Study: Coming Out to Doctors Is Good for Gay Health
Queer men who are up front about their sexuality to physicians are likelier to receive the recommended testing and vaccines.
www.advocate.com/health/2018/7/26/study-coming-out-doctors-good-gay-health
New Go-Gos Musical ‘Head Over Heels’ Is a Goddamn Queer Delight: REVIEW
A bride’s cockamamy paternity hunt was just crazy enough to make Mamma Mia! into a smash, launching a thousand jukebox copycats. Two decades later, The Go-Go’s are taking the opposite tack — toppling the patriarchy Head Over Heels in an queer fantasia of a new musical that opened at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre tonight.
Consider it an escapist mission for our times, wielding nostalgia and camp as its weapons of choice. The result is openly bizarre, no doubt. It’s also an infectiously entertaining, french-tipped fist pump for the resistance.
Oh, yeahhh! And they got the beat.
Not that there’s anything overtly political about the frothy Elizabethan rom-com on which the story is based (Sir Philip Sidney’s The Arcadia) or director Michael Mayer’s vibrant-hued, ingeniously tongue-in-cheek production, whose aesthetic marries amateur summer Shakespeare with retro fantasy flourishes that recall She-Ra: Princess of Power.
But James Magruder and Jeff Whitty (who adapted and conceived the story, respectively) take inspired liberties in retooling this source material to jive anachronistically with the present day, and accommodate The Go-Go’s brand of new wave girl pop. With lines like, “Wherefore scoffest thou?” and “Thou better workest,” we’re not in Sir Philip’s Greco-Roman countryside anymore.
The oracle who gets this show on the road is non-binary Pythio, played in fab finery by Drag Race alum Peppermint (making the Broadway debut she deserves, and history as the first trans woman to create a principal role). Arcadia is in peril of losing its divine life force (you guessed it, that beat!) for remaining too orderly under “the iron yoke of tradition” (ugh, men). Pythio’s prophecies for the king (zaddy Jeremy Kushnier) and his royal fam include a forbidden love affair, adultery, and regicide. Oh, my!
In Shakespeare as in Sondheim, the woods are where folks head to figure out who they really are away from the fetters of civilization. So off they go, where mistaken identities, cross-dressing, and sexual awakenings all carouse beneath designer Julian Crouch’s flattened Rococo woodland.
Who’d have thought The Go-Go’s greatest hits were so well-suited to such Elizabethan hijinks?
“Our Lips Are Sealed” in secret romance, sing two sets of unlikely lovers: the king’s youngest (Alexandra Socha) and her shepherd suitor (a kooky and ripped Andrew Durand), in Amazon warrior drag; and the eldest princess (Bonnie Milligan, a knockout) and her handmaid turned beloved (Taylor Iman Jones). The latter fleas on “Vacation” to Lesbos when the two face their first spat. A furtive liaison set to “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” delivers the most brilliant stagecraft of the night. If not every number pops with distinct flavor, neither do they feel shoehorned, or the story contorted to fit as many tracks as possible.
This is not to say the plot isn’t twisted; a series of sharp turns near the end are enough to cause whiplash. But then, so is dancing to the Go-Go’s if you’re doing it right. Given the show’s unwaveringly open embrace of its own absurdity, faulting it for flaunting logic or convention feels beside the point.
Playful, expressive choreography from Spencer Liff adds punch and sex appeal to a musical that ultimately considers eroticism as primal and gender as performance. When a heroine dons drag in Shakespeare (and it’s always a woman’s ruse), resolution depends on casting it off and affirming gender identity as fixed. Here, the very notion that gender is anything other than a false disguise gets flipped Head Over Heels — and heaven knows we can dance to that beat.
Recent theatre features…
New Rock Opera from ‘Hedwig’ Creator, ‘This Ain’t No Disco’ Is Right About That: REVIEW
Boys Will Be Boys in ‘Straight White Men’ Starring Armie Hammer and Josh Charles: REVIEW
Jesse Tyler Ferguson Is a Gay Neo-Con in Vacant ‘Log Cabin’ Off-Broadway: REVIEW
Idina Menzel Opens In Off-Broadway’s ‘Skintight,’ a Daddy-Twink Romance Where ‘Hot Is Everything’: REVIEW
Starry Broadway Revival of ‘The Boys in the Band’ Lends Gay History a High Sheen: REVIEW
Time’s Up? Not So Fast: ‘Carousel’ Is Back on Broadway: REVIEW
Get in, Losers: The ‘Mean Girls’ Musical Is Fun as Hell: REVIEW
Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar
(photos: joan marcus)
The post New Go-Gos Musical ‘Head Over Heels’ Is a Goddamn Queer Delight: REVIEW appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
New Go-Go’s Musical ‘Head Over Heels’ Is a Goddamn Queer Delight: REVIEW
Celebrity Couples That Are Straight Up #Goals
I can still remember the moment I audibly gasped reading the breakup note from one of my favorite #couplesgoals – Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan. We all watched in awe as sparks flew during they’re first on screen appearance in Step Up and cracked up when Jenna impersonated Channing with the infamous “Magic Mike” dance […]
The post Celebrity Couples That Are Straight Up #Goals appeared first on PlentyOfFish Blog.
