Gay City News March 14, 2012

Inclusive St. Pat’s Parade at 13 3 Will They Laugh at “Carrie”? 22 Unlikely Wartime Alliance in Paris 16 Times Square West Gay Hotel Opens 30 FREE VOLUME ELEVEN, ISSUE SIX MARCH 14-27, 2012

© GAY CITY NEWS 2012 • COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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The Ins and Outs of Gay Advocacy As fallout over ESPA firing of Ross Levi mounts, Chad Griffin hailed as HRC’s new chief 8-11

Illustration by Vince Joy

Protest Hits Center’s Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian Ban Critics of West Bank, Gaza policies mark one year since eviction 13

When the Pro-Equality Tory Dines With the Evolving Democrat 26

PAGES 32, 33 & 34

LUK MONSAERT

Closing Night at the Transvestite Cabaret 28

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COMMUNITY

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Inclusive St. Pat’s Parade Turns 13 Irish government sends representative to Sunnyside for first time

BY ANDY HUMM

ILENE CUTLER

GAY CITY NEWS

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City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, grand marshal Peter Quinn, Brendan Fay, grand marshal Mary Brosnahan, Irish Minister for Equality Kathleen Lynch, Deirdre Feerick, and Assemblyman David Weprin.

The multiracial Keltic Dreams dancers from PS 59 in the Bronx were among the diverse participants who turned out to celebrate in an inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade in Sunnyside on March 4.

this parade.” Councilmembers Daniel Dromm, Mark Weprin, Karen Koslowitz, Tish James, and Rosie Mendez were also there, as was Queens Congressman Joe Crowley.

State Senator Tom Duane told the crowd, “I’ve been told I have a face that is the map of Ireland. Well this is the face of Ireland: inclusiveness.”

His colleagues from the State Senate, Jose Peralta and Mike Gianaris, as well as Assemblyman David Weprin also marched.

Bloomberg said, “By order of the mayor, everyone is Irish.

We have a long ways to go. Let’s keep up the fight.”

The LGBT community battles most St. Patrick’s parades in New York because of their refusal to let gay Irish groups participate. Staten Island Pride Events (SIPE) tried and failed last year to get into the island’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, leading to a boycott by most of these Democratic politicians, just as they refuse to march in the Fifth Avenue parade. In 2012, SIPE declined to even apply to participate in the March 4 Staten Island parade, which has declared itself a private reli-

history.”

The St. Pat’s for All continues to bring together a grand mix of races, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations, from the multiracial Keltic Dreams dancers from PS 59 in the Bronx to Integrity, a group for LGBT Episcopalians. Integrity’s Paul Lane said, “How many other St. Patrick’s parades welcome Protestants and Catholics?”

GRCC

t. Patrick’s Day parades around the city continue to ban LGBT contingents, but for the 13th year, the St. Pat’s for All Parade from Sunnyside to Woodside in Queens welcomed all on March 4.

The Irish government was represented this year by Minister for Equality Kathleen Lynch, who told the crowd, “Diversity is what we’re all about in Ireland, and that’s why we’ve succeeded everywhere in the world that we go.”

The Irish consul general to New York, Noel Kilkenny, was on hand and read a message of greeting from Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

“It is deeply reassuring,” Higgins wrote, “that there are many people who are proud of their Irishness — in all its aspects and diversity — that they invest so much effort and commitment in ensuring the success of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations all around the world.”

St. Patrick’s Day parades in Ireland are open to LGBT groups that want to participate.

The parade, led by organizers Brendan Fay and Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy, had as grand marshals Mary Brosnahan, who as executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless is the city’s most tenacious advocate on that issue, and historian Peter Quinn, who introduced himself as “the son of a New Deal congressman from the Bronx.”

“Just remember how bor ing the parade on Fifth Avenue is,” Quinn said. “Down with the banks, up with the Republic!”

A host of political leaders were on hand including Mayor Michel Bloomberg, Comptroller John Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was absent due to illness.

Councilman Jimmy van Bramer, who represents the area, said, “Our neighborhood embraces the parade more and more every single year. So proud to be Irish American and an openly gay man and that I can be both of those things in

Caporales San Simon Universitarios, a Bolivian community dance group, also turned out for a celebration of Irish tradition by all those who love it.

gious event yet still receives city funds from Councilwoman Debi Rose and Borough President James Molinaro.

Bloomberg participates in most of the St. Patrick’s Day parades, whether or not they discriminate. He, Speaker Quinn, and Stringer, however, are fighting for the separation of church and state in the city’s quest to enforce its law ban-

ning worship services in public schools. In contrast, de Blasio and Liu support access for churches wishing to hold worship in the public schools.

In Sunnyside on March 4, de Blasio was celebrating diversity and told Gay City he thought all parades would eventually welcome LGBT groups.

“It will happen over time,” he said. “This is the movement of

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POLITICS

Pride Agenda Board Fires Ross Levi

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

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arely eight months after New York State’s gay rights movement won its biggest victory ever, with the enactment of marriage equality, the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s LGBT lobby, has fired its executive director, Ross Levi.

The action came in a March 5 conference call with members of the boards of the organization’s two arms — the Empire State Pride Agenda, Inc., its lobbying and political action component, and the Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation, Inc., which does educational, organizing, and advocacy work on behalf of the LGBT community.

The dismissal was first reported at gaycitynews.com late in the evening on March 5.

The two boards, which have some overlap, include nearly three-dozen members. According to two board members who deliberated on the call but wished to remain anony-

Moments after the story was posted at gaycitynews.com — and less than two hours after telling the newspaper that Levi would stay on until April 6 — the group released a statement saying “Levi is no longer serving as executive director.

Lynn Faria, our current deputy executive director, will serve as interim executive director effective immediately.”

Accounts provided independently by the two other board members who spoke to Gay City News were in remarkable lockstep with each other on what led to the demise of Levi’s tenure, which lasted less than 22 months: There was widespread dissatisfaction with Levi and the organization’s leadership on the marriage fight last year — where ESPA shared responsibilities with other leading advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, the Gill Action Fund, the Log Cabin Republicans, and Marriage Equality New York.

Board members, the two agreed, were also unhappy that Levi had not defined a clear vision for the group’s postmarriage equality agenda and was not achieving fundraising goals.

Reached by phone on the evening of March 5, Levi declined comment, but said he would have something to say at a later time. The following morning, Levi issued a statement (see sidebar below), but took no questions, for the time being, he said.

Recalling last year’s fight for marriage equality in Albany, the two board members willing to speak in detail about the firing said the consensus among their colleagues was that Levi let other groups move to the fore, both in public visibility and behind closed doors, but that at times, as well, ESPA was asked to step back — including, in one

Moments after the story was posted at gaycitynews.com, the group released a statement saying “Levi is no longer serving as executive director.” mous, the decision was broadly embraced by those participating on March 5.

In a call with Gay City News, the group’s two board leaders — Louis A. Bradbury and Marla Hassner — confirmed Levi’s departure. He “will be stepping down” effective April 6, said Hassner, a co-chair of ESPA’s foundation and vice chair of the lobbying and political action arm.

Asked how the phrase “stepping down” squared with the boards’ decision to terminate Levi’s employment, Hassner said, “The Pride Agenda does not comment on personnel matters.”

䉴 ESPA, continued on p.11

EMPIRE STATE PRIDE AGENDA

After 12 years at ESPA, executive director for past 22 months refused to go away quietly

Ross Levi has left the Pride Agenda after more than a dozen years in April.

Ross Levi Responds to His Ouster Positive-focused statement comes morning after EPSA board votes to end tenure

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

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n a written statement released on March 6, Ross Levi, the former executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda ousted the evening before in a telephone meeting of the organization’s lobbying/ political action and educational foundation boards (first reported in Gay City News), sounded a determinedly upbeat tone, emphasizing his accomplishments in a dozen years with ESPA, just under two of them at the helm.

“From the Hate Crimes Law and SONDA [Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act], to the Dignity for All Students Act and marriage equality, and with over 60 other governmental achievements in between, I am extremely proud of my 12-year tenure with the Pride Agenda, and the work I did as Executive Director,” he wrote. “I am pleased that because of the successes I helped the organization achieve in 2011, including recordsetting special events and fundraising income that well exceeded our budget, the Pride Agenda has the capacity to continue serving as the strong statewide LGBT organization that New York needs. I am hopeful about its future successes, and look forward to pursuing the next chapter of my professional life.”

Though ESPA’s top board leaders, Louis Bradbury and Marla Hassner, hours after Levi’s dismissal, declined to discuss the reasons for that decision, saying “The Pride Agenda does not comment on personnel matters,” two other board members, who were involved in the telephone meeting at which the firing was approved but

requested anonymity, told Gay City News that dissatisfaction with the group’s fundraising was an important factor in the deliberations.

Levi attached a biography to his written statement underscoring what he accomplished at ESPA, where he served as legislative counsel from 2000 until 2003, director of public policy and governmental affairs from 2004 to 2006, and director of public policy and education from 2007 to 2010.

He was named executive director on May 22, 2010 as the permanent replacement for Alan Van Capelle, who resigned in the wake of the unsuccessful State Senate marriage equality vote in December 2009, when advocates fell short by a startling 38-24 vote. Announcement of his selection came one day after the sudden withdrawal of the expected hire, Brian Ellner, who later joined the Human Rights Campaign as that group’s marriage equality director in New York State.

“Ross was involved in every state governmental victory ever achieved by the Pride Agenda, including most recently New York’s marriage equality law, which doubled the number of Americans able to marry the person they love,” read the biography, which in addition to marriage equality, SONDA, and the Hate Crimes Law, listed, among his accomplishments “making the state’s 9/11 relief inclusive of same-sex couples; guaranteeing domestic partners hospital visitation, legal authority over a loved one’s bodily remains, access to Family Court and medical decision making authority; and securing over $50 million of funding for LGBT health and human services.”

䉴 LEVI, continued on p.13

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POLITICS

Critics Rip Pride Agenda Over Levi Firing As advocates take sides over surprise action, top Cuomo aide vouches for ESPA board’s marriage effort

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

GAY CITY NEWS

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ith neither Ross Levi nor the Empire State Pride Agenda board that fired him last week having much, if anything, to say publicly about the events leading to the former executive director’s March 5 dismissal, others are speaking up — and some of them, including two former leaders of the group, a top Paterson administration official, and a major philanthropic donor active in LGBT issues, are harshly critical of ESPA’s handling of the matter.

Meanwhile, Andrew Stern, a critic who is the chief operating officer at NARAL Pro-Choice New York, has stepped for ward to say he withdrew from consideration for the post Levi assumed in May 2010 after being told by ESPA’s search firm that some board members were concerned about how well his “shticky Jewish humor” would serve the organization.

Still, with Pride Agenda board members privately defending Levi’s ouster and arguing that professional standards on the board have been strengthened in recent years, Andrew Cuomo’s former top deputy, Steven M. Cohen, who left his position as secretary to the governor last fall, described the board as lending Levi a critical, politically deft, and complementary assist in the successful push early last year to enact marriage equality legislation.

That victory, of course, is the measure by which many in the LGBT community will judge ESPA, though even New Yorkers buoyed by that achievement can be excused for scratching their heads about how the group’s executive director could fall so far so fast in its wake.

The group’s critics include many of the most prominent names in New York LGBT advocacy.

Charles J. O’Byr ne, who served former Governor David Paterson in the same capacity Cohen held in the Cuomo administration, said the firing, first reported in Gay City News, “raises real questions about ESPA’s future. To have board

Matt Foreman and Alan Van Capelle, at the time of Van Capelle’s appointment in 2003, offered starkly differently assessments of ESPA’s decision to oust Ross Levi as executive director.

members attempting to denigrate the service of Ross — an outstanding leader for our community — isn’t just unprofessional and undisciplined — it is offensive.”

O’Byrne, who is also a former advisor to the Gill Action Fund, which does LGBT advocacy work and was active in the marriage fight in Albany last year, had been critical of ESPA when its expected appointment of Brian Ellner to the executive director post cratered at the last minute two years ago. Ellner — who later joined the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as the leader of that group’s marriage equality work in New York — faced criticism in some quarters during the Pride Agenda search for his close ties to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a supporter of some anti-gay Republican state senators, though neither Ellner nor ESPA ever spoke publicly about the details of what O’Byrne termed a “fiasco.”

Saying the Ellner and Levi episodes distract the group from what he described as “a lot to be done” yet on LGBT issues in New York, O’Byrne warned,

“For many donors in town it is sadly already too late.”

Matt Foreman, who served as ESPA’s executive director for two stints, separated by little more than a year, between 1997 and 2003, was similarly outspoken about Levi’s firing.

“I am shocked, appalled, and disgusted,” he said. “It was handled extremely poorly, and it is extremely discouraging when somebody of Ross’ service and record is treated so badly.”

Andrew Lane, the executive director of the Johnson Family Foundation, which has been an ESPA funder, responded to offthe-record board complaints that Levi failed to give the Pride Agenda sufficient visibility in the marriage win.

“The board’s termination of Ross is devastating,” he told Gay City News. “I think Ross did an extraordinary job. He stepped into his role at the 11th hour, and he handled himself with incredible grace and humility.

I understand that humility has become a problematic word in the context of these boards.”

Levi himself has declined repeated requests by Gay City

News to speak on or off the record about his departure, but some of those who praised him voiced no criticism of the Pride Agenda.

“My sense of things is that Ross did a great job for ESPA,” Ellner said. “He kept his focus on doing what would ensure we would win.”

Ellner said he called Levi after learning of the dismissal to pass along his praise for his efforts on the gay marriage law.

Alan Van Capelle, who preceded Levi as executive director, said, “Many if not most of the legislative achievements ESPA got in the last decade were for the most part due to Ross, and due to Ross’ legislative drafting abilities.”

Levi’s tenure at the Pride Agenda, in legislative counsel, public policy, and government affairs roles as well as 22 months at the helm, saw enactment of hate crimes legislation, a state gay rights law, a school anti-bullying measure, and same-sex marriage.

“Ross is a very dif ferent leader than I was,” Van Capelle said. “He was more low key than I had been. I was the type of leader that the organization needed at that time. And I think that Ross was the sort of leader the organization needed last year.”

Van Capelle was executive director from 2003 until early 2010, and was sometimes known for a contentious public style, particularly in a 2009 speech at the group’s fall dinner in Manhattan and in meetings with legislative leaders over the following two months, as he pressed the demand for a Senate vote on marriage equality. Though that vote fell short, 38-24, Van Capelle’s aggressive pursuit of marriage led to three successful votes in the State Assembly and was publicly backed with full-throated enthusiasm by Paterson, who was then governor.

Even while praising Levi, Van Capelle did not question the ESPA board’s action.

“Every organization should be able to choose its leaders,” he said. “I don’t think we should second-guess decisions that they make, but whatever deci-

sions they made should not diminish what Ross has accomplished.”

Another former ESPA executive director, Joe Grabarz, who served a decade ago between Foreman’s two terms as leader, offered a stinging counterpoint to the confidence Van Capelle voiced in the board’s stewardship of the organization.

“I have to say that the Pride Agenda has one of the most dysfunctional and misbehaving boards around,” Grabarz said.

