Arts & Entertainment
Finding ‘Follies’
Gay actress says role feels conceived for her
Terri White feels she finally grew into her ‘Follies’ role and is thrilled to be in the current Kennedy Center production. (Photo courtesy of the Kennedy Center)
‘Follies’
Through June 19
The Kennedy Center
$45-$150
202-467-4600
www.kennedy-center.org
Throughout her long career in show business, Terri White has certainly sung her share of Stephen Sondheim tunes in nightclubs and piano bars, but it’s not until now that she is actually tackling a full-fledged role in one of his musicals. As has-been dancer Stella Deems in Sondheim’s nostalgic backstage story “Follies” (currently enjoying a much anticipated run at the Kennedy Center), White, who is also gay, feels she’s found the part of a lifetime.
“I first saw ‘Follies’ when it opened on Broadway in 1971,” says White, 62. “And over the years I’ve sort of grown into the part.” Not only do White and her character both share roots in theater of a different era, they also know what it means to step away from show business and find respite in sunny Florida. “It’s uncanny,” White says. “It’s as if Stella was written especially for me. I’ve just had to wait 40 years to be old enough to give it a try.”
Considered among the best of Sondheim and James Goldman’s collaborations, “Follies” is a hauntingly beautiful tribute to lavish revues and increasingly complicated lives. Gathered for a final goodbye in a once grand New York theater on the eve of its destruction, a group of former showgirls reminisce about the glamorous, good old days and share where their post-chorine lives have taken them. On top of Goldman’s rich libretto, the show boasts a memorable hit laden score: “Broadway Baby,” “I’m Still Here,” “Too Many Mornings,” “Could I Leave You?” and “Losing My Mind.”
With a multi-million dollar budget, a 28-piece orchestra, and a large cast including megawatt dames like Bernadette Peters, Elaine Page and Linda Lavin, the Kennedy Center’s “Follies” (staged by gay director Eric Schaeffer) is produced big as it should be, says White. “And there are no divas here,” she adds. “It’s a brilliantly cast group of professionals who’ve come not only to work, but also to enjoy ourselves while we’re here. I respect all the ladies and relish the opportunity to share the stage with them.”
As a kid, White was part of the family act the White Quartet, and travelled the South and the Midwest performing on the TOBA — Theater Owners Booking Association, or more familiarly known to performers as Tough on Black Asses — circuit.
“My father was a crooner and a hoofer. He taught me to tap dance and put me on stage when I was 8. Times were often tough. Sometimes managers didn’t pay us and we’d get very low on funds,” she says. “I’d glue bottle caps to the soles of my shoes and tap dance on a wooden crate to raise some change for sandwiches and gas to get us to the next city for a gig.”
During those early years on the road, White watched as theaters turned exclusively into rock venues, movie houses or entirely disappeared. In the 1960s, she arrived in New York City as a dancer who sang, but as she grew older the physical challenges of dance prompted her to change her focus to singing. She still dances however. In fact, White’s Stella is perhaps the only one ever to tap dance throughout her big production number “Who’s That Woman?”
White’s Broadway and off-Broadway experience includes Joice Heth in “Barnum,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” as Neal, gay director/choreographer Tommy Tune’s “The Club” (Obie Award 1976) in which she literally tap danced from her entrance to her exit, “Nunsense,” “Stepping Out” at Radio City with Liza Minnelli, “Chicago,” and the recent revival of “Finian’s Rainbow.”
Despite her big talent, White has known lulls in her career. After appearing in Tony Award-winning “Barnum” on Broadway in 1980, White was unable to find similar gigs for eight years. “I was effectively blacklisted for being gay,” she says. “There were a lot of gay men in the theater, but you didn’t see a lot of openly gay women performing on Broadway then or now.”
In 2008, White lost her apartment and slept in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park for three months. With the help of friends she found a signing gig in Key West, Fla., where she met her wife and business partner Donna Barnett. A year later the couple was celebrated a commitment ceremony on the stage of the St. James Theater where White was playing in “Finnian’s Rainbow.” Shortly thereafter, they were legally married in nearby Connecticut.
