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Barry Lowe mixes business with pleasure, on stage and off.
If there are two things most gay men are really good at, it’s sex and musical theatre.
Some of the hottest sex I’ve ever had has been with chorus boys and leading men. For example, my first bondage/discipline session, bound with rope, makeshift dildo up my arse, suspended from an extra strong cup hook about a metre from the floor, was with one of the stars of the Broadway musical 1776 – and, no, it wasn’t Dennis Scott.
So, after getting down and dirty with various showfolk, I suppose it was only natural I moved on to the second major milestone in every self-respecting gay boy’s itinerary: I began writing musicals. Being notationally challenged – I barely got past ‘Oh, Susannah’ on my banjo, and only that far because I had the notes written in pencil above all those ant scratchings on bars of music – I concentrated on writing lyrics and librettos/books.
After a few early efforts in which I used pre-existing songs, I turned to writing lyrics to the music of Derrick Bailey for such long-forgotten gems as ‘Don’t Get Your Coloured Hankies in a Knot’ and ‘Spread Me on the Table’. Since then I’ve worked with other talented composers/lyricists including GruF and Stephen Kemp.
Now we get to the shameless self-promotion.
In the early 1990s, Arthur Dicks, the aptly named old pervert who did both sex and musical theatre so wonderfully well, presented a rehearsed reading of my musical, Dutch Courage, at the Old Sailor’s Home in Sydney.
Utilising, yet again, pre-existing songs, including the Edith Piaf classic ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’, it told a fictionalised version of the gay Resistance in Amsterdam during World War II. Why fictionalised? Because the little information available at that time was in Dutch and I know only a few words of the language – all helpful in the first of the skills I am good at but not the second.
Based on the exploits of Willem Arondeus and his lover Jan, Dutch Courage tells of their exploits in blowing up the central registry office in Amsterdam on March 27, 1943. Arondeus left home at age 18 and never had contact with his family thereafter. He was 38 when he met his young lover and they both became members of Raad van Verzet (the Resistance Council).
After that initial airing, the musical sat in my drawer until I was lucky enough to meet fellow Sondheimite, Sean Peter, with whom I collaborated on The Extraordinary Annual General Meeting of the Size-Queen Club, She’s No Angel and Scam! He took my early draft of Dutch Courage and transformed it into something magical with terrific original songs including ‘Fags Can’t Fight’ and others that have reduced an audience to tears – and I mean that in the best way. The Adelaide critics raved over its first full production.
Now, for one night only, next Wednesday, February 27, a stellar cast of musical theatre stalwarts will be presenting a rehearsed reading with songs at the Supper Club, 34 Oxford Street at 8pm (doors open at 7pm).
Jack Webster plays Greta the drag diva who runs Chez Sissy, the nightclub which is a front for the Resistance, and is joined by Hayden Tee, Darren Mapes, Alexander Jenkins, Scott Ogier, Ross Burford and Lyall Brooks, with choreography by Velalien and under the direction of Will Conyers, who is heading to New York in May to direct the American premiere at Wings Theatre.
Tickets are available through Moshtix (http://www.moshtix.com.au ) or by phone on 1300 438849 for $20 or $15 concession.
[Any readers who have had invigorating experiences with members of the musical theatre are encouraged to send explicit photos or stories or, failing that, the original cast recording to
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