#American repertory theater

[artsyfartsypaige]

Guess who saw the A.R.T production of Gatsby the other night?!?!?! It was truly an amazing show (I legit cried during it) and I would love to bring up some of the highlights. In a few scenes, my only thought was “the tumblr is gonna love this”. It was a phone free show so I don’t have photos of the stage or actors but I’m happy with discuss.

1) The stage was made of metal car parts, glittery string curtain and two black marble staircases. It was kinda split between Gatsby’s world and the Valley of Ashes.

2) The actor for Nick, Ben Levi Ross, was probably the funniest actor in the show. He had great line delivery. He was also super short and literally everyone towered over him.

3) on everyone’s costumes, there was a coating of dirt/rust at the bottom. It was such a cool little detail.

4) Nick has a small panic attack when fireworks go off at the party and this is how him and Gatsby meet. They sit together on the bottom of the stairs and it legit felt like a rom com meet cute.

5) yes, Nick makes out with McKee. He spends every party scene from that point on flirting with some guy or making out with a member of the ensemble.

6) I’m not totally sure if Gatsby is still a bootlegger in this version but they show him killing a man so he’s definitely involved in some sketchy business.

7) Wolfsheim signs a song called “Look like heaven but feel like hell” which was my favorite. It’s him explaining Gatsby’s fake origins to Nick. Gatsby gets to do a full dance number and quick change into his pink suit.

8) They added some backstory to Myrtle and Wilson that they lost a daughter in the Spanish flu. It was a sad but sweet detail as to why they’re the way they are.

9) In the tea party scene, Nick pushes Gatsby back onto stage after he runs out in a panic.

10) Gatsby doesn’t die in the pool, Wilson shoots him on the staircase.

11) Gatsby’s father is indigenous which is LOVED! I’ve always imagined Gatsby to be indigenous and so seeing that others had the interpretation was amazing.

12) overall beautiful music. A lot of raw emotion and a wide range. Wolfsheim’s song and “The Damage you do” by Tom and Daisy were my favorites.

Let me know if have any questions about anything!!! I really want to discuss the show!! Here’s the book I brought signed by the cast!!!

[irisbleufic]

I’m going to write up my thoughts on Gatsby tomorrow while I’m on the bus to Hartford for the Beetlejuice performance.

(The fact we finally have a definitively fantastic adaptation of this book means everything to me, though. It beats all the films, everything.)

[hopecel]

DUDE.

[shakespearenews]

Shakespeare at A.R.T.

[shelley-sackett]

A.R.T.’s Innovative “Romeo and Juliet” Elevates and Grounds Shakespeare’s Masterpiece

Emilia Suárez (Juliet) and Rudy Pankow (Romeo) in A.R.T.’s  Romeo and Juliet.Photo Credits: Nile Scott Studios and Maggie Hall By Shelley A. Sackett Diane Paulus, Artistic Director at American Repertory Theater, has raised the bar on production values so often, we’ve come to expect the unexpected from her. From 1776 to Pippin to Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Gloria: A Life, Jagged Little Pill,…

[lesbianlynns]

one of you better be booting the a.r.t. production of romeo and juliet i am so obsessed with it...

[o-the-mts]

Theater Review: Romeo and Juliet at American Repertory Theater

Romeo and Juliet By William Shakespeare Directed by Diane Paulus Movement Director and Choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui I’ve read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet multiple times and seen it adapted as films and even a ballet, but I’ve never before seen it as a stage production.  The production at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge is staged with modern-day costumes and music making it a bit…

[bosguy]

Theater tickets make for a great Christmas gift

Need to buy Christmas gifts for someone who has everything? Give the gift of a night out at one of Boston's local theater companies. There is a stellar line up of shows you can see in January.

