By Andrew Ramer
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Tony-winning playwright-director Arthur Laurents' (left in picture) and late partner Tom
Hatcher’s (right in picture) foundation has established an annual $150,000 prize. The
Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award will be given for an unproduced, full-length
play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright.
The prize includes a $50,000 cash award for the selected playwright and a
$100,000 grant for production costs of the play's premiere at a nonprofit
theater.
The foundation said Thursday it's the first major award for playwrighting to
be named in honor of a gay couple. The 92-year-old Laurents wrote the books for
"Gypsy" and "West Side Story." Hatcher was Laurents'
partner of 52 years. He was an actor and real estate developer and died in
2006. Submissions from invited applicants will be accepted June 15 to September
15th 2010. The first award recipient will be notified March 15, 2011.
(left to right: Lola Pashalinski, Mario Montez, Linda Chapman)
Presented by the NYU Tisch Department of Performance Studies
Mario Montez and Marc Siegel (he is a Berlin based archivist and found Mario in
Orlando Fl and invited him to the Berlin Film Festival when the Jack Smith documentary
was being shown in 2009…)
in conversation with Ela Troyano and Lola Pashalinski
Tuesday April 6th
7 to 8:30PM
Free.
34 Stuyvesant Street
The Barney Building
Einstein Auditorium
New York City
Seating is limited and is on a first come basis. Please arrive early.
This is a historical event .. two
authentic legends talking about the creation of underground theater ,,,off off
Broadway .. and the queerness of the Ridiculous Theater company etc.. Mario is
75 and Lola ageless so who knows when next they will be in the same place
chatting about history, He worked with Jack Smith and Warhol as well in Vain Victory, She was an original
Ridiculous Theater member and most recently played Gertrude Stein
People may or may not be aware of the magician and professional skeptic, The Amazing Randi, but he has recently decided to come out and we think it's a fascinating conversation…listen here. He comes out as a gay man and has a rather nice conversation about it with the interviewer. He has always been a personal favorite of mine, a debunker of scams shams and magical thinking, including the $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge...which has yet to be awarded.
I can't help but wonder if the caricature portrait of Arthur C. Clarke (another gay man and long-time White Crane subscriber) in the background on the right might be an old boyfriend?
The conversation in the interview takes some interesting turns when they posit that rationalism (i.e. non-deism) might be as powerful a tool in the gay rights struggle as assimilationist gay religiosity and gay "spirituality"; Both have an interest in debunking pseudo-science (i.e. Right Wing creationism). Here's the quote:
They use fake
science to argue that being gay is not natural; that homosexuality
is an aberration when in fact you find it widely among many different
species. So, in a real way I think gay issues are skeptic's issues."
D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, the
international educational non-profit founded by celebrated social critic
and activist James Randi.
Okay. We know it's a little clichéd – but here's what we want to tell the Census: We're here. We're queer. And we want you to ask us about it.
It's crazy – the Census wants an accurate count of everyone in the country, and yet, there's NO question in the Census survey that asks if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender!
You read that right: LGBT people are basically invisible in THE survey that is designed to accurately reflect the diverse reality of America's population – and beyond being downright ridiculous, it's also a big problem.
The census isn't just a numbers game. The data collected every ten years has a direct impact on issues that are critical to every American – issues like health care, economic stability and safety. Census data tells us where we live and how we create family. And when LGBT people are not counted, then we also don't count when it comes to services, resources … you name it.
The good news is that you and I can do something about it. It's time to Queer the Census! Join me and sign the petition from The Task Force urging the Census Bureau to make sure everyone is counted.
Visit Queer the Census to take action now.
Thanks for your help,
Thanks to Jon Gilbert Leavitt for the use of his great song and allowing us to tap into his great piece of work.
This is the first half of the 17 minute video
It's World AIDS Day.
That's nice.
…and I'm reminded of some Black comic's comment about February being "African American History Month"…"typical…we get the shortest month."
Which is to say, one day to remember is woefully shy of the task.
I remain angry at the homophobic, puritanical, punishing, sex-fearing, "christian" response to HIV-AIDS. And how long it took Ronald Reagan to even say the word "AIDS" (and that it took the death of a closeted movie star and a heroic Elizabeth Taylor to finally get him to utter it.) I remain angry at the idea of "innocent victims" of this disease.
I remain angry at how little memory there is for how Gay people responded to this, growing up, growing together, growing institutions. How little memory there is for how Gay people fed and sheltered and cared for one another…and angry that my friends are still sero-converting in 2009.
I remain angry at how brutally expensive AIDS meds are in the U.S. (and how cheap they are elsewhere) while the nimrods and the bloviators and the moralizing hypocrites in the Congress (yeah…I'm talking to you Joe Lieberman!…you ugly asswipe!) squash a public option…the only real way to provide competition to the profit-seeking, blood-sucking insurance companies…that would provide healthcare coverage for every American citizen, just like every other industrialized nation in the world!
Shame on the Senate. Shame on our elected officials.
Shame on the churches who came so late to the aid of the neediest and who still foment discrimination against gay people.
And every time I hear another fear-mongering "news" report on H1N1 and the vast over-reaction to it (several thousand people die from the flu annually, H1N1 or not) and how people with HIV were shunned by their communities, deserted by their families and died in fear, it makes me want to break something. And it makes me wonder …it makes me sad… to think of how things might have been different if the reaction when "Gay cancer" first appeared had been anything approaching the H1N1 hysteria.
This documentary, reviewed in the most recent issue of White Crane is a MUST SEE.
It's amazing what can be accomplished when a Governor needs to court votes. Late last night, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Harvey Milk Day, out-of-state marriages bill and domestic violence protection bill.
However, Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 1185 (Lieu), which Equality California legislative director, Alice Kessler described as “a simple bill allowing better access to birth certificates for transgender people.” He also vetoed AB 382 (Ammiano), which would have established protections for LGBT prisoners, which he said was “unnecessary.”
The Harvey Milks Day bill - AB 2567 requires “the governor proclaim May 22 each year as Harvey Milk Day. It would encourage public schools and educational institutions to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on that date.” It does not make it a state holiday.