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Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 505

Featuring content from the hottest gay and gay-friendly spots in New York, each (free!) issue of Get Out! highlights the bars, nightclubs, restaurants, spas and other businesses throughout NYC’s metropolitan area that the city’s gay a population is interested in.

Featuring content from the hottest gay and gay-friendly spots in New York, each (free!) issue of Get Out! highlights the bars, nightclubs, restaurants, spas and other businesses throughout NYC’s metropolitan area that the city’s gay a population is interested in.

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WITH US AT THE TOWNHOUSE<br />

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870 PARK AVENUE 203 W READ ST<br />

ISSUE #<strong>505</strong><br />

TOWNHOUSE<br />

STAFF<br />

Photography by<br />

Wilsonmodels<br />

PUBLISHER MICHAEL TODD<br />

MIKE@GETOUTMAG.COM<br />

DESIGN AGOTA CORREA<br />

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CELEBRITY INTERVIEWER EILEEN SHAPIRO<br />

@EILEENSHAPIRO3<br />

NYC’S NIGHTLIFE AWARD WINNING BLOGGER/<br />

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LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!<br />

“ Titanique is<br />

the greatest piece<br />

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EVER<br />

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The Daily Beast<br />

“UNDOUBTEDLY<br />

THE<br />

<strong>GAY</strong>EST NEW<br />

MUSICAL.”<br />

Zachary Stewart,<br />

TheaterMania<br />

Nothing on Earth Could Come Between Them.<br />

Except Céline Dion.<br />

BOOK BY<br />

MUSICAL ARRANGEMENTS BY<br />

Nicholas Connell<br />

CHOREOGRAPHED BY<br />

Ellenore Scott<br />

DIRECTED BY<br />

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@TitaniqueMusical<br />

#Titanique<br />

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BY EILEEN SHAPIRO<br />

CELEBRITY CORRESPONDENT<br />

DAVID KOZ<br />

WORLD RENOWNED SAX PLAYER<br />

RELEASES CHRISTMAS BALLADS<br />

(25TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION)<br />

As a Christmas celebration, saxophone guru<br />

David Koz and friends released his eighth<br />

holiday album, which will be followed by a<br />

tour for the season. The album features the<br />

romantic tunes of the season and songs which<br />

Koz has never recorded before. It features<br />

pianist David Benoit, trumpeter Rick Braun and<br />

guitarist Peter White. Dave’s music is defined<br />

by virtue and integrity and is forged by the<br />

force of the joy of the season.<br />

The album includes classics such as “Ave<br />

Maria”, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”--once<br />

recorded by John Lennon--and “Merry<br />

Christmas, Darling,” known for the Carpenters’<br />

version. Beyond all else Dave Koz’s music<br />

is the magic of the holiday. <strong>Get</strong> <strong>Out</strong> spoke to<br />

David regarding the season….<br />

INTERVIEW >>><br />

Hello, Dave. What inspired you to do<br />

the songs that you chose?<br />

Well, I don’t know if you know this, but<br />

I’ve had a lot of Christmas albums. This<br />

is number eight. The biggest challenge<br />

from this one was committing to recording<br />

10 songs that I never played before and I<br />

never recorded before. That was the lens<br />

by which we started. We were able to find<br />

10, and thanks to the producer Kalik, who<br />

I worked very close with on this project,<br />

we reflected kind of a nice part about<br />

Christmas that we hadn’t yet worked on.<br />

I recorded an album that kind of set the<br />

tone for this particular moment, where this<br />

is kind of like on a night where you have<br />

a party and guests over. After they leave,<br />

you put all the decorations away, clean the<br />

dishes. And then you sit down in your living<br />

room with a fireplace a nice cocktail and<br />

maybe somebody special. That’s what this<br />

album reflects--that more quiet, often more<br />

romantic side of the holidays.<br />

What inspired you to make Christmas<br />

album since you’ve made so many of<br />

them?<br />

The funny thing is, I’m Jewish. How does<br />

a nice Jewish boy from Los Angeles have<br />

25 years of Christmas tours and eight<br />

Christmas albums? The main thing, really,<br />

is that I love the music. Even though I<br />

didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas,<br />

I used to go to my friend’s house and<br />

decorate the tree. Music was such an<br />

important part. There’s so much meat on<br />

the bones of these songs.


