Arts & Entertainment
Blind to barriers
Bi theater head recalls emerging sexuality
Ike Schambelan, artistic director of Breaking Through Barriers, an off-Broadway theater outfit in New York. (Photo courtesy Ike Schambelan)
The artistic director of the only disability-specific off-Broadway theater in New York, knows a few things about being different.
The 72-year-old head of Breaking Through Barriers recalls during a phone interview his early sexual explorations.
“I’d gone to a folk sing in a dorm,” Ike Schambelan says. He was at Swarthmore College when another male student invited him to his room. “I was told,’ Don’t do that, stay on the sofa,” he says. “I knew without anything being verbalized that I was being protected. I did not want to be protected.”
He co-founded Theater Breaking Through Barriers (then known as Theater By the Blind) in 1979 not to be altruistic, but to “support my directing addiction,” Schambelan says.
It’s the only off-Broadway theater, and one of the few in the country, dedicated to advancing actors and writers with disabilities. The company can be a tough sell to people wary of disability, Schambelan says.
“They spend five minutes trying to figure out who’s disabled and who’s not, often getting it wrong. But, then they relax and get into the play.”
Schambelan, who was raised in West Philadelphia with the theater bug embedded in his DNA, grew up with many of the conflicts around sexuality held by many of his generation.
“My grandmother, who went blind, lived with us until I was 10,” he says. “Every Monday night, we’d listen to Lux Radio Theater and I’d brush her hair. I came to associate blindness, affection and theater.”
When Schambelan was in junior high a friend invited him to go to a drama at school.
“I was hooked,” Schambelan says. “I acted in high school. When I went to college I mostly stage managed, which I loved, as I wasn’t a very good actor.”
In his junior year, Schambelan directed the annual Thanksgiving musical.
“It was a big hit and I was hooked to a discipline, directing,” he says.
After graduating from Swarthmore in 1961, Schambelan earned a degree from Yale Drama School in 1967.
There, his passion for the theater and his burgeoning, conflicted sexuality merged.
“On my first night at the Drama school, a med student picked me up,” Schambelan says. “We had sex. Then, I … didn’t have sex until the end of the year. I dated women a little, but I didn’t do a lot of sex.”
In the 1960s during the pre-Stonewall era, being queer was more openly accepted at the Drama School and in the theater than in other parts of society, Schambelan says. Despite this, he was “conflicted.”
“It was internalized homophobia — feeling it was wrong to have sex with men.”
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Schambelan directed productions at such companies as Playwrights Horizons and the George St. Playhouse. He shot a TV commercial with Farrah Fawcett (“She was lovely to work with,” he says) before she was famous.
Over these years, Schambelan dated women and men.
“I’d take up with a woman during the summer and the romance would last until the fall,” he says.
He married a woman in 1980, Joan, who remains his wife. She’d been a dancer so she’d known gays and just felt her husband’s bisexuality made him “more interesting.”
For years, he saw a psychotherapist who “… wanted me to be straight,” Schambelan says. “But, then, being gay had just been removed as the list of mental illnesses by the American Psychiatric Association.”
The therapist he sees today is completely accepting of his bisexuality, Schambelan says.
He admits it’s not always an easy thing to explain.
“The LGBT community doesn’t always get what it means to be bisexual,” he says. “Sometimes people have worked so hard to come out as gay, they have difficulty understanding the greater complexity of being bi. They want you to be gay.”
a&e features
Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
New book ‘Low-Hanging Fruit’ delivers the laughs
Can we all agree that there’s nothing worse than reading a book by a humorist and not laughing? Not even once. Fear not, as gay humorist and performer Randy Rainbow more than exceeded my expectations, as he will yours, with his hilarious new book “Low-Hanging Fruit” (St. Martin’s Press, 2024). If you loved his 2022 memoir “Playing With Myself,” you’ll find as much, if not more to love in the new book. His trademark sense of humor from his videos, transfers with ease to the page in the essays. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments throughout the two-dozen essays. Always a delight to talk to, Randy made time for an interview shortly before the publication of the book.
