After Blackface at Blue Moon, Black Performers Are Asking Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ Community to Do More Than Be Outraged

QBurgh: An alleged blackface performance at Blue Moon Bar’s weekly Open Stage Wednesday has sparked anger, grief, and calls for accountability across Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ community, with Black performers asking not only how it happened, but what will change now that it has.

When Federal Funding Is Used to Censor: National Queer…

www.broadwayworld.com: For the National Queer Theater, the fight against censorship is not an abstract political debate. It is a fight for artists’ livelihoods, young people’s futures, and the right of queer and transgender people to tell their stories without first seeking the government’s approval.

Role Models: Breaking Theatre’s Gender Binary, an Intergenerational Story

AMERICAN THEATRE: “You’re right. Everyone else is wrong.” A few hours after writer and performer Cole Escola offered this advice to LGBTQ+ viewers in a Logo TV interview, they made history as the first openly nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award for performance in a play (Oh, Mary!, which they also wrote).

Election Statement from the IATSE Pride Committee

IATSE Cares: As members of the LGBTQIA+ community, we are proudly voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for President and Vice President. The past four years under Trump and Pence have been disastrous for our community and we need real leaders like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to move our country into a more accepting and inclusive place.

Diversionary Theatre's busy calendar includes a virtual visit from George Takei

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Diversionary Theatre’s stage went dark in March, but its leader says the University Heights company has never been busier as it opens its 35th season with a large slate of online programming, the launch of a new membership program and a virtual visit from stage and TV star George Takei.

Interview: Nina West and the Power of Drag

The BroadwayBlog: Of the many industries impacted by COVID-19, live performance has been hit particularly hard, with theaters and live music venues abruptly shuttered and our beloved drag queens temporarily ushered back into the closet.

It didn’t take long for drag artists to migrate online or producers to reimagine drag experiences with large-scale drive-in shows or more private driveway performances.

In-person drag performances resume in San Francisco, but at a safe distance

Datebook: On a recent Saturday, Haight Street was mostly empty as the sun set on the deserted blocks of retail and bars. Then suddenly, a flurry of activity emerged from the Red Victorian Hotel.

Two parking spaces in front of the hotel, commonly known as the Red Vic, were being roped off. A couple of volunteers brought chairs out to the curb and turned on TVs installed in the hotel windows, letting passersby know that it was time for Fishbowl Drag.

‘Almost Love’ Director Insisted Openly Gay Actors Play Lead Couple

Variety: “Almost Love” marks the directorial debut of actor Mike Doyle. The indie, which the openly gay Doyle also wrote, stars Scott Evans as a painter and Augustus Prew as his boyfriend who runs a famous fashion Instagram account. As their relationship comes to a crossroads, we also meet their circle of friends, including Kate Walsh, whose character’s husband of 15 years leaves her for a younger woman.

NPR Interview: 'Pose' Choreographer Twiggy Pucci Garçon

NPR: The FX show Pose is back for a second season. It's about ball culture in New York City in the 1980s and early 90s — balls are spaces where trans women and gay men walk the runway, dance, and yes, pose, competing for trophies and bragging rights.

Towards a Queer Reclamation

HowlRound Theatre Commons: How do you create a mainstream queer theatrical culture? Many believe the answer to this question is as simple as gaining representation—perhaps in terms of the content of shows, perhaps in terms of their creation. However, even as representation increases, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of a truly and uniquely queer theatrical culture—which, for this argument, I am defining as a unique set of practices, aesthetics, and philosophies that are recognizable to an average audience member. Mainstream theatrical culture, by contrast, is accessible to general audiences.

‘Oklahoma!,’ Still Okay?

AMERICAN THEATRE: “Country’s a-changin’, got to change with it!”

So Oklahoma!’s Curly tells her true love Laurey moments after she accepts her adorably flustered proposal. Wait, did I just write “her” for Curly? If you’re in Ashland, Ore., yes, ma’am—that’s the correct pronoun. Bill Rauch’s current staging of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic has found a new way to make the heart beat faster and the eye tear up: Curly and Laurey’s romance now blazes brightly in a nation torn between LGBTQ rights and bigoted backlash. Their pure love is echoed in the comical affair between roper Will Parker and his randy sweetheart, Ado Andy (originally Annie), now “just a boy who cain’t say no.”

LGBTQ Plays Emerge From Edmonton Fringe

The BroadwayBlog: Many Americans have joked over the past year about border hopping to Canada, where “sorry” and “eh?” provide a welcome substitute to the vitriol spewing forth from our commander-in-chief as well as the non-partisan media storm that continues to spin at hurricane levels. But all is not quiet on the northern front.

Theatrical rumblings at this year’s Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival prove that the queer narrative (with varying degrees of success) is shaking Alberta’s sacred ground, declaring that Canadian theater artists are not afraid to take a deep dive into the conflicts facing the LGBTQ community. Among the dozens of shows at this year’s festival, two in particular tackled stories that might make some squirm, but more importantly, unpacked themes that demand attention far beyond the theater community.