David Noh
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Writer in nyc+hawaii. Precodemovie and beach lover+lover in general of all that's truly beautiful,authentic+sexy.
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Articles by David Noh
The Baton of “Boys in the Band” is Set Down: Mart Crowley, 1935-2020
Mart Crowley last June accepting the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for "Boys in the Band." Reuters/ Brendan McDermid Dear Mart Crowley, When I went to your amazing, ultra-chic aerie on Sutton Place, which was like the most exquisite stage set Ina Claire might have entered and somehow made you feel like being in Paris, we sat before the fire with cocktails and you gave me the longest interview on record. What was it — four solid hours, maybe more? Which flew by like nothing.
Laila Robins, Aline Mayagoitia & A Lovely Kleban Prize Evening
If you’re looking for a compellingly dark psychological thriller to cozy up with on home streaming, check out debut director/ writer Nathan Catucci’s “Impossible Monsters.” The film revolves around a psychology professor (Santino Fontana) studying sleep phenomena — including dreams, nightmares, and, most terrifyingly, paralysis. His three participants are damaged souls whose waking hours are spent in dread of their unconscious ones.
Beth Malone’s Molly Brown
Definite progress is being made in the theater these days when an out gay actor like Isaac Powell can star as Tony in the Broadway revival of “West Side Story,” while way downtown, at Abrons Arts Center, out and proud lesbian performer Beth Malone, a memorable Tony nominee as dyke cartoonist Alison Bechdel in “Fun Home,” is also playing a traditional “straight” musical role, doing “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” directed by Kathleen Marshall.
Tituss Salutes Sondheim
February 1 was a truly legendary evening at Carnegie Hall, which, to any card-carrying homo — of a certain age, at least — automatically evokes beloved gay Saint Judy Garland’s fabled performance there in 1961, what many referred to as the “greatest night of showbiz.” And now, nearly 60 years later, Tituss Burgess stepped up to present “Take Me to the World,” a celebration of the man he reveres above all — Stephen Sondheim — with a roster consisting solely songs of he composed.
Empowered, Liberated, and Safe
December 20, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Donja R. Love talks about telling a story to encourage other gay, Black, HIV-positive men to tell theirs Enlarge this image MONIQUE CARBONI Jamyl Dobson, Leland Fowler, anbd Edward Mawere in Donja R. Love’s “One in Two,” directed by Stevie Walker-Webb. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group For me, the undoubted best new play of 2019 was Donja R.
The Aggies for 2019
December 18, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater A year in performance where Black drama ruled Enlarge this image JOAN MARCUS The cast of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” revived this year in a production directed by Leah C. Gardiner and choreographed by Camille A. Brown.
Memoirs, Tributes, and Our History Captured
November 26, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Dame Julie; Melissa Errico and Michel Legrand; Brian Belovitch’s wild times BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Eleven years after “Home: A Memoir of My Early Years,” Julie Andrews now has a second autobiographical volume, “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years,” which covers her busy movie-making period, from her Oscar-winning film debut in 1964’s “Mary Poppins” to 1995.
Two Divas: Italian and French
They call me a legend,” Kaye Ballard told me, “but it’s only because I’ve lived this long.” At the Bistro Awards, held on April 23, Ballard, 86, who has conquered the worlds of Broadway, movies, television, and cabaret, received the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award. “I loved that, but I wish I could get a Tony. You know, I was never even nominated.
Ang Lee, Lee Grant & Wynonna Judd
November 7, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater In praise of “Wedding Banquet”; a Film Forum tribute; a hillbilly at the Carlyle Enlarge this image FILM FORUM May Chin, Winston Chao, and Mitchell Lichtenstein in Ang Lee’s 1993 “The Wedding Banquet,” at the Quad Cinema on November 19 as part of its “Coming Out Again” monthly series. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Of all the many and varied films of Ang Lee’s, I think his second, “The Wedding Banquet” from 1993, remains his most satisfying.