That’s why you hear every year people<br />

doing renditions of classic Christmas<br />

songs in so many different ways. You can<br />

kind of push and pull them in different<br />

directions and they hold up. The other<br />

main reason is because we started this<br />

tour 25 years ago and we never imagined<br />

that we would be doing this 25 years<br />

later. Because of the audience and the<br />

people that come and bring their kids,<br />

and those kids grow up and bring their<br />

kids, it’s become a family tradition in all<br />

the cities that we go to. Oftentimes in<br />

companionship with a tour, I like to put<br />

certain music together.<br />

Now you’re going on a tour, and you do<br />

this every year?<br />

Yes. This is our 25th annual. Although we<br />

didn’t tour in 2020 because of the covid<br />

situation, we did do a live stream. So we<br />

kept consistent, and here we are at our<br />

25th anniversary. Unbelievable.<br />

Who’s your favorite saxophonist?<br />

I grew up listening and idolizing a man<br />

named David Sanborn. Another New<br />

Yorker. He was kind of like my chief<br />

saxophone mentor and then many years<br />

later, we got to collaborate on my new<br />

album, which came out in 2020. David<br />

Sanborn and I wrote a song and performed<br />

together. That was kind of a full circle<br />

moment for me. To be able to collaborate<br />

with the guy that I grew up listening to. It’s<br />

just a weird thing, like a kid in a bedroom<br />

playing albums of his favorite saxophone<br />

player and then I’m standing next to him.<br />

The reality of that hit me hard.<br />

Have you had your ultimate stage<br />

fantasy yet, and if not, what would it<br />

be?<br />

I’ll tell you what was great--getting to play<br />

with one of my heroes, Dean Martin. That<br />

sticks out. Capitol Records did a Dean<br />

Martin tribute album, and I was signed to<br />

Capitol at the time. I was asked to play a<br />

duet with Dean Martin on an album. That<br />

was really amazing because you could<br />

hear his voice in the headphones and<br />

it was almost as if he was in the room,<br />

right next to me, singing. I don’t know<br />

why that came to mind when you asked<br />

the question. I had so many of that kind<br />

of moment playing on the road with Barry<br />

Manilow. I opened up tours for him and<br />

then played his show. He and I have<br />

been great friends for a long time. Also,<br />

getting to work with Rod Stewart on stage<br />

or Stevie Wonder. I played with him live.<br />

Playing Madison Square Garden with a<br />

young band called Wolfpack. They sold out<br />

the Garden. I remember playing Carnegie<br />

Hall with another artist, and my mom flew<br />

all the way from Los Angeles to see me<br />

be a support for another artist for a few<br />

minutes on the Carnegie Hall stage. So,<br />

there are a lot of those kind of moments,<br />

tons of “Pinch me” moments. But I can’t<br />

really say that I’m bereft of those moments<br />

or need another one. But if another one<br />

happened to happen, I welcome it, of<br />

course.<br />

Is there anything that you want to tell<br />

me that I haven’t asked you?<br />

The main thing is that we’re very excited<br />

to bring our show out for our 25th<br />

anniversary. It stars a trumpeter, Rick<br />

Braun, and a guitarist by the name of<br />

Peter White. They are sort of the earliest<br />

cast members of this tour. So, for our 25th<br />

anniversary, we wanted to have them be<br />

part of the tour. This tour will also feature<br />

Keiko Matsui on piano--a fantastic artist,<br />

and she’s probably been on our tour<br />

like four or five times. So she’s kind of<br />

a veteran. And then we are featuring a<br />

young vocalist named Rebecca Jade for<br />

the second time. She was with us last<br />

year and people fell in love with her, so we<br />

invited her back. She is a fantastic singer<br />

with an album of her own. The key to this<br />

album has always been collaboration and<br />

the core of how it all comes to be and have<br />

it all sort of attract this audience that is<br />

so supportive of us, especially for holiday<br />

music. It’s about supporting each other,<br />

for our artistry to thrive. And it’s a really<br />

wonderful ride, and I look forward to it.


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HUGO<br />

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IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY® (cont’d)<br />

DIMITRI<br />

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Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to<br />

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Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or<br />

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BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, GSI, KEEP BEING YOU, and LOVE<br />

WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date:<br />

February 2021 © 2022 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. US-BVYC-0088 03/22


week in pictures >> BY WILSONMODELS / wilsonmodels.blogspot.com<br />

MISS BIG ADAM'S APPLE 2022 @ INDUSTRY<br />

SUNDAYS @ THE EAGLE


week in pictures >> BY WILSONMODELS / wilsonmodels.blogspot.com<br />

FUQBOI @ REBAR<br />

LECHE @ HUSH


BY EILEEN SHAPIRO<br />

CELEBRITY CORRESPONDENT<br />

VINCENT PATERSON<br />

ICONS AND INSTINCTS<br />

PHOTO CREDIT: ©2022 SETHAFFOUMADO.COM<br />

Legendary choreographer, director, producer<br />

and a million other things Vincent Paterson<br />

(with writer Amy Tofte) has unleashed his<br />

inspiring new book, Icons and Instincts.<br />

Globally acclaimed for being the choreographer<br />

for artists including Michael Jackson, Madonna,<br />

Björk, Lucille Ball, Liza Minnelli, Shirley<br />

MacLaine, Elton John, Barbra Streisand and<br />

a parade of at least 100 others, Paterson<br />

celebrates his behind-the-scenes escapades<br />

and anecdotes. His hope is that his stories are<br />

entertaining and inspiring and in his own words<br />

“a reminder of how we each choreograph the<br />

steps to our individual dances in life.” He also<br />

wishes that his recollections “might offer insight<br />

into what it means to be a working artist in a<br />

volatile industry.”<br />

Paterson has choreographed, directed and produced for film, theater, Broadway,<br />

concert tours, operas, television, music videos and commercials. His works<br />

include Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal and Madonna’s Blonde Ambition<br />

Tour, as well as Berlin’s first original production of Cabaret. He is now happy to<br />

share his renowned experiences with the world.<br />

INTERVIEW >>><br />

Hello, Vincent. You are a director and a<br />

choreographer, which came first?<br />

I directed first when I was in college, then<br />

an actor, then after being a dancer for many<br />

years, I became a choreographer and then<br />

back to directing again.<br />

What made you want to become a dancer?<br />

It was kind of accidental. I was working in<br />

Tucson for a while, I was walking back and<br />

forth past the dance studio every day. I was<br />

a theater person, not a dancer at all. I kept<br />

hearing this music come out of the studio and<br />

I stepped inside and asked if I can maybe<br />

take a class. It was a ballet studio and the<br />

woman that ran it said, “We don’t really have<br />

adult classes, but you could take a class with<br />

these young teenagers.“ That’s how I started.<br />

Changed my whole life.<br />

So how did you come to work with Michael<br />

Jackson and Madonna and all those super<br />

famous people that you worked with? How<br />

did you get that reputation?<br />

I did a lot of dancing once I moved back<br />

down to Los Angeles. I traveled the world with<br />

Shirley MacLaine. I was Barbara Mandrell’s<br />

partner on her TV show for two years. I<br />

auditioned for “Beat It”. Michael Peters, who<br />

choreographed it, was a mentor of mine. I<br />

auditioned for it and got it.