“I can’t see why any rising star in LGBT politics would want to do this job. I don’t think they’ve ever had an executive director that they haven’t abused.”

Active in consulting and lobbying on progressive causes in Connecticut — from transgender rights to stem cell research — since leaving ESPA, Grabarz said, “I have not seen them making any cultural change since I was there.”

The criticism lodged against the Pride Agenda board was conveyed in detail to vice chairs Louis A. Bradbury and Marla Hassner, but they declined direct comment. The group’s communications director, Erica Pelletreau, reiterated their statement of a week before that ESPA “does not comment on personnel matters,” but added, “The board of directors of the Pride Agenda, like the board of any nonprofit organization, has both a fiduciary responsibility and a responsibility to see to it that we are adhering to our mission. In this case, the executive director reports to the co-chairs of the organization and has a responsibility to act in the best interest of the organization.”

Noting that the group’s immediate priorities are a transgender civil rights law, supporting “those who stood with us” in the legislative elections this fall, and seeking funding for the statewide network of LGBT social service agencies, Pelletreau said, “We are focusing on advancing that future.”

Two board members, speaking off the record, said that Bradbury, who assumed leadership of the board after the 2010 executive director hiring hiccup,

䉴 CRITICS, continued on p.29

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POLITICS

Chad Griffin Won’t Litigate Marriage at HRC At helm of top US LGBT group, Prop 8 case’s initiator shifts focus

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

Will HRC take the legal route to marriage equality? “I will stay away from any hypotheticals,” Griffin said. to preserve that win and are opposing a request to have a full appeals panel review the latest decision.

Griffin will remain the chair of AFER’s board, but he is moving on. He will replace Joe Solmonese at the helm of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest gay lobby, on June 11.

HRC has no experience bringing lawsuits of any kind and no apparent plans to start.

“What I’m excited about is really harnessing the abilities of this organization to have an impact and take this issue to the next level,” the 38-year-old Griffin said in a brief phone interview with Gay City News.

Griffin said his “sole motivation every single day” was to improve life for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids who may be enduring abuse or worse.

“Every single night when we all go to bed, there are thousands of kids in this

HRC

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n a conference call last year, Chad Griffin, the board chair of the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), told reporters that his organization’s “goal is marriage equality” and “federal recognition of that in all 50 states.”

In 2009, Griffin recruited Ted Olson and David Boies, two lawyers who represented the opposing sides in Bush v.

Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court case that gave George W. Bush the presidency, to challenge Proposition 8, a 2008 California voter initiative that banned gay marriage. They predicted the case would reach the nation’s highest court and a victory there would end same-sex marriage bans across the nation. Currently, 38 states have such bans.

In 2009, the New York Times paraphrased Olson saying that he hoped the suit “will lead to a Supreme Court decision with the potential to reshape the legal and social landscape along the lines of cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade: the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide.”

A federal district court ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional in 2010, and a three-judge appeals court upheld that ruling this year. Olson and Boies want

Chad Griffin, the board chair of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, will become president of the Human Rights Campaign on June 11.

country staring at the ceiling fearing the next day,” he said. “How does it make life better for that young person?”

At HRC, he will work “to propel us forward as quickly as possible with a great sense of urgency on all of our issues,” he said. Among those issues, marriage is “one of them and that must continue.”

So if the Prop 8 lawsuit does not get to the US Supreme Court, will HRC take the legal route to marriage equality?

“I will stay away from any hypotheticals,” Griffin said.

Griffin’s hiring has met with almost universal acclaim. Even HRC’s most reliable critics have hailed it. Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile called it “inspired, bold,” and blogger Andrew Sullivan said it was “promising... and encouraging.”

Griffin has not always won plaudits. When the AFER lawsuit was filed, gay legal groups expressed great reservations about bringing a case in the federal courts rather than the state courts, where Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) were successful. When those groups sought to intervene in the AFER lawsuit, Griffin would not allow it and chastised them in a 2009 letter that someone made public. That rift appears to have healed.

“To the question of what are the relationships like now, is there some sort of simmering animosity? No,” said Jennifer Pizer, who was a senior staffer at Lambda at the time and is now the legal director at the Williams Institute, a UCLA think tank. “Over time, it’s evolved into some very effective synergies.”

Kate Kendell, NCLR’s executive director, and Shannon Minter, that agency’s legal director, praised Griffin in an HRC press release. In a statement, Kevin

Cathcart, Lambda’s executive director, said, “We look forward to working with Chad in his new role as we continue to secure victories in our fight for equality for LGBT people and people with HIV.” Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director at the ACLU of Southern California, did not respond to a call seeking comment. Matt Coles, who was the head of the ACLU’s gay rights project in 2009, declined to comment.

Griffin appears to have settled on a career in politics long ago. Born in Arkansas, a press report from 1990 has him as the vice president of an Arkadelphia high school student council and then being selected in 1991 as one of two students to attend the 29th annual Senate Youth Program in the nation’s capital.

He worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and then spent roughly 18 months working as a press aide in the Clinton White House. He left to complete a degree at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Griffin moved to California in 1997, where he spent the next 15 years in public relations and political consulting. He was the campaign manager for four ballot initiatives in that state, losing two and winning two. Griffin played a small part on the Prop 8 campaign as a strategy consultant, but avoided the recrimination that was directed at gay groups over that loss. He joined the critics.

“Why wasn’t there a professional gay person in the room, consulting with the political professionals?,” he said at a 2009 town hall meeting on the campaign that was covered by the San Francisco Chronicle.

While HRC claims to be nonpartisan, it has been criticized for being too close to the Democratic Party. Griffin may have to confront that. He has made $37,100 in federal political donations, all to Democrats, since 1999, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He is one of 367 bundlers who raised at least $50,000 for President Barack Obama in the current election cycle, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

He pointed to a 2004 ballot initiative that established dedicated funding for stem cell research that had Nancy Reagan as its lead spokesperson and Republican and Democratic co-chairs.

“We had a huge bipartisan effort on that,” he said. “I am a Democrat. Having said that, what I’m interested in is getting things done.”

JEFFREY FASHION CARES 2012

In the eight years since Jeffrey Kalinsky established Jeffrey Fashion Cares New York, the annual event has raised more than $4 million for LGBT, LGBT youth, and HIV/ AIDS service organizations here. An evening of cocktails, silent and live auctions, and haute couture

on the runway, last year’s event included fashions by Prada, Gucci, Diesel, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Etro, and more.

This year’s beneficiaries include the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School; Lambda Legal, the com-

munity’s litigation advocacy group; the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA), a leading HIV research and education organization; the Point Foundation, the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBT students; and the Palette Foundation, which focuses on queer youth, nutrition and wellness, and patient advocacy. Palette’s founder, Terrence Meck, will be honored.

Jeffrey Fashion Cares 2012 takes place Monday, March 26 from 7:30-11 p.m. at the Intrepid Aircraft Carrier, Pier 86, 12th Ave. at W. 46th St. Tickets begin at $250 at tinyurl. com/6wmtfcu.

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䉴 ESPA, from p.8 instance, by Governor Andrew Cuomo, who urged other advocates to take the lead in negotiating with the Republican senators needed to provide the margin of victory last June 24.

As the marriage fight heated up between February and June of last year, HRC, which led a high-profile effort to recruit well-known figures — including Barbara Bush, one of the former president’s twin daughters, hip-hip mogul Russell Simmons, celebrity chef Mario Batali, and former New York Ranger

of that time in Albany, Hassner said he had participated in most of the group’s major achievements — including passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002 — and “has had a lasting positive impact on LGBT people across New York State.”

The group clearly hoped that Levi’s departure could be framed in that sort of positive light rather than becoming a source of public controversy, and sought to negotiate what one board member described as a “generous severance package.” That effort was undone, two board members told Gay City News, by Levi’s unwillingness, on advice of counsel, to sign a confidentiality agreement that would have barred his talking publicly about his ouster.

Levi, who had been serving as the group’s Albany-based director of public policy and education, was named executive director on May 22, 2010, just one day after the abrupt withdrawal of Ellner, whose appointment the board had been expected to approve and had even been heralded in a New York Times story the week before. The upheaval came at a sensitive time for the organization. The Levi appointment was made the afternoon of ESPA’s annual Rochester dinner, one of its biggest events outside New York City, and he was the permanent replacement for Alan Van Capelle, who resigned in the wake of the unsuccessful State Senate marriage equality vote in December 2009, when advocates fell short by a startling 38-24 vote.

In the wake of Ellner suddenly falling out of the picture — his candidacy had come under fire in some quarters for his ties to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose closest State Senate allies were several Republicans adamantly opposed to gay marriage — Frank Selvaggi, a board member who was then one of the cochairs, said, “During our search, Ross was identified as the strongest candidate for the position because of his long history of service to the organization, vast knowledge of state government, and strong connection [to] the statewide LGBT community. The Board feels strongly that Ross is the right leader for us.”

That show of support notwithstanding, the group could not shake the widespread impression that its executive director search had gone awry.

Hassner said a search committee to replace Levi would be formed immediately, but offered no deadline for that group completing its work.

Financial filings by ESPA show that Levi received total compensation in 2010 — seven months of which he served as executive director, the remainder his old post — of about $156,000. In 2009, Van Capelle earned just under $192,000 as executive director.

Levi clashed with the board over where the group’s focus should be now that marriage equality was a fact in New York.

Sean Avery — to record pro-marriage equality videos, also won more attention in the press, with Brian Ellner, who headed up the group’s New York drive, often quoted in the New York Times.

The board members, however, emphasized what advocates have consistently said about the Albany effort — collaboration among the players worked to advance the ball. The concern was not about ESPA’s posture relative to HRC but rather the group’s own effectiveness.

Levi, the two board members said, also clashed with the board over where the group’s focus should be now that marriage equality was a fact in New York.

One said Levi believed the organization should become engaged in Washington issues — something it has not done before — but board members insisted there was ample work to be done here in New York.

Asked what the group’s priorities would be going forward, Bradbury, who chairs ESPA’s lobbying and political arm and is co-chair with Hassner of the foundation, said passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), a long-stalled transgender civil rights law, “standing by those elected officials who stood with us,” and advocating for funds to meet the health and human services needs of the LGBT community would be paramount. ESPA has secured well over $50 million in such funding, specifically benefiting LGBT service organizations, since 2000, and Hassner said that the push to increase public dollars for homeless LGBT youth would be an important part of the group’s efforts going forward.

Noting that Levi had joined ESPA more than a dozen years ago, based for much

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COMMUNITY

Hopeful Signs of AIDS Memorial Compromise Advocates of commemoration at former St. Vincent’s site, community board working with Quinn’s office

BY NATHAN RILEY

AIDSMEMORIALPARK.ORG

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dvocates of an AIDS Memorial Park and local officials in Greenwich Village agree that conversations are on track to merge the goals of commemorating the critical role the shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital played in the epidemic and creating recreational opportunities for children’s supervised play in a triangular parcel bordered by Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue, and 12th Street.

The compromise approach underway would allow the park to be completed on schedule as part of the overall redevelopment of the St. Vincent’s Hospital campus by Rudin Management, in a project heavily weighted toward luxury housing.

The organizers of AIDS Memorial Park, the group pushing for a commemorative focus in the parcel’s redesign, and officials from Community Board 2, which serves Greenwich Village, told Gay City News that a new design, combining elements of the two concepts currently on the table, would result from significant public participation after the City Council approves the Rudin project’s overall master plan.

“I don’t think there are any differences per se,” said Brad Hoylman, CB2’s chair.

Christopher Tepper, a co-founder of AIDS Memorial Park who is also director of development and planning at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, shared Hoylman’s assessment of the room for compromise and the constructive discussions underway, even while acknowledging that no final agreement has been reached.

A basis for compromise has always existed. Supporters of a park design addressing the West Village’s recreation needs have acknowledged the desirability of an AIDS memorial component, while the LGBT and AIDS groups rallying around Tepper’s efforts agree that making a park welcoming for children and other neighborhood residents is important. In fact, when CB2 forwarded its recommendation to the City Planning Commission in November, it endorsed “careful consideration” of final design elements to commemorate the epidemic.

Both Tepper and Hoylman said that the office of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who represents the West Village and is expected to run for mayor next year, is involved in the discussions aimed at forging a compromise solution.

“We will maintain an open dialogue with all the parties,” a Quinn spokesperson confirmed via email.

With endorsements from Gay Men’s

This design, put forward by AIDS Memorial Park, will help inform a final compromise on a new park slated for the West Village, if promising discussions underway remain on track.

Health Crisis, the LGBT Community Center, which is located just a block from the park site, Housing Works, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the Stonewall Community Foundation, Bailey House, Greenwich House, and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, Tepper’s group had built formidable local support for its effort.

In late January, AIDS Memorial Park announced the winner of a design competition for the land parcel that drew nearly 500 submissions from around the world. The competition’s jury was headed by Michael Arad, a New York City architect who won the commission to create the National September 11 Memorial at the site of the former World Trade Center. “Infinite Forest,” proposed

by Brooklyn’s Studio a+i, is a bold plan uniting modern and traditional concepts for creating a memorial park.

According to Tepper, a key element in unlocking the differences between his group’s design and the proposal approved by CB2 and the City Planning Commission, was an agreement that a memorial replace two drab oxygen tanks currently located near Greenwich and Seventh Avenue South, at the heavily trafficked main entrance to the proposed park. The memorial would be visible and

integral to the park design, while leaving extensive space available for other community uses.

Beyond that agreement, the other major source of consensus is that the public should be actively involved in overall design decisions.

“We are trying to define a process on how the memorial gets designed where there is a community review,” Tepper said. Studio a+i, he said, would participate by sharing their key design concepts and garnering community input to unite existing approaches.

Tepper and Hoylman agreed that the outcome would likely be a third design with major differences from the two competing proposals. The winning design from Studio a+i had envisioned the use of three large mirrors to create the sense that a grove of birch trees stretch out into infinity. Some in the community reacted with concern that the execution of that design could impede the park’s visibility from the street, a critical neighborhood concern. At a minimum, it seems inevitable that the Rudin proposal for a playground, benches, and chairs would be part of any final design.

Architects, CB2 members, AIDS memorial advocates, and neighbors, Hoylman said, would be part of a “a pub-

lic process to help translate the memorial concept into a real design. All members of the public will have a chance to weigh in.”

One feature of the original AIDS Memorial Park proposal that seems likely to be lost is the repurposing of basement space in an exiting utility structure for an AIDS education and prevention center. Rudin plans to demolish the basement in order to create a staging area for construction. Memorial advocates continue their discussions about a learning center, but recognize they may need to seek space outside of the park.

The lengthy process for approving redevelopment of the park parcel and the overall Rudin project has finally arrived at the City Council. The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a public hearing on March 6 at 9:30 a.m., with much of the discussion focused on more controversial issues, such as the loss of a full services hospital facility in the neighborhood and the significant proportion of the Rudin plan devoted to high-end residential use.

