Crazytown

ALL FOR LAUGHS

Walking away from a shot at Second City in order to start an improv troupe in Lincoln, Nebraska certainly isn't the obvious choice. Why this comedian says she's never regretted taking the road less traveled. (Part of the series Art Outside the City)
by Lauren Silverman Durban, writer 

The theater has saved Beth Muehling more than once. Her story is punctuated by the times when performing has pulled her out of dark places, given her better options, and pushed her in healthier directions.

At 12 years old, she moved from a tiny town in Iowa to the “big city” of Lincoln, Nebraska. She describes it as a major shock to the system, and says she sort of shut down for awhile. When a friend suggested she get involved in drama, she agreed. And then, when she performed a monologue from The Children’s Hour that made people cry, she was totally hooked. “There’s something so awesome about affecting people in that way. There’s no replacement for that.” She had found her niche.

At 21 years old when she came out of the closet, she spent her evenings sneaking into a local gay bar to watch the drag shows. She couldn’t believe how happy, silly, and free it all was, and she longed to be a part of that world. When she was given the opportunity to start performing there as part of a group, it was the beginning of a long string of drag/comedy groups she’d be part of founding. She traveled all over the Midwest, performing in bars and clubs. Again, she says she had discovered where she fit in.

Beth in her drag days

Several years later, Beth had stopped performing entirely after the suicide of one of her best friends. The AIDS epidemic was ravaging the gay community all across the country, and at one point she attended 13 funerals in 6 months. “I just couldn’t be funny anymore.” Once again, it was theater that brought her back. A friend from her drag days asked her to audition for a production of Rocky Horror that he was directing, and she ended up getting cast as Riff Raff-- in drag, of course. She discovered a new way to be on stage, and did back to back to back shows both as an actress and later as a director.

THE KOREANS ARE INVADING!!!

We’ve all been so worried that North Korea would launch an attack against the U.S., that no one seems to notice that we’ve already been invaded… by South Korea.

By David Davila (playwright/songwriter)

 

This week I was almost trampled to death by a bunch of obsessed teenagers who were trying to get a peek at their favorite boy band. No, it wasn’t One Direction. No, it wasn’t The Wanted, or Justin Bieber, or any other rag-tag group of little white twinks. It was someone I had never heard of, and I’ve never felt so old… but I’m getting ahead of myself. This phenomenon starts with Psy.

You all heard the song, you saw the viral video, you did the silly little dance at that Pub the other night. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t, there was proof on Instagram! We all got caught up in Gangnam style. It’s a catchy song with a crazy little video to match. Psy seemed to pop out of nowhere with his unique image, and enthusiasm for sexy Korean women and wild dance moves. It’s infectious, and the infection has spread across the world as Psy’s video for his first U.S. single (18^th K-Pop single), became the most watched video on YouTube, toppling Justin Bieber’s “Baby” in a matter of weeks. It has 1.5 BILLION views! That’s a sixth of the entire world population!

Psy not only sold millions of albums in the U.S., he also did something much more important. He created a viral portal that has been connecting teenagers around the world to Korean pop music, also known as K-Pop, one YouTube click at a time. Now the portal is wide open and Billboard has even started counting down the top K-Pop songs of each week, which brings me back to the mob of screaming teens.

B.A.P. is not like any other boy band you’ve encountered in your life. Well, okay they’re a lot like every other boy band from what I can tell. They’re a group of six hot young twinkish boys who sing really well, and dance even better, but they have a distinct brand that will help them gain more male fans than your standard Backstreet Boys milieu. B.A.P. are all Korean gangsters!

 
(When you watch this video you'll understand why the teens were freaking out. It's pretty effing bad ass!!!! DAMMNNNNN!!!!! B.A.P. - One Shot)

THE GAYS HAVE GONE VIRAL: Part 2

It's been many months since I last reported on all the fantastical web series about gay life gracing the interweb, and I've had a blast watching them all.... here are my new faves.

by David Davila (playwright/songwriter)

Last year I complained about the lack of a television show like Queer As Folk filled with tons of hot gay love scenes and melodrama. This year I feel about the same. SMASH, HAPPY ENDINGS, and THE NEW NORMAL were all canceled and we're left back where we started thirteen years ago before QAF graced our televisions with beautiful bums. Luckily there are a ton of great new shows popping up every day on the internet to keep us satisfied.

If you're as upset as me about the cancelation of SMASH, then look no further than Wesley Taylor's new web series, IT COULD BE WORSE, featuring the entire cast of SMASH (give or take a Jennifer Hudson). This show about the misadventures of a hot young gay (Taylor) who has the worst/most-awesome life ever, is pretty addictive. I watched most of it in one sitting... but now I have to wait for the final few episodes to air to get my "happy ending...?"

