Arts & Entertainment
Celebrating silver in style
Gay-owned furniture company Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams marks milestone
Mitchell Gold (left) and business partner Bob Williams at their Washington store for an event in 2013. (Washington Blade file photo by
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams
25th anniversary event
A benefit for Sitar Arts Center
Wednesday
6-9 p.m.
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Washington location
1526 14th St., N.W.
mgbwhome.com
RSVP requested
202-332-3433
Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams, co-owners of the eponymous furniture company, didn’t originally intend for their company to be as big as it is today.
Gold says they were originally thinking of a modest business model in which they’d work four days a week, have a small stable of customers and do about $5 million a year in sales.
“We didn’t have to make that much money,” Gold says. “It was just the two of us living down South, it’s much less expensive to live here, and we thought we would just have this nice little company. … But as Bob often tells people, ‘It’s not that Mitchell lied — it’s just that he can’t count.’”
Started in 1989 with about $60,000, things took off rather quickly. They sold about 800 dining tables and 5,000 chairs before they started making any of the pieces. Gold, who’d been fired from the furniture company he’d worked for, had connections with major retailers like J.C. Penney, Crate & Barrel and others, which he visited armed with sketches and fabrics Williams had made. They were profitable the first year they were in business.
“We had fabrics that were different and unusual for the time,” Gold says. “So we were able to show retailers, ‘This is how this will look in your store.’ And they bought it right away. People have said I’m not a bad salesman, so I was able to close the sales and get the production going quickly.”
The two, who’d been together as domestic partners about two years before, had moved to Hickory, N.C., from New York and were interested in going into business together.
“We just thought we could do it better than traditional manufacturers,” Gold says. “We thought we could make a better commitment to customers, ship it more quickly and with Bob’s sense of style, you know, I certainly felt we could offer people a more stylish look for a better price.”
Williams worked for a small ad agency and gradually cut back his time there as he spent more and more with the company, then known as the Mitchell Gold Company (it was changed to its present name in 2002).
Now they’re celebrating 25 years and have more than 700 employees, a stable of celebrity clients, 17 stores and plans to open four more by year’s end and a 600,000-square-foot factory and home base in Taylorsville, N.C.
Several spoke at a company event two weeks ago where 11 of their original 21 employees who are still with the company were recognized. It appears, from a transcript of comments, that morale there is strong.
Ken Hipp, the company’s senior vice president of retail stores and merchandising, has been with them for seven years and calls Gold and Williams “wonderful mentors.”
“It’s been quite a ride,” says Hipp, who’s also gay. “I can’t imagine my career or my life without them.”
Known for a style they call “quintessentially American,” their products are designed to be stylish, yet comfortable. Interior designer Brian Patrick Flynn of TBS’s “Movie & a Makeover” show has called their products “custom-looking pieces at medium-to-high price-points” and says it’s a “genius brand” he and his clients “can’t get enough of.”
On Wednesday, the two will be in town for an event at their D.C. store at 1526 14th St., N.W., an anniversary event that will benefit the Sitar Arts Center. It’s one of a series of events they’re having at their various locations throughout the year.
In a country where just 25 percent of new employer firms are still in business 15 years or more after starting according to the Small Business Administration, theirs is a nearly unfettered success story.
It hasn’t all been easy going, though. Williams remembers many long hours in the early years, though he also says those were some of the most “exhilarating times of my life.”
They recall years of working what felt like round-the-clock schedules and didn’t take a vacation until two years into it, but were gratified by strong out-of-the-gate sales.
“Customers liked what we were doing immediately,” Williams says. “We never had to go call on people. The more they heard about us, the more we had people wanting to buy from us.”
They broke up on the personal side about 12 years into the business, though they’re wholly comfortable working together and are each married and have been with other men for years — Gold has been with Tim Gold for seven years; Williams has been with Stephen Heavner for 11 years.
Might their relationship have lasted if it weren’t for the company? It’s a thorny question they don’t wish to dwell on.
“We don’t give much thought to it,” Williams says.
“It takes a lot of time and energy to go back and visit the past,” Gold says. “We’re more focused on the future.”
They acknowledge there were “a few little awkward moments, but not too much,” as Gold says. Keeping the company strong was chief among their priorities as always, they say.
The only time they had any significant downsizing was in 2008. Gold says it was a hard, but at the time necessary, decision in the face of a huge recession.
The company prides itself on the health care package it offers, on-site day care and cafeteria and unabashed LGBT advocacy work.
They say providing such amenities pays off in the long run.