Final City Council approval of the master plan is expected in the coming weeks, after which public discussion about the specifics of the park design will begin.

| March 14, 2012

POLITICS

13

Protest Hits Ongoing Ban on Israeli-Palestinian Debate at LGBT Center

GAY CITY NEWS

Critics of West Bank, Gaza policies mark one year since eviction

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

M

arking one year s i n c e N e w Yo r k City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center barred Siege Busters, a group that opposes Israeli government policies toward Palestinians, from meeting there, roughly 100 people protested that eviction and a later Center policy that bans all groups that organize around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“It’s forgotten its history,” said Judith Butler, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, to the crowd that gathered in the Center’s lobby for the March 3 protest. “It’s forgotten its commitment to social justice. It has sold out.”

The protest, which was organized by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) and about 20 other groups, began with protesters packed into the lobby.

QAIA did not contact police prior to the event, but officers from the Sixth Precinct in the West Village had set up a pen on

the street outside the West 13th Street building. Protest participants ignored the pen.

The protest inside lasted for roughly an hour as speakers pilloried the Center for the ban and called for solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“We usually fight the oppressors who squelch free speech,” said Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a group of progressive lawyers. “By succumbing to the outspoken in power, this Center betrays its historic mission.”

Glennda Testone, the Center’s executive director, was in the building during the protest, but did not engage the participants. The Center did issue a statement.

“Our priority must be to ensure that all LGBT people feel comfortable coming here,” the statement read. “Providing space for organizing around the Israel-Palestine conflict strains resources and undermines our ability to ensure a supportive and neutral environment for everyone. That’s why the moratorium will continue. The Cen-

䉴 LEVI, from p.8 Hassner acknowledged Levi’s role in the group’s victories since 2000 in her comments to Gay City News, saying he “has had a lasting positive impact on LGBT people across New York State.”

Levi’s biography continued, “Ross was also part of the passage of many other state and local ordinances, regu-

GAY CITY NEWS

Demonstrators controlled the Center’s lobby for an hour on March 3 to protest the anniversary of the eviction of those organizing against Israeli policy toward Palestinians.

Protesters chant on West 13th Street as others unfurl banners from the Center’s second floor criticizing its policy against any organizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

ter respects everyone’s right to free speech and to organize, but on this issue we are simply asking both sides to take this organizing elsewhere.”

To sustained applause, one of the speakers addressed that very point during the protest in the lobby.

“We’re not proud when our safety is used as a cover to not deal with human rights issues,” said Carolyn Klaasen, a member of Young, Jewish and Proud, an affiliate of Jewish Voice for Peace, whose website calls for “an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.”

Siege Busters held regular meetings at the Center beginning in August 2010, but when it planned a March 5 party last year to mark the end of Israeli Apartheid Week, Michael Lucas, the owner of Lucas Entertainment, a porn studio, threatened

lations and Executive Orders affecting New York’s LGBT community, including the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression in state employment.”

Enactment of a statewide transgender rights law, the Gender Expression NonDiscrimination Act (GENDA), has been bottled up in the State Senate for years.

Before joining ESPA, Levi was the leg-

a donor boycott. The group was banned.

On May 25, the Center allowed QAIA, which also opposes Israeli government policy toward Palestinians, to rent space for three meetings. The group had one meeting there on May 26.

While Lucas was the most visible opponent of allowing Siege Busters and QAIA to meet at the Center, others, notably Stuart Appelbaum, the openly gay president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, joined him.

Opponents of QAIA spent the week after May 25 urging groups, individuals, and Center donors to contact the Center and ask it to reverse the decision. On June 2, the Center announced a ban on all groups that “organize around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

QAIA continued to meet at

islative director for Brooklyn State Senator Nellie Santiago, a Democrat. While working toward his 1997 law degree from Brooklyn Law School, he interned with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Office of Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, Judge David G. Trager of the Eastern District of New York, and the Civil Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of the

the Center despite the ban. It held meetings in the lobby into the fall.

The Center’s space rental policy, which effectively holds that it may refuse to rent to any group for any reason, has rarely been controversial. Only decisions to bar the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), the New Alliance Party, and parties for men organized according to their HIV status have caused any community debate in 28 years. The Center hired Ritchie Tye Consulting last year to help it craft a new space rental policy, but no new policy has been issued.

Following the protest in the lobby, participants moved to the sidewalk, again ignoring the police pen, and chanted and cheered as others unfurled banners from a second story window.

City of New York.

Levi served on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union Capital Region Chapter and was a member of the transition teams for Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Levi said he would make no further comment at this time, but might be prepared to do so in the near future.

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

THEATER

Family Matters Under David Cromer’s direction, Nina Raine’s “Tribes” is season’s best

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

outstanding as Christopher, as he tries to hold on as the world shifts around him. Mare Winningham is heartfelt and moving as Beth. Will Brill is fragile and complex as Daniel teetering on the brink of a breakdown, and Gayle Rankin is sharp and touching as Ruth.

T h e e v e n i n g , h o w e v e r, belongs to Russell Harvard as Billy and Susan Pourfar as Sylvia. Harvard is an astonishing presence, at once powerful and vulnerable. It is his change, conveyed with integrity and focus, that drives the play. Simply put, Harvard’s is the best perfor mance by an actor I’ve seen this season.

Pourfar, who is an extraordinary actress I’m always thrilled to see, has never been better than as Sylvia. She is brilliant as she loses her hearing and, with it, what she has known about herself. Technically, the performance is razor -sharp, with her speech changing as the character goes deaf — in devastating synchronicity with her emotional journey.

How we hear, how we see ourselves, how others see us, and how we find our way in and out of the tribes that populate our existence is the stuff of living.

These issues are also the stuff of the best play of the season.

Do not miss it.

n the course of our lives, we are — or become — part of any number of tribes. Each has its rules, hierarchies, communications, and secret handshakes.

I mean the last metaphorically, of course, but one of the ways we identify ourselves is by the tribes we are part of.

Whether it’s a family, school, workplace, or — in the case of Nina Raine’s shatteringly moving new play, “Tribes” — the deaf community, how we see ourselves is often in direct relationship to our place within a tribe. As we grow and change, discover and define ourselves, our tribes may change, as may our roles within them, but how we know ourselves is always in relation to the other members.

Conflict and, in this case, pro- Susan Pourfar, Gayle Rankin, Jeff Perry, and Russell Harvard in Nina Raine’s “Tribes,” directed by David Cromer. found theater can result from those roles changing or the indi- in the rambunctious arguments human that it creates empathy tal about the longing and loss for each of the characters but we all experience in growing viduals inhabiting those roles that pass for familial affection.

When Billy meets Sylvia, also for the family organism as beyond our families that it is evolving, upsetting the stasis almost overpowering, more so essential to a tribe and to the his world changes. The hear- well.

Director David Cromer is because it creeps up on us so dependability and predictability ing daughter of deaf parents, she communicates in sign lan- firmly in his element here. No subtly throughout the play. that give us comfort.

In addition to Cr omer’s Raine’s play begins in an guage and grieves for the fad- other working director can overly educated British intellec- ing of her own hearing that will accumulate the details of lives superb work, a magnificent intual home where the members lead to complete deafness. Billy so powerfully as he does. His the-round set by Scott Pask that of the family — parents and falls in love with her, and, as he orchestration of Raine’s play pulls us deeply into the action, f i n d s h i m s e l f leads the audience fully into and brilliant sound design by three adult chilTRIBES immersed in the the family’s world and touch- Daniel Kluger, the cast is simdren — find themBarrow Street Theatre deaf communi- es something so fundamen- ply magnificent. Jeff Perry is selves living under 27 Barrow St., btwn. ty, a place where one roof again. As Seventh Ave. S. & W. Fourth St. Tue.-Sun. at 7:30 p.m. he is accepted often happens, Sat.-Sun. at 2:30 p.m. and understood, each member of $75; smarttix.com he comes to see the family picks Or 212-868-4444 his family and up their familiar roles. The opening scenes of the his role in it as limiting.

But, of course, it is not that play are hilarious as the family bickers and argues in ways that simple. Raine’s story beautifully spectacle relied on cheesy special effects — it

BY DAVID KENNERLEY have their roots in decades-old navigates the crisis that Billy’s had to compete with the new mega-musicals like change touches off as each behaviors. t’s impossible to talk about the revival of “Les Miz” and “Starlight Express” — and buckets Christopher, the father, is a character tries to discover who the musical “Carrie” without referencing and buckets of faux pig’s blood. former college professor turned they are in a shifting context.

For nearly a quarter of a century, nobody was the notorious 1988 premiere, arguably the writer, too clever by half, cur- Along the way, the playwright most appalling flop on Broadway. It closed able to remount a serious production (spoofs mudgeonly, and critical. Beth, explores the artificial constructs after five performances, to the tune of $8 like the one starring Sherry Vine don’t count). So the mother, is also a writer, con- held together by shared illuwhen MCC Theater announced a revival — an million. stantly trying to negotiate among sions in any tribe. Being brandLegend has it that the production, starring earnest, stripped-down version Off Broadway the family members. Daniel, one ed “the quiet one,” “the social Betty Buckley, was so ghastly that the audience’s — the question on everyone’s lips was, “Are they son, has a history of mental ill- one,” or whatever within a famguffaws in the wrong places often drowned out all going to laugh at her?” Critics and audiences ness and is trying to complete a ily becomes deeply entrenched the dialogue. Curtain calls were met by boos (for would surely be out for blood. graduate thesis, while daughter within the collective consciousWell, you can put those pitchforks and rotten the creators) and then polite applause (for the Ruth is floundering and at the ness of the tribe — and those tomatoes away. This revamped “Carrie,” starring cast). time the play opens hoping to images persist long after time It wasn’t just the repulsive source material — Molly Ranson in the title role and Marin Mazzie become an opera singer. Billy, has made them untrue.

Stephen King’s creepy tale of a pasty, socially as her mamma, Margaret, is far from a disaster.

In Raine’s play, when Billy on the other hand, is deaf. He With a book by Lawrence D. Cohen, music by inept teen girl, bullied by her classmates and has been raised as if normal and finds his voice, it is met with abused by her Bible-thumping mother, who uses Michael Gore, and lyrics by Dean Pitchford (the is an adept lip reader, but still disbelief that leads to chaos. newfound powers of telekinesis to wreak deadly he is unable to participate fully The play is so finely detailed and revenge. It was the atrocious staging as well. The 䉴 CARRIE, continued on p.15 GREGORY COSTANZO

I

Bloody Revenge “Carrie” is back on the boards: Are they all going to laugh at her?

I

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JOAN MARCUS

| March 14, 2012

Molly Ranson in the MCC Theater Company production of “Carrie” at the Lucille Lortel.

䉴 CARRIE, from p.14

drab, concrete structure, suggesting the burned-out shell of the gymnasium. original creators), the story has wisely However, the somber palette blunts the been reconfigured to focus on the trou- impact of the climactic scene, minimizbled bond between mother and daughter. ing the contrast between normal school Under the sensitive direction of Stafford life and devastating aftermath.

Come to think of it, perhaps the first Arima (”Altar Boyz”), whenever these two are onstage, emotions run high. The staging of “Carrie” was ahead of its time. heartfelt duets, articulating their embat- Shocking topics that were taboo back tled love-hate relationship, truly soar, then are now embraced by mainstream theatergoers (songs about female cirachieving an almost operatic quality.

Ranson and Mazzie, who look remark- cumcision and AIDS, anyone?). Sadly, ably like mother and daughter, plumb carnage at high schools is now a reality. the depths of their characters and reveal And with increasing reports of suicides unexpected treasures. For the first time, among teens triggered by ruthless peers, Margaret registers as more than just a the topic of bullying couldn’t be more God-fearing lunatic. We understand her timely.

Naturally, it’s also hard to assess motivation behind forbidding the lateblooming Carrie to date boys and feel this “Carrie” without also comparing it (unfairly, I know) to the clasmore than a few pangs of sic 1976 Brian De Palma sympathy.

CARRIE film, starring Sissy Spacek Another revelation is MCC Theater Company and Piper Laurie, both nomiChristy Altomare as the Lucille Lortel Theatre 121 Christopher St., btwn. nated for Academy Awards. likable Sue Snell, who Bedford & Bleecker Sts. This take flubs some key reluctantly sticks up for Tue.-Wed. at 7 p.m. moments that made that her longtime classmate.

Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m. film so awesome.

Her vocals are so sweet Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 3 p.m. $89; mcctheater.org For instance, the famous and pure she threatens to locker -room scene where outshine Ranson. the girls mock Carrie for getThe score is a fairly pleasing mix of upbeat pop and ten- ting her period is sloppy. There is scant der ballads, and the raucous opening suspense in the moments leading up to number, featuring the insecure stu- the crowning of Tommy and Carrie as dents stressing about fitting in, has faint Prom King and Queen, and the tastefully restrained cataclysm that follows is echoes of “Spring Awakening.”

But while the central conflict is nicely serviceable at best. The timing is off, and rendered, this “Carrie” is short on thrills. the scene is over in a flash. Pig’s blood is The story, set in present-day, unfolds in kept to a minimum.

And if you’re hoping to see the gym flashbacks as told by Sue, which gives away that there was a calamity and that teacher — who was Carrie’s pal, yet laughed at her anyway — get crushed she survived it.

In keeping with the stripped-down by a falling basketball backboard, you’re aesthetic, David Zinn has designed a out of luck.

A rich red ale, brewed with generous amounts of caramel malts and poured “Irish Style” for a thick creamy finish.

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

FILM

In Wartime Paris, An Unlikely Alliance Algerian black marketer forges protective bond with queer Jewish singer

BY GARY M. KRAMER

invested with a purpose. I didn’t want a character who was too obsessed with explanations or justifying himself. A sense of obligation overcomes Younes.”

Ferroukhi also cast strong actors in pivotal supporting roles. Stéphane Rideau, an actor popular among gay viewers for his roles in the queer classics “Wild Reeds” and “Come Undone,” plays Francis, a French resistance fighter.

“He appreciated making a film out of his usual range,” the filmmaker said. “I had a wonderful experience with Stéphane.”

With Francis, Younes find himself in car chases and shootouts.

“These ordinary men end up in situations where superhero qualities are required,” Fer roukhi explained. “The objective with the action scenes was to give you an accurate fear of a bullet — how it would scare you in real life. I wanted to show Younes getting more and more scared that he could shoot at or kill someone.”

Based on such compelling historical drama, “Free Men” is an inspiring film that will likely resonate with Arab and Jewish audiences alike.

n the engaging World War II film “Free Men,” director and co-writer Ismaël Ferroukhi tells the story of a Paris mosque, founded and run by Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit (Michael Lonsdale), that harbored Jews from the Nazis.

Based on real events and the story of a queer Jewish singer, Salim Halali (Mahmud Shalaby), from Algeria, Ferroukhi creates a fictionalized drama about Younes (Tahar Rahim), a black marketer, also an Algerian immigrant, who is asked to spy on Arabs in Paris — and the mosque specifically — but ends up helping the cause of the Muslims and their Jewish Tahar Rahim and Mahmud Shalaby in Ismaël Ferroukhi’s “Free Men.” friends. an accomplished performance With the assistance of a about Algeria and its people in a cian in real life.

“He’s a rapper, famous for as a quiet subversive who is translator, Ferroukhi discussed concert performance.

