Page 24

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

February 19, 1993

HOW DO I SAY "THANK YOU

to the many individuals and groups who have worked to make my life and lifestyle a little...

LESS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST

thanks to Bob Laycock's success in the City of Cleveland's sexual orientation discrimination protection.

MORE ENLIGHTENED AND BETTER READ thanks to Heather Thorp and Susan Bennett's lesbian owned "Gifts of Athena" bookstore and the distribution center it's informally become.

MORE ENTERTAINED

thanks to the North Coast Men's Chorus entering its fifth season of delightful entertainment.

MORE INFORMED AND AWARE thanks to What She Wants for 20 years of coverage of political and current events within the women's community.

MORE VISIBLE AND SOCIAL

thanks to the Monotones generating great social events and generous contributions to the Gay/Lesbian community.

MORE POLITICALLY INVOLVED

thanks to Greg Levine and Howard Epstein for echoing the message Gays and Lesbians sent Washington through their successful -Fingerhut fund-raising efforts.

MORE PROTECTED

thanks to the Cleveland's Community Relations Board for its dedication to protecting EVERYONE'S rights.

... and the many other individuals who stood up, spoke out, joined in, pulled out and in every way possible worked hard to make my life better, safer, richer when I couldn't or sometimes wouldn't.

JUST SHOW UP.

Fifth Annual Community Service Awards Sunday, February 21st

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Entertainment

Richard Horswick, Robert Atkins and John Beeker (top to bottom) play three gay men in The Lisbon Traviata at Dobama Theatre.

Opera, life blend in McNally's controversial comic drama

by Barry Daniels

Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata, directed by Dorothy Silver, will be playing at Dobama Theatre from March 5 through 28. This will be the Cleveland premiere of McNally's outrageously funny and profoundly disturbing study of four gay New Yorkers and their relationships.

McNally is one of our most distinguished gay playwrights. His successes include Bad Habits (1974), The Ritz (1975), and numerous one-act plays produced off-off-Broadway. Starting with It's Only a Play (1985) his work has been produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Subsequent plays Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune (1987), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), and a revival of The Lisbon Traviata (1989) have gone on to play extended runs on Broadway and have been widely produced in the regional theaters.

Mel Gussow, writing in the New York Times, called The Lisbon Traviata "an ambitious attempt to confront demons absent or suppressed in the playwright's other engaging work." McNally himself has said

it "was never an easy play. It was hard to write, hard to cast, hard to rehearse, hard to perform, hard to get the critics to see what I was driving at." In some ways it is a daring choice for Dobama to pick this most difficult of McNally's plays, but it is a typical of this adventuresome company to seek to enliven the Cleveland theater scene with such work.

Director Dorothy Silver is well aware of the challenges posed by The Lisbon Traviata. Her stated goal is to find the real people McNally is writing about. "There is so much love, pain and humor in the play, so much dimension, that I hope to do justice to it," she noted in a conversation during the early rehearsal period. Opera buffs should be warned that McNally is an expert on the subject and has artfully packed the play with allusions to opera and its divas. McNally is at his wittiest and most incisive in this startling and moving drama of gay life and love.

Tickets are $10 and $7 with student, senior and group discounts. Dobama is at 1846 Coventry Road. Call 932-6838 for reservations.

Men's Chorus to sing four decades of rock 'n' roll hits

Remember poodle skirts, rockabilly, bell bottoms and disco? The members of the North Coast Men's Chorus do, and they'll be bringing them right into the present during “Rock 'n' Roll Remembered,” a concert to be held Saturday, March 13 at the Lakewood High School "L" Room. The high school is located at the corner of Franklin and Bunts Roads, and showtime is set for 8:00 p.m.

Concert tickets are eight dollars in advance and ten dollars at the door. Advance tickets are available at the Cleveland Gay Besbian Community convers Gifts of

Athena on Lee Rd. (Cleveland Hts.), High Tide/Rock Bottom on Coventry (Cleveland Hts.), and at Truffles Pastry Shop on Clifton (Cleveland). Tickets are also available through any Chorus member or by calling 473-8919.

The Chorus, a not-for-profit group of over fifty gay and gay-supportive men, will perform songs that cover a broad range of popular music from the 50's to the 80's. Included will be such classic artists as the Supremes, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley Billy Joel. There is also a money-back fry Manilow guaranteer