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The players: a look at the gay men and women who make Sin City spectacular

Advocate, The, March 25, 2008 by Corey Scholibo

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THE FORCE Cirque du Soleil

With five shows running nearly every night, Cirque has become as synonymous with Vegas as blackjack. More than 400 performers and 1,000 support staff mean it's also one of the biggest entertainment employers in the city, providing an afterlife for Olympic-caliber acrobats, swimmers, and countless other athletic and artistic talents. Cirque's influence and financial pull is so powerful that it convinced the Beatles' organization to let it create Love. a show inspired by and set to original Abbey Road Studios recordings. Though most Cirque performances have homoerotic moments, the Cabaret-inspired Zumanity goes so far as to feature two men in an overtly sexual dance that ends in a kiss.

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"When I first came to the show, my jaw was on the floor." says reserved British dancer Arthur Kyeyune, who plays one half of the male couple. "I was completely in shock at the material I was going to be working with." But he says the prestige of the Cirque brand ultimately made him comfortable. Even without a same-sex smooch, most shows--which are performed live and involve a complicated dance between performers stagehands, and musicians--are inherently gay says Janine DeLorenzo, an Australian musician and assistant bandleader for KA. Thinking on your feet and with your fingers," she says. "That's what a lesbian does."

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THE SAVIOR Father Joseph

Sitting in the parking lot of St. Rose Dominican Hospital, 20 minutes from the Strip. the St. Therese Center isn't much to look at. But it's the little things that count here. Run by the almost stereotypically jolly Father Joseph and funded by the Dominican Order, the center provides spiritual services, emotional support groups, workshops, seminars, haircuts, clothes, and food to anyone "infected or affected by HIV/AIDS." "If you had told me when I was ordained that I'd be talking on the phone to total strangers about their sex practices, I would have said you're crazy," says the 58-old priest. "Yet here we are, and I think it's an important place for the church to be." The center now serves 3,200 clients. 70% of whom are LGBT. Though its annual budget is a mere $500,000, the center has become a force for regional HIV activism. Joseph is often the first point of contact for people who find themselves badly in need of aid. "Everyone says, 'It's Father Joseph, but if you need to drop the Father part, that's fine,'" explains Joseph. "Or they'll tell them, 'Go see the man in the white dress.' Whatever works--whatever gets them in the door."

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THE FACE

Chris Saldana

Chris Saldana's claim to fame is being the "token gay Catholic Hispanic reporter in Las Vegas." But as weekend anchor and reporter on local CBS affiliate KLAS TV, the 31-year-old native of Del Rio, Texas, is also one of the city's most visible and important gay faces. Since moving to Vegas four years ago, he has emceed charity events to benefit Candice Nichols's Gay and Lesbian Community Center, the local HIV housing organization Golden Rainbow, and dozens of others. He even takes time to read to schoolchildren for career days. Saldana explains, "Basically, anything anyone asks me to do to support the community, I do."

THE TRAILBLAZER

Candice Nichols

Candice Nichols was married with two kids when she came out 16 years ago at age 38. She got married, she explains, "because when I had those feelings there was no place to go." Now , thanks to her work for the last three years as head of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, there is. The onetime cocktail waitress is equally herself discussing the problems facing the LGBT community or sharing a smoke with her neighbors, the owners of a gay bathhouse. As executive director, Nichols is the only full-time paid staffer, but she has revitalized what was once a struggling organization. She moved the center into a larger space where the boards of nearly every local LGBT organization now meet. With a can-do attitude that fits this frontier town, she's aiming to expand the center's hours and influence. "I just focus on our own integrity," she says. "We do the best we can with the most integrity, and screw them if they don't like it."

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THE SPLIT PERSONALITY

Jon Ebersole

Only in Las Vegas could Jon Ebersole be a high-powered architectural interior designer by day and drag personality Jessika Sterling by night. As director of design and branding at Marnell Corrao Architecture. Ebersole is responsible for every aspect of his clients' designs--from the shape of the room to the pile of the carpet. He'll soon be redesigning a big property on the Strip--all very hush-hush for now--and is currently working on a new off-the-Strip property called M Resort. It makes you wonder how Ebersole finds time (as his alter ego, Sterling) to be a hostess at circuit parties and write about them for JustCircutt.com. But Vegas may turn out to be the place where Ebersole can finally be himself. As a young man Ebersole had considered fully transitioning info a woman but is now glad he didn't. "It's tough for people to accept me for both sides," he explains. "I've had that problem my whole life."

The players: a look at the gay men and women who make Sin City spectacular

Advocate, The, March 25, 2008 by Corey Scholibo

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