  

My absolute favorite new webseries is THE OUTS. You've probably already heard about it, because it's amazingly wonderful and should be picked up by network TV. It's such a delight and every cast member is a natural star. This show is legit, and I obsessively watched every episode last night when I should have been editing this article.

 

FABULOUS HIGH is a new web series created by Derek Villanueva (LONG HORNS) about the life of high school kids and teachers... It's your regular 90210 stuff... but with all the gay stuff you wished would happen when Dylan and Brandon were fighting over Kelly. In my version Dylan and Brandon blew off Kelly and made out instead.

 

ROLE MODELS, OR WHY JASON COLLINS DESERVES ALL THE HOOPLAH

Jason Collins came out, and yes, it is a B.F.D
By Sam Perwin

As the universe knows well by now, last week, Jason Collins became the first active professional athlete to come out of the closet. The reaction (from the media at least) was overwhelmingly positive and heartwarming. Many other professional athletes and public figures gave him kudos, his family was supportive, Fox News was up in arms - all was right with the world.

I would have thought it would be the guy who hikes the football...

There were a few pundits, though, who seemed to say - with good intention - that it wasn't a big deal, that coming out stories weren't really news-worthy anymore. In the age of Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen, Modern Family, and other Non-Threatening Gay Situations, it's nice to think that we've all come to a place where a public figure coming out isn't a big deal. And perhaps in the entertainment industry, we're at least in the vicinity of that place. But this is professional sports, and again this is the first male, active, professional sports player in history to come out of the closet. It really is a B.F.D. And here's why: kids need role models. All kids. When you feel different for whatever reason: gender, race, sexuality, disabilty, etc., your whole life changes when there's someone like you in the public eye to look up to.

I always say that everything I need to know about being gay I learned at theatre camp. I went to Interlochen Arts Camp, a very intense, rigorous theatre training program in Michigan, and that's where I met my first gay role model: my counselor, Pete. I was 12, and every morning we would clean the cabin with Abba blasting and Pete sashaying around with a broom. He took a bunch of us to an Indigo Girls concert; he quoted the Golden Girls in every situation. I even remember talking about Pete's delightful flamboyancy with my two best camp friends, both of whom are straight, and we all gave a collective shrug. Pete was super-fun. Who cares that he's gay?

TOP 5 REASONS I CAN'T WAIT FOR SUMMER

Summer is almost here and so are these things...

by David Davila (playwright & margarita consumer)

Spring has been a slutty tease this year... taking off her shirt, then putting on her coat. This girl is playing hard to get and I've had it!!!!!

I've had it!!!!

In other words, I think it's time we said F-U to Spring, and skipped on over to Summer. I mean honestly, Summer just can't come quick enough. I'm dreaming of those long days at the beach laying in the sand and sipping IPAs from the cooler your gurlfriend's new girlfriend brought. 

(Lesbians are just so good at planning.)

So I thought I'd share with y'all some of the most amazing things I literally CAN'T WAIT for... 

5. SUMMER TRAVELS & PRIDE - With the advent of GRINDR you can go just about anywhere and meet a fun new group of friends who are willing to show you around the town. It doesn't matter who you are or where you go. You MUST leave the city (your city, whichever one that may be) for at least a few days during the summer. Head up to Maine, or over to Washington DC. Heck, just get on Expedia and look for the cheapest ticket you can find (they have some for $49 dollars) and GO! It literally doesn't matter where you go, just go! Every place is some place new, with new faces and torso shots, and just about every place in June or July is celebrating Pride!

LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS ADMIT IMPEDIMENTS

On marriage, or whatever you want to call it.
By Alisha Giampola (Actor) 

The other day I was sitting in the usual table in the usual restaurant my best friend Jake and I tend to eat at in our neighborhood (Sunnyside, which is the absolute shit, just for the record) and eating my usual dear-God-I-couldn't-even-imagine-cooking-something-right-now snack and discussing marriage. Specifically, Jake and I were trying to decide who of the people we currently know who have gotten married recently will be the first of our circle of friends to divorce. This seems morbid, but Jake and I love slightly disturbing discussion games (Would You Rather being obviously the best, hands down). This discussion game was fun and I feel, valid, as statistically large numbers of married people (although maybe not quite the dreaded 50% that is so frequently touted) end their marriages some time before death doth part them. 

Marriage equality has been a huge topic in the past few years, and many states (NY included, woot woot!) have recently chosen to extend the right to marry to all people (and so far has turned into being able to marry cats and dogs pretty much the same way extending the vote to women also extended the vote to cats and dogs). According to current statistics, a majority of adults between 18 and 32 now favor marriage equality in the USA. My takeaway from that is: wow, young people still really care about the institution of marriage! And they want to invite all consentual adults in monogamous relationships to participate if they should choose to do so! Sweet! 

