#lesbian dana cruz

[nikkiruncks]

Dana Cruz is such a lesbian

[historyhermann]

LGBTQ Representation in Animated Series In 2020 and Beyond

In the past year, various series have premiered on broadcast television and streaming platforms with LGBTQ characters and diverse casts. While there is still progress going forward, as every single major studio had failing, poor, or insufficient ratings for LGBTQ-inclusive films in 2019, according to the recent Studio Responsibility Index released by GLAAD, there were a number of LGBTQ characters in animated series which appeared in 2020 on platforms such as Netflix, HBO Max, CBS All Access / Paramount +,  YouTube, Cartoon Network, Rooster Teeth and Syfy’s TZGZ animation block, with hope for more in the years to come. Despite the dismal events of 2020, these series are making a big impact when it comes to interesting, strong, and complicated stories for LGBTQ characters, and should be praised for that, regardless of whether the shows are aimed at young adults, children, or mature adults.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs, my History Hermann WordPress blog on Jan. 7, and Wayback Machine. This was the third article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on December 29, 2020.

Three big animated series ended this year: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and Steven Universe Future. She-Ra began streaming on Netflix in November 2018, while Steven Universe Future, the limited epilogue series of the inclusive Cartoon Network series, Steven Universe, began in the fall of 2019, and Kipo, another Netflix show, began in January of this year. All three made strides in representation. In addition to those series, there were a host of new and continuing shows like the new all-ages series Cleopatra of Space, an existing all-ages animation titled DC Super Hero Girls, the Mexican animated series, Victor & Valentino, the mature animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks, and two YouTube-hosted series (Helluva Boss and My Pride: The Series) that all had LGBTQ characters as well. The same could be said about Magical Girl Friendship Squad, a wonderful mature animation which parodied the magical girl genre, specifically anime like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, its pilot series, Magical Girl Friendship Squad: Origins, the epilogue series titled Adventure Time: Distant Lands, and the children’s animated series The Owl House. Other series that shined included RWBY, a young adult animation, and the ongoing series, Big Mouth.

In 2020, lesbian characters appeared throughout these animated series. For example, the final season of Noelle Stevenson’s She-Ra ended with an episode where the two protagonists, Catra and Adora, shown above, kiss and save the world (and universe) from destruction, with the show’s villains defeated in one fell swoop. The show included a lesbian couple (Spinnerella and Netossa), and two other lesbian couples (Light Hope and Mara, Scorpia and Perfuma) were either shown in the show or identified by the show’s creators, while Huntara was shown to be a lesbian character who may have a crush on Adora. At the same time, characters like Pearl and Garnet (a fusion of two Gem beings, Ruby and Sapphire) were shown to be lesbians in the original series, Steven Universe, but not in the epilogue series. Even so, Bismuth was implied to have a crush on Pearl. Additionally, the two moms of a superhero girl, Jessica Cruz (also known as Green Lantern), were introduced in an April 2020 episode of DC Super Hero Girls, while the two moms of Akila (Theoda and Pothina) were introduced in an episode of Cleopatra of Space.

Apart from these examples, Xochi was strongly implied to be lesbian and be in a relationship with Amabel in Victor & Valentino, as a planned date in the Season 2 episode “Carmelita” between Xochi and Amabel was unknowingly foiled by the show’s protagonists. In The Owl House, Amity, a teenage witch, who falls in love with Luz, was confirmed as lesbian by show creator Dana Terrace. Noting is the mate of Hover in the show My Pride: The Series and Ilia Amitola, who has a crush on series protagonist Blake Belladonna, and a lesbian couple (Saphron and Terra Cotta-Arc) appeared for brief moments in the eighth volume/season of RWBY. In the case of Magical Girl Friendship Squad, Daisy, one of the protagonists who is living with a brown-skinned woman named Alex, was shown to be a lesbian, whether through having an ex who worked at a local urgent care clinic named Yolanda or Pansy, the “monogamous live-in girlfriend” in one of the alternative universes. Additionally, Daisy was said to have slept with every barista in a local coffee shop, while Nut, the animal companion of Alex and Daisy, had a former relationship with Verus, the villain. In October 2020, the creator of Star Trek: Lower Decks, Mike McMahan, in an interview with Variety, confirmed that Captain Amina Ramsey was ex-girlfriend of Beckett Mariner at Starfleet Academy, and promised that the series would explore more LGBTQ storylines in its second season.

Gay characters also appeared in various animated series in the past year. For instance, Adora’s friend, Bow, in She-Ra, has two dads, George and Lance, while Rogelio and Kyle were hinted to be in a gay relationship, confirmed by series creator Noelle Stevenson. Furthermore, there were multiple gay characters in The Hollow, and a character in The Owl House, Willow, a friend of Luz, has two dads. While Corvin having a crush on a character only known as “Coffee Dude” in Magical Girl Friendship Squad was implied, it was Kipo which made headlines when it came to gay characters. That is because Benson comes out as gay to Kipo, the show’s titular protagonist, a half-Korean and half-Black girl, who is also half-human and half-mutant. He later has a boyfriend named Troy, and their romance is an important subplot in the show’s final season, as shown in the above image.