Good Stuff in Bad Times
October 24, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Broadway stars stand up for freedom to support NYCLU, ACLU Enlarge this image DONNA ACETO The NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman in 2017, when she accepted a Gay City News Impact Award. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group One of the most important and inspiring events to take place in Manhattan this fall will be happening October 28 at Town Hall, when the 17th annual Broadway Stands Up for Freedom concert will be held.
Lorna and Adam | Gay City News
IN THE NOH BY DAVID NOH | Judy Garland’s legacy is, of course, incalculable, and not only are there her films and music that keep her so resonantly alive, there are also her children. Judy’s middle child, longtime gay activist Lorna Luft, keeps her torch burning with her Feinstein’s at the Regency appearance (540 Park Ave. at 61st St., through Jan. 9, 8:30 p.m.; feinsteinsattheregency.
A Sturges Celebration
October 8, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Trailblazing Hollywood screenwriter-director’s son investigates father he never knew Enlarge this image Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert in Preston Sturges’ 12942 “The Palm Beach Story.” BY DAVID NOH Community News Group When Tom Sturges, the son of the great Hollywood comedic auteur Preston Sturges, thanked me for remembering his father with kindness, I had to demur, reminding him of all the joy his father created with his brilliant, hilarious,...
Salut Aznavour!
September 12, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Jean Brassard pays fitting tribute; the most beautiful lesbian film BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Of all the great songwriters of the last century, one of the greatest, most distinctive, and — to Americans — least well-known is Charles Aznavour, who died a year ago at age 94. Astonishingly prolific, he was the writer of some 1,000 songs — with countless recordings; music poured out of him.
Barrie Chase Remembers
July 21, 2016 / Around Town / Film Barrie Chase and Fred Astaire. For those of us forever enraptured by Hollywood’s Golden Age and its indelible personalities, chasing memories is a race against time, as each passing year sees fewer and fewer of them alive and well enough to tell their tales.
The Perfect Holiday Carol
January 8, 2014 / Around Town / Film / Music / Theater Carol Lawrence, the original “West Side Story” Maria whose latest triumph on stage comes in Jason Odell Williams’ play “Handle with Care.” | DAVID NOH A Christmas angel blessed my holiday season in the form of Carol Lawrence, who — first of all — gave a delightfully strong, touching performance in Jason Odell Williams’ play “Handle with Care” (Westside Theatre Downstairs, 407 W. 43rd St., through Mar.
A very golden Hart - The Villager
By David Noh Beloved arts maven Kitty Carlisle Hart to be honored at Lincoln Center “I don’t have Picassos or Matisses, but I do have George Gershwins and Irving Berlins,” Kitty Carlisle Hart said, as she ushered me into her opulent East Side apartment. And, sure enough, lining her hallway “gallery” are oil paintings by these masters of American music.
Minnelli at Large
August 16, 2019 / Arts / Film Metrograph celebrates the maestro of musicals, in Cinemascope DAVID NOH Community News Group Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” possibly the greatest Broadway musical, sucked as a film. There I said it.
When Code-Switching Fails You
August 1, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Julius Onah, JC Lee discuss their personal connections to “Luce” Enlarge this image NEON AND TOPIC STUDIOS Tim Roth, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., and Naomi Watts in Julius Onah’s “Luce,” based on the play by Onah’s co-writer JC Lee.
Sherie Loves Norbert & Vice-Versa, But...
July 18, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Genius two-hander at 54 Below; Nelson Sullivan on Gansevoort BY DAVID NOH Community News Group The Broadway season is officially ended, of course and, while more ignorant, commercially-minded theater queens may bemoan the lack of anything big and splashy to get wet over, the most thrilling show I’ve seen so far this year is a two-hander, at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below (on July 12), running until July 28.
“The Bigger Splash” of 2019’s Pride
July 3, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater An indelible portrait of a gay artist; a town turned rainbow BY DAVID NOH Community News Group How did I live so long without seeing Jack Hazan’s documentary portrait of the artist David Hockney, “A Bigger Splash?” First released in 1973, it is a free-wheeling, richly rewarding and almost shockingly intimate portrait of the artist in his youthful heyday, proudly out at a time when being gay in the UK was a criminal offense and working on the painting...
