In the Life: Ep. 1008, "Cultural Legacies"

on this edition of In The Life queer comic strip characters preserving lesbian culture this was an archives that belonged to the people who lived its history and AIDS and the Artistry of Dance plus a love story of operatic proportions and special guest host Kate Clinton all this and more on in the Life America's Gay and Lesbian News Magazine in the life is funded in part by the H van amaran Foundation additional support provided by William J Resnik Rick wiland the Arcus Foundation the Colin Higgins Foundation the Snowden Foundation the Mitchell Gold company in the hopes of eliminating all types of fear and [Music] Prejudice and the annual support of in Theif members like you [Music] welcome to in the life I'm Kate Clinton this year marks my 20th anniversary as a performer for those of you who give gifts for such things I am registered at Walmart and during that time I've made a number of appearances on in the Life as a matter of fact I hosted the first episode back in 1992 and I've been back several times as a guest correspondent on this Edition we'll show you some of the best stories on art and culture in the life has aired over the years whether on stage or screen from choreographers to cartoons if it's about gay men or lesbians chances are in the life has covered it on this episode correspondent Darius stat spotlights two theater companies presenting Shakespeare with a Twist Jonathan capart profiles two performers dancing for life and Alan tulan looks at some comic strip characters who live up to the name the funnies but first this first story originally aired on the eve of the New Millennium and it profiles an institution whose mission is close to my heart making sure that the past is not lost to the Future back in the 197s lesbians were becoming a vocal and highly visible political presence in American life but a group of women feared that much of this history was being distorted or going undocumented altogether they decided that lesbians should be the ones to present and preserve their own stories as in the Life series host kathern Linton reported they've been keepers of the culture for more than a quarter qu of a century we began talking about how easily our history had gotten lost that we didn't want our story to be told by quote a patriarchal history keeper I didn't want our story to be told by those who called us freaks to begin with and that if we didn't do it nobody was going to do it for us Joan Nestle and Deb Adel are two of the founders of the lesbian her story archives in New York which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year for all of those years they've been collecting the writings photographs Publications t-shirts buttons in fact all of the materials that tell the many histories of lesbian lives and for almost 20 of those years the entire collection was housed in Joan Nestle's own apartment this wasn't going to be a one night stand it was going to be a long-term relationship we had a commitment to the archives that one it had to be a lifelong commitment because just think if an archives doesn't Outlast at least one generation it's not on archives so it started in a back room and my mother was living here at the time and it was this we'd have these meetings around the table my mother would come out without her teeth in and she'd say very good girls very good if it's done by a lesbian we collect it if it's thought about by a lesbian we collected if it's written by a lesbian if it's touched by a lesbian we we collect it we have papers and Diaries and journals we have photographs traditional archives have been about famous people and from the beginning that was not our view that this was an archives that belonged to the people who lived its history in the life of Mabel Hampton which is at the spiritual heart of the archives captures that because in traditional history Mabel Hampton story would not be told she was a domestic worker for most of her life she was an Entertainer she was a participant in the Harlem Renaissance and I know Miss Hampton and this is harder for me to talk about at one point Miss Hampton worked for my mother and that's how I met her and she was the first lesbian woman I ever knew and the courageous woman had as you you would ask mayel later in life when she was here with the archives and she was living here women would make pilgrimages to see her on Thursday night and they'd sit at her feet and she was she she loved the ladies she loved the girls as she called them and they' say well maybe when were you when did you come out and she'd say what do you mean when did I come out I was never in a few years ago my lover then found a T-shirt and the T-shirt was about famous black women in history and it listed all the famous women so Jour of truth and the last name on that list was mael Hampton you know so in her 80s she became this really out gay activist in 1991 after years of planning and fundraising the lesbian her story archives bought this building in Brooklyn New York we did a lot as a group a lot of fundraising um in order to get this building we had people giving us small donations and we were able to put down half of the building really um half of the cost of the building at the time of purchase from donations 99% of which were 2555 eventually those small donations enabled the archives to pay off the entire mortgage that was a very exciting moment for us to really realize that we could claim the mortgage tear up the mortgage and not be beholden to any Bank um or any outside group that this was our building the lesbian community's building here we are on the first floor in the Parlor and the books and materials that we have in this room really represent um the most traditional sort of Library we have a vast collection of subject files ranging everything from news print to um pamphlets to Flyers about lesbian activities and events and then over here we have a very