The same could be said for bisexual characters, to an extent. In She-Ra, Bow and Glimmer, two of the show’s main characters, were implied to be bisexual, as was Sea Hawk, due to his relationship with a princess named Mermista, and previous relationship with a man named Falcon. More significant was a bisexual princess named Entrapta, who is autistic and Luz, a teenage Dominican-American witch in The Owl House, who is shown, and confirmed, to be bisexual. A mature animated series, Harley Quinn, on HBO Max, focused on the relationship between two bisexual women, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which blossoms with various kisses and a romantic ending to the show’s most recent season. Another mature series, Helluva Boss, which had a pilot in November 2019, showed a few episodes this year, which featured two bisexual characters: Moxxie and Stolas. In a bold announcement, Arryn Zech, voice actor of Blake in RWBY confirmed that she was bisexual in a video stream. Additionally, the fact that Ramsey, in Star Trek: Lower Decks was Mariner’s ex-girlfriend, that Mariner previously dated Steve Levy, and that, as McMahan put it, “every Starfleet officer is probably at the baseline bisexual,” with none intentionally made straight or cisgender, strongly hints that she is bisexual – or perhaps even pansexual, which wouldn’t be a first for characters in 2020, as Blitzo, in Helluva Boss, is pansexual.

Finally, there were various non-binary, genderfluid, and trans characters in animated series in 2020, a true sign that things are changing in the realm of animated television. For one, in She-Ra is a non-binary shapeshifter named Double Trouble, who has a pivotal role in the show’s last two seasons, Asher, a friend of Kipo, confirmed to be non-binary by those working on the show, and Y5, a teenage scientist and rabbit with an ambiguous gender. Steven Universe Future, on the other had at least two non-binary characters. For one, the non-binary and intersex fusion of Steven and his friend, Connie, Stevonnie, makes a reappearance in the series. Secondly, a non-binary person, appears and helps Steven get over his feelings of resentment toward his friends “leaving him” and is shown to be the partner of Sadie, a singer of a former band in the town. Apart from this, every single Gem being featured in the show is a non-binary woman, as asserted by series creator Rebecca Sugar. May Marigold in RWBY is a trans woman, as is a new character in Big Mouth named Natalie, and Jewelstar, voiced by a trans male actor, Alex Blue Davis, appeared in an episode of She-Ra.

And, perhaps the most interesting intersection of gender and sexuality in 2020 was the episode “Obsidian” of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, which focused on the relationship between a bisexual woman Marceline “Marcy” the Vampire Queen and Princess Bonnibel “Bonnie” Bubblegum, of a not-yet-known sexual orientation. In the final episode of the original series, Adventure Time, Marcy and Bonnie had kissed, making their relationship canon, with this episode giving more of their backstory and their relationship together.

With these 15 animated series, and others like The Loud House, BoJack Horseman, Castlevania, Hoops, and DuckTales, along with minor characters in Clifford the Big Red Dog and T.O.T.S, there is hope in the future for diverse storylines and expanded representation. For one, it is possible that Kipo will come back in 2021, not just in a comic form, but as a movie, as the series creator, Rad Sechrist, promoted a hashtag for a movie about Wolf, one of the story’s protagonists. Secondly, in January 2021, the final season of Carmen Sandiego will premiere on Netflix, which could end with a lesbian relationship between Carmen and Julia “Jules” Argent, and the new series, DeadEndia, streaming the same year will have a trans teenager named Barney as one of the protagonists.

Next year may bring the second season of The Owl House, with a growing relationship between the two teenage witches, Luz and Amity, a new season of the all-ages animation, Lumberjanes, the mature animated series Hazbin Hotel – created by the same people as Helluva Boss – chock full of LGBTQ characters, the series, Q-Force, which centers around a group of LGBTQ superheroes, the animated web series Gen:Lock, which features a genderfluid character named Val(entina) Romanyszyn, and the upcoming series S.A.L.E.M.: The Secret Archive of Legends, Enchantments, and Monsters. For the latter series, it has already been established that one of the protagonists (Salem) is non-binary and pansexual cryptid, joined by a gay photographer named Oliver, and an asexual psychic medium named Petra. If McMahan follows through on his promise in the interview he had with Variety magazine, the next season of Star Trek: Lower Decks will explore Mariner’s implied bisexual identity and if rumors are true, then the third season of Final Space will have LGBTQ characters. Similarly, the original pitches of Sara Eissa’s animated action-adventure series, Astur’s Rebellion, which Crunchyroll turned down this year, which has a diverse cast, and the 2d animated series Recorded by Arizal, the prelude which aired on Rooster Teeth, both had LGBTQ protagonists. If these series move into production, then this would expand further stories for LGBTQ characters in animation. So, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2021 in terms of animated series and these developments will undoubtedly affect the ongoing war between streaming platforms for more subscribers, profits for themselves, and film distribution itself.

