Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

Person of the Year 2010: Gloria Casarez

Community activists have a history of mainstreaming the marginalized, sheltering the dispossessed, and empowering the powerless. Gloria Casarez has followed this path all the way to City Hall, where, as Mayor Michael Nutter’s director of LGBT affairs, she has one foot in the corridors of authority and one still in the activist tradition.

Trouble in Mind: Thoughts on ‘A New Brain’

Gordon Schwinn, the lead character in William Finn’s ‘A New Brain’, is fighting to stay alive from the moment he first sets foot on stage. The musical, which is being given an invigorating, insightful local production by Plays & Players, follows Gordon as he faces hospitalization and surgery for a seemingly terminal brain defect, all while struggling to continue his craft of songwriting and balance his fraying relationships. Just another fun-filled evening of singing and dancing, right?

New Year’s Resolutions About Love

So, it’s 2011. Janurary is off to a roaring start and the city is full of crisp air and new beginnings. It’s hard for me not to get overwhelmed, walking around with wide-eyes and thin skin all the time. I love this city. The rush and noise of it Market Street, and the quiet of the Free Library. I love the smells of Reading Terminal Market and finding small pieces of the city to make mine. There are things about the city that are new and scary to me, but I love those things for how deeply they make me feel, for new experiences, for taking me outside of my comfort zone and giving me perspective.

“Let’s Put On A Show (About A Show! (About A Show!)!

Though snow blankets a massive swath of the nation, this month of January is possibly harshest on the Great White Way, as productions shutter for good rather than face the cold post-holiday season of decreased attendance and diminishing returns. This year was particularly unkind, cutting down shows both star-studded and barebones. Indeed, the only sure-things right now are the warhorse family musicals and, improbably, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, which, at a cost of $65 million and counting is Broadway’s most expensive show ever. Budgets and special effects are considerably more modest a few miles southward where Philadelphia’s Mauckingbird Theatre Company’s production of [title of show], a musical with 4 actors, one instrument, and no airborn superheroes, opened on Wednesday.

Non-Monogamy

For a long time I felt this way. Thankfully my fiancee is the shit and we both kind of admitted being scared of only being with one person for the next 50 years, so we made some “changes”. It has honestly made our relationship stronger and more loving to “date as a couple” (in her words). Anywho….thought you might want to give

Life with Dick: House Werk

That’s right: I’m a homemaker. With Dick off working all the hours God sent, leaving early in the morning for real estate or construction duties, coming back in the afternoon for a costume change, and then leaving again to wait tables until nighttime, it’s up to me to keep the house running as smoothly as possible. Unfortunately, I am pretty ill-equipped for the job

Tweed Review

If you’ve walked on 12th Street in the gayborhood in the past few months, you probably noticed a new restaurant has recently opened its doors! Tweed Restaurant opened late last year at 114 S 12th Street, the third restaurant in this location in at least that many years. After a list of failed restaurants in the same location, it bears asking, “Is this location cursed?”

A Single Man

The number one New Year’s resolution this year among my pals seems to be to find love. To settle down, stop fucking around and to find “The One” and I not against any of that except that I find that most gay men act like drowning victims when it comes to approaching relationship. Clinging for dear life onto the first sign of an available man like white on rice as if their ovaries have gone bad and they would never be able to have sex past the age of 40.