Arts & Entertainment
Classical closet?
Van Cliburn’s death inspires questions about how elite music treats its gay icons
Van Cliburn (Photo by David Eldan via Wikimedia Commons)
It was publicly acknowledged in obituaries in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and at a funeral held last weekend that concert pianist Van Cliburn, one of the most famous classical musicians of the 20th century, was gay, but the references — the “g” word was not used — were as discreet and low key as the keyboard virtuoso was in his lifetime.
Cliburn, whose triumph at the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at age 23 was the crowning achievement of what had been a white-hot track record of competition winning and concertizing after a lauded three-year stint at the famous Juilliard School, died Feb. 27 at his home in Fort Worth, Texas, at age 78 following a battle with bone cancer. The story of his win in Moscow at the height of the Cold War when he was exalted as a symbol of overcoming the fear and paranoia of the era with great art, has been oft told, especially over the last week as his life has been remembered and celebrated. The long decades since it happened have cemented its mythic status and though Cliburn’s return to performing in the late ‘80s and ‘90s after nearly a decade-long hiatus drew mixed reviews, the fire and talent he brought to his early career is pretty much universally acknowledged by critics.
Cliburn plays Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 Mvt III
“With the iconic nature of his rise to fame so to speak, he really became this symbol because what really happened there in Moscow was about so much more than the music,” says Scott Beard, a gay concert pianist and professor at West Virginia’s Shepherd University. “It wasn’t like Glenn Gould with the ‘Goldberg Variations,’ it was a highly politicized thing and to [Nikita] Khruschev’s credit, he said, ‘He’s the best, he should win.’ I think with that came a lot of pressure.”
And while one wouldn’t expect Cliburn to have been out at the time — it was, after all, only a year after gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny was fired by the U.S. government for being gay and years before Stonewall — Cliburn’s low-key handling of his homosexuality has been so understated that, at times, the references to it in mainstream media outlets are almost, one might argue, comically opaque.
The Los Angeles Times mentioned “Thomas L. Smith, his friend and manager who survives him.” The New York Times said he was “survived by [Smith], with whom he shared his home for many years.” A 2008 New York Times article commemorating the 50th anniversary of his Tchaikovsky win, mentioned “his home in Fort Worth, which he shared with a longtime friend.” (Smith spoke briefly at Cliburn’s funeral saying, “Van’s death is a crater-sized void that is felt around the world but for me, it is the loss of my soul mate, the deepest friendship …”)
A sunny 1993 biography from Chicago Tribune arts critic Howard Reich is more than 400 pages long yet includes not one mention of Cliburn’s love life. (Reich wrote in an e-mail to the Blade this week regarding Cliburn that “my area of study is really the music itself.”)
There was one episode the papers did dutifully report — a former boyfriend, Thomas Zaremba, sued Cliburn in 1996 seeking millions in palimony. The suit was eventually dismissed. Cliburn did briefly comment on the matter at the time, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram it was “absolutely a shocking surprise.” Cliburn said there was no way he could have exposed Zaremba to HIV, as Zaremba had claimed, as Cliburn himself was negative.
If anything, though, the lawsuit did break the ice for acknowledgement of Cliburn’s being gay in the press. Although friends and associates who knew him early in his career say he was never particularly closeted, it was not a topic ever publicly discussed. Aside from the fact that more gays were in the closet in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s than today, the near-constant presence of Cliburn’s mother, the famous Rildia Bee O’Bryan Cliburn, who had been his first piano teacher, is generally acknowledged as a factor in his low-key lifestyle.
“When I first knew him, I knew he was gay from the very beginning, but I can’t remember quite how I knew,” says Robert Croan, a former classical music critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who’s gay. “His mother, whom I met many times, was sort of a grand dame type, but very down to earth. She had a great sense of humor but she watched over him very carefully. I think he had his excursions with various men but she traveled with him and was just there all the time. … She was very proprietary with him and the father was sort of invisible as far as the public really knew.” (Cliburn’s father died in 1974.)
