a&e features
‘Better’ than ever: an interview with Harvey Fierstein
Beloved actor on pandemic, Broadway history and new biography
One of the best things about reading a memoir by someone with a distinctive voice – both spoken and written – is that you hear them as your read their book. Let’s face it, award-winning writer and actor Harvey Fierstein qualifies as someone who has a distinctive voice and while reading his revelatory memoir, “I Was Better Last Night” (Knopf, 2022), you’d swear he was in the room with you, dishing away. Harvey was gracious enough to make time for an interview shortly before the book’s March 2022 publication date.
BLADE: Harvey, why was now the time to write your memoir, “I Was Better Last Night,” and does having a milestone birthday (70) in 2022 have anything to do with it?
HARVEY FIERSTEIN: What’s really funny is that so many sources, if you look online, have my birthday as 1954, even though it’s actually 1952. The reason is that when I turned 22, my friend Eric Conklin, who directed the original production of “Torch Song,” said “You should tell everybody you’re turning 21.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because if you lie when you’re older, nobody believes it. But if you start at 21, who the fuck’s going to care!” That year, I moved my birthday to ‘53. The next year, we decided we’d do it again. But I never took it seriously. Things just get picked up by this one or that one. I think it was in New York magazine that they got the facts wrong and said my parents were Eastern European immigrants. They were actually third-generation Americans. But it got picked up by everyone and everywhere it said I was the son of Eastern European immigrants. My mother was born in Brooklyn and my father was born in the Catskills. So, I wrote the book, and there’s a fact checker, of course. Every time I mentioned my age he sent back a note, “Wikipedia says you were born in ‘54. This one says you were born in ’54,” I had to keep saying, “Why would I lie and make myself older? I’d only make myself younger!” It’s another one of those examples of why you should never lie. I am indeed as old as the mountains. So, did I write the memoir because of the birthday? No. Like everybody else in the fucking world, this pandemic hit. I was a very good boy. I sat down and did all the work on my desk. At that time, we were supposed to be doing a production of “Bye Bye Birdie” at the Kennedy Center. I finished the rewrites on that. I had rewritten “Funny Girl,” which was done in London and then went on tour in England, and we were bringing it to Broadway. I wanted to make some more changes to it, so I got all those changes done. “Kinky Boots” was sold to cruise ships, so I had to do an adaptation, a shortening of the show, as I had already done for “Hairspray” and other shows. That was off my desk and done. I’m working on a new musical with Alan Menken and Jeff Feldman, the guys I wrote “Newsies” with.
BLADE: Yes, I read about that in the book.
FIERSTEIN: So, I was all caught up with that. Basically, I was done. Then I sat down and, as I say in the book, I make quilts. I owed a couple of quilts as gifts. I went down to my little sewing room and I made seven quilts in a row [laughs]. Usually, I turn out one a year. Everybody got their birthday quilts, their wedding quilts, whatever it was that was owed. I had cleared my desk and we were still in the pandemic. Then my agent said to me, “Why don’t you write your memoir?” I said, “Because I don’t write sentences.”
BLADE: You wrote the children’s book. That has sentences.
FIERSTEIN: But that’s kid sentences. I’ve written op-eds, but for that you just have to get the voice of Edward R. Murrow in your head or something like that. That’s like writing dialogue, as well. All of a sudden, you’re Aaron Sorkin. I thought, “What the fuck? I’ve got a computer. Let me try.” I wrote four chapters, and I sent them to my agent. She said, “This is great!” She sent the chapters out to I think nine publishers, and eight of the nine made offers.
BLADE: There are numerous powerful moments throughout the book. Without giving away too much…
FIERSTEIN: Oh, go ahead, give it away! I already know what happens.
BLADE: But I don’t want to spoil it for the readers.
FIERSTEIN: That’s right. Goddammit.
BLADE: Chapter 57 contains one of the most emotional sequences involving your parents. Would it be fair to say that writing the book was a cathartic experience?
