land.” She also contended that “Amy Adams drives Arrival. Jeremy Renner just looks very pretty, next to her.”

BROADWAY GOSSIP TIDBITS

I’ll feel gorgeous just by relaying some high-toned dish to you: First of all, as you know, there’s an opening at the New York Times for a second-string theater critic, and everyone in town wants it. Well, I hear their first-string critic, Ben Brantley, won’t be reviewing the revival of The Price, starring Mark Ruffalo. (He can’t review everything; there’s a scary amount of shows coming down the turnpike before the Tony deadline). And I bet whoever does review it will then be named the new second-string critic. So let’s wait a few days and see, theater queens.

As for future potential nominees, I’m hearing that two projects in the very early stages are planned Broadway versions of The Turning Point and All That Jazz. I know it seems like every single movie ever made is being turned into a show, but those two I can live with. And not just because I’m old! And guess what else is coming to Broadway? I hear Othello—with David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig—is looking at Circle in the Square for the fall. Moor, moor, moor!

Born Alex Michaels in Manhattan, Alexis Michelle is a talented figure on the Gotham bar scene, playing Boots & Saddle on Wednesdays, Therapy on Thursdays and the Ritz on Sundays, with performances at Pieces Bar, as well. I voted for her in the local competition So You Think You Can Drag? after she did a smashing “Don’t Rain On My Parade” complete with fake nose. And now, Alexis is a competitor in a much larger contest—RuPaul’s Drag Race (premiering March 24 on VH1). I just caught up with her for some girl talk.

Related | Ruveal: Meet the Queens of 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Season 9

Hi, Alexis. Was this your first time trying out for Drag Race?

My eighth time.

Oh! So it was ALMOST your first time, ha ha. Why do you think it clicked this time?

For the interview portion, I said, “I’ve got to put myself out there and say, ‘This is who I really am, take it or leave it’.” I had such an agenda in the past about trying to say something I thought they wanted to hear. It made a huge difference. Also, I feel the Acting Challenge is very strong. I used a lot of iconic film references. We had a scene given to us that I believe was the Acting Challenge on Season 7. I used the framework of the script, but inserted lines from The First Wives Club and Dreamgirls and Steel Magnolias and Mommie Dearest, and I think Ru’s a fan of that kind of referential humor.

Who was your best friend on the show?

It’s so hard to say because I love a lot of these girls. I’m probably torn between Charlie Hides and Trinity Taylor.

Were there any negative moments for you?

There was a good deal of stress involved. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, for sure. I’ve read this in interviews with Drag Race girls before, but it is a race--that’s not a joke. Time is definitely valuable when you are at RuPaul’s School For Girls. It was stressful, and you’re keenly aware that the pressure is on, especially when there’s a camera rolling.

What’s your view of drag’s purpose? Should it come from a place that’s positive and upbeat?

It depends. If you’re a look queen and you’re about giving people a feeling just by looking at you, that’s fine. That’s what you do. But if you’re an entertainer—and most drag queens are--it’s the same as theater; offering people a chance to step out of their reality for a moment and let go and enjoy themselves. Right now, with the climate we’re in, it’s so important that in addition to bringing that lightness and entertainment, that we speak up for our community. Especially the Drag Race girls, I believe, have a responsibility to speak up for the community because we have far reaching voices right now. It’s important to use the platform for good, not just exposure. It started that way with Stonewall—drag queens have been leading the gay rights movement from the beginning.

Amen. When did you first do drag?

Technically, when I was three or four. I used to dress up in my mom’s closet. It resurfaced again when I was 12. I was getting ready to do the Halloween parade. I was going to wear a Richard Nixon mask, but by time I left the house, I was a witch. Halloween is the gateway of drag—that night when men feel they have permission to dress like ladies, and for some people it sticks. Well, it stuck.

What do you do if there’s a heckler or people not paying attention?

