Arts & Entertainment
AIDS and the arts
From the Quilt to Hollywood to Broadway, pop culture helped us make sense of grief, loss
The cast of ‘The Normal Heart’ at Arena Stage. The show, a groundbreaking dramatization of the early years of the AIDS crisis in New York, runs through July 29. (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy Arena)
The International AIDS Conference in Washington offers an opportunity to look back at how artists have responded to the disease. Since the very first days of the crisis, artists of all kinds have actively responded, both in their artistic works and as fundraisers and activists.
THE NAMES PROJECT AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT
The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, on display throughout the city through the month of July, is the largest community art project in the world. More than 48,000 panels have been created by lovers, family members and friends to memorialize those who have died of AIDS. The Quilt has redefined the traditional folk-art of quilt-making into a modern art form that serves as a memorial, a tool for education, a work of art and a call to arms. Each of the panels has been photographically preserved in the AIDS Memorial Quilt Archive. About 14 million around the world have seen panels from the Quilt.
The Quilt has its root in a powerful piece of political theater. While preparing for the annual candlelight march honoring Harvey Milk and George Moscone in 1985, San Francisco activist Cleve Jones was shocked to learn that more than 1,000 people in the city had already died of AIDS. He asked his friends to bring placards with the names of the dead to the march. After the march, the activists taped the placards to the side of the San Francisco Federal Building and realized that the signs now looked like a patchwork quilt. Inspired by the sight, Jones and his friends made plans for a larger memorial and in 1986 Jones created the first quilt panel in honor of his friend Marvin Feldman.
THE ART OF ACTIVISM
One of the remarkable features of the fight against AIDS has been the ability to use visual art to generate a powerful public response. This was especially true for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), an international direct action advocacy group that worked to impact the lives of people with AIDS. Founded in New York City in 1987, the leaderless anarchist network effectively combined powerful direct action protests with provocative visual images to effectively generate media attention for their cause.
Veteran media activist Cathy Renna, who describes herself as “coming out and coming of age” when ACT UP was forming, says the global impact of the group came from its ability to use visual art to drive home a message.
“They had people like Ann Northrup and Larry Kramer who understood the media really well and who understood the power of images,” Renna says. “They created iconic images that demanded the attention of the media and became embedded in the minds of people.”
Renna notes that the members of ACT UP really showed the power of visual art to move people and the power of creativity and humor to reach people.
“Not everyone agreed with their tactics, but at the end of the day none of us can argue with the indelible impact they had on the public perception of AIDS and the entire LGBT movement,” she says.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
For centuries, there’s been a debate about how well classical music can respond to specific cultural events. Gay composer John Corigliano leapt into this fray when he wrote his Symphony No. 1 in 1991 as a response to the AIDS epidemic.
“During the past decade I have lost many friends and colleagues to the AIDS epidemic, Corigliano writes in his notes to the first recording of the symphony. “My First Symphony was generated by feelings of loss, anger and frustration.”
Corigliano, best known for his opera “The Ghost of Versailles” and his Oscar-winning score for “The Red Violin,” says that the form of his AIDS symphony was inspired by a viewing of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
“A few years ago I was extremely moved when I first saw ‘The Quilt,’ an ambitious interweaving of several thousand fabric panels, each memorializing a person who had died of AIDS, and most importantly, each designed and constructed by his or her loved ones,” he wrote. “This made me want to memorialize in music those I have lost, and reflect on those I am losing.”
THEATER
Perhaps no other artistic medium has been as responsive to the AIDS crisis as theater. From ground-breaking pieces like Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” (an Arena Stage production runs through July 29) and William Hoffman’s “As Is” to such recent works as “The Book of Mormon.” The theatrical community has been deeply involved in the artistic and activist response to AIDS. Here’s a sampling of plays and musicals that have AIDS as a central theme.
Justin Kirk and Emma Thompson in the HBO adaptation of ‘Angels in America.’ (Photo courtesy HBO)
“Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” Part One of Tony Kushner’s sprawling epic (“Millennium Approaches”) opened on Broadway in May 1993, and Part Two (“Perestroika”) followed in November of that year. The play centers on Prior Walter, a gay man in Manhattan who has just been diagnosed with AIDS as the play opens. Over the course of the seven-hour theatrical extravaganza, Prior is abandoned by his lover Louis, who leaves him for a closeted Republican lawyer; befriends the Mormon’s mother and wife, who takes Valium in “wee little fistfuls,” is nursed by his ex-lover, the fierce snap queen Belize; and, is visited by an angel who wants to recruit him as a prophet. The play won the Pulitzer Prize and several Tony Awards and was adapted into both an award-winning movie by HBO Films and an opera by Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös.