© 2020-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[nevalizona]

Since it's Pride Month, I figured I would compile all my gay ocs♡

MDE:

Inez Martinez: Bi.

M2:

Lorelei Scaletta: Bi.

M3:

Genevieve Rivera: Bi.

Ivy Nicole Harris: Bi.

Veronica Mora-Lee: Lesbian.

Minnie: Lesbian.

G*A Online:

Cereza Solis: Lesbian.

R*d D*ad:

Luna Layeo: (Eventually) Lesbian.

Esmeralda: Bi.

MY OCS:

Rosaylie Layeo: (Eventually) Lesbian.

Gaia Hecate: Lesbian.

Miel Cruz: Lesbian.

Slug Mendoza: He/Him Lesbian.

Bambi Isla Sueño: Bi.

Miriam Rios: Lesbian.

Gracie: Bi.

Silvia Herrera: Lesbian.

Freddie: Lesbian

Lareina: Bi.

Leslie Mitchell: Lesbian.

Kimberly: Lesbian.

Skunk Mitchell: they/them Bi.

Kelsey: Lesbian

Dana: Lesbian

[writemarcus]

HITTING NEW HEIGHTS

BY MARCUS SCOTT

ORIGINAL RENT STAR DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IN THE HEIGHTS FILM

Qué quiere decir sueñito?” The disembodied voice of a girlchild ponders. “It means ‘little dream,’” responds an unseen authoritative figure, his feathery tenor with a soft rasp and tender lilt implying there’s more to the story.

Teal waves crash against the white sand coastal lines of the Dominican Republic and a quartet of children plead with the voice to illuminate and tell a story. Usnavi de la Vega (played by Anthony Ramos), sporting his signature newsboy flat cap and full goatee, begins to narrate and weave a tall-tale from the comforts of his beachside food cart: “This is the story of a block that was disappearing. Once upon a time in a faraway land called Nueva York, en barrio called Washington Heights. Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he decrees.

And we’re off, this distant magic kingdom ensnared within the winding urban sprawl of farthest-uptown Manhattan, the music of the neighborhood chiming with infinite possibilities: a door-latch fastening on tempo, a ring of keys sprinkling a sweet embellishment, the splish-splash of a garden hose licking the city streets like a drumstick to a snare fill, a manhole cover rotating like vinyl on a get-down turntable, the hiss of paint cans spraying graffiti like venoms from cobras and roll-up steel doors rumbling, not unlike the ultra-fast subway cars zigzagging underground. So begins the opening moments of In the Heights, the Warner Bros. stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical by composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and librettist Quiara Alegría Hudes (Water by the Spoonful) that is set to premiere in movie theatres and on HBO Max on June 11, 2021.

This stunning patchwork of visuals and reverberations combine to create a defiant and instantly memorable collage of inner-city living not seen since Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors or West Side Story, the iconic romantic musical tragedy directed on film by Robert Wise and original Broadway director Jerome Robbins. With Jon M. Chu at the helm, the musical feature has all the trademarks of the director’s opulent signature style: Striking spectacles full of stark colors, va-va-voom visuals, ooh-la-la hyperkinetic showstopping sequences and out-of-this-world destination locations.

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A Kind of Priestess

Joining the fray of proscenium stage vets in the film is Broadway star Daphne Rubin-Vega, who originated the role of Mimi in the Off-Broadway and Broadway original productions of Rent. She returns to major motion pictures after a decade since her last outing in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. When we caught up with Rubin-Vega, she was hard at work, in-between rehearsals with her In the Heights co-star Jimmy Smits on Two Sisters and a Piano, the 1999 play by Miami-based playwright Nilo Cruz, a frequent collaborator. Rubin-Vega netted a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as the enraptured Conchita in Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics; that same year Cruz was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making him the first Latino playwright to receive the honor. Despite significant global, social and economic disruption, especially within the arts community, Rubin-Vega has been working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People around me have [contracted] COVID… My father-in-law just had it. I’m very fortunate,” Rubin-Vega said. “This collective experience, it’s funny because it’s a year now and things seem better. Last year it was, like, ‘Damn, how inconvenient!’ The one comfort was that, you know, it’s happening to every one of us. That clarity that this is a collective experience is much more humbling and tolerable to me.”

The last time Rubin-Vega graced Washington Heights on screen or stage, she acted in the interest of survival and hunger as a probationer released after a 13-year stint in prison and given a new lease on life as an unlicensed amateur masseuse in the basement of an empanada shop in Empanada Loca, The Spalding Gray-style Grand Guignol horror play by Aaron Mark at the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2015. In In the Heights she plays Daniela, an outrageously vivacious belting beautician with a flair for the dramatics, forced to battle a price-gouging real estate bubble in the wake of gentrification.

