Steve Rothaus' Gay South Florida

Gay theatrical producer comes out of the closet, no longer lives ‘His Double Life’ (with video)

• From 2006: ‘His Double Life’ -- a closet packed with secrets

BY STEVE ROTHAUS, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com

When Nial Martin created and produced the 2006 play His Double Life – about closeted gay black men -- he himself lived a double life.

"We're not trying to bash the [down low] or the whole gay lifestyle, we're just trying to bring awareness to be honest and faithful to the one you are with," Martin told The Miami Herald three years ago, while not revealing his own homosexuality. "If you are living a double life, it's just not fair."

Saturday night, Martin's No Jive Productions company brings His Double Life back to the Joseph Caleb Auditorium in Miami, but this time he's fully out and wanting to talk.

"I was a DL brother myself," he now says. "I had a little girlfriend, but at the same time I was unhappy because I wasn't being true to myself. Don't get me wrong, I love [women], but my heart wasn't there."

Martin, 30, of Miami Lakes, didn't come out publicly until seven months ago.

Twelve years ago he told his mother that he's gay.

"I was so scared. I thought she was going to kick me out. She looked at me and said, `I can't judge you. The only one who can judge you is God. You have to live your life.' That really threw me."

Martin confided in no one else and he dated women.

"I felt pressured by society. By my straight friends. They all had girls, so I needed something to talk about, too. I was afraid they were going to talk about me, and I didn't want any of that," Martin said. "I met guys through other friends I knew who were gay. Nothing serious. But I was still feeling ashamed. I felt I would go to Hell. Every time I went to church they said, `You shouldn't be gay, it's an abomination.' I wanted God to love me."

At 21, Martin hit rock bottom and tried to kill himself.

"I felt I was all alone. I tried to commit suicide twice. The first time I took a pill. I thought I would just fall asleep, but it didn't work."

He tried again at a friend's house. "I sliced myself four times on my wrists. It started to bleed, but the butter knife wasn't sharp enough."

Martin went into therapy and spent about about eight years coping. Seven months ago came a breakthrough.

"I was in a dressing room one day and I looked at myself in the mirror 15 minutes before a show and I just broke down and cried. I said, `Why don't I love myself, God?' I snapped out of it and I said to myself, `you are somebody. You are somebody special. You're here for a purpose – to touch someone through theater.' ''

His Double Life is set during a family reunion in Savannah. Lead character Matthew is a 27-year-old businessman who brings his girlfriend to Thanksgiving dinner to meet his family. That's when Matthew tells his father, a reverend, that he's gay.

This production features a name familiar to the gay black community: JL King, author of the 2005 New York Times bestseller, On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of `Straight' Black Men Who Sleep With Men.

"The way he wrote the characters, they're everyday folk," said King, who'll make his stage debut as a psychiatrist in the show. "That's why it's empowering. People can relate to the characters."

Saturday night's performance of His Double Life coincides with the third annual Miami Beach Bruthaz conference, in which dozens of gay black and Hispanic men meet in South Beach for a long weekend of socializing and networking.

Bruthaz events include workshops to help boost attendees' self-confidence as openly gay men.

"I definitely don't like the idea of men being on the down low. They're not just hurting themselves, but innocent people – their girlfriends and wives," said Kenzie Perry, 29, a Miami decorator and Bruthaz production assistant in a nine-year relationship with partner Craig Stafford.

"Men on the down low give a bad impression of good, honest gay men -- black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever you are," Perry said. "It has to stop. It's ridiculous."

Caption: ‘His Double Life’ producer-co-writer Nial Martin and J.L. King, author of the book "On the Down Low, " who plays an HIV/AIDS doctor in the show.

IF YOU GO

HIS DOUBLE LIFE

• Where: Joseph Caleb Auditorium, 5400 NW 22nd Ave., Miami
• When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday July 18
• Cost: $15-$34; students $15-$28; through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com or 866-448-7849
• Info: www.nojiveproductions.com.

MIAMI BEACH BRUTHAZ

• Where: Royal Palm Resort Hotel, 1545 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. Events at Yuca Lounge, 501 Lincoln Rd.; Score Bar, 727 Lincoln Rd.; Discoteka, 950 NE Second Ave., Miami
• Cost: Passes are $120 and $80; individual events also available
• Info: www.miamibeachbruthaz.com. Click `Schedule & Tickets' for event details and pricing.