special collection this we call the Red Dot collection it was the library of the New York City chapter of the daughters of bitas and it really represents what lesbians were reading in the 1960s 1950s and 60s and it's a wonderful collection that's the lesbian survival collection they're a wonderful collection of paper bags from the 50s and 60s and I had read them myself when I came out in the ' 50s that was all there was and they were read all over this country in fact they were best sellers these were the secreted books and some of them were very powerful they were handbooks and how to survive as a lesbian woman women who wrote Under assumed names and women who wrote using their own names they had absolutely no control of the text the title or the content if there was a sex SE between two women a woman had to lose her child her job or die so we read Around the markings of hatred and control and found remarkable things here we are in the dining room we use it for exhibits we have tapes photography flat art posters graphics and an extensive videotape collection the archives is run by a Coordinating Committee we meet every 3 weeks and we all sign up on the calendar for the days we're actually going to staff and be here we don't have any paid staff we don't have any plans at this point to have paid staff we are part of the community and it's our community who will um keep us going and it's absolutely paid off we had decided early on that the lesbian hory archives would not be what we call a role model collection meaning that we wanted the stories of all lesbian women and if they were sex workers we wanted that story and if they were SNM women we wanted that story all of this got even more complex when just a few years ago maybe two or three years ago we got the collection of a woman a lesbian woman who had been an FBI informant in the 50s informing on labor movement groups a woman who had spent much of her later life in problem Town ran one of the most famous lesbian tourist spots in Province Town and was very loved by that community and her past very little known and I remember one woman saying to me very fervent woman saying well well if there was a lesbian Nazi group you wouldn't want their papers and I as a Jew saying we certainly would one we have we need to understand you know it's it's an uncomfortable collection but it's important now with his diverse collection and own Rich history history in the Life congratulates the lesbian herstory archives on its 25th anniversary the fact we're still here after 25 years is just amazing Sarah orjt Henry Gerber The Stonewall Inn Bayard Rustin the assassination of Harvey Milk these people in events are part of a legacy rarely mentioned in traditional history books but samesex relationships have been part of the social and political landscape since the very beginning and while historians have begun to recover evidence of gay and lesbian lives from throughout the past parts of the story remain Untold in response gay men and lesbians have created libraries and archives across the country major collections include the lesbian hster archives in New York the one Institute and archives in Los Angeles and the James C hormell gay and lesbian center of the San Francisco Public Library to find a library archive in your area look for a link on the in Theif website at inthe tv.org I'm Alec MAA and you're watching in the [Music] [Music] Life peanuts Nancy popey Little Orphan and these comic strips are part of our cartoon culture but in a 1995 episode of in the Life correspondent Alan Tulin introduced us to a cast of funny characters you won't find in your Sunday papers comic strips are a part of the fabric of American life and this year the US Post Office is honoring 20 of our most beloved comics with a set of commemorative stamps none of them as far as we know is written by or portrays an openly gay character though the jury is still out about Brenda star's best girlfriend Hank while a gay cartoonist may not get a postage stamp this year there's still a strong and increasingly visible tradition of gay artists creating gay Comics one of these artists is Jennifer camper who started drawing for the Boston newspaper gay community news in the early 1980s I think open gay cartooning started as a result of the underground comics in the 60s and it the underground Comics broke a lot of barriers um um and started stretching what could and could not be done in comics what's interesting about all the different gay cartoonists is that everybody does something extremely different and there's room for everybody right now but you're not going to get rich I always say that I became a cartoonist because all the equipment you need is small and real easy to shoplift so what is the lure of cartooning why pursue an art that has so few Financial rewards cartoons are very accessible you can say a lot in a cartoon that you couldn't necessarily say in another medium because cartooning is friendly it's real it's like candy people come to it very open very vulnerable so you can really smack them upside the head with something very powerful humor is a very powerful weapon and laughing at your enemies or laughing at the oppressor is the easiest way to take away their power Howard Cruz is an artist who spent his lifetime using humor as a weapon and in the process has influenced nearly every gay cartoonist working today his graphic novel stuck rubber baby has been published by Paradox press and by adapting his touring slide presentation Howard gave us at in the Life a peak into his past and present I was born and raised in Alabama dad was a preacher and I grew up listening to sermons every Sunday by the time I was eight I discovered my calling in life which is to grow up and draw a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip After All America loved the funnies so if I could get my comic strip onto the Funny Pages then America would love me my whole