Camping Out at the Met
June 27, 2019 / Arts / Photo Galleries History, famous queers, and killer drag coalesce for a concept BY DAVID NOH Community News Group With Stonewall 50 here, it is only fitting that our most prominent museums are featuring exhibits with a gay focus.
James Bidgood’s Sexy Phantasmagorical World
June 25, 2019 / Arts / Photo Galleries Pioneer celebrant of male erotica honored at the Museum of Sex BY DAVID NOH Community News Group To immerse yourself in the dazzling, mind-boggling photographic oeuvre of James Bidgood is to be a space and time traveler, experiencing a myriad of worlds, peopled by the most succulently beautiful of youths — with matadors in Spain, sexy Frenchman in Paris, Midwestern farm boys in overalls barely held up by one precarious suspender, or, even underwater,...
Pride 50 Doings
June 16, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater “Galas” Revived, Cady Huffman’s Peggy, the Leslie-Lohman haven Enlarge this image THEO COTE Everett Quinton, Mark Erson, and Géraldine Dulex in the first-ever revival of Charles Ludlam’s “Galas,” atTheatre at St. John’s through June 28. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group When playwright/actor Charles Ludlam died at age 43 in 1987, a unique, important creative light was extinguished.
Flamboyantly Influential, Deeply Gifted ‘70s Gays
June 6, 2019 / Arts / Film The lives of Elton John and Halston hit the big screen Enlarge this image PARAMOUNT PICTURES Taron Egerton as Elton John in Dexter Fletcher’s “Rocketman,” now playing citywide. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group “Rocketman,” the lavish Elton John biopic, has opened with the kind of ballyhoo not seen in quite some time.
Serious NYC Cultural Legacies
May 9, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Abel Ferrara’s doc on a real movie man; Stonewall 50 at La MaMa Enlarge this image MUSEUM OF MODERN ART Movie house owner Nicolas Nicolaou in Abel Ferrara’s documentary “The Projectionist.” BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Irascible veteran indie director Abel Ferrara is having quite the season, with a retrospective going on now at the Museum of Modern Art (through May 31; moma.org), which included his “Pasolini,” made five years ago, with Willem...
A Whitman Sampler
April 25, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater New York Public Library’s intimate bicentennial remembrance Enlarge this image JONATHAN BLANC/ NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Matthew Brady’s 1865 photographic portrait of Walt Whitman greets visitors to New York Public Library’s exhibition “Walt Whitman: America’s Poet,” which runs through July 27.
Directing Mary Kay Place
April 16, 2019 / Arts / Film Adored character actress gets to star at last in Kent Jones’ beautiful debut Enlarge this image CINETIC MEDIA Filmmaker Kent Jones with Mary Kay Place, left, and associate producer Gabi Madsen on the set of “Diane.” BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Kent Jones, critic, documentarian, and director of the New York Film Festival, is one ballsy dude.
Enduring Invincibility
March 26, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Lainie Kazan’s wildly varied long career is a master class in survival Enlarge this image FEINSTEIN’S/ 54 BELOW Lainie Kazan performs at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below through March 29. BY DAVID NOH Community News Group YouTube is rife with delicious clips of Teflon songstress Lainie Kazan from the heyday of that now-lost TV genre, variety shows.
Troupers With Great Voices at 54 Below
March 3, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Look for Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, Rebecca Luker in March Enlarge this image COURTESY OF DAVID NOH Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, here with David Noh, appears at Feinstein’s/ 54 Below on March 7.
Lagerfeld - Difficult, Elitist, Entitled… and Talented
February 21, 2019 / News / Remembrance A half-century’s biggest name in fashion died working, respected, and reviled BY DAVID NOH Community News Group “Kaiser” Karl-Otto Lagerfeld, as he was known, the biggest name in fashion for half a century, died February 19 at the age of 85.