FIERSTEIN: Yes, the whole thing really is. When I started, I asked Shirley MacLaine because she’s written 300 books about her 700 different lives. She said, “Write what you remember because your brain has a way of editing, and it will give you what you need for this book. You’ll remember things for other books and other things, but write what you remember and just be true to what comes up.” I said, “Even about other people?” She said, “Yes. When you’re writing about other people, you’re really writing about yourself. Just trust that.” That’s what I did. There were hundreds of stories that I could have told. I just tried to sort of follow a line of thought and let it be.
BLADE: That’s interesting because the chapters in “I Was Better Last Night” are presented in chronological order, beginning in 1959 and concluding in 2022. Is that how they were written?
FIERSTEIN Yes, I wrote it exactly as it is. As you say, that particular chapter, I knew was coming because I knew what happened to bring that memory back. I’m trying to say it as you said, to not give it away. What happened between me and my brother, when he sat down to watch the last revival of “Torch Song.” My editor was incredibly gentle with me. Now and then he’d say, add more here or there. But the only real note that I got from him was he wanted to move that story into chronological order since the rest of the book is. I said, “No. That’s in emotional order.”
BLADE: It needed to be where it was.
FIERSTEIN: Exactly! Most celebrity autobiographies begin “I was a kid and I saw a show and I said, ‘I wanna be a star, too!’” Which is obviously not my story. I never wanted to be in show business. I didn’t want to be a writer. I didn’t want to be an actor or a drag performer. It was not my dream at all. That’s why it was so important to do it chronologically. I wanted to show how I lived my life being true to the moment I was in.
BLADE: In “I Was Better Last Night” you take readers on a journey through modern theater, from The Gallery Players and La Mama to off-Broadway and Broadway. With that in mind, would you agree that in addition to being a memoir, the book also functions as a theater history lesson?
FIERSTEIN: I guess it does. I have certainly been told that by a bunch of people who’ve read the book. When I was talking to Patti LuPone about it, she said, “Geez, I wish I had done what you did. She came through theater school and right into the legitimate, not through the experimental. As I say in the book, I came from an art school, so I always approached it as an art. Theater was part of an art movement, and I got involved because I wanted to meet Andy Warhol. Little did I know they would put me in drag. I guess there is a history there. Certainly, when I look around me, and I look at the people that I grew up with – Kathleen Chalfant and Obba Babatundé — and, of course, La Mama became something bigger. There were lots of others. Meeting Matthew (Broderick) at 18, or Estelle Getty who was a housewife from Bayside, Queens. She wouldn’t even admit she was from Bayside. She told everybody she was from Long Island [big laugh]. I said, “Estelle! Bayside is in Queens. Shut up!” What is history? After all, history is just day after day after day after day. I did start, as a baby, in this experimental theater. I wish that experimental theater still really existed. There were a few of us that I would say destroyed off-off-Broadway. I think greed is what destroyed off-off-Broadway. I think what happened was when people saw Tom O’Horgan make it, when “Hair” became a hit, that had a lot of people going, “Where’s my ‘Hair’?”
BLADE: But don’t you think that experimental theater might exist in cities where it’s a little more affordable to do that kind of thing? Say, Austin, Texas.
FIERSTEIN: There will always be experimental theater. It’s just, how is it looked at? Is the government funding there for it? I hear a lot of people saying, “Let’s not waste money on theater.” “Torch Song Trilogy” wouldn’t have been what it was if not for a government grant. I don’t know if you know this, but I just gave a grant to the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center to build a theater laboratory because rehearsal space is incredibly expensive in New York and almost impossible to find. David Rockwell is designing it and I’m hoping it’ll be open in two years. I tell a story in the book about how years ago we were rehearsing up at the YMCA, and the director just disappeared and left us with the bill for the rehearsal room. If I can leave a rehearsal room behind… Lin-Manuel (Miranda) developed “Hamilton” in the basement of the Drama Book Shop. For my shows, I used the basement of La Mama which was this small space, but big enough for us to rehearse and develop what we needed to do. I even did a couple of shows down there.
BLADE: Chapters 19 through 22 give readers insight into the inspiration for and the writing of “Torch Song Trilogy” and then much later you write about the recent revival with Michael Urie. What was it like to revisit the creation and the revision of “Torch Song Trilogy?”