Croan says although he and Cliburn were not close friends, they were friendly over many years and saw each other multiple times, including when Croan covered the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, a highly regarded quadrennial contest Cliburn started in the late ’60s in Fort Worth, for the Post-Gazette. Croan helped facilitate an honorary doctorate for Cliburn from Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where Croan previously taught.
Fans inevitably wondered to what degree — if any — Cliburn was out to his mother. Cliburn never publicly commented on the matter.
“I would say she had to have known,” Croan says. “Whether they actually discussed it, I have no way of knowing but she couldn’t have been around him all that time and not known. This was not a stupid woman. … I would guess at the very least she closed her eyes to what was going on or maybe acknowledged it privately.”
But it’s unlikely Rildia Bee, who died in 1994 at age 97, was the only factor. Cliburn spent his later years living in his native Texas (in a swanky suburb of Fort Worth), was a lifelong Baptist, member and regular attendee at Fort Worth’s large Broadway Baptist Church and was also a Republican. Former President George W. Bush, also from Texas, spoke at Cliburn’s funeral. (In 2009, Cliburn’s church severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention in a disagreement over the church’s welcoming of LGBT members.)
And for all his musical achievements, Cliburn — at least so far as is publicly known — was not involved in LGBT advocacy work of any kind.
Philip Johnson, an 87-year-old Fort Worth gay activist who worked with Kameny and was involved in LGBT work for decades, says, “I don’t think he ever associated with the gay movement at all.”
“I used to see him sometimes at the Highland Park Cafeteria, this place where wealthy people ate that had really excellent food,” Johnson says. “But we never crossed paths at any sort of gay rights rally or anything like that.”
Darren Woods, general director of the Fort Worth Opera, agrees.
“I did not know him well outside of his attending operas occasionally and the occasional hello at a restaurant,” Woods, who’s gay, wrote in an e-mail. “He and his long-time partner, Tommy, were deeply involved with many straight married couples who were big arts patrons.”
SIDEBAR: Mono recording of Cliburn’s Moscow triumph available
The degree to which Cliburn was out at various periods of his life, while interesting enough in and of itself, also raises a bounty of other questions. Were many classical pianists of Cliburn’s day — Liberace, for the record, was considered more of a pop entertainer and was never taken seriously by the classical establishment — gay? If so, how many were out? Are the numbers any different today? How does it compare to other classical professionals such as orchestra players, conductors and composers? And did the classical world warm to out gays more quickly than pop culture? Or the world at large? Or did the blue-blooded, elderly art patron types keep gays in the closet longer? And with so much emphasis in pop culture with who’s sleeping with whom and the personal lives of celebrities, why do such questions seldom get asked of classical artists?
Nobody has numbers, but the anecdotal assessments are entertaining.
“Generally it’s thought that a lot of concert pianists were gay,” says David Patrick Stearns, a classical music critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who’s gay. “Nobody really knows why, but it seems to be somewhere around 50 percent. Violinists? Almost never. Again, nobody really knows why. Cellists? That’s a little up for grabs. Organists? Almost all of them. Countertenors? Most of the American ones are gay, but the non-American ones are not. … Opera is kind of a separate thing. Opera, I mean talk about queer energy, though. I’ve heard people talk about there being straight opera queens but I don’t know.”
Croan says more American composers have traditionally tended to be gay than pianists.
“(Fellow Cliburn Juilliard pianist) John Browning was out,” Croan says. “Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti, certainly a large number of American composers of the mid-20th century were gay. Aaron Copland is another. They weren’t out in the sense that there was any public announcement about it and the media wouldn’t have touched on it unless there was some sort of a scandal, but it was kind of quietly acknowledged. I met a lot of gay performers of that generation. Some got married but most didn’t. Ned Rorem was gay and was very open about it in his memoirs.”
One wonders the degree to which this was acknowledged among the musicians themselves. Was anybody hosting pool parties on Sunday afternoons the way gay director George Cukor famously did in Hollywood?