“The Normal Heart” by Larry Kramer was one of the earliest plays to deal with AIDS. Now playing at Arena Stage, the play is a thinly veiled autobiography of the author and the founding of Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
“Before It Hits Home” by Cheryl West was one of the first dramas to focus on the impact of AIDS on the African-American community. Wendal is a bisexual jazz musician who denies his sexual encounters with men even after he is diagnosed with AIDS. He tries to hide the truth from his pregnant girlfriend and his married boyfriend, but as his health deteriorates, he is forced to return to his family and confess the truth.
“Rent” is Jonathan Larson’s hit musical and a loose adaptation of Puccini’s “La Boehme” set on the lower East Side of Manhattan in the early 1980s. Larson’s musical landscape includes a variety of artists in a variety of straight and LGBT sexual situations. Many of the characters have AIDS and the Act II opener, “Seasons of Love” has become a popular anthem for the fight against AIDS.
The musical “Falsettos,” produced in Washington in 2010 by the now-closed Ganymede Arts, brings together two one-act musicals by William Finn written a decade apart. In “March of the Falsettos,” Marvin moves in with his male lover Whizzer, much to the distress of his ex-wife, his psychiatrist and his son. In “Falsettoland,” the extended family, now including “the lesbians from next door,” reunite to support Whizzer and Marvin as they deal with an AIDS diagnosis.
Perhaps most noticeably in theater, it’s possible to also trace how AIDS dramas have evolved over the years.
“’The Normal Heart’ was so significant in its time, but it’s dated now because the disease has changed so much,” says David Jobin, executive director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, a group that along with its sister choruses has also dealt extensively with AIDS themes. “You see plays now, like ‘Octopus’ by Steve Yockey and it’s dealing with how different generations have responded to the crisis. We now have a whole generation of people whose experience is different and it’s not about loss at all. … all people could concentrate on in ‘The Normal Heart’ was grieving, so it’s become like ‘The Dollhouse,’ a great period piece but not really relevant to today. Which is great in a way that something that’s only 20 years old can already seem so dated. It shows how far we’ve come in treating the disease.”
Jobin says the greatest examples of AIDS-themed art transcend their subject matter.
“You watch something like the HBO adaptation of ‘Angels in America,’ and it becomes so much more than just a statement about AIDS,” he says. “It’s a tour de force for great acting and it’s in a league of its own. I can’t think of a musical or other work that even comes close.”
ARTISTS AS ACTIVISTS
The theatrical community, and the performing arts community in general, have also been incredibly effective at blending art and activism. For example, since 1987 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has been raising awareness and funds for AIDS organizations throughout the country. Their popular fundraisers include Broadway Bares, Broadway Barks, Broadway Bears, the annual Easter Bonnet and Gypsy of the Year competitions and the Fire Island Dance Festival.
One of the group’s most effective efforts has been its collaboration with the International Thespian Society, a national network of high school theater troupes. Starting in 1999, high school thespians have organized audience appeals, bucket brigades, silent auctions and special performances to raise money to fight AIDS.
During their annual festival in July 2012, Joe Norton, Broadway Cares’ director of education and outreach, announced that the student artists and activists had raised more than $1 million to support organizations in their communities.
“Thespians know how to effect change by working together and celebrating their love of theater,” Norton says. “And, in the process, they become leaders who raise awareness about HIV/AIDS where they live, while making a difference for so many people in need in their local communities and around the country.”
TELEVISION
Sometimes the artistic response to AIDS has been more about context than content. The popular nighttime ABC soap opera “Dynasty” was groundbreaking in its portrayal of Steven Carrington, the openly gay son of a wealthy Denver oil clan. But its role in the emerging AIDS crisis was due to an off-screen drama.
In 1984, closeted gay Hollywood icon Rock Hudson was cast as Daniel Reece, father of the scheming Sammy Jo Carrington (Heather Locklear). Hudson’s character had a romantic interest in Krystle Carrington, played by series star Linda Evans. Although viewers gossiped about Hudson’s gaunt appearance and producers were worried enough about Hudson’s health to write his character out of the series, no one blinked an eye when Hudson and Evans shared an on-screen kiss.
That changed on July 25, 1985 when Hudson publicly announced that he had AIDS, the first celebrity to reveal his HIV status. He learned that he had AIDS while he was appearing on “Dynasty,” and the soap set suddenly became the focus of a public health controversy. The CDC warned the public about exchanging saliva with members of high-risk groups. Aaron Spelling and the producers of “Dynasty” offered to arrange for AIDS tests for the entire cast. The Screen Actors Guild wrote new rules to regulate on-screen kisses.