I work in a variety of venues where you either have peoples’ attentions or you don’t. You just kind of roll with it. If people are enjoying themselves and talking and drinking, that’s a part of what I signed up for, by working in bars. I don’t get upset with that. And I’ve been pretty lucky. I haven’t had too many hecklers. The worst is somebody drinking too much and wanting to get involved in the show, but I sort of enjoy that. It’s spontaneity and whatever happens on the fly is actually fun when people get a little churned up, but you also have to know how to shut that down when it goes on too long. You’ve seen me lose a few battles. [laughs]

You always win! These days, it seems like drag queens get gorgeous boyfriends. Does that work for you?

Well, I’ve been in relationships, but in the three years that it’s been my full time gig—I’ve been doing drag for 14 years, but solidly full-time for three—I haven’t been in a relationship. I don’t know how much that’s because I’m doing drag. It’s such a huge commitment. My mom texted me, “You have to make time if you want a relationship.” I said, “Mom, can you find me some extra time in the day?” There’s a lot of guys that would be happy to date a drag queen and plenty who are not so interested in that. I find that to be a little narrow minded or frustrating, but at the same time, you can’t force these things. If that’s a preference they’re gonna have, they’re gonna have it.

Fuck ‘em. Congrats, Alexis. Good luck on the show.

PART OF YOUR WORLD

There was a whole other drag competition when I helped judge the finals of Tina Burner’s Miss Barracuda contest at the long running Chelsea bar the other night, along with Bianca del Rio, Sherry Vine and Crystal Demure (currently starring in Kinky Boots). The evening focused on the talent category, for which a lot of the gals did Disney characters, like one rather uninspired Little Mermaid queen, who Bianca shooed off the stage (after the girl got uppity), saying, “You’re stupid. Get off!” “That’s the same thing Bianca said to Courtney Act—and she was right!” I noted. “Thank you for remembering Courtney Act,” quipped Bianca. Poor Tina Burner had to get on her knees and scrub the stage after Ariel’s waterlogged shenanigans, as I thought, “We’ve already had Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid…and now Cinderella!” After the Norma Desmond impersonator Sherry Pie was crowned the winner, I started to leave, but was stopped by a patron who gushed on and on about how he loves my work, as I beamed out of control. “That didn’t mean anything” deadpanned Bianca.

BURN, BABY, BURN

Someone in desperate need of splashing water, Joan of Arc gets the rock opera treatment in Joan of Arc: Into The Fire by rocker David Byrne, who’s penned a pretty-much sung-through musical (with a little dialogue) that takes her from her burning passion to just plain burning. Played by a guitar-driven band, Byrne’s music is generally very effective, though the lyrics sometimes too literally convey what the characters are thinking, making for some overly declamatory moments. Alex Timbers, who directed Byrne’s last show, Here Lies Love (a winning fantasia about shoe-bearing Imelda Marcos), supplies his usual imaginative staging, and though, as usual there are sometimes too many gimmicks, at least it makes for visual motion. Rotating steps provide Christopher Barreca’s set’s centerpiece, and the costumes go from contemporary to period, with Joan evolving from farm girl to obsessive liberator of France, thanks to her various visions and voices. The wiry and intense Jo Lampert is sensational as Joan, bringing her pure voice to the material, and Mare Winningham emerges as Joan’s mother at the end, urging a tribunal to “send her to heaven” years after Joan’s death. There are echoes of Jesus Christ Superstar, and things really kick in once Joan’s trial starts (with some words from actual history). An instant classic? No, but it’s not a trial either. [Gossip side note: Not everyone agrees with me. In fact, the dismissive New York Times review threw the show into the fire. I hear the musical was originally developed for Anne Hathaway, and I wonder if she’s dancing a jig right now.]

SHATTERED “GLASS”

“It is not realistic,” warns The Glass Menagerie‘s narrator, Tom, about what’s presented in Tennessee WiIliams’ memory play, and in the new production, Joe Mantello lays a little heavier on the line than is usually done. That makes sense because, under avant garde director’s Sam Gold’s guidance, the play has been dramatically stripped down and reassembled. As you may have heard, the stage is bare except for a table and chairs and some phonograph records. The house lights stay on for a long time, then finally go out, but when there’s a blackout at the Wingfield house, all you end up seeing are lit up candles, making things alternately chiaroscuro and just obscure. Then the house lights go up again towards the end. Meanwhile, the actors are directed to not employ Southern accents, and in fact, Madison Ferris‘s Laura comes off vaguely Valley Girlish in her speech.