“I don’t know about pool parties, but I think there was a large degree of socializing,” Croan says. “Classical music is a pretty small world to begin with so you have a smaller pool of people. … The difference from then and Van Cliburn is they didn’t all travel with their mothers, that’s a big difference. I think he stayed a bit more to himself in that way. … And I also think these groups could be very productive. It wasn’t all just drinking and carousing. Their interactions were very artistically productive. You had a lot of interaction and influence and a lot of good artistic results, ramifications.”
Stephen Hough, a highly regarded classical concert pianist who’s released many recordings, remembers a “wonderful evening” of dinner and a recital Cliburn gave at Tanglewood, an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Mass., in the ‘90s.
“I didn’t know him well but I found him to be a completely charming person at dinner,” Hough, who’s gay, says. “He was very humble and modest and always interested in what other people were saying. … He was a lovely person and I wish I’d been able to meet him more.”
Hough says many factors likely contributed to Cliburn’s discretion.
“He had a huge female audience,” Hough says. “Women always found him very attractive. He was sort of the perfect bachelor everyone wanted to marry. There were older women who simply fell at his feet. There’s a story I’m told where an older female fan greeted him once and told him with tears, ‘You’ve made my life worth living.’ He took her hands in his and held her to him and said, ‘This is such a special moment in my life, you’ve touched my heart deeply.’ Back in the earlier years, I don’t think his audience would have even known what homosexuality was much less accepted it. It was a much different era.”
Hough says he’s seen the matter handled in many different ways by classical performers over the years.
“Jorge Bolet was a pianist of the same generation as Cliburn,” he says. “He had a partner for decades who traveled with him always. He was just always there but it was never really laid out clearly who this was. You could think he was a boyfriend, you could think he was a secretary, a manager or whatever you chose, but there he was. We really shouldn’t demand too much heroism in the past because it was so different.”
As to how quickly the classical world warmed to the idea of its heroes being out, many say it pretty much mirrored the rates of society at large. It was never particularly unwelcoming, insiders say, but the seriousness with which its fans and artists approach their work made it perhaps an easier topic, historically, to avoid dealing with head on.
“Yes, you had all these staid, wealthy board members but they weren’t stupid people,” Croan says. “They put a blind eye to it in some ways, but they also liked socializing with the stars, just like they do in Hollywood. I’d say it was acknowledged on Broadway long before it was in Hollywood or in the classical music world. Broadway, I think, has always been pretty gay. I think Hollywood was probably the last. It was a medium for more people, more democratic and thus perhaps more conservative. You’d have children watching movies whereas classical music was pretty much an adult group.”
‘An old-fashioned institution’
Stearns says other arenas of performing lend themselves more easily to issues of sexuality.
“Movie stars and rock stars, too, they’re presented as these sexual objects so of course the public is interested in their sex lives,” he says. “But then you have people like [late gay pianist] Vladimir Horowitz and even gay people don’t want to know what he was doing in the bedroom. It’s a completely different playing field.”
The inherent formality in classical music is also a factor, it is widely thought.
“Classical music is a more old-fashioned institution,” Hough says. “You have Rufus [Wainwright] and he’s on stage singing songs he just wrote last year. I’m playing with a whole different flavor and a much longer time frame. It’s just generally a more formal art form. Some say they’d like us to come out in torn jeans and talking to the audience, but there’s also something about that formality that provides its own kind of theater in a way. When the lights go down and the conductor or soloist comes out, it’s a very theatrical moment and I think a certain amount of mystery can be a good thing.”
Hough says he experienced no backlash after coming out several years into his career. “A couple youngsters wrote to tell me I’d encouraged them,” he says. “Otherwise nothing good or bad really.”
Patricia Racette, currently on stage in the opera “Manon Lescaut” at the Kennedy Center, writes in an e-mail (she’s saving her voice, understandably, for the stage) that the demands placed on classical musicians are also a factor. Racette is in a lesbian relationship and has been out for years.