“I think what we have proven is that you can be profitable and do the right thing,” he says. “When you have people who aren’t sick, they’re being more productive and that makes things more profitable. With our day care, if little junior has a problem, somebody goes and takes care of it and is back in 15 or 20 minutes, not the three hours it would take to go across town.”
They guess about 15 percent of their employees are also LGBT and estimate between 15-20 percent of their clientele is as well. Gold says it’s “certainly higher than other furniture retailers.”
Gold, who wrote a book called “Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America” in 2008, says being open about such things is a central component to the company.
He relishes telling of a celebration dinner they had with loan officers after paying back a $25 million loan they’d used to expand. Several of the bank execs told him how reading “Crisis” had given them new compassion for LGBT issues, from one man who stepped up his giving at a homeless shelter to another whose wife came out.
“One by one, they went around the table and told us how much our advocacy work had meant to them,” Gold says.
Coming from a staid banking environment, Hipp says finding a place he could be out on the job was a revelation.
“I thought I loved banking but I realized banking did not love me,” he says. “I was very uncomfortable and very conflicted over my future and I was met with some very harsh realities. I could not believe that someone of my age, I was in my early 20s at the time, could actually go to work someplace where it was OK for me to be who I was. I didn’t have to tuck any part of myself under my sleeve. I could actually say that I was gay and it didn’t matter. … I was just a kid from the south and I thought that was the best it would get.”
Some of the 25th anniversary events will benefit LGBT and AIDS causes. Gold next plans an open letter to the Pope urging him to change Vatican teaching that homosexuality is sinful behavior.
“When you get down to it, that’s really the seminal reason why people think gay people should not have equality,” Gold says. “The whole issue of sin is really the crux of why people are against it.”
But has there been backlash or lost sales along the way?
“Our business just keeps going at such a pace that’s ahead of the industry with sales and growth and things like that,” he says. “You know, we can’t worry about the one or two people who aren’t going to buy from us because we’re gay and outspoken.”
Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams on:
Bob Williams (left) and Mitchell Gold in the early years of their business. (Photo courtesy of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams)
• Their all-time favorite products:
GOLD: Leather club chairs they designed after spotting vintage pieces at a Paris flea market.
“If something sells that well and looks pretty, I sure do like it,” he says.
WILLIAMS: “Our slipcovers are great because they’re just so versatile — you can dress them up or down, change the style and they just give off this great ambience of relaxed, casual comfort.”
• How practical the whites and neutrals they use so often are for everyday
GOLD: “Today’s fabrics are a lot different from what you saw 20-30 years ago. They’re much friendlier to live with and stain resistant.” And if you spill red wine? “In a lot of the fabrics, yes, it will come out. But you have to get it quickly, not let it sit there a day.”
• Nate Berkus
GOLD: “We love Nate Berkus.”
WILLIAMS: “He has great hair.”
GOLD: “Yes, he has great hair, he’s cute and adorable and we’re fairly friendly with him. I like his work a lot.”
WILLIAMS: “His last book was great.”
• Thom Filicia (of “Queer Eye” fame)
GOLD: “Sweet guy and talented. We were at a design kind of home in South Hampton and his room was really a standout.”
• 2013 sales?
GOLD: “Over $100 million.”
• Lulu, the company mascot
GOLD: “She’s resting in peace. She was 12 and a half and she will be the mascot in perpetuity. The thing about bulldogs is once they decide on something, that’s it. They figure out a way to get it. She came to work with us everyday and loved walking around and saying hi to everyone.”
Theater
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Signature Theatre production runs through Jan. 25
‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Through Jan. 25
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, Va.
Tickets start at $47
Sigtheatre.org
Out actor Ariel Neydavoud is deep into a three-month run playing revolutionary student Perchick in the beloved 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof” at Signature Theatre in Arlington. And like his previous gigs, it’s been a learning experience.
This time, he’s gleaning knowledge from celebrated gay actor Douglas Sills who’s starring as the show’s central character Tevya, a poor Jewish milkman in the fictional village of Anatevka in tsarist Russia circa 1905.
In addition to anti-Semitism and expulsion, Tevya is struggling with waning traditions in a changing world where his daughters dare suggest marrying for love. Daughter Hodel (Lily Burka) falls for Perchick, an outsider who comes to town brandishing new ideas.
And along with its compelling and humor filled storyline, “Fiddler” boasts iconic numbers like “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “Sunrise, Sunset.”
Neydavoud, born and raised as an only child in the West Los Angeles neighborhood lightheartedly referred to as Tehrangeles (due to the large Iranian-American population), has always been passionate about performing. “It’s like I came out of the womb tap dancing,” he says. Fortunately, his mother, an accomplished pianist and composer, served as built-in accompanist.
