Tag Archives: kevin moriarty

The gays behind the Super Bowl (sort of)

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Wendy Lopez

The North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, made up of 282 leaders from Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties, includes at least four openly gay members.

Wendy Lopez, vice president of URS Corp., is a member of the Host Committee’s Board of Directors, which is chaired by Roger Staubach and includes the likes of Tom Hicks, Ross Perot Jr. and T. Boone Pickens. Lopez declined our request for an interview about her role on the Board of Directors.

The other openly gay members of the Host Committee — who have honorary roles and haven’t been actively involved in preparations for the Super Bowl — are Tony Vedda, president and CEO of the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce; Jonathan Palant, artistic director for the Turtle Creek Chorale; and Kevin Moriarty, artistic director for the Dallas Theater Center.

Vedda said he, Palant and Moriarty were named to the Host Committee a few years ago by the city of Dallas.

“To the best of our knowledge, there’s not been a GLBT Chamber ever invited to be on a Super Bowl Host Committee,” Vedda said. “For the state of Texas, which people always assume is so conservative, to have this great event here and to have our chamber connected with it, is really a terrific honor. Of course we all know that North Texas is not the same as the rest of Texas.

“We are a gay and lesbian organization, and I am certainly openly gay, and so to be included and attend the events and interact with folks has just been a terrific experience,” Vedda added. “I think they made a real effort to connect within communities, by inviting people like me to be part of the Host Committee. I viewed this not as a one-time deal. I really viewed this as, I want to understand what it is to be on this committee so that, when it happens again, and I expect it will, we’re knowledgeable enough to position our community better.”

—  John Wright

Moriarty’s contract with DTC extended to 2014

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Kevin Moriarty

Kevin Moriarty, the gay artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, will be in town a little longer.

Moriarty, who took over the post in 2007, had his contract extended this week through the end of the 2013-14 season, keeping him as head of the 52-year-old company through August 2014.

The DTC also finished its fiscal year in the black for the eighth time in 10 years, with a budget surplus, despite spending exorbitantly on the revamped musical It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman.

The DTC’s managing director, Mark Hadley, announced his departure earlier this year; this month represented his last show with the organization. He will be working with a church in Arlington. A search is currently under way for his replacement.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones

What’s so gay about Idea Week?

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Raise your hand — how many of you know that this is Idea Week? All righty then.

You might have seen it buzzing around on Twitter and Facebook, but Idea Week is kind of a great idea which you can read more about on the link. Wednesday’s Pecha Kucha event I wrote about is one of the events throughout the week which will feature Cathey Miller and Rawlins Gilliland as presenters and repping the LGBT community. Artistic director Kevin Moriarty also reps when he speaks Thursday at the Dallas Museum of Art on the State of the Arts with DMA director Bonnie Pitman, KERA’s Jeff Whittington and Creative Time president Anne Pasternak.

Nice to see the LGBT community partake in the events going on even in a peripheral way. But I thought, we could do a little more ideating (as they call it). So I posed the question to a few colleagues around the office with no other direction: What’s you’re big idea?

Read ‘em below.

Continue reading “What’s so gay about Idea Week?” »

—  Rich Lopez

‘Bradleyville’ staged reading today at Kalita Humphreys Theater

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Randy Moore reprises his role as Col. J.C. Kinkaid in this staged readon of the Preston Jones, pictured, play, Bradleyville. The event is hosted by the Dallas Theater Center Guild and Uptown Players.  After the reading, Dallas Theater Center’s Kevin Moriarty will lead a discussion of the playwright’s work.

DEETS: Kalita Humphreys Theater,3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. 7 p.m. Free.

—  Rich Lopez

Dallas Observer honors TCC, Uptown Players, Station 4, Gary Fitzsimmons, Kevin Moriarty

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This week’s Observer goes jumbo size with its annual Best of Dallas issue. These are the best issues because it’ll give the obvious kudos to best club, restaurant, actor, etc., but then also goes out of the box for awards like “Best Shiny Happy People” (The Dallas Family Band) and “Best Two-Fisted Drinking” (The Dirty Dusty at City Tavern (Ed. note: agreed!)). We were happily surprised to see the space they gave to some LGBT faves.

Right at the front of the first section in Culture, we see the award for Glee Club given to the Turtle Creek Chorale with a feature written by Elaine Liner. She continues her gay ways with a second feature, “Homecoming Queens” about Israel Luna’s travails as a controversial indie filmmaker. If you caught the live video stream of his radio show today on Rational Broadcasting, he flashed the page for the camera.

Other LGBT awards went to Kevin Moriarty, Dallas Theater Center (best theater director), “Broadway Our Way” by Uptown Players (best theater fundraiser), Gay List Daily (best blast of gay), District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons (best bureaucrat)and Station 4 (best dance club).

There are some others, but you’ll have to snag your own copy to read further on. But don’t try the boxes down here on Fitzhugh. They are cleaned out.

Congrats to all the winners.

—  Rich Lopez

DTC’s Mark Hadley stepping down

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Mark Hadley, the managing director of the Dallas Theater Center, is leaving the company, it was announced today.

Hadley has been at the DTC for nine years under both former artistic director Richard Hamburger and current AD Kevin Moriarty. For six, he has been the managing director. Next season will be his last.

The final show of the 2009-2010 season, “It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman,” just opened. A review will run in the print edition Friday. Here’s our preview of the show.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones