a&e features
Sophie B. Hawkins goes deep in advance of D.C.-area concert
‘90s hitmaker known for ‘Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover’ is on fall mini-tour


Sophie B. Hawkins will sing hits and new songs at her Saturday evening concert in Vienna, Va. (Photo by Shervin Lainez; courtesy No Big Deal PR)
Ellis Paul and Sophie B. Hawkins
Saturday, Oct. 28
6:30 p.m. (doors, 5:30)
Jammin Java
227 Maple Ave. E
Vienna, Va.
$25
Singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins is at a place in her life where she’s being highly deliberate about what she does.
She’s sitting on a finished album but wants to figure out a way to release it strategically for maximum impact. A recurring theme in our lengthy phone chat last week is that there are lots of great ideas, but several are just not high on her priority list right now.
Newly single after nearly two decades in a same-sex relationship, the 52-year-old singer known for ‘90s radio staples “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover” and “As I Lay Me Down” is back in New York focusing on her art and raising her two young children, Dashiell, 8, and Esther, 2.
She makes a rare D.C.-area appearance this weekend at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, Va., on her fall mini-tour. Her comments have been edited for length.
WASHINGTON BLADE: How does it feel to be back in New York again after so many years in Los Angeles?
SOPHIE B. HAWKINS: Well I was born and raised in Manhattan so when I get home to New York or anywhere near, I feel a certain accessibility to my soul. I feel like this is where I came into the world, where I’m coming back to and where I’m allowed to be me. I can be my age here, I can be a single woman, so exotic and excited to be alive, just in the day, and it’s not weird. I don’t have to drive a fancy car, I don’t have to wear makeup, I can just live and enjoy everyone’s energy and creativity. That’s the difference between L.A. and New York. In California, it’s harder to connect with people and harder to connect with people’s creativity. In New York, it’s very much coming up from the ground.
BLADE: What can we expect at your show this weekend and why are you doing a mini-tour now?
HAWKINS: This mini-tour came about for a very specific reason. I wanted to go out and do solo shows without one single musician, just me because I’d never done that before until weekend before last. I did it in Massachusetts and Maine and I really felt like this was the time for me to just go on stage and really see if I’m a good-enough musician and good-enough artist and good-enough storyteller to get out there and be the person that I am (in my home studio) working and writing songs. … I loved the last two shows. They were my favorites in a very long time because I just got up there with my instruments, my banjo, my drums, my guitar and my piano, and I sang the songs and it was so relaxed and emotional and, of course, intimate, but it was something more. Sort of a heightened experience. … I wouldn’t say it’s me being me because I’m always me, but it’s really one on one. It’s scary but that’s where I really like it the best.
BLADE: How was it received?
HAWKINS: Both audiences, and not that this should ever happen again, but they both gave me standing ovations and they all came back and it was a different conversation after the show. … It really could have gone terribly — that’s why I didn’t do it in New York. I could have walked off the stage and said, “I’m never doing that again,” and called my guitar player. But I’m actually excited to do it more.
BLADE: You’re working on a musical, you have a new album in the can, you did the Janis Joplin play a few years ago and said you even wrote some songs as Janis. What all will you be singing? Stuff from your albums or some of that stuff as well?
HAWKINS: Well, OK, first of all, I’m always going to do my hits. They’re beautiful and I just want people to know they won’t get deprived of that. The second thing is I’m definitely doing some new songs. People seem to really love the new songs and I’m doing one I just wrote a couple weeks ago that’s a brand new original Christmas song so it’s going to be exciting to do one that I just wrote. As for the album, I’m going to be totally candid because I always am, I don’t quite know how to get it out. I don’t want it to just be the same old process of putting all this effort into something and then making no money from it. I’m trying to find a new way and really taking my time. I really love it, I put a ton of energy into it and the songs are, in my opinion, phenomenal so I don’t want to just throw it out and have it go nowhere. The musical is still a work in progress. … I may put the Christmas song out just to have a little something but … I can’t just throw things out there anymore.
BLADE: You did some shows in New York back in June that you said you were going to record to try to capture something elusive you said doesn’t always show up on your studio work. Did you?