FIERSTEIN: They’re your children, so they never really leave you. You may not think about them in the same way all the time, but they don’t leave you. You ask a mother about her son when he was six, and she can tell you a story about that time. It doesn’t mean you live with those stories every day. But they’re always there. Unfortunately, as you get older and people die on you, you remember them, or you go back to those stories time and again to remember how you all met and all that. With something like Torch Song, which is so much a part of my life, there was no real shock to going back and looking at that stuff again. Seeing Michael do it was not a shock either, because I cast all of my understudies. The show ran on Broadway for five years, but I didn’t play it all five years. There were other Arnolds and I saw all of them. There were matinee Arnolds, and then we had a bus and truck tour, and a regular tour. I saw all of those guys play it. I saw it in London with Tony Sher, who died a few weeks ago. He won the Olivier for “Torch Song.” Writing a memoir is not a time to blame other people [laughs]. When you’re writing plays, it is.
BLADE: I’m so glad you said that because one of the things that I think will strike readers about “I Was Better Last Night” is the brutal honesty with which you write about alcoholism and sobriety, as well as your suicide attempt. What do you hope readers will take away from that?
FIERSTEIN: There’s a certain point when you’re writing something like that…I don’t really care [laughs]. I needed to tell the truth and you hope that the truth will do good. When you’re writing fiction, you care more about how it’s read and what somebody gets out of the fiction. When you’re writing non-fiction, it’s like, “This is what happened, like it or not, Cookie.” The only hope is that I hope you know I’m telling it the best I can and being truthful. Because the truth does affect people, that I know. When you’re writing drama, you are manipulating an audience, and a story, and emotions. When I was writing the book, of course, there’s still an art to it, but I’m not turning away from something because it’s not comfortable. I’m going to say it. If somebody thinks I’m an asshole, let them think I’m an asshole. You read the book, and thank you very much for doing so.
BLADE: That’s my job!
FIERSTEIN: You see in the book that I don’t have an answer for my own gender. Had I been born in 1980, instead of 1952, would I be a woman now? I don’t know. I don’t have those answers. I don’t have the luxury of being born in a different society. The first (trans) person I knew was Christine Jorgensen, who died owing me money, that bitch [laughs]. When I was writing the book, I was going through photographs. There’s a picture in the book of me and Marsha P. Johnson and Jon Jon marching in a Gay Pride march. I put that picture up and somebody wrote to me telling me about Marsha, like you should know who this person was. I was like, “What are you talking about? This was a friend of mine!”
BLADE: Thank you for mentioning pictures. I live four blocks south of Wilton Manors in Fort Lauderdale. In the book you include a photo of the WiltonArt.com street sign that features a quote by you. What does it mean to you to be immortalized in this way?
FIERSTEIN: While it’s very flattering, another place I looked had it that Walt Whitman said it! With one hand, you’re flattered, and with the other, you’re slapped across the face.
BLADE: At least they got the attribution right in Wilton Manors.
FIERSTEIN: That’s lovely, it really is lovely. It’s a lovely thing to see something link that. I was watching some interview with Billy Porter and as if by accident, they walked down the block where there was a mural on the side of a building of his portrait. As if, “Oh, I didn’t know that was there!” You sort of laugh, like, yeah, right! You brought a film crew because you didn’t know your picture was there on the wall [laughs]. That sort of stuff of celebrity is always funny. Especially when you have friends who are famous and you try to just be human beings together, but then you go out in public, and you realize that they mean a whole other thing to the public than to you.
a&e features
Visit Cambridge, a ‘beautiful secret’ on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
New organization promotes town’s welcoming vibe, LGBTQ inclusion
CAMBRIDGE, Md. — Driving through this scenic, historic town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, you’ll be charmed by streets lined with unique shops, restaurants, and beautifully restored Victorian homes. You’ll also be struck by the number of LGBTQ Pride flags flying throughout the town.