It can be difficult to buy a Christmas gift for someone who you feel already has everything they need or can buy whatever they may want or need. That is why Sergio and I more often than not, give the gift of a shared experience. A fun suggestion for that hard-to-buy friend or special someone would be to purchase tickets to a local show from one of Boston’s area production companies. Below I’ve…

[m-aremagnum]

Florence Welch at the opening night of Gatsby: An American Myth at the American Repertory Theater (05/06/24)

[theholmwoodfoundation]

THE HOLMWOOD FOUNDATION PILOT EPISODE CAST/CREW - PART ONE

REBECCA ROOT - MADDIE TOWNSEND/MINA HARKER

Rebecca trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Theatre credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for the National Theatre (UK and Ireland tour); Rathmines Road for Fishamble at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin; Trans Scripts at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Bear / The Proposal at the Young Vic; and Hamlet at the Gielgud Theatre and Athens International Festival. TV, Film and Video Game credits include Monsieur Spade, This Is Christmas, Irvine Welsh’s Crime, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Forbidden West, Heartstopper, Annika, The Rising, Sex Education, The Gallery, The Queen’s Gambit, Finding Alice, Creation Stories, Last Christmas, The Sisters Brothers, Colette, The Danish Girl, Flack, The Romanoffs, Moominvalley, Hank Zipzer, Boy Meets Girl, Doctors, Casualty, The Detectives, and Keeping Up Appearances.  Radio credits include Clare In The Community, Life Lines, The Hotel, and 1977 for BBC Radio 4. Guest appearances include Woman’s Hour, Front Row, Loose Ends, Saturday Live, and A Good Read.  She plays Tania Bell in the award-winning Doctor Who: Stranded audio dramas. Rebecca has also recorded numerous documentary narrations, audiobooks, and voice-overs. Rebecca is also a voice and speech coach, holding the MA in Voice Studies from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

SEAN CARLSEN - JEREMY LARKIN/ JONATHAN HARKER

Born in South Wales, Seán trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. He has worked extensively in audio drama, television, theatre and film.  Seán is perhaps best known to Doctor Who fans as Narvin in the Doctor Who audio series Gallifrey and has appeared on TV in Doctor Who - The Christmas Invasion and Torchwood. Recent TV credits include Mudtown (BBCiplayer/S4C), Dal y Mellt (Netflix), His Dark Materials (BBC1), All Creatures Great and Small (Channel 5), A Mother's Love (Channel 4) and Series 5 of Stella (Sky1).  Films include supporting leads in Boudica - Rise of the Warrior Queen, cult horror The Cleansing,  the lead in Forgotten Journeys and John Sheedy’s forthcoming film ‘Never Never Never’

SAM CLEMENS - ARTHUR JONES

Samuel Clemens trained at the Drama Centre London and is an award-winning director with over twenty years’ experience. Samuel has recently written and directed his debut feature film ‘The Waterhouse’ with Take The Shot Films & Featuristic Films and represented by Raven Banner Entertainment, which is due for release this coming year.  In addition, he has directed fourteen short films, winning awards all over the world including shorts ‘Surgery (multi-award winning), A Bad Day To Propose (Straight 8 winner 2021), Say No & Dress Rehearsal’. Samuel also directs critically acclaimed number one UK stage tours and fringe shows (Rose Theatre Kingston, Swansea Grand, Eastbourne, Yvonne Arnaud, Waterloo East Theatre) and commercials include clients JD Sports, Shell and Space NK. Samuel is also a regular producer and director for Big Finish Productions & Anderson Entertainment. He has cast, directed, produced and post supervised numerous productions of ‘Doctor Who – (BBC), The Avengers (Studio Canal), Thunderbirds, Stingray (Anderson Entertainment), Callan, Missy, Gallifrey’& Shilling & Sixpence Investigate’ and many more. Samuel has directed world class talent such as, Sir Roger Moore, Ben Miles, Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Alex Kingston, Frank Skinner, Rita Ora, Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley, Rufus Hound, David Warner, Celia Imrie, Samuel West, Youssef Kerkour, Sophie Aldred, Ian McNiece, Colin Baker, Olivia Poulet, Stephen Wight, Jade Anouka, Mimi Ndwendi, Michelle Gomez, Peter Davidson, Paul O’Grady and many more. Samuel is one of the founding members and directors at Take The Shot Films Ltd and is Head of Artistic Creation and Direction. Lastly, Samuel is a regular tutor at The London Film Academy, The Giles Foreman Centre for Acting & The Rose Youth Theatre and is a member of The Directors Guild UK. As for upcoming projects, Sam is currently in pre-production on his next feature film “On The Edge of Darkness”, which is based on his dad’s stage play “Strictly Murder”.

