Arts & Entertainment
‘Kinky’ Grand ‘Candelabra’
Our Top 10 countdown of the entertainment world’s gayest moments of the year
Here is our Top 10 countdown of the entertainment world’s gayest moments of the year:
Thomas Roberts (Washington Blade file photo by Lee Whitman)
10. Gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts draws criticism for hosting the Miss Universe pageant in Russia in November. Roberts and Miss Universe co-owner Donald Trump claimed it was a chance to make a positive impact in the country where anti-LGBT laws are abundant. “We are good, regular, hard-working people who come from solid families,” Roberts said. “So when I heard there was a chance at this assignment, I aggressively went after it.” Many gay rights activists criticized any work in Russia with some even calling for a boycott of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Steve Grand (Washington Blade file photo by Lee Whitman)
9. Gay country singer Steve Grand has a massive YouTube hit with his video “All-American Boy” in July. While many enjoyed the hot video, some gay viewers objected to the storyline, which finds the friend ultimately rejecting Grand’s advances. Grand, who appeared at D.C.’s Town Danceboutique in November, said the video was more about “longing for someone” as opposed to “being gay.”
Frank Ocean (Photo by Nabil Elderkin; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
8. Out hip-hop newcomer Frank Ocean won two Grammy Awards in February. His 2012 project “Channel Orange” won in the new category Best Urban Contemporary Album and he shared a joint award with Kanye West and Jay-Z in the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “No Church in the Wild.” He was nominated in four other categories. Ocean’s acceptance in the mainstream hip-hop world — where homophobic lyrics are not uncommon — was seen as a major sign of progress.
The cast of ‘Kinky Boots.’ (Photo courtesy of Foresight Theatrical)
7. The hit Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” was a major triumph on Tony night in June when out actor Harvey Fierstein, ally Cyndi Lauper and out actor Billy Porter all won. The show, which tells the story of a struggling British shoe factory whose owner forms an unlikely partnership with drag queen Lola to save the business, was a critical and commercial success. Lauper performed one of the songs (“Sex is in the Heel”) in Washington in November at the Warner Theatre during her “She’s So Unusual 30th Anniversary Tour.”
6. However, gay themes can’t in and of themselves save a show, especially on TV. It was an uneven year for TV shows with gay characters. For every success, like Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black,” which features a lesbian lead character serving jail time, there were also high-profile failures such as the Ryan Murphy-helmed “The New Normal,” a sitcom about a gay couple that NBC cancelled in May, and “Partners,” the CBS sitcom cancelled at the end of 2012 before its remaining seven episodes were aired in the U.S.
5. MSNBC suspended Alec Baldwin from his weekly talk show in November two weeks after he used an anti-gay slur against a New York photographer. A TMZ-captured video appeared to show Baldwin calling a paparazzo who tried to take a photo of his wife and infant daughter a “cocksucking fag” though the actor claimed he said “fathead” and subsequently apologized. Baldwin has been in hot water before for similar comments. He apologized to GLAAD earlier in the year for calling British reporter George Stak a “toxic little queen.”
Michael Douglas, left, as Liberace, and Matt Damon as Scott Thorson in ‘Behind the Candelabra.’ (Photo courtesy HBO)
4. The HBO Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra” starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon is a critical and ratings success when it airs in May. It won three Emmys in September including Best Miniseries or Movie and Best Director for Steven Soderbergh who said earlier that he originally planned the film for theatrical release, but couldn’t get backing. “Nobody would make it,” the straight director told the New York Post. “We went to everybody in town. They all said it was too gay.”
Cover of ‘The Book of Matt’
3. “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard” creates major controversy when it’s released in September. Gay journalist Stephen Jiminez, publishing around the 15th anniversary of Shepard’s death, claims Shepard had a sexual relationship with convicted murderer Aaron McKinney and that Shepard’s death was not a hate crime so much as a crystal meth-fueled attack based on alleged conflicts over a drug deal at a time when the two were working for rival drug suppliers. Many LGBT activists including the Shepard Foundation dismissed the book as “attempts now to rewrite the story” based on “untrustworthy sources, factual errors, rumors and innuendo.” Jiminez says he worked on the book for 13 years and interviewed more than 100 people on the record.
2. It was another big year for celebrities coming out. Among this year’s crop are “Prison Break” actor Wentworth Miller, “Cosby Show” vet Raven-Symone, Los Angeles Galaxy pro soccer player Robbie Rogers, Broadway vet Victor Garber, “Kyle XY” actor Matt Dallas and actress/singer Maria Bello. Perhaps most memorable — though hardly shocking — was Jodie Foster. While accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes in January, Foster she’d been out for years to her family and friends and though not ever using the word “lesbian,” acknowledged her former partner Cydney Bernard. In the political world, U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) came out, making him the eighth openly LGB member of Congress.
Former Ravens player Brendon Ayanbadejo has been an outspoken supporter of LGBT rights since 2009 and served as guest editor of the Blade in August. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
1. If Hollywood seemed surprisingly squeamish about gays (see the “Candelebra” entry at No. 4), gay visibility in the sports world was unprecedented in 2013. Among the notables were basketball player Jason Collins who came out on the cover of Sports Illustrated in May; swimmer Diana Nyad, who swam from Cuba to Florida in August; British diver and Olympic Bronze medalist Tom Daley who came out in December; and Brendan Ayanbadejo who was part of the Super Bowl-XLVII-winning Baltimore Ravens in 2012 and has been a staunch advocate of same-sex marriage as a straight ally. Ayanbadejo guest edited the Aug. 30 edition of the Blade.
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)
Theater
‘Hunter S. Thompson’ an unlikely but rewarding choice for musical theater
‘Speaks volumes about how sad things land on our country’
‘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.”
Photos
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(Photos courtesy of Goodwin Living)
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