That was my beginning of knowing Michael<br />

Jackson. The second thing I did with<br />

him, I assisted Michael Peters and was<br />

a dancing zombie on “Thriller”. After that,<br />

I started almost creating everything for<br />

Michael Jackson. I began with “Smooth<br />

Criminal”, which I conceived and created and<br />

choreographed. I did his first solo tour and<br />

went on to do maybe four or five other short<br />

films or videos with him. I choreographed<br />

them as well as directed them. I did his<br />

Super Bowl performance, Grammy Awards<br />

and many, many other things. Through<br />

Michael Jackson, I had met a commercial<br />

director, Joe Pytka, who<br />

directed “The Way You<br />

Make Me Feel”--one of<br />

Michael Jackson’s pieces<br />

that I choreographed--and<br />

Joe was directing a very<br />

controversial commercial,<br />

as it turned out, for<br />

Madonna for Pepsi. He<br />

called me and asked if<br />

I would come down and<br />

help. He said Madonna<br />

didn’t want to sing and<br />

dance, but he wanted<br />

me to be there anyway.<br />

She walked past with<br />

her entourage and Joe<br />

attempted to introduce me<br />

as a choreographer and<br />

she said, “I don’t need a<br />

f****** choreographer”. That was my intro<br />

to Madonna. I then went on to do the video<br />

for “Express Yourself” and then “Vogue”.<br />

I directed and choreographed the Blonde<br />

Ambition tour. And many other things I did<br />

for her, like the Marie Antoinette version<br />

of “Vogue” for MTV, the film Evita. Once<br />

it all began, it just kind of steamrolled. It<br />

continues to this day, and I’m very grateful<br />

for that.<br />

Of all the people that you directed and<br />

choreographed, who has been your<br />

biggest challenge?<br />

I think the biggest challenge as a<br />

choreographer may have been Whitney<br />

Houston. As sweet as she was, she was<br />

really uncomfortable with moving. So that<br />

was a little tough. Donna Summer was<br />

the same way. She was happy to learn,<br />

but she just wasn’t that comfortable with<br />

moving. Those were the two trickiest, I<br />

think. What I tried to do, Eileen, is I try to<br />

look at a person’s body and see how they<br />

move and then try to create movement<br />

that I think makes their body look good. As<br />

a choreographer, that’s the way I always<br />

worked. Even Bjork, when I choreographed<br />

Dancing in the Dark, I watched her a little bit<br />

and used movements that I thought worked<br />

well for her body and it did. I called her a<br />

Teletubby because she was just so sweet<br />

and kind of moved that way. So that’s the<br />

way I try to work. I tried to<br />

work my body into the way<br />

their body moves, and if it<br />

feels good on mine, I know it’ll<br />

feel good on theirs.<br />

I’ve interviewed a million<br />

people on the planet, but<br />

I never really interviewed<br />

choreographer, so this<br />

is really exciting to me.<br />

I always ask musicians,<br />

“How do you come up with<br />

lyrics and what inspires<br />

instrumentals?” so I want<br />

to kind of ask you the same<br />

thing. What inspires you to<br />

come up with movements?<br />

How do you think of them?<br />

I followed something<br />

that Michael Jackson once told me at<br />

the very beginning, when I first started<br />

choreographing for him. He gave me<br />

“Smooth Criminal” and he said, “I want you<br />

to take this music, don’t impose anything<br />

on this music. Let the music tell you what it<br />

wants to be. Listen to it again and again and<br />

again and let it tell you what it wants to be.”<br />

And that’s kind of how I choreographed my<br />

whole life. I don’t impose an idea on a piece<br />

of music. When I hear a piece of music, I<br />

think, “Wow, I really like this” and then I listen<br />

to it intensively for what could be 100 times<br />

or more. Then, images start to come to my<br />

head. They start off abstract and then I go<br />

into a studio and ideas come.Like circles or<br />

squares I see in my head when I get into a<br />

studio. I start to put that feeling on my body<br />

and move along with it.


