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Out filmmaker honors late partner with period drama ‘Colette’
Early 20th century literary figure subject of glossy new biopic
Keira Knightley and Wash Westmoreland on the set of ‘Colette.’ (Photo by Robert Viglasky)
The sumptuous and sensual new movie “Colette” is really a love letter from filmmaker Wash Westmoreland to his late husband, the writer and director Richard Glatzer, as well as a tribute to the revolutionary spirit of the legendary French writer herself.
“My late husband was an avid reader. I never knew anyone who could get into books like Richard did,” Westmoreland says. “He just got obsessed with Colette. He read her fiction and started reading biographies and said there’s a film in here. Then I started reading and I agreed with him. This could be an amazing movie.”
But other projects came first, along with a serious health issue. In 2011, Glatzer was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease often known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease”
“For the last four years of his life,” Westmoreland says, “Richard lived with ALS which is a tremendously difficult disease. It’s very destructive to the body, but psychologically he was as strong as a rock. He never had any depression or self-pity. He just wanted to keep making movies. We made two movies during the last years of his life. The last one was ‘Still Alice.’”
Co-directed and co-written by Westmoreland and Glatzer, “Still Alice” (2014) starred Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, a linguistics professor who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Moore’s searing performance won numerous awards for best actress, including the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Film Award and the Dorian Award from GALECA, the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.
“By the time the movie was going out into the world he was very ill. We watched the Oscars from the ICU at Cedars-Sinai Hospital,” Westmoreland says. “We snuck in a bottle of Champagne and when Julianne won we whooped so loud they thought it was a medical emergency and all these orderlies came running in. It was a nice moment, but it was an extremely difficult time.”
At the time, Glatzer was communicating with an iPad text-to-voice app that he activated with his toes. After the Oscar ceremony ended, Westmoreland asked his husband what he wanted to do next. Glatzer slowly typed out C-O-L-E-T-T-E. The movie opens next week in D.C.-area theaters.
“He died two weeks later. I knew I had to make the movie for him.”
Known to the world simply as Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (played by Keira Knightley) was born in the provincial French town of Saint-Sauveur in 1873. She married Henri Gauthier-Villars (Dominic West), who wrote under the name of “Willy,” and he introduced her to the glittering literary and social world of turn-of-the-century “Belle Époque” Paris. After a tumultuous marriage with multiple infidelities on both sides, Willy and Colette divorced in 1910.
During their marriage and throughout both of her subsequent marriages, Colette had numerous affairs with women, including a long-term relationship with Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf, known as “Missy.” A sculptor and painter, Missy shocked Parisian society by openly having affairs with women, smoking cigars in public and dressing as a man.
Colette wrote until her death in 1953 and during her long career worked as a mime, journalist, actress and novelist. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 and is now best known for her novel “Gigi” (1944) which became the basis for the famous Lerner and Loewe musical.
“Colette lived an incredible life,” Westmoreland says. “She was really a woman well ahead of her time.”
When he and Glatzer began working on the screenplay in 2001, they decided that Colette’s first marriage would be a natural narrative for a feature film. The final screenplay, which Westmoreland finished with Rebecca Lenkiewicz (“Disobedience”), focused on Colette’s marriage to Willy and relationship with Missy, and included the publication of the infamous “Claudine” novels.
“There are so many modern elements to her story,” Westmoreland says. “He had the gift of the gab and would take over the room with an anecdote. But he really wasn’t so good at sitting down and writing an extended piece. So he hired various ghostwriters to work for him, four or five struggling writers who worked in his ‘factory,’ rather like Warhol. Willy would pitch the idea, then he would edit, and then he would sign them, but he didn’t write them. It was sham, really, but he got away with it with his tremendous energy and personality and his huge projection into the social space.”
One of Willy’s ghostwriters was Colette herself. He got her to write for him a series of four novels that became huge bestsellers and claimed he was the author.
When the Claudine novels, witty and brazen stories loosely based on Colette’s own life, became a success, Willy established himself as a very modern “literary entrepreneur.”
“Once the books were a hit, Willie was a marketing genius,” Westmoreland says. “He created a brand: Claudine cigarettes, Claudine perfume, Claudine soap and Claudine dresses. It was like ‘Star Wars’ toys; George Lucas legendarily made more money from the toys than the movies.”