HAWKINS: Yes, well, I don’t know if I captured that elusive whatever but I did record all three shows and they were filmed. I don’t know if the filming was good because I haven’t seen it yet. … I’m not sure if I’m going to edit them and put anything out because that takes so much work. I wish I had another me to do that kind of work. And sometimes you’re just too close to it. I thought it sounded terrible when I listened to it in June but then I heard it again in September by accident and I was like, “No, that sounds pretty good, I should get to editing that.” … But again, it goes back to not wanting to just put stuff out just to do it. I’m looking for a right connection. I’m not dying for people to say, “Oh she’s great, listen to this,” and then move on to the next thing. There’s no reason for that. Maybe once I figure out when the album is coming out, the live stuff could be like the thank you for being part of my life and here is this gift.
BLADE: What has it been like rebuilding after going through the break-up of a 17-year relationship?
HAWKINS: Oh, it was awful. Just so incredibly sad, I can’t even tell you. … It’s still so difficult to understand how that could have happened. … I felt like I was saved when I got back to New York … by the skin of my teeth. There’s this amazing other part of yourself that says, “I’ve got to move before the tsunami hits, I gotta get out of my bed and start running” and that’s what happened. The tsunami was coming down on me and my son and I actually got out of bed and said, “We’re getting up now, move, move, move, get the dogs,” and we got to New York and boom, we would have been dead if we’d stayed a moment longer. And I mean completely dead emotionally, psychologically, financially, everything. It’s scary to think about. That’s one aspect of it. But thank God I landed and … could begin again. … There is still a reckoning I’m dealing with in my art and in conversations with close friends, you know, walking around going, “I can’t believe this is part of my story now.” … I never thought it would happen — a betrayal on that level.
BLADE: One song of yours that’s always haunted me is “I Need Nothing Else.” I know songwriters hate to explain what songs are about but can you illuminate us at all on that one?
HAWKINS: I love that song too because of the combination of the visceral and the spiritual and accepting it all as one and knowing that all things go together with no boundaries. All these things need each other and pull each other and tug each other and there’s that feeling of passion that I really love and then the phrase, “I need nothing else,” is what you do — you go through your life and you eliminate, you start to realize what you need and what you don’t need and you come back to this very essential quality. … You bring the drama on when you don’t know what you need and you do so many things to mask and then you find it and it’s unmasked — that’s that song, it’s unmasked, here it is.
BLADE: It’s taboo to say you wanna have sex with Jesus but pop music is kind of this nice place where you can entertain both the spiritual and the carnal, which is forbidden in gospel music. Is that a fair interpretation or am I off base?
HAWKINS: No, you’re so on base and I love that you said have sex with Jesus. Yes, it’s so true and in a way, that’s sort of what we’re doing. … And yes, that is the great thing about pop music and great poetry, it connects all these things. … There’s actually a movie out now that’s about all this called “The Novitiate.” Have you heard of it?
BLADE: No.
HAWKINS: It’s not out yet but I saw a screening and it’s really a brilliant movie but it’s not with men, it’s with nuns. Oh my God.
BLADE: How long did it take to make “Tongues and Tales” (1992) and “Whaler” (1994)? How long did you spend recording vocals and how long were the whole projects?
HAWKINS: OK, well, “Whaler” took shorter than “Tongues and Tales” because I worked with Stephen Lipson and he was — well, for both albums by the way, we used my demos a lot, which was interesting, so we’d have to include that time. I’d recorded those songs at home first. Like in “Did We Not Choose Each Other” when you hear the frying pans and all the crazy percussion and the keyboards, all that stuff was done at home. “As I Lay Me Down,” the percussion, the keyboards, all that was taken from my original demo and we just overlaid and built upon it.
BLADE: You felt you’d captured something on those that couldn’t be bettered?
HAWKINS: Yeah. There were periods where different producers would try to get away from it but even the head of the record company, Don Ienner at the time, the head of Sony, he said, “No, you’ve got to use the vocal on her demo, that’s why I signed her.” So there were always those moments where we would go back to that. … So “Whaler” didn’t take a long time ‘cause Stephen works fast. “Tongues and Tales” took a long time because I’d never made a record before and Rick Chertoff is known for taking a really long time. He wanted demo after demo after demo after demo. He could spend years on just a thought. It takes him hours to get a freaking sentence out. But in some ways, that’s also why he’s brilliant. He’s like an old-fashioned director. He’ll take you to dinner and you have to include all that in the process. So on “Tongues and Tales,” they didn’t spend anytime on me. It was all about the radio, what will happen to the album, and Rick Chertoff takes everything into consideration but then when it came time for vocals, believe it or not, they gave me like a day. I was really upset about that inside, but I did not wanna complain because they didn’t make me write with anybody, they completely stayed true to my vision so I thought, “Well, OK, I have a day, I’m just gonna use a day.” So the vocals were very fast. … But that worked out OK because I’m one of those people you can’t overdo things too much with. On “Whaler,” though, he did take much more time with the vocals.
