Meet the real-life Viola De Lesseps.

Forget what you might have seen in Shakespeare in Love, in early modern English theatre it was the norm for female roles to be played by young men.  Today, it is women like Lisa Wolpe, Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, who turns that notion on its head as she takes on some of the greatest male roles in the Bard’s canon.

Wolpe, who is thought to hold the record as a woman playing the greatest number of men in Shakespeare’s plays, is an actor, director, teacher, playwright and producer, in addition to her artistic director role in the all-female company that she founded in 1993.  She brings her story to Vancouver in an ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ style interview as part of a fundraiser for the upcoming Classic Chic Productions, itself all-female ensemble dedicated to performing the classics, presentation of The Winter’s Tale.

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Here are our top gay news picks for this week - February 8th to 15th!

West End News

• #VanCupid Helps Spread Vancouver Valentine's Day Love: A group of anonymous V-Day enthusiasts have posted mailboxes filled with vintage Valentine's Day cards around Vancouver's West End. Passersby are encouraged to take one of the blank cards and give it to someone special. And then, of course, share the love on social media with the hashtag #VanCupid.
• West End clinic applies to become North America’s second legal supervised injection facility: If approved, the Dr. Peter Centre on Comox Street will have the federal government’s permission to offer services like those provided at Insite in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Gay Vancouver News

• Vancouver councillor returns from gay rights mission in Sochi: Tim Stevenson, who returned home Sunday, was also unable to meet International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, but did get an audience with Bach’s chief of staff and communications director.
• Vancouver Fountainhead Pub's 'To Russia With Love' Campaign Shows Support For LGBT Community: For the month of February, patrons can head to the Fountainhead Pub, which has been named an official Remote Pride House by Pride House International, and show their support by taking photos, writing notes, and, yes, drinking.

Gay World News

• State attorneys general are switching sides on gay marriage; 'The right side of history': Attorneys general in many U.S. states are increasingly taking an unusually supportive role in the movement to legalize gay marriage.
• US delegation member calls Olympic trip 'humbling': A member of the U.S. Olympic delegation sent to Sochi by President Barack Obama said Thursday she witnessed no backlash over the inclusion of homosexuals in the group as an apparent protest over anti-gay laws in Russia.
• Ellen Page comes out as gay in speech to counsellors for gay teens: The 26-year-old told a Las Vegas audience Friday, "I'm here today because I am gay." She was speaking to a conference of counsellors who work with teenagers who identify as lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual or queer.

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These are our top gay news picks from February 1st to 8th:

Gay Vancouver News

• Vancouver councillor’s gay rights ideas well-received by IOC: Tim Stevenson wants sexual orientation in Olympic charter
• Video: Vancouver pub supports gay Russians: The Fountainhead Pub is running a campaign throughout the Olympics to support their Russian allies and let them know that it gets better.
• Canadian cities to fly gay pride flags in Olympic protest: Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and St. John’s, among other cities, have decided to fly the iconic gay pride flag at for the duration of the Olympic Games in solidarity with Russia’s gay and lesbian communities.

Gay Canada News

• Mr. Gay Canada 2014: Coquitlam's Christepher Wee advocates diversity as social education: "Live your life as best you can as a humanitarian and your labels fall secondary," he says of his personal philosophy. "For me, I don't go through life helping someone…because I'm Chinese or I'm an LGBT member. I'm doing it because I'm a human being and that's what we should be doing."
• Bell Canada puts its weight behind gay rights with Olympic ad depicting couple kissing: Canadian Olympic Committee sponsor BCE Inc. appears to be dipping its toe ever so gingerly into controversial waters: the discussion around gay rights, and their suppression, in the Games’ host country.
• Rob Ford wants gay pride flag outside of city hall taken down: TORONTO – Mayor Rob Ford wants a rainbow flag raised outside of city hall in support of gay rights in Russia to be taken down and replaced by the Canadian flag.

LGBT and Gay World News

• Feds to expand legal benefits, services for same-sex marriages: In a major milestone for gay rights, the United States government plans to expand recognition of same-sex marriages in federal legal matters, including bankruptcies, prison visits and survivor benefits.
• Charity puts public sector employers top in gay-friendly ranking: Public organisations comprise half of the 2014 Stonewall top 20 diverse employers

For the amount of time dancer and choreographer Peter Chu has spent north of the 49th you would think he would just automatically get Canadian citizenship.  But while he isn’t about to give up his American passport anytime soon, he is happy to be referred to as an honorary Canuck.

“I definitely have a special affinity for Canada,” says Chu, who lists Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Vancouver-based Kidd Pivot and an upcoming third appearance at Dances for a Small Stage as highlights of his Canadian work.

But it is perhaps dancing as part of Celine Dion’s Vegas show from 2005 to 2007 that is his biggest Canadian connection, an experience he says will not soon forget.

“It was an experience of a lifetime that will stay with me forever,” says Chu from his home in Las Vegas, which perhaps ironically is now his basis of operations after having been on the move for the last five years.  “The one thing that I will always remember is how much Celine stressed the idea of family and community.  To be able to work with Celine was a great thrill; she is such a genuine person.”

