Tag Archives: CBC

Cabaret Update and CBC Radio Interview

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

The Club Carousel Cabaret is sold out! I went to the dress rehearsal a couple of days ago, and for the lucky people who have tickets, it will be a treat – in fact – I found it very moving.

The Calgary Gay History Project and Third Street Theatre have been getting a lot of media attention in regard to the cabaret. Perhaps the most heartfelt interview to date was on CBC Calgary’s Homestretch with host Doug Dirks. It was a 10 minute interview was with Lois Szabo, Club Carousel Founder and Kevin Allen from the Calgary Gay History project, on what life was like for gay people in the 60s. Here is an audio link: Calgary’s First Gay Nightclub, Jan 27, 2014.

Lois will be my special guest on a history panel discussion at the Cabaret, along with Calgary filmmaker, Michelle Wong, and Fairy Tales Executive Director, James Demers.

Issue of Club Carousel Capers from exactly 40 years ago.

Club Carousel was the foundation of an organized gay community in Calgary and we owe those brave volunteers who founded and operated the club a great amount of respect and gratitude. The Cabaret tonight is a gesture in this regard – thank you elders!

[KA]

2 Gay History Presentations this week – bring walking shoes!

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

On Friday May 3rd from 5:30 – 7:00 PM, please join me at the Castell Central Library (616 Macleod Trail SE) for an encore presentation of Calgary’s Secret Gay History. The presentation will be similar to the one I gave at CommunityWise on February 27th, but there will be some new material – as there have been new discoveries!

Come specifically to find out more about this:

The library is asking people to register in advance for this talk (free), in order to gauge numbers. As well there will be complimentary Wine & Cheese. This presentation is part of a series called Heritage Matters and is a co-production between the Calgary Public Library and the Calgary Heritage Authority.

Then on Saturday May 4th, at 10 AM, I am leading a Calgary Gay History Jane’s Walk. Expect the walk to take 90 minutes or so, and we will travel to significant historical gathering spots in the Beltline, beginning and ending at CommunityWise (the former Old Y, 233 12 Ave. SW).

Finally I need to do a few shout outs and thanks:

1) Terry MacKenzie from the Calgary Heritage Authority has been an incredible promoter and facebook provocateur for the project – thank you!

2) Third Street Theatre, Calgary’s new queer theatre company, is performing I Am My Own Wife, a historical play about German transvestite, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The 2003 Pulitzer and Tony Award winning play has never been performed in Calgary, and Third Street does a bang-up job. There are only a few more shows…

3) Thank you Laura Lushington and Avenue Magazine for profiling the project this week.

4) Thank you Paul Karchut, Director of CBC’s Calgary Eyeopener, for the engaging interview (we did an abbreviated Jane’s Walk together today). The story can be heard online: here.

Hope to see you this weekend!

LGBT History Month – check out this CBC video from 1959!

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

Happy October, which also happens to be LGBT History Month in North America. LGBT History Month began in 1994, founded by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson who was concerned about the lack of LGBT issues in the education curriculum.

October was chosen by Wilson because National Coming Out Day already was established and well known, on October 11, and October commemorated the first march on Washington by queer activists in 1979. LGBT History Month is intended to encourage honesty and openness about being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Speaking of honest and openness. I discovered this early pioneering video on the CBC’s digital archives website, titled, Homosexuality in Canada: A psychiatric ‘problem’.” The synopsis is as follows: “It’s 1959, and homosexuality is a topic few are willing to discuss. Like some of the people interviewed on the street in this CBC Television clip, many believe that homosexuals should be locked up. Most in the medical profession believe homosexuality is, at best, a psychiatric problem. But a gay man — interviewed in silhouette to protect his identity — says society has to get used to homosexuals, and not the other way around.”

The 27-minute documentary concludes with an interview of British lawyer, H.A.D. Oliver who concludes nobly, “We feel – many of us – that the homosexual who performs what to him is a natural act, in the privacy of his home, with other adults similarly inclined, does no harm to society. He does not interfere with society, and why therefore should society interfere with him?” Why indeed…