ATTILA PUSKAS - DRACULA

Attila Puskás is a native Hungarian Voice Actor born in Transylvania – Romania, so Romanian is in his bag of tricks too, but most of his work is done in English, in a Transatlantic Eastern European Accent, but is quite capable of Hungarian, Romanian and International Eastern European accents, plus Standard American. His voice range is Adult to Middle Aged (30-40+) due to his deep voice. Vocal styles can range from authoritive, brooding to calming and reassuring and much more. He’s most experienced in character work, like Animations and Games, but his skills encompass Commercials to Narration as well. He’s received training through classes and workshops, pushing him to the next level to achieve higher standards. Now on a journey to perfect these skills and put them to good use!

PART TWO: HERE

PART THREE: HERE

[irisbleufic]

Have you heard much about the Broadway Gatsby show (or maybe even seen it)? I have an opportunity to see a show this summer, deciding if it should be Gatsby, and I feel like you're the top authority on "is this Gataby thing worth it" :)

So, here’s where and how Gatsby stage adaptations are having a WILD year:

There are two different Gatsby musicals that have, or are about to, premiere.

1) The one that has already premiered and been running performances is titled The Great Gatsby—A New Broadway Musical. The creative team behind it is Marc Bruni, Dominique Kelley, Kait Carrigan, Jason Howland, and Nathan Tysen. This one has not gotten terribly spectacular reviews in spite of a strong core cast. I have not seen it and do not plan to, because…

2) …second one, which has literally just begun preview performances at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, is GATSBY: An American Myth, and I am seeing it on Saturday. This is the one by Florence Welch, Thomas Bartlett, Martyna Majok, Sonya Tayeh, and Rachel Chavkin. I haven’t been able to find reviews yet because it’s literally in the process of premiering, but as soon as I see it Saturday, I’ll be writing an in-depth review. I’m both ecstatic and terrified.

I guess what I’m saying is, one has already been around for a bit and there are many reviews available out there that don’t excite me, whereas the involvement of Welch and Chavkin alone on the other production has set my expectations high. I’m also seeing the touring company of Beetlejuice again on Sunday, so I’m likely to be an entire holy terror babbling about musicals this weekend. Watch this space!

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Alvin Ailey was born on January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas. His experiences of life in the rural South would later inspire some of his most memorable works.

Ailey was introduced to dance in Los Angeles by performances of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, and his formal dance training began with an introduction to Lester Horton’s classes by his friend Carmen de Lavallade.

In 1958, he founded Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater to carry out his vision of a company dedicated to enriching the American modern dance heritage and preserving the uniqueness of the African-American cultural experience. He established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center (now The Ailey School) in 1969 and formed the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble (now Ailey II) in 1974.

Mr. Ailey was a pioneer of programs promoting arts in education, particularly those benefiting underserved African American communities.

CARTER™ Magazine

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 26

1905 – Emlyn Williams, Welsh actor born (d.1987). He was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family in Mostyn, Flintshire. Aged 11 he won a scholarship to Holywell Grammar School. At the end of his time at the grammar school he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford and joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS)

In 1927, He joined a repertory company and began his stage career. By 1930, he had branched out into writing, and his first major success was with the thriller Night Must Fall (1935), which was made into a film in 1937 and again in 1964. His other great play was very different: The Corn is Green (1938), partly based on his own childhood, and also later filmed. In addition to stage plays, Williams wrote a number of film screenplays, working with Alfred Hitchcock and other directors.