“Salim has an ambiguity that launching the first Arab rap often silent as he observes oth“Free Men” in a recent phone interests Younes,” Ferroukhi group in Israel!,” Ferroukhi ers. The actor, best known for interview.

T h e f i l m m a k e r s a i d h e explained. “ Maybe Salim is in declared with obvious delight. his stunning turn in “A Prophlearned of Ben Ghabrit help- love with Younes.” The filmmak- “He was someone who knows et,” was someone Ferroukhi was ing Jews while reading a weekly er is not overly specific about how to sing and has a musical eager to cast.

“I wanted someone who could newsmagazine story about the the two men’s relationship, ear. It was important for me to Paris mosque. He “wanted to however, in either “explicit or have him sing even if I wasn’t act from within,” the filmmaker using his actual voice. The nar- said. “At the beginning, Younes share this amazing story,” Fer- implicit” fashion.

“Both characters share a cer- rative of the singing was impor- doesn’t care about what’s roukhi said, “because I had not happening around him. But seen or heard about it before in tain solitude,” he said. “They are tant, and he did that well.”

As Younes, Rahim also gives through the events, he becomes school books or other documen- lonely, and that is what draws them together.” taries or films.”

Salim’s sexuality is handled Ben Ghabrit takes risks to ensure the protection of Arab very subtly in the film. He butJews, in one sequence, taken tons up his shirt in front of from real life, engraving the Younes as a young man leaves name of Salim’s father on a his apartment. The singer’s tombstone to back up the claim homosexuality, Ferroukhi said, “is something I grazed the surthat the singer was a Muslim.

“Free Men” acknowledges the face of. Younes is shocked, bravery not only of the men run- but I included this to show

BY GARY M. KRAMER this aspect of ning the mosque, but X”), tries to do too many things in 100 minutes S a l i m ’ s l i f e . also of Arab women, — and does few of them well. There are valid FREE MEN It’s something such as Leila (Lubna points made about America’s broken educationn its choice of Adrien Brody as the lead Directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi I wanted to Azabal), who was also character Henry Barthes, a substitute al system. There are earnest concerns expressed Film Movement Opens Mar. 16 include but not involved in protecting English teacher in a failing American high about the future of teenagers. And there is a Quad Cinema hammer home. the Jews hiding there. school, Tony Kaye’s new film “Detachment” wake-up call for people to take responsibility 34 W. 13th St. I t ’ s n o t t h e “I wanted to pay earns an A for effort. Brody is authoritative for their actions. But these themes get watered quadcinema.com most important homage to these people when diffusing unpleasant situations with stu- down as Kaye introduces multiple narrative forLincoln Plaza Cinema 1886 Broadway at 63rd St. thing about and to the women who dents. He is assertive when trying to get Erica mats and characters and plots that strain crelincolnplazacinema.com his charachave been involved in (Sami Gayle), a teenage prostitute, to clean up dulity. ter. What also wars,” he said. “They The film opens with inspirational talking-head her act. And he is appropriately angry when he have not received recognition in interested me is how a homoreprimands the workers in the assisted care clips of real teachers explaining their desires to the Arab world, but they have sexual would live in a North facility where his grandfather (Louis Zorich) lies make a difference in students’ lives. Brody, too, done so much for liberation in African environment and in a is often seen throughout the film talking to an dying.

Paris mosque. And how did he these countries.”

Brody, who rarely smiles in the film — he unknown interviewer — the only character to do The backbone of the film negotiate those things?” mostly sports a hangdog look of defeat — is this. These documentary-style moments are likeShalaby gives a fantastic peris the intense friendship that incredibly expressive. Viewers will have empathy ly meant to provide contrast with the film’s less develops between the Islamic formance, even if Salim’s singfor the put-upon Henry, who claims to feel hol- laudatory characters feeling their way through Younes and the Jewish Salim. ing is dubbed by the Jewish their “thankless” jobs. low.

Their bond is forged when Moroccan singer Pinhas Cohen.

“Detachment” however, merits only a C+. The Younes hears Salim singing Curiously, Shalaby is a musifilm, directed by Tony Kaye (“American History 䉴 DETACHMENT, continued on p. 17 FILM MOVEMENT

I

School Daze Adrien Brody,

hollow though he may be, the one bright spot in failing high school

I

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| March 14, 2012

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Adrien Brody offers a compelling performance as Henry Barthes in Tony Kaye’s “Detachment.”

䉴 DETACHMENT, from p.16

House of Usher.” There is no doubt why Henry is considered the “best sub on the Principal Carol Dearden (Marcia Gay call sheet.”

Had the film focused on Henry’s expeHarden) is being ousted for the students’ subpar test scores. Dr. Parker (Lucy Liu) riences as an observer in the school, is the burned-out guidance counselor “Detachment” could have been a powerwho crosses the line and gives an inap- ful character study. Instead, the action propriate “tough-love” speech to a pupil. is too often clumsy. When Henry tries to Mr. Seaboldt (James Caan) is a pill- comfort Meredith (Betty Kaye), an overpopping teacher who does an extended weight teen with an emotionally abusive comic riff on a student’s threat to “arm- father who is crushed on him, Ms. Madifuck your shit up tight, motherfucker.” son misinterprets what she sees. Rather Another teacher, Mr. Wiatt (Tim Blake than plumbing the question of whether Nelson), has no control in his classroom Henry acted inappropriately, the moment turns overly melodramatic with a crudely — or at home, either.

On the plus side (sort of) is Ms. Madi- foreshadowed climax.

Another scene that emphasizes his son (Christina Hendricks), who loves teaching so much she doesn’t seem caring side, his claims otherwise notto have — or want — a life outside of withstanding, also misfires, when Henry takes in young prostitute Erica to protect school.

These mini-dramas reinforce that the her from the streets only to have her also corporatization of the school system is fall for him.

His efforts to care for his dying grandbad and that conflicts between students and teachers are soul-killing. But each father — and help him find reconciliation with Henry’s late mothone dramatizes without er — make for a more sucilluminating.

DETACHMENT cessful subplot, but even Substitute Henry’s perDirected by Tony Kaye Tribeca Films here the resort to copious spective as an outsider Opens Mar. 16 amounts of home movie provides a much more Village East Cinema footage to overlay sentiment effective lens for under181 Second Ave. at 12th St. onto the action gets in the standing the students villageeastcinema.com way. Kaye’s insistence on and the system in which AMC Empire 25 234 W. 42nd St. visual and aural devices — they’re mired. When he amctheatres.com/empire from chalkboard animation discovers a student torto voice-overs, still phototuring a cat with a hammer, the teen is forced to articulate why graphs, and the interview scenes — fail he hurts animals. “I feel trapped like the to add emotional texture and only comcat,” the kid says. It’s a didactic moment plicate the film’s arc.

Kaye bites off far more than he can in a film full of them, but it works.

The episodes of Henry in the class- chew here, noble as his efforts are. room are the film’s best. He earns respect Thankfully, the film’s many flaws do not by disarming the troublemakers. He detract from its great strength — Brody’s engages the students when he explains outstanding performance. Enigmatic why their imaginations need to be stim- in his private moments and captivating ulated. And he relates to them when he when he’s teaching, Henry is incredibly asks if they feel the weight of the world compelling. If only this mess of a film that Poe describes in “The Fall of the were as well.

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

IN THE NOH

Awesome Austin The Voice speaks; Tennessee comes alive at NOLA Williams Festival

BY DAVID NOH or the real cognoscenti, the fact that Patti Austin has, for decades, possessed one of the most glorious voices on this earth is anything but news. Born in Harlem and discovered at the Apollo as a child, she now lives in California, and is making a rare New York appearance on March 16, with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall (carnegiehall.org).

“It’s like musical Spanx!” I said, when she described trying to fit her voice into the all-Gershwin show with original Nelson Riddle arrangements written for Ella Fitzgerald.

“That’s right!’ she laughed.

“It’s very constricting. It’s like going into her closet and trying on her clothes because it’s very specific. Nelson had a very distinct arrangement style, to the point where people can sing lines that he wrote, like the famous line for Nat King Cole in ‘Unforgettable’ that everyone automatically sings. It’s daunting because I have my own Ella tribute that encompasses a lot of this material and also a Gershwin show, and it’s all arranged for me in the style I sing in. So it’s wild relearning all this material.

“Riddle’s arrangements are very smooth, very creamy, and very slow, compared to more contemporary versions of this

“

CAROL FRIEDMAN

F

Patti Austin appears on March 16 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops.

more demure reading of a lyric.

“Ella was tremendously, painfully shy. There was a benefit that we did for three years together. And by the thir d year, we would laugh because we were constantly being introduced to each other as if we’d never met before. We had a little joke when they’d say, ‘Have you ever met Patti?’ ‘No, I don’t think we ever met.’ But I never got to know her very well.”

Austin also shared something more painful with Fitzgerald — diabetes. Happily, this is a thing of the past for Austin, who had gastric bypass surgery and lost 120 lbs, but she said, “Ella’s end was very sad, very painful, with both legs amputated and virtually blind.”

It’s very constricting. It’s like going into Ella’s closet and trying on her clothes because it’s very specific.” material. Today is the International Day of the Woman, and I want to say there was a bit of chauvinism then, like ‘boys have to sing like this and girls have to sing like that,’ forcing a particular kind of reading of a lyric, whereas I might interpret a Gershwin lyric in a more modern way, as a woman of today.

You were meant then to give a

Austin’s voice was not affected by her surgery, and she attributed it to her strong vocal technique, speculating that for singers like the operatic Deborah Voigt who many believe negatively altered her voice with bypass surgery, “that comes from something else, maybe bad technique or something personal going on. If anything, my singing has gotten better, because I can now really feel things going on with my body.”

Besides singing, Austin is a terrific talker, down to earth and funny. I told her I never forgot her being on “Live at 5” being interviewed by Sue Simmons, years ago, and saying to her, “You know, we octoroons gotta stick together!”

“Ohmigod, we got a little bit gamey when we got together!” she laughed, before voicing shock at the news of Simmons’ firing, which to me is like firing the Statue of Liberty: “I

hate hearing that, because how do you have Rush Limbaugh on the radio, talking all that smack, and you get rid of somebody who’s perfectly fabulous, because what? You’re not allowed to be 68 and can only be on TV with firm bosoms or something? That’s sickening. I remember when they made her have a facelift.

“We had a working relationship. I would see her when I did interviews, and we always clicked. We never really talked on the phone, although one day I had come to NBC to do something, and it was the day after Sue had said something on TV that nobody liked and she was in a lot of trouble. I was in the dressing room and she called, and whoever answered assumed that she wanted to talk to me. She just started rambling on, not realizing it was me.

She was talking about whatever it was that had pissed everyone off, and I’m going, ‘Yeah, u-huh, no, you’re kidding!’

“Finally, she said, ‘Who is this?’ ‘It’s Patti Austin!’ And she said, ‘Oh shit! Did any of that make sense?’ [Laughs.] So then she had to give me the back story for an hour about what was going on, and I thought, ‘Ohmigod, I wish you didn’t have to tell me all that.’ Everything obviously got worked out after that, but that was the last time I talked to her.”

Austin has crossed paths with many of the legends in the business, and if she never became the superstar that some of her contemporaries did, that’s fine with her, because she also managed to avoid many a destructive pitfall. Raised wisely by her mother and father (who went from being a jazz musician to psychologist), she was, early on, exposed to things like drugs by her parents, who merely told her, “See how that person is now. Watch them and see what happens.”

She recalled, “By not hiding anything from me, they made me not have any interest in it, as opposed to those who conceal things from kids, who will only want to run right after it.”

About Whitney Houston, she said, “I knew her very well at a certain point in her career.

I didn’t know her in the latter years, and I don’t think I was anybody that she’d want to run into then because I didn’t pull any punches with her. The last time I saw her was at Michael Jackson’s 25th anniversary at the Garden, and she was not in good shape and she was still with Bobby [Brown]. She came up to me and her eyes were darting around and she was speedin’, and I was not having it, as usual. ‘Girl, how you doing?’ she said, and I was like, ‘Girl, what’s your problem?’ So she didn’t want to hang out with me. Those were not the words she wanted to hear.

“But when she first started out, that was my little cookie. I used to sing background for her mom [Cissy Houston] for years, and Cissy would bring her to the studio. One day, we were sitting in the control room, and Whitney would always come over, a very affectionate, cuddly little girl of 13, and flop in my lap. She said, ‘When I grow up, I wanna sing just like you.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m sure you gotta sing.

Cissy’s your mom, and what’s the big deal?’ She said, ‘Yeah, but I wanna sing like you!’ I said, ‘Don’t you ever tell your mother you said that because I need her to call me for sessions.

Don’t go home and say that. It’s gotta be our secret.’

“When she did her first showcase for Clive [Davis] at Sweetwater’s, Cissy invited me, and I had only heard about her from the entire New York music scene saying, ‘You gotta hear Whitney!’ It was mostly industry people, background singers, friends from her church in Jersey, and family, and she just ripped the roof off the place the minute she opened her mouth.

Just the sound of that voice, the vibrato she had, and this good ballsy time onstage. She was only like 17, commanding that stage, and at the end, everyone was mulling around, going, ‘Jesus Christ! Whoo! Talk about limb don’t grow too far from tree!

“The fact that she was gorgeous didn’t hurt, either, and she had already started modeling. That gorgeous girl with that

䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.23

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GEORGE PLATT LYNES/ COURTESY NEW DIRECTIONS PUBLISHING

| March 14, 2012

Tennessee Williams is the subject of an annual festival in New Orleans March 21-25.

䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.22 voice coming out of her was more than the eye and ear could deal with, and she was the sweetest young lady you could possibly meet.”

Judy Garland was a huge inspiration for Austin: “And not by design. It was mostly Quincy [Jones, her godfather]. He

“

suicide, alcoholic, one hot mess, and voice gone. But Quincy said, ‘You’ve got to,’ so I went and I have never seen anything before or since to match it.

Her voice was not great but she was charismatic beyond compare, with this tremendous skill and technique, all of which saved her handily from whatever she was going through personally. In retrospect, she might have been drunk out of her brain, but she was brilliant.

“And there was this vibe in the audience because everybody knew what was going on. When she’d go to hit those notes in those songs, it was like being at an athletic event.

People weren’t saying anything, but you could see their body language, like when she sang the ‘where’ in ‘Somewhere over the rainbow,’ the audience stiffened, as if to say, ‘Come on, baby!

You can do it. Get to that note!’

“Everybody was plugging for her every minute, and she knew how to make them do that and how to fall off that note she couldn’t hit anymore and how to go

I was like, ‘Girl, what’s your problem?’ So Whitney didn’t want to hang out with me. Those were not the words she wanted to hear.” was doing the Newport Jazz Festival in 1963, and I went with my parents on the bus to see him and Ray Charles. Judy was on the bill, too, and he said, ‘You must see her.’

“I was 13 and I didn’t want to, because at the time she was going through her Britney breakdown phase. Every other day she was in the papers, committing

䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.25

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

OPERA

Four-Alarm Grand Opera Queler conducts “Rienzi” at OONY; Met scores with “Khovanshchina”; Wainwright debuts “Prima Donna”

BY ELI JACOBSON he winter of 2012 presented New York opera lovers with three epic works dealing with power struggles, betrayal, and murder ending in a mass conflagration. First was Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” (reviewed here on February 15; linked in the online version of this review at gaycitynews.com). Then came the 29-year-old Wagner trying to out-Meyerbeer Meyerbeer with “Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen” (1842), presented in concert by Opera Orchestra of New York on January 29. Finally, we had Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” at the Metropolitan Opera on February 27.

