Category Archives: LGBTQ Alphabet Soup

Special focus on Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer Issues

Speakeasy – THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE vs. THE LOBSTER CHARLESTON

Posted on January 24, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

Introducing the latest dance craze from the Roaring Twenties: The Lobster Charleston! The Lobster Charleston Yes, it’s a novelty dance, like the Turkey Trot, or the Chicken Dance, or the Macarena, the Mashed Potato and Gangnam Style. But it’s imaginary, … Continue reading →

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Official Speakeasy Publicity Photos

Posted on January 18, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

Chet Cheshire with the Tweedle Sisters (Anne Bragg, Bri Molloy, Allie Radice)   Duchess Bentley, Jane Allison, John Allison & Julian Carnation (Camille Atkinson, Rosalie Graziano, Matias Polar & Tim Connell)   The “dip”.   John surrounded by Julian and … Continue reading →

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Behind the scenes at the SPEAKEASY PRESS PHOTO SHOOT

Posted on January 11, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

It is an odd reality of our production of Speakeasy that our Public Relations officer required press photos before we even launched into rehearsals.  So we had to “create” moments from the show before we had yet gotten around to … Continue reading →

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“CAROL” & THERESE – “SPEAKEASY” & JANE – stories from the time when lesbian love dared not say its name

Posted on December 11, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

      I love the movie “Carol”.  It is one of the best movies of the year, masterful on all levels.  While I was watching it, I kept on thinking: “How exquisitely swoony”.  Refined and restrained on the one … Continue reading →

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SPEAKEASY GOES OFF TO THE BALLROOM – The Great Drag Balls of the 1920’s/1930’s

Posted on December 2, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

The centerpiece in Act Two of the new musical “Speakeasy – John and Jane Allison in the Wonderland” is the great drag ball at the Jefferson Lodge Ball.  Chet Cheshire presides over the festivities, attended by a sparkling variety of … Continue reading →

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JULIAN CARNATION / JULIAN ELTINGE – Speakeasy’s Red Queen and Mad Hatter & Broadway’s Famous Female Impersonator

Posted on November 20, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

When I was researching Gay Culture of the 1920’s and 1930’s in preparation for writing “Speakeasy”, I came about an anecdote about a once famous female impersonator of the 1910’s and 1920’s, Julian Eltinge, a star of Vaudeville and the … Continue reading →

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SPEAKEASY Campaign Video Update

Posted on November 3, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Stolis Hadjicharalambous has completed the final edit of the Speakeasy fundraiser campaign video.  The Kickstarter fundraising campaign will launch in about two weeks. Meanwhile, here are stills of some the images and tracks of some of the music that will … Continue reading →

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ENNOBLING TITILLATION – Company XIV’s carnal, campy, classy CINDERELLA

Posted on October 14, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

“a baroque burlesque ballet” That is how AMDM Productions describes the luscious presentation of “Cinderella” currently playing at the Minetta Lane Theatre.  This undeniably adult take on Charles Perrault’s Cinderella (1697) by Company XIV, which deliciously blends “opera, circus, Baroque … Continue reading →

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Speakeasy Gay Slang – FLOWERS & FLORISTS & MAE WEST, Oh my!

Posted on October 12, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

After Alice goes through the mirror in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” she wanders through a mirror image fantastical version of the house she left, then discovers a garden with flowers who not only can talk but will also … Continue reading →

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EVOCATION II – Double Stop Etude or Relationship Elegy?

Posted on October 2, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

There were about 200 wedding guests present when Ed and I got married (the first time) April 25, 1998.  It took at least an hour for the reception line to make its full way past us.  And with the expected … Continue reading →

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DRY OUT THE NATION – SPEAKEASY, PROHIBITION and a very DRY SPEECH

Posted on September 24, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

By the time Jane Allison, in the musical “Speakeasy”, has walked through one door into a speakeasy foyer and through another door into an automat, she realizes that the regular rules and expectations of time and space may not apply … Continue reading →

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THE NEARLY INVISIBLE BISEXUAL MALE

Posted on September 17, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

The director of “Speakeasy”, Lissa Moira, and I were conducting another one of our weekly meetings pouring over the script and discussing staging and production issues, when I mused aloud that in many ways “Speakeasy” is an expression of my … Continue reading →

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THE SPEAKEASY GLOSSARY – Queer Slang of the Prohibition Era

Posted on August 26, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Part of the fun of researching 1920’s and 1930’s Queer subculture in New York City was coming across a wide variety of specialized slang and coded terms that flourished among homosexual men and women of the time.  Some of these … Continue reading →

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SPEAKEASY – The WHITE RABBIT goes slumming in HARLEM

Posted on August 9, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Harlem HARLEM IT’S SO BECOMING LET’S ALL GO SLUMMING IN THE WILD UPTOWN “Going slumming in Harlem”.  This is what rich and middle class swells and flappers, socialites and the elite, white folks from downtown Manhattan, called going uptown to … Continue reading →

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Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears sings “Streets of Berlin” in Bent

Posted on August 1, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Martin Sherman’s classic play “Bent”, about homosexual persecution in Nazi Germany concentration camps, has received a highly acclaimed major revival directed by Moises Kaufman at the Mark Taper Forum in LA. “Bent” is credited with bringing the barely discussed subject … Continue reading →

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SEE JANE RUN. RUN JANE RUN! DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE! ——— SEE JOHN SLIDE. SLIDE JOHN SLIDE! THRU THE LOOKING GLASS!

Posted on July 15, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Jane Allison goes down the rabbit hole.  John Allison slips through the looking glass.  Or rather a Prohibition era version of rabbit hole and looking glass, as employed in the musical “Speakeasy”, a roaring twenties riff on Lewis Carroll’s Alice … Continue reading →

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