Originally published in the San Antonio Current. A California native of Russian descent, David Petruschin is admittedly fond of “winged creatures.” As a go-go boy on the SoCal club scene, he dubbed himself Phoenix before developing the drag persona Raven. Arriving on the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race back in 2010, the professional makeup…
Public Theater of San Antonio’s Production of ‘Rent’ Opens This Weekend
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. Drummed up on the rooftop of a Greenwich Village apartment by playwrights Jonathan Larson and Billy Aronson, the rock opera Rent famously took seven years to come to fruition but then swiftly accomplished what it set out to do: shake up a stagnating Broadway with a gritty reinvention…
Broadway Classic ‘Hello, Dolly!’ Set to Open at Woodlawn Theatre
If you hadn’t noticed, the 1964 madcap musical Hello, Dolly! returned to the stage in grand fashion last year thanks to a multi-Tony-winning Broadway revival starring Bette Midler (and later Bernadette Peters) as vivacious matchmaker and “professional meddler” Dolly Gallagher Levi. Penned by 87-year-old Broadway legend Jerry Herman (Mame, La Cage aux Folles) and late…
John Barrera and Pablo Cruz to Represent the Alamo City at Paris Gay Games
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. “We hope to come back with a gold medal,” realtor and fitness instructor John Barrera tells me on the Brackenridge High School tennis courts. “They’re very nice,” chimes in Barrera’s doubles partner, Pablo Cruz, who’s worked as an AT&T project manager for 25 years and counting. Rightfully giddy…
Drag Gets Filthy with James Majesty’s Retro Bloodbath Show at Web House
Billed as “San Antonio’s newest monthly alternative drag show,” Shawn Benét’s MadHouse returns to Web House for a Retro Bloodbath — a gory affair headlined by James Majesty, the controversial runner-up on season two of The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Search for the World’s Next Drag Supermonster (a series that’s been likened to a “rowdy, filthy…
SA Drag Queens to Walk Runway at ‘Horrible Thrift-Store’ Fashion Show
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. As the excellent title suggests, “horrible thrift-store fashion attire is required” at South Texas Museum of Popular Culture’s (aka Texpop) latest — a multifaceted offering benefiting Thrive Youth Center, one of only four shelters in the country specifically geared toward housing and assisting LGBTQ youth who would otherwise…
From SA’s Happy Foundation Archives: Gay History in a Three-Ring Binder
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. As Happy Foundation Archives Director Gene Elder once pointed out, “an archive can be as simple as a shoebox in the closet.” And while his cavernous headquarters at the Bonham Exchange are in fact brimming with what appears to be thousands of these DIY shoebox-archives — not to…
Documentary ‘Kiki’ Explores Issues LGBT Youth of Color Face, Screening in SA
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. It’s tough to find a review of Swedish filmmaker Sara Jordenö’s 2016 documentary Kiki that doesn’t reference Jennie Livingston’s iconic 1990 film Paris Is Burning. The New York Times went so far as to call Kiki “a spiritual descendant of Ms. Livingston’s film.” Co-written by Jordenö and Twiggy…
AtticRep’s Interactive Performance Takes Aim at HIV Stigma
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. Developed by controversial Brazilian dramatist and activist Augusto Boal, the experimental concept of Forum Theatre invites spectators onto the stage to become “spect-actors” who help determine the outcome of a play. Closely linked with Boal’s socially and politically leaning Theatre of the Oppressed, Forum Theatre has been employed…
Mister Sister Leather Returns for Night of Wit, Laughs and Community Service
Originally published in the San Antonio Current. If you’ve spent much time in the LGBT nightlife scene, or perhaps attended the annual Pride Bigger Than Texas Parade and Festival, it’s quite likely you’ve spotted the elaborately costumed San Antonio Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — a “modern, communal order of 21st-century nuns dedicated to community service,…