“We now live in a world inundated by reality TV,” she writes. “And the reality for a classical musician is the demand of a continually honed skill, never-ending study, preparation and execution of all of the above in order to sustain this unrelenting art form. While so many artists are indeed fascinating in their personal lives, the emphasis on the work (in classical music) is the most relevant.”
Racette, who earned her music degree from the University of North Texas, says she can relate to the conservative nature of the state being a factor in Cliburn’s quiet life.
“I was so buried in my music and working to pay for my school that I honestly did not tap into a specific LGBT community there,” she writes. “The campus itself was quite conservative making it a bit of a scary place to come into one’s own as it were.”
Others say too much personal information is sometimes seen as a distraction in classical music.
“I think it’s just the issue of let the music speak for itself,” Beard says. “Maybe on some level it helps to be out to help you build an audience … so I don’t know if it’s taboo per se, but … I think the focus is much more on the craft which I why maybe in a marketing sense you don’t see it more often. You want the music critics to take you seriously so you can imagine them thinking, ‘OK why are you telling me this, tell me how you play Beethoven,’ or whatever. It’s just kind of this unwritten thing of, ‘OK, you’re gay, you have your life, but the focus is not on your personal life.’”
Others are delighted to see how quickly the classical world and the world at large are changing in their acceptance.
Stearns says he and others at the Inquirer were debating how to address or broach the topic of the personal life of Yannick Nezet Seguin, who’s gay and last September became music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
“We were all thinking, ‘OK, how do we handle this?’” Stearns says. “People are always curious. They want to know who the wife is but we don’t out people at the Inquirer so, the mayor was there and said, ‘We welcome Yannick and his partner,’ and it was like, ‘OK, thank you.’” … Three or four years ago, I would have said yes, there might have been some squeamishness, but nobody batted an eye. Now he’s the first conductor of one of the five biggest orchestras in the country to be out. And, you know, Philly isn’t known to be the most progressive town on the planet. I think people were just really glad to just sort of snag this really wonderful up-and-coming talent. He’s very extroverted and a real people person and people are just really drawn to him and his boyfriend.”
Charles Miller, organist and music director at Washington’s National City Christian Church, says it’s up to each public figure to decide how to handle it depending on his or her comfort level.
“I think there are some good examples even in pop culture,” Miller, who’s gay, says. “You think of someone like David Hyde Pierce. We all know now and he’s never really shied away from it, but he’s not flaunting himself or his partner or activities in every magazine. In some cases, it’s the artist sort of preserving something of their lives under wraps so that it doesn’t detract from the art form. … [With Cliburn], you wouldn’t just have expected, now it’s the 2000s we’re gonna see him come flying out of the closet and jump up on a float. It’s really the individual’s preference of how they want to live their life.”
Cliburn did eventually tire of public life and for much of the ‘70s, lived quietly. He eventually returned to public life and performing and is widely acknowledged for starting the Cliburn Competition, but even so, there was an unexpected gay side to him in addition to his many eccentricities such as staying up all night, running late for recitals, hoarding antiques, opening recitals with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and saving dead flowers.
“If you really wanted to engage him and get him talking, you brought up Cher,” Stearns says with a hearty laugh. “He absolutely loved Cher.”
Friday, April 4
“Center Aging Friday Tea Time” will be at 2 p.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email adam@thedccenter.org.
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Social in the City” at 7 p.m. at P.F. Chang’s. This event is ideal for making new friends, professional networking, idea-sharing, and community building. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Saturday, April 5
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including Allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
LGBTQ People of Color Support Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This peer support group is an outlet for LGBTQ People of Color to come together and talk about anything affecting them in a space the strives to be safe and judgement free. There are all sorts of activities like watching movies, poetry events, storytelling, and just hanging out with others. For more information and events for LGBTQ People of Color, visit thedccenter.org/poc or facebook.com/centerpoc.