As the painfully shy character, Ferris is an actually disabled actor who painstakingly transports herself around the stage on all fours. It’s poignant to watch, and actually works for the piece because it makes mother Amanda’s delusions about her children seem even more extreme. And while Cherry Jones went for a kind of sunny, loving quality in her acclaimed 2013 performance, Sally Field emphasizes Amanda’s hectoring, disapproving tone, while occasionally stopping to flash moments of charm. (Sally played the same role in 2004 in a completely different production.) With all the new touches, this Glass amazingly comes of fairly straightforward a lot of the time. I found it invigorating at first, before it became dullish, though the ending—with Sally unleashing a fury of rage at her wandering son—was strong. This is truly the dividing rod of the season.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID

While Williams is undergoing a revisionist revival, Arthur Miller is getting a more conventional one. Miller’s The Price—a battle between two estranged brothers as to their varying senses of responsibility—starts with exposition, and some laughs before building to old-style confrontations and histrionics. Victor Franz (Mark Ruffalo) abandoned his career dream to take care of his father, while brother Walter (Tony Shalhoub) walked away and contented himself with sending dad five bucks every month. As Victor banters with an old, shifty furniture appraiser (Danny DeVito), Walter enters the scene and the fireworks fly as to whether dad crushed Victor or Walter did. 

Under Terry Kinney’s direction, amid some Ionesco-like chairs, Ruffalo projects a sort of Brandoesque brooding, until exploding with a riveting fury. Jessica Hecht gives a typically quirky and credible performance as his wife, who’s searching for answers and the best price. And Shalhoub comes off slick as a man who says he had a breakdown, but is now happy, even as he doles out some potentially poisonous revelations. Best of all is DeVito who, despite an accent that comes and goes, is priceless as the man who takes out an egg and eats it (a hilarious scene), while declaring that “With used furniture, you cannot be emotional.” Yes, that’s meant to be ironic.

Drag Race Season 9 Star Alexis Michelle on Drag, Activism & Boyfriends

Drag Race Season 9 Star Alexis Michelle on Drag, Activism & Boyfriends

Amanda Lepore is a trans icon, party hostess, photographers’ muse and now a book. The New Jersey-born answer to Marilyn Monroe, Lepore is the subject of Doll Parts (written with Thomas Flannery, Jr.), in which she shares her life story, beauty tips and glamour photos. Amanda once told me that at age 11, she saw a TV show about transgender people and promptly woke up her parents to tell them she wanted to transition. She eventually got hormones from a friend in exchange for outfits, and she was also helped by an encouraging shrink. And her first husband’s dad paid for her operation, though hubby had no idea of her “secret” at first. Many surgeries later, Amanda is a long running nightclub chanteuse and presence—and an author. I chatted with her to get a feel for the doll.

Hi, Amanda. Do you read a lot of books?

I don’t read so much. I’m one of those people who like pictures more. Stuff on Marilyn or other glamorous women from the 1950s will always catch my eye.

Have you read the bible?

No. I’ve seen them in the hotel once in a while.

Did you ever steal one?

No, but I did used to steal Barbie clothes when I was a little kid, at a 5-and-10 store. When there were Halloween costumes, I’d put all kinds of junk I wanted into the box. I got caught stealing with a friend. Her mother was really sweet, and she was really mad when we got caught, so I stopped.

What’s your top beauty tip?

Staying out of the sun and protecting yourself with sunscreen. Besides makeup and glamour, I also like to take care of my skin. I was in a car accident and I had needles done to reduce scars. It seems like a craze. I watched a YouTube thing and bought it myself. I’ve been doing my whole body. It’s a roller with needles on it. Your skin gets used to it so, even though you’re red and look sunburnt the night you do it, you’re fine the next day. And the skin products will work 80% more. That’s really exciting and sort of primitive and weird, but it works. They discovered it from people getting tattoos—needling without the ink works, and it produces collagen.

Do you feel like a doll?

Yes.

Are you a Barbie doll or an inflatable doll?

I’m inflated in the right places. I think I look better than a blow-up doll. I do have that blow-up doll thing with the boobs and the big round lips and the long hair. My boobs and lips and ass and hips are inflated. My head a little bit, too. (laughs)

Is there any surgery you wanted that the doctors wouldn’t do?

No, but I recently got my eyes done and I was really happy with them. They’re now much more doll like. I’m glad I waited because I went to a Korean doctor, and they know how to make Japanese eyes into white eyes. I wanted my eyes bigger. I think I look a lot more proportionate. It makes everything else look natural because everything else is fake, so I have matching eyes now. I know I said I wasn’t going to do any surgery and I was happy, but who can resist bigger doll eyes?

That actually makes perfect sense to me. You sometimes come off a little ditzy, but that’s just a shtick, right? Or are you really a ditz?

A little bit of both. Sometimes I’m not faking with my dizzy thing—I really am--but it works for me. I just be myself and it’s great, either being a dumbbell or smart. It surprises people both ways!

Did you ever have a date with a celebrity?

Yes. It’s in the book.

I know, but let’s keep people guessing.

I think they worded it so I won’t get in trouble.

I know he’s black.

One of them is.

In the book, it says, "He was a very famous rapper, they were playing his new song in the clubs constantly. I never saw him again after that, but when he got married, I couldn’t help but think that his wife had a similar body type to me." Anyway, you were so ahead of the curve—or the curves—as a trans icon. Do you feel it has become a trend? 

In some ways, it’s good. In all different ways. Thanks to the Internet and Instagram, you can follow people that you admire, which is so important for kids. I go away and entertain—I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, which is mentioned in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes—and they have an amazing trans scene of supporting themselves. It’s really important with transsexuals. And there’s the YouTube thing. I know dilating wasn’t really talked about much for post operative transsexuals. Now you can look it up on YouTube and all these people talk about it and demonstrate. I wish I had all that when I was younger. I’d hear about the transsexuals of the moment. There was one every 10 years, I think. (laughs) Now there’s a lot. They all have different experiences, so people can relate to it more. Parents can see it. When I was transitioning, I had a home tutor. They didn’t want me in school while I was transitioning. I was going to go because I didn’t know better. Now parents are supportive with transsexual or transgender kids.

Your thoughts on Caitlyn and her politics?

It’s kind of disappointing that she’s a Trump supporter. It’s weird and a slap in the face. That’s really odd. I did believe that she was transgender. I think that gets lost when you like women. Because when I was young, I just liked guys and was a bottom, so it’s easy to transition. But if you like women, you go into a relationship with women, getting a vagina would get in the way.

Related | Caitlyn Jenner Calls Trump's Reversal of Transgender Bathroom Rights a 'Disaster'

But with or without a vagina, you can be a lesbian.

Yes, but when you’re in a situation dating someone who doesn’t know [you’re female] and they’re attracted. That’s probably why she waited so long. It must be harder. I don’t think that openly being a lesbian would have made it easier. She was in a marriage where she was Bruce Jenner. I knew trans girls who one day would be beautiful and take hormones and the next day they’d meet a guy on the subway and change back to a boy to please them. I think it’s something like that. Being who you don’t want to be for your partner.

But now Caitlyn is liberated.

She wanted to be with that person, but on the other hand, she wanted to be a woman. If she came out transgender and an honest lesbian, it would be easy, but because of the relationship she chose, it must have been hard. That’s the only way I could have compassion.

But you don’t change your sexuality, just your physical gender.

Right. But she was in that relationship and wasn’t being honest with that, so that screws you up.

But now you’d say Caitlyn’s a lesbian?

Oh yeah, lesbian all the way, right.

The father of your husband (at the time) paid for your vagina. How much was it?

I don’t know. Most of my surgeries I didn’t pay for myself. I’m sure I spend more money on shoes than my vagina was. Some of the shoes are $4,000 a pop.

At the peak of your surgeries, what’s the most work you had done in a year?