In addition, Colette and Willy also become the first modern celebrity couple—the toast of the Belle Époque.
“They were like John and Yoko or Brangelina,” he says. “Willie know how to feed the public’s fascination by dropping scandalous hints about their private life into the novels. People become fascinated with it, like a modern reality TV show.”
Westmoreland says Colette was one of the first women to write explicitly about sexuality from a woman’s perspective, a notion he says was groundbreaking. He used those aspects of Colette’s story to convince Knightly to take the challenging leading role, telling her Colette was a sexual pioneer who was having sex with men, women and a male-identified woman who can be seen as a forerunner of today’s trans community.
“It was so exciting for her to take on this character who was so courageous in the way she lived her life and so honest in the way he spoke about it.”
Colette’s revolutionary spirit also inspired the casting of some of the minor roles.
Westmoreland cast actor Jake Graf, a trans man, to play a cisgender character, Gaston De Caillavet, a rival of Willly’s. He also cast actress Rebecca Root, a trans woman, to play a cisgender woman, the famous novelist and hostess Rachilde. The movie also features Ray Panthaki, who’s Asian-British, playing Pierre Veber, a member of Willy’s factory who was white in real life; and Johnny K. Palmer, a black actor, playing another white figure, Paul Héon, who was Willy’s secretary.
“This does not happen frequently in making period pieces and too rarely happens in modern narratives, as well,” he says. “Since Colette was part of challenging convention and opening up the world, it felt right that the casting of the movie should reflect that. And besides, they are just great actors.”
a&e features
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
Loraine Hutchins remembered as a ‘force of nature’
The Montgomery County Pride Center will host a celebration honoring the life and legacy of Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D., on May 2. People are invited to attend the onsite memorial or a livestream event. The on-site event will begin at 10 a.m. with a meet-and-greet mixer before moving into a memorial service around the theme “Loraine a Force of Nature!” at 11 a.m., a panel talk at 12 p.m., break out sessions for artists, academics, and activists to build on her legacy at 1 p.m. and a closing reception at 2 p.m.
Attendees are encouraged to register for the on-site memorial gathering or the livestreamed memorial. The goal of this event is also to collect stories and memories of Loraine. Attendees and others can share their stories at padlet.com.
An obituary for Hutchins was published in the Bladelast Nov. 24, where people can learn more about her activism in the bisexual community. A private service for friends and family was held in December but this memorial service is open to all.
Alongside her groundbreaking work organizing for U.S. bisexual rights and liberation including co-editing “Bi Any Other Name: BIsexual People Speak Out” (1991), she also integrated faith into her sexual education and advocacy work. Her 2001 doctoral dissertation, “Erotic Rites: A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Sacred Sexuality Traditions and Trends,” offered a pointed queer and feminist analysis to sex-neutral and sex-positive spiritual traditions in the United States. Her thesis was also groundbreaking in exploring the intersections between sex workers and those in caregiving professionals, including spiritual ones.
In an oral history interview conducted by Michelle Mueller back in August 2023, Hutchins described herself as a “priestess without a congregation.” While she has occasionally had a sense of community and feels part of a group of loving people, she admitted that “I don’t feel like we have the shape or the purpose that we need.”
“I’ve often experienced being the Cassandra in the room, the Cassandra in the community. Somebody who’s kind of way out there ahead, thinking through the strategic action points that my community hasn’t gotten to yet, and getting a lot of resistance and hostile responses from people who are frightened by dissent and conflict and not ready for the changes we have to make to survive,” she said.
“For somebody who’s bisexual in an out political way and who’s been a spokesperson for the polyamory movement in an out political way, it’s very exposing. And it’s very important to me to be able to try to explain and help other people understand the connection between spirituality and sexuality,” she explained citing how even as a graduate student she was “exploring how to feel erotic and spiritual, and not feel them in conflict with each other in my own spiritual contemplative life and my own sensual body awareness of being alive in the world.”