Hudson’s revelation, and the subsequent revelation of his homosexuality, suddenly put a public face on the disease and his death on Oct. 2, 1985 set the stage for the first television movie on AIDS. On Nov. 11, 1985, NBC broadcast “An Early Frost” starring Aidan Quinn as Michael Pearson, a successful Chicago lawyer who has not told his colleagues and family about his lover Peter Hilton (D.W. Moffett). When he’s diagnosed with AIDS, he’s forced to go home and tell his family the truth about himself.
MOVIES
A short sampler of independent and mainstream movies that have dealt directly with the AIDS crisis include:
“Parting Glances,” Bill Sherwood’s moving 1986 indie film that was one of the first to deal with AIDS. Richard Ganoung plays Michael who is dealing with concurrent crises: caring for his ex-lover Nick (Steve Buscemi) while his lover Robert (John Bolger) is preparing to leave for a two-year work assignment in Africa.
Tom Hanks (left) and Denzel Washington in ‘Philadelphia,’ a 1993 AIDS-themed Jonathan Demme movie. (Still courtesy TriStar Pictures)
“Philadelphia,” Jonathan Demme’s 1993 drama that was among the first mainstream Hollywood movies to deal with AIDS. Tom Hanks won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Andrew Beckett, a closeted lawyer who is fired from his conservative law office when his partners learn he has AIDS. Denzel Washington plays Joe Miller, a homophobic lawyer who helps Beckett sue his former law firm.
“Longtime Companion,” is a 1990 film that takes its title from the homophobic term used by the New York Times and other newspapers to refer to the surviving partners of deceased gay men. It chronicles the early years of the AIDS epidemic from the 1981 article on the mysterious disease occurring among gay men to the beginnings of AIDS activism.
“Tongues Untied” is Marlon Riggs’ stunning 1989 film sought to “shatter the nation’s silence on matters of sexual and racial difference.” It combines documentary footage with fictional stories and episodes from Riggs’ life, as well as footage from civil rights marches and a homophobic stand-up routine by comedian Eddie Murphy.
FICTION
Since the 1980s, countless novelists have tackled the topic of AIDS. From early efforts, such as Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” series to recent books such as Edmund White’s “Jack Holmes and His Friend,” the novel has been a fertile ground for exploring the devastating impact of AIDS on individuals and their society.
One of the most controversial has been “People in Trouble” by lesbian writer and activist Sarah Schulman. The novel deals with a love triangle among artists in the East Village. The controversy, however, arose from Schulman’s accusation that Jonathan Larson lifted the gay plot of “Rent” from her novel. In her 1998 book “Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America,” she details the similarities between the two works and critiques how Larson depicts LGBT people and people with AIDS.
Examples
THEATER
Terrence Mc Nally, “Love! Valour! Compassion!”
Cheryl West, “Before It Hits Home”
William Finn, “Falsettos”
William Hoffman, “As Is”
Jonathan Larson, “Rent”
Paula Vogel, “The Baltimore Waltz”
Paul Rudnick, “Jeffrey”
Harvey Fierstein, “Safe Sex”
Larry Kramer, “The Normal Heart” and “The Destiny of Me”
Tony Kushner, “Angels in America”
Robert Lopez, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, “The Book of Mormon”
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS
POETRY
Mark Doty, “My Alexandria”
Essex Hemphill, “Ceremonies”
Marie Howe, “What the Living Do”
Paul Monette, “Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog”
Rafael Campo, “What the Body Told”
Tim Dlugos, “Powerless”
Tory Dent, “What Silence Equals”
TELEVISION
“An Early Frost”
“Dynasty”
“Another World”
“As The World Turns”
“Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt”
“And The Band Played On”
“The Real World”
“Any Mother’s Son”
“In The Gloaming”
FICTION
Christopher Bram, “In Memory of Angel Clare”
Sarah Schulman, “People in Trouble”
Alice Hoffman, “At Risk”
Armistead Maupin, “Tales of the City”
Paul Monette, “Afterlife”
Edmund White, “Jack Holmes and his Friend”
Dale Peck, “Martin and John”
E. Lynn Harris, “Invisible Life”
Felice Picano, “Like People in History”
Sapphire, “Push”
David B. Feinberg, “Spontaneous Combustion”
Samuel R. Delaney, “The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals”
Geoff Ryman, “Was”
CLASSICAL MUSIC
John Corigliano, “Symphony No. 1”
“Classical Action”
MUSIC
“NakedMen”
“Exile”
“Metamorphosis”
“In This Life” by Madonna (from “Erotica”)
ARTS ACTIVISM
ACT UP
Broadway Cares
Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt
ESSAY
Susan Sontag, “AIDS and Its Metaphors”
Larry Kramer, “The Tragedy of Today’s Gays”
MEMOIRS
Paul Monette, “Borrowed Time”
Reinaldo Areñas, “Before Night Falls”
Mark Doty, “Heaven’s Coast”
Derek Jarman, “At Your Own Risk”
Jamaica Kincaid, “My Brother”Paula W, Peterson, “Women in the Grove”
John Preston, “Winter’s Light”
David Wojnarowicz, “In the Shadow of the American Dream”
PERFORMANCE ART
Ron Athey
Ron Vawter
David Drake
MOVIES
“Longtime Companions”
“Parting Glances”
“Paris is Burning”
“Philadelphia”
“Patient Zero”
“The Living End”
“The Hours”
“It’s My Party”
“Tongues Untied”
VISUAL ARTS
Visual AIDS
Keith Haring
ACT UP and Gran Fury
DANCE
Bill T. Jones, Absence
Neil Greenbery, Not-About AIDS-Dance
UCLA Dance Marathon
Dancers Responding to AIDS
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
It’s been a year filled with drama and music, re-imaginings and new works. There was a lot on offer in 2025, and much to enjoy. Here are 10 now-closed productions that come to mind.
