Snap Out of It!

We don't condone violence in any way. However, eighth grade student Grant Viola came up with a pointed and yes, funny PSA as part of a homework assignment. He even gave kudos to his little brother for being the star - who does that for little brothers? We get hopeful when kids who aren't even old enough to drive a car do things like this:

The Reincarnation of Alan Jay Lerner

Whatever one might think of Alan Jay Lerner (and there are those who don't think of him at all), no one ever thinks 'hip, cool, edgy.' Lerner wrote the screenplay for what many believe to be the greatest movie musical ever, 'An American In Paris,' as well as one of the most honored filmed musicals 'My Fair Lady.' His work with Frederick Loewe also includes Gigi, Camelot & Brigadoon, among others. The closest he ever got to contemporary was On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, a musical convoluted story about ESP & reincarnation, when made into a movie starred the young, hot & hip Barbra Streisand. Truth: all I remember of the movie is her arguing with Jack Nicholson (with hair) about a roof - she said roooof, he said ruff. Even with Nicholson & Streisand, nobody said it was cool like, say Spring Awakening where two eras were slammed together to create something electric & exciting. Until now.

The openly gay director of Spring Awakening & American Idiot, Michael Mayer and openly gay playwright Peter Parnell have reworked On A Clear Day. The character played by Streisand in the film has been changed into a gay guy. I'd never copy an entire article from an East Coast newspaper without permission except by accident...oops! Read on:

Switched at Rebirth By PATRICK HEALY
When the musical “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” opened on Broadway in 1965, the main character was Daisy Gamble, a daffy young woman who turned out to be the reincarnation of a 18th-century English aristocrat named Melinda Wells. The show’s composer, Burton Lane, wrote lush melodies to reflect the dreamy Daisy, while Alan Jay Lerner’s script was a star vehicle for Barbara Harris, playing both Daisy and Melinda. On hand to propel the plot was another character, a psychiatrist who draws out Melinda through hypnosis and then falls for her.

If the story was convoluted — making it a rarely revived musical, despite an acclaimed score — the animating spirit of the show was clear.

“It was always Daisy’s story, because Daisy was such a fun and dramatically imaginative character,” Lane’s widow, Lynn, said recently of the role played by Ms. Harris on Broadway and Barbra Streisand in the 1970 film adaptation. Of her husband, Ms. Lane added, “Burton loved Daisy, and at first blush he might have killed anyone who suggested the musical would be better off focusing on another character.”

That the director Michael Mayer is alive and working on his new Broadway revival of “On a Clear Day” — with support from the Lerner and Lane estates — reflects a calculated bet by all involved that a hit show can be pulled out of the musical scrap heap. “On a Clear Day” has not been revived on Broadway; its eccentric book by Lerner tends to overshadow the tuneful score. Mr. Mayer and the playwright Peter Parnell have rewritten virtually the entire script to center on the psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Bruckner, in the hopes of greater story clarity and higher dramatic stakes. In doing so they have radically reconceived the role of Daisy, who has now become a goofy gay man named Davey. (The story is now set in 1974, instead of 1965, which means pastels and bell-bottoms fill the stage.)

The alterations have been so sweeping that Mr. Mayer once proposed that the production be called a “reincarnation” instead of a “revival,” or that his billing read “reincarnated by” instead of “directed by.”

But here’s the thing about reincarnation: You’re never sure who or what you’re going to get. Mr. Mayer, a Tony Award-winning innovator of Broadway musicals like “Spring Awakening” and “American Idiot,” is mounting one of the most risky revivals ever with this $8 million commercial production of “On a Clear Day,” which is now in preview performances and opens on Dec. 11.

It does have the box office advantage of its star Harry Connick Jr., as Dr. Bruckner, but even here Mr. Mayer and his producers are pushing their luck if audiences show up expecting the actor in his usual piano-playing/romantic-comedy mode. For this version of “On a Clear Day,” Dr. Bruckner has been turned into a grieving widower and a self-doubting Freudian. Mr. Connick, for the record, never touches an ivory key.

In interviews this month, Mr. Mayer and Mr. Connick said they were still searching for the right tones to strike for his character’s malaise and eventual rebirth, among other changes that they were testing before the critics show up.