perspective on cartooning changed when I got turned on to underground comics in 1979 my underground Comics publisher invited me to launch a new series of underground comic books to be called Gay Comics then in 1983 wendle came into my life he fell in love love with Ali Chalmer and their relationship quickly became the core of the strip the last Windle episode ran in 1989 that's because of all the time and energy it's taken to write and draw the more than 200 pages of stuck rubber baby stuck rubber baby is about a guy named Tolen pul who lives in a southern town called clayfield just when all the racial Strife is boiling to the surface Tolan watch's resistance played out on a small scale and on the kind of scale that makes history a lot of aspects of tolan's Hometown clayfield come pretty directly from my own experience from the churches that were everywhere to the exciting and welcoming gay subculture that helped Tolen know that he's not alone another location in my novel that's based on somewhere real is the Melody Motel as you can see it's getting bombed in this drawing the melody plays an explosive role in tolan's life and I mean that metaphorically as well as literally because it's not just a motel's bricks and mortar getting blown apart in stuck rubber baby it's everything that's log jammed and hidebound in a Southern boy's psyche I think a good cartoon is one that makes people react it can make them angry it can make them laugh the worst cartoon is one that you just turn the page [Music] [Music] [Music] for this months in the news New York's Town Hall hosted a soldout reading of the cult classic caged to benefit the Aid Service Agency God's love we deliver Tom and I only been married a couple of months we tried a place to live everything costs so much I finished Jo all for good Isabella rosolini barene Merman and Charles Bush were among the artists who lent their talents to raise $75,000 for food and nutrition services to men women and children living with HIV AIDS Broadway Stars gathered at the world famous Apollo Theater in February for an unprecedented evening of music and dance to benefit the Harlem United Community AIDS Center and Broadway carees Equity fights aids with performances by artists such as three Mo teners the Albin allei dance theater and Jennifer Holiday the event was a tribute to the talent and contributions of African-American speakers and [Music] performers see just no way [Music] the evening also serve to draw attention to the continuing tragedy wrought by AIDS and the disproportionate number of African-Americans affected by the [Applause] disease as a singer songwriter I've performed for audiences all across this country and around the world one thing all of these places have in common is the reality of AIDS in the spirit of social justice many faith-based organizations have established National networks to offer aid services for their members the efforts of these congregations and other communities of Faith include HIV prevention meal services food banks housing and education programs the Council of National Religious AIDS networks is a coalition of many of these Buddhist Christian and Muslim faith groups and if you would like to get involved this Coalition is a great place to start to find the link to this comprehensive Network go to the in the Life website at in Theif tv.org I'm Jeanie Cunningham for in the life with his plots about mistaken identity and crossdressing characters Shakespeare certainly taught us a thing or two about gender bending in The Bard's time boys would be boys and boys would be well girls since all of the roles both male and female were played by men in 19 1998 we spotlighted two theater troops that had returned to the tradition of same-sex casting R&J the all male production of Romeo and Juliet became the longest running version of Shakespeare's tragedy ever staged in New York this summer director Joe karco begins shooting a film adaptation here's Darius deaz reporting on the original [Music] production of Father the and the holy spirit amen this theater season in New York an all male adaptation of Romeo and Juliet called R and J has been wowing audiences with the driving energy and erotic fervor of adolescence of boys who will be young men give me your pardon sir I have done you wrong in Los Angeles a theater company has been getting raised for its all women Productions of Shakespeare go to I'll know more on it it has made me mad but what is revealed when samesex casting is used to explore the passion violence and Theatrical Thrill of the world's greatest English language playright that which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet with R&J directed Joe karo's attention getting twist was to Stage Romeo and Juliet as a play within a play being read in secret as a scandalous story of sex and violence by four boys in a repressive Prep School draw th tool Here Comes of the House of montue the result a striking exploration of forbidden love through doing the play through doing Romeo and Juliet since it being such a passionate play about sex and violence and Rebellion they experienced those things themselves the idea of the school was to mirror the world that Romeo and Juliet live in was to find a place that was very repressive had very strict rules about what a man is the woman is society without women men soon resume The Savage State and the Comforts of the home are exchanged for the misery of the mining camp by doing the play and experiencing those sort of passions they learn about Freedom if thou dust love pronounce it Faithfully or if you think I am too quickly won I'll frown and be perverse and sa the name so th since it's being all man of course it's uh has a huge resonance especially their first kiss it's the first time I've seen that scene where actually worked to me that it seemed dangerous and sexy and you can go back to when you're teenager and you kiss your first boy it's sort of terrifying