Eve Queler has conducted “Rienzi” three times previously in New York (1980, 1982, and 1992). The 81-year-old maestro clearly relished the challenge of marshaling multiple choruses and three sets of antiphonal brasses, stationed in the back of the auditorium and higher up in the side balconies. The five-hour duration of Wagner’s original version was trimmed down to three and a half with intermission.

Still the opera came off as a lot of pomp with not quite enough dramatic circumstance to fill out an epic drama.

Endless marches, processions, and choral ensembles weigh down the episodic story of the last 14th century Roman tribune. The plebeian leader Cola di Rienzi emerges as a static character spouting libertarian platitudes; he never acts but is acted upon by his patrician foes. The tenor hero and his sister Irene only come to life in the fifth act duet when the two are doomed to be burned by a fickle populace.

The cast was headed by two debutants, English heldentenor Ian Storey as Rienzi and French mezzo-soprano Géraldine Chauvet as the conflicted patrician Adriano Colonna. Storey produced a thick ungainly tone that had weight but lacked flexibility and brilliance. A wide vibrato obscured clear tone and pitch definition.

Chauvet is a more elegant finished vocalist who was received rapturously by the audience. However, she is a lyric mezzo who was stretched to the limit by the heroic scena “Gerechter Gott,” which requires greater amplitude of tone and a soprano extension on top.

Elisabete Matos, who in her “Fanciulla” Met debut last season seemed the answer to opera fans’ long unanswered prayers for a really Italianate spinto-dramatic soprano, returned here as Irene.

This difficult but unrewarding role requires Mozartian flexibility combined with Wagnerian expansiveness in duets

KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA

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The Met production of “Khovanshchina” provided the best casting from top to bottom of any opera presented this season.

and ensembles, but it lacks a solo aria.

Matos seemed a dramatic soprano of all work, pushing for power at the expense of grace and lurching up to forte high notes that occasionally spread.

Lovely lyric coloratura Emily DuncanBrown shone as the Messenger of Peace.

The real star was maestro Queler, who controlled the multitudinous forces with an unflagging if perhaps too four-square beat.

Mussorgsky’s brooding, minor key epic “Khovanshchina” deals with factionalism in 17th century Russia — pitting the boyar Ivan Khovansky, backed by the violent Streltsy militia in his reach for the czar’s crown, against the reactionary mystical “Old Believers,” and progressive Westernizers like Prince Golitsyn. In the end, the young Peter the Great (an offstage character) comes into his majority and crushes all three factions, assuming total power. Everyone is out for himself, no one is totally sympathetic, and love takes a back seat to power. Meanwhile, the poor people of Russia suffer and sing choral laments — a recurrent refrain in Russian opera.

August Everding’s 1985 production with starkly monochromatic sets by Ming Cho Lee has not been seen at the Met since 1999. Despite the historical specificity of the events the opera portrays, it has always been shocking how easily parallels could be drawn to recent

events in Russia and the US. The current revival provided the best casting from top to bottom of any opera presented this season. Olga Borodina was a definitive interpreter of Marfa the mystical Old Believer seeress (as she was with the Kirov tour in 2003), her tone smoldering with dark mystery, suppressed passion, and resignation to fate.

Ildar Abdrazakov’s lyrical bass-baritone gave Dosifei an aristocratic reserve that contrasted with debutant Anatoli Kotscherga’s craggy, rough-hewn Ivan Khovansky. Misha Didyk’s ringing tenor gave Andrei enough allure to make Marfa’s devotion to the feckless cad comprehensible. Vladimir Galouzine as Prince Golitsyn and George Gagnidze as the czarist strong man Shaklovity found perfect roles for their powerful, incisive voices.

Kirill Petrenko led a masterful account of Shostakovich’s 1952 adaptation of the Mussorgsky score, highlighting delicate details and keeping the instrumental textures clear and varied. However, for the haunting final scene where the Old Believers immolate themselves in their hermitage (think of the Branch Davidians at Waco), Petrenko chose Igor Stravinsky’s orchestration, where the fires fade into a blissful oblivion with hushed strings drifting into silence.

From apocalyptic

conflagrations, we stoop to damp fireworks with

the US premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s operatic opus “Prima Donna,” presented on February 19 by the peripatetic New York City Opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For his story, Wainwright (who co-wrote the stiff, rhetorical Frenchlanguage libretto with Bernadette Colomine) has raided the last lonely years of Maria Callas secluded in her Paris apartment and added echoes of Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard.”

Retired diva Régine St. Laurent is contemplating a comeback in her greatest operatic creation, Eleanor of Aquitaine — the role where she lost her voice at the second performance. Her officious and controlling butler cum manager, a sympathetic maid, and a callow young journalist who doubles as a tenor partner all feed on or into her delusion, desperation, and hopes for a comeback. After much ado about really nothing much, Régine decides to leave operatic stardom behind and rejoin the human race.

The music, like the story, is an artfully arranged but underdeveloped collage of clichés. Orchestrated with the assistance of composer Bryan Senti, we get a smattering of Poulenc and a wash of Strauss and Massenet, but a lot of it is empty movie soundtrack underscoring. The vocal lines — particularly for the maid Marie and the tenor/ journalist André le Tourneur — are awkward and unvocal, as if very high notes out of nowhere are the essence of classical voice composition. Wainwright applies all sorts of superficial effects, but nothing seems to develop organically from within.

The evocative production by Tim Albery and expert musical direction of Jayce Ogren provided deluxe trappings abetted by a strong committed cast.

Melody Moore was intriguingly plain and sturdy as the ravaged grande dame Régine, but her dark, deep-seated but high reaching spinto soprano is indeed a prima donna instrument. Baritone Randal Turner was both prissy and predatory as the butler Philippe, adorable Taylor Stayton handled the high-flying vocalism of André with panache, and Kathryn Guthrie Demos soared as the simple but loyal Marie.

In another time, Wainwright might have been able to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger as George Gershwin did. The best pieces here were the first and last — the haunting prelude in the rain and Régine’s final aria, where the Bastille Day fireworks call her into the street. That piece most resembles a Wainwright cabaret folk rock ballad (he has sung it in concert). Wainwright may not have brought anything new to opera, but opera may deepen and broaden his voice as a pop composer.

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䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.23

I’m happily headed

around that phrase that everybody knew she couldn’t sing anymore. So she took a different road, and you didn’t miss the way it was done before because while she took that road, she was doing something magnificent with her body, hands, face, or her eyes. Every single second onstage, she did something fabulous,

“‘Streetcar’… Is That You?: The On-Screen Imitators of Williams’ Masterwork.”

“Theater Now: A Conversation with Four Contemporary American Playwrights” features John Biguenet, Jewelle Gomez, John Guare, and Martin Sherman, and there’s also “Talking Tennessee: A Conversation with Piper Laurie and Amanda Plummer.”

The film “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond” will be shown, with the director Jodie Markell in attendance, and to wrap things up, the always popular Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest will again be staged.

Come on down and join me for this always wonderful 26th celebration of our greatest gay playwright.

to New Orleans for the Tennessee Williams Festival (March 21-25; tennesseewilliams.net).

This year’s offerings include a full staging of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and always fascinating panel discussions. Revealing the playwright in all his myriad aspects, this year’s panels include “Tennessee Williams, Gerontologist?,” “The Right to Write: Blacklisting and Its Repercussions,” “An American Abroad: International William,” “Williams’ Sexual Politics,” and

“

When she sang the ‘where’ in ‘Somewhere over the rainbow,’ the audience stiffened, as if to say, ‘Come on, baby! You can do it.’”

TENNESSEEWILIAMS.NET

the way she stood or gestured, or something she’d say between songs.

“She had this marvelous, almost cavalier attitude on stage and I found out afterwards that she’d been doing this show for years, which freaked me out because the whole thing looked like one gigantic ad lib performance, like it was just off the top of her head. She came from a different perspective than black female artists did at that time because most of them were what we called flatfoot singers. They didn’t do a lot, just sang their ass off, but Judy worked the audience and acted a song.

I made a conscious decision to integrate more of that stuff I saw her do into my own performing. Quincy knew that if I saw her I could adapt that into my style.”

Contact David Noh at Inthenoh@aol.com and check out his new blog at http://nohway.wordpress.com.

Tennessee Williams aficionados parade through New Orleans’ French Quarter.

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26

March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER JOHN W. SUTTER

JWSutter@communitymediallc.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER TROY MASTERS

troy@gaycitynews.com

When the Pro-Equality Tory Dines With the Evolving Democrat

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

EDITOR IN-CHIEF & CO-FOUNDER PAUL SCHINDLER

editor@gaycitynews.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Duncan Osborne

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Christopher Byrne (Theater), Susie Day, Doug Ireland (International), Brian McCormick (Dance), Dean P. Wrzeszcz

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Seth J. Bookey, Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell, Andres Duque, Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Erasmo Guerra, Frank Holliday, Andy Humm, Eli Jacobson, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer, Arthur S. Leonard, Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass, Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott, Mick Meenan, Tim Miller, Gregory Montreuil, Christopher Murray, David Noh, Pauline Park, Nathan Riley, Chris Schmidt, Jason Victor Serinus, David Shengold, Yoav Sivan, Gus Solomons Jr., Kathleen Warnock, Benjamin Weinthal

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White House State Dinners are very rare events, reserved as a special sign of respect for a visiting world leader. Still, it is hardly sur prising that when British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife, Samantha, travel to Washington this week, the Obamas will accord them that honor. The Anglo-American alliance has been the world’s sturdiest for a full century now, and the two leaders marked their common purpose with a March 12 joint op-ed in the Washington Post, “An Alliance the World Can Count On.” Educated at Oxford, Cameron is the son of a stockbroker and the great great grandson of a Scottish emigrant who made it big as a Chicago grain trader before returning home. The Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper, once reported that when Cameron arrived at the Conservative Party offices as a young man to apply for a staff position, the visit was accompanied by a telephone call from a Buckingham Palace official who stated, “I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man.”

No slouch in his own educational résumé, Obama graduated from Columbia and was

editor of the Law Review at Harvard, but his background can safely be described as more modest. Though his father was an economist, his parents split up shortly after his birth and they divorced before Barack Obama, Sr. returned to live in Kenya. His mother did anthropological work, but her far-flung global career separated Obama from his mother for much of his youth. When he was born in 1961, 22 states still had laws on the books that would have outlawed his parents’ Hawaii interracial marriage.

Though Thatcherism and Reaganism defined the West’s rightward lurch during the 1980s and Bill Clinton and Tony Blair often seemed like kindred triangulators a decade later, it’s not always easy to compare British and American politics along precisely the same left-right spectrum. Nor has the movement for LGBT rights in the two nations always moved along the same trajectory or been accompanied by similar styles of political or personal expression.

Still, it is noteworthy –– and for Americans, disappointing –– that when Cameron and Obama sit down to dinner, it will be the Tory who is the marriage equality supporter and not the Democrat. To be sure, it has been nearly seven years since the UK legalized civil partnerships, a nationwide version of the allbut-the-name marriage-light civil union laws in several US

states. This past fall, the Cameron government announced it was taking steps to introduce full marriage equality –– an initiative Queen Elizabeth will likely formally call for in her speech opening Parliament this spring.

Cameron has not taken his pro-equality stance without flak from the usual suspects. Roman Catholic Cardinal Keith O’Brien called the government’s thinking on the issue “madness” and an effort to “redefine reality.” MP Peter Bone, a Tory backbencher, called Cameron’s plan “completely nuts.” It is heartening to hear that the prime minister is said to be taking a “relaxed” attitude toward the criticism.

Inter estingly, publisher Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox Cable News network and US newspaper properties form the intellectual phone chain for social conservatives here, is not flexing his muscle in the UK to abet Cameron’s detractors. In a March 5 editorial, his Times of London was unambiguous in endorsing the issue, writing, “Legal equality of same-sex marriage with the marriage of a man and a woman would be a just and wise reform. It would enrich the institution of marriage, enhance social stability, and expand the sum of human happiness.”

Conservatives in America reject the effort to compare LGBT rights to other social justice movements, yet the Times concluded, “Earlier ages con-

sidered that allowing women to own property was against God and nature. Changing the law abolished a gross injustice and thereby enhanced the legitimacy of marriage. It is time to lift another form of discriminatory treatment.”

In its dialogue with the LGBT community, the Obama administration takes every opportunity to emphasize the progress it is making in broadening partnership recognition for same-sex couples –– whether through executive actions, ranging from hospital visitation to immigration enforcement, or in the Justice Department’s dramatic announcement last year it would no longer defend DOMA in court.

Still, the need to itemize every incremental advance emphasizes the reality that the president is not done evolving yet.

Two big opportunities for Obama loom on the horizon. In early September, the Democrats gather for their national convention, and already a growing number of party leaders are calling for a marriage equality plank in the platform. In November, at least four states are likely to have ballot questions involving gay marriage –– including Maryland, where a number of African-American mega-churches just outside Washington are pressing the fight to repeal that state’s new equality law.

Both occasions provide critical tests of Obama’s moral leadership. It may have been Churchill or Wilde –– or even Shaw –– who first described the UK and the US as two nations divided by a common language.

But here and there, equality means the same thing.

BUSINESS MANAGER / CONTROLLER VERA MUSA vera@gaycitynews.com

NATIONAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING Rivendell Media / 212.242.6863

Web master Arturo Jimenez Arturo@gaycitynews.com Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender NYC, is published by Community Media, LLC. Send all inquiries to: Gay City News, 515 Canal Street, Unit 1C, NYC 10013 Phone: 646.452.2500 Written permission of the publisher must be obtained before any of the contents of this paper, in part or whole, can be reproduced or redistributed. All contents (c) 2012 Gay City News.

Gay City News is a registered trademark of Community Media, LLC. John W. Sutter, President Fax: 646.452.2501; E-mail: JWSutter@communitymediallc.com

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© 2012 Gay City News. rights reserved.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND February 29, 2012 To the Editor: I actually had trouble watching the Oscars, too, and thought of my good friends and their happiness and the sadness that Ralph is going through (“Why I Couldn’t Watch This Year’s Oscars,” by Susie Day, Feb. 29-Mar. 13). What a great article.

Thanks.

Charlie Read ————————— March 1, 2012 To the Editor: This is the most beautiful tribute to my friend Damien that I could possibly imagine. Thank you so much for putting him so

perfectly in words. I’m writing this through tears. You captured him perfectly, and his loss has devastated me.

Ed Sikov ————————— March 4, 2012 To the Editor: A wonderful article about a truly good guy who left the world way too soon.

Thanks, Susie.

Steven Stark ————————— March 7, 2012 To the Editor: Smart and funny, Damien brought life into any room he entered. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and to his beloved San

Francisco Giants. Damien, you are very much missed.

