Courtesy DGMC
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Most people probably know of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office in California. But they might not be aware of Lem Billings, John F. Kennedy’s best friend from boarding school, who followed the politician to the White House and was a fixture in the Kennedy family.
The average American likely doesn’t know of Cyril B. Wilcox, either, a young man kicked out of Harvard in 1920 via a “secret court” solely for being gay. Wilcox later took his own life. The university has never formally apologized for the incident.
Such true stories are highlighted by Andrew Lippa, composer of the new choral musical Unbreakable, which will be played in a series of performances by the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus starting on June 4 at the Armory in Brighton and culminating with three performances at Auraria’s King Center on June 10 and 11. The musical is a followup to Lippa’s I Am Harvey Milk.
DGMC artistic and managing director James Knapp believes the Unbreakable performances will shed light on some lesser-known people and moments from U.S. LGBTQ history.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Knapp says. “We were supposed to perform this two years ago.”
DGMC co-commissioned the work from Lippa along with several other gay men’s choruses in the U.S. COVID, of course, put those performances on hold, but Knapp sees a silver lining in the postponement: The musical now will be presented during the fortieth anniversary of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus.
“It seems appropriate that we would do something like this,” he says. “It’s basically a mini-documentary of 120 years of the unknown heroes of the community. It seems very apropos that the final crown jewel in the fortieth-anniversary season is Unbreakable.”
The show spotlights people who, although crucial to the LGBTQ movement and the civil rights movement at large, remain mostly unknown, such as gay liberation and transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, or Bayard Rustin, an out, gay civil rights leader who worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King.
“It’s one of the things we challenged [Lippa] to do in commission,” Knapp says. “There are ones that are really obvious – the Harvey Milks, the Gloria Steinems. Let’s find some stuff that isn’t as well known, because you aren’t going to read about this in an American history book.”
The fourteen “movements,” as each number is called, take the audience through moments of American history that have been forgotten or – maybe more accurately – swept under the rug because they don’t shed a positive light on the country. Knapp has said previously that it’s important that the DGMC explore themes of social justice in its work, so he’s happy to finally be performing the piece, as it tells stories of the gay community while still connecting to a larger notion of equality.
“There’s that intersection of music and activism that goes beyond the LGBTQ community,” he says. “That’s one of the things I try to nurture with this group. These are issues surrounding race, gender inequality, economic status, poverty and all sorts of stuff. We are not insular.”
The number “Go to War” touches on gays in the military during World War I, while “Executive Order” details the “Lavender Scare” of the 1950s, during which the Eisenhower administration pushed to purge the federal government of thousands of employees suspected of being gay. “A Purple Menace/The Happy Homosexual” concerns Dr. Charles Socarides, a prominent psychiatrist who pushed the discredited idea that homosexuality can be “cured.”
“Gay Word” explores the origins of the term “gay,” while another, “41,” dives into a 1980s New York Times article buried in a small section that was among the first to mention a mysterious disease – what we now know is HIV/AIDS but was then called a “rare cancer” – affecting 41 gay men.
Knapp finds “41” particularly stunning, as he lived through the AIDS epidemic and experienced the collective paranoia and fear. AIDS was poorly understood, and there was no treatment available. He recalls a sixteen-month period when he attended a funeral every month for friends who died from the disease. Thankfully, medical advances have made it a manageable, albeit chronic, illness. But even if it’s not an outright death sentence now, Knapp notes, AIDS should never be written off as “over.”
“It’s not about a historical figure, but it’s a huge part of our history,” he says of “41.” “It’s just a really powerful homage to those we’ve lost to AIDS.”
Another one of Knapp’s favorite numbers – though he’s quick to say he loves them all – is “Sylvia,” which is about the transgender activist. Transgender people, he says, have an extra layer of struggle to go through, and the song deals with that frustration. According to Lippa, “Sylvia” is “a celebration of [Rivera’s] queerness and her defiantly joyful and in-your-face approach toward gender identity, toward pronouns, and about facing the world with dignity.”
“In this movement, they say, ‘What should I call you? Should I call you a man or a woman?'” Knapp explains. “So she goes into a sort of diatribe – ‘Call me a pool boy, a gay man, a drag queen, a gender bender’ – and she kind of goes through a laundry list of things she’s been called in her lifetime.”
Lippa drew his inspiration for Unbreakable from August Wilson’s The Ground on Which I Stand, a ten-play cycle documenting the Black experience in the United States. Unbreakable includes multimedia elements, and the DGMC will perform the piece with a chamber orchestra and guest artists from the Denver theater community, including two men and two women soloists. Knapp describes the show as a chorus oratorio, and adds that other gay men’s choruses are performing the piece in Kansas City, Washington, D.C., and Miami in June.
“It’s like classical modern Broadway,” he says. “Some sappy ballads and some really catchy melodies, mixed with some edgy rock numbers. You’ve got the classic Broadway belt.” He adds that other pieces demand a more classically trained singer, and the chorus has brought one in for the occasion. The guest soloists will drive much of the storyline.
“We’ve got some wonderful soloists,” Knapp says. “We’ve had great soloists in all of our concerts who come from the chorus. This is a little different situation, because this requires really seasoned acting experience and how to move on stage.”
The show culminates with the idea that it takes time for good change to come, and that LGBTQ people, in spite of everything, are survivors at heart. Speaking on his own behalf, Knapp says the four years of the Trump administration were hard for him as well as a lot of LGBTQ people. The future is still uncertain, and he doesn’t know what will transpire politically in this country. Sometimes, he says, it can feel like taking one step forward and one step back.
But the uncertainty reminds him that we have to keep moving and believe that progress will happen. The show closes with a big Broadway number, “Good Things Take Time,” that looks back on 120 years of LGBTQ history and espouses an optimism for the future. The title was inspired by a greeting card Lippa saw in a gift shop in Columbus, Ohio.
“We are going to be in solidarity,” Knapp says. “We are going to move forward and, ultimately, we are going to move forward in a positive way. So it’s just a great typical Broadway big number.”
He hopes that the audience will come away from the show with curiosity about the people portrayed and learn more about LGBTQ history. It’s a rich part of American history that perhaps doesn’t get its due.
“We’ve lost battles along the way toward equality,” Knapp concludes, “but within the spirit of the name of the piece, we are unbreakable when it comes to continuing the fight.”
See Unbreakable on Saturday, June 4, at the Armory, 300 Strong Street inBrighton; Sunday, June 5, at Boulder High School, 1604 Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder; and June 10-11, at the King Center, 855 Lawrence Way. Visit denverchoruses.org for showtimes and tickets.