Daniel Radcliffe: Naked ‘Equus’ photos on the Internet are ‘not me looking my proudest’

moviefone has posted an interview with Daniel Radcliffe. Here are highlights:

Rumors that he’s gay: “I grew up around gay people my entire life, basically, that's possibly why I'm quite camp, and some people think I'm gay when I meet them, which I think is awesome”

Co-star Emma Watson becoming a sex symbol: “ I did feel bad for her. Men will never know the kind of humiliation of having an upskirt done, which poor old Emma had. We talked a few days after her birthday, and she said, "It was awful, they were all over me. They were trying to shoot up my knickers!" It's incredibly invasive. That's why I do think it's much, much harder for girls being famous than it is for guys.”

His naked Equus pics on the net: “It's not me looking my proudest, if I'm honest with you, it's not me in my best”

If his fetish for older women extends to Madonna: “I don't think that I'd do my chances of working with Guy Ritchie any good. I don't know which one I'd rather do ... I'm not sure I'd be her cup of tea.”

To read the complete interview, click here.

Caption: Daniel Radcliffe, star of the new film "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, " is interviewed on the NBC "Today" television program in New York Friday, July 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Celebrity-judge trio selected for ‘Talent Quest Miami’; finals 8 p.m. July 25 at Colony Theater

News release from Carol Hoffman-Guzman of Art at St. Johns:

Internationally known diva Elaine Lancaster and music producer Roger Abramson, along with arts editor Mary Damiano, are the trio who will help choose the Grand Prize winner at the finals of Talent Quest Miami!,  with the audience casting the final vote of course. Also just announced - actor/director Tom Colucci will serve as host, and Ms. Lancaster will enliven the already hot event with a special performance -- so it’s no wonder that tickets for the Finals are going fast.

“We’re honored that Talent Quest Miami attracted such an outstanding team of judges, and also that we’ve have such a charismatic host for all three events in the competition,” said Carol Hoffman-Guzman, founding director of the Arts at St. Johns, which is coordinating the event.

Well-known in Miami and beyond, Lancaster appears in clubs, and celebrity events, such as the Dennis Rodman Starck Club opening with RuPaul, Gay Pride at the Roxy with Kevin Aviance, the Elton John Dance for Life Ballet, and many more.  Also globally known, Abramson has been associated with a long list of stellar organizations, including the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, as well as virtually every top-name musical performer over the past 40 years, including Led Zeppelin, the Who, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin, to name just a few. Rounding out the trio is editor and theater critic Damiano, who is Editor and columnist at MiamiARTzine.com, and also has been published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the New Times, Miami SunPost, and more than a dozen other publications. In addition, she is also an award-winning play and short story writer.

Tickets are now on sale for the Finals competition, which takes place on Saturday, July 25 at 8 p.m. at the Colony Theatre. At the event, the 12 best of the city’s talent will perform in front of this panel of celebrity judges. The judges will vote on the best of the talent, but the audience will be the deciding vote. The winner will receive the $500 grand prize, and there will be second and third winners as well.

Talent Quest Miami begins with two weeks of preliminary auditions at St. John’s on the Lake, where the audience and a panel of judges vote on each contestant’s performance. The July 11 panel includes dancer Tiffany Madera, Robert Holcomb (manager/producer in radio & TV), and David Kingery (Artistic Director of ASJ); the July 18 panel is artist/actor Deborah Weed, music producer Rachel Faro, and David Kingery, pictured above.  Then the 12 acts with the top number of votes go on to the Finals at the Colony Theater.  The finalists will strut their stuff to convince the judges and audience that they are the best.

The free preliminaries take place on July 11 and 18 at Arts at St. Johns in Miami Beach, 4760 PineTree in Miami Beach. The Finals are at the Colony Theatre, located at 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. For tickets, go online to www.artsatstjohns.com or buy at the Colony Theatre box office.

For more information on Talent Quest Miami, contact David Kingery, creator of Talent Quest Miami!, at 786-525-9983, or for more general info on Arts at St. Johns, contact Carol Hoffman-Guzman, 305-613-2325, or visit www.talentquestmami.com.

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Elaine Lancaster: Elaine Lancaster is as glamorous and beautiful as any of the characters from Collins' "Hollywood Wives". In fact, Elaine took her name from Elaine Conti and Karen Lancaster, two fictional divas in that very book. As befitting a Collins' novel, Elaine's life has been filled with glamour, travel, celebrities, and a few twisted scenarios -- one being the fact that the gorgeous Elaine Lancaster is a man when not performing.