When I went with [trans former friend] Sophia Lamar to Mexico, I did liposuction, had my ribs broken in the back, which made my waist  smaller, and got my boobs much bigger.

Did you get tired of spending so much time recuperating?

I have a really good immune system. I heal really well, fortunately. Even the eyes I just got done. I had them done on Thursday and they took out the stitches on Monday. I try to take good care of myself.

You don’t do drugs?

No. I don’t really drink. Once in a while I’ll have shots of tequila, but I never finish it. When you’re in high heels and all that stuff, I wouldn’t want to be out of control. Plus I was told that the hormones don’t work as much when you drink. [Scandalous club kid promoter] Michael Alig used to always force drinks on me. I’d pour out the drink and he caught me and said, “If you’re not gonna drink it, don’t get it.” He’d make fun of me when I would have wine spritzers.

Related | My 10 Most Shocking Memories of Michael Alig

I also saw him trying to push pills into someone’s mouth. Why did you and Sophia Lamar have a falling out?

I don’t know. I think it has to do with David and the modeling. [Amanda has long been a muse/model for artist David LaChapelle.] She was more of a model than me.

So she got jealous?

Yeah.

Do you have a boyfriend or husband now?

No, I’m just dating, I had a boyfriend I broke up with. Weird stuff. He would mention having threesomes with girls a lot. Maybe he should have went with Caitlyn Jenner. (laughs)

You don’t do threesomes?

No. I‘m not a lesbian—not even bisexual. I’d do it with a guy before the girl. I just get jealous around girls. I’m like 10 girls, and it’s too much femininity!

Amanda Lepore's Doll Parts is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be released April 18.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG IS TRULY A SAGE PERSON

Photography: Jason Russo (HeyMrJason Photography)

Another female icon, Whoopi Goldberg, threw an event at Chef’s Club last week for SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), promoting the May 18 “SAGE Table” happening where people will host dinners bridging the gap between young and old. At this event, I chatted with Lisa Kron (Tony winner for writing the book of Fun Home) about the difficulty older gays face because we don’t always have people to take care of us the way we took care of our parents. “My partner Madeline says she’ll go into the forest, eat a Cadbury cream egg and then shoot herself,” said Kron, with a wry smile.

Related | LGBTQ Elders Are Being Forced Back in the Closet, Now Trump Wants Them Erased

And then Whoopi arrived—a little late—and told the crowd, “I fell asleep. I can’t lie. I‘m such an old person.” Sitting at my SAGE table, Whoopi explained that she’d been watching Feud and dozed off. “If you were a gay man, you never would have fallen asleep watching Feud,” I told her, and she laughed. Whoopi is quite serious about helping SAGE’s mission to help mature LGBTQ people. She’s also livid about the indignities being perpetrated by President Trump and said she sometimes wants to scream “What the fuck is going on?” when she’s on The View, but she bites her tongue.

Related | Ryan Murphy Interviews Jessica Lange on Fame, Feuds & the Feminine Mystique

Other conversational topics were given to us in clever brochures, including our secret drag names, so I decided Whoopi could be Eileen Sideways and I’d be Beth Israel. (Or maybe we can both be Lois Commondenominator). We were also asked to discuss our favorite childhood foods, upon which Whoopi said she was so poor growing up that her mother mostly boiled bok choy—the cheapest thing you could get—in large quantities. When a tablemate chirped that he’d gone to Harvard, Whoopi said she’d been honored with that school’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award and loved it even more than the Oscar because “I didn’t go to high school or college and all these smart people were honoring me!” That’s how I felt on this night of nights—though the prevalence of ageism shone through with regards to one suggested conversational gambit that everyone at my table ignored: “Tell everyone your age.” We need SAGE more than ever.

BROADWAY CASTING GOSSIP

Aging straight people are at the center of Marvin’s Room, the Scott McPherson play about a family wracked by health emergencies, which is being revived this June at the Roundabout. Well, I’m hearing buzz on some casting names who seem to be involved: Celia Weston, Lili Taylor and Janeane Garofalo. Sounds like a Room worth inhabiting.