“This is by far the most complicated story arc that I’ve ever had to play, where I’m out of my comfort zone,” said Mr. Connick, whose last performance in a musical on Broadway, the 2006 revival of “The Pajama Game,” earned him a Tony Award nomination as best actor and feelers from other producers about a possible return to Broadway. “I don’t mean to sound selfish here, but if I thought about what the audience wants and expects from seeing me perform, I’d be very nervous to go out on stage in our show. I think it will challenge a lot of them more than they might expect at a typical revival of an old Broadway show.”

This “On a Clear Day” is more like a brand-new musical than a revival, given that the original script, characterizations, sets and choreography have been scrapped as reference points. “Annie” will always include raggedy orphans breaking into song, and “South Pacific” could not be set anywhere else. Mr. Mayer’s “On a Clear Day” still has some of the flower pots that Daisy-now-Davey serenades, and Dr. Bruckner still oversees hypnosis despite his professional misgivings. And, of course, beloved standards like “Come Back to Me,” “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have” and the title song remain. But for the most part, the artistic team and their lead producers — who include Liza Lerner, one of Alan Jay Lerner’s daughters and executors — have been creating the musical from the faintest of outlines.

“I said to the cast the other day, you can call it a revival all you want, but it really is an original musical,” Mr. Mayer said, “and the thrills and the challenges of the work are like that of a new musical.”

A fan of the original cast recording since childhood, Mr. Mayer first imagined reconceiving “On a Clear Day” in 1996 when he heard a trumpet recording of the title song, and soon he was humming more melodies like “Hurry! It’s Lovely Up Here.” Then, mindful that the musical was infamous for the quirky script, Mr. Mayer had a “light bulb moment” about a way to try to fix the show: creating tension and stakes by inventing an impossible love triangle with gay Davey falling for the straight Dr. Bruckner, who in turn falls for Melinda, who is available only as a past life conjured during hypnosis.

“Splitting Daisy into roles for two different actors, meanwhile, allows you to embrace the beautiful theatrical gift of simultaneity,” Mr. Mayer said of the moments in the new production, like the closing number in Act I, in which Dr. Bruckner dances with both Davey (played by David Turner) and Melinda (Jessie Mueller).

“With this love triangle, then, Mark started emerging as the main character in our thinking quite naturally,” Mr. Mayer said. He pointed out that Mark faces “conundrums and passions and longings, all the while doing battle with himself over logic and his own grief from losing his wife.” Mr. Parnell came up with the idea of making Mark a widower, partly to give him a dramatic challenge: letting go of someone he can’t have, in this case both his dead wife and Melinda.

Mr. Mayer found a like-minded spirit in Ms. Lerner, whose desire to restore “On a Clear Day” to the musical canon superseded any purist fidelity to the script of her father, who died in 1986. Ms. Lerner began shopping around Mr. Mayer’s reinvention to the Lerner and Lane estates, encountering a mix of curiosity and skepticism, she said. At the same time, though, executors were eager to have a version of “On a Clear Day” that could be licensed and could earn income for the estates. (The closest thing to a full New York production had been an Encores! concert staging in 2000, starring Kristin Chenoweth as Daisy.)

“It took 14, 15 years for us to get here, because we worked on so many different approaches to achieve Michael’s vision,” Ms. Lerner said. “At one point in development Melinda’s back story was set in the Raj, in India — it was wild. But look, my dad wrote at least seven drafts of this script up to before he died. He always wanted to make it better. We took our time, and everyone is pretty thrilled at this moment.”

Ms. Lane, the composer’s widow, said she liked some of Mr. Mayer’s ideas right away, like importing several Lane songs from the film “Royal Wedding” for Melinda, who is now a singer from the 1940s. Others she questioned, like turning Daisy into a gay man, but she credited Mr. Turner and Mr. Parnell for making it work.

“I didn’t think Daisy needed to be fixed, but David Turner is a magical actor,” Ms. Lane said. “He’s reincarnated the spirit of Daisy into Davey.”