“Spark Sapphic Social” will be at 8 p.m. at Spark Social House. This weekly sapphic social is an opportunity to mix and mingle with other sapphics in DC’s newest LGBTQ+ bar. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
Sunday, April 6
Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Sunday Funday Social and Games” at 4 p.m. at Moxy. About 20 LGBTQ folk are expected. It’s free to attend. More details are available on Eventbrite.
“The Chateau Drag Brunch” will be at 12 p.m. at Chicatana. This event will be hosted by Charlemagne Chateau. There will also be fabulous Mexican food and cocktails and entertainment from a rotating cast of the DMV’s best drag performers. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.
Monday, April 7
“Center Aging Monday Coffee & Conversation” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more details, email adam@thedccenter.org.
Tuesday, April 8
Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans* people and those who may be questioning their gender identity/expression to join together in community and learn from one another. It also welcomes all who identify under the trans* umbrella or are unsure, and seek to continually reinforce our principles of respect, acceptance, and protection through ongoing input from our attendees. For more information, email info@thedccenter.org.
Coming Out Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a peer-facilitated discussion group and a safe space to share experiences about coming out and discuss topics as it relates to doing so. For more details, visit the group’s Facebook.
“Gay Sip and Paint” will be at 7 p.m. at Green Lantern. To celebrate three years of these events, event organizers encourage guests to get in their sexiest fit and paint together! There’ll be a live model, drinks, and all the supplies ready for a risque, creative time. Tickets cost $25 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
Wednesday, April 9
Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email centercareers@thedccenter.org or visit thedccenter.org/careers.
Thursday, April 10
The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5:00 pm if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email supportdesk@thedccenter.org or call 202-682-2245.
Virtual Yoga with Charles M. will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a free weekly class focusing on yoga, breathwork, and meditation. For more details, visit the DC Center for the LGBT Community’s website.
‘The Cost of Fear’
By Meg Stone
c.2025, Beacon Press
$26.95/232 pages
The footsteps fell behind you, keeping pace.
They were loud as an airplane, a few decibels below the beat of your heart. Yes, someone was following you, and you shouldn’t have let it happen. You’re no dummy. You’re no wimp. Read the new book, “The Cost of Fear” by Meg Stone, and you’re no statistic. Ask around.
Query young women, older women, grandmothers, and teenagers. Ask gay men, lesbians, and trans individuals, and chances are that every one of them has a story of being scared of another person in a public place. Scared – or worse.
Says author Meg Stone, nearly half of the women in a recent survey reported having “experienced… unwanted sexual contact” of some sort. Almost a quarter of the men surveyed said the same. Nearly 30 percent of men in another survey admitted to having “perpetrated some form of sexual assault.”
We focus on these statistics, says Stone, but we advise ineffectual safety measures.
“Victim blame is rampant,” she says, and women and LGBTQ individuals are taught avoidance methods that may not work. If someone’s in the “early stages of their careers,” perpetrators may still hold all the cards through threats and career blackmail. Stone cites cases in which someone who was assaulted reported the crime, but police dropped the ball. Old tropes still exist and repeating or relying on them may be downright dangerous.
As a result of such ineffectiveness, fear keeps frightened individuals from normal activities, leaving the house, shopping, going out with friends for an evening.
So how can you stay safe?
Says Stone, learn how to fight back by using your whole body, not just your hands. Be willing to record what’s happening. Don’t abandon your activism, she says; in fact, join a group that helps give people tools to protect themselves. Learn the right way to stand up for someone who’s uncomfortable or endangered. Remember that you can’t be blamed for another person’s bad behavior, and it shouldn’t mean you can’t react.
If you pick up “The Cost of Fear,” hoping to learn ways to protect yourself, there are two things to keep in mind.
First, though most of this book is written for women, it doesn’t take much of a leap to see how its advice could translate to any other world. Author Stone, in fact, includes people of all ages, genders, and all races in her case studies and lessons, and she clearly explains a bit of what she teaches in her classes. That width is helpful, and welcome.