“She’s like the deputy or the priestess,” Rubin-Vega said. “Owning a salon means that you have a lot of information; you’re in a hub of community, of information, of sharing… it’s also where you go for physical grooming. It’s a place where women were empowered to create their own work and it is a place of closeness, spiritual advice, not-so-spiritual advice. Physical attention.”

She said, “Daniela also being an elder; I think she’s not so much a person that imposes order on other people. She’s there to bring out the best—she leads with love. She tells it like it is. I don’t think she sugar-coats things. What you see is what you get with Daniela. It’s refreshing; she has a candor and sure-footedness that I admire.”

With the film adaptation, Chu and Hudes promised to expand the universe of the Upper Manhattan-based musical, crafting new dimensions and nuances to two characters in particular: Daniela and hairdresser Carla, originally portrayed as business associates and gossip buddies in the stage musical. On the big screen they are reimagined as romantic life partners. Stephanie Beatriz, known to audiences for her hilarious turn as the mysterious and aloof Detective Rosa Diaz in the police procedural sitcom romp “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” co-stars as the fast-talking firecracker, Carla.

It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.

Where Is Home?

“Well, Quiara and Jon really expanded on what Lin and Quiara originally created and now they’re partners—and not just work partners, right? But they’re life partners,” Beatriz said at a March press event celebrating the release of the film’s two promo trailers. “What was so gratifying to me as a person who is queer is to see this relationship in the film be part of the fabric of the community, and to be normal, and be happy and functioning, and part of the quilt they’ve all created.”

She continued, “So much of this film is about where home is and who home is to you. And for Carla, Daniela is home. Wherever Daniela is, that’s where Carla feels at home. I thought that they did such a beautiful job of guiding us to this, really, you know, it’s just a happy functioning relationship that happens to be gay and in the movie. And I love that they did that, because it is such a part of our world.”

Rubin-Vega said she had no interest in playing any trope of what one might think a lesbian Latina might look or act like, noting that the queer experience isn’t monolithic, while expressing that the role offered her a newfound freedom, especially with regard to being present in the role and in her everyday life.

“Spoiler alert! I felt like not wearing a bra was going to free me. Did I get it right? Am I saying that gay women don’t wear bras? No, it was just a way for me to be in my body and feel my breasts. To feel my femaleness and celebrate it in a more unapologetic way,” she said, laughing. “To be honest, I was really looking forward to playing a lesbian Latina. It’s something that I hadn’t really explored before. Latinos [can be] very homophobic as a culture, and I wanted to play someone who didn’t care about homophobia; I was gonna live my best life. That’s a bigger thing. It’s also like, maybe I’m bisexual. Who knows? Who cares? If you see that in the film, that’s cool too, you know?”

Stand-out performances abound, especially with regard to the supporting cast; newcomers Melissa Barrera (in a role originated by Tony Award winner Karen Olivo) and Gregory Diaz IV (replacing three-time Tony Award nominee Robin de Jesús) are noteworthy as the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa and budding activist Sonny. Olga Merediz, who earned a Tony Award nomination for originating her role as Abuela Claudia, returns to the silver screen in a captivating performance that will be a contender come award season. However, Rubin-Vega may just be the one to watch. Her performance is incandescent and full of moxie, designed to raise endorphin levels. She leads an ensemble in the rousing “Carnaval del Barrio,” a highlight in the film.

Musical Bootcamp

“We shot in June [2019]. In April, we started musical bootcamp. In May, we started to do the choreography. My big joke was that I would have to get a knee replacement in December; that was in direct relation to all that choreography. I mean, there were hundreds of A-1 dancers in the posse,” Rubin-Vega said. “The family consisted of hundreds of superlative dancers led by Chris[topher] Scott, with an amazing team of dancers like Ebony Williams, Emilio Dosal, Dana Wilson, Eddie Torres Jr. and Princess Serrano. We rehearsed a fair bit. Monday through Friday for maybe five weeks. The first day of rehearsal I met Melissa [Barrera] and Corey [Hawkins], I pretty much hadn’t known everyone yet. I hadn’t met Leslie [Grace] yet. Chris Scott, the choreographer, just went straight into ‘let’s see what you can do.’ It was the first [dance] routine of ‘In The Heights,’ the opening number. He was like, ‘OK, let’s go. Five, six, seven, eight!’”

Rubin-Vega said that she tried to bring her best game, though it had “been a minute” since she had to execute such intricate choreography, noting that they shot the opening number within a day while praising Chu’s work ethic and leadership.

