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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2003)
february 21.2QG3 » J u st o u t 41 B ob Mensel is a treasure of this here queer community. T he conductor and artistic director of the Portland G ay M en’s Chorus (for 10 years now!) has taken a group that mainly performed show tunes to one that consistent ly delivers high-quality themed productions that not only offer beautiful music but in explicably elicit an impassioned response from the entire audience. Lots o f people cry at P G M C concerts— even hardened, cynical dykes like me. How does he do it? “There is an old A ristotelian— was it Aristotle or Plato?— I think it’s A ristotle,” Mensel begins, clearly in a bid to show off his intellectual capacities, “that talked about catharsis. 1 believe people need to work their em otions— they need to laugh, they need to cry. A rt and music are the places where people can exercise their em otions in a healthy way.” A nd it doesn’t hurt that the shows are also often tributes to queer lives. In fact, they all are under the surface, but some are particularly distinguishable: Millennium M osaic in 2000 honored young people with some original arrangements by Portland queer youth. Last year’s Vintage Voices cele brated older members o f the Portland-area gay and lesbian community through music, dance and documentary films clips. Composers and choreographers are some times brought in, but Mensel designs and directs all the productions. “A lot of it from the early days was simply arrangements of Broad way show tunes, but now we’ve developed a whole body o f newly composed music, which is really wonderful." It’s also a heck of a lot of work, and sitting through one o f these events can be a little emotionally overwhelming. “Our mission is to create eclectic concerts that honor the gay and lesbian community,” Mensel says, “and uplift all people.” Besides that, who wouldn’t like a job where you get to boss around gay men with a wave of your hand? Mensel always comes off so cool and suave brandishing his little stick, com mencing and halting movement with looks and Portland G ay M en’s Chorus conductor Bob M ensel may soon be bossing around a bunch more people P H O T O BY PAU L K O L N IC K Queen M ensel nods. “I am a control queen,” he readily admits. But “the reality is, it’s all in the rehearsal. They generally ignore me.” Soon Mensel may be offered the job of a lifetime. He’s in considera tion for the new conductor of the Portland Symphonic Choir, the offi cial chorus of the Oregon Symphony. It performs with the symphony and also has its own season. Out of 30-something applicants, the choir narrowed it down to three hopefuls— two music professors and Mensel. “Symphonic choral music is probably more my specialty philosophically than any other music,” he says. “My personal career goal has always been to conduct the chorus of a major orchestra.” Part of the final selection process for all three candidates is to conduct public concerts with the choir. This might be nerve-wracking for them, but it’s fun for the rest of us to get to see Mensel in front of a very different bunch of musicians. (Although, frankly, he tells me drat he isn’t nervous at all and that nervous isn’t really a word he would use to describe himself. Nervousness, he says, translates in him as “sort of ornery.") He’ll be conducting the symphonic choir March 8 and 9 at Reed College’s Kaul Audito rium in a program called Treasures from the Old World, which includes Anton Bruckner’s Mass m E Minor, Gioacchino Rossini’s Preghiera and an old Welsh slumber song. (G et tickets from www.pschoir.org.) Being used to this particular space, where many of PGM C’s concerts are held, Mensel was allowed to “change it quite a bit to make it work for the concert hall.” Although this choir is just a wee bit more classical than PG M C, they gave Mensel lee way. “In the gay men’s chorus, you can be eclectic and fun, and the symphonic has been receptive” to some changes from its original program. “It’s a little more light hearted on the second half. I think it’s a m ar-. velous mix of music that really will appeal to a lot of people.” Don’t worry, Mensel will still head up PG M C if he gets this job. Which may not be good news for the guys in the chorus, as Mensel sternly warns, “I’ll be a real control queen.” A s for the next PGM C concert, Classical Voices, that’s Feb. 23 at the Old Church. (Get tickets from www.pdxgmc.org.) Because it’s a performance of the chorus’ auxiliary groups, Mensel will not be conducting. “I’m going to be an usher!” he enthusiastically states. “My role is to not boss anybody around...but I’m not sure that will happen.” JH For G od’s sake, don’t miss The Producers through March 2 at Keller Auditorium The Producers is totally, totally gay f you’re an uninformed buffoon and haven’t seen the 1968 movie The Producers like the Arts and Culture Editor of this newspaper, then what a delightful surprise it will be to you to sit down at the Broadway version of the Mel Brooks classic running through March 2 at Keller Auditorium. 