BLADE: What happens to all the alternate takes and photo and video outtakes when a major label project like that wraps? Do you get it all or is it sitting in box in a warehouse somewhere?
HAWKINS: I think Sony probably trashed it all because, you know, I fought with them by the third album. I have all the demos, which is shocking. … But they didn’t care about what they didn’t use so I would think by this time they would have trashed everything. I did get a bunch of pictures. … Great outtakes from sessions by David LaChapelle, Bruce Weber and Mark Hanauer. It would be fun to do something with those but at this point in my career, I don’t want to spend the time looking through photos.
BLADE: I sense from what you’re saying there was some frustration with the release of “The Crossing,” your last album in 2012. Was the rollout underwhelming? How do you feel about it now that you have a little distance from it?
HAWKINS: Well that’s why I don’t want to put out another record the same way. I think there are some songs on it that are amazing. I just love “The Land, the Sea and the Sky.” It’s so raw, I don’t know, I just love the feel of it. And I love “A Child.” There are some songs I love. But certain songs I think are terrible on “The Crossing” and those are the ones I actually worked the most on. Like “Betchya Got a Cure,” I think could have been a great song but I think it’s just terribly done. … My manager-slash-partner had lost interest in me as a person and as an artist or whatever and I couldn’t really — I mean, I did it totally alone. No producer, no nothing. I even engineered the goddamn record. It was a beautiful studio, but still. I put it out with zero, and I mean zero, support, so in a way, it’s amazing it sounds as good as it does and it’s as lively as it is. There’s no way really I could have done better in that situation.
BLADE: What was your cover of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” from? I found it later on a compilation and wasn’t sure.
HAWKINS: That was for a charity album. It might have been breast cancer because they wanted songs by women and I chose that because Joan Baez sang it and I loved it. I recorded it in my apartment where I was at the time on Christopher Street and I just did it at the piano with all those crazy vocals and the djembe drum and that was basically it. But people seem to like it. Sony was pretty mad at me. They said it wasn’t professional enough. I was like, “Well, then, you know, give me some money and I’ll do it more professionally.”
BLADE: Melissa Etheridge’s VH-1 “Duets” special now seems like this amazing time capsule of great ‘90s women rockers. What was it like taping it?
HAWKINS: Well, the first memory is when she called. … I dove to the floor to pick up the land line at a house in L.A. where I was staying and I couldn’t believe I was talking to Melissa Etheridge because this was at the time when she was having her huge, breakout like big, big moment, and I hit my head on the closet door when I went for the phone so I was pretending to be completely with it and cool and obviously I wasn’t. … I remember rehearsing with her and just thinking she was so amazing, her guitar playing and her presence. I loved her and felt like I would have loved her even if she wasn’t Melissa Etheridge, but I never would have because she’s from such a different part of the world. So then we got to the show and I really thought I’d botched it and I was kind of embarrassed. But I loved being with her and Paula Cole was super nice too.
BLADE: I get what you’re saying about prioritizing certain projects over others but it’s been 25 years this year since “Tongues and Tales” and “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover.” Are you doing anything to commemorate that?
HAWKINS: No, I didn’t really realize it was exactly 25 years. See that’s where it would be nice to have a team to help me remember those things.
BLADE: It’s so cool that you’re able to still devote yourself to art. New York and L.A. are both so insanely expensive and you’re raising two kids. Do you ever feel practical or financial concerns encroaching on your art? How do you soldier on?
HAWKINS: You do have to soldier on as an artist no matter what and as a mother because you cannot let those people down. It doesn’t matter if you have any money or not. The thing about being an artist in this day and age is that you cannot expect any kind of support if you’re in the music business. I’m lucky to have the support and recognition that I do. I see young people I’ve met and let open for me who have these amazing songs, they’re young and beautiful and talented and they’re in a way worse position than me. I’m doing really well, I actually am. … I could make a choice. I could make a lot of money, I mean relative to what I’m going to get back, and throw it in my career right now, but I really do feel the timing isn’t right and it would be a complete waste. I feel it’s a time to be really selective. … I learned with “The Crossing,” it’s not good enough to just stay afloat. It’s actually better almost to disappear and for everyone to think you’re gone forever and you were so beautiful and great then and if you have a rebirth or even if you don’t, then at least your work stands on its own. That’s a big concept. I hadn’t even really thought about it, I was just kind of talking out of my ass but yeah. I’m maintaining an amazing lifestyle in this amazing city and my children and art are doing amazingly well and I will tell you the honest truth — I’ve never been so happy in my life.