But why?

A very interesting opinion piece in the NY Times got me thinking about the reasons that my generation chooses to marry. We are marrying later than our parents and much much later than our grandparents, we are choosing to get educations first, cohabitate first, and then begin stressing that we might have waited too long to have babies. Personally, I am a huge advocate of all of these things (including even the last item on that list...it's called adoption, guys, there are a lot of kids that need parents out there). So ultimately, if we as a generation are already waiting so much longer than any previous generation to tie the knot, why are we bothering at all? 

If we are to believe the previously cited NY Times opinion piece (go ahead and take a few minutes to read it, it's cool) we are marrying because it is "a status symbol — a highly regarded marker of a successful personal life". If that didn't already make you want to punch yourself in the face, the author reiterates this point in an even bigger backhanded compliment later in the article: "People marry to show their family and friends how well their lives are going."

Basically, people are getting married to flip the ultimate finger at their single friends.

As a person with strong feelings about the current civil rights issue of marriage equality, very personal feelings about the entire institution of marriage, and as someone who has a marriage of my own that I happen to care about, this seems like a completely flippant and all-too-easy answer. 

I sure as heck didn't get married to say "screw you" to those in my circle who are not choosing to marry, be they currently single or simply uninterested in the institution. I definitely didn't get married because I was making some kind of civil rights statement. I certainly didn't do it to make anyone jealous of my life (if anyone ever had a jealousy-inducing marriage however, it is these guys). I didn't get married to get presents or have an excuse to throw a party or to have a reason to change my name (actually, I didn't change my name at all, although apparently I'm in a vast minority?!) and I one hundred percent didn't get married because I felt familial or societal pressure to do so. I know many women, particularly those who are well-educated, city-dwelling, and in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties feel exactly these same ways. And even though there are many religions and faiths that pressure young people to marry due to the stigma of sex outside of wedlock, fewer and fewer are choosing to succumb to this pressure. So it stands to reason that we are getting married for some mysterious other reason that thousands of internet opinion articles are not quite able to put their digital digits on. 

Could it be .... nahhhh.....

TONY TALK

Three drunk gay guys try to predict the Tony nominations... It's just like THE VIEW, but a lot more messy!

by David Davila (playwright / songwriter)

[Barbara Walters voice] I had an idea for a show... a bunch of gay guys sit around and talk about the Tony Awards. I call it TONY TALK.

Seriously though, I've been wanting to do a dumb talk show about the Tony Awards for several years now. Finally two friends and I were drunk enough, after a long night of celebrating a successful fundraising event, to pull out the webcam at four in the morning and start talking. There was a lot of vodka and pizza involved in this shoot. It was grueling.

What you are about to see are the drunken ramblings of a few queens who saw EVERYTHING on Broadway this season! ENJOY!

 

SEASON REVIEW: Drag Queens & Children

  

 BEST MIXING, BOOK, & ORCHESTRATIONS

WHY I STILL WATCH GLEE (AND WHY YOU SHOULD TOO)

In defense of a much maligned TV show
By Sam Perwin 

If you haven't dismissed me already from the title of this post, then bear with me here. I swear I have point, and it is this: you should be watching Glee. Not because it is good television (although, sometimes it can be), not because it showcases brilliant singing (ditto), but because it's important. Ditto Smash, but that might have to be saved for another post. First, enjoy this brilliance:

 
This one's for the straight boys...sort of...

Now didn't that make you smile? No? Ok, fine. Here's the deal: I'm a consummate snob, especially when it comes to singing and musical theatre (give me a little credit for writing my first ever post for Crazytown about Passion). I would imagine that most people who read this blog have similar feelings about musical theatre, so I understand that Glee is problematic. It's over-produced, the singing is auto-tuned and studio-fied. The sound is slick, detached from reality and often emotionless, not to mention the low bar of actual singing talent. All of these things are true. I won't even get started on the meandering plots and inconsistent writing. 

BEST OF HELL'S KITCHENETTE

A New York Magazine-style guide to the best of the neighborhood.
By Jen Littlefield (Choreogrpaher/Librettist)

As I count the days (23) til I move out of this convenient, expensive, busy, and always fun neighborhood, I thought I'd share some of my favorite things about it with you dear readers. Many of you have probably spent an evening or two on 9th ave, as it is the crossroads of all things gay and all things theater (I mean, how has a portal to Planet Unicorn not opened outside of Industry yet?), but allow me illuminate some of the less talked about places my friends and I like to frequent.

