LGBTQ PERFORMING ARTS in NYC June 22, 1868 Singer Edwin Kelly and Female Impersonator Francis Role of Hedda Gabler to Start Her Broadway Acting Career
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CURTAINS UP! New York City Council L G B T Q PERFORMING ARTS IN NYC 2020 CALENDAR Cover: Adina Verson and Katrina Lenk performing in Indecent, Original Broadway Company. Photograph by Carol Rosegg. t is my pleasure to introduce this calendar from the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives documenting the rich history of the local LGBTQ community’s role in the performing arts. This vibrant and welcoming community is one of the main reasons that I was drawn to New York City as a young gay man. I When one thinks of the magical allure of New York City throughout the nation and around the world, the performing arts immediately come to mind. These arts have shaped the city’s culture and, in turn, the nation’s. Performing arts typically include the dramas, comedies, and musicals of Broadway, Off- Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway theatre, as well as opera, cabaret, orchestral music, classical dance, and more. This calendar is truly unique in that it reaches beyond this standard definition by exploring the role of performing arts as political and cultural protest. From the Latinx L’Unicorns of Staten Island, to the Brooklyn-based Ballez, to the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), the calendar features performing arts from all five boroughs. Dancers from all five Queens-based CUNY schools are also depicted performing in the annual Queens Pride Parade in Jackson Heights over the last two years. Manhattan, of course, is represented by the dramas and musicals of Broadway and the queer cabaret performed downtown. Yet, the LGBTQ community’s history with New York’s performing arts also reveals a story of prejudice and outright prohibition. In 1927, the New York State Legislature passed the Wales Padlock Law, which allowed the police to padlock any theater showing a play that included “sex degeneracy or perversion” – language that was understood to mean homosexuality. That law was applied to close the Mae West show Pleasure Man, and it remained in effect until 1967. Corey Johnson And in 1945, New York City License Commissioner Paul Moss forced the closing of the play Trio at the Belasco Theatre because of its lesbian theme. This is not just the history of LGBTQ people and performative expression, but also of New York and America. And it is a complicated history – one that we can all learn from. This calendar allows you the opportunity to embrace this mini-exhibition in your own home and to glimpse the history and contemporary creative lives of LGBTQ people in this great city. Corey Johnson, Speaker, Council of the City of New York ew York, New York, what a town. They call it The City That Never Sleeps. And it’s not just because the subway never closes. It’s also because of the outsize role of the performance arts in Gotham. The theater and dance scenes keep New York pulsating. NBroadway is not only a force in American popular culture. It has also helped make New York the cultural capital of the Western hemisphere. And where the performance arts have flourished, the LGBT community has found a home, as this gorgeous calendar published by LaGuardia and Wagner Archives makes abundantly clear. The images are striking, capturing the exuberance of both professional and nonprofessional stages, whether in a theater or on the street. I’m particularly delighted to see images from the Drag Queen Story Hour at the Jackson Heights library in Queens. The story hour is aimed at children between ages 3 and 8, led by a drag queen reading picture books, singing songs, and leading children in craft activity. It’s the perfect blend of education and entertainment, and shows that performance art can take place in any venue. Daniel Dromm at the Drag Queen Story Hour Daniel Dromm, Council Member, District 25 reading at the Jackson Heights Public Library. his historical calendar is the product of research by our scholars at LaGuardia Community College. Faculty and staff in our LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, in collaboration with the staff and facilities of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, have unearthed some Trarely seen photographs that tell the story of the enormous role that LGBTQ people have played in the Performing Arts in New York City. The calendar reminds us of the hard work and time it takes for equality to be realized and the continuing struggle for all people to live their lives with dignity, pride, and respect. It has been no different for those in the performing arts LGBTQ community who have fought for over one hundred years to tell their story on stage, in dance and in every medium without fear. And though we recognize tangible progress, we understand that there is more work to be done. My thanks to all who contributed to this great