BLADE: How has being a mom shifted your artistic lens or has it?
HAWKINS: It’s made me more appreciative and patient with myself. … It’s moved me away from trying to be a perfectionist. … It’s also been fun to see how some things that I thought were just about me, they’re sort of genetic. Like the singing and stuff. … Not so much the creation of a song, but my son is like this amazing little walking poet and he says things that blow me away, but I think maybe he gets it from my mother. There’s some quality about it that’s really fun to see.

Sophie B. Hawkins at a 2004 Pittsburgh concert. (Washington Blade file photo by Joey DiGuglielmo)
a&e features
Peppermint thrives in the spotlight
In exclusive interview, she talks Netflix show — and the need to resist Trump’s attacks

As an entertainer, there’s not much that Peppermint hasn’t done. She’s a singer, actor, songwriter, reality TV personality, drag queen, podcaster and the list goes on. Most importantly, as an activist she has been an invaluable role model for the trans, queer, and Black communities.
She’s a trailblazer who boasts an impressive list of ‘firsts.’ She is the first out trans contestant to be cast on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” (Season 9). She is the first trans woman to originate a principal musical role for Broadway’s “Head Over Heels.” She was also the first trans woman to compete in the runaway hit series “Traitors,” on Peacock, and she is the ACLU’s first-ever Artist Ambassador for Trans Justice. Her accolades are a true testament of the courage it took for Peppermint to live her authentic self.
We caught up with Peppermint to chat about her activism, taking on bigger roles on screen, our current political and social climate and life beyond the lens. For Peppermint, coming out as trans was not just a moment of strength—it was a necessity.
“It unfolded exactly as I had imagined it in terms of just feeling good and secure about who I am. I was in so much pain and sort of misery and anguish because I wasn’t able to live as free as I wanted to and that I knew that other people do when they just wake up. They get dressed, they walk out the door and they live their lives. Being able to live as your authentic self without fear of being persecuted by other people or by the government is essential to being healthy,” Peppermint tells the Blade in an exclusive interview.
“I was not able to imagine any other life. I remember saying to myself, ‘If I can’t imagine a life where I’m out and free and feeling secure and confident and left alone, then I don’t even want to imagine any kind of a life in the future,’” says Peppermint.
Recently, Peppermint returned for season 2 of Netflix’s comedy “Survival of the Thickest.” She added some spice and kick to the first season in her role as a drag bar owner. This time around, her character moves center stage, as her engagement and wedding become a major plot line in the show. Her expanded role and high-profile trans representation come at just the right time.
“It’s the largest acting role I’ve ever had in a television show, which my acting degree thanks me. It feels right on time, in a day where they’re rolling back trans rights and wanting to reduce DEI and make sure that we are limited from encouraging companies, corporations, industries, and institutions from not only featuring us, but supporting us, or even talking about us, or even referencing us.
“It feels great to have something that we can offer up as resistance. You can try to moralize, but it’s tougher to legislate art. So it feels like this is right on time and I’m just really grateful that they gave me a chance and that they gave my character a chance to tell a greater story.
Peppermint’s expanded role also accompanies a boom in queer representation in Black-powered media. Networks like BET and Starz and producers like Tyler Perry, are now regularly showcasing queer Black folks in main story lines. What does Peppermint think is fueling this increased inclusion?
“Queer folks are not new and queer Black folks are not new and Black folks know that. Every Black person knows at least one person who is queer. We are everywhere. We have not always been at the forefront in a lot of storytelling, that’s true, and that’s the part that’s new. It’s Hollywood taking us from the place where they usually have held us Black, queer folks in the makeup room, or as the prostitute, as an extra—not that there’s anything wrong with sex work or playing a background performer. I’ve played the best of the hookers! But those [roles] are very limiting.
“Hollywood has not historically done and still does not do a very good job of, including the voices of the stories that they make money [on]. And I think they’re realizing [the need] to be inclusive of our stories and our experiences, because for a long time it was just our stories without our actual experiences. It’s also exciting. It’s dramatic. It makes money. And they’re seeing that. So I think they’re just dipping their toes in. I think that they’re going to realize that balance means having us there in the room.”
Peppermint’s activism is tireless. She has raised more than six figures for prominent LGBTQ rights groups, she continues to speak around the nation, appears regularly on major media outlets addressing trans and LGBTQ issues and has been honored by GLAAD, World of Wonder, Out magazine, Variety, Condé Nast and more—all while appearing on screen and onstage in a long list of credits.
