Arts & Entertainment
Oprah’s gayest shows
Talk show legend never shied from LGBT topics. Her last episode aired on Wednesday.
Oprah, even in her early years, never shied from LGBT topics on her eponymous show, which ended its run this week. (Photo courtesy of Harpo Productions)
Everybody knows Oprah ended her eponymous talk show this week, but one thing missed in the mainstream hoopla was how often and unabashedly she dealt with LGBT topics during her 25-year run.
Oprah and her flock have consistently denied speculation that she herself may be gay. Gay OWN talk show host Brad Lamm told the Blade in March the question has lingered so long he finds it “offensive.” Winfrey confessed frustration over the issue to Barbara Walters in a 2010 interview because its persistence, she said, implied dishonesty on her part.
A look back through the topics of the show’s 4,561 episodes reveals a bounty of LGBT guests, perhaps none more memorable than a 1987 landmark episode that found Oprah visiting Williamson, W.Va. (population: 5,600) to interview Mike Sisco, a gay man who’d contracted AIDS while living in Dallas and who’d returned home to his family in West Virginia.
Word had spread in the small town that Sisco had AIDS and hysteria ensued when he went swimming in a public swimming pool. Sisco told Oprah residents were fleeing “like people do in those science fiction movies when they see Godzilla in the street or something.” The mayor closed the pool and Sisco was ostracized.
Oprah interviews the late Mike Sisco in his hometown of Williamson, W.Va., in 1987. Sisco, who was gay and had AIDS, caused hysteria by swimming in a public pool. (Photo courtesy of Harpo Productions)
It was the height of AIDS hysteria when confusion about how the disease could be contracted was at its peak. Sisco said he agreed to do the show to help educate the public. Rumors were running rampant in the town that Sisco had been seen spitting on food at the local McDonald’s and on produce at a grocery store.
“Mike Sisco’s story is heartbreaking because it shows the reactions/actions of human beings when fear takes hold, when ignorance is abundant and when there is a mob mentality,” blogger Lola Nicole wrote. “[He] went to be with his family so they could care for him, so he could feel loved. He got exactly the opposite.”
Last September, as Oprah started her final season, she visited Sisco’s three sisters, Patricia, Tina and Anna. Sisco died in 1996 and controversy surrounded him until the bitter end — a family fight ensued about where he could be buried. In the ensuing years, his sister Anna had come out as a lesbian.
Oprah also interviewed several of the residents who’d been against Sisco’s presence in the original episode. Some said they’d wished they’d been more compassionate.
Oprah said her goal in doing both episodes was to remind people to be compassionate.
“I think that is the complete message of this whole series we did here today and 23 years ago,” she said at a press conference after the 2010 episode. “I understand people’s fear because in 1987 we still didn’t know everything and it’s understandable that people would have questions and what was represented here in Williamson really was a microcosm for the country. We used Williamson as a symbol for what was going on in the rest of the country.”
Other famous LGBT-related episodes include:
- Gay pianist Liberace made his final public appearance on the show on a Christmas Day episode in 1986. He died about six weeks later of AIDS-related complications.
- Ellen DeGeneres came out on a 1997 episode. Oprah also appeared on her sitcom as her therapist.
- A 2003 episode that had run without incident initially, was rerun in 2005 and caused a major controversy because a guest gave an explanation of rimming, albeit in a hetero context.
- A landmark 2004 episode called “A Secret Sex World: Living on the Down Low” brought the largely black phenomenon of married men having sex with men on the side to light. It became part of the national lexicon.
- Last November, singer Ricky Martin discussed being a gay father.
- In March, “Family Ties” actress Meredith Baxter discussed being a lesbian.
- A January episode was devoted to coming out.
- In May, 2008, Oprah interviewed Cher and Tina Turner at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Oprah idol Diana Ross also made a handful of appearances on the show.
- An October 2006 episode was called “Wives Confess They are Gay.”
- A March, 2009 episode was called “Women Leaving Men for Other Women.”
- The “Will & Grace” cast convened in May 2006 for a farewell episode.
- In July, 2010 former high school football quarterback Kimberly Reed discussed her late ‘90s sex change. Her documentary was shown at Reel Affirmations.
- And just weeks ago, Oprah interviewed Chaz Bono about his transition and new documentary and book.
The Petal Release Party and Drag Show was held at Spark Social on Friday, July 31. Performers included Tiara-Missou, Labianna and Darcy de la Cuadra.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Celebrity News
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon
AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.
The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.
Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.
Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”
Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.
Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.
Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.
“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”
Theater
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’
Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.
A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.
White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”
Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.
“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?
REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.
BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?
WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.
I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.
These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.
Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.
BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?
WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.
I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].
BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?
WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.
BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?
WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.
Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.
PHOTOS: Petal Release Party
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
PHOTOS: Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
Madonna to perform at World Pride in Amsterdam
BLADE ENDORSEMENT: Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
PHOTOS: Lambda Legal in the Pines
Calendar: July 31-August 6