BLADE: I want to begin by apologizing for putting you on speakerphone so I can get this interview recorded, because I know you are not fond of it as you pointed out in the “And While We’re On the Subject…” essay in your new book.
RANDY RAINBOW: [Laughs] Thank you for paying attention. But yours is a good speakerphone. I would not have known.
BLADE: Your first book, “Playing With Myself,” was a memoir and the new book, “Low-Hanging Fruit,” is a humorous essay collection. Did it feel like you were exercising different writing muscles than you did for the first book – essays versus memoir?
RAINBOW: It did a little bit. I think I had a little more fun writing this book. Save for the fact that I was shlepping around on tour as I also make well known in the book. That wasn’t fun. To not have the, I hate to say burden, but the responsibility of doing a chronological memoir, really getting everything right and then telling your story. I felt like I was just free to shoot the shit and have a little fun.
BLADE: Were these essays written in one creative burst or over the course of years?
RAINBOW: Over the course of a few months. The second half of my tour is when I started doing it. So, probably about five to six months.
BLADE: The first essay “Letter of Resignation” reminded me of Fran Lebowitz…
RAINBOW: I’m so glad.
BLADE: And then, lo and behold, you name-check Fran in the second essay “Gurl, You’re A Karen.” Do you consider her to be an influence on your work?
RAINBOW: Not directly. I’m a fan of hers. But I just feel sympatico with her for all the obvious reasons. I have a problem with everything [laughs] and being able to be funny and creative about it in this book was very cathartic, I felt.
BLADE: Something similar occurred when I was reading the essay “I Feel Bad About My Balls,” which recalled another humor essayist — Nora Ephron, whom you mention at the conclusion of the piece. Is she an influence?
RAINBOW: Again, a fan. I wouldn’t say she ever directly influenced me although I guess since becoming an author myself, I read all of her books, so I love her. But not a direct influence. I think I listened to her audiobook of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and that’s what inspired that chapter.
BLADE: Do you know if Jacob Elordi is aware of his presence in the book?
RAINBOW:I would assume that word has gotten back to him. This is gonna make him!
BLADE: In “Rider? I Hardly Know Her,” you wrote about being on tour as you are about to, once again, embark on a tour throughout October. Do you consider this more of a book tour, as opposed to one of your stage tours?
RAINBOW: It absolutely is. The way it worked out was I’m doing two of my concert shows in Palm Desert. I start my book events here with Harvey Fierstein in New York and then fly to the West Coast and do two musical concerts and then I embark on the rest of my book tour as I make my way back to New York. In that regard, it’s a little less nauseating … taxing.
Yes, although I just finished an eight-month tour. I’ve only had the summer off, and I find myself having to remind myself, “You’re just going for a week, going for a week, and then you come home, and that’s it. I have PTSD from all that travel. I’m not built for it.
BLADE: I’m based in Fort Lauderdale. Are there additional dates in the works, including one in your former home of South Florida?
RAINBOW: That’s where I’m from! That’s where my mother is still located.
BLADE: Yes, we saw you here at the Broward Center, and your mom was there.
RAINBOW: That’s right! No South Florida dates for this tour, but there’s always next year. We’re already planning a few strategically placed tour dates for summer and fall of next year. I’ll definitely be in Florida then, but you’ll have to wait for it.
BLADE: “Notes From A Litter Box,” written in the voice of your cat Tippi, made me wonder if you’d agree that there has never been a better time than now to be a childless cat person.
RAINBOW: Isn’t it funny? That was the least political chapter in the book, the least controversial chapter, and now it’s all anyone’s talking about. It’s our time! What with Taylor Swift and everything, it’s terrific. I wrote that long before all of this J.D. Vance nonsense, but it certainly has put some wind in our sails. And Tippi’s! Who heard her name and she’s looking for treats. Here you go, dear. In the audiobook, the great actress Pamela Adlon voices Tippi.