and sexy at the same time and give him my sin again a word we talked about a lot in rehearsal was danger the danger of this age and the passion of this age in terms of where people are just beginning to really discover sexuality thou sh not by the fact that we are placed in this very structured environment it really lends itself to I think what the the two young people in the play are going through because they're not allowed to be together and yet they have all these feelings that they want to express by the end of the play the school boy has learned so much about his feelings and the journey has taken him to a different spot where he's not going to just conform and go back to the old life he's had some Enlightenment about who he is Tre they go from real homophobia to an acceptance of of understanding and saying that it's okay that love is just love no matter who's experiencing it in R&J Love Is Love with the Los Angeles women's Shakespeare company not only love but hate Revenge passion and power also make up a landscape where on stage any person can Tre their successful all women Productions of Shakespeare are proving their point the king now drinks to H the Los Angeles women's Shakespeare company exists to bring women's voices out into the world and it's a multicultural all female company dedicated to producing Shakespeare at the best production values we can manuf relish of it I loved you not I was the more deceived get the two a Nary it's an all female company because women are multi-layered and they're capable of so much so when you do Shakespeare which is the best writing in the English language it really takes you on a journey and when you play the male roles which are fully written you really get to show a range of th slander her and torture me never pray more now with Los Angeles woman Shakespeare we all are women who want to do Shakespeare if there were poisons knives cords or suffocated streams I could endure it would I were satisfied I Fran Bennett has worked with numerous regional theater companies as well as in film and on television would N I will but she was drawn to Los Angeles women Shakespeare because it offered a new challenge the possibility of playing roles that you do not get an opportunity any place in the world to play roles that are big in passion in desire in love in everything there's nothing small about Shakespeare lives my great Revenge had stubbled for them all as a woman we're very seldom ever asked to be strong to uh go that big to really be powerful downum it you me tomorrow let me live and if you strive the idea is to transcend the limitations of gender all the boundaries all the stereotypical boundaries of what women can do or are for Los Angeles women Shakespeare the importance of transcending limitations and boundaries goes beyond just a hunger for meteor roles the technical crew for the troop is also made up of all women there's nothing more astonishing than 25 women in spandex with power tools building a world I mean there's more power in a tool belt than than anybody knows and there's something fabulous about building something you can stand on and walk on and people are looking at it and saying I built that that's my platform they take a router and they put their names on the bottom of the flat they want to own it they want ownership and they've got it getting a room full of women who have a goal the power that they can produce is amazing to to put up 20ft walls or build build a three-level story platforms it's a huge team um the last production that we had it was 50 women and girls working together I can't tell you how many times I had some of these young girls come up to me and just say you know they were amazed that we had built this and that um it was all women doing it an all women company has raised the inevitable question you do get that question um is it a lesbian company for the most part less than onethird of the company is is a lesbian or an out gay person there's mothers there's wives there's you know women bring their children to come down and help on the set it's it really makes for a much more family atmosphere for Lisa walp and Mia Tes who are both gay they know that being open about their sexuality can create further restrictions in an industry already short on strong opportunities for women the Prejudice will stop you from working I know that being out can further limit the career of a professional I know that in Los Angeles where most of the production people either are gay or are really aware of their gay friends they either won't talk about it or they'll have a double standard about it it's not um it's still not safe but it's a heck of a lot better than it was 20 years ago and 20 years ago there was no Los Angeles women's Shakespeare company trying to expand the limits trying to do better Shakespeare every part of me is alive when I playing Shakespeare I can feel it down to my toenails give it vital growth again Shakespeare's like feeds my heart my soul the part of me that I think is really me and I think one's Soul needs feeding too hi I'm Wesley SNES hello I'm Susan sandon this is Pula clar Pete Seager David Marshall Grant gron F Jason Alexander we're Betty and you're watching you're watching you are watching America's Emmy nominated Gay and Lesbian News Magazine in the life in the life in the life now I think that's [Music] fabulous still to come UN in the Life Darius deas returns with a love story of operatic proportions and author Kate Bornstein with a true crossover artist but first AR is of and created out of adversity and in our next segment Jonathan capart spotlights two performers whose works are informed by their experiences with HIV and [Music] AIDS when HIV positive choreographer Bill T Jones debuted still here in New York in 1994 the revealing piece was a painful acknowledgement that perhaps no other artistic Community has been as hard hit by HIV and AIDS as the World of Dance like