New Report Unequivocally Links Misogyny With White Supremacy
It’s not shocking that white supremacy and misogyny are linked, but the Anti-Defamation League really spells it out.
www.advocate.com/women/2018/7/26/new-report-unequivocally-links-misogyny-white-supremacy
Representative Jared Polis speaks at the 2018 HRC Colorado Gala Dinner
The Last Days of Transface
Even during these dark political days, positive change is happening, writes trans director Pooya Mohseni.
Early Voting, Rod Rosenstein, Jim Jordan, Facebook Stock, Demi Lovato, Ryan Reynolds, Gay Imam: HOT LINKS
REALLY!? Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers come for James Comey. “Really, James Comey? You’re worried the Democrats are going to move too far to the left? Really? I don’t know if you remember, but we were just about to have a nice, boring, moderate Democrat for a president until you decided to open your mouth a week before the election, you big, dumb scarecrow.”
ROBERT MUELLER. Reviewing Trump’s tweets as part of obstruction inquiry: “The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is scrutinizing tweets and negative statements from the president about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to three people briefed on the matter.
STONED ALONE. Ryan Reynolds plans stoner remake of Home Alone.
OREGON. Federal judge rules transgender people have right to use restroom of their choice.
IMPEACH ROD ROSENSTEIN? Paul Ryan rejects the idea: ‘The Wisconsin Republican told reporters the Department of Justice was largely complying with a GOP demand for documents surrounding the FBI’s Russia investigation. “I don’t think we should be cavalier with this process or this term,” he said of impeachment. “I don’t think this rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.” That puts him in conflict with the no. 3 Republican, Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who expressed support for the idea in a Fox News interview earlier in the day.’ Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) also opposed: “Walker told reporters on Capitol Hill that he would vote against any effort to impeach Rosenstein in the House a day after two members of the House Freedom Caucus joined nine co-sponsors to announce articles of impeachment against Rosenstein.”
JIM JORDAN. Ohio Rep. who ignored abuse of wrestlers at OSU to announce bid for Speaker.”Should the American people entrust us with the majority again in the 116th Congress, I plan to run for Speaker of the House to bring real change to the House of Representatives,” said a statement Jordan released through a spokesman. “President Trump has taken bold action on behalf of the American people,” his statement continued. “Congress has not held up its end of the deal, but we can change that. It’s time to do what we said.”
DEMI LOVATO. Heading back to rehab after hospitalization for overdose.
LOCK HER UP. Jeff Sessions on what he should have said to high school conservatives, but didn’t: “I met with a group of enthusiastic high school students, and they spontaneously broke into that chant. I perhaps should have taken a moment to advise them of the fact that… you’re presumed innocent until cases are made.”
AG Sessions on echoing a “lock her up!” chant earlier this week: “I perhaps should have taken a moment to advise them that … you’re presumed innocent until cases are made.” pic.twitter.com/lR7FNszGeg
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 26, 2018
FLORIDA. Federal judge strikes down campus ban on early voting: ‘Calling it a “lopsided” burden on college students, a federal judge on Tuesday told Florida that college and university campuses can be used as early voting sites in this year’s elections. In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker called the ban put in place by Secretary of State Ken Detzner unconstitutional. He said it appeared to be done to stop younger voters from casting ballots.’
THE RECORD. Has been corrected: ‘The White House on Thursday updated the official transcript of President Trump‘s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin to include a previously omitted question about whether Putin wanted Trump to win the 2016 election.’
AUSTRALIA. How the country’s first gay imam is changing lives: ‘Unable to travel due to security concerns, he set up Marhaba – an online prayer group – five years ago. He tells the BBC how his efforts have helped to “heal” families.’
SANDY HOOK PARENTS. Mark Zuckerberg providing a “safe haven for hate” on Facebook. “But we are unable to properly grieve for our baby or move on with our lives because you, arguably the most powerful man on the planet, have deemed that the attacks on us are immaterial, that providing assistance in removing threats is too cumbersome, and that our lives are less important than providing a safe haven for hate.”
HONG KONG. Gay civil servant to take spousal benefits case to high court: “Telling the Post of his decision on Thursday, Angus Leung Chun-kwong said he was encouraged by a recent landmark Court of Final Appeal ruling in favour of a lesbian expatriate, known as QT in court, requiring the city’s Immigration Department to grant her a spousal visa.”
FACEBOOK. Stock plunges 20 percent amid privacy, election fallout.
STUPID LAUGH TRACK OF THE DAY. Paul Ryan reading mean tweets.
THIRSTY THURSDAY. Drazen Perez.
The post Early Voting, Rod Rosenstein, Jim Jordan, Facebook Stock, Demi Lovato, Ryan Reynolds, Gay Imam: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.
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