The flags are a reassuring signal that everyone is welcome here, despite the town’s location in ruby red Dorchester County, which voted for Donald Trump over Kamala Harris by a lopsided margin. But don’t let that deter you from visiting. A new organization, Proudly Cambridge, is holding its debut Pride event this weekend, touting the town’s welcoming, inclusive culture.
“We stumbled on a beautiful secret and we wanted to help get the word out,” said James Lumalcuri of the effort to create Proudly Cambridge.
The organization celebrates diversity, enhances public spaces, and seeks to uplift all that Cambridge has to share, according to its mission statement, under the tagline “You Belong Here.”
The group has so far held informal movie nights and a picnic and garden party; the launch party is June 28 at the Cambridge Yacht Club, which will feature a Pride celebration and tea dance. The event’s 75 tickets sold out quickly and proceeds benefit DoCo Pride.
“Tickets went faster than we imagined and we’re bummed we can’t welcome everyone who wanted to come,” Lumalcuri said, adding that organizers plan to make “Cheers on the Choptank” an annual event with added capacity next year.
One of the group’s first projects was to distribute free Pride flags to anyone who requested one and the result is a visually striking display of a large number of flags flying all over town. Up next: Proudly Cambridge plans to roll out a program offering affirming businesses rainbow crab stickers to show their inclusiveness and LGBTQ support. The group also wants to engage with potential visitors and homebuyers.
“We want to spread the word outside of Cambridge — in D.C. and Baltimore — who don’t know about Cambridge,” Lumalcuri said. “We want them to come and know we are a safe haven. You can exist here and feel comfortable and supported by neighbors in a way that we didn’t anticipate when we moved here.”
Lumalcuri, 53, a federal government employee, and his husband, Lou Cardenas, 62, a Realtor, purchased a Victorian house in Cambridge in 2021 and embarked on an extensive renovation. The couple also owns a home in Adams Morgan in D.C.
“We saw the opportunity here and wanted to share it with others,” Cardenas said. “There’s lots of housing inventory in the $300-400,000 range … we’re not here to gentrify people out of town because a lot of these homes are just empty and need to be fixed up and we’re happy to be a part of that.”
Lumalcuri was talking with friends one Sunday last year at the gazebo (affectionately known as the “gayzebo” by locals) at the Yacht Club and the idea for Proudly Cambridge was born. The founding board members are Lumalcuri, Corey van Vlymen, Brian Orjuela, Lauren Mross, and Caleb Holland. The group is currently working toward forming a 501(c)3.
“We need visibility and support for those who need it,” Mross said. “We started making lists of what we wanted to do and the five of us ran with it. We started meeting weekly and solidified what we wanted to do.”
Mross, 50, a brand strategist and web designer, moved to Cambridge from Atlanta with her wife three years ago. They knew they wanted to be near the water and farther north and began researching their options when they discovered Cambridge.
“I had not heard of Cambridge but the location seemed perfect,” she said. “I pointed on a map and said this is where we’re going to move.”
The couple packed up, bought a camper trailer and parked it in different campsites but kept coming back to Cambridge.
“I didn’t know how right it was until we moved here,” she said. “It’s the most welcoming place … there’s an energy vortex here – how did so many cool, progressive people end up in one place?”
Corey van Vlymen and his husband live in D.C. and were looking for a second home. They considered Lost River, W.Va., but decided they preferred to be on the water.
“We looked at a map on both sides of the bay and came to Cambridge on a Saturday and bought a house that day,” said van Vlymen, 39, a senior scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton. They’ve owned in Cambridge for two years.
They were drawn to Cambridge due to its location on the water, the affordable housing inventory, and its proximity to D.C.; it’s about an hour and 20 minutes away.
Now, through the work of Proudly Cambridge, they hope to highlight the town’s many attributes to residents and visitors alike.
“Something we all agree on is there’s a perception problem for Cambridge and a lack of awareness,” van Vlymen said. “If you tell someone you’re going to Cambridge, chances are they think, ‘England or Massachusetts?’”
He cited the affordability and the opportunity to save older, historic homes as a big draw for buyers.
“It’s all about celebrating all the things that make Cambridge great,” Mross added. “Our monthly social events are joyful and celebratory.” A recent game night drew about 70 people.
