Preeminent composer of stage musicals, Stephen Sondheim worked with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story and wrote words and music for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Little Night Music, Sweeny Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods. He won an Academy Award for his work on Dick Tracy in 1990.
Sondheim stayed in the closet until 1998 despite rampant speculation about his sexuality. His first long-term relationship had begun late in life, with a younger man named Peter Jones, whom he met in 1991. The two eventually lived together and exchanged wedding rings, but Jones later moved out.
“I was sexually very late blooming,” Sondheim has said. From the beginning, though, his work has resonated with gay men, and regardless of his personal life, he has held a prominent position in gay culture.
Vote for December’s Queer of the Month in the poll in the right column.
Posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:29 am. 0 comments
Broadway and TV star Cherry Jones (24, The Heiress, Doubt) has told Us Magazine that she and longtime partner Sarah Paulson have amicably split up. “It’s the happiest break up that’s ever been. We grew so much together and now we can send each other off with a kiss and great love.” Read More.
Two-time Tony nominee Gavin Creel, currently starring in the Broadway revival of Hair, will be doing two shows at Joe’s Pub in New York July 27. Tickets for the first show sold out within an hour, prompting addition of the second set. Quiet, Creel’s follow-up to his 2006 CD Goodtimenation is due to be released soon.
Gavin Creel
Meanwhile, the entire cast of Hair will make an appearance on The Tonight Show tomorrow night (Monday July 13). Following the taping, they will troop out to West Hollywood’s Here Lounge where they will stage a “Be-In for Equality” with legendary gay activist Cleve Jones.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 12:50 pm. 0 comments
Beijing opera singer and convicted spy Shi Pei Pu, whose story inspired the Broadway play and film M. Butterfly, has died in Paris at age 70.
During the twenty years Shi and his lover, Bernard Boursicot, were together, Boursicot believed Shi to be a woman. As Shi put it, “I used to fascinate both men and women. What I was and what they were didn’t matter.”
When they met in Beijing, Shi was 26 and living as a man. Boursicot, 20, was an apparently gay man determined to go straight. Shi managed to convince him that he was actually a woman forced by his father, who wanted a son, to pretend to be a man. They began a relationship that brought them together on occasions when the well-traveled Boursicot was in China. When Chinese authorities discovered their situation, they blackmailed Boursicot, an accountant at the French embassy, to pass secret documents to them.
During one visit, Shi introduced Boursicot to a 4-year-old boy who he said was their son. Boursicot arranged for Shi and the boy to live with him in Paris. Shi and Boursicot were convicted of espionage in France in 1986. As he was admitted to prison, Shi was discovered to be a man. When Boursicot, already in prison, heard that news, he attempted suicide.
David Henry Hwang wrote M. Butterfly, combining Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly with the real life story of Shi and Boursicot. The play, starring John Lithgow and B.D. Wong, ran for 777 performances with David Dukes, Anthony Hopkins, Tony Randall, and John Rubinstein taking over for Lithgow through the run.
Boursicot never forgave Shi, but they had occasional contact over the years since their story became famous. When they last spoke a few months ago, Shi told Boursicot he still loved him.
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