A REAL SMART ALEC IN DIAPERS & A SUIT

Alec Baldwin turns out to be perfect casting for the lead role in The Boss Baby, about a bossy child who’s actually a suit-wearing secret agent involved in some international puppy shenanigans. In their review of the animated film (which focuses on the bonding between the baby and his brother), the Hollywood Reporter wrote that Baldwin “seems to have cornered the market when it comes to playing conceited man-babies.” And his work ethic is obviously very secure. “Alec self directs,” said director Tom McGrath after a special screening last week. “He says, ‘I think we got it.’ I say, ‘Can we try one more?’ He’ll stare at you and then say ‘yes.'” But McGrath added that Baldwin happens to be comically inventive and a total pro. Unlike the guy he impersonates on SNL.

Related | Alec Baldwin as Trump Says 'We're All Going To Die' in SNL Cold Open

GONNA MAKE YOU “SWEAT”

Worker unrest that partly led to Trump’s America is at the core of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, which is mostly set in a Reading, Pennsylvania bar in 2000 (with some scenes eight years later), where steel plant workers gather to drink, bond, and betray. We already see some of the effects of this lifestyle; the bartender (James Colby) was hurt in an accident at the plant, and Brucie (John Earl Jelks) was shut out of his job, along with fellow union members, at another mill, and he hasn’t handled it well. As management lowers the boom on jobs, while offering to promote someone from the working class ranks, things get complicated, especially since a Colombian American bar back (Carlo Alban) admits to feeling invisible—until he’s bitterly called a “scab” as tensions flare (along with racial issues).

Under Kate Whoriskey’s direction, this is pulled off with a lot of energy and surprising humor—the characters don’t seem to have a lot of introspective time—and a game cast gives it extra heft. Best of all are the three lead women—Michelle Wilson, Johanna Day, and Alison Wright—as figures in an embattled landscape, navigating through it while trying to survive. Nottage won the Pulitzer for Ruined, and with this, her first Broadway play, she’s achieved something earnest but worthwhile.

MUSICAL DRAMA WITH SAIGON SAUCE

Finally, a revival that doesn’t skimp on the budget, while assuring us that the “reinvention” breathes new life into material that used to allegedly be overblown. The new revival of Miss Saigon—the souped-up Boublil/Maltby Jr./Schönberg’s answer to Madame Butterfly—is lavishly produced, from the throngs of crotch bumping prosties to the whirring helicopter that’s come back to give Phantom’s chandelier a run for its chutzpah.

And I must have really gotten old because I enjoyed it a lot more than in '91, when I found it screechingly cheesy. This time, there are still some clunky lyrics and also people belting songs while writhing in melodramatic anguish. But the story grabbed me, as teenage Kim works in a sex club run by a raunchy character known as the Engineer, falling for an American GI, Chris, who feels she deserves better. It’s no secret that later on, Chris doesn’t know Kim’s given birth to his son, and Kim’s wife has no idea that he was with Kim (though she’s starting to suspect as much).

As the dramas unfurl, Laurence Connor’s direction keeps things swirling, with some dazzling set pieces, including Jon Jon Brione’s brilliant turn as the Engineer, gleefully—and sleazily—singing about the glories of “The American Dream” as dancers cavort around him and a gleaming car emerges to give the helicopter a contest. (The character beams about an America where you can regularly grab for big bucks and fake tits, slaying the audience as he topically exclaims “Let’s make it great again!”) Jonathan Pryce won a Tony for the original production, amid cries that they should have cast an Asian. This time, they did so, proving the talent is out there if you just look for it. Eva Noblezada sings chirpily as Kim, Alistair Brammer emotes elaborately as Chris, and Katie Rose Clarke is terrific as his searching wife. A show with references to “chicks with dicks” and Vietnamese history? To 'hos and Ho Chi Minh? I love it (and so would Amanda Lepore). 

ONE MORE THING...

A long-time drag performer is on the warpath against his ex-boyfriend, who's currently making a career leap. Drag Queen 1 says Drag Queen 2 is a scarily shady Eve Harrington-type who stole way more than his heart. Helleaux!