America’s first celebrity isn’t a founding father. It isn’t even a man. The accolade belongs to Charlotte Cushman, a 19th century actress well-known for playing male and female stage roles from Romeo to Lady MacBeth. She was also openly queer. Keeping with their mission of creating theater by women for everyone, Strand Theater is telling Cushman’s story in Barbara Kahn’s play The Lady Was a Gentleman. Baltimore OUTloud spoke with director Emma Hooks about Cushman’s life, the technical challenges of the production, and the importance of acknowledging queer joy. This is the regional premiere of The Lady Was a Gentleman. […]
Edgar Allen Poe comes home to Baltimore and it’s Not a Midnight Dreary
In 2006, the musical Nevermore, with music by Matt Conner and book by Grace Barnes featuring lyrics adapted from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, made its live theatre debut. In northern Virginia. What’s wrong with this story? Ask any Baltimorean – Poe is ours. Yet somehow the musical ran in Virginia, England, and even Australia. Never Baltimore. After a 16-year wait, Stillpointe Theatre is to thank for Nevermore’s Baltimore debut. Director Ryan Haase, along with the talented cast and crew, have delivered a cryptic and immersive experience to finish their 13th season. Nevermore isn’t a full biography, but an […]
Queer Jewish Arts Festival on the Road in Baltimore
In honor of Pride month this June, the Gordon Center for Performing Arts invites the community to join for a series of programs on the road, in the gallery, and at the Gordon. The festival celebrates multiple facets of our identities – including gender, race, religion, and class – through the arts. Sponsored by the Grandchildren of Harvey M. & Lyn P. Meyerhoff Philanthropic Fund, the festival will highlight local, national, and international artists who are making art with queer and Jewish content and examine the complexity of how we present ourselves and move throughout life. “This year, we have […]
Angels in America’s Michael Kevin Darnall on Overcoming Fear and Avoiding Apathy
If you regularly attend live theatre in Washington, DC, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Michael Kevin Darnall perform onstage. Frequently spotted at the Hub Theatre and Spooky Action Theatre, Darnall recently made his Arena Stage debut in Tony Kushner’s epic play, Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches, which recently ended it’s run on the Fichandler Stage on April 23. Top image: Michael Kevin Darnall as Louis in Angels in America, Part One: Millenium Approaches. Photo by Margot Schulman. Darnall, who plays the role of Louis Ironson, spoke with Baltimore OUTLoud to share his thoughts on Arena Stage, the AIDS epidemic, […]
A Joyful Noise at DC’s Ford’s Theatre
Shout Sister Shout! tells the story of rock ’n’ roll’s Black godmother by Chuck Duncan Anyone familiar with music history, particularly the advent of the rock era, is sure to know that Elvis Presley is the King of Rock and Roll. What a lot of people don’t know is that Elvis’s musical style was not initially his own – it was something he honed into his own, as did many others of the time, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. Their style of music grew out of the blues, jazz, and gospel of Black musicians that white audiences […]
Insectivorous
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is visually stunning but emotionally empty by Chuck Duncan It’s been five years since we last saw Scott Lang, Hope Van Dyne, and their various family members together in their own film (although most of them did appear in Avengers: Endgame), but now they are back for a third time without the assistance of any of the roster of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) heroes to take on a “new” baddie in the Marvel realm, one that could have even larger implications moving forward than Thanos (of course, this “Big Bad” has already been introduced, unnamed, […]
Time’s Up for Tik Tok Diet Trends
By Dr. Terri Griffith Picture this: You’re scrolling Tik Tok when you find a “What I eat in a day” video. A 20-something-year-old influencer, clad in fluffy white Skims and perfectly coiffed hair to match the never-lived-in aesthetic of her home, shows you everything she eats in a day to maintain her “healthy” lifestyle. She also shares a workout routine that she swears by to maintain her physique. She is thin, gorgeous, and seems to have it all – and she promises that if you follow her diet and fitness routine, you too will be thin, gorgeous, and have it […]
There’s ‘Something Rotten’ at Toby’s Dinner Theatre
Shakespearean send-up scintillates as consummately clever comedy by Chuck Duncan The Broadway musical Something Rotten opened on April 22nd, 2015, garnered ten Tony Awards nominations (winning one for Christian Borle as Best Supporting Actor) and for some reason closed after just 742 performances on January 1st, 2017. I first became aware of the show while watching the Tony Awards performance of its signature number, “A Musical,” and finally got to see the show when it went on tour in 2017. I was instantly smitten with Rotten’s simultaneous parody and embrace of Broadway musical conventions. Possessing everything anyone would want in […]
Monty Python’s Spamalot looks on the bright side of life at Toby’s Dinner Theatre
In 1975, British comedy troupe Monty Python hit the big screen for the second time — the first film was basically a collection of their TV sketches — with the original film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The film lovingly and hilariously skewered the legend of King Arthur and it was a hit, and has accrued new fans ever since its release. In 2005, a musical adaptation of the film titled Spamlot opened on Broadway, with a book by Pythonite Eric Idle, and it too was a hit, earning 14 Tony Award nominations, and garnering three awards including Best […]
“Unsanitized” for your protection: an interview with Bianca Del Rio
Could there possibly be a better way to spend one’s birthday than interviewing RuPaul’s Drag Race’s season six champion Bianca Del Rio? I’ll have to get back to you. But that’s precisely what I did in June 2021. We talked about her writing career, her success as a podcaster, how she passed the time while isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic, and, of course, about her new live show Unsanitized. Coming to a major metro area beginning in September and continuing through November, Bianca Del Rio promises her devotees a night of no-hold-barred barbs and laughs. Gregg Shapiro: It’s nice to speak with […]