Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Let Me Ascertain You: LGBTQ All Out! Part IV

Check out our fourth and final episode of our "Let Me Ascertain You: LGBTQ All Out!" podcast series. This was recorded live at the Barrow Street Theater in NY where actors performed various real people we interviewed about their experiences related to sexuality and gender. One of our special guest performers that night was Laverne Cox who stars in the TV show "Orange Is the New Black." She performs an interview we did with a staff member at Housing Works which is a NYC non-profit healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. (http://www.housingworks.org/)

Then Mike Brun and Alyse Louis perform "Barricade" another song by Robin Eaton and Jill Sobule from our upcoming musical Times Square that will feature music from Robin and Jill with book by Tony-nominated writer Jim Lewis about two teenage runaway lesbians who form an underground punk band in 1980s seedy Times Square!

To close out this special podcast series, Stephen Plunkett performs an inteview he did for our show This Beautiful City about Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs has a number of military bases and this interview was done a number of years ago before the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

Interviews for this podcast were conducted by Stephen Plunkett and Dan Domingues. Be sure to subscribe to The Civilians’ “Let Me Ascertain You” iTunes channel to stay in the loop about other amazing stories from our investigations.

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Let Me Ascertain You: LGBTQ All Out! Part III

Up next is our third podcast of our series "Let Me Ascertain You: LGBTQ All Out!" dedicated to sexuality and gender. For this episode, we've got another interview from a staffer at the Rainbow Heights Club in Brooklyn, an advocacy program for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender emotional recovery and wellness. You can learn more about them at rainbowheights.org. Samira Wiley performs Danee live in New York City at the Barrow Street Theater.

Then, our next performance comes from an interview we did a couple years ago as part of our research for writer Neal Bell's play, Shadow of Himself Actors Matt Maher, Brian Sgambati and Maria Dizzia drove down to rural Pennsylvania to visit Harold and Bob in their home that has number of cages upstairs, locked cells downstairs and something of a small prison camp outside. At the time they were all empty. Matt Maher plays Harold and Brad Heberlee plays Bob.

Since we started this LGBTQ series, we did a concert of the show Times Square by Jill Sobule & Robin Eaton and Jim Lewis. It's a show about two girls who fall in love and discover themselves. To close out the podcast, we share a song for Nicky, one of the two girls at the center of the story. Nicky's a streetwise butch girl and in this song "Cigarette Burn" she's trying out a new song onstage at the Pussycat Palace in the heart of sleazy Times Square. It's sung here by the extraordinary Jill Sobule.

Interviews for this podcast were conducted by Donnetta Lavinia Grays and Matt Maher.


TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!