The actor (James Davis) behind Elaine was born in Alabama and raised in Georgia, while Elaine was born in the lap of luxury, pampered by all, and spoiled rotten. Like the true diva she became, she managed to spend every dime thrown her way and yet she still yearns for more. Not just more jewels and designer fashions, but more of everything the world has to offer. Driven by the need to be in the spotlight, fame had to be hers, and the world became her stage.

A most sought-after hostess, Elaine has worked all over the world in clubs, for charities, for special events (including the Dennis Rodman Starck Club opening [Oct. '96] with Rupaul, Gay Pride at the Roxy with Kevin Aviance, The Elton John Dance for life ballet in Aspen, Co., Code Blue's New Year's Eve Party in Atlanta, 'An Evening with the Stars' Auction and Show in Dallas [which she founded], Hostess for The Aspen Gay & Lesbian Ski Week [the largest gay & lesbian winter event in the world], and Hostess for White Party Week both in South Beach and Palm Springs. Constantly in demand at clubs like Limelight, Bar Room, Liquid, Shadow Lounge, Warsaw Ballroom, Life, Level, Space, Red Square, and Roxy, Elaine travels from city to city working with the likes of Lady Bunny (who has been a dear friend since childhood), disco legend Thelma Houston, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Martha Wash, and Lolita Holloway.

Mary Damiano: Mary Damiano is editor of MiamiARTzine.com, a biweekly e-zine published by the Miami Beach Arts Trust.  She has also been published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, New Times, Miami SunPost, and more than a dozen other local and national publications. An award-winning writer, her essay Creature of the Night took first place in the National Writers Association South Florida Chapter’s writing contest in 2000, and her play, Word Count, won first place in the 2007 South Florida Theatre Festival One-Act Play contest. In 2009, her short story, The Day Janis Joplin Died, was a finalist in the 11th annual Writer’s Network of South Florida writing competition.  Mary’s play Jane Fonda's Breast was featured in the 2004 Lavender Footlights Festival.  She has published more than 1,700 articles since 2001, and is listed in the 2005 edition of Who’s Who in America.  Mary is also a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, a member of the Theatre League of South Florida and a voting member of the Carbonell Awards.  Mary believes her greatest accomplishment is figuring out how to make a living by being entertained. 

Roger Abramson:   In Roger’s long and varied professional carrier as a prominent national concert producer and talent manager, Roger has been associated with such internationally known artists and attractions as the New York City Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Doors, Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Arrowsmith, Bob Hope, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Ballet Folklorico, Celia Cruz, and many, many, more.  He was the Producer/Owner of the Performance Center in Cambridge MA and at the Music Inn, Twilight Concerts on the Lawn in Lenox Ma. Roger Abramson was General Manager of the Savoy Theatre in New York City and Vice President and Executive Producer at Belkin Productions.  His Music Inn Amphitheatre in Lennox Massachusetts was the second largest tourist attraction in the Berkshires. Roger's work has been featured in an exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Roger has served as Special Events Chairman of the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, instrumental in planning the creation of the first Art Basil Weekend. He was also appointed by Mayor Dermer to serve as Co-Chairperson of Culture and Special Events on the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Tourism.

Tom Colucci:  Tom has been acting his heart out in TV Commercials, Feature and Indie movies and a Voice Talent since the last Millennium.  As a Spokesman for corporate, training and educational films, he turns the somewhat monotonous scripts into words of wisdom with an entertaining flair.  You may have even heard his voice guiding you through menu options on a phone call, or in the Digital Media World, where he can be seen world-wide on the web as a Host-Spokesman.

On another level, Tom together with his company Ready Set 2Go, designs, builds and creates the magic behind the scenes for TV, Film and Stage Events in the United States and beyond. 

Podcast | Bodybuilders show off their muscles at Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale

• Photo gallery | ‘The Muscular Body as Living Art’ at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale

From WLRN | Miami Herald News:

Ask any bodybuilder about their sport, and you'll hear them use words like "sculpt", "craft", "chisel", and "art". To some, the pursuit of an ever-more-muscular body may not seem like artwork. But last night the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale used bodybuilders to depict the human form as a living masterpiece. WLRN Miami Herald reporter Joshua Johnson has the story. Click here to listen now

Photo by STEVE ROTHAUS  Miami Herald Staff

Artist Noel featured in July issue of Ambiente

Click the photo to read the magazine.