struggle, very much a part of the American story, and to our LaGuardia scholars for researching and com- piling this rich and beautiful telling of our history. Paul Arcario, Interim President, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY Paul Arcario Alfred Lunt, Noël Coward, and Lynn Fontanne in the original Lola Lemon Queen reading to children during the Drag Queen Poster for It’s All Right to Be Woman Theater, which lived, Portrait of Billie Holiday performing at the Tabloid newspaper Brevities Broadway production of Coward’s Design for Living, 1933. (51) Story Hour at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 2018. (61) worked and performed in New York City and traveled to Downbeat, West 52nd Street, ca. 1947. (55) exposing America’s “hidden” women’s centers and college campuses across the U.S. from nightlife in 1932. (17) 1970 to 1976. (36) Milestones for CURTAINS UP! LGBTQ PERFORMING ARTS IN NYC JUNE 22, 1868 Singer Edwin Kelly and female impersonator Francis role of Hedda Gabler to start her Broadway acting career. Padlock law by which the police could padlock any theater showing a Leon perform at the Kelly and Leon Minstrels Hall in New York. 1910s Julian Eltinge performs as a female impersonator, upholding the play that included “sex degeneracy or perversion,” language that was SEPTEMBER 1868 British-born Annie Hindle begins her career as the feminine ideal of Victorian society, and attracts fans across the country. understood to mean homosexuality. The law remains in effect until first male impersonator to perform in the U.S., advertising herself as “the 1919 Female impersonator and trapeze artist Barbette makes his solo 1967. great serio-comic and impersonator of male characters.” debut at the Harlem Opera House on 125th Street. 1928 Ma Rainey writes, records and performs “Prove it on Me Blues,” her 1869 Harlem’s Hamilton Lodge stages its first masquerade ball. FEBRUARY 19, 1923 Sholem Asch’s play, God of Vengeance, about a song about lesbian love. 1870 Ella Wesner debuts as a male impersonator at Tony Pastor’s Theatre. Jewish brothel-keeper whose daughter has a lesbian love affair with a JANUARY 30, 1928 Eugene O’Neill introduces a gay character in his 1871 Blanche Selwyn (nee De Vere) debuts as a male impersonator and prostitute opens at the Apollo Theatre on W. 42nd Street in its English- play Strange Interlude, based on the artist Charles Demuth. The play wins performs at the Brooklyn Opera House. language version. On March 6, police shut down the performance and its the Pulitzer Prize. JUNE 1891 Black male impersonator Florence Hines appears as master actors and producers are prosecuted. OCTOBER 3, 1928 Two days after Mae West opens her play, Pleasure of ceremonies with Sam T. Jack’s Creole Burlesque Company at Hyde and 1925 Aaron Copland’s Symphony for Organ and Orchestra has its premiere Man at the Biltmore Theatre, police raid the show and arrest all 54 actors Behman’s Theatre in Brooklyn. with the New York Symphony Orchestra. for indecency due to the “degenerate” performances by drag queens who APRIL 22, 1895 Oscar Wilde’s play, The Importance of Being Earnest, A SEPTEMBER 15, 1925 The Green Hat, starring Katherine Cornell and were flamboyantly effeminate. Yet, for decades prior to this female imper- Trivial Comedy for Serious People, opens at the Empire Theatre and runs Leslie Howard opens at the Broadhurst Theatre. Paul Guilfoyle plays sonation was seen as wholesome entertainment. for 16 performances. Cornell’s closeted gay twin brother. OCTOBER 8, 1928 Cole Porter has his first Broadway hit musical, OCTOBER 12, 1896 A Florida Enchantment by A.C. Gunter opens in SEPTEMBER 16, 1925 Noël Coward writes and stars in The Vortex, Paris, featuring the song, “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love.” New York at Hoyt’s Theatre on West 24th Street and Broadway, employ- playing a closeted gay. The play proves extremely popular. 1929 Gladys Bentley entertains regularly at Harlem’s Mad House and ing a magic African seed to change men into women and women in to SEPTEMBER 26, 1926 The Captive, a French play by Edouard Bourdet Clam House in “Jungle Alley” on W. 133rd Street between Lenox and men. In 1914 Vitagraph Studios releases a silent movie version. about lesbian love, starring Helen Menken and Basil Rathbone, pre- Seventh Avenues. 1906 Male impersonator Vesta Tilley earns a reported $2,000 to $3,000 mieres in New York and runs for 160 performances before the Manhattan NoVEMBER 12, 1929 Thomas H. Dickinson’s Winter Bound opens at the per week in New York shows. District Attorney shuts it down. Garrick Theatre and depicts two women living together on a farm in Connect- NOVEMBER 1906 Bisexual actress Alla Nazimova opens in the title APRIL 6, 1927 The New York State Legislature passes the Wales icut; critics describe Aline MacMahon’s character as acting like a “bull dyke.” Kyoung’s Pacific Beat’s production of PILLOWTALK at La Leonard Bernstein and composer Aaron Copland, ca.