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Memoir tells of Pa. high school theater program that set the bar high

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books, Drama High, gay news, Washington Blade, Michael Sokolove

Book cover to ‘Drama High.’ (Image courtesy Riverhead Books)

‘Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theatre’
By Michael Sokolove
Riverhead Books
$27.95
352 pages

Sometimes, you just don’t feel like yourself.

Lately, for instance, you’ve been acting differently and people have noticed. You wear outfits you wouldn’t normally wear and you say the oddest things. It’s almost like you’re possessed by another person.

Such is the life of an actor in a play: to do it right, to convince an audience, you have to become someone you’re not. You know the pressure can be enormous, so read “Drama High” by Michael Sokolove, then imagine performing with New York theater executives in the audience.

Like most schools, Harry S. Truman High School in Levittown, Pa., had its budget slashed last year. Gone are extravagances, extracurriculars and extraneous activities. But teacher Lou Volpe’s theater classes survived the cuts, just like they had for some 40 years.

Volpe hadn’t intended on becoming Truman High’s drama teacher; in fact, before he was hired, he’d had zero experience with theater. But, as he did many other times (and like many other teachers), he threw himself into making Truman’s students into a first-class troupe.

Michael Sokolove, one of Volpe’s students back in the 1970s, remembered the way Volpe had of finding one special, latent talent that each of his students had and highlighting it. Volpe urged his students, stood up for them, supported them and expanded their horizons, making them want more from life. Sokolove remembered spaghetti suppers at Volpe’s house and never wanting to disappoint his teacher.

But he also remembered the town in which Truman High sat. Once a subdivision of the future, Levittown was the kind of place people moved away from and hard times only made it worse.

Still, Volpe and his drama students made their school proud through first-class, competition-winning, Broadway-quality plays — but not of the “Arsenic and Old Lace” ilk. No, Volpe liked to push his students to the edge of their comfort zones, asking them to sing and act in ways they didn’t think they could, making them become people they didn’t think they’d ever be, both personally and on stage.

And in doing so, Volpe changed their lives.

Like any good actor, “Drama High” plays several roles.

For adults, it’s definitely a book of nostalgia. Like many people, author Michael Sokolove moved away from Levittown and his trip back is filled with wistfulness and eagerness to see how time alters old memories.

For students — especially those struggling or who harbor a secret love of theater — and for their parents, Volpe’s story offers strength and an urge to commit to ones’ heart. His students spurned sports in favor of stage and in turn, he supported their dreams and nurtured their talents. Some of his former students, in fact, have become Emmy winners, entertainment executives and Broadway actors.

Despite that it occasionally shows a tone of despair, it’s hard not to cheer when you’ve got this story in your hands.

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PHOTOS: Hagerstown Pride

LGBTQ community celebration held at Doubs Woods Park

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Chasity Vain performs at Hagerstown Pride 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The 13th annual Hagerstown Pride Festival was held at Doubs Woods Park in Hagerstown, Md. on Saturday, June 21.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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Theater

‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater

‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’

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George Salazar in ‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical.’

‘The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical’
Through July 13
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.
$47 to $98
Sigtheatre.org

The raucous world of the counterculture journalist may not seem the obvious choice for musical theater, but the positive buzz surrounding Signature Theatre’s production of Joe Iconis’s “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical” suggests otherwise. 

As the titular, drug addled and gun-toting writer, Eric William Morris memorably moves toward his character’s suicide in 2005 at 67. He’s accompanied by an ensemble cast playing multiple roles including out actor George Salazar as Thompson’s sidekick Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, a bigger than life Mexican American attorney, author, and activist in the Chicano Movement who follows closely behind. 

Salazar performs a show-stopping number — “The Song of the Brown Buffalo,” a rowdy and unforgettable musical dive into a man’s psyche. 

“Playing the part of Oscar, I’m living my Dom daddy activist dreams. For years, I was cast as the best friend with a heart of gold. Quite differently, here, I’m tasked with embodying all the toxic masculinity of the late ‘60s, and a rampant homophobia, almost folded into the culture.”

He continues, “My sexuality aside, I like to think that Oscar would be thrilled by my interpretation of him in that song. 

“Our upbringings are similar. I’m mixed race – Filipino and Ecuadorian and we grew up similarly,” says Salazar, 39. “He didn’t fit in as white or Mexican American, and fell somewhere in the middle. Playing Oscar [who also at 39 in 1974 forever disappeared in Mexico], I pulled out a lot of experience about having to code switch before finally finding myself and being confident just doing my own thing.

“As we meet Oscar in the show we find exactly where’s he’s at. Take me or leave me, I couldn’t care less.”

In 2011, just three years after earning his BFA in musical theater from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Salazar fortuitously met Iconis at a bar in New York. The pair became fast friends and collaborators: “This is our third production,” says George. “So, when Joe comes to me with an idea, there hasn’t been a moment that I don’t trust him.”

In “Be More Chill,” one of Iconis’s earlier works, Salazar originated the role of Michael Mell, a part that he counts as one of the greatest joys of artistic life.

With the character, a loyal and caring friend who isn’t explicitly queer but appeals to queer audiences, Salazar developed a fervent following. And for an actor who didn’t come out to his father until he was 30, being in a place to support the community, especially younger queer people, has proved incredibly special. 

“When you hear Hunter and Oscar, you might think ‘dude musical,’ but I encourage all people to come see it.” Salazar continues, “Queer audiences should give the show a shot. As a musical, it’s entertaining, funny, serious, affecting, and beautiful. As a gay man stepping into this show, it’s so hetero and I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I took it upon myself that any of the multiple characters I play outside of Oscar, were going to be queer.

Queer friends have seen it and love it, says Salazar. His friend, Tony Award-winning director Sam Pinkleton (“Oh, Mary!”) saw Hunter S. Thompson at the La Jolla Playhouse during its run in California, and said it was the best musical he’d seen in a very long time. 

“Since the work’s inception almost 10 years ago, I was the first Oscar to read the script. In the interim, the characters’ relationships have grown but otherwise there have been no major changes. Still, it feels more impactful in different ways: It’s exciting to come here to do the show especially since Hunter S. Thompson was very political.”

Salazar, who lives in Los Angeles with his partner, a criminal justice reporter for The Guardian, is enjoying his time here in D.C. “In a time when there are so many bans – books, drag queens, and travel — all I see is division. This is an escape from that.”  

He describes the Hunter Thompson musical as Iconis’s masterpiece, adding that it’s the performance that he’s most proud of to date and that feels there a lot of maturity in the work. 

“In the play, Thompson talks to Nixon about being a crook and a liar,” says Salazar. “The work speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country: We seem to take them one step forward and two steps back; the performance is almost art as protest.”

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PHOTOS: Goodwin Living Pride Parade

Senior living and healthcare organization holds fifth annual march at Falls Church campus

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Goodwin Living Pride March 2025. (Photo courtesy of Goodwin Living)

The senior living and healthcare organization Goodwin Living held its fifth annual Pride Parade around its Bailey’s Crossroads campus in Falls Church, Va. with residents, friends and supporters on Thursday, June 12.

(Photos courtesy of Goodwin Living)

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