M. Pache

ROSS LEVI DEPARTS ESPA March 6, 2012 To the Editor: Very sad news (“EXCLUSIVE: Pride Agenda Board Fires Ross Levi,” by Paul Schindler, posted online, Mar. 5). Ross Levi was the face of the Pride Agenda — in its accomplishments and difficulties — throughout much of New York. The board needs to speak about this decision to terminate such

䉴 LETTERS, continued on p.28

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| March 14, 2012

PERSPECTIVE

NYC Needs CPR

BY CHRIS BILAL hough Commissioner Ray Kelly promised to investigate the murder of 18-year -old Ramarley Graham in the Bronx, community members who have spent their entire lives surviving in neighbor hoods under the intimidating eye of police patrols and perennial surveillance towers already know the cause of death — the NYPD’s discriminatory, unlawful, and abusive policing practices. Yet Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have yet to acknowledge the ways in which “broken windows” policing and the department’s stop and frisk practices make hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers like Ramarley Graham less, not more, safe.

Many are understandably shocked and rightfully appalled at the most recent evidence of the department’s discriminatory deployment of stop and frisk tactics toward people and communities of color — 684,000 stops in 2011, a 14 percent increase over an already recordsetting number of stops in 2010, and a 602 percent increase since Bloomberg took office.

Eighty-eight percent of these stops resulted in no arrest or summons. In fact, stop and frisk yields guns or contraband less than two percent of the

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time. And 88 percent of people stopped were black or Latina/ o.

I am one of the 88 percent.

I am also one of the millions of people of color who moved from the South to New York for access to better opportunities and the anonymity and acceptance that this city has provided to artists, immigrants, and LGBT people for centuries.

But within months of moving to the city, I was stopped and frisked during a bike ride with a friend near Fort Greene. The encounter was unnecessarily dehumanizing, but afterward I was comforted in knowing I had survived a known rite of passage between black men and police officers in Brooklyn.

Later that year, I was stopped and frisked again on my way from a laundromat in Bed-Stuy, presumably on the laughable suspicion that my overstuffed mesh laundry bags were drug money bags. The alacrity with which I sought to get them home was misinterpreted as furtive movement that necessitated further investigation.

Just this past December, I was stopped and searched again in Harlem at the park with my friends. This time, the fact that my companions and I were gay clearly played a role in why we were stopped and the questions we were being asked. Giving up our rights in exchange for safety from further police harassment,

we handed over our bags for a search, hoping to cut the intimidation short. Afterward, the officers walked away having bullied us and found nothing.

This last experience is not an uncommon one. While the experiences of LGBTQ youth of color are not documented by the official numbers, a survey conducted by researchers at CUNY revealed that LGBQ youth are much more likely to have negative experiences with police than their heterosexual peers, including negative legal contact, verbal contact, and physical contact, and, most concerning, more than twice as likely to report negative sexual contact with police in the preceding six months.

Before these humiliating incidents, based on a mix of racial profiling and flawed guilty-until-proven-innocent judgment, I had a fairly positive view of the police department that my peers who were born and raised in the city never understood.

After those incidents, in addition to a less than subtle toldyou-so from said friends, my opinion changed quickly and I was reminded of my favorite author James Baldwin, who wrote of being stopped and frisked in Harlem, and my late grandmother Maggie Baker.

My grandmother told me that the only thing I could realistically do to escape constant sus-

Queers: Against Liberation?

BY KELLY JEAN COGSWELL mericans spend a lot of national energy blabbing about the rights of individuals and how to protect them, and then beat the crap out of everyone who shows the slightest signs of difference.

The queer community’s just the same. We celebrate the Stonewall Riots every June, but focus all our energy on getting the right to serve in the army or marry. We rarely examine just why we take such a physi-

A

cal and emotional battering in school — or acknowledge the multitude of hardships we endure afterwards that can’t be solved by the law or a bout of positive thinking.

Last week, long-time lesbian activist Maxine Wolfe reminded me how hard it still is for many dykes to make a living or get healthcare. And it’s true. Even now it’s practically impossible for us to find conventional jobs if we refuse to put on the straight female drag of pumps and pantyhose and big smiles for the big bosses, who are still almost all male. Female bosses

are not reassuring. They too often besiege us with curious and intrusive questions, demanding to know just what makes lesbians tick.

“It Gets Better” is often a lie, unless you think having a freer social life is a consolation for having to work shitty, low-paying jobs, while still struggling to make ends meet. Or living with your parents. Or taking somebody else’s old meds when you get sick because you can’t afford to go to the doctor.

No, if you can’t get a job, laws protecting queer employment don’t improve life a bit. Ditto

picion was to go to college and accept a well paying job. But that didn’t prevent Harvard Professor Skip Gates from getting arrested trying to enter his own home in an affluent Boston suburb. Nor did City Councilman Jumaane Williams’ credentials stop police officers from slamming him to the ground as he attended the West Indian Day Parade. Knowing my chances of legal recourse would always be slim, my grandmother advised me to manage my contempt, speak well, and never openly suggest that race played a factor in anything — a bitter pill even our president continues to swallow.

It should come as no surprise that more than 80 percent of the people stopped by the police are people of color. What is surprising is that this practice persists in the face of the lack of drugs or guns recovered as a result of this officially endorsed practice of racial profiling. It’s hard to ascertain why a strategy with a success rate that would make most investors jump ship if this were a business practice, doesn’t seem to be a cause for concern among its supporters.

New York needs real CPR — Communities United for Police Reform, that is. CPR is an unprecedented campaign to end discriminatory policing practices, bringing together a movement of community members from all walks of life and all five boroughs with lawyers, researchers, and advocates.

This past month marked the

launch of the campaign with a week of action across the city featuring rallies, know-yourrights trainings, and public forums. Historic legislation was introduced that would prohibit police profiling based on race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion, as well as, in an historic first for LGBT New Yorkers, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression, along with housing status, occupation, and age — and put some teeth behind that prohibition.

It would also require police officers to identify themselves during stops and advise people that they have the right to not consent to a search.

Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg need to admit that the current policy doesn’t work. Until they do, CPR will be on the streets, educating people about their rights, monitoring and documenting police abuse, and we will be in the courts and on the steps of City Hall and at the state capitol, demanding changes in NYPD, until the failed policies end.

for efforts forcing employers to cover our partners. Because you have to get that foot in the door first.

The LGBT movement is failing us as they focus almost exclusively on their legal laundry list, unaware or indifferent to the fact that the benefits of law are usually restricted to those that conform to broader social norms. And many queers can’t, or won’t. And shouldn’t have to. Social change isn’t any change at all if it still depends on a majority of our community having baby showers and babies, and tying themselves in matrimonial knots.

LGBT folks often look toward the civil rights movement for

inspiration. We might also want to look at the history of race in America as a cautionary tale for what will greet us if we continue blindly forward.

The military was theoretically desegregated in 1948. The last laws forbidding interracial marriage were dumped in 1967 by the Supreme Court, around the same time a lot of antidiscrimination laws were passed regarding employment.

But in 2012, even under our first black president, all you have to do is turn on the radio or read the congressional record to hear racist filth with concrete consequences.

Chris Bilal is a youth leader at Streetwise and Safe (streetwiseandsafe.org), a New York City-based organization focusing on policing and criminalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQQ) youth of color.

Statistics cited courtesy of the Center for Constitutional Rights (ccrjustice.org). For more information about CPR, go to changethenypd.org.

䉴 COGSWELL, continued on p.30

28

March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

DANCE

LUK MONSAERT

䉴 LETTERS, from p.26

Peak Performances at Montclair State University is presenting the US premiere of “Gardenia,” the critically acclaimed production about the final evening at a transvestite cabaret.

Closing Night at the Transvestite Cabaret Documentary-based show makes American premiere

BY BRIAN MCCORMICK

later the anguish and latent violence — hidden beneath the ardenia” tells the cheerful club environment.

Throughout the show, these stories of nine aging transvestites and old friends switch identities transsexual friends with each costume change. and one young man. Under their suits, they wear Inspired by the documentary dresses. High camp fashion film “Yo soy así,” in which the — sequins, feather boas, and closing of a transvestite cabaret wigs — adds visual splenin Barcelona reveals the private dor, especially in sequences lives of an extraordinary group of synchronized movement of aging artists, “Gardenia” and tableaux vivant. Humor is is a collaboration among Bel- plentiful, and often crass and defensive, if not gian writer and GARDENIA sardonic. It is a transvestite Vanles ballets C de la B celebration, if essa Van Durme, Alexander Kasser Theater bittersweet. directors Alain Montclair State University At the heart Platel and Frank Valley Rd. & Normal Ave. Montclair, NJ of this work, Van Laecke, and Mar. 17, 24 at 8 p.m. there is pain, composer Steven Mar. 18, 25 at 3 p.m. and loss. InterPrengels. The Mar. 21-23 at 7:30 p.m. leaved with show, which pre$15; peakperfs.org Or 973-655-5112 Prengels’ score, miered in Ghent “Madama Butand ran in London and elsewhere in Europe, terfly,” “Forever Young,” Ravis based on improvisation by el’s “Bolero,” and “Where Have the performers’ own turbulent, All The Flowers Gone?” — along with songs by Garland, sometimes hilarious stories.

The denizens of this caba- Dietrich, and Julie Andrews ret do not perform so much as — transmit specific meanings reveal different sides of them- that convey more than mere selves. Masculine. Feminine. theater. What might at first Youth. Beauty. Sexuality. Gen- seem like just a bunch of old der. Desire. The agile young queens living it up on a Friday outsider cast into their world night is revealed as a moving provokes tension, as his danc- expression of struggle and suring channels the sorrow — and vival.

G

a major contributor to the rights for gays and lesbians in New York State.

This decision clearly states that working hard for this organization for 12 years does not pay off.

It’s incomprehensible how you get rid of someone who — during his appointment — led us though one of our state’s biggest political gains for gays and lesbians. I’m holding back on my contributions until this decision to terminate Ross Levi is brought to a sensible and fair light.

Scott Jason Miller ————————— March 6, 2012 To the Editor: I just responded to the ESPA’s insultingly disingenuous message to its members with the following reply: Dear ESPA, I find your lack of candor disturbing. Your message obviously leaves a reader wondering why Ross left and whether it was voluntary. Whoever’s decision it was, perhaps it may have been the right one. But nobody could guess the answers from your terse bureaucratic formulation. Perhaps you feel that we, your members, are children — not competent or ready to be told the facts.

I, for one, won’t be contributing to ESPA again until you establish some transparency and some credibility. Right now, you’re at near zero on both counts.

William P. Coleman

DEBATE AT THE LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER March 4, 2012 To the Editor The Center’s pandering to right-wing racist money is pathetic and revolting (“Protest Hits Ongoing Ban on Israeli-Palestinian Debate at NYC LGBT Center,” by Duncan Osborne, posted Mar. 4). Glennda Testone’s blathering about comfort and neutrality is a huge embarrassment. If she had integrity, she would be humiliated.

Brad Taylor ————————— March 5, 2012 To the Editor: This is a good story on what looks like a fun and politically pointed demonstration. Nice to see the community reclaiming the Community Center!

I wish to make you all aware that the San Francisco gay community center’s board meetings are open to all. Do they really mean that? Well, yes, and I attended one of their meetings last year and had two opportunities to address that board.

Maybe the NYC Center can learn how to be transparent and accountable to the community at the board level.

Michael Petrelis San Francisco ————————— March 7, 2012 To the Editor: The fact that the Center’s board holds closed door meetings in order to avoid community scrutiny and has no effective means for community input, let alone oversight, speaks volumes about its members and how they perceive their role. It is interesting to note that so many of those who support denying access to gay folks who espouse

a pro-Palestinian position ask why they are focusing on Israel instead of other human rights abuses around the globe. Talk about grasping at straws to justify the suppression of ideas they don’t agree with.

Look on the bright side. The fact that Center’s board feels the need to eschew controversy is one more indicator that we as a people have finally arrived at the table. We can now employ the same tactics that were once used to silence us. The board claims to serve the interests of the diverse LGBT community. Sadly, the eviction exposes their true mission — to serve the interests of wealthy contributors.

Two separate boards would help. One elected by members to manage and set policy. Their meetings would be open to the public. The other, strictly for fundraising, would be a self-selecting group of respectable altruists who don’t use their wealth to impose their will. This way they could claim to be supporting an actual community center.

Ray Dries ————————— March 13, 2012 To the Editor: I’m someone who doesn’t feel safe in the Center anymore — because it allows groups to protest and criticize Israel on its premises, despite the ban.

No queer groups are organizing against Iraq, which has rounded up, tortured, and executed nearly 40 Iraqis since February for the crime of “seeming gay,” according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Nor are they protesting the Iranian regime, which hanged three gay men for crimes of sodomy last September. Nor the Syrian regime, despite its year-long campaign of Muslim-on-Muslim deaths, resulting in thousands of casualties and counting. Why aren’t these also queer causes? Why single out only Israel?

Last weekend, 92 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza in a 24-hour period. This was a response to Israel killing 14 Palestinians — ten of them members of Islamic Jihad — who were in the final stages of planning terrorist attacks against Southern Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Groups like Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and Gay, Jewish & Proud perpetuate anti-Semitism; the presence of Jews among their ranks does not absolve them from this fact. Singling out only Israel for policies that are widespread among other nations and demanding that Jews be better or more moral than other groups because of their history as victims are indicators of this.

Personally, I feel extremely threatened by antiIsrael protest crowds like the one that took place March 3, 2012. I’ll never return to the Center, despite having spent many years congregating there. By allowing these sorts of protests on site, the Center has let me know it’s no longer a place that cares about me feeling safe and protected inside its walls.

Scott Piro

Write Us! Please address letters to the editor of 250 words or less to Editor@GayCityNews.com or mail them to 515 Canal Street, Suite 1C, New York, NY 10013.

We reserve the right to edit any letter for space or legal considerations.

| March 14, 2012

POLITICS

29

Tish James: Worship in Schools Yes, Klan No

BY ANDY HUMM

O

n February 17, I reported that Brooklyn Democratic City Councilwoman Tish James, a longtime and fervent supporter of LGBT rights, and I got into a heated debate over the controversy about religious groups being allowed to hold regular worship services in public schools, which she supports.

I wrote that, in response to my question about whether the Ku Klux Klan should also be allowed space in schools, she said they were entitled to “equal access.”

While I never implied that she could possibly support the Klan, I took her seriously on the access issue because it had been raised as a possibility by Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, an opponent of worship services in public schools who said, at a public hearing, that open access could lead to such extremes.

James assures me that she was kidding in her Klan comment and that those who know her understood that she was not serious about that group having such access. I accept her at her word. (To be clear — we both acknowledged that the Klan, as repellant as it is, has

the right to demonstrate in the streets under the First Amendment, and we have both been out there demonstrating against it when they exercise that right.)

In a story on the Politicker page of the New York Observer’s website about our confrontation, Hunter Walker reported that the argument between James and me “included Mr. Humm blocking Ms. James from leaving the area and pushing his finger into her chest as she repeatedly said, ‘Let’s agree to disagree.’”

Walker may have thought he saw that, but it did not happen.

While she and I acknowledge getting in each other’s faces and perhaps waving fingers at each other, neither of us recalls any physical contact.

