Now that movies and TV have gone queer—well, they've always been queer but just not so public about it—it seems like a logical progression for Chicago's very own GayCo Productions to explore big-screen and small-screen opportunities for the gang of gay and lezzie comedy writers and performers. And so, founding member John Bonny has opened Three Dollar Bill, a Los Angeles-based production company, to produce GayCo material for film and television. Three Dollar Bill's first project is a music video, Summer Sex, developed from a scene in a GayCo revue. Summer Sex was filmed last month and will premiere this summer, of course. Meanwhile back in Chicago, GayCo has a new revue in the works, The DaVinci GayCode, set to run June 1-July 9 at Theatre Building Chicago.
The Waa-Mu show at Northwestern University isn't Hollywood, although it's launched any number of Hollywood careers. Waa-Mu long has had a gay presence as well, although certainly deeper in the closet even than movies and TV. In case you've never heard of it, Waa-Mu is quite possibly the Mother of All University Variety Shows, celebrating its 75th anniversary with April 28-May 7 performances of Jubilee!, a compilation of new material by current students and classics from the past.
Over the decades, Waa-Mu—meaning Women's Athletic Association-Men's Union—has featured scores of undergraduate performers who went on to fame, among them Tony Randall, Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Raye, Paul Lynde, Claude Akins, McClean Stevenson, Inga Swenson, Warren Beatty, Nancy Dussault, Penny Fuller, Ann-Margret, Tony Roberts, Karen Black, Frank Galati, Shelley Long, Brian d'Arcy James, Ana Gasteyer, Gregg Edelman, Megan Mullally, Heather Headley and Kate Shindle ( Miss America 1998 ) . Why, Jonny even had a boyfriend many years ago who was a reigning Waa-Mu performer and writer, and Jonny can guarantee that he was talented, beautiful and gay. The writers for the Waa-Mu shows—not all of them students—ain't been too shabby, either, with theater critic Walter Kerr, Hollywood composer Wilson Stone ( Shane, The Bridge of Toko-Ri ) and Broadway composers Larry Grossman ( Minnie's Boys, Grind ) and Sheldon Harnick ( Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! ) among them.
Jubilee! will be performed at Cahn Auditorium on Northwestern's Evanston campus. Tix: ( 847 ) 491-7282.
Columbia College Chicago and the Point Foundation are establishing a scholarship fund specifically for GLBT students at Columbia. Jonny's long-time friend and colleague, Albert Williams, a facilitator of Columbia's Musical Theater Performance major, writes that Columbia teachers and administrators 'saw a need for such a scholarship after several students ( including one of mine ) were financially cut off by their parents when they came out.' Initial funding for the program now is being raised and tax-deductible contributions are solicited. In the first year, the Point Foundation will match up to $10,000 in donations as long as a minimum of $5,000 is raised. Any amount—$5, $50, $500—will help this fund.
Checks should be made out to the Point Foundation with 'Columbia College Scholarship' in the memo line, and mailed to The Point Foundation, P.O. Box 804687, Chicago IL 60680-4250. Contributors will receive a letter for tax-deduction purposes.
A musical about French novelist George Sand and French-Polish composer Frederic Chopin—infamous lovers—sounds like a gay dream, until you remember that George Sand was the nom de plume of a woman, Amandine-Aurore Lucille Dupin, the Baroness Dudevant ( 1804-1876 ) . She might have been hetero, but she also was a politically aware proto-feminist. Now Chicagoans Doug Frew and Patti McKenny ( with composer Linda Eisenstein ) have written a new musical about Sand's latter years, during which she takes the young Sarah Bernhart under her wing. Becoming George will have its world premiere April 19-May 28 at Metro Stage in Alexandria, Va., with Chicago cabaret regular Kat Taylor in the title role.
Speaking of cabaret, there's all sorts of good stuff just now, such as the delightful and versatile Sons of the Never Wrong every Friday at Davenport's. This trio takes traditional music and twists it up with jazz, bluegrass, classical, oompah and gospel. Jonny isn't sure what that entails, but it falls groovily on the ear. The popular Milwaukee Avenue boite also is the Saturday night home for evergreen Beckie Menzie and just-as-green Tom Michaels in a doubles act, Better Two-gether, featuring songs of the Carpenters, Simon & Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers as well as Tom in a Tina Turner moment.
Chicago Cabaret Professionals April series—also at Davenport's on Sundays at 5 p.m.—focuses on composer/lyricist teams who helped write the Great American Songbook. The March 30 show celebrates the songs of Broadway teams Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick ( She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello ) and Richard Adler and Jerry Ross ( The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees ) .
