I just watched the new Lady Gaga music video for “Born this Way,” and I’d like to ask for everyone to stop calling the song a Madonna knock off.  The ancestry of the song and the video can be traced back to Madonna, but so what? 

This past Friday evening the project that I have worked on for the past six weeks finally came to fruition with a successful opening night performance to a very receptive audience.  Anyone who creates something and then presents it to the public, regardless of format or discipline, knows that the opening/launch can be terrifying.  In the past I’ve always found myself wringing my proverbial apron, unable to let go of the project, and wanting to run out of the theatre as the performance unfolded.  This time, I feel like I turned a corner in my practice as a director, and I learned to just trust the work that I’ve done, and more importantly, to trust the other people that I’ve made the work with:  the actors and the production team. 

So media outlets are all abuzz with the Obama administration’s statements today about the Defense of Marriage Act.  I first learned about it when the American Educational Research Association (AERA) queer sig list-serv exploded in a flurry of emails this afternoon, and since then I’ve had a chance to read CNN.com and the New York Times coverage.