“I do not recall you touching me,” James said. “I do recall your finger in my face and my finger in your face and it was heated.”

Despite the fact that both principals refute Walker’s description of what happened, he refuses to correct the record or report James’ account refuting it.

I did not nor could not engage in “blocking Ms. James from leaving the area.” There are five exits from the LGBT Community

䉴 CRITICS, from p.9 had successfully worked to establish more professional board standards at the organization. Both said Levi chafed at board accountability efforts.

Some of ESPA’s critics, however, said the board undercut Levi when it directed a prominent member, Jeff Soref, who has a relationship with the organization dating back more than 15 years, to participate in high level Albany meetings aimed at getting the marriage bill done.

Even some advocates involved day to day in that effort expressed surprise at Levi’s patience with such direct board oversight.

Cohen, the former secretary to the governor who personally oversaw the Cuomo administration’s marriage effort, however, offered a glowing assessment of the role Soref played in the State Senate push.

Describing him as someone with “a broad sense of how to work with a coalition of groups and get them pushing in the same direction,” Cohen said, “Jeff’s participation was a very important signal to people, important people in terms

Center, in which we first spoke, and most of our argument took place on a public sidewalk outside, in any event. The Politicker blogger never called me for comment on the episode in preparing his post or since.

James added, “We should move on to other more serious issues such as homeless LGBT youth who are sleeping on subway grates in New York City.”

Amen to that.

I continue to worry about how limits will be set fairly if legislative efforts in Albany are successful in end-running a federal court appellate decision from last year upholding the constitutionality of the city’s ban on worship services in public schools (though litigation on a second constitutional challenge to the ban continues). James and others, like Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu — but unlike Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer — believe there is a constitutional way to let the religious groups back in for weekly worship. We strongly disagree on whether that can be done, but we agree that the Klan has no place in a public school.

of raising money for the effort. Along the way, there were a couple of people who stepped beyond the organizational role they played and were of great personal assistance to the process and to the governor — in terms of giving advice and lending credibility to the effort.”

Soref, himself, said that after the community was “blindsided” by the lopsided Senate vote against marriage in December 2009, “The board felt that it would be useful to have a second person there.

Not to supervise, not to watch Ross in any way, just as a reality check.” Noting that he raised a lot of money — both in meeting ESPA’s financial obligation to the coalition of groups working on the bill and in supporting friendly legislators — he added, “Look, nobody likes it when a second person comes along, but I don’t think Ross would have said anything different about how things worked.”

In a drama chockablock with widely divergent accounts and opinions, no element is more disturbing than the story NARAL’s Stern tells about his experiences seeking the top job at ESPA in 2010.

He first became concerned with the process, he said, when he read in the New

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

Brooklyn councilwoman agrees: heated debate, no physical contact with this reporter

Democrat Tish James, who represents Fort Greene and Crown Heights on the City Council.

York Post that a gay leader at the prochoice group was among the top contenders for the position. The Post didn’t quite have the story right — reporting that Kelli Conlin, the out lesbian who then led the group, was that candidate.

Stern said it was apparent to his bosses at NARAL that he, in fact, was the gay person seeking the job, and he told the search firm he was unhappy with the breach of his confidentiality.

According to Stern, he soon after heard from an individual close to the board that search committee members expressed the view that he might be “too ethnic” to serve a statewide group effectively. When he raised that with the search firm, he said, he was told several board members thought his “shticky Jewish humor” might not go over with every audience.

Offended that a religious slur was part of the discussion about his candidacy, Stern withdrew from contention.

Hassner and another board member, he said, left him a voicemail message to emphasize that the comments did not reflect “the values” of the ESPA board, but Stern said he did not return the call.

He acknowledged that in coming for-

ward with the allegations, he runs the risk of looking bitter for not having gotten the job, and explained that that consideration and his unwillingness to sully either Ellner or Levi led him to remain silent in 2010. After learning of Levi’s dismissal, however, he decided that “the board’s behavior is both so despicable and emblematic of an endemic problem that I genuinely felt I had no choice but to come forward.”

One board member, speaking off the record, noting that Van Capelle, Levi, and Ellner are Jewish, cast doubt on Stern’s story, asking why he did not speak out at the time and wondering if his account weren’t simply sour grapes.

Four sources who spoke to Gay City News, including another board member, confirmed — several of them unprompted — that they had heard of Stern’s concerns at the time or shortly after he withdrew his candidacy.

Hassner and Bradbury declined to comment on Stern’s charges, and Pelletreau said, “It would be inappropriate and not fair to comment on any candidate, especially with a new search underway.”

30

March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com

MAGDA BIERNAT/ OUT NYC

TRAVEL

A room in the new Out NYC Hotel on West 42nd Street.

MICHAEL T. LUONGO

Gay Hotel Opens in Times Square West Out NYC now offers 105 rooms with return of John Blair’s XL

BY MICHAEL LUONGO

N

ew York is now home to a new gay hotel, the self-styled “straightfriendly” Out NYC in Hell’s Kitchen, on 42nd between 10th and 11th Avenues.

The 105-room hotel complex opened on March 1 with a rainbow ribbon-cutting, brought indoors because of rainy weather. First announced as a project nearly three years ago, and originally to be branded part of the German Axel gay hotel chain, Out NYC’s development has and continues to be a multi-stage process.

XL, a rebirth of John Blair’s Chelsea nightclub, opened earlier this year. The hotel’s spa, still under construction, is slated to open on April 1, and the hotel lobby restaurant, Kitchin, the last part of the complex, will open in time for New York’s Gay Pride in June, according to

Ian Reisner, one of the project’s developers.

The hotel’s design is by architect Paul Dominguez, also a partner in the project.

Reisner said of Out NYC, “We had a vision, and it is nice to see the vision came into reality. The timing could not have been better. Gay marriage was approved in New York. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military rule, has ended. Gay travel has never been better in New York. It’s a perfect time to be in the center of Manhattan.”

A New York native, he added, “I watched everything of gay New York disappear in the last 15 years,” and rattled off sites as diverse as the Big Cup and the Roxy — part of a paradox of assimilation and LGBT rights advances that have left fewer visibly gay spaces in the city.

Reisner said the hotel was fully booked at the opening, explaining, we “began planning

䉴 COGSWELL, from p.27 Incarceration rates of people of color are still hugely disproportionate to those of whites. Statistics on economic inequality are a nightmare. Racism is still alive and well in these United States of America. Which should be a lesson that legal change — while essential — is not nearly enough.

For queers, the solution might be in reconsidering our roots. Maybe it’s time to downplay a little the legacy of the Mattachine Society demanding equal rights and asserting our sameness under the law and to recover our

Out NYC developers Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass cut the rainbow ribbon on March 1.

at the bottom of the economy in March of 2009. That is when we began this project. Fortunately, we are opening in much better times, and New York is receiving again a new record number of tourists.”

Rooms in the hotel have a minimalist black and white décor. Large by New York standards — as are the bathrooms — the rooms start at about $250 a room, to vary by season and demand. What the hotel calls “luxury hostel” rooms will be priced at $99 a bed space, with four full-size beds per dormitory room equipped with its own bathroom. Eight of these rooms are still under construction.

The hotel is a gut renovation of a motel structure built to accommodate tourists coming to New York for the 1964 World’s Fair. The glass-fronted lobby

modern origins in the Stonewall Riots and liberation movements. Their goals were not to squish us into square holes, but to open up society enough to make room for us all, maybe even rejoice in our difference. If biological diversity is important to the health of our planet, surely cultural and individual difference should be considered an incredible resource when it comes to fostering new ideas and renewing a moribund nation.

The change has to begin with us, inside the LGBT community. The last time we were anywhere near equilibrium in tactics was at the ‘93 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and

overlooks 42nd Street and leads is a cultural change, this type of to an entrance for XL nightclub, hotel. The fact it is uncharted which also has a street entrance waters is the exciting part.”

He added that that opens into a OUT NYC is very long internal halldifferent from the way designed to current gay B&B’s reduce noise and THE OUT NYC 510 W. 42nd St. i n N e w Yo r k , crowds queuing theoutnyc.com such as the Chelup on the street.

212-947-2999 sea Pines Inn, or Kitchin will also even mainstream have a 42nd Street hotels catering to entrance.

The glass-enclosed spa opens the LGBT community.

“We have a gay hotel because into an open-air patio with a waterfall. A second outdoor it is a big change from going to a patio, carpeted with Astroturf, gay-friendly hotel to a gay hotel,” labeled by the hotel as “the Lopez said. “It is still more of a Great Lawn of Hell’s Kitchen,” place to be yourself.”

Labeling itself as “straightis expected to be a site for weddings and parties. The com- friendly,” he noted, the hotel plex’s first wedding, in XL, was sends an additional message.

“The last bridge for gay travel officiated by Fran Drescher on March 6 as part of her New TV is straight-friendly, and from there you get a hotel that is a Land series “Happily Divorced.”

Hotel general manager David melting pot where nobody cares Lopez said that for New York, “it what anybody is.” Lopez said.

Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. In DC and in our daily lives, the presence of national organizations focused largely on equality was offset by groups like Queer Nation and the Lesbian Avengers, who threw the first Dyke March anywhere and mobilized 20,000 dykes.

We’d also just experienced a flowering of queer art and theater that allowed us to unapologetically explore our own difference.

Unfortunately, mainstream organizations tend to treat activists focusing on social gains and liberation either as loudmouthed buffoons or dangerous threats to their largely assimilationist

message: “We’re just like you.”

Activist queers and queers of the left aren’t much better, refusing to acknowledge the role of the law in locking in progress. We have far less power and money, but equally oppressive orthodoxies, and our own ideological enforcers, attacking any sheep that might stray toward an original thought and, God forbid, propagate it. As if too much freedom were a horrifying and constant threat.

Me, I’m ready to risk it.

Check out the Lesbian Avenger Documentary Project at lesbianavengers.com.

31

| March 14, 2012

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com signature atonal piece for soprano and ensemble, along with works by Mason Bates, Lou Harrison, and Harry Partch. 881 7th Ave at 57th St. Mar. 29, 8:30 p.m.

Tickets begin at $50 at carnegiehall.org or 212-247-7800. “Felix Variations” (2011), a trombone solo that Del Tredici wrote for his nephew Felix Del Tredici, will be premiered by Felix; the Orion String Quartet presents the New York premiere of “String Quartet No. 2” (2011); and Steven Mercurio conducts the Fireworks Ensemble, joined by soprano Courtenay Budd and baritone Michael Kelly, in “A Field Manual” (2008). Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., btwn. Bleecker & Sullivan Sts. Apr. 12, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 at lepoissonrouge.com or 212505-3474.

PERFORMANCE Bindlestiff Is Back

March 18. Sergei Radchenko’s Swans

Fifteenth Street Friends welcomes Michael Long, editor of “I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters,” who talks about his research into the life of the late out gay Civil Rights Movement leader, the centenary of whose birth is being marked this year. A panel made up of civil rights and labor activist Velma Hill, Daniel Seeger, a former interim general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, and criminal justice advocate and radio host Eddie Ellis discuss select letters to be read by students from the Friends Seminary.

Fifteenth Street Meeting House, 15 Rutherford Pl., btwn. 15th & 16th Sts., half a block west of Second Ave. Mar. 15, 7-9 p.m.

The Empire State Pride Agenda continues the celebration of last year’s marriage equality win with a night out for the ladies. DJ Heather M provides the sounds and Belvedere offers up the complimentary cocktails. Marquee, 289 Tenth Ave. at 27th St. Mar. 15, 8-11 p.m. Tickets are $75, with a limited number of $30 tickets for those 21-30 with ID, at tinyurl. com/72uxbq6. Sponsorship tickets at $175, $90 for those under 30, offer admission to the VIP hour at 7.

MUSIC David Del Tredici at 75 Aaron Copland once called Pulitzer Prize-winner David Del Tredici, who turns 75 on March 16, “that rare find among composers — a creator with a truly original gift,” adding, “I know of no

WALTER NAEGLE

THU.MAR.15

HISTORY Bayard Rustin at 100

NIGHTLIFE Celebrating Marriage Victory With the Women

other composer of his generation who composes music of greater freshness and daring, or with more personality.” A series of concerts in venues across the city honor Del Tredici’s body of compositions.

Soprano Courtenay Budd joins Del Tredici on piano in a performance of the song cycles “Miz Inez Sez” (1998) and “Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter” (2001).

Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th St. Mar. 15, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30; $15 for those under 30 at symphonyspace.org or 212-864-5400. Del Tredici debuts “Ray’s Birthday Suit,” a suite of six biographical pieces describing the life of a cherished friend and former lover. Pianist Marc Peloquin performs “Mandango,” one of Del Tredici’s singular gay-themed works, and the two play piano together on “Carioca Boy.” Bargemusic, Fulton Ferry Landing, at the foot of Old Fulton St., Brooklyn. Mar. 23, 8 p.m. Tickets are $35; $30 for seniors; $15 for students at reserve@bargemusic.org. As part of an “Alice in Wonderland”-themed operaburlesque program co-presented by American Opera Projects and Opera On Tap, Del Tredici, conductor Conrad Chu, and soprano Amy van Roekel perform “Haddocks’ Eyes” (1985), part of his landmark oeuvre inspired by the writings of Lewis Carroll.

Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St. at Water St., DUMBO. Mar. 25-26, 8 p.m.

Tickets are $20 at galapagosartspace. com or 718-222-8500. As part of the San Francisco Symphony’s American Mavericks residency at Carnegie Hall, Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the orchestra in a concert of “Syzygy” (1966), Del Tredici’s

The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, which prides itself on being the heir to New York’s outstanding traditions of circus, sideshow, vaudeville, and burlesque, returns to town for a month of Thursdays.

The grand spectacle is hosted by Ringmistress Philomena, who presents jugglers, clowns, acrobats, aerial artists and more, all accompanied by the infamous Cirkus band. Keith Nelson and Stephanie Monseu direct. Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., btwn. Rivington & Delancey Sts. Mar. 15, 22 & 29, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20; $15 for students & seniors at dixonplace.org; $27.50 & $18 at the door; $15 for clowns in make-up.

READING Women Writing New York “Drunken! Careening! Writers!” host Kathleen Warnock welcomes Michele Carlo, Jenifer Levin, and Sonia Pilcer in an evening titled “Writers. Women. New Yorkers. GOT IT?” Carlo is a writer and performer who wrote the memoir “Fish Out Of Agua: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks” and contributed to “Mr. Beller’s Lost & Found: Stories From New York,” SMITH magazine’s “Next Door Neighbor,” “Chicken Soup For The Latino Soul,” and “American Creative Writers on Class.” Levin is the author of four novels –– “Water Dancer,” “Snow,” “Shimoni’s Lover,” “The Sea of Light” –– and a short story collection, “Love and Death, & Other Disasters.” Pilcer is finishing her fifth novel, The Last Hotel,” from which she will read. Her other books are “The Holocaust Kid,” “Teen Angel,” “Maiden Rites, Little Darlings,” and “I-LAND: Manhattan Monologues.” KGB Bar, 85 E. Fourth St., btwn. Bowery & Second Ave. Mar. 15, 7 p.m. Free.

