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Bradley Cooper vs Billy Porter? Murray Hill meets Kamala! And Adam Lambert’s icons!

By · Updated on August 4, 2023
Billy Porter and (inset) James Baldwin
Billy Porter and (inset) James Baldwin (Photo: Shutterstock/Wikimedia Commons)

As you know, last month brought the news that Ricky Martin and his husband, Jwan Yosef, were divorcing after six years, as well as Billy Porter announcing an amicable divorce from his husband, Adam Smith.

“Double hen syndrome, in both cases,” murmured a source of mine. Huh? “Two bottoms!” Speechless here.

Whatever the case, I’m sure they’ll all end up on top. Billy is playing gay author James Baldwin in a biopic, which could be solid Oscar bait. Unfortunately, the awards usually prefer to honor someone they think is hetero playing LGBTQ, which gives the edge to Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.

The wacky Oscar voters usually can’t believe that someone gay or bisexual playing a gay or bisexual person is really acting, though they’ve given many awards to straights playing straight! But let me take a chill pill and relax since Billy’s movie undoubtedly won’t emerge till at least next year (especially since there are strikes right now). It can all happen.

Further complicating all that, Colman Domingo should be getting awards traction for this year’s biopic Rustin, about gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Even though Domingo is gay! My head is spinning! And by the way, Cooper’s chances are diminishing as we realize that Maestro mainly deals with Bernstein’s “complex” relationship with his wife Felicia, though there are some scenes with he and his boyfriends!

As for smaller screens, insiders are buzzing that supposedly Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) will end up marrying her old flame, Aidan (John Corbett), on And Just Like That. Let’s hope Miranda and Che also get back together, and it’s a double wedding.

Lambert’s American idols

It was a marriage made in heaven when I ran into Adam Lambert at On Top, Susanne Bartsch’s weekly summer soiree at the Standard Hotel, and he was absolutely delightful. I thanked the “Queen + Adam Lambert” lead singer for what he’d tweeted about how Christina Aguilera had taught him—by example—how to “wail” when he was coming of age. I asked him who else inspired him back when he was in high school.

“Madonna”, he replied, “though not as a vocalist.” I knew exactly what he meant—and no it wasn’t a dis, just a clarification.

Somewhere over the rainbow

In other iconography-related news, Somebody Somewhere’s Murray Hill posted a photo of himself excitedly meeting Vice President Kamala Harris at her D.C. house for a Pride month queer get-together. When I ran into Mur after the fact, he told me, “What you saw in the photo was the whole encounter. I said, ‘Hi, I’m Murray Hill. I’m a transgender…’ and she smiled and greeted me and then had to run to the next person.”

I guess Kamala’s always greeting somebody somewhere. But I’m glad we’ve gotten to the point where there are so many queers running around the VP’s home that she barely has time to say hi to all of them. Kamala is so cool, she even made an appearance at the legendary Stonewall Inn! I don’t recall Mike Pence doing that—though who knows, lol?

Miles above the rest

Ruthie Ann Miles
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 11: Ruthie Ann Miles poses in the press room during The 76th Annual Tony Awards at Radio Hotel on June 11, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)

On to an MVP: Ruthie Ann Miles is a Broadway treasure who won the Tony for The King and I and was nominated again for last season’s Sweeney Todd revival (still running). Ruthie was the original Imelda Marcos in the musical Here Lies Love when it played the Public Theater in 2013, but she’s not with the current Broadway production, and I’ve heard a bunch of possible reasons why. (It’s billed as an all-Filipino cast and she’s Korean-American; she didn’t want to dance in heels; she didn’t want to wear skimpy outfits; she wanted to do Sweeney and the Encores revival of The Light in the Piazza instead).

Whatever the case, it looks like she might be back in a leading role anyway because the Piazza staging that she starred in to raves in June is currently looking for a bigger theater to transfer to. Spies say they’re waiting for Kimberly Akimbo (starring Victoria Clark, who was the original star of The Light in the Piazza in 2005) to go akimbo, so they can nab the Booth Theatre. Whatever happens, I’m sensing that there will be more Tonys in Ruthie Ann’s future.

And merrily we roll along …

Stephen Sondheim

Rumor has it that a Kiss of the Spider Woman retread might be coming, starring Oscar winner/Tony host Ariana DeBose, Tony nominee Robin de Jesus, and Hamilton’s Javier Munoz. We can all do a “Morphine Tango” if it happens.

And can you believe there will actually be a Sondheim musical that isn’t a revival? Here We Are, his last show—with a book by David Ives—is coming to the Shed starting September 28th, based on two absurdist Bunuel films.

I hear that the great Sondheim had slowed down in his work on it, due to infirmities, so he didn’t really finish the score, but orchestrator Jonathan Tunick is turning a few of the phrases that Sondheim penned into fuller fledged melodic lines. Act One is supposedly more musical than the second half. Well, I’ll be there for both. Like the characters in a Bunuel film, I won’t be able to leave.

Related:

Lea Michele’s next move! And guess who Bernadette Peters replaced?

Could Lea Michelle headline a revival of a 1988 musical flop? And how did Bernadette Peters end up with an Emmy nomination?

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