Secondly, she asks readers to do something potentially controversial: she requests changes in sentencing laws for certain former and rehabilitated abusers, particularly for offenders who were teens when sentenced. Stone lays out her reasoning and begs for understanding; still, some readers may be resistant and some may be triggered.
Keep that in mind, and “The Cost of Fear” is a great book for a young adult or anyone who needs to increase alertness, adopt careful practices, and stay safe. Take steps to have it soon.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
a&e features
Creator Max Mutchnick on inspirations for ‘Mid-Century Modern’
Real-life friendships and loss inform plot of new Hulu show
It’s been a long time – maybe 25 years when “Will & Grace” debuted – since there’s been so much excitement about a new, queer sitcom premiering. “Mid-Century Modern,” which debuted on Hulu last week, is the creation of Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, the gay men who were also behind “Will & Grace.”
Set in Palm Springs, Calif., following the death of the one of their closest friends, three gay men gather to mourn. Swept up in the emotions of the moment, Bunny (Nathan Lane) suggests that Atlanta-based flight attendant Jerry (Matt Bomer) and New York-based fashion editor Arthur (Nathan Lee Graham) move into the mid-century modern home he shares with his mother Sybil (the late Linda Lavin). Over the course of the first season’s 10 episodes, hilarity ensues. That is, except for the episode in which they address Sybil’s passing. The three male leads are all fabulous, and the ensemble cast, including Pamela Adlon as Bunny’s sister Mindy, and the stellar line-up of guest stars, such as Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Vanessa Bayer, Richard Kind, and Cheri Oteri, keep humor buzzing. Shortly before the premiere of “Mid-Century Modern,” Mutchnick made time for an interview with the Blade.
BLADE: I’d like to begin by saying it’s always a delight to speak to a fellow Emerson College alum. In ways would you say that Emerson impacted your professional and creative life?
MAX MUTCHNICK: I think Emerson was the first place that reflected back to me that my voice, my thoughts were good, and they were worth listening to. I developed a confidence at Emerson that did not exist in my body and soul. It was a collection of a lot of things that took place in Boston, but I mean we can just put it all under the Emerson umbrella.
BLADE: Before “Will & Grace,” you co-created the NBC sitcom “Boston Common,” which starred fellow Emerson alum Anthony Clark. Is it important for you to maintain those kinds of alumni relationships?
MUTCHNICK: Because Emersonians are such scrappy little monkeys and they end up being everywhere in the world, you can’t help but work with someone from Emerson at some point in your career. I’m certainly more inclined to engage with someone from Emerson once I learn that they went to my alma mater. For me, it has much more to do with history and loyalty. I don’t think of myself as one of those guys that says, “Loyalty means a lot to me. I’m someone that really leans into history.” It’s just what my life and career turned out to be. The longer I worked with people and the more often I worked with them, the safer that I felt, which means that I was more creative and that’s the name of the game. I’ve got to be as comfortable as possible so I can be as creative as possible. If that means that a person from Emerson is in the room, so be it. (Costume designer) Lori Eskowitz would be the Emerson version. And then (writer and actor) Dan Bucatinsky would be another version. When I’m around them for a long time, that’s when the best stuff comes.
BLADE: Relationships are important. On that subject, your new Hulu sitcom “Mid-Century Modern” is about the longstanding friendship among three friends, Bunny (Nathan Lane), Jerry (Matt Bomer), and Arthur (Nathan Lee Graham). Do you have a friendship like the one shared by these three men?
MUTCHNICK: I’m absolutely engaged in a real version of what we’re projecting on the show. I have that in my life. I cannot say that I’m Jerry in any way, but the one thing that we do have in common is that in my group, I’m the young one. But I think that that’s very common in these families that we create. There’s usually a young one. Our culture is built on learning from our elders. I didn’t have a father growing up, so maybe that made me that much more inclined to seek out older, wiser, funnier, meaner friends. I mean the reason why you’re looking at a mouthful of straight, white teeth is because one of those old bitches sat across from me about 25 years ago at a diner and said, “Girl, your teeth are a disaster, and you need to get that fixed immediately.” What did I know? I was just a kid from Chicago with two nickels in my pocket. But I found three nickels and I went and had new teeth put in my head. But that came from one of my dearest in the group.