He acted in and contributed dialogue to various films based on the novels of A.J. Cronin, including The Citadel (1938), The Stars Look Down (1940), Hatter's Castle (1942), and Web of Evidence (1959). In 1941 Williams starred in the film You Will Remember, based on the life of the popular late Victorian songwriter Leslie Stuart, played by Robert Morley, with Williams as Stuart's best friend.

Williams often appeared in his own plays, and was famous for his one-man-shows, with which he toured the world, playing Charles Dickens in an evening of excerpts from Dickens' novels. This "one man show" was the start of a whole new theatrical genre. He followed up his Dickens performance with one man shows based on the works of Dylan Thomas, Dylan Thomas Growing Up, and H.H. Munro better known under his pseudonym Saki.

Williams' autobiography, in the volumes George (1961) and Emlyn (1973), was also highly successful. In both books, he wrote frankly of his homosexual experiences; indeed, he was publicly "out" as a bisexual before other better-known gay literary celebrities, such as his close friend and contemporary Christopher Isherwood. In Emlyn he recounts the story of his love affair with an actor on the skids. It is beautifully told and considering that Williams was a married man with children when he wrote it, is boldly courageous in its honesty. He also describes his Gay life in New York in the 1920s, including a rather hilarious scene at the Everard Baths regarding someone's false teeth coming loose in an act of fellatio. Despite his homosexuality, as many gay men of his generation did, as has already been said, he had married in 1935 and had a son; his wife died in 1970.

1926 – Michael Butler (d.2022) was an American theatrical producer born on this date; he is best known for bringing the rock musical Hair from the Public Theater to Broadway in 1968. During his time as Hair producer he was dubbed by the press as "the hippie millionaire". Other Broadway production credits include the play Lenny in 1971 and the musical Reggae in 1980.

Butler was born in Chicago, Illinois into a wealthy family. In the early 19th century, his ancestors started a paper company on the Fox River in St. Charles, Illinois, and supplied paper for the U.S. Congress. The business was later moved to Chicago, where it was at one time one of the city's oldest family owned business, and later diversified into dairy, ranching, aviation. Butler's father helped found the village of Oak Brook, Illinois and the Oak Brook Polo Club.

Butler served as Special Advisor to then-Senator John F. Kennedy on the Middle East, Chancellor of the Lincoln Academy, Commissioner of the Port of Chicago, President of the Organization of Economic Development in Illinois, Assistant to Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr., President of the Illinois Sports Council, and he was a Democratic Candidate in Du Page County for the State Senate.

Butler was the godson of Tyrone Power, and in his early twenties he lived with Power and his wife, actress Linda Christian. Rumour has it he had affair with both of them. He was also involved with Rock Hudson. Through Power's friend, film director Edmund Goulding, he befriended the Kennedy family, particularly Joe and John F. Kennedy. Butler and JFK socialized often in Hyannisport, Greenwich Village and in Newport, R.I.

Rock Hudson and Michael Butler

Butler dated Candice Bergen, Nati Abascal and Audrey Hepburn, with whom he had a relationship in the early 1950s before her marriage to Mel Ferrer. Butler was involved in Hepburn accepting a role in the New York production of the play Ondine, where she worked with Ferrer soon before marrying him. He has a son, Adam, from his 1962 marriage to Loyce Stinson Hand.

Around the time of his first association with Hair, Butler became a political activist. Before the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago he arranged a meeting between Chicago mayor Richard Daley and Abbie Hoffman, recommending that the party cultivate the Yippie vote. He held "Cause" meetings in Oak Brook, Illinois in the summer of 1969 with Tom Smothers, Peter Yarrow, and Black Panther Fred Hampton, among others. Butler donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to left-leaning causes and was listed on Richard Nixon's Enemies List.