A development workshop in 2010 was successful enough that Mr. Mayer and the producers began discussing a commercial Broadway run, which, everyone agreed, would need a star. Mr. Mayer thought Mr. Connick had “an incredibly palpable soulfulness” that would fit Mark. The two men met last fall to discuss the script, which Mr. Connick said he was already sold on. Still, a scheduling conflict prevented him from joining a follow-up workshop last summer so he was the only lead actor starting from scratch when rehearsals began on Oct. 3.

Tom Hulce, another of the lead producers, said the focus of rehearsals and previews now was “deepening and layering” Mr. Connick’s performance while sharpening plot moments, some of which provoked mutterings of confusion from audience members at the first previews. Many original musicals have out-of-town tryouts before Broadway, but most Broadway revivals do not, which has inevitably left the cast and crew to adjust and adapt quickly.

“As Mark, I have to go to a profoundly dark place eight times a week, and my 15-year-old daughter expressed concern the other night about that, asking if I thought it was dangerous for me emotionally,” Mr. Connick said. “I told her, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t done it before.’ I’ve never had to hit emotional beats this extreme and with such frequency.”

Which is part of the risk of acting, and of reincarnation. You may think you know Harry Connick Jr. as a performer, but “On a Clear Day” presents a different sort of Harry.

We agree: It's Time.

This video was brought to our attention by Centric Steven Tagle who posted it over on the Face Book. Steven is a Lambda Literary Emerging Writer, has been published by Spork Press and is at work on his first novel.

We're looking for holi-gay stories!

Happy Thanksgiving from homo-centric!

Give Thanks Your Way.

Submissions for World AIDS Day Sat. Dec. 3rd

I am honored to be curating an evening of performance as part of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center's World AIDS Day event December 3rd at 7:30. The performance will take place in the Renberg Theater at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place.

Patti Smith, when asked about the persistence of grief in her songs, said:
“I think it’s less about grief than remembrance. Grief starts to become indulgent, and it doesn’t serve anyone, and it’s painful. But if you transform it into remembrance, then you’re magnifying the person you lost and also giving something of that person to other people, so they can experience something of that person.”

With this in mind, the theme of the evening will be Remembrance, Honor & Celebration. We do not need another evening of eulogies. Let's remember our friends, lovers, brothers & sisters lost to AIDS in ways that lift our spirits. Tell a story, tell your story, sing or dance. Be serious, silly, bawdy, funny. The people we are remembering, honoring & celebrating were all of those things.

The time allotment for each person is 5 minutes onstage. There is a podium & microphone. Tech equipment is available for playing music or projecting images. Please try to keep your tech needs to a minimum. There will be a tech rehearsal prior to the performance. More on that later.

Please tell me what you would like to do. If you have something to read, please send me a copy or a detailed description of your words. If you plan to sing or dance, let me know the name of the song or style of music. I will not censor or edit you or turn you away; I'm only planning the flow of the evening.

Also include a brief bio with in your email. We may have a program if everything falls together quickly. Email me at homo-centic@att.net

Transgender Day of Remembrance Nov. 20th

There are events all over the world today. There is a comprehensive list at transgenderdor.org. The violence & prejudice that continues is maddening and heartbreaking. The number of events taking place in small towns as well as large cities is encouraging.


Take time today to remember.

Be inspired: Nikky Finney's National Book Award Speech

The gorgeous, passionate, engrossing, inimitable Nikky Finney took to the stage after winning the National Book Award for her volume of poetry "Head Off and Split" and gave a speech host John Lithgow called "the best acceptance speech he'd heard, for anything, ever." See it for yourself in the first seven minutes of the video below.

I lifted this from Poetry Foundation bio of her:
Carefully weaving the personal and political, Finney’s poetry is known for its graceful, heartfelt synthesis of the two. Influenced by Lucille Clifton and Nikki Giovanni, Finney’s poems explore subjects ranging from the human devastation of Hurricane Katrina to Rosa Parks to the career path of Condoleezza Rice.

Speaking of her latest book, the National Book Award-nominated Head Off & Split (2011), Finney told the Lexington Herald-Leader: “I know the sound of the '60s and '70s. There was a lot of standing with signs, there was a lot of shouting. I wanted to be a poet who didn't shout, who said things but said them with the most beautiful attention to language…I've been really working on this for 30 years, exploring how those two paths intersect, the path where the beautifully said thing meets the really difficult-to-say thing, and that's where I think this book finds its light.”