who is also a playwright. She had gone to<br />

see this documentary that was done about<br />

me and came back and said, “That was<br />

incredible”. She said, “Have you ever written<br />

anything?” And I said, “Yeah, I’ve written a lot<br />

of journals.” When I worked around the world<br />

a lot, I never got to take somebody with me.<br />

I would pick up an assistant wherever I was<br />

working. So I gave her some of my journals.<br />

Between the work that was in the journals and<br />

the interviews that she did with me, that’s kind<br />

of how we put the book together.<br />

I learned a lot from Hermes Pan and what<br />

he did with Fred Astaire when I was first<br />

beginning to choreograph, to understand you<br />

don’t have to choreograph to five, six, seven,<br />

eight. I could follow a string line or a flute line<br />

and be inspired that way. Having worked in<br />

the theater, grown up in the theater, basically,<br />

a lot of the choreography I’ve always created<br />

has had a narrative theme or substance to<br />

it. I like dancers being characters in a way,<br />

expressing a story with movement.<br />

So, with everything that you’ve done,<br />

a book was inevitable. What made you<br />

decide to write this book?<br />

It actually was my co-writer who urged me.<br />

There was a documentary about me called<br />

The Man Behind the Throne. That’s kind of<br />

how I lived my career, mostly. In the early<br />

career, I was behind the scenes and didn’t<br />

get much credit for what I did, although my<br />

stuff was highly visible by billions of people<br />

around the world. I thought, “Let me move<br />

forward with this career. And let me see what<br />

if it works for me.” I just kept following my<br />

heart and found that by doing that, doors<br />

were opening for me. One person would see<br />

the work and give me a call and I’d work with<br />

them and move on to something else. That’s<br />

the way it kind of came about. It’s a beautiful<br />

career. I directed a play for my co-author<br />

I wanted to create a book that had a reason<br />

to exist. To give people the insight behind<br />

the process of how some of these major<br />

entertainers actually work when they’re in<br />

the rehearsal studio. I thought that would be<br />

interesting for people. For young artists, it<br />

was an important book because it talks about<br />

being prepared, and that’s a really important<br />

lesson. You never know when opportunity’s<br />

going to afford itself to you and you want to be<br />

ready. Take some classes, take some acting<br />

classes, take some voice classes. If this is<br />

really the career that you love, be prepared.<br />

The third reason was people look at my<br />

situation, and when you read the book, I think<br />

you’ll understand this better. They look at the<br />

successes that I’ve had and they think, “Oh,<br />

my gosh, you’ve had it so easy.” Well, yes, on<br />

one hand. We hear so many more nos than<br />

we do yesses, so we have to be strong and<br />

listen to that instinct that tells us that we’re on<br />

the right path.<br />

Have you had your ultimate stage fantasy<br />

yet?<br />

I think creating the blonde ambition tour for<br />

Madonna and changing the base of Pop<br />

tours. I think that was so fulfilling for me. To<br />

be able to bring theatrical talent to the pop<br />

arena, and now look and see that that’s the<br />

course that everybody has taken. In terms of<br />

that, I’m very happy. The Pope actually said,<br />

“With the Blonde Ambition tour, Satan has<br />

been rereleased into the world,” and I thought,<br />

“Oh, my God, I did that.” So I guess you can<br />

call that an ultimate stage fantasy.<br />

So, is there anybody that you haven’t<br />

worked with that you wish you did or that<br />

you still want to?<br />

In the music world, I’ve always wanted to<br />

work with Lady Gaga.


I think that she is a really incredible talent<br />

on many, many levels. I just sent a book<br />

for her to read and I hope she enjoys it.<br />

She is someone that I thought that we<br />

would collaborate beautifully together. In<br />

the acting world, a great actress that I’ve<br />

never had an opportunity to work with and<br />

whom I absolutely adore is Meryl Streep. I<br />

got to work with Glenn Close and she was<br />

brilliant. I’m a kid who came from very poor<br />

area down south of Philadelphia; there<br />

was no culture around there. But I always<br />

knew I was destined for something else. I<br />

didn’t know how and<br />

I worked my butt off<br />

because we were<br />

very, very poor. I was<br />

able to get some<br />

scholarships to go<br />

on to college. And<br />

that changed my life.<br />

And that’s another<br />

important part of the<br />

book, that we don’t all<br />

have things handed to<br />

us and we really have<br />

to work hard to get<br />

what we want.<br />

Is there any question<br />

on the planet that<br />

you would want me<br />

to ask you?<br />

One thing that I’m<br />

really concerned<br />

about, and I write<br />

a whole chapter<br />

about it, is about<br />

the lack of equality<br />

for choreographers.<br />

I’m not really<br />

choreographing anymore, but I’m fighting,<br />

fighting, fighting for choreographers to<br />

get first of all credit for their work and<br />

equality with pension health and welfare.<br />

Some form of ownership because we kind<br />

of work for hire, so we own nothing. And<br />

the consequence of that is hundreds and<br />

millions of people have seen my work,<br />

but they don’t really know it’s my work. If I<br />

was to try to put my work up at a concert,<br />

I could be sued. I own absolutely nothing.<br />

We’ve been advocating, and there is a<br />

new group now called the Choreographer’s<br />

Guild that has some very powerful players,<br />

and it’s very exciting. We have bylaws,<br />

we have a board and executive board,<br />

executive directors, and now we’re pushing,<br />

pushing, pushing for membership of<br />

choreographers on the West Coast that<br />

deal with the electronic industry film and<br />

video, but also live theatrical. So, those<br />

things are very important to me. I also want<br />

to campaign the Academy to give an award<br />

to choreographers. I have an agent here<br />

and the two of us have been talking to the<br />

CEO of the Academy and two women on<br />

executive boards<br />

to find out how<br />

we can get more<br />

choreographers in<br />

as members first<br />

so that eventually<br />

choreographers will<br />

have a voice. I’ve<br />

read letters from<br />

1962 questioning the<br />

board on why they<br />

don’t have awards<br />

for choreographers.<br />

That’s 60 years ago.<br />

This has to change.<br />

The thing that’s<br />

disturbing to me is, I<br />

am a member--Mike<br />

Nichols supported me<br />

and got me in when<br />

I did The Birdcage<br />

for him. This is what<br />

I mean about credit.<br />

Even though I had<br />

the main title credit on<br />

that film, a gentleman<br />

named Mark Harris<br />

wrote a biography<br />

of Mike Nichols and in it he says one of<br />

the greatest improvisations that Robin<br />

Williams did was the eclectic celebration of<br />

the dance, “Fosse, Fosse, Fosse, Michael<br />

Kidd, Michael Kidd, Madonna, Madonna”.<br />

Well, that was mine. I created all of that<br />

from nothing. And because you were just<br />

so overlooked because lack of education,<br />

people don’t know what we do. They didn’t<br />

step any further to find out if Robin had<br />

actually done that or where it came from,<br />

so he just took it upon himself to say Robin<br />

did it.


VICK Y DE VILLE<br />

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