The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) announced the nominees of its 11th Annual GLAAD Media Awards Jan. 18, and Dame Edna, Margaret Cho, The Public Theater's 2.5 Minute Ride were among those cited in an Broadway/Off-Broadway category.
Cho's Off-Broadway, autobiographical show, I'm The One That I Want, in which the comedian discussed gay subject matter, was among five nominees in the New York Broadway/Off-Broadway category. Cho's show is currently on a national tour.
2.5 Minute Ride, lesbian writer-performer Lisa Kron's monologue about her wacky East Lansing, MI, family and her father's past in wartime Germany (and how it all relates to a roller coaster ride at Ohio's Cedar Point), was also nommed. It played an extended run at The Public Theater in spring 1999.
Beautiful Thing, the Jonathan Harvey play that had previously inspired a film, moved from Chicago to Off-Broadway's Cherry Lane Theatre for a spring 1999 run.
Dame Edna: The Royal Tour is actor-writer Barry Humphries' show about the Australian housewife-superstar, currently playing Broadway's Booth Theatre. Anne Bogart directed The Foundry Theater's Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklas drama, Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving in May-June 1999 (housed at Signature Theatre).
Off-Off-Broadway stagings and Los Angeles productions were also nominated in separate categories.
The GLAAD Media Awards were created to honor individuals and projects in the media and entertainment industries for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives.
Nominees were published, released or broadcast between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1999. Nearly 1,000 entries were considered in 24 categories.
Nominees in theatre categories are:
LOS ANGELES THEATER
Boys of Mariel
The Last Hairdresser
Medea, the Musical
Miss Coco Peru's Universe
Pointless
NEW YORK THEATER: BROADWAY/OFF- BROADWAY
2.5 Minute Ride
Beautiful Thing
Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
Gertrude & Alice: A Likeness To Loving
I'm The One That I Want
NEW YORK THEATER: OFF-OFF-BROADWAY
Dream Analysis
Glory Box
Jaywalker
Kiki & Herb: Have Another
Lava Love
This year, GLAAD expects more than 5,000 to attend four ceremonies around the country, in New York City (April 2), Los Angeles (April 15), Washington DC (May 13) and San Francisco (June 3).
-- By Kenneth Jones