1947 – Jim Owles (d.1993) was the founding president of the Gay Activists Alliance and the first openly gay candidate for political office in New York City.

James W. Owles was born in Calumet City, Ill. He attended the University of Illinois and then served in the Air Force.

In December 1969, he helped found the Gay Activists Alliance in New York City with Arthur Bell, Martin Robinson and others. As president of the alliance from 1970 to 1971, Mr. Owles advocated anti-discrimination bills in Albany and New York City.

"We do not ask for any respectability or sympathy from straight people," he declared in a letter to the State Legislature in February 1971. Others' opinions, he said, "are of no interest to us except to the extent that these private bigotries are allowed to become public policy."

In 1971, on the eve of the second annual gay pride march, Mr. Owles said: "It's a lot more difficult to march out of the closet than to march for peace. It can cost you your job or your career." He envisioned a future in which homosexuals would "show straights and themselves that being gay means something more than the baths and the bars," and he said he expected to work for gay rights "till I die."

During demonstrations, known as "zaps," mounted by the alliance, Owles was arrested many times. In April 1972, at the annual Inner Circle dinner of City Hall reporters at the New York Hilton, Mr. Owles grabbed the microphone onstage to denounce press coverage, and a melee erupted in which he and Morty Manford were seriously injured.

In January 1973, Mr. Owles declared his candidacy for the City Council district encompassing Greenwich Village, which he called the nation's "largest gay ghetto." He described himself as the first openly gay candidate for office in New York City.

Although he failed in his bid for council, Owles went on to be a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats in 1974, the first such political club in the city. In 1985, he was one of the seven founding members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which monitors the coverage and depiction of lesbians and gay men in the media.

Until illness forced him to step down in 1993, Jim Owles was a special assistant and liaison to the lesbian and gay community for the State Senate minority leader, Manfred Ohrenstein. He had worked for the Senator, a Manhattan Democrat, since the early 1980's.

He died in 1993. The cause was AIDS-related toxoplasmosis.

1957 – The Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres was born (d.1996). He grew up in Puerto Rico before moving to New York City. Gonzalez-Torres had his first one-man exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery in 1990. His work was the focus of several major museum solo exhibitions in his lifetime and after his death. Retrospectives of his work have been organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1995), the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, Germany (1997), and the Serpentine Gallery in London (2000).

Gonzalez-Torres was known for his quiet, minimal installations and sculptures. Using materials such as strings of lightbulbs, clocks, stacks of paper, or packaged hard candies, Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work is sometimes considered a reflection of his experience with AIDS.

Many of Gonzalez-Torres's installations invite the viewer to take a piece of the work with them: a series of works allow viewers to take packaged candies from a pile in the corner of an exhibition space, while another series is comprised of stacks of ultrathin sheets of clear plastic or unlimited edition prints, also free for the viewer to take. These installations are replenished by the exhibitor as they diminish. The most pervasive reading of Gonzalez-Torres's work takes the processes his works undergo (lightbulbs expiring, piles of candies dispersing, etc.) as metaphor for the process of dying.

"Untitled"

One of his most recognizable works, Untitled (1992) is a billboard put up in New York City of a a sensual black-and-white photograph of Gonzalez-Torres's empty, unmade bed with traces of two absent bodies. It was installed on twenty-four billboards throughout New York. This enigmatic image was both a celebration of coupling and a memorial to the artist's lover, Ross, who had recently died of AIDS. In one interview, he said "When people ask me, 'Who is your public?' I say honestly, without skipping a beat, 'Ross.' The public was Ross. The rest of the people just come to the work."

1957 – Simon Nkoli (d.1998) was an anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist in South Africa.

Nkoli was born in Soweto in a seSotho-speaking family. He grew up on a farm in the Free State and his family later moved to Sebokeng. Nkoli became a youth activist against apartheid, with the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and with the United Democratic Front.