On Valentine’s Day at Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill, out actor Holly Twyford served as narrator for “The Love Birds” a Folger Consort work that melds medieval music with a world-premiere composition by acclaimed composer Juri Seo and readings from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “A Parlement of Foules”
Standing behind a podium, Twyford beautifully read Chaucer’s words (translated from Middle English and backed by projected slides in the original language), alternating with music played on old and new instruments.
While Mosaic Theater’s “A Case for the Existence of God,” closed in mid-December, it’s proving a production not soon forgotten. Precisely staged by Danilo Gambini, and impressively acted by Lee Orsorio and Jaysen Wright, the soul-searching two hander by out playwright Samuel D. Hunter, tells the story of two men who form an unlikely friendship based on single-fatherhood, a specific sadness, and hope.
The action unfolds in a small office in southern Idaho, where the pair discuss the perplexing terms of a mortgage loan while delving deep into their lives and backgrounds. Nothing is left off the table.
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s spring production of “Uncle Vanya” gave audiences something both fresh yet enduring. Staged by STC’s artistic director Simon Godwin, the production put an impeccably pleasing twist on Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s classic. It ranks among the very best area productions of the year.
Featuring a topnotch cast led by Hugh Bonneville (TV’s “Downton Abbey”) in the title role, the play was set on an unfinished stage cluttered with costume racks and assorted props, all assembled by crew uniformed in black and actors in street clothes. Throughout the drama tinged with comedy, the actors continued to assist with ever increasingly period set changes accompanied by an underscore of melancholic cello strings. It was innovative and wonderful.
GALA Hispanic Theatre’s production of Manuel Puig’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” was an intimate and affecting piece of theater. Staged by José Luis Arellano, it starred out actors Rodrigo Pedreira and Martín Ruiz as two very different men whose paths cross as convicts in an Argentine prison.
Arena Stage scored with a re-imagined and updated take on the widely liked musical “Damn Yankees.” Directed by Sergio Trujillo, the Broadway bound production has been “gently re-tooled for its first major revival in the 21st century,” moving the action from the struggling Washington Senators baseball team to the turn-of-the-century Yankees lineup. Ana Villafañe’s charmingly seductive Lola and a chorus of fit ball players made for a good time.
Also at Arena, out playwright Reggie D. White’s new work “Fremont Ave.” was very well received. A semi-autobiographical glimpse into home and the many definitions of that idea specifically relating to three generations of Black men, the work boasts a third act with a deeply queer storyline to boot.
Before his smash hit “Hamilton” transformed Broadway, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “In the Heights,” a seminal musical set against the vicissitudes of an upper Manhattan bodega. Infused with hip-hop, rap, and pop ballads, the romance/dramedy takes place over a lively few days in the vibrant, close-knit Latin neighborhood, Washington Heights.
Signature Theatre’s exciting take on “In the Heights” featured a talented cast including out actor Ángel Lozado as the bodega owner who figures prominently in the barrio and the action.
Studio Theatre’s recent production of lesbian playwright Paula Vogel’s newest work “The Mother Play,” a drama with humor, is about a well put together alcoholic mother and her two gay children living under difficult circumstances in the less glitzy parts of suburban Maryland. With nuanced performances and smart direction, the production was terrific.