BLADE: Could you foresee writing a children’s book about Tippi?
RAINBOW: Well, what can I say? I don’t know how much I’m at liberty to discuss. Fuck it, I’ll discuss it! I did write a children’s book, and I’m saying it to whoever asks me. It comes out next year, and that’s actually what we’re planning the tour around, when it comes out around Pride next year. I won’t get into exactly what it’s about, but I will be revealing that very soon. And Tippi is a major character in it.
BLADE: Fantastic! As a 10-year resident of Fort Lauderdale, I especially enjoyed your mother’s takedown of DeSantis in “Ladies and Gentlemen…My Mother (the Sequel).” I take it she didn’t need any prodding from you.
RAINBOW: No. No, she did not. I actually asked her ahead of time – we did a little pre-interview like it was “The Tonight Show” – and I asked her about her topics, so she had her DeSantis material all laid out.
BLADE: Would you please tell my husband Rick there’s a right way to load the dishwasher? He won’t listen to me, but he’ll definitely listen to you.
RAINBOW: I, sadly, do not have a husband, so that is one example that I don’t actually have specifics on. How does he do it?
BLADE: Just wrong!
RAINBOW: Wrong for you.
BLADE: For example, the silverware is just pell-mell in the rack, instead of being grouped, spoons with spoons, forks with forks, and so on.
RAINBOW: He’s not putting mugs or glassware on the bottom, is he?
BLADE: No, not at all. But the plates should go in the same direction, right?
RAINBOW: Absolutely, yes.
BLADE: Thank you!
RAINBOW: I would get rid of him [laughs].
BLADE: “Low-Hanging Fruit” arrives in advance of Election Day 2024 and includes the “Randy Rainbow For President” and “My Gay Agenda” essays, along with running political commentary, as well as a dig at “Donald Jessica Trump” which you say you couldn’t resist. All kidding aside, please share your thoughts on the 2024 election.
RAINBOW: Oh God, kidding aside? How dare you! I have no thoughts that are not kidding because I have to kid to keep my sanity. It’s literally insane. I’ve left my body over it. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to expect. I try to be positive, but I don’t know what that means anymore. I cannot wait for it to be fucking over!
BLADE: Finally, when it comes to “hot tea,” which you write about in the essay “Do I Hear A Schmaltz?”, may I also recommend Harney & Sons’ “Victorian London Fog?” I’m savoring it as we speak.
RAINBOW: Good one! Thank you! I’m very into Harney and Sons now. I have just a few from their catalog, but that’s the next one I’ll try.
The 2024 Winchester Pride festival was held on the grounds of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Va. on Saturday, Oct. 5. Performers included LaLa Ri of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Star of “Pose” Dominique Jackson was the special guest at the vogue party “Kunty” on Saturday, Oct. 5 at Bunker. DJ Mascari provided the music.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Gay couple beaten, paraded in public in Nigeria
Baldwin attacked over LGBTQ rights support as race narrows
Murdered Israeli hostage’s cousin describes family’s pain
Karine Jean-Pierre becomes Biden’s fourth openly LGBTQ senior adviser
Full-spectrum funny: an interview with Randy Rainbow
‘I don’t want a genocide to be done on queer people’s behalf’
Gay Episcopal minister to be reinstated 40 years after being defrocked
10 reminders of why we must vote for Harris
Hundreds attend gay IDF soldier’s memorial service
Supreme Court begins fall term with major gender affirming care case on the docket
-
Middle East5 days ago‘I don’t want a genocide to be done on queer people’s behalf’
-
District of Columbia3 days agoGay Episcopal minister to be reinstated 40 years after being defrocked
-
Opinions3 days ago10 reminders of why we must vote for Harris
-
Israel3 days agoHundreds attend gay IDF soldier’s memorial service