Shortly after the Dion’s first Vegas showed closed, Chu found himself in Los Angeles and as a guest choreographer gigs on the last two seasons of the television reality competition, So You Think You Can Dance.  And while he isn’t sure if he will be asked back for the show’s next season, he remains excited by what a show like SYTYCD has done for dance.

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The current touring production of West Side Story is going for a more realistic and grittier feel.

“These days where movies are incredibly graphic and when you turn on the news and everything is so graphic and intense, it is all about being real,” explains 22 year-old Georgia native Benjiman Dallas Redding who plays Riff, the leader of the Jets gang in the national touring company production of West Side Story. “If you watch the movie, all of the Jets have nicely coiffed blonde hair and are handsome.  We literally rub dirt all over our faces”.

Helping to keep it real is choreographer Joey McKneely who called the current touring version of the 1957 musical “a West Side Story for a new generation” in a recent interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“We always have Joey there to bring us back to reality,” laughs Redding, calling it a “more grungy” approach to the characters that is reflected in the gang fights and the emotional struggles they endure in trying to find their place in the world.

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Here are our gay / Vancouver news picks for this week - January 18th to 25th.

Gay Vancouver News

• Gay rights delegation hosts event: A send-off event for Vancouver’s Host City Pride House mission is being prepared for Monday night in the city’s West End as the group heads to Sochi, Russia for the Olympic games.
• Gay-straight alliances reduce suicide risk among all students: study: Both gay and straight students in Canadian schools are less likely to have suicidal tendencies when explicit anti-homophobia interventions such as school-based gay-straight alliances (GSAs) are in place, according to a University of B.C. study.
• Jenna Talackova launches ad for her ‘healthiest transformation’: The first transgender woman to compete for the Miss Universe title wore a revealing bikini made entirely out of vegetables in an ad that she unveiled at the Davie Village rainbow crosswalk.
• This week in (gay) Vancouver: a Canadian comic icon and a night of parties on Davie Street that will help actually do you (and others) some good.

West End / Davie Village News

• Community watchdog asks if City Hall withheld computer renderings to stifle debate on the West End: A community advocate has suggested that the City of Vancouver withheld 3-D models depicting a possible future for the West End in order to minimize public discussion.
• West End - Archivist ensures city’s queer history kept for posterity: Retired librarian, archivist and West End resident Ron Dutton says the city’s queer communities have many milestone anniversaries to celebrate now and in the near future, including the 35th anniversary of Pride this month.

It may not always be illuminating, but there is such talent and clarity of story in the Honest Fishmongers production of Measure for Measure it is never a ‘problem’.

The morality in 17th century Vienna has gotten a little lax, but rather than try to rein it in himself, the Duke decides to delegate that task to his underlings Angelo and Escalus.  With a puritanical hand, Angelo resurrects a previously unused law that condemns Claudio to death for getting his girlfriend pregnant.  Despite taking a moral high-ground, Angelo lusts after Claudio’s sister Isabella, trying to convince her that the only way to save her brother is to have sex with him.  But even with her brother’s life in the balance, Isabella just can’t do it.  Of course, the big ruse here is that the Duke has not actually left Vienna, and with a huge case of his own questionable morals secretly manipulates the action disguised as a Friar.

Measure for Measure is so rife with moral ambiguity that if we had not been told it takes place in 17th century Vienna, one might be forgiven in thinking that it was set in a pre-Berlusconi Italy where a little “bunga bunga” is both reviled and celebrated.

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Here are our top gay and Vancouver news picks from January 11th to 18th. A short one this week, but sometimes that's not a bad thing.

Vancouver Gay News

• Vancouver equality activists plan West End vigil in support of LGBT rights in Uganda
• This week in (gay) Vancouver: Sketch comedy, music to help beat the winter blues and a Russian tale of romance, intrigue and unrequited love are all part of what we’re most looking forward to this week in (gay) Vancouver.

Gay World News

• LGBT tolerance growing in Jamaica, push to repeal of anti-gay law: A 25-year-old, who is gay and uses a pseudonym to protect himself and his family, grew up in Kingston and recalls how he was repeatedly harassed over his sexuality before moving to the United States in 2012.
• Why Do So Many Gay People Smoke?: It’s dismaying but not surprising to learn from a new study that a startling 33 percent of LGBTQ people smoke—a rate 68 percent higher than the general U.S. population.
• New anti-gay law resulting in torture, arrests, activists say: First the police targeted the gay men, then tortured them into naming dozens of others who now are being hunted down, human rights activists said Tuesday, warning that such persecution will rise under a new Nigerian law.

Vancouver drag performer Delica C. helps re-discover Judy Garland for a new generation.

A relative newcomer to Vancouver’s drag scene, 27 year-old Delica C. (aka Tristan Pearson) is about to give the performance of his career as he takes on the larger-than-life Judy Garland in a fundraiser for the frank theatre company.

“I knew her from The Wizard of Oz and from seeing her sing the duet with Barbra Streisand online, but other than that I knew very little about her,” admits Pearson who will headline the Judy & Company fundraiser on January 25.

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