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An accomplished operatic singer, Ostrow is best known for the gay bathhouse where Bette Midler, Barry Manilow, and others launched their careers performing to naked gay men.
Terrence McNally's The Ritz was born during the 1970s sexual revolution, an era of liberation extravagantly celebrated at the Continental Baths, a gay New York bathhouse where an unknown Bette Midler, Barry Manilow, Wayland Flowers, and others once performed for a towel-clad audience. Today, its author calls the play, set in a bathhouse not unlike that exotic establishment, a period piece. ''There was a time at the height of the AIDS crisis that I would not have allowed a revival... but I think we're ready to see it again,'' McNally says.
The formative performances at gay bathhouses helped launch the careers of both superstars.
For her return to Broadway in 1975, Bathhouse Betty insisted on doing an interview with The Advocate -- and our first celebrity cover woman was born.
Masterful acting keeps three plays by Terrence McNally from becoming cliche. But not even a porn star can save The Ritz.
The legendary Bette Midler holds forth on art, illusion, marriage, kids, and the eternal lure of Las Vegas.
For Patti LuPone, the standing ovations began almost 30 years ago and have not stopped. The excitement of seeing Patti LuPone live has been thrillingly captured in Patti LuPone at Les Mouches, the never-before-released recordings from her legendary 1980 nightclub act.
Even before the tragedy in Orlando, New Yorker Michael Ryan knew the importance of LGBT spaces. Ryan tells us about his walking tour of fallen gay bars and clubs, which were all marked with the message "GAY BAR WAS HERE."
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders brings us The Out List, an eloquent and moving meditation on LGBT identity. His timing couldn't be better.
The Divine Miss M dishes on her new album, It's the Girls, and her joy watching the gay rights movement transform from the love that dare not speak its name to 'the love that won't shut the fuck up.'
Mark Segal recounts his amazing life in activism in his new memoir, And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality. Read an exclusive excerpt below.
Ever since the first issue of The Advocate clandestinely rolled off the presses in 1967, the content of the magazine has engendered debate, adulation, and occasionally venom.
There are great hotels all over Paris, and, as in most of Europe, desk clerks won't bat an eye when two women or two men show up to share a bed. Business travelers will find that the Marais is convenient enough and not an inappropriate address, although most of the big business hotels are on the other side of the river.
Cancun might seem like the obvious pick for gay travelers to eastern Mexico, thanks to its flashy gay discos and hedonistic reputation. But 200 miles west in Merida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatan, offers a welcome alternative for gay visitors who appreciate a serious dose of Mayan culture with their cocktails.
