Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN
TAKING PRIDE IN OUR CULTURE
SEPT 1 - SEPT 7 / 1994
Cobb rally
draws
thousands
despite threat
of violence
PAGE 3
NEWS
Atlanta police sweep catches
cruisers in Piedmont Park pages
Tampa hairdresser who killed his
attacker found not guilty of murder
PAGE 5
Mississippi high school cancels
production of gay play PAGE 5
NGLTF head Peri Jude Radecic
steps down PAGE 11
Lesbian activist Rikki Striecher
dead at 68 PAGE 11
HEALTH
White House holds AIDS strategy
meetings with gay groups pace is
OUT & ABOUT
Comedian/singer Lynn Lavner is not
your average Jewish leather lesbian
PAGE 21
First-time novelist Eric Shaw Quinn
spins a Southern family tale in
"Say Uncle”
V01UME 7/HUMBER 28 PtEASE REGYGLE 75C WHERE SOLD
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“This is not Atlanta. This is not San Francisco.
This is not New York. This is not America. This is
Cobb County!”
With those words, a man from Cobb rose up in a
county commission meeting last summer to con
demn the perversion he perceived emanating from
Theatre in the Square in Marietta.
“That’s what he said—this is not America,” re
lates Palmer Wells, the Managing Director for The
atre in the Square. “I think what he was trying to say
is America is going to hell—San Francisco, Atlanta
and New York are going to hell,” Wells says. “But
this is America! I have as much right as anybody to
live here and try to make it agreeable to me as well
as everybody else.”
Last year, Wells and Artistic Director Michael
Home, his friend and partner, were simply trying to
operate their small, successful theatre, at one time
the number one tourist spot in Cobb. But then the
two men found themselves enmeshed in a contro
versy that, in one year, has taken on national ramifi
cations. A patron complained last year to Cobb
County Commissioner Gordon Wysong about The
atre in the Square’s production of “Lips Together,
Teeth Apart,” a play that was incorrectly character
ized as advocating homosexuality. (Indeed, review
ers in New York and Atlanta criticized Terrance
McNally’s play because it was missing any homo
sexual characters onstage, even though it takes place
at a beach house in a gay enclave on Fire Island.)
Commissioner Wysong, having never seen the pro
duction in question, used his commission office as a
pulpit to launch an attack against any arts group in
the county that did not produce work conforming
with “family values.” He first threatened to cut off
all funding to such art groups, then in the face of.a
possible lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties
Union, upped the ante and rallied his fellow com
missioners to cut off all arts funding in the county.
What happened next has been subjected to revi
sionist history, but the Cobb County Commission,
not satisfied with just cutting off arts funding, pro
ceeded to pass its anti-gay resolution, the first of its
kind in the country. And at the center of the contro
versy was the small theatre on Whitlock Avenue.
Many things have happened—to both Cobb
County and Theatre in the Square—in the 12 months
since the resolution was passed. Cobb County lost its
one 1996 Olympics venue, was subjected to a (not
entirely successful) nationwide boycott of its
brand-new convention center, and saw its name be
come a national synonym for intolerance. Theatre in
the Square found it had many friends—old and new—
who would come to its rescue.
Scrambling for funds
One year ago, things looked bleak for the theatre.
Having lost $40,000 in funding from Cobb County,
it was facing the premiere of its new musical version
of “Member of the Wedding,” which was supposed
to star Tony Award winner Daisy Egan. After the
controversy broke, her father withdrew her from the
play. The musical, directed by Horne, opened to
dismal reviews. Because of all that was happening
around them, “Michael was distracted,” according to
Palmer.
Yet there were some extremely bright moments
happening at the same time. An angel from seem
ingly out of nowhere arrived like a theatrical deus ex
machina. Marietta native Joanne Woodward, along
with husband Paul Newman, publicly expressed dis
gust with the county of her birth. She then came to
the rescue with a gift of $20,000, which had strings
attached—the sum had to be matched locally. “And
it was,” says Palmer. “It was matched locally by one
donor, one local individual plus a large number of
people who just came forward with the garden vari
ety $25 or $50 contribution. Also, a number of At
lanta business and professional people contributed.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 17