Now, under the Trump administration, she doesn’t have time to take a breath.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it if it weren’t second nature for me. Of course, there are ups and downs with being involved with any social issue or conversation and politics. But I am, for now, energized by it. It’s not like I’m energized by like, ‘Ooh, I just love this subject!’ right? It’s like, ‘Oh, we’re still being discriminated against, we gotta go and fight.’
“That’s just what it is. I get energy because I feel like we are quite literally fighting for our lives. I know that is hyperbole in some regards, but they are limiting access to things like housing, healthcare, job security and not having identification. Passport regulations are being put in a blender.”
Peppermint also mentions her thoughts on the unfair mandates to remove trans service members and revoke the rights and resources from the veterans who worked their whole lives to fight for this country.
“When you strip all these things away, it makes it really difficult for people to have a life and I know that that is what they’re doing. When I look around and see that that is what is at stake, I certainly feel like I’m fighting for my life. And that’s energizing.
“The only thing that would be the most rewarding besides waking up in a utopia and suddenly we’re all equal and we’re not discriminating against each other—which probably is not happening this year—is to be able to be involved in a project like this, where we can create that world. It’s also being built by people who are a part of that story in real life and care about it in real life.”
Peppermint is clear on her point that now is the time for all of the letters of the LGBTQ community to come together. Everyone who is trans and queer should be joining the fight against the issues that affect us all.
“Just trust us and understand that our experiences are tied together. That is how and why we are discriminated against in the way[s] that we are. The people who discriminate—just like how they can’t really distinguish between somebody who’s Dominican and somebody who’s African American — you’re Black when you’re getting pulled over. We are discriminated against in much the same way. It’s the same with being trans or queer or gender non-conforming or bi, we all have our own experiences and they should be honored.
“When laws are being created to harm us, we need to band together, because none of y’all asses is gonna be able to stop them from getting rid of marriage equality—which is next. If you roll the tape back to three years ago when somebody was trying to ask me about drag queen bans on readings in school, I was saying they’re coming for trans rights, which comes for bodily autonomy and abortion rights, which comes for gay marriage rights. Those three things will be wiped out.
Peppermint doesn’t take a pause to get fired up and call gay folk out in their obligation to return the favor to the Black trans community.
She shares with us her final thoughts.
“You cis-gender homosexuals need to stand the fuck up and understand that we are standing in front of you. It’s very difficult to understand this and know this, but so many of the rights that we have were hard fought and won by protest and by people fighting very hard for them. And many of those people in every single instance from the suffrage movement, obviously Civil Rights, queer rights, the AIDS and HIV movement—Black queer people have been there the entire time. Trans people have always been a part of that story, including Stonewall. Yes, we are using different terminology. Yes, we have different lenses to view things through, but let me tell you, if you allow us to be sacrificed before you see us go off the side, you will realize that your foot is shackled to our left foot. So, you better stand the fuck up!”
Peppermint for president!
a&e features
Tristan Schukraft on keeping queer spaces thriving
New owner of LA’s Abbey expands holdings to Fire Island, Mexico

LOS ANGELES — Like the chatter about Willy Wonka and his Chocolate Factory, the West Hollywood community here started to whisper about the man who was going to be taking over the world-famous Abbey, a landmark in Los Angeles’s queer nightlife scene. Rumors were put to rest when it was announced that entrepreneur Tristan Schukraft would be taking over the legacy created by Abbey founder David Cooley. All eyes are on him.
For those of us who were there for the re-opening of The Abbey, when the torch was officially passed, all qualms about the new regime went away as it was clear the club was in good hands and that the spirit behind the Abbey would forge on. Cher, Ricky Martin, Bianca del Rio, Jean Smart, and many other celebrities rubbed shoulders with veteran patrons, and the evening was magical and a throwback to the nightclub atmosphere pre-COVID.
The much-talked-about purchase of the Abbey was just the beginning for Schukraft. It was also announced that this business impresario was set to purchase the commercial district of Fire Island, as well as projects launching in Mexico and Puerto Rico. What was he up to? Tristan sat down with the Blade to chat about it all.
“We’re at a time right now when the last generation of LGBT entrepreneurs and founders are all in their 60s and they’re retiring. And if somebody doesn’t come in and buy these places, we’re going to lose our queer spaces.”
