When you read Parker Sargent’s resume you feel positively tired, and also in awe of how one person can squeeze so much into a lifetime : Writer, director and producer and the host of the What Is Queer Podcast and organizer of the TRANS CELEBRATION WEEKEND etc. etc. Then when you get to meet them it all makes perfect sense as Parker has a very infectious passion, energy and sense of commitment to our community and so its impossible not to be swept up in her latest plans.
They include the 2nd Annual Trans Celebration Weekend that is about to happen on Cherry Grove, Fire Island in September. Its three very packed days of movies, resources, performances, dance parties, nature walks, catered events beach activities and much more. Its perfect timing for this public celebration in one of the US’s most welcoming queer paradises in the present political and social climate when it seems like open season on attacking the trans community. The whole LGBTQA+ community is a better place for us all due to the likes of Parker Sargent.
Parker talked to QUEERGURU about their plans and hopes for this remarkable free queer event, produced in conjunction with Cherry Grove Community Association to which EVERYONE will be welcome to join
We knew with such an ambitious and very distinctive theme every body would get very creative with their costumes, but the results even exceeded our high expectations.
Of course there were the usual (more muscular) men that interpret the theme in a way so they can once again be scantily dressed …… but we never complain…….. well would you?
This summer he has turned his attention to another Brit queer singer/songwriter ELTON JOHN (That’s Sir Elton to you!) who has remarkably been making chart topping music over 50 years + writing the music for a few Broadway smash hit musical. on the side! Sir Elton has also been known. for his flamboyant outfits and behavior, but Todd has chosen to focus purely in the music in his UNSTRIPPED Show,
Also this summer he is delighting crowds with another show DONNA, DISCO + US,Miss Summer was the undisputed Queen of Disco in the 1970’s thanks to all her queer friends, and then we fell out of love with her when she was reported to have made some nasty homophobic remarks. Now most of us cannot remember exactly what went down, but regardless of that, the music that the late singer (she died of cancer in 2012) defined that generation and set every gay bar so alive.
Then it that is not enough this summer, Todd is also the musical director for VARLA JEAN MERMAN who is considered Drag Royalty in PTown . Her new show is called THE ERRORS TOUR …. and if you miss it this summer (shame on you) then they are literally taking it on the road this Fall .
Todd Alsup has an infectious sense of humor, but it his sheer anergy and passion that makes it such a joy to share time with.
The interview was filmed in The Crown and Anchor by Dan Desjardins
You don’t have be Jewish to relate to actor/writer Jeffrey Solomon‘s funny and extremely affectionate biographical play MOTHER/SON, but if you are a gay man with your own memories of ‘coming out’ to your Mother, you are going to LOVE it.
Solomon wrote it just after his own mother passed almost 25 years and it became a critical hit Off Broadway, Chicago, London’s Off West End and Provincetown . Queerguru caught up with him on the eve of bringing this one-man play back to PTown for a Benefit Night as fundraiser for Gay Sons and Mothers and the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod.
MOTHER SON PLAY BY JEFFREY SOLOMONThursday, August 15, 20245:30 PM Friday, August 16, 202411:30 AMThe Commons46 Bradford StreetProvincetown, MA, 02657United States
During almost three decades in London queer NZ filmmaker PAUL OREMLAND worked mainly on documentaries and a couple of feature films , one of which was LIKE IT IS a gritty queer boxing story that was one of Queerguru’s fave films of 1998.
When he first arrived back in NZ he treated us to 100 MEN a warts-and-all doc on gay history which he recounted and revisited through all the shags he had over that time : (so worth watching1) Now he has filmed a new feature film MYSTERIOUS WAYS a heart-pulling love story between an Anglican Priest and his Samoan lover who want to get married ,and in Church.
When Queerquru’s Jose Mayorga reviewed this controversial movie he wrote : ‘Mysterious Ways manages miraculously where a little prayer makes the world more fair, where love and respect take the place of double-dealing and unkindness’
We wanted to know more, and once we worked out the 16 hour time difference (!). we woke Paul up one morning to film this zoom interview