Over its 30-year history, the Gateway Men’s Chorus has performed plenty of light-hearted tunes, but at their concerts this weekend, they’ll be trying something different: the 55-member chorus will use song to reckon with harsh truths. The show “We Will Rise” has music that touches on transgender rights, suicide, mental illness, and other issues. Perhaps…
Performers
The Sweetest Massacre
Maybe you think Valentine’s Day is great, and maybe you think it’s a dumb fake holiday cooked up by Big Chocolate. Either way, Saturday nights are meant for gettin’ into it. And this Saturday, GutterGlitter’s Galentines Day Massacre looks like the place to be. The 18+ dance party takes over Community Arts and Movement Project…
A Candy Crush
Justin Allen knew from a young age that the line between genders was blurry. Though plagued by social anxiety, he began spending time at Van Ella Studios, that well-known local workshop of burlesque, vaudeville and variety entertainment. While there, he transformed himself into a female-presenting character, Sugar Rush, who will be one of many artists…
Tone-Deaf Tenderness
Max & Louie Productions, a mid-sized St. Louis theater nonprofit that staged the Grey Gardens musical last year, is back again with another foray into camp. This time, it’s the play Souvenir. The show is based on the true story of society matron Florence Foster Jenkins, a rich 1920s egomaniac who yearned to be a…
MTUG’s Telethon: “Community Made it Happen”
Last week’s 24-hour fundraising telethon by the Metro Trans Umbrella Group was the talk of the internet—it was such a cool throwback idea, updated for the social media age. “Old-school fun with a trans queer twist,” says MTUG’s executive director and co-founder Sayer Johnson. “Community made it happen.” So, how did it turn out? Well,…
Physician Ken Haller Has a Not-So-Secret Talent: Cabaret
“I think of myself very much as a storyteller — probably a storyteller first and then a singer second.” For cabaret artist Ken Haller, the stories that weave his songs together are the important part of his shows. “The thing about the cabaret is that it’s about creating an emotional space for the audience so…
Ericka Hart’s Art is Resistance and Yours Can Be, Too
This weekend, expand your ideas about what art can do in a conversation with Ericka Hart. Hart is a queer black femme who describes herself as a kinky, poly activist and sexuality educator—as well as a cancer warrior, after surviving a diagnosis of breast cancer at 28. Sex Positive St. Louis and Afrosexology are co-presenting…
Why Rapper Eric Dontè Holds on to Teddy Bears
Eric Dontè is not in counseling. His music is how he gets out his anguish. “I think a lot of people feel like I do but are afraid to say it out loud,” he says, sitting in his bare-bones apartment in the Shaw neighborhood. “I’ve hit rock bottom so many times, what’s the worst that…