Photo gallery | ‘The Muscular Body as Living Art’ at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale

• Podcast | Bodybuilders show off their muscles at Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale

Bodybuilding fans packed the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale Thursday evening for a one-night, sold-out exhibit, The Muscular Body as Living Art.

Presented by the museum and Nova Southeastern University and hosted by Ellie Rodriguez of WSVN’s Deco Drive, the exhibit featured a visual lecture by four Nova professors: Joshua Feingold (biology); Elizabeth Swann (athletic training); Chetachi Egwu (communication); and Elana Lanczi (dance).

The exhibit featured five local NPC (National Physique Committee) bodybuilders:

• Megan Aran
• Carlos Rodriguez
• Ellen Holmes
• David Weinstock
• Josefina Monasterio

All photos by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff 

Museum Executive Director Irvin Lippman

Ellie Rodriguez

Megan Aran

Carlos Rodriguez

Ellen Holmes

David Weinstock

Josefina Monasterio

MediaTakeOut.com outs actor-model Terrell Carter

Photos (and text) now appearing on MediaTakeOut.com:

OUTED???? ONE OF TYLER PERRY'S ACTORS ALLEGEDLY HAS PHOTOS LEAKED … AND IT LOOKS LIKE HE'S IN BED WITH HIS LATINO BOYFRIEND!!! (CHECK OUT THE PICS AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF)

 

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MORE EVIDENCE!!! PICS SURFACE OF ACTOR/MODEL TERRELL CARTER AT A PREDOMINANTLY GAY BEACH IN BRAZIL ... AND HE'S WEARING SPEEDOS!!!

 

Miami Gay Men’s Chorus ensemble Insignia to hold free concert July 14 at Miami Beach Community Church

From Miami Gay Men’s Chorus:

Bodies of art: Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale show matches brawn with brains

BY EMMA TRELLES, Special to The Miami Herald

Brawn and fine art, cocktails and heady musings. It's not so unusual -- the human body has long been a source of pleasure, contemplation and athleticism. Fusing sculpture and painting with bodybuilding seemed natural to Roberto Santiago, director of communications and marketing at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale.

He's banking on the match. Slated to unfold on Thursday, The Muscular Body as Living Art will feature bodybuilders posing on pedestals as they attempt to recreate seven iconic artworks. Among them are Michelangelo's David, Rodin's The Thinker, and the more recently fashioned Rosie the Riveter. Painted in 1942 by American graphic artist J. Howard Miller, the poster zooms in on a kerchiefed woman flexing robust biceps and proclaiming ``We Can Do It!''

A panel of humanities professors from Nova Southeastern University will provide running banter, and body-centric pop songs, like Diana Ross's Muscles, will furnish the soundtrack. Afterward, the seminal bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron will be screened on the sculpture terrace while guests partake in an open bar.

If the evening seems more like soiree than symposium, that's precisely the point.

``The audience we're aiming for is the gym and fitness crowd. We're also marketing heavily to young professionals, the gay and lesbian community, and especially to people whose eyes would normally glaze over if you invited them to an art lecture.

''This is a fun event, a way of drawing people into the museum and experiencing it,'' adds Santiago. ``But I also want them to walk out of here knowing more about classic musculature images in art. I want them to think about how we look at these men and women. Why are these bodies considered beautiful in art and, sometimes, not so in life? It's something to think about.''

WEIGHT GAIN

Santiago's interest in bodybuilding was piqued while he was working as a reporter in New York, covering the 9/11 attacks. Stress and erratic hours brought along a 40-pound weight gain. Santiago slimmed down with the help of Weight Watchers, and he taught himself how to re-configure his body by reading muscle magazines and books. Yet a few years later, he had once again racked up the pounds.

This time, Santiago signed up with a professional trainer and wrote about his progress in a series of articles for The Miami Herald. In May 2005, just five months after he began, he competed in an amateur bodybuilding contest and won the Men's 35 and Over lightweight division.

During his quest, Santiago lost 30 pounds, gained muscle and shaved his body fat from 22 to 10 percent. His blood pressure and cholesterol numbers also went down. In his last story for the series, his before and after pictures were published; they showed a potato-shaped schlump alongside a bronzed and taut man. Some call his efforts an act of inspiration.

''Bodybuilding is an art,'' says Peter Potter, vice president and promoter for the NPC Southern States Fitness, Figure, Bikini and Bodybuilding Championships. Now in its 29th year, the competition is the largest of its kind in Florida.