Casellula: My home away from home.

Good wine. Good cheese. Good people (the staff is amazing). Do I really need to say more? No, but I will. I LOVE Casellula. I love the wines. I love how every cheese comes with its own made-in-house paring, including things like pine nut brittle, or coffee-flavored marshmallows,  or pickled quail eggs. And the main dishes and desserts are out of this world. Try the Pig's Ass sandwich or the chocolate cake and cream. (Top reason why I'm broke and squishier around the middle)

House of Brews 51st: Best spot for birthdays

This location has an upstairs bar with a little lounge room that you can reserve for your party so you aren't annoying all the customers with your drunken toasts and this-is-my-day entitlement. Add to that a two-for-one or pitcher special during the week, all-you-can-drink mimosa brunch, and beer bongs. It's a little slice of hoppy-heaven

 

 

Worldwide Plaza: Best out-door spot in Midtown

I actually love this place the most in the late fall and early spring, when it's not quite warm enough for the Blockheads infestation. Grab a coffee and maybe some food, snag a table in the sun, and read or write or just sit and enjoy. (And I do enjoy the thrifty nature of Blockheads, but sometimes you don't want to eat with 25 people you know from that one show that one time, in that place… you remember right?)

The Hudson River Park, Midtown addition

I love to come over here and just be by the river. This is pier 96 at 55th st, and a little further north, the area opens up into a lazy river walk, a nice cafe with tables and umberellas, a good running path, and lots of grass. It's really beautiful and often not crowded at all. 

 

Vlada: Best happy hour

There are a plethora of gay bars in this neighborhood, and all have drink specials, drag shows, dim lighting (because we all need it, honey). But Vlada's is the longest, the strongest, and the tastiest (mmhhhmmm). All of their drinks are half-price from 4-9pm. Yes. 9pm. That's a lot of infused martinis for one gal to drink. But don't you worry, we do our best every Monday night. 

54 Below: Best new cabaret spot

I did a whole post in January on Backstage, the Tuesday late-night show, but this place is seriously the most fun. It's comfortable, inviting, a little expensive, but always a good time. And we get to see Linda Edder next week, so there.

 

The vegetable/farmers market on 52nd st: Best place to save a buck

If you live here or just want a quick piece of fruit, stop into Stiles Farmers Market on 52nd st. This place is so cheap, you could eat for a week on about $10. I'm only half kidding too. I will miss living right next to this little gem. (My mom was sure she was going in the stock-room door when she went to get us veggies, it's that fresh).

Oh 52nd st, you've done me well the past two years. I will miss the beautiful and tall drag queens parading around on Monday nights. I will miss the endless brunch options within two blocks of my apartment. I will miss getting calls from friends who are in the neighborhood and just popping by because I can. I will miss leaving my apartment at 7:45 to make an 8pm curtain with no trouble. I will miss my food-making boyfriend. And I will miss my little apartment on the 4th floor with it's sloping floors, tiny kitchen, and separate bedroom. UES, you got big some big, sparkly platforms to fill...

JEN LITTLEFIELD is a freelance choreographer and writer with a few steady teaching gigs at Pace University and Concordia Conservatory. As she's come to discover, freelance is code for constantly working, so she is also a single gal who lives and lives-it-up in Hell's Kitchen. www.jenlittlefield.com
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LOVING YOU IS NOT A CHOICE

What Fosca has to say about marriage equality
By Sam Perwin (Performer)

I’m a Sondheim kind of guy, not only does he basically write for my voice (thanks, Steve!), but I’ve always had a connection to his work. I can safely say that Into the Woods is one of the reasons I decided to devote my life to musical theater, and I still can’t make it through “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George without crying. 

One of my favorite unsung Sondheim musicals is Passion, which recently had a revival at Classic Stage Company. It remains one of the most beautiful scores I know (and Giorgio is still a perfect/dream role for me if anyone feels like mounting another production any time soon, but I digress…), and the most enduring anthem from the show is undoubtedly Fosca’s imploring, tragic ballad “Loving You.” I stumbled upon (and posted on Facebook) this beautiful version recently.

 

This song has stayed with me since I saw the show a few weeks ago not only because of Ms. Kuhn’s chilling performance, but because its heartbreaking first line brings my thoughts to the current Supreme court arguments.

Loving you is not a choice
It’s who I am.

Too much ink and, unfortunately, blood has been spilled over the question of whether whom we love or are sexually attracted to is a choice. Science has much to say, but the results seem to boil down to a mixture of predetermined genetic codes and a spectrum of sexual preference. Apparently not needless to say, I did not choose to be attracted to men any more than a straight man chooses to be attracted to women. Some people would disagree.