A Unique Feminist Surrealist
February 13, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Celebrating Leonor Fini — and enjoying some unforgettable cabaret Enlarge this image MUSEUM OF SEX Leonor Fini’s “Les Aveugles (The Blind Ones),” 1968, oil on canvas.
King Of Caricaturists
January 31, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Throckmorton Fine Art’s resurrection of Miguel Covarrubias Enlarge this image AMAZON.COM Miguel Covarrubias’ portrait of ballerina Sono Osato, which appeared on the cover of her 1980 memoir, “Distant Dances.” BY DAVID NOH Community News Group It has ever been a mystery to me why the great Mexican artist and autodidact Miguel Covarrubias (1904-57) isn’t better known today.
The Respite of Documentaries
January 17, 2019 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater Some bravely honest cops and an unabashed Quincy Jones BY DAVID NOH Community News Group As American films dumb down ever more, with mindless action and endless Marvel comic book heroes swamping the screen, anyone with intelligence needs to gratefully look at documentaries for substance, i.e., real stories about real people.
Aggie Diversity
December 19, 2018 / Arts / In the Noh / Theater 2018 Agnes Moorehead Awards encompass everything — from Albee to “Hound Dog” Enlarge this image BRIGITTE LACOMBE Alison Pill, Glenda Jackson, and Laurie Metcalf in Edward Albee’s “Three Tall Women.” BY DAVID NOH Community News Group “The Method School thinks the emotion is the art. It isn’t. All emotion isn’t sublime. The theater isn’t reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue.
Call Her Irrepressible
Call Her Irrepressible Marilyn Michaels’ memoir is a lavish hootfest, just like her BY DAVID NOH Community News Group Share on TwitterTweet Share on Facebook Subscribe Growing up in the 1960s in Hawaii, TV may have largely presented an idealized, sanitized, largely white view of the world, but it also introduced a ton of richly variegated, mostly New York talent to me, stuck on an island — however beautiful — in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The Determined Energy of Piper Laurie
Piper Laurie, at 86, is having quite a year with the release of two movies, “Snapshots,” directed by Melanie Mayron of “Thirtysomething” fame, and the attention-garnering “White Boy Rick.” In the first, she plays the disapprovingly feisty, homophobic mother of a woman tentatively finding her first lesbian love, and in the latter she is the mother of Matthew McConaughey, a shady gun seller, and stoic wife to Bruce Dern.
Queen of the Night
Long the queen of New York nightlife, Susanne Bartsch, has now been immortalized in a documentary about her life and wild times, “Susanne Bartsch: On Top,” just released on video. Since arriving in Gotham on Valentine’s Day 1981, this Swiss-born fashionista — and then some — took our little town by storm, first with the most avant-garde boutique in Soho, featuring the earliest work of Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, and Stephen Jones, among other Brit and local wunderkinder.
Farewell, Marin
If you were lucky enough to catch the Michael Blakemore-directed 1999 revival of “Kiss Me Kate,” then you experienced pure musical theater bliss. And no one was more responsible for this than Marin Mazzie, who succumbed to ovarian cancer at her home in Manhattan on September 13 at age 57 .
Coach Sylvester Does the Great American Songbook
As Sue Sylvester on “Glee,” she was everybody’s favorite mean high school coach. Jane Lynch has ditched that track suit for more sophisticated apparel and appears in cabaret at the Café Carlyle through September 22. A veteran of Broadway’s “Annie” in the role of the mendacious Mrs. Hannigan, she spoke to me about this important club debut via phone from Los Angeles and made a particular point of emphasizing that she is not doing it alone.
This Lady Sings No Blues
June 8, 2018 / Around Town / Music / Nightlife Gina Gershon. | JOELLA MARANO/ WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Beginning her Café Carlyle residency this weekend is a favorite among most everybody — whether you’re a dyke and loved her in “Bound,” or gay and dug her jiggy, toxic Margo Channing turn in the immortal “Showgirls.” I write, of course, of Gina Gershon.
