Director/wrer David Galligan has filtered much of the gay and lbian experience through this fast-paced mil revue, featurg 22 songs and sketch performed by an outstandg six-member ensemble. Galligan's stagg, gmented by the choreography of Tony Kaye and Kay Cole, is sparse but highly ventive, effectively highlightg the reali and absurdi, humor and pathos of livg an "alternative" liftyle. The mil numbers were provid by many of L.A.'s most gifted wrers, cludg the legendary Billy Barn, whose irreverent openg number, "The Gay '90s," featur the ensemble full turn-of-the-century regalia. The stum are quickly disrd, however, as the sually attired st of three women and three men segue to a seri of illumatg mil and spoken vigt.
Contents:
- THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
- THE GAY SONGWRERS WHO SECRETLY LED THE UNTRY CHARTS ARE READY FOR THE SPOTLIGHT
- A STRANGE LOOP REVIEW: BLACK, BIG, GAY WRER GETS NAVEL-GAZY AND TUNEFUL
- THE GAY ’90S MIL
- AMY MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: DONNA GAY ANRSON
THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
Michael R. Jackson's Tony and Pulzer Prize-wng mil is about a young Black gay mil theater wrer named Usher, who works as an her at a Broadway show — jt like Jackson once did. * musical writer gay *
In the play, Usher is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher, who works as an her at a Broadway show and is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher.
And the play, Usher is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher, who works at a Broadway show and is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named there, like, anythg specific you n pot to for people who haven't seen the show "A Strange Loop" that you thk people thk but are unwillg to say? In the play, Usher is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher who works as an her at a Broadway show and is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher. That happened - I wouldn't say that happened every Sunday, but happened enough that - pecially at the pot when I realized that I was gay - that beme very bothersome to I want to play another song om "A Strange Loop, " and this is lled "Perdilly.
But the song turns to a remr - after, you know, the mother talkg about how much she lov Usher, she kd of segu to talkg about how homosexualy isn't right wh God or wh hell, and that hell is real. All of the Hollywood homosexuals wavg gay flags all day and night, stickg their thgs up each other's butthol, I'm tellg you, son, that jt a't right.
THE GAY SONGWRERS WHO SECRETLY LED THE UNTRY CHARTS ARE READY FOR THE SPOTLIGHT
Gay-themed Broadway mils have e a long way the past fifty years. The on are the bt. * musical writer gay *
And so while, y, there was, you know, gay reprentatn and that sort of thg, A, that gay reprentatn was predomantly whe and, B, was still a weird sort of time terms of gay acceptance.
And I remember my hman year, like, I was tryg to, like, walk this le of, like, people knowg I was gay but not knowg and not knowg how open I uld really be about bee I had e out of a suatn Detro where, like, I really had to be secret about . And I wasn't really out at school except amongst, like, a sort of secret society of other Black gay boys, for the most part, and other, you know, queer kids who were around .
A STRANGE LOOP REVIEW: BLACK, BIG, GAY WRER GETS NAVEL-GAZY AND TUNEFUL
Classil mic wouldn't be what is today whout the great gay matros. * musical writer gay *
So was, like, a strange sort of sir-outsir thg where, like, a bunch of knew that the others were gay, but we also all were hidg om, like, our Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. And the play, Usher is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named Usher, who works at a Broadway show and is wrg a mil about a young, Black, gay mil theater wrer named me out to your parents when you were 17. JACKSON: So my father did ask me if I was attracted to him, but he meant that a kd of rhetoril - that was, like, a rhetoril move bee his unrstandg of, like, homosexualy, which is that - I thk - this is me sort of analyzg what that moment was - was that don't make sense.
Like, I didn't know what was gog to happen bee all I unrstood at that moment was that beg gay was so bad and that parents really didn't want their kids to be gay. But I never really felt like - I don't thk I ever really thought I was gog to get thrown out of the hoe or anythg like that 'e I had seen that happen wh other gay kids around me. It jt was a plited, emotnal fay dynamic and one that - was gog to take , like, a long time to sort of work Have your parents changed their md about you beg gay and about homosexualy general?