He began acting and singing at kid camps and a private Jewish middle school alongside classmate Ben Platt. In his teens, Neydavoud spent three glorious weeks at Stagedoor Manor, a well-known theater camp in Upstate New York, where he solidified his desire to pursue theater as a profession, and started to feel comfortable with being queer.
Following high school, he studied at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) and soon after morphed from theater student to professional actor.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Your entry into showbiz seems to have been a smooth one.
ARIEL NEYDAVOUD: I’m happy to hear it seems that way. I’d rarely describe anything about this profession as smooth; nonetheless, what I love about this work is that it gives opportunities to have so many new experiences: new shows, new parts, and new communities who come together in a moment’s notice purely for the sake of creating art.
BLADE: Tell us about Perchick.
NEYDAVOUD: He comes to Anatevka and challenges their ideals and way of life. That’s something I can relate to.
I’m Jewish on both sides, but I’m also queer, first generation American, [his mother and father are from Germany and Iran, respectively], and a person of color. I never feel like I belong to a single community. That’s what has emboldened my inner activist to speak up and challenge ideas that I don’t necessarily buy into.
BLADE: You sing beautifully. Perchick’s song is “Now I have Everything,” an Act II melody about finding love. Was it an instant fit for you?
NEYDAVOUD: Not instantly.I’m traditionally a first tenor. Perchick is baritone range, a little outside of my comfort zone. After being cast, I asked our director Joe Calarco if he would be comfortable raising the key, something they did with the recent Broadway revival. He was firm about not doing that.
As an artist I see challenges as opportunities to grow, so it’s been really good exploring my lower register.
BLADE: Audiences have commented on an intimacy surrounding this production.
TK: It’s performed in the round with a dining table at its center. It could be a sabbath or seder table, however you interpret it, but I find it a brilliant way to illustrate community and tradition.
It feels like the audience is invited to the table and join the residents of Anatevka. The show’s moments of joy like the betrothal song “To Life (L’Chaim)” are intensified, and conversely the pogrom scenes are made more difficult. It feels like we’re sharing space.
BLADE: Do your encompassing identities broaden casting possibilities for you?
NEYDAVOUD: Marketing yourself as ethnically ambiguous can be a helpful tool. After “Hamilton” and the pandemic there was more of a shift toward authenticity. I try to steer toward playing Middle Eastern, Southwest Asian, Jewish, and mixed-race characters without being too prescriptive.
BLADE: Tell us your dream roles?
NEYDAVOUD: I’d love to play the Emcee in Cabaret [often portrayed as a gender-fluid, queer-coded, or non-binary figure]. And I’d like to direct a production of “Godspell” with a fully Middle Eastern cast. I think portraying Jesus and disciples in Middle Eastern bodies as Bohemian idealists living under an oppressive regime could be especially impactful.
BLADE: Can today’s queer audiences relate to life on the shtetl?
NEYDAVOUD: As a piece, “Fiddler” is timeless. Beyond the magical score, it hits home with just about anyone who’s ever felt othered. There are relevant themes of displacement and persecution, and maintaining cultural identity in the wake of turbulence, all ideas that tend to resonate with queer people.
Books
This gay author sees dead people
‘Are You There Spirit? It’s Me, Travis’
By Travis Holp
c.2025, Spiegel and Grau
$28/240 pages
Your dad sent you a penny the other day, minted in his birth year.
They say pennies from heaven are a sign of some sort, and that makes sense: You’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Some might scoff, but the idea that a lost loved one is trying to tell you he’s OK is comforting. So read the new book, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” by Travis Holp, and keep your eyes open.
Ever since he was a young boy growing up just outside Dayton, Ohio, Travis Holp wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to say that he was gay but his conservative parents believed his gayness was some sort of phase. That, and bullying made him hide who he was.
He also had to hide his nascent ability to communicate with people who had died, through an entity he calls “Spirit.” Eventually, though it left him with psychological scars and a drinking problem he’s since overcome, Holp was finally able to talk about his gayness and reveal his otherworldly ability.
Getting some people to believe that he speaks to the dead is still a tall order. Spirit helps naysayers, as well as Holp himself.
Spirit, he says, isn’t a person or an essence; Spirit is love. Spirit is a conduit of healing and energy, speaking through Holp in symbolic messages, feelings, and through synchronistic events. For example, Holp says coincidences are not coincidental; they’re ways for loved ones to convey messages of healing and energy.
To tap into your own healing Spirit, Holp says to trust yourself when you think you’ve received a healing message. Ignore your ego, but listen to your inner voice. Remember that Spirit won’t work on any fixed timeline, and its only purpose is to exist.
