PHOTOS: Family Equality Council’s Night at the Pier and GLAAD’s NY TGIF

Last night, I had the opportunity to see what the Family Equality Council has been up to at their annual Night on the Pier. Outside of raising over $200,000 to continue their fight to change national and local policy to protect LGBT families, but they also managed to bring together a slew of Broadway celebs and some recently discovered heroes from the movement.

Most of you remember the 19-year old Iowan, Zach Wahls and the incredible speech he made before the Iowa House regarding his life as the son of two lesbian moms. The speech made him an instant youtube sensation and has garnered him a lot more attention than this engineering student ever thought he’d receive. He made his way to a few interviews during the day, including this one with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, and then showed up to the pier.

Also at the event were cast members from Broadway’s Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Rosie O’Donnell, Broadway performers such as Kate Shindle, Audra McDonald, CAA’s Joe Machota, R Family Cruise’s Gregg Kaminsky and Kelli Carpenter and hundreds more. (Full disclosure: Talk About Equality Co-Founder Sean Carlson is the New Media Associate for Family Equality Council – and I was thrilled to share the evening with him!)

Another wonderful new event that is picking up speed in several cities is GLAAD’s TGIF ( Thank GLAAD It’s Friday) parties. I’ve been able to visit one in DC and now one in New York. The networking event has been set up by local chapters of GLAAD and seeks to expand membership and to educate about the important work GLAAD is doing throughout the US.

Please enjoy photos from these two events!

Miss New York Claire Buffie and Hugh Gallagher

Jonathan D. Lovitz from Logo's The Set-up Squad

Thomas Roberts, Claire Buffie and Patrick Abner

Family Equality Council's Jennifer Chrisler and Zach Wahls

Jennifer Chrisler and Kelli Carpenter

Kimberly Galberaith and Broadway's Jodi Capeless

Rosie O'Donnell and Jennifer Chrisler

Jack Mackenroth

Bishop Gene Robinson and Douglas Carter Beane

Tracy Kachtick-Anders and Rosie O'Donnell

Will Swenson and Audra McDonald

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

Priscilla's Nick Adams

Wonderland's Kate Shindle and William Franzblau

Priscilla's Tony Sheldon, Will Swenson and Nick Adams

Priscilla Pledges that “It Gets Better” in New PSA

After our chat last week about Broadway’s upcoming musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and their lack of any boys in dresses in their ad campaign, we’re happy to share the cast’s It Gets Better message.

Priscilla cast members Will Swenson, Nick Adams and Tony Sheldon for It Gets Better

According to the New York Times, The marketing team for “Priscilla” proposed the idea of the public service announcement to CBS and the It Gets Better Project, which writer Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller began last year amid a spate of suicides by gay students who had faced bullying or harassment at school.

While actors and crew members in many Broadway shows have appeared in videos for the project, the “Priscilla” segment is the first public service announcement for It Gets Better, Mr. Savage said in a statement.

“We’ve been honored and humbled by the theater community’s commitment to standing up for tolerance and lending their voices to this vital cause,” he said. “The show ‘Priscilla’ could not be a better fit, thematically, with the message of the It Gets Better Project.”

The video leads you to the Priscilla website where you can sign up with It Gets Better and take the It Gets Better Pledge:

Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbors. I’ll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I’ll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and other bullied teens by letting them know that “It Gets Better.”

Last week we posted about some concerns over the current marketing campaign which has failed to prominently feature any of the men in drag that the show is about. Instead, the campaign has put up billboards, sent out mailers and put out commercials, primarily focusing on “the Muses,” a kind of Greek Chorus/Narrator for the show – which is made up of three beautiful young women. There has been chatter about the possibility that the producers may be a little shy about featuring the men in the ad campaign roll-out.

TAE was happily assured that PQD would be doing additional work and partnering with the It Gets Better Project, The Trevor Project and GLSEN on other events as well. It’s excellent to see people not only telling kids that it gets better, but taking positive actions to make it better as well.

What is Broadway’s Priscilla Hiding?

When walking through Shubert Alley in Times Square, one gets to see the wall-sized posters for several Broadway shows – some have been running for years and some have yet to open. While walking through last week, I couldn’t help but notice this new ad for the upcoming Priscilla: Queen of the Desert musical.

The picture (also featured on their website and their first major mailer), features three “divas” as they’re called.

Of course, being the responsible self-respecting gay musical theatre lover I am, I immediately got pissed off. Why? Well – unless you missed the hit 90s film from Australia that this show is based on – you’d recall that PQD is a story of three of the most fabulous drag queens ever to grace the silver screen. Why the hell are there three pretty girls advertising a musical about boys in dresses? Michael Musto took to his blog to point out the same thing. And the die-hard Broadway fans at BroadwayWorld.com are having a lengthy discussion about it. Is a Broadway show afraid to show drag queens in their ads? Does someone think Broadway or NYC can’t handle a guy in a dress? So, I talked myself into a frenzy of being offended and then thought…hmmm there must be something else in play here. Surely a Broadway show was not sweeping the LGBT community under the carpet.

The ad campaigns from the other locations where PQD has played have all proven to be extraordinarily campy – including a giant stiletto over the marquis in some cases:

So, whereas TAE friend, Nick Adams is one of the stars of the upcoming musical, I dropped him a line to see what was up. Without saying very much and considering the actors rarely have little (if anything) to do with the marketing of a show, he referred me to one of the publicists for the show, Nick Pramik at Spotco (also an old friend).

Nick P denied that there was any attempt to hide the drag queens and explained that the posters we’d seen were merely the first part of a roll-out of a much larger campaign. Nick went on to explain that the team behind the marketing is the same team behind that for La Cage aux Folles, which clearly has no problem whatsoever with dragging out the queens to promote the show.

He then assured me that the LGBT community was going to be very happy with this show after some future announcements were made – including some kind of partnership with a major LGBT organization. He was biting his tongue the whole time and is clearly very excited about the promotional plan for the show.

So for now, keep your skirts on and let’s see what Priscilla holds for New York City!

I sure hope to see a whole lot of Will Swenson, Tony Sheldon and Nick Adams strutting their stuff all over the place to get people to see this very pro-LGBT musical.

In the meantime, enjoy a couple of the photos and a little video from the upcoming sure-to-be hit!