1 know, you thought all Broadway musicals were gay, but none so gay, my friends, as this. The Producers is about a Broadway producer and his accountant, who cook up a scheme to raise a lot of money for a new show, make a flop and keep the investments for them selves— because if a show opens and closes in one night, no one expects their investment back. So all they have to do is go out of their way to make the worst production ever seen (a tall order, when you think about it). They finally decide on a script— Springtime for Hitler — and hire a terrible director and the worst of actors. Hilarity, of course, ensues. What the ads don’t tell you is that half the cast plays gay— and not just normal, average, Joe-on-the-street gay, but screaming, flaming, faggot gay. The director of Springtime for Hitler is a drag queen with an unforgettable limp-wristed part ner perfectly executed by Michael Patemostro. The scene inside their lush lavender living room, complete with dramatic and huffy exits, many introductions to their “theater assistants” and lines like “How do you really think I look in this dress?” is one of the funniest I’ve seen on stage in years. Kevin Cook (aka Poison Waters) was sitting in the row in front of me, and he almost fell out of his chair. You will, too. For gosh sakes, go. Tickets are $31-$71 from the Port land Opera box office or Ticketmaster. I Watch Cockettes with Dave and Tom * T he award-winning film The Cockettes returns to Cinema 21 for a free showing at 5 p.m. Feb. 23. Recently named Best Documentary by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the film follows the 1970s theatrical troupe of hippie women and drag queens who decked themselves out in flamboyant costumes and gaudy glitter for a series of legendary midnight musicals. The Cockettes combined political parody, drugs, gender-bending sexuality and the kind of chaotic free-love fun that San Francisco was known for. Filmmaker David Weissman, who is visit ing Portland for a month, will attend the show ing. The 48-year-old filmmaker is a friend of Pink Martini lead Thomas Lauderdale, who arranged the screening “to pull out the Oregon welcome wagon and show David what a cre ative, welcoming city Portland is.” Well, now that shouldn’t be too hard for us. A reception will follow the screening at Le Happy, 1011 N.W. 16th Ave. — Floyd Sklaver Baby dyke biographies T A flO iO H d he Women’s Entertainment network plans to air four episodes of its When I Was a Qirl series in March— one showcasing Melissa Etheridge and one showcasing Ellen DeGeneres. Sex and the City’s Kristin Davis is the host of the series, which is produced by journalist Linda Ellerbee. Each show, which will include backgrounds of several women, documents growing up from childhcxxl through awk ward adolescence. Hope fully Melissa and Ellen will talk about feeing fears around their sexualities and hopefully those com ments will make it into the final edit. The project “reaffirms that women appreciate shar on’t look for Skervy: ing stories and establishing Queer to the Bone! common bonds," says Eller at Billy Ray’s any bee, “no matter where you more. The smokin’ dance night has outgrown the Dyke tyke: Ellen DeGeneres talks about live or what ycxi do.” The Melissa epis<xle is MLK Jr. Blvd. dive. her childhood in When I Was a Qirl slated for March 3 and “There was a concern Ellen for March 10. Women’s Entertainment is that the tiles on the first-fkxir ceiling might available in the Portland area on digital cable come loose and fall with all the butt-bumpin’ Channel 502 and on satellite distnbutor g(xxl times happening on the second flixir," DJ DIRECTV’s Channel 260. Yeah, pretty Zanne confides. Anyone who’s been can testify obscure, but clip this handy article and in six to that possibility. The Skervy crew is kx>king for a new butt- months check the video store. bumpin’ l<x:ation. If you have any ideas, e-mail Compiled by L i s a B r a d s h a w zanne@de j anvier.org. Skervy needs new home D