Spend some time at Nikky Finney's website here.

birthday-centric: Rock Hudson

He was one of the last movie stars created by the studio machines. Rock Hudson was named by an agent because of his rugged looks & athletic build. The studio arranged dates for him & even set up a marriage of convenience (that lasted a very short time). Even with the urging of friends like Armistead Maupin, Hudson refused to publicly come out. Famously, Maupin included Hudson in his Tales of the City books as "_________" - the star of all those _______ & _______ movies - referencing the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies.

Hudson was frank about his talent-adequate early on & better in his later career. His most famous role to some was the one he played out at the end of his life when he came out as a gay man with AIDS.

The effect of that disclosure had a huge impact. Hudson was the first big star to come out and admit both he was gay and ill with AIDS. I remember participating in the first Los Angeles AIDS Walk the year he came out. In the parking lot after there was a huge roll of butcher paper at a table. Hundreds of people wrote thanks, wishes and prayers to Hudson. For a better understanding of exactly how powerful his impact was, watch the video of Rock Hudson's death as reported by Peter Jennings on ABC News. The real punch comes in the last 30 seconds of the report.

history. her-story. our stories: Barbara Grier

When Ms. Grier was 12, she told her mother that she was “a homosexual,” Ms. Grier said in the “Before Stonewall” profile. “Mother said since I was a woman, I wasn’t a homosexual, I was a lesbian. She also said that since I was 12, I was a little young to make this decision and we should wait six months to tell the newspapers.”

Barbara Grier would have been 12 years old in 1945. That was sixty-six years ago. A little perspective: Franklin D. Roosevelt was still in office that year. Steinbeck's Cannery Row was published. It was 24 years before Stonewall. And boom: "Hey mom, guess what?" That was the start of what would become a lifelong love affair with the printed word. Grier's passion turned into a publishing house (founded with her partner Donna McBride)

that printed hundreds of lesbian authors and in turn, allowed countless people to read about someone like themselves & realize it was okay to be who they were. Barbara Grier died last week.

It's okay if you've never heard of her. We can't know about everyone. But take a few minutes & read about her life. Barbara Grier is one of the reasons there is lesbian literature, one of the reasons there's LGBTQI literature, one of the reasons we're all able to be running around holding hands in public & campaigning for marriage equality. She's part of LGBTQI history. Here's the article in full (from a certain unnamed Manhattan-centric newspaper):

Barbara Grier, a founder of one of the most successful publishing houses for books by and about lesbians, including a nonfiction chronicle about lesbian nuns that became a phenomenon after it drew complaints from Roman Catholic officials, died on Thursday in Tallahassee, Fla. She was 78.

The cause was lung cancer, said her partner, Donna McBride.

Ms. Grier became a revered figure to several generations of lesbian writers and readers after founding Naiad Press in 1973 with three other women, including Ms. McBride. Armed with just $3,000, they set out to publish books, as Ms. Grier later described them, “about lesbians who love lesbians, where the girl is not just going through a phase.”

That comment referred to the lesbian-themed romance novels she had read as a girl, growing up in the 1940s, in which the heroine dallied with a female lover but ended up with a man, reflecting what publishers considered the only acceptable happily-ever-after outcome.

Naiad Press published over 500 books with unconditionally lesbian themes during the next 30 years — romance novels, histories, erotica, volumes of poetry, science fiction and self-help guides.

Ms. Grier’s most controversial and successful book, “Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence,” was a 1985 nonfiction work by two former nuns, based on interviews with 50 former and active nuns who were lesbians like them. Nancy Manahan, one of the authors, wrote in the foreword to the book that its intent was to break the silence about “erotic love between women in religious life.”

When a local television station in Boston promoted an interview with Ms. Manahan and her co-writer, Rosemary Curb, local Catholic officials complained, saying the broadcast would be “an affront to the sensitivity of Roman Catholics.” The station canceled the segment, but publicity over the episode gave the book a “banned in Boston” cachet that sent sales soaring.