Friends in Crisis
Arnie Burton and Matt McGrath in Steven Dietz’s “Lonely Planet,” directed by Jonathan Silverstein, at the Clurman at Theatre Row through November 18. | CAROL ROSEGG Steven Dietz’s “Lonely Planet” is a terrific play from Keen Theater, laced with humor and piercing little jabs of melancholy, about two friends Jody (Arnie Burton) and Carl (Matt McGrath) in a fraught time, namely the plague years of AIDS.
Oh, Donna! The evergreen “A Chorus Line” legend at 54 Below
Oh, Donna! The evergreen “A Chorus Line” legend at 54 Below Share on TwitterTweet Share on Facebook Subscribe Tony award winner Donna McKechnie.
Speaking Truth to Powerlessness: The Mad Activist Goes Pundit
BY SUSIE DAY | “But, Mabel, you really think The New York Times will review my book? Masha Gessen will write a blurb? WOW!” That’s me on the phone, Dear Activist Diary. I’m talking to my literary agent — in my mind. In real life, I’m here at my proofreading job at Penguin Random House — where you can’t stop me from fantasizing about my surefire success as a world-famous pundit once my book is published! “What, Mabel? My book translated into 15 languages?
Fosse Iconography
BY DAVID NOH | The sinuous, snaky, seriously sexy moves of Bob Fosse have got to be the most recognizable choreography in the world, endlessly quoted and imitated to the point of cliche. In 2013, Sam Wasson wrote a mesmerizing, tell-all biography of him, seemingly leaving out no cigarette, drug, or nubile chorine the complex, hard-living genius ever touched.
It’s Just Acting - But Mostly Outraged
BY ED SIKOV | “ATLANTA — Saying it would violate his deeply held religious beliefs, area pornographer Chet Kirkendall, a 57-year-old Christian who frequently films explicit amateur videos for his clients, confirmed Friday he had denied service to a gay male couple that wished to hire him to direct their sex tape.
Now It Can Be Told
DISCO: A DECADE OF SATURDAY NIGHTS Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center 40 Lincoln Center Plaza Admission is free Through May 14 BACK IN THE DAY... TIL NOW: DISCOS LASTING LEGACY A panel on discos history and impact Mel Cheren, Johnny Dynell, Michael Fesco, Chi Chi Valenti Moderated by David Noh Bruno Walter Auditorium The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 40 Lincoln Center Plaza Feb.
April | 2013 | Noh Way
Patricia, amazingly alive and vibrant at 99, was a great beauty in her days in Hollywood. BY DAVID NOH | On the ninth floor of a high rise in one of the cushiest areas of Los Angeles, there resides an honest to God show business legend. At 99, Patricia Morison is amazingly alive and vibrant, with pristine recall of her storied past.
Debbie and Marin
Deborah Voigt, having survived weight gain, drastic loss, addiction, one marriage, a few toxic relationships, and the most recent, gargantuanly tricky Wagner Ring Cycle revival at the Met, is ready to take it easy now.
Aloha Oe, Mom | Gay City News
BY DAVID NOH | My annual sojourn to Hawaii was, as always, memorable, marked this time by a true rite of passage, the funeral of my mother, Miriam Chun Noh. She was a complex, ferociously ambitious, and driven character, obsessed by business, at which she excelled, be it running hotels in Waikiki where I was raised or turning my father’s culinary inventions into an international concern, Noh Foods of Hawaii.
Golden Boy Comes Clean
A very reluctant star decides it’s best to tell one’s own story A very private man, Hunter has penned his autobiography, “Tab Hunter: Confidential.” He met me for an interview joined by his co-producer and longtime lover, Allan Glaser, with whom he made “Lust in the Dust” with Divine in 1985. At 74, Hunter looks 20 years younger, at least, still boyish in mien and manner, and a more unaffected soul you’ll never meet.
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