“There was a balance between focus and fun and that’s rare. Everyone was there because they wanted to be there,” she said. “I think back to the day we shot ‘96,000.’ That day it wouldn’t stop raining; [it was] grey and then the sky would clear and we’d get into places and then it would be grey again and so we’d have to wait and just have to endure. But even the bad parts were kind of good, too. Even the hottest days. There were gunshots, there was a fire while we were shooting and we had to shut down, there was traffic and noise and yet every time I looked around me or went into video village and saw the faces in there, I mean…it felt like the only place to be. You want to feel like that in every place you are: The recognition. I could recognize people who look like me. For now on, you cannot say I’ve never seen a Panamanian on film before or a Columbian or a Mexican, you know?”

Another Notion of Beauty

Rubin-Vega’s professional relationship with the playwright Hudes extends to 2015, when she was tapped to [participate in the] workshop [production of]  Daphne’s Dive. Under the direction of Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and starring alongside Samira Wiley (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Orange Is the New Black”), the play premiered Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center the following year. Rubin-Vega also starred in Miss You Like Hell, the cross-country road musical by Hudes and Erin McKeown, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2016 before it transferred to The Public Theater in 2018. With her participation in the production of In the Heights, she is among the few to have collaborated with all of the living Latinx playwrights to have won the Pulitzer Prize; Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, while Miranda took home the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Hamilton. Speaking on her multiple collaborations over the years, Rubin-Vega also acknowledged having known Miranda years before they would join voices.

“Lin to me is like a little bro or legacy; he’s a direct descent to me from [Rent author] Jonathan Larson, which is a bigger sort of all-encompassing arch,” she said, though she stressed that she auditioned like everyone else, landing the role after two or three callbacks. “Quiara and I have a wonderful working and personal relationship, I think. Which isn’t to say I had dibs by any means because…it’s a business that wants the best for itself, I suppose. […] So, when I walked in, I was determined to really give it my best.”

Life During and After Rent

Rubin-Vega has built an impressive resume over the course of her career, singing along with the likes of rock stars like David Bowie and starring in a multitude of divergent roles on Broadway and off. From a harrowing Fantine in Les Misérables and a co-dependent Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire to a sinister Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show, her evolution into the atypical character actor and leading lady can be traced back 25 years to January 25, 1996, when Larson’s groundbreaking musical Rent, a retelling of Giacomo Puccini’s 19th-century opera La Bohème, premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop. On the morning of the first preview, Larson suffered an aortic dissection, likely from undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome and died at the age of 35, just ten days shy of what would have been his 36th birthday.

On April 29, 1996, due to overwhelming popularity, Rent transferred to Nederlander Theatre on Broadway, tackling contemporary topics the Great White Way had rarely seen, such as poverty and class warfare during the AIDS epidemic in New York City’s gritty East Village at the turn of the millennium. Rubin-Vega would go on to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her role as sex kitten Mimi Márquez, an HIV-positive heroin addict and erotic dancer.

  The show became a cultural phenomenon, receiving several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Rubin-Vega and members of the original Broadway cast were suddenly overnight sensations, recording “Seasons of Love” alongside music icon Stevie Wonder, receiving a photo shoot with Vanity Fair and landing the May 13, 1996 cover of Newsweek. Throughout its 12-year Broadway run, many of the show’s original cast members and subsequent replacements would go on to be stars, including Renée Elise Goldsberry, who followed in Rubin-Vega’s footsteps to play the popular character before originating the role of Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

When the screen adaptation of Rent hit cinemas in 2005 under the direction of Chris Columbus, Rubin-Vega’s conspicuous absence came as a blow to longtime fans. The confluence of pregnancy with the casting and filming process of Rent hindered her from participating at the time. The role was subsequently given to movie star Rosario Dawson.

“First of all, if you’re meant to be in a film, you’re meant to be in it,” Rubin-Vega said. “That’s just the way it goes. It took a quarter of a century but this [In the Heights] is a film that I wanted to make, that I felt the elements sat right. I always felt that Rent was a little bit darker than all that. Rent to me is Rated R. In The Heights is not. It’s also a testament. Unless it’s sucking your soul and killing you softly or hardly, just stick with it. This is a business and I keep forgetting it’s a business because actors just want to show art. So, it’s really wonderful when you get a chance to say what you mean and mean what you say with your work. It’s a really wonderful gift.”

Rarely-Explored Themes

Like Larson’s award-winning show and the film adapted from it, In The Heights is jam-packed with hard-hitting subject matter, addressing themes of urban blight, immigration, gentrification, cultural identity, assimilation and U.S. political history. When Rubin-Vega’s character Daniela and her partner were priced out of the rent for her salon, most of her clientele moved to the Grand Concourse Historic District in the Bronx. Her salon, a bastion of the community, is met with a polar response when she announces she’s joining the mass exodus with the other victims of gentrification who were pushed out by rising rents. The news is met with negative response from long-time patrons who refuse to take the short commute to the new location. Daniela counters, “Our people survived slave ships, we survived Taino [indigenous Caribbean people] genocide, we survived conquistadores and dictators…you’re telling me we can’t survive the D train to Grand Concourse?”