Jones Chris Ramos and David Rusev are two choreographers whose work and lives have been shaped by the epidemic David Rusev is a Los angeles-based dancer choreographer and performance artist whose critically acclaimed company David Rusev reality tours internationally performing mixed media dance operas which incorporate spoken word if you take this dance and you live gospel music and historical narratives including those of his own Creole ancestors since she was the darkest of us all they'd give my bomy all the hardest gotten to pick in 1992 we did a piece called Urban scenes cre dreams that was our first very large um fulllength uh work and that was about justos in my grandmother's life who was an elderly Creole woman in the swamps of Louisiana in the early 1900s with contemporary Urban America radio stations are question their black as they call us a black but we'll see youest Rusev's most recent work love songs appeared recently at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music love songs finds inspiration in vogner's tragic Opera Tristan andol adapting the kelt myth to create a story of two Southern slaves whose Forbidden Love flourishes under cover of the night I knew that I wanted to create some sort of a dialogue about love and seemed like a lot of social ills are due to the fact that we uh are seemingly losing our ability to be compassionate with each other I beg you Sarah do not let him destroy our love for without each other we have nothing but the cruelty of days life I didn't want it to be an easy statement about love while while it's romantic piece I really didn't want to shy away from just the fact that for me life and love are very complicated I think I love you weirdo and there's a certain bleakness which is why the peie refers to Triston quite and Vagner quite a bit uh because that's actually a morbid story ton you know they're kind of infatuated with the night but in fact they're saying they want to kill themselves and cross over to death and not to love each other eternally [Music] dance historians argue that the legacy of AIDS has been preserved in a great deal of today's choreography since Rusev's work deals with forbidden relationships HIV and AIDS are hard to miss well I think because the company members uh are from so many different uh communities that have been affected by AIDS um all of us have had some personal experience uh whether it's the company's primarily African-American also primarily gay uh primarily it's a downtown Dan company so certainly the dance Community the black community the gay community have all been so devastated when when you go from choreographer Chris Ramos has been addressing that same reality his new york-based company Ramos dance has been characterized by critics as explosive lyrical and athletic but powerfully controlled good my style is pretty much they call people say it's quite lyrical but I call it lyrical with an edge it's very very athletic uh it's kind of nonstop going from one person to another there are dancing together as one they are dancing together as a group and there is a sense of community there's a sense of involvement with one [Music] another until recently Chris Ramos's work had steered clear of topical themes but as Ramos explains his first commissioned solo piece could hardly the topic which has so strongly altered his existence my partner in life for the last 10 years lover passed away and he died of AIDS hello how are you doing better way better doc makes sense you've responded well to the new drug cocktails and the thing that I'm dealing dealing with right now I'm HIV positive for the last uh 3 years so that's something I've been dealing with facing the reality as they [Music] say there is a gesture with the gun it's the same thing with touching with a crotch because your crotch is an HIV positive it's a Lethal Weapon creative energy drives the dancers but the physical stamina it takes to maintain a dance career is greatly compromised by HIV I have two profession I'm a bookkeeper uh computer analyst for one for company in New York City and I also run a dance company of six dancers plus myself to qualify for health insurance most dancers must work full-time jobs but their medication regime can prove devastating to their art your livelihood you know and Al your art is dependent upon your body you know a painter has a canvas uh but a dancer has his body that's our tool while choreographers like Ramos and Rusev are making individual statements about AIDS in their work they are also coming together in benefit performances to raise badly needed funds for the fight against the disease helping to coordinate these efforts is dancers responding to AIDS an organization formed in 1991 by Paul Taylor Dancers Hernando Cortez and Denise Roberts we are a fundraising program of Broadway carees Equity fights AIDS and the money that we raise through this event and various other special events um we pull together with the money that they raise so the money that we raise helps um people with their rent their insurance payments for their car uh for um continued medication health insurance utilities basic life needs for people living with AIDS every year the organization hosts the remember project at St Mark's Church in New York City 1999 uh celebrates our fifth year for the remember project and it's a 12-hour celebration of dance it's a remembrance of those uh dancers who were lost to AIDS when people talk in numbers about a a group of people dying or being lost a number means one thing but a name means something else when you can see a list of names of people it just makes it a more profound [Applause] statement I think one of the powers of choreography and of movement is to really transcend our difference and to speak about what we all have in common to really speak on a human on on a universal level that dance and its ability to do just that becomes more and more important [Music] as a writer