CABARET Songbird Salute Linda Eder –– whose diverse repertoire spans Broadway, standards, pop, country, and jazz and is releasing a new album, “Now,” which reunites her with Broadway and pop composer Frank Wildhorn –– pays tribute to great ladies of

music including Lena Horne, Etta James, Barbra Streisand, and Judy Garland in her new cabaret show “Songbirds.” Feinstein’s at Loews Regency, 540 Park Ave. at 61st St. Mar. 15, 8 p.m.; Mar. 16-17, 8 & 10:30 p.m. The cover charge is $60-$125, with a $40 food/ drink minimum. For reservations, visit feinsteinsatloewsregency.com or call 212-339-4095.

FRI.MAR.16

GALLERY Early Haring in West Village, Brooklyn “Keith Haring: 1978-1982” is the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of the legendary pop artist, who died of AIDS in 1990. The exhibit traces the development of the artist’s extraordinary visual vocabulary and including 155 works on paper, seven experimental videos, and more than 150 archival objects, among them rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs. The period from Haring leaving his Pennsylvania home to attend New York’s School of Visual Arts through the early years of his studio practice and public and political art on the city streets is chronicled. Brooklyn Museum of Art, 200 Eastern Pkwy (2, 3 to Eastern Parkway) near Grand Army Plaza.

Mar. 16-Jul. 8, Wed., Fri.-Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thu., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; first Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Admission is $12; $8 for students & seniors. More information at brooklynmuseum.org.

The LGBT Community Center hosts a month-long celebration of Haring’s life.

In 1989, he completed the mural “Once Upon A Time” –– a celebration of sexual pleasure and abundance –– for the men’s room at the Center. Work on restoration of the mural has been completed and will be on public viewing –– the bathroom has now become a meeting space –– Through Mar. 31, after which the room will resume its scheduling of meetings.

On Mar. 20, 7 p.m., “Q & Gay,” the Center’s intergenerational dialogue series, presents “Sex from the 70s to Scruff,” an examination of hooking-up then and now –– from the bathhouses to iPhone apps.

Admission is $10. On Mar. 27, 7 p.m., “Old-School Flygirl Throwdown” welcomes breakdancing diva Rokkafella to hold an old-school, hip-hop dance throwdown with an all-female crew, where dueling DJs and battlin’ breakers get into the groove. Gay Men’s Health Crisis will provide rapid HIV testing. Admission is $15. Haring’s 30-minute1990 documentary, “Drawing the Line,” is screened on Mar. 30, 7 p.m., followed by a panel discussion featuring those who knew him best. Free. 208 W. 13th St. Complete information at gaycenter.org’s Calendar section.

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SAT.MAR.17

PERFORMANCE Beyond the Birdcage

Belgian playwright and director Vanessa Van Durme helped conceive and stars in “Gardenia,” in which transgender performers, aged 55-65, use song and dance to express the raw pain of their marginalization and loneliness, as well as the wit and ways that they’ve held on to their dignity in the face of ridicule and physical violence. Inspired by Sonia Herman Dolz’s “Yo soy asi,” a compelling, feature-length documentary that chronicled the lives of the aging performers at the closing of a transvestite cabaret in Barcelona, “Gardenia” –– which opened in Ghent and was also performed at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London –– is directed by Alain Platel and Frank Van Laecke, who head Belgium’s Les Ballets C de la B. Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, Valley Rd. & Normal Ave., Montclair, NJ. Mar. 17 & 24, 8 p.m.; Mar. 18 & 25, 3 p.m.; March 21-23, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 at peakperfs.org or 973-655-5112.

MUSIC Global Baroque Sounds Frederick Renz directs the Early Music New York Chamber Orchestra and recorder soloist Nina Stern in a program titled “Musical Geography I: Baroque Suites & Concerti,” evoking local colors and national styles with compositions by Purcell (English), Telemann (German), Roman (Swedish), Rameau (French), and van Wassenaer (Dutch). St. James’ Church, Madison Ave. at 71st St. Mar. 17, 8 p.m. Tickets are $40 at EarlyMusicNY.org or 212-280-0330. Student rush price is $20, one half hour prior to performance.

GALLERY Cindy Sherman Retrospective The Museum of Modern Art presents “Cindy Sherman,” a retrospective tracing the groundbreaking artist’s career from the mid-1970s to the present. The exhibition brings together some 180 key photographs from the artist’s significant series — including the complete “Untitled Film Stills” (1977–80), the critically acclaimed centerfolds (1981), and the celebrated history portraits (1989– 90) — plus examples from her fashion photography of the early 1980s, the breakthrough sex pictures of 1992, her 2003 clowns, monumental society portraits from 2008, and the American premiere of her 2010 photographic mural.

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, 11 West 53rd St., sixth fl. Through Jun. 11. Wed.-Mon., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Fri., 10:30 a.m.–8 p.m. Admission is $25 adults; $18 for seniors; $14 for students. Free admission, Fri., 4-8 p.m.

LaChapelle’s Flowers Fred Torres Collaborations presents “Earth Laughs In Flowers,” a new series of ten largescale photographs by David LaChapelle, whose photography career began in the 1980s when while showing his artwork in New York galleries, it caught the eye of Andy Warhol and the editors of Interview magazine. First shown at the Kestnergesellschaft Museum in Hannover, “Earth Laughs In Flowers” appropriates the traditional Baroque still life painting in order to explore contemporary vanity, vice, the transience of earthly posses-

sions, and the fragility of humanity. Expectations of the still life are satisfied through the inclusion of symbolic objects such as fruit, flowers, and skulls, but also upended by the insertion of everyday items such as cell phones, cigarette butts, balloons, Barbies, and a Starbuck’s iced coffee cup. The title comes from the poem “Hamatreya” (1846) by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in which flowers articulate nature’s ridicule and contempt for human arrogance in the pretense to dominion over earth. 527 W. 29th St. Through Mar. 24. Tue.-Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. More information at fredtorres.com.

SUN.MAR.18

PERFORMANCE Amidst the Storm, SelfDiscovery

Downtown Music Productions presents “The Restless Yearning Towards My Self,” a poem by poet and novelist Perry Brass set to music by opera composer Paula Kimper. The story of a poet finding himself in the midst of a sea of diversions, hype, and counterfeits, the piece will be sung by Costa Rican baritone José Arturo Chacon, who will appear with international dance soloist Felicia Norton. St. Marks in the Bowery Church, 131 E. Tenth St. at Second Ave. Mar. 18, 3 p.m. The suggested donation is $15; $10 for students & seniors.

FILM Charlotte Bunch & Lesbian Politics Cinemarosa, Queens’ first and only independent queer film and video series, screens Tami Gold’s documentary “Passionate Politics: The Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch,” which traces the out lesbian feminist and civil rights activist’s lifelong work for social justice, her engagement with feminist and political theory, her membership in the lesbian separatist group the Furies, her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and her receipt of the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights from President Bill Clinton.

Gold’s film situates lesbian politics within the broader global context of the struggles for LGBT equality and women’s rights. Gold and others will answer audience questions on a panel moderated by Cinemarosa director Hector Canonge. A cocktail reception follows the screening and panel. Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park (#7 train to Willets Point/ Citi Field; walk toward the Unisphere).

Mar. 18, 3-5 p.m. Suggested donation is $5.

COMEDY Lehman Laughing Comedian Adam Lehman (Here! TV’s “Hot Gay Comics”) guest-hosts “The Electroshock Therapy Comedy Hour!,” tonight featuring Allison Castillo (Comedy Central), Hadiyah Robinson (VH1), and Selena Coppack. Therapy Bar, 348 W. 52nd St. Mar. 18, 10 p.m. No cover charge, and cosmos are $7 all night long.

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March 14, 2012 | www.gaycitynews.com Orthodox Jewish campus as a woman — Joy Ladin. In “Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders,” Ladin takes readers inside her transition as she changed genders, and, in the process, created a new self. She wrestles with both the practical problems of gender transition and the larger moral, spiritual, and philosophical questions that arose in her struggle to reconcile the pain of her experience living as the “wrong” gender with the pain of her children in losing the father they loved. Ladin appears at JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave at 76th St. Mar. 19, 7 p.m. More information at jccmanhattan.org.

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MUSIC Legrand Meringolo Marieann Meringolo brings her new show, “You Must Believe In Spring! The Music of Michel Legrand” to Feinstein’s at Loews Regency. The show features Legrand song selections with masterpiece lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Norman Gimbel, and Johnny Mercer. Meringolo will sing renditions of “The Windmills of Your Mind,” Summer Me Winter Me,” and “What are You Doing The Rest of Your Life.”

“I have always been drawn to the music of Michael Legrand, especially the Legrand/ Bergman collaboration,” Meringolo said. “The combination of the beautiful melodies and breathtaking lyrics has always stopped me in tracks –– a match made in heaven!”

540 Park Ave. at 61st St. Mar. 18, 8:30 p.m. The cover charge is $30-$50, with a $25 food & drink minimum. For reservations, visit feinsteinsatloewsregency. com or call 212-339-4095.

Moscow Festival Ballet presents Sergei Radchenko’s production of “Swan Lake,” with Tchaikovsky score and choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, Lehman College, 250 Bedford Park Blvd. W., btwn. Goulden & Jerome Aves., the Bronx. Mar. 18, 4 p.m. Tickets are $25-$40; $10 for children 12 & under at LehmanCenter.org or 718-960-8833

MON.MAR.19

BENEFIT Mr. Broadway Lends a Hand to Homeless Youth

Hostess Tovah Feldshuh and a panel of celebrity judges –– Jackie Hoffman, Michael Musto, and Tonya Pinkins –– offer critiques, but in the end, it’s the audience who will decide who goes home with the crown in the sixth annual Broadway Beauty Pageant. The event benefits the Ali Forney Center, which provides housing and social services for homeless LGBT youth across the city. The Great White Way’s hottest chorus boys compete in talent, interview, and swimsuit competitions to win the title “Mr. Broadway.” Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th St. Mar. 19, 8 p.m.

Tickets are $25-$125 at broadwaybeautypageant.com.

PERFORMANCE Gavin Creel on Stage Tony Award-nominee Gavin Creel (“Hair,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie”) mounts the stage again

in a performance debuting his new solo album, “Get Out,” which follows the release in December of “Noise,” co-written with Robbie Roth, that raised funds and support for marriage equality across the country. “Get Out is Creel’s first collaboration with songwriter and producer Ben Cullum. Joe’s Pub, inside the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., btwn.

E. Fourth St. & Astor Pl. Mar. 19, 7 & 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $20-$30 at joespub.com or 212-967-7555.

Broadway, 1950 “The Broadway Musicals of 1950” –– the latest in a favorite Town Hall series –– written and hosted by Scott Siegel, features Beth Leavel (“The Drowsy Chaperone)”, Bobby Steggert (“Yank: A WWII Love Story”), Matt Cavenaugh (“West Side Story”), Bill Daugherty (“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”), Kendrick Jones (“The Scottsboro Boys”), Aaron Lazar (“A Little Night Music”), Jenny Powers (“Little Women”), and Elizabeth Stanley (“Merrily We Roll Along”). Directed by Alexander Gemignani, with musical direction by Ross Patterson, the cast performs 1950 hits such as “Luck be a Lady,” “I’ll Know,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” “From This Moment On,” “Nobody’s Chasing Me,” and “You’re Just in Love.” 123 W. 43rd St. Mar. 19, 8 p.m. Tickets are $45-$55 at ticketmaster.com or 800-982-2787.

NYC Queer Cougars & Cubs Together (NYCQCCT) is the first and only meet-up group for hot older and younger queer women interested in socializing together. Open to all women 18 years of age or older, including lesbian, bi, transsexual, and intersexed women who live their daily lives as women –– and all female-born transgender people who have a connection with and respect for the women’s community –– the group holds a game night competition it promises will be steamy. Activities include billiards, ping-pong, shuffleboard, foosball, Scrabble, chess, checkers, backgammon, and more. Winners will advance to future competitions on the way to the citywide championship. Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St. at Seventh Ave. S. Mar. 22, 6-9 p.m. More information at meetup.com/NYC-Queer-Cougars-Cubs-Together.

THEATER Say, Just What?

Playwright Brandt Johnson’s comedy “Just Sex” explores the moral boundaries of cybersex. A couple open up their marriage, log on, and get off, but confront frequent, hilarious reminders that such escapades can lead to much more than just sex. Alex Kilgore directs. Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. at Tenth St. Tue.-Sun., 8 p.m. Mar. 22-Apr. 15, and 3 p.m., Mar. 25. Tickets are $25 at SmartTix.com or 212-868-4444.

FRI.MAR.23

READING Rainbow Book Fair

More than 100 publishers, writers, poets, editors, and booksellers are due to participate in the fourth annual New York Rainbow Book Fair. On Mar. 23, 7:30 p.m., the event kicks off with a “Celebration of Gay Poetry.” CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave. at 34th St., Concourse Room C 198. On Mar. 24, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m., the fair resumes with panels, readings, and publisher and book seller tabling.

From 2:30-3:45, Charles Rice-Gonzalez leads a panel titled “Queer Latinidad,” featuring Miguel Angel Angeles, Karen Jaime, and Charlie Vazquez, while Perry Brass moderates a discussion about “Queer Literary New York Before Stonewall” that includes Christopher Bram, Steve Watson, and Edmund White.

From 4-5:15, Sarah Chinn leads a panel titled “Queer Comix,” featuring A.K. Summers, Jennifer Camper, Chuck McKinney, and Chino. All afternoon, there will be four-minute author readings going on. To read from your work, contact Chin at sarah.chinn@hunter.cuny. edu. LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St.

BOOKS An Orthodox Transition Professor Jay Ladin, a scholar and poet, made headlines around the world upon returning, after years of teaching literature at Yeshiva University, to the

SUN.MAR.25

MIKE RUIZ

DANCE Sergei Radchenko’s Swans

THU.MAR.22

NIGHTLIFE Are You a Cougar or a Cub?

“America’s Gaysian Sweetheart,” he has been seen on “Desperate Housewives,” “Ugly Betty,” and “The View,” and returns to New York with his show “Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy.” Mapa’s life was turned upside down when he and his husband, producer Jamison Hebert (“Bullied”) adopted a five-year-old boy. The show asks the comedic question: How do you go from stand-up gigs, red carpets, gay cruises, and circuit parties to being a responsible carpool-driving PTA member? Laurie Beechman Theatre, West Bank Café, 407 W. 42nd St. Mar. 22, 9 p.m. Tickets are $22 at SpinCycleNYC.com or 212-352-3101, and there’s a $15 food & drink minimum.

PERFORMANCE Hilarious, Freaky Funny & Gaysian Ellen DeGeneres says that Alec Mapa is “smart, hilarious, and funny,” while Variety writes he is “a freak. No one should be this talented.” Self-styled as

MUSIC Connecticut Winds

As part of the “Music in Chelsea Series,” the Connecticut Little Symphony’s wind and piano performers offers a concert featuring the music of Mozart, Hindemith, Milhaud, and Dutilleux. St. Peter’s Church in Chelsea, 346 W. 20th St. Mar. 25, 4 p.m.

Suggested donation is $10; $5 for students & seniors.

More information at stpeterschelsea.com.

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