BLADE: Do you think that calling “Mid-Century Modern” a gay “Golden Girls” is a fair description?
MUTCHNICK: No. I think the gay “Golden Girls” was really just used as a tool to pitch the show quickly. We have an expression in town, which is “give me the elevator pitch,” because nobody has an attention span. The fastest way you can tell someone what David (Kohan) and I wanted to write, was to say, “It’s gay Golden Girls.” When you say that to somebody, then they say, “OK, sit down now, tell me more.” We did that and then we started to dive into the show and realized pretty quickly that it’s not the gay “Golden Girls.” No disrespect to the “Golden Girls.” It’s a masterpiece.
BLADE: “Mid-Century Modern” is set in Palm Springs. I’m based in Fort Lauderdale, a few blocks south of Wilton Manors, and I was wondering if that gay enclave was ever in consideration for the setting, or was it always going to be in Palm Springs?
MUTCHNICK: You just asked a really incredible question! Because, during COVID, Matt Bomer and I used to walk, because we live close by. We had a little walking group of a few gay gentlemen. On one of those walks, Matt proposed a comedy set in Wilton Manors. He said it would be great to title the show “Wilton Manors.” I will tell you that in the building blocks of what got us to “Mid-Century Modern,” Wilton Manors, and that suggestion from Matt Bomer on our COVID walks, was part of it.
BLADE: Is Sybil, played by the late Linda Lavin, modeled after a mother you know?
MUTCHNICK: Rhea Kohan (mother of David and Jenji). When we met with Linda for the first time over Zoom, when she was abroad, David and I explained to her that this was all based on Rhea Kohan. In fact, some of the lines that she (Sybil) speaks in the pilot are the words that Jenji Kohan spoke about her mother in her eulogy at the funeral because it really summed up what the character was all about. Yes, it’s very much based on someone.
BLADE: The Donny Osmond jokes in the second episode of “Mid-Century Modern” reminded me of the Barry Manilow “fanilows” on “Will & Grace.” Do you know if Donny is aware that he’s featured in the show?
MUTCHNICK: I don’t. To tell you the truth, the “fanilow” episode was written when I was not on the show. I was on a forced hiatus, thanks to Jeff Zucker. That was a show that I was not part of. We don’t really work that way. The Donny Osmond thing came more from Matt’s character being a Mormon, and also one of the writers. It’s very important to mention that the writing room at “Mid-Century Modern,” is (made up of) wonderful and diverse and colorful incredible humans – one of them is an old, white, Irish guy named Don Roos who’s brilliant…
BLADE: …he’s Dan Bucatinsky’s husband.
MUTCHNICK: Right! Dan is also part of the writing room. But I believe it was Don who had a thing for Donny, and that’s where it comes from. I don’t know if Donny has any awareness. The only thing I care about when we turn in an episode like that is I just want to hear from legal that we’re approved.
BLADE: “Mid-Century Modern” also includes opportunities for the singers in the cast. Linda Lavin sang the Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin tune “Long Ago (And Far Away)” and Nathan Lane and the guys sang “He Had It Coming” from “Chicago.” Was it important to give them the chance to exercise those muscles?
MUTCHNICK: I don’t think it was. I think it really is just the managers’ choice. David Kohan and I like that kind of stuff, so we write that kind of stuff. But by no means was there an edict to write that. We know what our cast is capable of, and we will absolutely exploit that if we’re lucky enough to have a second season. I have a funky relationship with the song “Long Ago (And Far Away).” It doesn’t float my boat, but everybody else loved it. We run a meritocracy, and the best idea will out. That’s how that song ended up being in the show. I far prefer the recording of Linda singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” over her montage in episode eight, “Here’s To You, Mrs. Schneiderman.” We were just lucky that Linda had recorded that. That recording was something that she had done and sent to somebody during COVID because she was held up in her apartment. That’s what motivated her to make that video and send it. That’s how we were able to use that audio.
