I was oblivious when rumors of the plague began. I completely missed the 1981 New York Times article that announced there was a new disease in the gay community. But, suddenly rumors and whispers among the members of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus about members who stopped coming to rehearsal turned into a litany of men in hospital or hospice. My friend Bill Tynes, who produced the New Amsterdam Theatre Company, was hospitalized; the boyfriend of my friend Michael, who hung my window blinds, died, and Michael told, "It's gonna get me." And it did. My friend Stuart White, who directed the Circle Rep Theatre Lab, died, followed by his companion Clifford Stone, who wrote the wonderful The Great Sunflower. Then, around 1983, it exploded. Chorus members began droppingin larger numbers, friends vanished, and you later heard they had either moved home to die or had left NYC in hopes of escaping it. I was at a rehearsal talking to Elaine Stritch one day and she whispered that she had been to some hospital to see Larry Kert. Every time there was an obituary for an actor, composer, writer, dancer that mentioned the cause of death as brain tumor, cancer, whatever, the first question was AIDS, right?
Every week, I swear, the Men's Chorus sang at a memorial for a dead member, chorus supporter, friend, or a stranger who asked them to sing for a loved one's memorial. I visited Joe Cantlin in a hospital room where he lay dying with piles of dirty sheets littering the room becaujse the workers were afraid tp touch anything. Another friend who was there and I stripped him naked, changed his dirty sheets, bathed him, and dressed him in new bedclothes. He died three days later. It was a helluva time to live through.
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Topic: THE BREAKING OF THE BREAKING BOMBSHELL NEWS PART ONE (Read 14120 times)