She noted that the goal is not to gentrify the town and push longtime residents out, but to uplift all the people who are already there while welcoming new visitors and future residents.
They also noted that Proudly Cambridge does not seek to supplant existing Pride-focused organizations. Dorchester County Pride organizes countywide Pride events and Delmarva Pride was held in nearby Easton two weeks ago.
“We celebrate all diversity but are gay powered and gay led,” Mross noted.
To learn more about Proudly Cambridge, visit the group on Facebook and Instagram.
What to see and do
Cambridge, located 13 miles up the Choptank River from the Chesapeake Bay, has a population of roughly 15,000. It was settled in 1684 and named for the English university town in 1686. It is home to the Harriet Tubman Museum, mural, and monument. Its proximity to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge makes it a popular stop for birders, drawn to more than 27,000 acres of marshland dubbed “the Everglades of the north.”
The refuge is walkable, bikeable, and driveable, making it an accessible attraction for all. There are kayaking and biking tours through Blackwater Adventures (blackwateradventuresmd.com).
Back in town, take a stroll along the water and through historic downtown and admire the architecture. Take in the striking Harriet Tubman mural (424 Race St.). Shop in the many local boutiques, and don’t miss the gay-owned Shorelife Home and Gifts (421 Race St.), filled with stylish coastal décor items.
Stop for breakfast or lunch at Black Water Bakery (429 Race St.), which offers a full compliment of coffee drinks along with a build-your-own mimosa bar and a full menu of creative cocktails.
The Cambridge Yacht Club (1 Mill St.) is always bustling but you need to be a member to get in. Snapper’s on the water is temporarily closed for renovations. RaR Brewing (rarbrewing.com) is popular for craft beers served in an 80-year-old former pool hall and bowling alley. The menu offers burgers, wings, and other bar fare.
For dinner or wine, don’t miss the fantastic Vintage 414 (414 Race St.), which offers lunch, dinner, wine tasting events, specialty foods, and a large selection of wines. The homemade cheddar crackers, inventive flatbreads, and creative desserts (citrus olive oil cake, carrot cake trifle) were a hit on a recent visit.
Also nearby is Ava’s (305 High St.), a regional chain offering outstanding Italian dishes, pizzas, and more.
For something off the beaten path, visit Emily’s Produce (22143 Church Creek Rd.) for its nursery, produce, and prepared meals.
“Ten minutes into the sticks there’s a place called Emily’s Produce, where you can pay $5 and walk through a field and pick sunflowers, blueberries, you can feed the goats … and they have great food,” van Vlymen said.
As for accommodations, there’s the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay (100 Heron Blvd. at Route 50), a resort complex with golf course, spa, and marina. Otherwise, check out Airbnb and VRBO for short-term rentals closer to downtown.
Its proximity to D.C. and Baltimore makes Cambridge an ideal weekend getaway. The large LGBTQ population is welcoming and they are happy to talk up their town and show you around.
“There’s a closeness among the neighbors that I wasn’t feeling in D.C.,” Lumalcuri said. “We look after each other.”
a&e features
James Baldwin bio shows how much of his life is revealed in his work
‘A Love Story’ is first major book on acclaimed author’s life in 30 years
‘Baldwin: A Love Story’
By Nicholas Boggs
c.2025, FSG
$35/704 pages
“Baldwin: A Love Story” is a sympathetic biography, the first major one in 30 years, of acclaimed Black gay writer James Baldwin. Drawing on Baldwin’s fiction, essays, and letters, Nicolas Boggs, a white writer who rediscovered and co-edited a new edition of a long-lost Baldwin book, explores Baldwin’s life and work through focusing on his lovers, mentors, and inspirations.
The book begins with a quick look at Baldwin’s childhood in Harlem, and his difficult relationship with his religious, angry stepfather. Baldwin’s experience with Orilla Miller, a white teacher who encouraged the boy’s writing and took him to plays and movies, even against his father’s wishes, helped shape his life and tempered his feelings toward white people. When Baldwin later joined a church and became a child preacher, though, he felt conflicted between academic success and religious demands, even denouncing Miller at one point. In a fascinating late essay, Baldwin also described his teenage sexual relationship with a mobster, who showed him off in public.