Keegan Theatre surpassed expectations with its production of “Lizzie” a punk rock opera about Miss Borden, the fabled axe wielding title character. Performed by a super all-female cast, they belted a score that hits hard on subjects like money, queerness, and strained (to say the least) family relationships.
Round House Theatre impressed autumn audiences with “The Inheritance,” a two-part drama sensitively staged by out director Tom Story and acted by a mostly queer cast that included young actor Jordi Bertrán Ramírez in a breakout performance.
Penned by out playwright Matthew López, the epic work inspired by E.M. Forster’s novel “Howards End,” explores themes of love, legacy, and the AIDS crisis through the lives of three generations of gay men in New York City.
Prior to opening, Story commented that with the production’s predominately queer cast you get actors who “really understand the situation, the humor, and the struggle. It works well.” And he was right.
This past year, you’ve often had to make do.
Saving money here, resources there, being inventive and innovative. It’s a talent you’ve honed, but isn’t it time to have the best? Yep, so grab these Ten Best of 2025 books for your new year pleasures.
Nonfiction
Health care is on everyone’s mind now, and “A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor” by Michael D. Stein, M.D. (Melville House, $26.99) lets you peek into health care from the point of view of a doctor who treats “front-line workers” and those who experience poverty and homelessness. It’s shocking, an eye-opening book, a skinny, quick-to-read one that needs to be read now.
If you’ve been doing eldercare or caring for any loved one, then “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Molly Jong-Fast (Viking, $28) needs to be in your plans for the coming year. It’s a memoir, but also a biography of Jong-Fast’s mother, Erica Jong, and the story of love, illness, and living through the chaos of serious disease with humor and grace. You’ll like this book especially if you were a fan of the author’s late mother.
Another memoir you can’t miss this year is “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Veteran’s Memoir” by Khadijah Queen (Legacy Lit, $30.00). It’s the story of one woman’s determination to get out of poverty and get an education, and to keep her head above water while she goes below water by joining the U.S. Navy. This is a story that will keep you glued to your seat, all the way through.
Self-improvement is something you might think about tackling in the new year, and “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy” by Mary Roach (W.W. Norton & Company, $28.99) is a lighthearted – yet real and informative – look at the things inside and outside your body that can be replaced or changed. New nose job? Transplant, new dental work? Learn how you can become the Bionic Person in real life, and laugh while you’re doing it.
The science lover inside you will want to read “The Grave Robber: The Biggest Stolen Artifacts Case in FBI History and the Bureau’s Quest to Set Things Right” by Tim Carpenter (Harper Horizon, $29.99). A history lover will also want it, as will anyone with a craving for true crime, memoir, FBI procedural books, and travel books. It’s the story of a man who spent his life stealing objects from graves around the world, and an FBI agent’s obsession with securing the objects and returning them. It’s a fascinating read, with just a little bit of gruesome thrown in for fun.
Fiction
Speaking of a little bit of scariness, “Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie” by James Lee Burke (Atlantic Monthly Press, $28) is the story of a girl named Bessie and her involvement with a cloven-hooved being who dogs her all her life. Set in still-wild south Texas, it’s a little bit western, part paranormal, and completely full of enjoyment.
“Evensong” by Stewart O’Nan (Atlantic Monthly Press, $28) is a layered novel of women’s friendships as they age together and support one another. The characters are warm and funny, there are a few times when your heart will sit in your throat, and you won’t be sorry you read it. It’s just plain irresistible.
If you need a dark tale for what’s left of a dark winter season, then “One of Us” by Dan Chaon (Henry Holt, $28), it it. It’s the story of twins who become orphaned when their Mama dies, ending up with a man who owns a traveling freak show, and who promises to care for them. But they can’t ever forget that a nefarious con man is looking for them; those kids can talk to one another without saying a word, and he’s going to make lots of money off them. This is a sharp, clever novel that fans of the “circus” genre shouldn’t miss.
“When the Harvest Comes” by Denne Michele Norris (Random House, $28) is a wonderful romance, a boy-meets-boy with a little spice and a lot of strife. Davis loves Everett but as their wedding day draws near, doubts begin to creep in. There’s homophobia on both sides of their families, and no small amount of racism. Beware that there’s some light explicitness in this book, but if you love a good love story, you’ll love this.
Another layered tale you’ll enjoy is “The Elements” by John Boyne (Henry Holt, $29.99), a twisty bunch of short stories that connect in a series of arcs that begin on an island near Dublin. It’s about love, death, revenge, and horror, a little like The Twilight Zone, but without the paranormal. You won’t want to put down, so be warned.
If you need more ideas, head to your local library or bookstore and ask the staff there for their favorite reads of 2025. They’ll fill your book bag and your new year with goodness.
Season’s readings!
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