Anthony Tommasi article on Nade Hubbs' book Queer Composn of Ameri's Sound: Gay Mornists, Amerin Mic and Natnal Inty; says Hubbs ntends that mid-20th-century 'Amerin' sound was vented by gay posers Leonard Bernste, Marc Blzste, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Aaron Copland and David Diamond; photos (M)
Contents:
- THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
- "GAY SENSIBILY" MIC?
- WHAT'S SO GAY ABOUT AMERIN MIC?
- 21ST-L - GAY SENSIBILY THE GAY...
- HOW STEPHEN SONDHEIM HELPED ME FD MY GAY JEWISH SENSIBILY
- HOW TO BE GAY
- GAY PEOPLE AND BARBRA STREISAND, JUDY GARLAND, ETC., MILS..
- A VERY BRIEF NOTE ON GAY ‘SENSIBILY’ FOUL PLAY
THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
Gay-themed Broadway mils have e a long way the past fifty years. The on are the bt. * gay sensibility in musicals *
The Tony awards have always been a gay affair, plete wh out hosts like Neil Patrick Harris and wners like David Hy Pierce famoly thankg their partners at the podium. The story revolv around a group of gay iends g together for a iend's birthday party Manhattan, and ends wh stori about long-lost lovers, and one character g out to his wife.
Created by out playwright John Cameron Mchell, Hedwig spired a feature film and a Broadway revival, wh gay actors like Neil Patrick Harris and Andrew Rannells takg on the Home This crilly-acclaimed Broadway mil was adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeane Tori om Alison Bechl's 2006 graphic memoir of the same name. Each act foc on a different time Arnold's life, om his relatnship wh a bisexual man, to adoptg a child wh his partner, to beg a sgle dad raisg a gay son. The storyle was a darg productn for the time -- even though alt wh a lbian romance, was weled by the public and beme a huge Sex Another award-wng play by Harvey Fierste, Safe Sex premiered on Broadway 1987 and took dienc to the life of a gay man rg for his lover as he succumbs to AIDS-related illns.
After his partner's ath, the protagonist mt meet his lover's wife and Pri Set both the 1950s and 2008, The Pri, wrten by Alexi Kaye Campbell, parallels two gay love stori two very different eras. As most know, the stage productns were adapted for numero French films and a very famo Amerin remake, starrg Rob Williams and Nathan This 1979 play, wrten by Mart Sherman, revolv around the persecutn of gays Nazi Germany, and tak place durg and after the Night of the Long Kniv, the vlent 1934 uprisg that brought Hilter to power.
"GAY SENSIBILY" MIC?
* gay sensibility in musicals *
However, when me to the stori we were tellg, the narrative often shifted back to the heteronormative the begng, gay them were all the subtext and packed away as double entendr by lyricists such as Cole Porter. Now regard as a Broadway classic, A Chos Le tells the stori of 17 Broadway dancers as they dn for plac a chos le of a fictnal Broadway you may not thk of A Chos Le as a gay mil the same way you thk of shows like Rent or Everybody's Talkg About Jamie was ground-breakg for s time as openly discsed gay stori on a Broadway stage. The story is based on Alison's graphic memoir based on the same name and explor her disvery of her own sexualy as well as her relatnship wh her gay father.
The mil als wh topics such as Jewish inty as well as beg gay the 1970s and 80s which clus how the AIDS crisis impacted the gay mil was nomated for seven Tony Awards where won Bt Book and Bt Sre.
WHAT'S SO GAY ABOUT AMERIN MIC?
View om STEM 111 at STI College (multiple mp). Gay Sensibily The gay sensibily mils has long been a heated discsn queer theori. But what is * gay sensibility in musicals *
When Alb stggl to play the role of macho 'uncle Al' he cis to fd more creative ways to f wh the Cage opened 1983 and was one of the first Broadway mils to foc on a gay uple.
"And as if to prove that gay sensibily isn't all about men drs, Bch's latt rnatn is behd the scen, wrg the new off-Broadway mil The Green Heart, which ns through April 20 at the Manhattan Theatre Club. maybe he jt has gay brothers and sisters anyway this article is pretty on target s skepticism, so i don't know that there's much more to say― amatr!!!
Well I was hopg this would provoke discsn of the ncept of a "gay sensibily" mic and whether or not ppl thk such a thg exists, if uld be scribed etc. A SAMPLE OF MY GAY MALE FRIENDSTERS' "FAVORITE MUSIC":Jam, Everythg But The Girl, Dimri om Paris,, Jamiroquai, M People, Michael Jackson, Moloko, Norah Jon, Pl Johnson, Richie K., Terry Mullan, early Bad Boy Bill and DJ Funki jt bought three cds: heart, the postal service, and the wicked soundtrack. :Flexibily is the heart of gayns and the basis of our difference om straightsObv all such generalisatns are dumb, but this one particularly irks this bi man who has had gay iends stggle wh the ncept of an out bi man, bee bi men are gay men pretendg to be straight.
21ST-L - GAY SENSIBILY THE GAY...