“Every religion has a sense of sacred sexuality. It’s just they put a lot of boundaries and regulations on it, and if we have a spiritual practice that is totally affirming of women’s priesthood and of gay people, queer people’s ability to minister to everyone and to be ministered to be everyone, what does that do to the gender of God, or our understanding of how we practice our spirituality and our sexuality in community and privately?”
“There’s no easy answer,” she concludes, and she continued to grapple with these questions throughout her life, co-editing another seminal text, “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual, and Polysexual Perspectives,” published in 2012. Her work blending spiritual and queer liberation remains groundbreaking to this day.
Rev. Eric Eldritch, a local community organizer and ordained Pagan minister with Circle Sanctuary who has worked for decades with the DC Center’s Center Faith to organize the Pride Interfaith Service, is eager to highlight this element of her legacy at the memorial service next month.
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Aging RFK Stadium has come down, but the RFK grounds are still getting lit up. Welcome back to the stage Project GLOW, D.C.’s homegrown electronic festival, on May 30-31. Back for its fifth year on these musically inclined acres, Project GLOW returns with an even more diverse lineup, and one that continues to celebrate LGBTQ antecedents, attendees, and acts.
Project GLOW 2026 headliners include house and techno star Mau P, progressive house legend Eric Prydz, hard-techno favorite Sara Landry, and bass acts Excision b2b Sullivan King, among the lineup of trance, bass, house, techno, dubstep, and others for the fifth anniversary year.
President & CEO Pete Kalamoutsos — born and raised in D.C. — founded Club GLOW in 1999. In 2020, GLOW entered into a partnership with global entertainment company Insomniac Events to produce live events like Project GLOW, which kicked off in 2022.
As in past years, Project GLOW not only makes space, but is intentionally inclusive of the LGBTQ community, one of its most dedicated fan bases. The festival’s LGBTQ-focused Secret Garden stage blooms again — a more intimate dance area that stands on the strength of DJs and musicians who draw from the LGBTQ community. D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife mastermind Ed Bailey is the creative mind behind Secret Garden again. He joined Project GLOW in 2023.
“Kalamoustos says that “he’s proud of his partnership with Ed Bailey, along with Capital Pride and [nightlife producer] Jake Resnikow. It’s amazing to collaborate with Bailey at the Secret Garden stage, especially after the curated lineup we worked on at Pride last year.”
The Secret Garden will be a bit different from other stages: Eternal (“At the Eternal stage, time stands still. Lose yourself in the dance of past, present, and future, surrendering to the eternal rhythm of the universe”) and Pulse (“Feel the rhythm of the beat pulse through your veins as the heartbeat of the crowd synchronizes into one. Here, every moment vibrates with life as it guides you through a new dimension of euphoria”). The Secret Garden stage is in the round, surrounded by 16 shipping containers. The containers play canvas to muralists from around the world, who are coming in to paint them in a vibrant garden-style vibe. “We gave this stage some extra love with this layout,” K says, “ we finally cracked the code.”
K says that this will be the biggest lineup yet for the Secret Garden, featuring Nicole Moudaber b2b Chasewest, Riordan b2b Bullet Tooth, Ranger Trucco, Cassian, Eli & Fur, Cosmic Gate and Hayla. The stage is also the largest yet, featuring an expanded dance floor and 360-degree viewing.
Across all stages, K says that his goal for the fifth anniversary is “More art and fan interactive experience, more like a festival, strive to be like a Tomorrowland, as budget grows to add more experience.” Last year’s Project GLOW alone drew 40,000 attendees over two days.
K, however, was not satisfied with one festival this spring. GLOW recently announced a “pop-up” one-day event. Teaming up with Black Book Records, GLOW is set to throw a first-of-its-kind dance-music takeover of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., headlined by electronic music star Chris Lake. Set for April 18, this euphoric block party will feature bass and vibes blocks from the White House. Organizers expect as many as 10,000 fans to attend. Beyond music, there will be food, activations, and plenty of other activities taking place around 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave NW – a location familiar to many in the LGBTQ community, as this sits squarely inside the blocks of the Capital Pride party that takes place in DC every June.
Over the past two decades, Club GLOW has produced thousands of events, from club nights to large-scale festivals including Project GLOW, Moonrise Festival, and more. Club GLOW also operates Echostage.
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