For the last three years, I’ve been working on a book about the history of our most beloved Fiesta event, Cornyation. I’m pleased to report that the book will be published in March 2017 by Trinity University Press, and it will include more than 100 pictures of Cornyation over the years. Over the course of…
Arts & Culture
Hot Glue & Duct Tape: John McBurney’s Rasquache Aesthetic
“We had the courage and the tenacity to be flamboyant and to be ourselves.” “I’m an old showgirl,” John McBurney says, as he shows me a faded photo of himself in partial drag backstage at Cornyation in 1998. McBurney is 61. “I am 6’ 4’’ and almost 300 pounds. I have to be very couture.…
Gay Royalty Rules Cornyation’s Court of Our Mad, Mad, Mad World
Michael Bobo and his husband Wayne D. Beers — the dynamic duo of W.D. Deli — have been preparing for their crowning moment for years, so to speak. So when the lights go down, the music starts thumping, the curtains go up and an odd assortment of outrageous drag queens, city celebs and other bizarre,…
SA4 Documentary to Screen at Tribeca Film Fest
A documentary about the trial and long-term imprisonment of four San Antonio Latina lesbians, who in 1994 were falsely accused of sexually abusing two pre-teen girls, will make its world premier at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 13. The film, Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four,…
Ray Chavez Recalls Cornyation Antics Through the Ages
“Ray is the heart and soul of Cornyation … it wouldn’t be here without him.” The house was packed and Cornyation was in full swing. The music was blaring, the stage lights glaring, and a group of actors and dancers were performing in another outlandish skit to thunderous roars, when, suddenly, a dancer took an unscripted nosedive…
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘Cinderella’ Lands at the Majestic This Week
In 1957 when Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella first premiered on CBS as a made-for-television musical starring Julie Andrews in the lead role, it was seen by an audience of more than 100 million people — a figure almost impossible to recapture in today’s era of online streaming. Its authors, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, were already among the…
Found in Translation: Wu Tsang & boychild’s Captivating Collaborations
Though Wu Tsang and Tosh are hard at work on their Artpace residency project, they agree to spare me half an hour. The Los Angeles-based couple have received a dizzying number of intriguing deliveries, Artpace staffers tell me. In addition to their International Artist-In-Residence exhibition (on view through May 15), Wu and Tosh are readying…
Jump Start Performance Co. Challenges Artists With 8 x 8 Series
Good things come in small packages. At least that’s the idea behind Jump Start’s upcoming performance series 8 x 8 Cabaret Du Jump being held this weekend. After lead artist Chuck Squier asked company member Sheila Currie to construct a performance cube out of 8-foot pipes, the challenge to the local artistic community was to…
The Carver presents Arte y Pasión’s “Colores”
They are known for an interdisciplinary approach juxtaposing flamenco with modern dance and visual art, but the provocative group Arte y Pasión have yet another factor which often goes unrecognized: For the past several years, artistic director Tamara Adira has been recruiting some of the best talent from around the country to join in the…
Gregg Barrios on the Power of Music, Poetry and James Franco
Journalist, activist, teacher, poet, critic, filmmaker and playwright Gregg Barrios, who hails from Victoria, Texas, but now calls San Antonio home, is a Texas treasure. Actually, Barrios is more than that: he’s a treasure of American arts and letters, a captivating performer, a consummate educator and artistic provocateur, and a powerful role model for others…