Andre Lancaster Brings “Fire! New Play Festival” to Brooklyn

Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 8:18 am. 0 comments

Freedom Train Productions presents a trio of new plays by Andre Lancaster, featuring “black, queer protagonists center stage.”  Read More

Meryl Cohn Wins Playwriting Award for “The Siegels of Montauk”

Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 1:12 pm. 0 comments

Meryl Cohn has won the 2009 Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest for The Siegels of Montauk, an ensemble play about love, loss, ethics, and sex.  Featuring an LGBT-friendly Jewish family with three adult sisters, their mother, and two friends who gather to close out the recently-deceased father’s beach house, Cohn’s play was first produced at Counter Productions of Provincetown Theater.

As the Cape Cod Times reports, “Cohn’s dialogue is crisp and revealing as it illuminates the dark side of grief and secrecy.  At the same time, the intricate family dynamics spark genuine laughter and joy.”

A semifinalist for the 2008 and 2006 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Cohn is better known as Ms. Behavior, the nationally syndicated lesbian advice columnist with irreverent humor and impeccable tips about relationships, manners, and sex.  Her column has appeared in such publications as The Philadelphia Gay News, Just Out, Out, Lavender Magazine, The Washington Blade, The Southern Voice, Bay Windows, and Out Front.  Her articles have appeared in The Village Voice, The Boston Phoenix, and The Washington Post, among others.

Seven of Cohn’s plays have been commissioned for productions at Provincetown Theatre.

Past winners of the Jane Chambers Award, given annually since 1984 in memory of lesbian playwright Jane Chambers, include Wendy Kesselman, Madeleine George, Christine Evans, and Mary F. Casey.

Cohn will be recognized at ATHE’s annual conference in New York City in an Awards Ceremony August 10th.  That same day, beginning 10:30am in the Astor Ballroom, WTP will host a playreading of The Siegels of Montauk, directed by Maya Roth, and featuring NY, DC, and Provincetown-based actors. Members of the public are invited.

Other plays recognized this year by the Jane Chambers Contest include the runners-up: THE WISDOM OF SERPENTS, by Diane Baia, a historical thriller with music about 11th century mystic, abbess and composer Hildegard von Blingen; CHARM, by Kathleen Cahill, about the private life and influence of the free-spirited women’s rights advocate and writer Margaret Fuller, as imagined in relation to the male literary giants of her time-Emerson, Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne; TOPIARIES, by Elizabeth Rosengren Cotone, a contemporary play about a female glass blower, infused with an ecological spirit and unexpected insights on living with a serious reproductive disease; and CHING CHONG CHINAMAN, by Lauren Yee, an absurdist satire of Asian-American assimilation and identities which won the 2007 Yale Playwrights Festival as well as the Kumu Kahua Theatre’s 2007 Pacific Rim Prize. Erin Kaplan of NYU won the Student Jane Chambers Award for COLLATERAL BODIES, an activist performance about violence against women from five cultures (American, Mexican, Arab, Somali, and Eastern European) to be read by the Women & Theatre Program at Teatro Pregones, August 8.

Details on all of these works may be read here.

A reading of THE SIEGELS OF MONATAUK, directed by Maya Roth, will be held, featuring NY, DC, and Provincetown actors. Members of the public  are welcome to attend.
WHEN:  August 10th at 10 a.m.
WHERE: ASTOR BALLROOM, Marriott Marquis,  1535 Broadway (at 45th St.) NYC
Ticket Cost:  FREE
An AWARD CEREMONY will also be held on Monday August 10 at 1:45pm,  Same Location

Meryl Cohn

Is Daniel Radcliffe Gay?

Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 8:20 am. 1 comment

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is not gay.  Or is he?  In the interests of publicity for the new installment of the film series, he’s been having some fun stoking the fires of the machinery of rumors that have been raging for the past year or so.  The latest is an interview for Moviefone which was only 4 questions in before the question of Dumbledore being gay was introduced.  “It’s wonderful.  I grew up around gay people my entire life, basically, that’s possibly why I’m quite camp, and some people think I’m gay when I meet them, which I think is awesome.”

Perhaps the rumors first began when he took on the lead role in Peter Shaffer’s homoerotic masterpiece Equus, which entails extensive nudity and male-male contact.  Showbiz Spy (link) reported that he said he’d gladly marry his co-star Lorenzo Pisoni, if only Pisoni were gay.  Naturally the full frontal photos spread like wildfire on the Internet.  Now those are being eclipsed by a Steven Klein spread for Details which includes a shot of a scruffy leather-clad Radcliffe that is a candidate for a gay icon status.

Daniel Radcliffe by Steven Klein

Radcliffe’s London gay nightclubbing with presumed homosexual Kevin Spacey and openly gay Stephen Fry have branded him a silver fox chaser in some people’s minds.  Not to mention the 6′8″ transsexual he claims to have gone out with (Our Lady J confirms she’s the one.)  Radcliffe has mentioned a desire to play a drag queen in a film, and thought he might make a good gay James Bond with Potter co-star Rupert Grint as his love interest.

Some blogs that follow the star have gone from pegging him as liking older women, to not wanting to date women at all, to “not saying anything about boyfriends.”

And then there’s the kiss.  Not his fault at all, of course, only James Corden taking advantage (and who wouldn’t) but you have to admire Radcliffe’s willingness to go with the moment.

Stay tuned for further developments.

Gregory Maquire Signs “Wicked” in Tuscon Wednesday June 17

Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 8:12 pm. 0 comments

Gregory Maguire, the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, will sign books at the annual author presentation of the Pima County Public Library’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Services Committee.  Wicked, based on characters from The Wizard of Oz was turned into a Tony-winning Broadway musical which is often produced around the world.  The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on June 17 at The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway, Tucson Arizona.  Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and the event will be sign interpreted for the hearing-impaired. Added bonus: a live performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by members of Desert Voices, Tucson’s Premier GLBT and Straight Chorus.  A very gay evening indeed.

Coming to Broadway next year: The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 7:59 am. 0 comments

Tony Kushner’s new play is going through a workout at the Guthrie in Minnesota.  National critics, please ignore.  Read More