“For now,” White says, “I’m happy playing this incredible part Stella in ‘Follies.’ If the show goes on to Broadway, my wife and I will follow. If not it’s back to Key West to enjoy some gorgeous sunsets. That’s the plan.”
Superstar Dolly Parton died on Tuesday at a Nashville hospital. She was 80.
The Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal are among the groups that mourned the long-time LGBTQ ally’s passing.
“We are heartbroken by Dolly’s passing,” said HRC President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “She showed the world what it looks like to lead with love and stood with our community long before others in entertainment, using her voice and platform to create a world where LGBTQ+ people feel seen and celebrated. Her music and her spirit touched millions; and her generosity, especially toward children, will be felt for generations. We will miss her dearly, and we will carry forward the light she shared with all of us.”
The Washington Blade will update this story.
Theater
New GALA show about WWII spy full of conflict, intrigue
‘GARBO: The Actor Who Saved the World’ an inspired true story
‘Garbo: The Actor Who Saved the World’
Sept. 3-27
GALA Hispanic Theatre
3333 14th St., NW
$25-$50
galatheatre.org
Conflict, intrigue, and abundant imagination – all the elements for an extraordinary story. Add real-life Spanish spy Juan Pujol García who worked as a double agent loyal to the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany during World War II to the mix and it’s truly inspired.
Code-named “Garbo” by the British (a nod to his acting prowess), the anti-fascist’s mission took him from Madrid to Lisbon and later a London suburb where he created fictitious reports while unassumingly blending in with middle-class commuters.
By inventing a phony spy network of 27 agents with intricate backstories and tales of espionage worthy of Balzac’s pen, Garbo convinced Hitler’s generals that the D-Day invasion would hit Calais instead of Normandy, saving thousands of lives along the way.
And now the tale unfolds on stage in “GARBO: The Actor Who Saved the World,” a premiere thriller at GALA Hispanic penned by GALA artistic director Gustavo Ott, staged by Cuban director Carlos Celdrán, and starring out actor Kevin Jorges in the title role.
When Jorges was tapped to play Garbo, he (like the rest of the cast) was utterly unfamiliar with the play’s cunning protagonist.
But that changed quickly. Jorges, 37, has immersed himself in the biography and become increasingly interested and somewhat enamored with the character.
Charismatic with an easy smile and rich, warm voice, Jorges says he had to put aside his sensibility as a gay man in order to portray Garbo, who was a straight, patriarchal figure. But he also embraced similarities with the spy, like their shared aversion to physical violence.
And Jorges cites what he finds a pivotal moment: Garbo says to his British MI5 case officer and handler Thomas Harris (played by gay GALA veteran Carlos Castillo) that after what they’ve been through, neither will be what they once wanted to be. They are changed. They’ll never be the same.
Performed at 90 minutes in Spanish with user friendly English surtitles, “Garbo” is about imagination as resistance. “It’s also about a theatrical vocation that went unfulfilled,” says Ott. “That is perhaps the greatest disappointment of modernity: the insurmountable obstacles a vocation faces.
“Through his imagination, Garbo attempts to reclaim his lost calling—that of being an artist—and in his new trade as a spy, he uses it as a lifeline.”
Ott adds, “Walt Whitman viewed imagination as a traveling companion. He could rely on it when he was alone, when he lost hope, and when life slammed every door shut.”
Jorges was was attracted to acting at an early age, but the murder of his father in Caracas in 1999, made it more than an interest, theater became a refuge that saved him from tragedy. Today, he believes that theater is a refuge for many Venezuelan artists, it’s a way for them to contribute to society despite difficult circumstances.
Despite enjoying a successful early career in Caracas with many roles and accolades, Jorges had no choice but to seek new horizons. Political turmoil and economic collapse prompted him to leave Caracas in 2019 for Spain where he worked outside of his profession for a few years.