The question is humorous, but also insinuates a more nuanced understanding of the AfroLatinidad experience in the Western world. The film also looks at the American Dream with a naturalistic approach. Leslie Grace, who plays Nina Rosario, a first-generation college student returning from her freshman year at Stanford University and grappling with finances and the expectations of her community, noted that while her character “finds [herself] at some point at a fork in the road,” she may not have the luxury to be indecisive because of the pressures put on by family, community and country.  

“The struggle of the first-generation Americans in the Latino community is not talked about a lot because it’s almost like a privilege,” Grace asserted. “You feel like it’s a privilege to talk about it. But there is a lot of identity crisis that comes with it and I think we explore that.” Speaking on the character, she elaborated: “Home for her is where her heart is, but also where her purpose is. So, she finds her purpose in doing something outside of herself, greater than herself and going back to Stanford for the people she loves in her community. I really relate to where she’s at, trying to find herself. And I think a lot of other people will, too.”

Worth Singing About

For Miranda, a first-generation Puerto Rican New Yorker that grew up in Inwood at the northernmost tip of Manhattan before attending Wesleyan University where he would develop the musical, this speaks to a larger issue of what defines a home.

“What does ‘home’ even mean? Every character is sort of answering it in a different way,” he said. “For some people, home is somewhere else. For some people, home is like ‘the block’ they’re on. So, that’s worth singing about. It’s worth celebrating in a movie of this size.”

Given the current zeitgeist, it’s no wonder why Chu, Hudes and Miranda decided to pivot with adapting the stage musical for the big screen, leaning in to tackle the plights and predicaments of DREAMers [children of undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship] stateside. In one scene, glimpses of posters at a protest rally read “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights” and “Refugees Are People Too.” Growing up in a multicultural household as a Latina with a Black Latina mother, a white father and a Jewish American stepfather, Rubin-Vega said she was used to being in spaces that were truly multiracial. Nevertheless, there were times when she often felt alien, especially as a du jour rock musical ingenue who looked as she did in the mid-1990s through the 2000s.

“Undocumented people come in different shapes and colors,” she noted. “To be born in a land that doesn’t recognize you, it’s a thing that holds so much horror… so much disgrace happens on the planet because human beings aren’t recognized as such sometimes.”

The film “definitely sheds light on that, but it also talks about having your dream taken away and its human violation—it’s a physical, spiritual, social, cultural violation,” Rubin-Vega said. “There’s a difference between pursuing dreams and being aware of reality. They’re not mutually exclusive. What this film does, it presents a story that is fairly grounded in reality. It’s a musical, it’s over the top… but it reflects a bigger reality, which is like an emotional reality…that people that are challenged on the daily, have incredible resolve, incredible resoluteness and lifeforce.”

She said: “Growing up, looking like me, I got to ingest the same information as everyone else except when it came time to implement my contributions, they weren’t as welcomed or as seen. The dream is to be seen and to be recognized. Maybe I could be an astronaut or an ingenue on Broadway? You can’t achieve stuff that you haven’t imagined. When it talks about DREAMers, it talks about that and it talks about how to not be passive in a culture that would have you think you are passive but to be that change and to dare to be that change.”

Dreams Come True

Dreams are coming true. Alongside the nationwide release of the much-anticipated film, Random House announced it will publish In the Heights: Finding Home, which will give a behind-the-scenes look at the beginnings of Miranda’s 2008 breakout Broadway debut and journey to the soon-to-be-released film adaptation. The table book will chronicle the show’s 20-year voyage from page to stage—from Miranda’s first drawings at the age of 19 to lyric annotations by Miranda and essays written by Hudes to never-before-seen photos from productions around the world and the 2021 movie set. It will be released to the public on June 22, eleven days after the release of the film; an audiobook will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio.

Hinting at the year-long delay due to the pandemic, Rubin-Vega said, “It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.”

Bigger Dreams

“Jon [Chu], I think, dreams bigger than any of us dare to dream in terms of the size and scope of this,” Miranda said. “We spent our summer [in 2018] on 175th Street. You know, he was committed to the authenticity of being in that neighborhood we [all] grew up in, that we love, but then also when it comes to production numbers, dreaming so big. I mean, this is a big movie musical!”

Miranda continued, “We’re so used to asking for less, just to ask to occupy space, you know? As Latinos, we’re, like, ‘Please just let us make our little movie.’ And Jon, every step of the way, said, like, ‘No, these guys have big dreams. We’re allowed to go that big!’ So, I’m just thrilled with what he did ’cause I think it’s bigger than any of us ever dreamed.”