Baldwin’s romantic life was complicated, as he preferred men who were not outwardly gay. Indeed, many would marry women and have children while also involved with Baldwin. Still, they would often remain friends and enabled Baldwin’s work. Lucien Happersberger, who met Baldwin while both were living in Paris, sent him to a Swiss village, where he wrote his first novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” as well as an essay, “Stranger in the Village,” about the oddness of being the first Black person many villagers had ever seen. Baldwin met Turkish actor Engin Cezzar in New York at the Actors’ Studio; Baldwin later spent time in Istanbul with Cezzar and his wife, finishing “Another Country” and directing a controversial play about Turkish prisoners that depicted sexuality and gender.
Baldwin collaborated with French artist Yoran Cazac on a children’s book, which later vanished. Boggs writes of his excitement about coming across this book while a student at Yale and how he later interviewed Cazac and his wife while also republishing the book. Baldwin also had many tumultuous sexual relationships with young men whom he tried to mentor and shape, most of which led to drama and despair.
The book carefully examines Baldwin’s development as a writer. “Go Tell It on the Mountain” draws heavily on his early life, giving subtle signs of the main character John’s sexuality, while “Giovanni’s Room” bravely and openly shows a homosexual relationship, highly controversial at the time. “If Beale Street Could Talk” features a woman as its main character and narrator, the first time Baldwin wrote fully through a woman’s perspective. His essays feel deeply personal, even if they do not reveal everything; Lucian is the unnamed visiting friend in one who the police briefly detained along with Baldwin. He found New York too distracting to write, spending his time there with friends and family or on business. He was close friends with modernist painter Beauford Delaney, also gay, who helped Baldwin see that a Black man could thrive as an artist. Delaney would later move to France, staying near Baldwin’s home.
An epilogue has Boggs writing about encountering Baldwin’s work as one of the few white students in a majority-Black school. It helpfully reminds us that Baldwin connects to all who feel different, no matter their race, sexuality, gender, or class. A well-written, easy-flowing biography, with many excerpts from Baldwin’s writing, it shows how much of his life is revealed in his work. Let’s hope it encourages reading the work, either again or for the first time.
a&e features
Looking back at 50 years of Pride in D.C
Washington Blade’s unique archives chronicle highs, lows of our movement
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of LGBTQ Pride in Washington, D.C., the Washington Blade team combed our archives and put together a glossy magazine showcasing five decades of celebrations in the city. Below is a sampling of images from the magazine but be sure to find a print copy starting this week.
The magazine is being distributed now and is complimentary. You can find copies at LGBTQ bars and restaurants across the city. Or visit the Blade booth at the Pride festival on June 7 and 8 where we will distribute copies.
Thank you to our advertisers and sponsors, whose support has enabled us to distribute the magazine free of charge. And thanks to our dedicated team at the Blade, especially Photo Editor Michael Key, who spent many hours searching the archives for the best images, many of which are unique to the Blade and cannot be found elsewhere. And thanks to our dynamic production team of Meaghan Juba, who designed the magazine, and Phil Rockstroh who managed the process. Stephen Rutgers and Brian Pitts handled sales and marketing and staff writers Lou Chibbaro Jr., Christopher Kane, Michael K. Lavers, Joe Reberkenny along with freelancer and former Blade staffer Joey DiGuglielmo wrote the essays.
The magazine represents more than 50 years of hard work by countless reporters, editors, advertising sales reps, photographers, and other media professionals who have brought you the Washington Blade since 1969.
We hope you enjoy the magazine and keep it as a reminder of all the many ups and downs our local LGBTQ community has experienced over the past 50 years.
I hope you will consider supporting our vital mission by becoming a Blade member today. At a time when reliable, accurate LGBTQ news is more essential than ever, your contribution helps make it possible. With a monthly gift starting at just $7, you’ll ensure that the Blade remains a trusted, free resource for the community — now and for years to come. Click here to help fund LGBTQ journalism.
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