Tristan wasn’t looking for more projects, but he recounts what happened in Puerto Rico. The Atlantic Beach Hotel was the gay destination spot and the place to party on Sundays, facing the gay beach. A new owner came in and made it a straight hotel, effectively taking away a place of fellowship and history for the queer community. Thankfully, the property is gay again, now branded as the Tryst and part of Schukraft’s portfolio with locations in Puerto Vallarta and Fire Island.
“If that happens with the Abbey and West Hollywood, it’s like Bloomingdale’s in a mall. It’s kind of like a domino effect. So that’s really what it is all about for me at this point. It has become a passion project, and I think now more than ever, it’s really important.”
Tristan is fortifying spaces for the queer community at a time when the current administration is trying to silence the LGBTQ+ community. The timing is not lost on him.
“I thought my mission was important before, and in the last couple of months, it’s become even more important. I don’t know why there’s this effort to erase us from public life, but we’ve always been here. We’re going to continue to be here, and it brings even more energy and motivation for me to make sure the spaces that I have now and even additional venues are protected going in the future.”
The gay community is not always welcoming to fresh faces and new ideas. Schukraft’s takeover of the Abbey and Fire Island has not come without criticism. Who is this man, and how dare he create a monopoly? As Schukraft knows, there will always be mean girls ready to talk. In his eyes, if someone can come in and preserve and advance spaces for the queer community, why would we oppose that?
“I think the community should be really appreciative. We, as a community, now, more than ever, should stand together in solidarity and not pick each other apart.”
As far as the Abbey is concerned, Schukraft is excited about the changes to come. Being a perfectionist, he wants everything to be aligned, clean, and streamlined. There will be changes made to the DJ and dance booth, making way for a long list of celebrity pop-ups and performances. But his promise to the community is that it will continue to be the place to be, a place for the community to come together, for at least another 33 years.
“We’re going to build on the Abbey’s rich heritage as not only a place to go at night and party but a place to go in the afternoon and have lunch. That’s what David Cooley did that no others did before, is he brought the gay bar outside, and I love that.”
Even with talk of a possible decline in West Hollywood’s nightlife, Schukraft maintains that though the industry may have its challenges, especially since COVID, the Abbey and nightlife will continue to thrive and grow.
“I’m really encouraged by all the new ownership in [nightlife] because we need another generation to continue on. I’d be more concerned if everybody was still in their sixties and not letting go.”
In his opinion, apps like Grindr have not killed nightlife.
“Sometimes you like to order out, and sometimes you like to go out, and sometimes you like to order in, right? There’s nothing that really replaces that real human interaction, and more importantly, as we know, a lot of times our family is our friends, they’re our adopted family.
Sometimes you meet them online, but you really meet them going out to bars and meeting like-minded people. At the Abbey, every now and then, there’s that person who’s kind of building up that courage to go inside and has no wingman, doesn’t have any gay friends. So it’s really important that these spaces are fun, to eat, drink, and party. But they’re really important for the next generation to find their true identity and their new family.”
There has also been criticism that West Hollywood has become elitist and not accessible to everyone in the community. Schukraft believes otherwise. West Hollywood is a varied part of queer nightlife as a whole.
“West Hollywood used to be the only gay neighborhood, and now you’ve got Silver Lake and you’ve got parts of Downtown, which is really good because L.A., is a huge place. It’s nice to have different neighborhoods, and each offers its own flavor and personality.”
Staunch in his belief in his many projects, he is not afraid to talk about hot topics in the community, especially as they pertain to the Abbey. As anyone who goes to the Abbey on a busy night can attest to, the crowd is very diverse and inclusive. Some in the community have started to complain that gay bars are no longer for the gay community, but are succumbing to our straight visitors.
Schukraft explains: “We’re a victim of our own success. I think it’s great that we don’t need to hide in the dark shadows or in a hole-in-the-wall gay bar. I’m happy about the acceptance. I started Tryst Hotels, which is the first gay hotel. We’re not hetero-friendly, we’re not gay-friendly. We’re a gay hotel and everyone is welcome. I think as long as we don’t change our behavior or the environment in general at the Abbey, and if you want to party with us, the more than merrier.”
Schukraft’s message to the community?
“These are kind of dangerous times, right? The rights that we fought for are being taken away and are being challenged. We’re trying to be erased from public life. There could be mean girls, but we, as a community, need to stick together and unite, and make sure those protections and our identity aren’t erased. And even though you’re having a drink at a gay bar, and it seems insignificant, you’re supporting gay businesses and places for the next generation.”
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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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