In the 1970s, everybody knew that "a day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine." We knew it because Anita Bryant told us so. In an ironic way, the OJ-spokeswoman also spread sunshine in foggy San Francisco. When Bryant, a singer and former beauty queen, used her celebrity in Florida to help overturn a Dade County ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, Harvey Milk was one of the leaders of a protest march through the streets of San Francisco. Five months later, Milk became San Francisco first openly gay man to be elected to public office.
While Milk was assassinated a year later, Bryant got a pie in her face and a career in a downward spiral. Despite her non-dead status (as of press time), the provocatively titled Anita Bryant Died for Your Sins opens this week at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Bryant isn't the subject of Brian Christopher Williams' play, though her "Save Our Children" campaign is part of the backdrop to quirky teenage Horace Poore's angst about coming out to his family in his upstate New York home.
Like Horace, who sometimes narrates the play from his tree house, the playwright was also a teen finding his way during the '70s in upstate New York. He has called the play "emotionally autobiographical," which includes feeling frightened and insecure, but a lot of the family drama/comedy has been fictionalized. The Los Angeles Times described the play as "Brighton Beach Memoirs nudged into Norman Lear territory by David Sedaris."
Anita Bryant Died for Your Sins, which had its world premiere is Sarasota in 2004, is on its way to becoming the best known of the dozen or so plays Williams has written over the past two decades. Many of them have at least some gay element to them.
"I have no desire to write strictly for a gay audience, but being gay is often an accelerant in my writing," Williams told a reporter last year. "If you're going to spend so much time alone in a world you are creating, you need to have enough emotional drive to last not only through the writing but the rewriting."
At New Conservatory, Dennis Lickteig is directing a cast that includes Michael Doppe as the precocious but inhibited Horace, Marie O'Donnell and Harry Breaux as his addled parents, Justin Dupuis as his draft-dodging brother, and Cory Tallman as an ambiguous gym coach who reminds Horace of his fantasy hero Mark Spitz.
Anita Bryant will run at NCTC through Oct. 24. Tickets at 861-8972 or nctcsf.org.
Venetian redux
The late, lamented Venetian Room, for decades a premier venue for the nation's top nightclub acts, is reopening its doors to music in a style appropriate to its legacy. Bay Area Cabaret will be using the Fairmont Hotel's showroom for its seventh season of concerts by Broadway and cabaret stars. Unlike at the old Venetian Room, which closed as a supper club in 1989, these will be one-night only events instead of multi-week engagements.
Before the five-show series begins in November, the non-profit Bay Area Cabaret will present a fund-raising gala on Oct. 17 headlined by Broadway and Hollywood composer Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line, The Way We Were). He'll be at the piano, vocally accompanied by West End musical star Maria Friedman and J. Mark McVey, who spent several years on Broadway as Jean Valjean. A premium ticket gets you to entree to a post-show reception with the artists.
The regular season begins on Nov. 5 with Chita Rivera: My Broadway which stars the Tony-winning performer and her musical trio. On Nov. 21, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, two of the original stars of Rent, will reunite in a preview of their international tour that officially kicks off in January in New York.
Famed jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli and his Broadway-veteran wife, Jessical Molaskey, will be the headliners on March 13. Former ACT acting student and Anika Noni Rose, Tony Award-winning actress for Caroline, or Change, will take the stage on May 1. The season concludes on May 14 with Broadway's Lillias White (Fela!, The Life, Dreamgirls) in My Guy C y, a tribute to composer Cy Coleman.
Individual tickets prices vary among the shows ($40 to $60), with discounts for season subscribers. Call 927-4636 or go to bayareacabaret.org.
Sins deferred
In unhappier news, the annual Sins Invalid production, set for Oct. 8 - 10 at Theatre Artaud, has been postponed until 2011. The delay is due to health issues affecting Artistic Director Patricia Bernes, who needs the coming weeks to address these concerns. Sins Invalid's mission is to explore disability and chronic illness in the context of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. While the annual performance has been postponed, Sins Invalid will continue its workshop and artists-in-residence programs. Updates are available at sinsinvalid.org.
Richard Dodds can be reach at [email protected].