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diw ersiüns
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S p a n k in g
P o r tla n d :
P h a s e II
by Lisa Bradshaw
Ya g o tta c h a s e y e r d re a m s , k id
ick Scanlan is an actor, not a writer, damn it.
But when your first penned stage production wins six Tony
Awards, it’s kinda hard to argue.
“ I was an actor in New York, and I had a boyfriend,” relates
Scanlan, who wrote Thoroughly Modem Millie, which debuts April 6 in
Portland. “He was always encouraging me to write, which 1 always got
really angry at because 1 took it as a distinct vote of nonconfidence in
my acting ability."
This was years ago when Scanlan worked for a corporation that
handled retirement funds. “1 never had to do any work.... I just had a
beautiful office on the 50th floor of a building, and I just sat there all
day with literally nothing to d o ...it was outrageous. You know, this
was the ’80s.”
Thanks to greedy excess, Scanlan had time to whip out a short story
one day that just popped into his head. “I felt like my first time out as a
writer 1 was accessing parts of my creative life that in all my years of
acting I had never been able to access.”
Just then his partner became sick with A ID S and died in the sum
mer of 1988. Scanlan spent most of that summer at a house in
Southampton, N.Y., with no cable hut with a TV and VCR. He
brought two movies for visiting friends to watch: Caligula and the 1967
Julie Andrews hit Thoroughly Modem Millie.
“They would watch Thoroughly Modem Millie
every week,” Scanlan says. “I’ve never seen Caligula
to this day.”
And the wheels started turning. "It staick me as a
really wonderful idea for a Broadway musical.... But I
knew it had to he a big show, and 1 knew it would be
the type of thing that no producer in his or her right
mind would ever hire someone who’s only written
one short story (to do].”
That story, though, led him to a writing class at
Columbia University. His teacher was so impressed,
she set him up with her agent. His second story was
published immediately. “I just became a writer,” he
says. “I was very inspired by or guided by...my late
boyfriend because it was a part of me he had been so
desirous that I explore.”
A few years later, Scanlan hit pay dirt with a role in the off-
Broadway show Pageants. “When you’re in a hit show,” he explains,
“you instantly know everybody in show business because everyone
comes to it.”
So with this newfound network of connections, Scanlan saw a glim
mer of hope. It took him 2 1/2 years to get the rights to Millie, during
which time he developed a whole lot more short stories into the book
Does Freddy Dance, which was published in 1995.
Fast-forward seven years. Scanlan’s Thoroughly Modem Millie, with
music by Jeanine Tesori, opens on Broadway and within two weeks is
nominated for 10 Tonys. Another month later, it wins six, including
Best Musical.
“When the show won the Tony,” remembers Scanlan, “we went up
to the stage, and Jeanine seemed really...dazed. I said to her, ‘Are you
all right V and she said to me, Tm not used to dreams coming true.’ ”
(Take this short pause offered here to collect yourself if, like me, you
need to.)
Directly after the ceremony, they were shuttled across 50th Street to
the (appropriately named) Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller
Center.
“So you win the Tony, they usher you out the door, and it’s a police
barricade, and there’s all these people screaming...and you go into this
elevator, and you’re in the Rainbow Room .. .arguably the most sensa
tional room in M anhattan.... I thought that as a kid if I had dreamed
of this night, it couldn’t have been more glamorous.... 1 couldn’t have,
in my gayest fantasy, imagined such a sensationally fabulous evening.”
So when you spend your sensationally fabulous evening seeing Thor
oughly Modem Millie April 6 to 10 at Keller Auditorium, give a little
nod to the man who brought it to you. JH
^hat cunning lit
tle contest over
on Alberta
Street named after
Spank! hair salon
has chosen three
winners for its
makeover contest.
Only 10 people
entered Spanking
Portland, says Spank!
owner Mitch Bridon,
hut even that was too
many to keep it from
being easy. "The
judging was so hard,”
laments the gay boy.