The championship kicks off the day after the museum event, and from its ranks of entrants Potter selected the bodybuilders who will assume the stance of the sun god Apollo and his doomed nymph, Daphne.

``You look at all the Greek and Roman statues -- these are not based on people with pot bellies," Potter explains. ``These were people who were extremely fit. What a sculptor creates with marble, a bodybuilder makes by working on his physique to create a more symmetrical shape. It's almost an idealization. It's taking a body and transforming it.''

SCULPTED BODIES

The museum's fete to the physical is modeled on a similar affair held in 1976 at New York's Whitney Museum of Art, which featured its own strand of scholars who commented on legendary title-holders Frank Zane, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ed Corney as they flexed before a mob of art mavens and gym enthusiasts. At the Whitney, the three men were the artists and their bodies, the medium.

''There's a definite connection between strength and grace, although sometimes the two are not associated with one another,'' says Chetachi Egwu, an assistant professor of communications and performance studies at Nova who will sit with the panel at the Museum of Art. She speculates there will be some discussion on how gender affects our ideas of beauty, not only in terms of women bodybuilders but across popular American culture.

''Even this whole recent commentary on Michelle Obama and her arms -- she is challenging our perception of what a woman should be,'' Egwu says. ``Her arms just don't say she's in shape; they say she is a woman of power, someone to be reckoned with. Her arms are actually a metaphor. You can carry that idea over into any form of art.''

For museum curator Ruth Grim, the idea of bodybuilding as an art form is a reach. She's used to discussing art as an inanimate thing, not as a live body expressing the ideals depicted in classical painting and sculpture.

''It seems like more of a sport to me, but the desire to reproduce a perfectly muscled form has been with us for centuries.'' She concedes that bodybuilding celebrates the ancient idea of the human shape as a beautiful one. The surface of a work, then, shouldn't be taken for granted, whether found in the deeply textured exteriors of Rodin's bronzes or the well-wrought flesh of an athlete.

At the museum on yet another rain-filled afternoon, Carlos Rodriguez and Megan Aran eyeball the auditorium stage where they'll pose as art. Seating tops out at about 250, making the museum venue considerably smaller than the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, where both expect a couple of thousand to watch when they compete at the NPC.

A pretty and powerful blond, Aran, 25, confesses to a bit of stage fright. She has entered the Tall Class division of the Figure category. The championship will be her sixth event since she began training five years ago on a dare. But this is the first time she has worked with Michelangelo and the like. She does recall taking summer classes at the Lowe Art Museum as a young girl and visiting the occasional exhibit with her parents. Aran points to Botero's canvases as favorites.

``It's refreshing to see a painting based on women who are not size zero. I think a woman should have curves and a shape.''

LIKE A SUPERHERO

A contestant in the heavyweight division, Rodriguez, 32, has competed for half his life. He is soft-spoken and talks about the discipline of his sport. With his square jaw and hefty stature, he resembles some of the superheroes he liked to sketch as a boy.

``A lot of kids read comics, but I also liked to draw them. I liked to concentrate more on the anatomies. I'd take the image in my mind and transfer it on paper.

``Bodybuilders practice with mirrors instead of pages; you have to have an artistic eye and look at yourself critically to do this. You have to mold yourself over entirely. With enough practice, you know the right angles, how to hold your feet, your hands, your head. It seems easy, but it's the hardest thing to do."

Emma Trelles is an arts and culture writer in South Florida.

Caption: Bodybuilder Carlos Rodriguez poses as Myron's The Discus Thrower. MARICE COHN BAND / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

IF YOU GO

Seats are limited for this one-day "Muscular Body As Living Art" event that takes place Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 6 pm at the Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale (One East Ls Olas Boulevard at Andrews Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale -- take I-95 to Broward Boulevard East and make a right at Andrews Avenue.).

This Thursday, July 9 event includes a reception with complimentary Presidente Beers, Guarna energy drinks, tasty hors d'oeuvres, Dj Bri Broxx, and a silent screening of "Pumping Iron," and other surprises. Call Emily McCrater at 954-262-0236 for tickets or e-mail at emccrater@moafl.org. Tickets are $15 for members. $20 if purchased in advanced. And $25 the day of the show.

Video | Farrah Fawcett funeral: 'Beautiful' and 'stirring'

AP Video: Eliot Tiegel, entertainment journalist and guest at Farrah Fawcett's funeral, describes the ceremony as 'somber,' 'beautiful' and 'stirring.'