director my profession involves working with lights camera and actors but for me whether in front of the camera or on the set it all boils down to telling a compelling Story one continuing Saga that demands our attention is the AIDS epidemic according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention adolescents and young adults ages 13 to 24 are the single most likely group to contract a sexually transmitted disease and young gay and bisexual males are particularly likely to engage in high-risk Behavior like unprotected sex and so are especially at risk for HIV infection the AIDS crisis is far from over even though we've made some progress HIV remains a serious sometimes fatal disease that requires complex costly and difficult treatments that don't work for everyone to learn more about HIV and how to stay safe visit the in thee life website at inthe tv.org I'm Mark Christopher for in theel life [Music] on this month's in the- arts we spoke with award-winning author Thomas glaive about his debut collection whose song and other stories whose song the book has been doing really well so far commercially and critically um it's perhaps because it has appealed to so many different people uh African-Americans Caribbean people Caribbean Americans gay lesbian people all different sorts of audiences he Gregory was a little that way the collection of stories has been praised by both critics and writers for its use of differing perspectives and how they inform issues of racism and homophobia I was very curious about the idea of the story story itself asking this question whose song whose narrative whose tale to tell whose history whose responsibility Etc and it seemed to me finally that in the final sort of vision of the book that that question itself was very pertinent for all the sorts of realities and metaphors that the book embraced these African clothes and things she had some fancy hairstyle one day all curls and twists and I thought it looked great kind of foreign almost glaive has been compared to authors such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin for his exploration of African-American gay and Caribbean history and culture I see the situation for gay lesbian writers of color right now is very very um interesting because I think that there are lots of conversations going on culturally as well as within the uh parameters of sexuality it's very exciting for me for example to see what's happening in black lesbian gay writing right now because of the awareness I think that many black lesbian gay writers have of the history that preceded in terms of African-American literary traditions and how their writing speaks historically to that writing and that writing of course also speaks to theirs and on Showtime this spring an adaptation of armistad moin's further tales of the city I knew that we were making groundbreaking television when we first film tales of the city I knew it the more we see our own lives reflected uh in other people the better we feel about ourselves and the more different those people are seemingly to us the more that validation occurs Laura Linny and fellow tales of the city veteran Olympia ducus star in this third installment of the popular series I can't think of any situation where an ensemble of actors are hired and they come together once every 3 or four years and produce and continue the story it's not about us who were in it it's about how great the story is and how great it is that it's been made and that's that's the most fulfilling feeling in the world I believe that there's a part of all of us that isn't gay or straight or male or female or of any particular race but simply human I think we we do things we react in our hearts and much the same way in our next segment we look at the life of a musician who can truly be called a crossover artist author and guest correspondent Kate Bornstein profiles a jazz pianist who faced the music about his gender choice and in doing so found a more honest expression of his art Dorothy Lucille Tipton was born in Oklahoma City in 1914 to a family that encouraged her passion for music from a young age her goal was to play professionally in a jazz band there was just one problem women in the Jazz business usually took a backseat to the men and darthy wanted time in the spotlight as biographer Diane midbrook explains darthy found a an unusual solution to achieve her goal she was going to go audition for a job and in order to get it she was going to put on men's clothes she put on a man's jacket slicked her hair back went off auditioned for the job got the job went on the road came home with money in her pocket and from that day on they said she never looked back she saw that this was the way that she was going to be able to get what she wanted which was work in a band defying the odds Billy Tipton carved out a career in the music business that lasted more than 4 years Billy made his living playing music and that was hard to do he wasn't a star he wasn't a recording star for example he was never on television and never made it big but he had a very solid professional life on stage and in his private life Billy guarded his secrets so well that four of his Five Wives his three adopted sons and most of the musicians that he worked and traveled with said that they didn't suspect that Billy was anything other than he seemed Dorothy found in herself the ability to be an Entertainer an actor acting the role of a musician as well as playing the music and that that double identity was Billy Tipton Jameson green founder of FTM International a support group for female to male transgendered people suspects that there may have been another factor in Billy's Choice besides his love of music maybe he put it on is a way to get a job in the beginning or maybe that's just what he told people because it was a safe thing to say but ultimately there's a place where this becomes who you are and to take that identity