And keep in mind that “anything is possible because you are an unlimited being.”
You’re going to want very much to like “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis.” The cover photo of author Travis Holp will make you smile. Alas, what you’ll find in here is hard to read, not due to content but for lack of focus.
What’s inside this book is scattered and repetitious. Love, energy, healing, faith, and fear are words that are used often – so often, in fact, that many pages feel like they’ve been recycled, or like you’ve entered a time warp that moves you backward, page-wise. Yes, there are uplifting accounts of readings that Holp has done with clients here, and they’re exciting but there are too few of them. When you find them, you’ll love them. They may make you cry. They’re exactly what you need, if you grieve. Just not enough.
This isn’t a terrible book, but its audience might be narrow. It absolutely needs more stories, less sentiment; more tales, less transcendence and if that’s your aim, go elsewhere. But if your soul cries for comfort after loss, “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” might still make sense.
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a&e features
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Ring in 2026 with drag, leather, Champagne, and more
With Christmas in the rear view mirror, we can turn our attention to ringing in a much-anticipated New Year with a slew of local LGBTQ parties. Here’s what’s on tap.
Pitchers
This spacious Adams Morgan bar is hosting the “Pitchers’ Perfect New Year’s Eve.” There will be a midnight Champagne toast, the ball drop on the big screens, and no cover, all night long. The bar doesn’t close until 4 a.m., and the kitchen will be open late (though not until close). All five floors will be open for the party, and party favors are promised.
Trade
D.C.’s hottest bar/club combo is leaning into the Shark motif with its NYE party, “Feeding Frenzy.” The party is a “glitterati-infused Naughty-cal New Year’s Even in the Shark Tank, where the boats are churning and the sharks are circling.” Trade also boasts no cover charge, with doors opening at 5 p.m. and the aforementioned Shark Tank opening at 9 p.m.. Four DJs will be spread across the two spaces; midnight hostess is played by Vagenesis and the two sea sirens sensuously calling are Anathema and Justin Williams.
Number Nine
While Trade will have two DJs as part of one party, Number Nine will host two separate parties, one on each floor. The first floor is classic Number Nine, a more casual-style event with the countdown on TVs and a Champagne midnight toast. There will be no cover and doors open at 5 p.m. Upstairs will be hosted by Capital Sapphics for its second annual NYE gathering. Tickets (about $50) include a midnight Champagne toast, curated drink menu, sapphic DJ set by Rijak, and tarot readings by Yooji.
Crush
Crush will kick off NYE with a free drag bingo at 8 p.m. for the early birds. Post-bingo, there will be a cover for the rest of the evening, featuring two DJs. The cover ($20 limited pre-sale that includes line skip until 11 p.m.; $25 at the door after 9 p.m.) includes one free N/A or Crush, a Champagne toast, and party favors (“the legal kind”). More details on Eventbrite.
Bunker
This subterranean lair is hosting a NYE party entitled “Frosted & Fur: Aspen After Dark New Year’s Eve Celebration.” Arriety from Rupaul Season 15 is set to host, with International DJ Alex Lo. Doors open at 9 p.m. and close at 3 p.m.; there is a midnight Champagne toast. Cover is $25, plus an optional $99 all-you-can-drink package.
District Eagle
This leather-focused bar is hosting “Bulge” for its NYE party. Each District Eagle floor will have its own music and vibe. Doors run from 7 p.m.-3 a.m. and cover is $15. There will be a Champagne toast at midnight, as well as drink specials during the event.
Kiki, Shakiki
Kiki and its new sister bar program Shakiki (in the old Shakers space) will have the same type of party on New Year’s Eve. Both bars open their doors at 5 p.m. and stay open until closing time. Both will offer a Champagne toast at midnight. At Kiki, DJ Vodkatrina will play; at Shakiki, it’ll be DJ Alex Love. Kiki keeps the party going on New Year’s Day, opening at 2 p.m., to celebrate Kiki’s fourth anniversary. There will be a drag show at 6 p.m. and an early 2000s dance party 4-8 p.m.
Spark
This bar and its new menu of alcoholic and twin N/A drinks will host a NYE party with music by DJ Emerald Fox. Given this menu, there will be a complimentary toast at midnight, guests can choose either sparkling wine with or without alcohol. No cover, but Spark is also offering optional wristbands at the door for $35 open bar 11 p.m.-1 a.m. (mid-shelf liquor & all NA drinks).
How to cope when a partner gives you the silent treatment
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Your guide to D.C.’s queer New Year’s Eve parties
Holiday week brings setbacks for Trump-Vance trans agenda
Out actor talks lead role in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
This gay author sees dead people
