Whether it’s “Hocus Pocus” or “Sabrina” or “Agatha All Along,” gay men have always had an affinity for witches, and comedian Tim Murray’s one-man show “Witches” dissects our love of powerful female outcasts while telling his own hilarious stories about growing up gay in the Midwest.

“Witches,” which Murray describes as part stand-up, part drag, part musical comedy, debuted at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it got rave reviews, and now Murray’s taking it on his biggest tour yet, with 26 dates across the United States, Canada, and the UK. The show plays at Los Angeles’ Elysian Theatre Oct. 15 and Washington, D.C.’s Comedy Loft Oct. 24.

“I think there’s something special about all queer people that just feels like we are not part of the norm,” Murray says. “I was like literally the only boy in my whole junior high school who wasn’t on the football team. So, we look for the stuff that we think is unique and special on the outside, and usually those are villains in movies or TV shows. Or witches.” 

Murray says there are close parallels between the gay experience and the classical presentation of witches who have to hide their supernatural nature or withdraw from society.

“They need to hide, and actually that thing they think they need to hide is what makes them special. And they figure that out when they find their other witches, their coven,” he says. 

“But I think in an even simpler way, we love women. We love women with long hair and fierce nails. Gay men are so attracted to powerful women because they saved us growing up. You know, the girls on the playground who would like play with us when we didn’t want to do the ‘masc’ stuff.”

Murray grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, where he says, “It felt like being gay was like the worst thing you could be.”

“I love Sandusky. It was an amazing place to grow up and it’s an amazing place to live. I love going back there. The community is so supportive of me. But growing up in a small town in the Midwest in the 90s was, for a gay person, like what you’d think it would be like. I didn’t know any gay people.”

“I definitely learned how to code-switch and try to pass as straight, which is kind of a big theme of the show. You want to hide what makes you special and hide your powers because people don’t understand it. That is something I’ve had to unlearn and honestly doing this show helps me heal from that.” 

But code-switching and passing aren’t Murray’s only gay superpowers.

“There’s a whole universe that we get to unlock with our gay friends. Our sexuality is different than it is in straight culture,” Murray says. “We do kind of have this extra power. We have like a pop culture knowledge that most straight people don’t have. And I think there’s like a resilience factor that you get. There’s a way to relate to other gay people that is like a communal coven that not everybody gets.

“I used to think, ‘Oh God, I would give anything to not be this way,’ as a kid. Like I would give anything to not be gay. But now I really do feel like there’s a whole cavalcade of things I can do and talk about as a stand-up comedian because I’m gay.”

His gay coven has come in handy as Murray has taken off on his rocket ride to success over the past couple of years. Aside from witches, he’s co-headlined a comedy tour with YouTube sensation Michael Henry, appeared on the HBO comedy The Other Two, racked up hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, and next year, he’ll be starring in a new queer sketch comedy TV show with Henry and produced by Trixie Mattel called Wish You Were Queer.

“I lived in New York for a long time, and I cut my teeth well there, but there’s always kind of a bit of a part of me that has this idea myself as, you know, a theater artist… and through hanging out with other successful people and through therapy I just have really gotten over my block around that and just been like, ‘okay, just keep putting stuff out there until it touches fire.’” 

“When Michael Henry and I first started doing our stand up together, I did have this like imposter syndrome, and then I just started to really lean in. If a video did well, I would just use that same format and just try to write new jokes for it.

 “Like it’s okay to have a brand. It’s okay to have this like Los Angeles marketing side of your brain and of your career work like use what’s working. Don’t fight it.”

As he brings Witches across the country, Murray says he’s discovering that now he’s become thee powerful witch that queer audiences are craving.

“People are very much like, ‘Thank you so much for coming here. We don’t get this kind of thing that often,’ which is so cool. You know, it’s awesome to go to a city like Denver or Vancouver or Louisville. It just feels really special to see these queer people and these towns.”

“The people who really love with witches just feel so attached to it, which is amazing. In Chicago, a girl made buttons with my face on them and handed them out to everyone in the audience. The response has been crazy.”

“Witches” plays at the Elysian Theatre in Los Angeles Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Witches also plays at the Comedy Loft in Washington, D.C. Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. 

The 2024 Franklin County Pride Festival was held on the campus of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa. on Sunday, Oct. 13.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

‘Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life’
By Michael Nott
c.2024, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
$40/720 pages

A confession: Until reading “Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life,” I hadn’t known much about the accomplished, controversial gay poet’s life or read many of his poems. But this first biography makes me feel like I know him and his large body of work intimately. Michael Nott, coeditor of “The Letters of Thom Gunn,” draws on interviews with friends and family, as well as Gunn’s letters, notebooks, and diaries, to tell the triumphs and tragedies of his life.

Born in England in 1929 to journalist parents, when he was 15, he and his younger brother Ander found their mother dead from suicide. He would not discuss this tragic event in his poetry for years, including one of his last poems “My Mother’s Pride.” He published his first book of poems, “Fighting Terms,” while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University.

At Cambridge, Gunn met his life-long partner, Mike Kitay, an American studying theater. Gunn followed Kitay to America, studying poetry under Yvor Winters at Stanford University. At one point, Kitay, doing his military service, was investigated as part of suspicion of homosexuality among his unit. Gunn wrote to friends of his worry both of what might happen to Kitay as well as to himself. While nothing happened, the event reminds us of the precarious state in which gay men lived until recently.

Eventually, they settled in San Francisco, which Gunn loved. Even when he became worldwide famous, he enjoyed the anonymity of the city’s gay bars, where he could pick up men. He taught at UC Berkeley for 40 years, one term every year so he could concentrate on his poetry. His and Kitay’s home was filled with friends and sex partners, usually of Gunn. This arrangement seems common for many gay men of the time, reminiscent of Dan Savage’s idea of “monogamish,” where committed gay couples might have other side partners.

In San Francisco, Gunn discovered leather and drugs, both of which he took to readily. He caused a stir by appearing in his British publisher’s conservative club in leather gear. Toward the end of his life, he became a crystal meth addict, frequently using with other addicts whom he also slept with. In 2004, his housemates found him dead from substance abuse.

He explored leather, drugs, and gay sexuality frequently in his poems. His collection “Moly” (named after the drug in The Odyssey protecting from the witch Circe’s magic), looked at the appeal and downfall of drugs. The Man with Night Sweats, perhaps his most famous collection, dealt with the AIDS epidemic, the painful death of so many friends and lovers. He won the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant afterwards.

The biography presents Gunn in all his humanity, from his poetic genius to his insecurities. After each book came out, he struggled with writer’s block, which led to hookups and drug use. As he aged, he worried about finding “gerontophiles” who would sleep with him. I hope this book encourages readers to discover or revisit his work, filled with the joys and complexities of modern gay life.