“We wanted, actually,
all of them to win.”
The three who
did all happen to be
straight women,
who might just be
on their way to bona
fide fag-hag-dom
when Bridon gets done with them. He’ll redo their
topnotches and lead them through a reclothing, rejewel
ing, rejuvenating day of earthly pleasures.
Some of the letters really touched the seven judges,
all from Alberta Street businesses. One of the winners,
Erin, has a boyfriend, says Bridon, who “totally loves
her.... His was a great, great letter.” Erin works in
a correctional facility with sex offenders, explains
Bridon, “and she can ’t wear makeup, and she has
to wear baggy clothes, and she can’t look pretty."
The look, he says, “has carried over into her
everyday life.”
Another winning letter came from friends of a
young woman named Marcia. They wrote, “This girl
is three tweaks from hottie.”
The third winner, Dayna, penned her own
entry. The Holm an’s server claims she’s “been hav
ing nightmares about becoming that dried-up old
hide you often see tending bar at the Elks C lu b .. .1
see a lot of cool, young hipsters who would be
duly impressed if 1 was suddenly sporting a new
look.”
Spanking Portland is scheduling the makeovers for this
month. Stay tuned for the "after” shock.
C o w b o y up
i ueer cowboys and girls in Oregon have been going
| through a dry spell the past seven years. T h at’s how
long it’s been since there was a gay rodeo association
inlthese parts.
Well, dust off your 10-gallons because the Idaho Gay
Rodeo Association has expanded into the Pacific North
west Gay Rodeo Association, which includes Oregon.
Yee-haw!
The nonprofit will
produce a whole herd
of horse events
throughout the
region. “We recog
nize that there is
an excellent
opportunity
for gay rodeo
in Washing
ton and
Oregon,”
says Joe Hempsymer, the association’s president. “ It only
makes sense to reach out and include the Northwest
community as a whole."
First up on the calendar is the Spring Roundup,
May 21 to 23 in Boise, Idaho. Participants will spend the
weekend barbecuing, roping, barrel racing, chute dogging
and otherwise having a gay old time. For more informa
tion, visit www.idahogra.com.
Ten in c h e s ,
in m in ia tu r e
sst! Gai-Pied just started can ning the
new Jeff Stryker action figure, and
they’re going fast.
Store owners and husbands Nathan
Moore and Rick Spencer ordered the
action figure directly from Mr. King of
Pom himself. The anatomically correct,
12-inch doll encased in a lovingly auto
graphed box can be yours for a mere
(ahem) $59.95.
“It’s one of my favorites,” says Moore, who notes the fig
ure’s lifelike skin is really soft. “And the penis is poseable.”
Yes, let’s talk about that penis. Last fall, Stryker was on
hand at the Gay Erotic Expo in Los Angeles to promote his
doppelganger.
He obliged fans
by demon
strating the
various
poses the
famed
appendage can
take, as well as the
other appealing move-
able parts. Stryker claims
to be the first adult film
celebrity to have an
action figure made of
himself.
The “toy” comes dressed in
what’s disingenously called
“Stryker Outfit,” but, never
fear, G .I. Joe and Ken clothes
fit as well.
D A R E to
m ake a rt
T
he 15th annual Dyke Art Retreat Encampment is
scheduled for June 27 to July 4 in Steppingwoods
women’s land near Roseburg. The creative and social
week, which limits itself to 15 members, supports a variety
of individual and group art projects.
Organizer Jemma Crae says that participating in DARE
is “powerful because we don’t have anybody looking over
your shoulder or even our own self-critic saying, ‘That’s not
OK.’ We just play with each other.... You feel safe.”
The week includes a cabin or tent space, a hot tub and
sauna and three vegetarian meals a day. Cost is $190-215.
For more information, send a self-addressed, stamped enve
lope to DARE, 2000
King Mountain Trail,
Sunny Valley, OR
97497. JH
Compiled by LlSA
N B radshaw and
M eg D aly