In 1983, he joined the mainly white Gay Association of South Africa, then he formed the Saturday Group, the first black gay group in Africa.

Nkoli spoke at rallies in support of rent-boycotts in the Vaal townships and in 1984 he was arrested and faced the death penalty for treason with twenty-one other political leaders in the Delmas Treason Trial, including Popo Molefe and Patrick Lekota, collectively known as the Delmas 22. By coming out while a prisoner, he helped change the attitude of the African National Congress to gay rights. He was acquitted and released from prison in 1988.

He founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand in 1988. He traveled widely and was given several human rights awards in Europe and North America. He was a member of International Lesbian and Gay Association board, representing the African region.

He was one of the first gay activists to meet with President Nelson Mandela in 1994. He helped in the campaign for the inclusion of protection from discrimination in the Bill of Rights in the 1994 South African constitution and for the repeal of the sodomy law, which happened in May 1998 in his last months.

After becoming one of the first publicly HIV-positive African gay men, he initiated the Positive African Men group based in central Johannesburg. He had been infected with HIV for around 12 years, and had been seriously ill, on and off, for the last four. He died of AIDS in 1998 in Johannesburg.

1973 – Jonathan Caouette is an American film director, writer, editor and actor.

Caouette is the director and editor of Tarnation (2003), an autobiographical documentary, that premiered at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals in 2003 and the director of All Tomorrow's Parties about the cult music festival. Caouette has also directed the experimental short film All Flowers in Time and the feature documentary Walk Away Renee. The latter was produced by Agnes B and premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2009, Caouette served as a creative advisor for director Matthew Mishory's film, Delphinium: A Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman.

As an actor, Caouette played a major role in the 2006 film Fat Girls and the film Portland in 2012. He also appeared in Shortbus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

Caouette has a son, Josh, who was featured in the 2008 documentary Bi the Way. Caouette is gay and lives with his husband David in New York City.

1983 – Today, one of the inventors of Facebook and Obama's tech wizard Chris Hughes was born. Hughes co-founded and served as spokesperson for the online social directory, Facebook, with Harvard roommates Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. Hughes currently serves as a consultant for the popular site, but primarily acts as coordinator of online organizing within the Barack Obama presidential campaign on My.BarackObama.com, the campaign's online social networking website. He also served on the National Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Institution in 2005 and 2006.

Chris Hughes was born in Hickory, North Carolina, a small, conservative town in the western part of the state. Not entirely comfortable in his hometown, he longed to go away to prep school. Given his family's modest income, achieving that dream seemed unlikely; nevertheless, as a high school freshman Hughes, unbeknownst to his parents, applied to a number of boarding schools. The prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts not only accepted him but also offered financial aid that would allow him to attend.

While he was at Phillips, Hughes recognized that he was gay. "I went to boarding school Southern, religious, and straight, and I left boarding school not being at all religious and not being straight," he stated to Ellen McGirt of Fast Company.

During his sophomore year he roomed with Mark Zuckerberg, a student who was working with another dorm-mate, Dustin Moskovitz, to create an on-line version of Harvard's "facebook," a publication with photos and basic information about students to help them meet each other. Zuckerberg invited Hughes to join the project.

Zuckerberg and Moskovitz were computer geeks proficient in the technical aspects of the process, such as writing software codes. Hughes's emphasis was on the users: how they would want to connect with others, how they could share information, how their concerns about privacy could be addressed.

Hughes's input earned him the nickname "the Empath"—perhaps slightly derisive among die-hard techies but also reflective of what would be his crucial role in the development of Facebook.

In the summer of 2004 Hughes, Zuckerberg, and Moskovitz went to California, seeking venture capital for the fledgling Facebook site. The rest is history.

He is the Executive Director of Jumo, which he founded in 2010. Jumo is a non-profit social network organization which "aims to help people find ways to help the world." In July 2010, UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) appointed him to a 17-member "High Level Commission" of renowned politicians, business leaders, human rights activists, and scientists tasked with spearheading a "social and political action campaign over the coming year aimed at galvanizing support for effective HIV prevention programmes".