I n also tell you that some of the actns that they've taken over the years signaled to me that they are not supportive of a que - of a lot of anti-gay ias and that they have evolved some way, even if 's a small way for them, and that we - you know, we are very What's your parents' reactns to the show and to how Usher's parents are portrayed? And I was somewhat on the outsi of that even then among, like, my peer so then when I me to New York where I had been told that I was gog to have, like, the time of my life as a gay man and that I was gog to have all this sex and that was gog to be jt like a grand, old party, what I learned is that I was at the bottom of the food cha as far as that go. And I had to really orient myself to what meant to be a gay man New York Cy at that time, as somebody who was short and fat and did not have any of the sort of physil attribut that would make one sort of popular , you know, gay, male, sexual scene as I unrstood or as I knew how to be.
THE GAY ’90S MIL
“A Strange Loop” is a mil about a big, gay black guy who is stgglg to wre a mil about a big, gay black guy who is stgglg..... Michael R. Jackson, the mil’s talented book wrer, poser, lyricist and vol arranger, scrib himself as a big, gay black guy; he’s been stgglg to wre “A… * musical writer gay *
Somethg that I've been thkg about recently is that I did not have any gay elrs, and so there was no one to tell me what to do or where to go or how to do anythg. And so every sort of experience that I had as a gay man New York was by me makg mistake after mistake after mistake, or like - or jt fumblg around kd of the dark, tryg to figure out how to be, how to f . He studied unr Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Arthur Benjam among others, and was also a fe ground-breakg operas, which clu Peter Grim (1945), and The Turn of the Screw (1954) – and his famo War Requiem – tackle ntemporaneo issu around psychology and post-war trma, as well his own homosexualy, which was illegal Brten’s lifetime.
As well as beg one of the first openly gay posers full stop, Poulenc also didn’t chew his sexualy the ntext of his relig posns spanned om timate chamber sonatas wh sublime, twistg melodi and lite imprsnist harmoni (thk the 1957 Flute Sonata), to his Piano Concerto and epic one-act opera for soprano and orchtra, La voix humae.
Mic historian Ellen Harris leads on the se for Hanl’s homosexualy, argug that his ntatas exhib a clear homosexual subtext her book Hanl as Orphs.
AMY MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: DONNA GAY ANRSON
* musical writer gay *
And like them, he was associated wh gay clergyman, Cardal Pietro Baroque poser and vlist is known for his chamber sonatas and ncerti grossi, and has gone down history for refg to play a sectn of Hanl’s orator, The Triumph Of Time And Tth, bee a vl note went higher than Corelli believed appropriate for the stment. Unlike Copland, US poser Samuel Barber ma no effort to keep his homosexualy out of explic view and his life partner was poser Gian Carlo Menotti, who he studied wh at the Curtis Instute. Leonard Bernste also studied at the Curtis Instute wh Barber and Menotti (see above), and although he had an on-aga-off-aga relatnship wh actor Felicia Cohn Montealegre and eventually married her, he was openly gay.
Montealegre herself wrote publicly about her book, The Bernste Letters, “you are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t adm to the possibily of a double life, but if your peace of md, your health, your whole nervo system pend on a certa sexual pattern what n you do?
” Bernste’s Wt Si Story llaborator Arthur Lrents is known to have lled Bernste “a gay man who got married”, statg, “He wasn't nflicted about at all.
Toby Oliver Samuel Marlow is a Jewish-English wrer, poser, lyricist, and actor. They posed and -wrote Six the Mil wh Lucy Moss. Toby openly intifi as nonbary and gay. They are the olr siblg of Annabel Marlow, who played Kathere Howard at the Edburgh Frge 2017... * musical writer gay *
Ptr Ilyich TchaikovskyWhile historians Rsia nied for centuri that Tchaikovsky was gay, Eastern voic recent years have e around to the notn the tenrns the poser's mic me om gay sir.
Jean-Baptiste LullyThe liberte Lully was a poser, mician, and famed dancer the urt of France's Kg Louis XIV, where his gay sexualy was an open secret. At one pot, he had a well-known affair wh royal mic page B, acrdg to Gee Haggerty's Encyclopedia of Gay Histori and Cultur, but the boy was imprisoned when the poser fell out of favor wh the kg.
Freric ChopThe legendary 19th-century Polish poser wrote love letters to Tyt Wojciechowski that revealed his persuasn, acrdg to historian Michel Lariviere, and there is evince he had male lovers before that as well, cludg the openly and famoly gay Marquis Cte. Franz SchubertWhile Schubert as a young man was fely known as a womanizer, he likely was bisexual, later livg many years wh gay poet Johann Mayrhofer. Francis Jean Marcel PoulencAn out poser early-20th-century France, Poulenc created mic opposg the homophobic Nazis durg the 1940s, acrdg to Daisy Falurt's L Six.