“This is crazy,” Ms. Grier told The New York Times, scrambling in ensuing weeks to fill new orders for the book, which eventually sold several hundred thousand copies. “I’m a mouse giving birth to an elephant.”

The main customers of Naiad Press were the hundreds of lesbian and feminist bookstores that sprouted up across the country in the 1970s and ’80s, at the dawn of the sexual-identity liberation movement. When Ms. Grier and Ms. McBride retired, in 2003, the company’s book list was taken over by Bella Books, a publisher specializing in lesbian-themed romance novels.

In addition to contemporary novels (including many by Sarah Aldridge, the pen name of Anyda Marchant, another Naiad founder, along with her partner, Muriel Crawford), Ms. Grier reprinted several books considered seminal works in the lesbian canon, including Gertrude Stein’s prose poem “Lifting Belly” and the poetry of Renée Vivien, a British bohemian famous at the turn of the last century as much for her openly lesbian life as for her Symbolist poems.

The most famous American lesbian novel of the ’70s, “Rubyfruit Jungle,” was not published by Ms. Grier. She and the book’s author, Rita Mae Brown, who has since described herself as bisexual, belonged to different camps in the era’s roiling politics of lesbian activism, said Victoria Brownworth, the author of a profile of Ms. Grier in “Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context,” a 2002 collection of biographical sketches.

But Ms. Brownworth described Ms. Grier as the premier editor to two generations of American lesbian writers, a mentor whose guidance helped formulate “new ways of defining ourselves during a time that saw tectonic shifts in the culture.” Ms. Grier, she said, was “the Maxwell Perkins of lesbian literature.”

Barbara Grier was born on Nov. 4, 1933, in Cincinnati, the oldest of three daughters of Phillip and Dorothy Grier. Her father, a physician, became an intermittent presence in the household beginning when she was about 5. Her mother worked as a secretary.

In addition to Ms. McBride, Mr. Grier is survived by her two sisters, Diane Grier and Penni Martin.

When Ms. Grier was 12, she told her mother that she was “a homosexual,” Ms. Grier said in the “Before Stonewall” profile. “Mother said since I was a woman, I wasn’t a homosexual, I was a lesbian. She also said that since I was 12, I was a little young to make this decision and we should wait six months to tell the newspapers.”

A few years later, when her sexual identity seemed fully mature, Ms. Grier received two of her first lesbian-themed books from her mother. Both were classics of the genre: “The Well of Loneliness,” a novel by the British writer Radclyffe Hall, which caused a scandal when it was published in 1928; and “Of Lena Geyer,” a 1936 novel by Marcia Davenport, a regular contributor to The New Yorker.

Ms. Grier never attended college. She went to work after graduating high school to help support the family, Ms. McBride said, adding: “Books were her education. She read everything, all kinds of books.”

But for her, books that made lesbians feel secure in their sexual identities were the best. “Her goal in publishing,” Ms. McBride added, “was to make lesbians happy about themselves.”

APT 3F presents Queerwise at Akbar Nov 18th

Just about a year ago a new performance venue popped up right in the middle of the dance floor at Akbar in Silverlake. Andrew Henkes, who spins around town as a DJ when not producing queer events, and David LeBarron, a performer & storyteller (who was terrific at last month's homo-centric reading) looked around & thought, "Eh. This town's just not gay enough." So they created APT 3F. Okay, so maybe it didn't go down like that...but it could have.

APT 3F is described as:
a space for underground performance and live art
a monthly series for smart adults and savvy kids
sophistication and socializing - culture and cocktails

Since January 2011 they've let a dizzying group of talented, eclectic, fabulous, talented performers come & play in their APT 3F.

This Friday, APT 3F is presenting Queerwise, and I would be telling you about this group of writers even if I weren't a part of them. That's right, I'm reading this Friday at APT 3F. Self-promotion? Not entirely. I'm one of nearly a dozen writers that will sharing their words. Come & check out Michael Kearns & his tribe of writers. $5 gets you a destination evening: The reading's at 8pm & you can stay for cocktails & dancing after. You'll be smack dab in the middle of Silverlake on a Friday night. What more do you need?

homo-centric's novEMBER Stories 11/17 at 7:30pm

Fall finally fell & the weather is decidedly as cool as this month's homo-centric writers! Come to Stories at 7:30 Thursday the 17th to hear these cool writers read their hot words (or is that the other way around?)