BLADE: Being on a streaming service like Hulu allows for characters to say things they might not get away with on network TV, including a foreskin joke, as well as Sybil’s propensity for cursing.
MUTCHNICK: And the third line in the show is about him looking like a “reluctant bottom.” I don’t think that’s something you’re going to see on ABC anytime soon. David and I liked the opportunity to open up the language of this show because it might possibly open the door to bringing people…I’m going to mix metaphors…into the tent that have never been there before. A generation that writes off a sitcom because that language and that type of comedy isn’t the way that they sound. One of the gifts of doing this show on Hulu is that we get to write dialogue that sounds a little bit more like you and I sound. As always, we don’t want to do anything just to do it.
BLADE: It didn’t feel that way.
MUTCHNICK: It’s there when it’s right. [Laughs] I want to have a shirt made with Linda’s line, as her mother always used to say, “Time is a cunt.”
BLADE: “Mid-Century Modern” also utilizes a lot of Jewish humor. How important is it for you to include that at this time when there is a measurable rise in anti-Semitism?
MUTCHNICK: I think it’s important, but I don’t think it’s the reason why we did it. We tried very hard to not write from a place of teaching or preaching. We really are just writing about the stuff that makes us laugh. One of the things that makes something better and something that you can invest in is if it’s more specific. We’re creating a character whose name is Bunny Schneiderman and his mother’s name is Sybil and they made their money in a family-run business, it gets Jewy, and we’re not going to shy away from it. But we’re definitely not going to address what’s going on in the world. That doesn’t mean I don’t find it very upsetting, but I’m writing always from the point of view of entertaining the largest number of people that I can every week.
BLADE: “Mid-Century Modern” has a fantastic roster of guest stars including Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Vanessa Bayer, Billie Lourd, Cheri Oteri, Richard Kind, Rhea Perlman, and Judd Hirsch. Are there plans to continue that in future seasons?
MUTCHNICK: Yes. As I keep saying, if we’re so lucky that we get to continue, I don’t want to do “The Love Boat.” Those are fine comic actors, so I don’t think it feels like that. But if we get to keep going, what I want to do is broaden the world because that gives us more to write about. I want to start to introduce characters that are auxiliary to the individuals. I want to start to meet Arthur’s family, so we can return to people. I want to introduce other neighbors, and different types of gay men because we come in so many different flavors. I think that we should do that only because I’m sure it’s what your life is and it’s what my life is. I’ve got a lot of different types. So, yes, we will be doing more.
BLADE: Finally, Linda Lavin passed away in December 2024, and in a later episode, the subject of her character Sybil’s passing is handled sensitively, including the humorous parts.
MUTCHNICK: We knew we had a tall order. We suffered an incredible loss in the middle of making this comedy. One of the reasons why I think this show works is because we are surrounded by a lot of really talented people. Jim Burrows and Ryan Murphy, to name two. Ryan played a very big role in telling us that it was important that we address this, that we address it immediately. That we show the world and the show goes on. That wasn’t my instinct because I was so inside the grief of losing a friend, because she really was. It wasn’t like one of those showbizzy-type relationships. And this is who she was, by the way, to everybody at the show. It was the way that we decided to go. Let’s write this now. Let’s not put this at the end of the season. Let’s not satellite her in. Let’s not “Darren Stevens” the character, which is something we would never do. The other thing that Jim Burrows made very clear to us was the import of the comedy. You have to write something that starts exactly in the place that these shows start. A set comedy piece that takes place in the kitchen. Because for David and me, as writers, we said we just want to tell the truth. That’s what we want to do with this episode and that’s the way that this will probably go best for us. The way that we’ve dealt with grief in our lives is with humor. That is the way that we framed writing this episode. We wanted it to be a chapter from our lives, and how we experience this loss and how we recover and move on.
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