A pneer of LGBTQ studi dar to suggt that gayns is a way of beg that gay men mt learn om one another to bee who they are. The geni of gay culture ris some of s most spised stereotyp -- atheticism, snobbery, melodrama, glamour, ritur of women, and obssn wh mothers -- and the social meang of style. * gay sensibility in musicals *
I is annoygly pat, but given s generalns and disnnectn to anythg gay-specific, I'm gusg he wrote that out of a need to e up wh an endg unr a adle, not out of any ep nvictn about the ultimate unanalyzabily of mic. I kept thkg about this OUT magaze piece--I thk was OUT--sayg, tongue cheek, (I thk), that was impossible that Joss Whedon was straight, due to Buffy's mil episo and general "gay-ns. What i did gather om the schubert thg, at least, was that the basis for formg the ia that schubert's mic was "queer" or fluenced cisively by his "homosexualy" (obvly this is a ght ncept when we're talkg about the early 19th century) was pretty bog--the ia that adjectiv applible to certa quali of his posns (like you say ian, this is "absolute" mic) n simply be transferred to the realm of queer polics (or whatever you want to ll ) wh no gnive trouble.
HOW STEPHEN SONDHEIM HELPED ME FD MY GAY JEWISH SENSIBILY
To expla aspects of schubert's style than his "gay-ns"--pecially sce "gay-ns" really wasn't a workg tegory then much ls somethg that somehow would scribe themself as or knowgly make a stcturg aspect of their creative work. amatr your pot about the slips volved mappg the ias to the mic to the sexualy is a good to the ntext of homosexualy beg historilly unavailable, actually there is an creasg scholarly body of evince that qutns the hardle Fouult claim The History of Sexualy that 19th century medice created the inty of the homosexual and that before that there were homosexual acts but not homosexual inti/persons.
I haven't read the piece for a uple days--what I me away wh was a very unclear ia of what the book's thor or the reviewer's fn of a "gay sensibily" actually meant (hence my askg about b vs behavral vs theory--assumg a 'vs' any of them.
I'm straight but i don't thk my choic and actns n be nclively explaed by reurse to a "straight sensibily"--siarly i thk explag lenny bernste by vokg a "gay sensibily" is not off base but really tends toward the banal. Therefore, we should expect that the ranks of great artists will be filled wh whatever pass for viance that time or I wanted to play psychologist, I uld speculate about the tenncy of homosexuals to bond wh the parent of the oppose sex stead of the other words, the gay boy sews wh his mom while the gay girl plays golf wh dad.
HOW TO BE GAY
About Tchaikovsky there is no doubt: fely gay, along wh Brten, Copland and many other major posers and may not have been gay the morn sense of the word, as the fg ponent of their sexual inty. Yet, along wh the outg of past master posers and micians there has been a more dub effort by some to fd evince of a llective gay sensibily their exactly is a gay sensibily? Wh today's gay ins rangg om the bray, unkempt liberal firebrand Congrsman Barney Frank to the stylish, flamboyant and cuttgly funny fashn gu Carson Krsley of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, " who n say?
The latt to enter the discsn is Nade Hubbs, a profsor of mic and women's studi at the Universy of Michigan, whose new book, "The Queer Composn of Ameri's Sound: Gay Mornists, Amerin Mic and Natnal Inty, " has jt been released by Universy of California Prs. It tri to prove that what has e to be nsired the distctive Amerin sound mid-20th-century Amerin mic -- that Coplansque table of wily spaced harmoni and melancholic tun n through wh elements of elegiac folk mic and spiked wh jerky Amerin dance rhythms -- was sentially vented by a group of Manhattan-based gay posers: Copland, of urse, and Virgil Thomson, Pl Bowl, David Diamond, Marc Blzste, Leonard Bernste, Samuel Barber and Ned Hubbs's treatise, which foc mostly on Copland and Thomson, is enriched by her keen sensivy to trac of d gay sexualy, veiled homophobia and cultural anxieti Amerin mic and life durg the early s of the 20th century.
GAY PEOPLE AND BARBRA STREISAND, JUDY GARLAND, ETC., MILS..
Hubbs's acunt of the pivotal role played by gay posers the velopment of a mil idm that as the book argu, still signifi "Ameri, " not jt the ncert hall but also movi, televisn and mercial, I spect that many micians, however fascated by Ms. Schwarz wrote impassned ler not for a shamelsly mercial though perfectly harmls 1995 rerdg, "Out Classics: Sctive Classics by the World's Greatt Gay Composers.
A VERY BRIEF NOTE ON GAY ‘SENSIBILY’ FOUL PLAY
What she do brilliantly is amass evince of the pervasive fluence Copland and his gay poser lleagu had on the formatn of the Amerin natnal her troductn Ms. But never hted at is Copland's homosexualy, which of urse would have brand him as unf for service the how did Copland's mic, wh s "sonic reprentatn of Amerin vastns and gged, simple bety, " as Ms.
To unrstand the social climate they faced, nsir that 1942, while he was the powerful chief mic cric of The New York Herald Tribune, Thomson was arrted a raid on a private hoe Brooklyn where gay profsnals socialized wh young men, cludg sailors om the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard. Perhaps a sense of separatens embolned this circle of gay posers, who shared an affy for French culture and athetics, to distance themselv om the domeerg, aggrsive (meang rigoroly German) brand of 1920's mornism. Some al wh thwarted or ialized homoerotic yearng ("Billy Budd, " "Death Venice"); others are moral parabl about sensive, volatile and ostracized souls ("Peter Grim, " even the edy "Albert Herrg").
There’s somethg clearly gay — or 20th-century gay — this vantage pot of beg an observer of the actn, wantg to participate, but not knowg how to take that risky first step.