Queering the Nutcracker

This is the 31st season for the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles and the holiday concert is one that has become a tradition for both gay and non-gay Southern California residents. This year, the show is a version of the holiday classic The Nutcracker, titledNutcracker: A Choral Fantasy, given a gender switch with music from the original ballet augmented with vocals to give it that special GMCLA touch.

EDGE's Jim Halterman talked with Executive Director Hywell W. Sims to find out how the show is put together, how you can possibly keep nearly 200 gay men organized and that classic Will & Grace episode with hunky guest star Matt Damon as a choral wannabe.

Most ambitious show yet

EDGE: So, backing up a bit, how did you first get involved with the chorus? Were you a singing member?

Hywell Sims: I moved to Los Angeles in '89 from London, where I had been a member of the Gay Men's Chorus and then I joined this one. This one [in Los Angeles] was completely different than London. I come from a background in choral performance and I joined the gay men's chorus as a singer in '89. I was running AIDS organizations around Southern California, became member of the board in the 90s and then came back to LA five years ago to be the Executive Director.

EDGE: Planning the holiday concert must be daunting. What's the process?

HS: We're just starting planning for the holiday shows for the next three years. We plan a long time in advance. It's a very complicated mix of choral performance, dance and theatricality so that takes awhile but, most importantly, for the holiday show we're always very conscious that for many people it is a part of their holiday tradition so we want to satisfy the holiday need. We also want to, as we always do, send the message with our shows and also try new things. What we read a lot at this moment in the performance arts in this time of difficulty is to try new things and this whole season is an experiment of new places, new ideas and the Nutcracker is one of those new ideas.

EDGE: Can you describe the concept behind taking on the classic Nutcracker story?

HS: It's probably one of the most ambitious holiday shows that we've attempted. Two people came up with the idea - our former artistic director Bruce Mayhall and one of our choreographers, Christopher Graham. They came up with the idea of reinventing the story of The Nutcracker. Not parodying it but really reinvent it. The story, as we tell it, is about a young boy, not a young girl, who is given a gift that is beautiful but they don't really want to accept it and show that they're pleased with it publicly because they're afraid of being seen as different. The show is about how the parents in our performance come to terms with it and celebrate that he is different than other boys.

The scope of the show is amazing. We've built over 70 costumes from scratch because they don't make ballet costumes for men in the quantity that we need them but also a lot of other costumes. What we tried to do was honor the original story and give it our own interpretation as well as, of course, create wonderful choral music. Hopefully we've done that and hope the audience will enjoy that.

Making a statement

EDGE: With so much going on with our civil rights, how do you incorporate that into the show without making the tone too somber?

HS: I think the interesting thing about art, generally, music as well, is that when you're creating something it both reflects where you are right now and where society is right now and also points the way forward. For example, in the last year in particular not only has the chorus been part of protest rallies and singing at marches but we also incorporated scenes about equality into our mission statements and into our performances. We've always done it in some way but, if you will, we've increased that in our work because we think that music is a great way to open doors and change minds in a way that little else can. We always incorporate messages but the creative team we work with is clever at doing that but at the same time using music to soothe and to entertain so we're aware that we work in a medium that can send a very strong message to make you in just one minute cry and then the next minute laugh. Music does it brilliantly and we do a lot of that in our shows.

EDGE: How many men are in the chorus right now?

HS: We have about 190 singers. In this performance, there will be about 150 on stage.

EDGE: How do you keep that many gay men organized? Talk about a challenge!

HS: There's such a spirit of inventiveness and the wish to be good not only for yourself and your audience. Most of the time the spirit is positive and exciting but, like all artists, this group is very tough on itself and part of my job is to remind them just how good they are.

EDGE: Some of the members of the chorus were in the infamous Matt Damon episode of Will and Grace, right?

HS: [laughs] Yes, we were approached and about 40 members volunteered to do that episode. You can imagine that the competition to be in that episode was intense and, of course, the competition to stand next to Matt Damon was even more so.

EDGE: Tell me about the Live Music program that the Chorus is involved in.

HS: About 3 years ago we started trialing music education in high schools and our music education program is unique in that it combines discussion and stories about gay men and their roles in society with really a quite wonderful education in music. We started in 2007 and this current year we'll reach about 5000 students around Los Angeles and the reactions from the gay and non-gay students has been really exciting. We were at a school recently in South East Los Angeles where kids were coming up after a performance and saying 'Well, we started to think that we hadn't met a gay person before but we're glad you're here and can we ask you some questions?'

So a lot of the education is happening during the music and after it. We were also told by some of the students that it was the first time they had ever heard live performance music. When you think about the fact that about 90% of the kids at that school rely on the free-school meal program and come from families where there is not a lot of extra cash and [the parents] don't have money to send them to the latest live performance or concert so it was the first for a lot of them. We also helped them meet gay men for the first time. Those things change lives and minds, for sure, especially at that age. It's a fascinating project and you hear fascinating stories.

If you are in Los Angeles and would like to attend the Nutcracker: a Choral Fantasy performance this weekend, the times are 3pm and 8pm on Saturday, December 19, 2009 and 3pm, Sunday, December 20, 2009 at the Alex Theater in Glendale. For tickets and more information, go to www.Alextheatre.org or www.gmcla.org.
and tickets, call 972-450-6232.