Speaking at the online press conference, Miranda said, “I’m talking to you from Washington Heights right now! I love it here. The whole [movie] is a love letter to this neighborhood. I think it’s such an incredible neighborhood. It’s the first chapter in so many stories. It’s a Latinx neighborhood [today]. It was a Dominican neighborhood when I was growing up there in the ’80s. But before that it was an Irish neighborhood and Italian. It’s always the first chapter in so many American stories.”

[showbizchicago]

Following its sell-out hit Significant Other, About Face Theatre is pleased to continue its 2017-18 season with the Midwest premiere of R. Eric Thomas’ gleeful mystery TIME IS ON OUR SIDE, directed by Artistic Director Megan Carney, playing March 1 – April 7, 2018 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are currently available at aboutfacetheatre.com by calling (773) 975-8150 or in person at the Theater Wit Box Office. 

TIME IS ON OUR SIDE features Esteban Andres Cruz, Rashaad Hall, Riley Mondragon and Maggie Scrantom.

Besties Annie and Curtis struggle to produce a podcast that “queers history” until the discovery of a mysterious family journal launches them into a high stakes and hilarious investigation of the early LGBTQ rights movement. Hopping from the Underground Railroad to Rosa Parks, from the AIDS Quilt to Celebrity Jeopardy, the political gets personal.

“This is a hilarious and deeply personal story,” comments Director Megan Carney. “It brings together rich characters of different generations who share a longing to connect, which makes it such a perfect play for us at About Face Theatre. The play weaves a range of stories in which younger folks uncover their roots and elders pass on what they know. All together, a powerful story emerges revealing acts of resistance and queer magic through the decades.”

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The production team for TIME IS ON OUR SIDE includes José Manuel Diaz (scenic design), Robert S. Kuhn (costume design), Christopher Kriz (sound design), Claire Sangster (lighting design) Blake Leo Burke (properties design) Catherine Allen (production manager) and Dana Nestrick (stage manager).

Artist Biographies

Eric Thomas (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright, humorist and the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia. His play Time is on Our Side was the recipient of two Barrymore Awards including Best New Play and was named a finalist for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. Forthcoming productions include Mrs. Harrison at Azuka Theatre. He writes a daily humor column for Elle.com in which he “reads” the news. In addition to Elle.com and ELLE magazine, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, W Magazine, Man Repeller, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazineand more. www.rericthomas.com

Megan Carney (Director) is a director, playwright, educator and the Artistic Director of About Face Theatre. Recent Chicago directing credits include Julie Jenson’s Winter, George Brandt’s Grizzly Mama, Danielle Pinnock’s Body/Courage and Lisa Dillman’s American Wee Pie and The Walls with Rivendell Theatre Ensemble. She was lead interviewer and playwright for Women at War, a multi-year performance and civic dialogue project about women in the military that continues to tour. Megan was a founding director of About Face Youth Theatre and served as Associate Artistic Director for several years while she created original ensemble plays. Carney’s work has been recognized with multiple After Dark Awards, the GLSEN Pathfinder Award, an APA Presidential Citation, induction in Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, a Rockefeller Foundation MAP Grant and a GLAAD Media Award nomination. Megan served as the Director of the Gender and Sexuality Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2011-2017 where she created arts based educational programs for and about diverse LGBTQIA+ people and communities. She has a MFA in Theatre Arts from Virginia Tech with a focus on Directing and Public Dialogue.

About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative, and adventurous theatre and educational programming that advances the national dialogue on sexual and gender identity, and challenges and entertains audiences in Chicago and beyond.

About Face Theatre’s Midwest Premiere of “TIME IS ON OUR SIDE” Runs Through April 7 Following its sell-out hit Significant Other, About Face Theatre is pleased to continue its 2017-18 season with the Midwest premiere of 

[kathleen-tripp-blog]