off means not being yourself anymore so in that way Billy Tipton's experience much more closely relates to the kind of experience that trans people have as he was living as a man he was able to express himself as a man and able to actualize that identity was Billy Tipton a role played with consumate skill by an enterprising and talented actress or was Billy the real personality of the girl born as Dar Billy left no Memoirs or record so there's no way of knowing for certain what his true motivations were he did say to one of his cousins you know I'm I'm a normal person I'm not a freak I'm not a hermaphrodite this has been my choice this this way of life has been my choice the important thing to to be understood about trans people is that they aren't being who they are not they are being who they are Billy described himself as a musician and as a man the most important thing about honoring Billy is not to take those identities away from him in 1998 a history-making Opera premiered in New York as part of Lincoln Center's Summer Festival it was a love story between two women who built a life together more than a century ago here again is Darius deaz with his report on this cultural milestone [Applause] patience and Sarah had its Beginnings as an underground novel written by Isabelle Miller the book which quickly became a cult classic was based on the real life story of folk artist Mary Anne Wilson and her companion Miss Brundage for some including Wendy person the librettist of patients and Sarah these 19th century lesbian Pioneers have become Heroes and Muses I think we're looking for lesbian folk Heroes I think we need lesbian folk heroes in our life and to find to find seeds and to find sources to find people like Maryann Wilson and Miss Brundage is very inspiring to us an exhibition of Maryanne Wilson's work was mounted at the Museum of American folk art across the street from Lincoln Center in conjunction with the festival Lori Phillips who plays patience in the Opera Drew her inspiration from the paintings by patience's real life counter part it was amazing to see some of the color choices I think that it helped me to identify the character in in her choices her bold choices I love the book patience and Sarah I've loved it since I read it in the early 1970s and in 1981 I had a mad crush on a soprano who said to me wouldn't patience and Sarah make a great Opera and I thought yeah and I went home and immediately sat down and wrote the labretto I had never thought about writing an opera labretto before I'm an opera fan I'm a fan of the book patience and Sarah and I desperately wanted to impress this soprano and that's how it all started when I met Wendy in 1989 uh within a few minutes of my telling her I'm a composer she said she had a libretto to patience and Sarah and since I was a composer maybe I could write this Opera I love the way Isabel Miller has written the words I was able to lift dialogue intact over and over and over again again from the book and then Paula added the music to them and suddenly they took on a whole new life of their own this is something that music does to a piece anyway to add a a layer of of emotion the depth of emotion that comes with music [Music] the scene in which patience and Sarah kiss for the first time is very important because it pushes us right through the doorway if we were still wondering is this going to be a story where the women are really close but we don't really know or is this really going to be an openly sexual lesbian relationship we're talking about here and with that kiss you know we're going to portray this this is not going to be fried green tomatoes where we love this story and these women are having such an interesting do you think they're gay no we know what this story is from that moment interestingly enough even though the subject matter the lesbian subject matter is fairly radical our Opera patience and Sarah is very traditional I'm very oldfashioned I like stories and patience andera is a story Girl Meets Girl girl loses girl girl gets girl three acts plain and simple I found a number of people who have been frightened by the idea that it's an opera but everyone who comes is drawn into the story and loves the music you know maybe people laugh a little bit at the beginning when they go oh my gosh they're singing they're Sopranos but within minutes you can hear a pin drop I am completely knocked out I think it's absolutely wonderful the costumes the set the way the people move on stage the music itself and the story it's just wonderful totally delightful well I think it's the first lesbian themed Opera and that has a certain sociological value to me the most exciting thing is it it's beautiful to listen to [Music] women's voices have uh sounded together in other operas uh not quite in the explicit romantic way that uh they do in patience and Sarah um in many operas a woman is playing a man she gets to sing a duet with a woman who's playing a woman they get to sing really gorgeous music [Music] together I'm sure I'm not aware of any other operas where it is as two women being two women making love to each other and singing that I don't think that's ever been done before in a full length [Music] Opera patience and Sarah ran for three memorable Nights at summer to sold out audiences in New York and as composer Paula kimer told us the beautiful thing about Opera is that it's a repeatable experience last year patients and Sarah premiered in Chicago Denver and [Music] Maine for all of us at in the life thank you for watching and see you next month [Music] [Music] in the life is funded in part by the H van amaran Foundation additional support provided by William J Resnik Rick wiland the Arcus Foundation the Colin Higgins Foundation the Snowden Foundation the Mitchell Gold company in the hopes of eliminating all types of fear and Prejudice thank and the annual support of in the Life members like you [Music]