Arts & Entertainment
Queery: Fred Sainz
The HRC marketing/communications director answers 20 gay questions
Fred Sainz (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
It’s not a particularly good time to ask Fred Sainz about the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.
It’s a weekday morning just days before the annual event and he, like many at the LGBT rights organization, is bogged down in details and logistics.
“It’s almost like giving birth,” he says. “You know, it’s an incredibly exciting event but you kind of can’t wait for it to be over too.”
The event is Saturday evening at the Convention Center (801 Mt. Vernon Place N.W.) and is sold out. Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker, NAACP President Ben Jealous and actress Sally Field are slated to appear. A troupe from Cirque du Soleil will perform. About 3,000 are expected. Details are at hrcnationaldinner.org.
Sainz came to HRC about two-and-a-half years ago and works as vice president of communications and marketing. The 44-year-old Miami-area native says it’s been satisfying work.
“It’s really been the privilege of a lifetime to be able to do this work and a special honor to be able to work here at this time in the movement’s history,” he says. “I arrived one week before the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal bill dropped in May 2010 so it has been a roller coaster and truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
Sainz, a former Republican, went to school in Washington, served in the first Bush White House, then moved to San Diego to work on the ’96 Republican National Convention. He stayed there working at various jobs over the next 14 years before going to Denver where he spent two years working at the Gill Foundation, which he says was “amazing” and prepared him for his position at HRC.
Sainz is “dating someone special” but doesn’t go into details. He lives in Washington and enjoys working out, movies and traveling in his free time.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I’ve been out since I was 28 years old and I’m now 44 so it’s been 16 years. My father was the hardest to tell. He and I haven’t spoken since I came out.
Who’s your LGBT hero?
Harvey Milk
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
I’m boring so I don’t really know of many but I love Town for Bear Happy Hour on Friday nights.
Describe your dream wedding.
I think weddings (not marriage, but weddings) suck up a lot of money and create unnecessary anxiety. I think a city hall marriage with people that you are close to is preferable.
What non-LGBT issue are you most passionate about?
Virtually any social justice issue.
What historical outcome would you change?
Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1959. My parents immigrated to this country from Cuba. Imagine leaving the country of your birth and immigrating to another country, virtually penniless and without speaking the language at 28 years old; that’s what they did. In search of better lives and to be free from oppression, they came to the U.S.
What’s been the most memorable pop culture moment of your lifetime?
The release of Madonna’s first album.
On what do you insist?
Honesty and straightforwardness.
What was your last Facebook post or Tweet?
About HRC’s National Dinner this Saturday.
If your life were a book, what would the title be?
“The Indignity of Being a Dog”
If science discovered a way to change sexual orientation, what would you do?
Nothing. I love being gay. I believe that God created me this way.
What do you believe in beyond the physical world?
I believe in Karma. Do right unto others because if not, a higher life force has a sense of humor.
What’s your advice for LGBT movement leaders?
Make every decision through the lens of young people and you’ll be doing the right thing.
What would you walk across hot coals for?
A vodka/cran on a Friday night.
What LGBT stereotype annoys you most?
That all gay men are funny, like Jack from “Will & Grace.”
What’s your favorite LGBT movie?
“The Birdcage”
What’s the most overrated social custom?
Putting up the toilet seat. Why?
What trophy or prize do you most covet?
“Jeopardy!” champion.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
Me at 44.
Why Washington?
It’s the nation’s capital and where laws that change our lives will be passed.
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.
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