Curation Collective #5 Three Trends or Movements in Society

1. Gun Control: The gun control movement has been debated over for the last decade, but now action is finally being taken. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students felt a need to support their cause after their school had fallen victim to a school shooter named Nikolas Cruz. On February 14, 2018, Cruz shot and killed 17 innocent people, and injured several other; making this the 18th school shooting since the beginning of the 2018 year. The Douglas students raised money to travel by bus to Tallahassee, Florida, their government headquarters. There these students and teachers asked important people like Marco Rubio, Dana Loesch, Bill Nelson, Ted Deutch, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel questions that could have potentially changed the outcome of the Parkland shooting. They asked question regarding campaign endorsements made by the NRA (National Rifle Association), banning bump stocks, and how the government would handle gun laws in the future, because frankly their tactic right now isn’t working. The young people of my generation are standing up and using their voices to peacefully protest gun control. They understand that not all guns will be outlawed immediately, but they also recognize that there is no need for automatic weapons to be sold and used; as automatic weapons (AR-15 specifically) have been used in # of school shootings. 2. The Pro-Choice/Pro-Life Debate: The debate of pro-choice and pro-life have been going on for centuries. This is not only an issue regarding another human life, but it also brings religion into question. Many religions teach that it is wrong to kill a life no matter how young, as all things have human dignity, this goes hand in hand with the beliefs of people who are pro-life. Pro-choice, however, gives women the option on what they want to do with their bodies, even if that means aborting the life of a baby. Babies are gift to the world, they bring joy and light to the lives of billions of people. It is hard to understand why anyone would want to hurt such helpless beautiful little creature. My stance on this issue is one that I’m sure is shared by many. I can’t possibly understand why any capable person would hurt these precious little beings, but under certain circumstances, for instance rape, I feel that the woman has the right to choose what she does with her body. I grew up in a family with four girls including myself, all three of my older sisters came from drug using birth mothers. They survived by the grace of God and were put up for adoption at birth, because of this experience and how it has affected my family still to this day, I believe that there are few excuses for killing innocent lives, but that women do have the right to choose what they do with their body. They will live with whatever decision they make and no one has the right to judge that or take that away from them. 3. The LGBT+ Movement: The Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender+ community are made up of people from all different races, genders, sexualities and religions. This is a group of people who have been publicly ostracized because of their gender or sexual orientation; whether by the public, by family, by friends, it’s something in today’s world that can’t be avoided. Despite this, the movement is growing. There are hundreds of pride events in the just the United States, located in the most popular cities throughout the country. A lesbian is a homosexual woman attracted to other women, and to be gay is the nearly the same but the homosexuality of men. Bisexual is having a romantic attraction to both men and women. A transgender is someone whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex. A person’s sexual orientation is not a decision but rather an ideology that they were born with, however, many people disagree with this. The LGBT+ movement is a growing movement standing up for the rights of the people within this community. They protest the use of bathrooms pertaining to the gender they feel appropriate for themselves, legalizing same sex marriages along with same sex adoption, equal employment opportunity, and many other civil rights that they deserve but haven’t yet won.

[batman-mustache]

Feminists in London held a private event to talk about gender. Trans women didn't like it. They forced it to change venues due to threats of violence that the library it was initially going to be held at changed their minds for "safety reasons". Then the trans woman stood outside the venue blocking the exit until the police were called. When the women left the building, there was a big shouting match, then a 60 year old woman was punched in the face, shoved to the ground, and kicked.

2/2 I’m not really any kind of feminist, but I can see why radfems are afraid of some trans women. Most tw just try to live their own lives in peace, but some of the others really get off on making violent threats against women. I remember when Tumblr lesbians were all upset about Dana Rivers murdering that black lesbian couple bc she gave years to hating lesbians and working to shut down the Michigan’s Women’s Festival. I don’t really know what to think anymore if women are getting beaten up. 

 Ah, thanks so much! I assume you’re referring to my question on @the-real-ted-cruz‘s post. From the information you gave me, I looked up the event. There’s not much news about it. This was all I could find:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/6zxm3k/feminist_attacked_by_4_men_at_transgender_debate/#bottom-comments

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3031380-calling-all-london-spartaci?pg=2&messages=100

https://www.list.co.uk/event/20974934-what-is-the-meaning-of-gender-the-gender-recognition-act-and-beyond/

Also wow, I never heard about Dana Rivers. That’s messed up. 

As for this event, I don’t really think one should be afraid of trans women but rather extremists. People tend to get kind of psychotic in any kind of extreme–trans activists are no exception. From what I could gather, the topic was over The Gender Recognition Act in the UK and I’m assuming the speaker who was assaulted, Julia Long, was arguing against considering trans women as women. 

Now, I disagree with radfems a lot and that topic is no exception. I fully believe that trans women are women and should be included in women’s spaces. However, I also agree that there’s a lot of extremism when surrounding trans topics and things do get out of hand. While I want to include trans women, I think we also need to consider that there are issues that mostly involve cis women, such as abortion, contraceptives, maternity leave, pre-natal care, menstrual products, etc., while trans women have their own individual issues as well. Yet I’ve heard this talking point called transphobic, for even daring to say that things like childbirth are “women’s issues” because trans women cannot give birth. What??? Some cis women cannot give birth; this doesn’t make them any less of women, and this almost militant attitude towards language doesn’t actually do anything in terms of progress for any women, cis or trans. 

If the activists disagreed with Long’s position, then protesting is fine. I’m a little leery about blocking people from moving places, but I have no issue with them showing up to protest. That being said, there is no excuse for this kind of physical violence and it just makes their cause look worse. If one cannot properly debate their side without resorting to assault, then I’m inclined to believe their point isn’t actually solid enough to be defended verbally. 

It’s a difficult situation, but you can support trans women and also denounce incidents like this. This is not okay. As someone said on reddit, “Yes - speaking out against them is considered to be violence, but the transactivists’ literal violence against women is just free speech.” Violence is violence, not words or language.