• What did Alvin Ailey’s mother do when she first saw him in stage makeup?
• Why did George Frideric Handel censor his unpublished pastoral cantatas in the 1730s?
• How many degrees separate Gore Vidal from Cole Porter’s 1948 Broadway musical, Kiss Me Kate?
• How did the operatic composer Jean-Baptiste Lully lose favor at the court of Louis XIV?

Find the answers—and much, much more—in The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater. Drawn from the fascinating online encyclopedia of queer arts and culture, which the Advocate dubbed the “Encyclopedia Britanniqueer”—this compendium of all things queer and beautiful features over 200 articles on composers, choreographers, singers, musicians, and dancers across eras and styles.

Perfect for settling arguments or for a serene hour by a sunny window, this is the kind of reference book you can’t tear yourself away from, with authoritative overviews on genres and gay-themed works and biographical entries on figures like Jerome Robbins, Noël Coward, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Diaghilev, Bessie Smith, Stephen Sondheim, Rufus Wainwright, and Ani DiFranco.

Features more than 200 articles, including:

• Ballets Russes
• Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
• Leonard Bernstein
• Boy George
• Vincente Minnelli
• Marlene Dietrich
• k.d. lang
• Camille Saint-Saëns
• Drag Shows
• William Thomas Strayhorn
• Manuel de Falla (y Matheu)
• Hildegard of Bingen
• Sylvester
• Joan Jett
• Kabuki
• Little Richard
• Bill T. Jones
• Dusty Springfield
• Freddie Mercury
• Disco and Dance Music
• Franco Zeffirelli
• Music Videos
• Blues Music
• Pet Shop Boys
• Cabarets and Revues
• Michael Tilson Thomas
• Janis Joplin
• Nathan Lane
• Ethel Waters
• Divas
• Morrissey
• Dame Ethel Smyth
• Isadora Duncan
• David Geffen
• Variety and Vaudeville
• George C. Wolfe

The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater has an advisory board of six editorial consultants and includes entries by nearly 100 scholars. The General Editor is Claude J. Summers, a pioneer in the glbtq studies movement and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Summers is also the editor of The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, which was named one of the best reference books of 2003 by the New York Public Library. He lives in New Orleans.

Praise for the Queer Encyclopedia series:

“Indispensable for aficionados.” — Out magazine
“A treat for casual fans and hardcore enthusiasts.” — The Washington Blade
“The best introduction to the major themes and artists associated with queer art currently available.” — Library Journal

For more information, contact:

Diane Levinson
Cleis Press
(415) 575-4700
dlevinson@cleispress.com
http://www.cleispress.com