The actor credits “migrant persistence” for his return to the stage. On New Year’s Eve in 2022, Jorges made a pilgrimage to the famous monument to Cervantes at Plaza de España in Madrid where he made a heartfelt wish to act again.
Soon after, Jorges was collaborating with playwright and director Elio Palencia on “Timón Of(f) Caracas,” a personal one-man adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Timon of Athens, reframing the universal themes of betrayal, excess, and misanthropy to mirror the sociopolitical realities of Venezuela. To much success and acclaim, the production toured important cities throughout Spain.
It was Palencia who suggested to GALA’s Ott that Jorges hop the pond to play Garbo in D.C.
While he once viewed each acting job as an opportunity, Jorges now sees them as gifts. And, he says, the part of Garbo is a gift filled with possibilities: “It’s wonderful performing in Spanish with English translation. I love the interaction of culture. I really enjoy seeing the way things are done at GALA. Maybe sometime I’ll be performing in English too.”
Books
Exploring Renée Richards’s life through lens of a trans author
Surprises await in new book about pioneering tennis star
‘Finding Renée Richards’
By Julie Kliegman
c.2026, HarperOne
$28.99/272 pages
Come on in, the water’s fine.
Wade into it up to your ankles, your calves, your waist, you’ll be OK. You’ll adjust to the waves that swirl around you so come on, dive in, it’s all good. As in the new book “Finding Renée Richards” by Julie Kliegman, that goes for swimming, and for controversy.
Assigned to do a story on books written by trans tennis great Renée Richards, Julie Kleigman read the books and became “transfixed by a woman who had fought so hard to simply live as who she had long known she was….”. Their editor had figured that, as a nonbinary and trans individual, Kleigman would have “something incisive to say…” in an article. Instead, once they met and began interviewing Richards, Kliegman was left frustrated.
Born in the late summer of 1934, Richard Henry Raskind seemed to have arrived with a tennis racket in his hand. His mother was a psychiatrist; his father was an orthopedic surgeon who hoped “Dick” would follow his footsteps but Raskind was drawn instead to ophthalmology and tennis. He was also irresistibly drawn to wearing women’s clothing.
His sister knew of this pull and Raskind eventually came out to both parents, but few others on the tennis circuit were aware. When Raskind visited his hometown of New York City, however, he enjoyed furtively going out in women’s clothing but he also tried to squash the desire; in the meantime, he fell in love, married, fathered a son, and eventually learned that it was possible to become the woman he knew he really was.
To continue playing tennis professionally was a bonus.
And right there were the disagreements Kleigman had with Richards.
Richards, “To this day… [makes] a point of describing herself as a woman, period,” says Kleigman, but she firmly acknowledged Richard, almost as a separate individual, insisting that Kleigman use “him/his” pronouns when describing her earlier life.
And as for tennis and trans women’s participation in the sport, Richards had something even more frustrating to say.
Take that as a fair warning: you might be equally surprised at what author Julie Kliegman uncovered in “Finding Renée Richards,” and you may be truly gobsmacked by reading opinions from other women about the topic of trans women in sports.
That’s the main, huge point of interest in this fascinating book; the other is Richards’s life as seen through the lens of a trans individual. Kleigman’s wrestling with the 90-year-old Richards’ firmly dug-in heels is, in itself, worth your time as a study of highly varying viewpoints. That Kleigman and Richards have both lived at least a part of trans history is somewhat of a key to understanding how this book unfolds, as Kleigman offers up Richards’s tale. Readers who are able to read between the lines will be riveted.
If you’re a sports fan and you have opinions, you must read this book – and that goes double if it’s tennis you love. Also check out “Finding Renée Richards” if you just want a raucously good and very fine read.
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Dolly Parton dies at 80
Monument to LGBTQ Canadians officially unveiled
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
When home becomes a journey: migration, memory, and the African diaspora
Gay-owned pizzeria in Dupont Circle burglarized
Trump-Vance administration’s LGBTQ brain drain: what you need to know
Not all trans people are the same
UPDATE: Impulse Group’s ‘PrEP Pool Party’ cancelled
Calendar: August 21-27