We'll be outside on the patio if weather permits so dress accordingly (read: coats).

Please come early and support the store & cafe! You can even check out their menu here.

We usually get there around seven to
* Order a coffee or tea & have a sandwich.
* Hang out & meet other writers.
* Wander the aisles & buy a book.

Please remember that we depend on the word of mouth so tell a friend, bring two or three.

These three talents will fill the evening air with homo-centricity:

Philip Littell got tricked into writing by persistent visions of what he wanted to see on stage, and an insane drive to make that happen. Weird stuff happened as a result, several bands, a freak career as an opera librettist he's not willing to talk about and the occasional acting job (he is usually the actor of last resort, which is some sort of badge of honor).

The last time Philip read at homo-centric, the resulting piece, "Everyone Who Hears This Story Gets Laid" became a short film that has played Outfest as well as the Boston & Palm Springs LGBT Film Festivals. Russell Brown directed it and both men will guarantee that it live up to its title. His musical "Billy the Kid and What He Did" premiered at Highways in November 2010. He is also writing a noir musical for a double-sexed doll.

Elizabeth Richmond attended SUNY Purchase, from which she holds degrees in literature and psychology. She has performed as a featured reader at poetry clubs in NY and NJ, including Bowery and Poetswednesday. She moved to California with the hope of using wheat litter for her cats, but instead found fame and fortune running a successful business. Elizabeth is participating in Nanomowrimo, writing a memoir called Five Days about a particularly interesting 127 hours of her life. She runs the LA Gay Lady Book Club with her girlfriend.

Richard Villegas Jr. is a 1974 Ystelei cabernet aged for three decades in the California oak-lined basin of the mega-pueblo L.A.-titlan.

Belvedere Elementary, Our Lady of Lourdes, Bosco Tech, UCLA, and USC were the institutions. T-parties, Tempo, and Tuesdays at a club formerly known as Woody’s were the situations.Villegas loves walks on the beach, Free Cuba! drinks, his Smurf village app, banda (Serbian or Mexican) and purposefully mixing the sacred with the profane. Richard's first chapbook, I (Heart) Babylon, Tenochtitlan, and Ysteléi was published this year.

Hank Henderson curates this swell-e-gant evening of queer words floating around the outside patio at Stories Books, 1716 Sunset Blvd. in the L.A. 90026 between Le Moyne & Logan. Metered parking available in the lot behind the bookstore & along Sunset Blvd. Map here.

homo-centric: novEMBER Stories

No matter the weather, please join us to hear these hot writers tell their cool stories!

Come & read at the next homo-centric Nov. 17th!

We're looking for a couple of LGBTQI poemfictionsongwriterstoryteller types to join the talented Richard Villegas at the next homo-centric reading Nov. 17th. It's really simple. Just email us at homo-centric@att.net and tell us a little about you & what you write. Also, feel free to send this on to writers & wordsmiths who live or will be visiting the Los Angeles area. homo-centric is a monthly series that happens the 3rd Thursday of every month. Wouldn't you like to be a Centric, too?

birthday-centric: Mapplethorpe

I remember when Robert Mapplethorpe was pissing off politicians and priests all across America. As the crevice of time passed is carved deeper, I remember the 80's as an incendiary time of art, AIDS and activism. Mapplethorpe is deeply ingrained in my memories of all that. He never wrote a book, didn't keep a journal. Mapplethorpe's art was his writing, his photos words. His life inspired those who lived around him; his legacy inspires those who remember him. Patti Smith experienced both and the resulting Just Kids is a must-read for anyone interested in Mapplethorpe. In my opinion, it is also one of the finest books written in recent memory.

A simple Google search will offer a ton of Mapplethorpe info. The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation has an excellent site here. I found a nice collection of his self-portraits at a blog called Nutty Fish (the rest of the blog is worth checking out, too). The self-portraits are here.

Go. Explore. Spend some time with Robert Mapplethorpe's art. Perhaps you will be inspired by it, too.