In 2009, Hughs attended President Obama's first state dinner with his boyfriend Sean Eldridge, Political Director of Freedom to Marry. On New Year's Eve 2010, on a vacation trip to Thailand, he became engaged to Sean, his partner of five years. Hughes and Eldridge announced their engagement in January 2011 at a reception in support of Freedom to Marry. He and Eldridge have lent their own voices and resources to the cause of glbtq rights, particularly marriage equality.

2015 – In Bolivia, the Justice Minister announces the passage of the Law of Gender Identity which allows transgender people to change their legal documents. The bill was initially proposed by  Raysa Torriani, a transgender woman and trans activist, three years earlier. The “Law of Gender Identity” will legally recognize the identity of 1,500 self-identified transgender people living in Bolivia . "Now, the sisters and brothers who want to change their name and sex, by an administrative resolution, can change their information" in the records of various government institutions, said Virginia Velasco, the minister of justice of Bolivia.

[lboogie1906]

Chief Petty Officer Adolph Caesar (December 5, 1933 – March 6, 1986) was an actor, voice actor, theatre director, playwright, dancer, and choreographer.

Known for his signature deep voice, he was a staple of Off-Broadway as a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and as a voiceover artist for numerous film trailers. He earned widespread acclaim for his performance as a Sgt. Vernon Waters in A Soldier’s Play, a role he reprised in the 1984 film adaptation A Soldier’s Story, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award and won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.

He was born in Harlem as the youngest of three sons born to a Dominican mother and an African American father. At age 12, he contracted laryngitis which led to his notably deep voice.

He enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War era, serving as a hospital corpsman for five years, achieving the rank of chief petty officer. He decided to break into the theater and went on to study and graduate drama at New York University.

He made his film debut in 1969 in Che!, playing Cuban revolutionary Juan Almeida Bosque. He became an announcer for and then joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1970 for productions such as The River Niger, Square Root of the Soul, and The Brownsville Raid. He worked with the Minnesota Theater Company, Inner City Repertory Company, and the American Shakespeare Theatre. He had a stint on the soap operas Guiding Light and General Hospital. He starred as Old Mister Johnson in The Color Purple.

He found work as a voice-over artist for television and radio commercials, including theatrical previews and radio commercials for many films such as Cleopatra Jones, Superfly, Truck Turner, and The Spook Who Sat by the Door. He was the voice of the United Negro College Fund’s publicity campaign, reciting the iconic slogan “...because a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

He lent his voice to the animated series Silverhawks, in which he voiced Hotwing. He appeared in Fist of Fear, Touch of Death. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[shakespearenews]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/cal-shakes-funding-19623822.php

Still, they said, when they’re offered further roles in the future, they intend to first ask, “Hey, is this show funded?”

If the GoFundMe and the one-week deadline felt extreme, Worsley said, “​​We feel like we've been as transparent as we can be.” In the midst of the campaign, he published a blog post breaking down a show budget (with more than half going to show-specific payroll) as well as a monthly budget of $212,500 for the part of the year when the theater isn’t producing; Cal Shakes has 20 full-time employees, and half of them work in the scene shop, which builds sets for shows at Center Repertory Company, Berkeley Playhouse, Shotgun Players and American Conservatory Theater.

[o-the-mts]

Theater Review: Gatsby: An American Myth

Gatsby: An American Myth Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald Music by Florence Welch and Thomas Bartlett Lyrics by Florence Welch Book by Martyna Majok Performance at Loeb Drama Theater, Cambridge, MA – July 31, 2024, 7:30 PM Music Supervision by Kimberly Grigsby Choreographed by Sonya Tayeh Directed by Rachel Chavkin Cast Jay Gatsby … Isaac Cole Powell Daisy Buchanan  … Charlotte…