Karen Hauge | KCMetropolis.org

Possibly the most FABULOUS addition to this year’s Fringe Festival, Heartland Men’s Chorus’s Big Gay Sing! brings the audience into the action with a big-screen projection of each and every wonderful word of all the anthemic pop songs they perform. The audience is encouraged to— nay, almost shamed into— singing along, by songstress drag queen Daisy Buckët and her friend Summer Tryst, which is not a difficult task when you consider the material the audience gets to sing. The works of Journey, ABBA, Meghan Trainor, and more feature in this musical extravaganza that got the whole room on their feet and partying along with HMC.

HMC and artistic director Dustin S. Cates stuck to simple arrangements with two- or three-part harmonies, a strong choice in the somewhat odd performance space of City Stage. The chorus had a blast, each man bringing a bag of props along to send the crowd into giggles with every appearance of sunglasses, feather boas, cowboy hats, or wigs. The best use of these props was definitely Stay Tuned!, a medley of popular TV show theme songs; I mean, the Brady Bunch theme song is funny enough on its own, but add wigs and a recreation of the opening Hollywood Squares-style shot and you’re sure to have a room full of people clutching their bladders and praying for control.

Pop anthems like “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “It’s Raining Men” were surely memorable, but it was the appropriately wacked-out rendition of “Time Warp” that will stick in my brain forever. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a nearly full house of casually dressed suburbanites jump to their feet and do the pelvic thrust with absolutely no provocation. Daisy’s “All About That Bass” restored my interest in that song completely, and the riotous disco medley that closed the show had us all on our feet again and dancing out of the theater.

REVIEW:
KC Fringe 2015
Big Gay Sing!
Friday, July 17; Saturday, July 18, 6:00pm (Reviewed); Saturday, July 18, 10:00pm; Sunday, July 19
City Stage Theatre at Union Station
30 West Pershing Rd., Kansas City MO
For more tickets and more information, visit http://www.kcfringe.org

Paul Horsley | The Independent

There’s a zephyr wind blowing through gay men’s choirs in America, and Heartland Men’s Chorus appears to have found just the right man to take it into this new era of acceptance and tolerance. On June 13th and 14th, Dustin Cates concludes his brilliant first season as the choir’s artistic director with “A Little Bit Wicked: The Music of Stephen Schwartz,” and the 35-year-old Kansas City native is fully aware of how much things have changed since the choir was founded just a few years after he was born. But he says that, even as the choir is becoming more inclusive and is likely to continue this trend, its goal remains the same: “The mission of Heartland Men’s Chorus is to sing, and to change people,” says the former choir director at Olathe East High School, who attended Ruskin High and has degrees from UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and Baker University in Baldwin. “To help them heal, and to inspire them.” Granted, “as ‘gay’ becomes more ‘okay,’ as it is more widely accepted, we’re going to have things to say about a wider variety of issues. Because Heartland Men’s Chorus stands for equality for all people, not just for gay folks.”

LGBT choruses everywhere are asking big questions about how to stay relevant in the face of increasing tolerance. “How do we … continue to address the issues that we do in a social climate that has changed so drastically, even in the past five years?” Dustin asked. When does being called the ‘gay men’s chorus’ become exclusive instead of inclusive? “Heartland Men’s Chorus has done a good job at this,” Dustin said. “We have straight men who sing in the chorus. And I regularly have guys asking, Do I have to be gay to sing in that? And I always say no, we welcome anybody.”

The war is not won, though, and Dustin believes emphatically that HMC still has a huge role to play in helping gay people to heal and grow. “We don’t need to go any farther than 30 miles south or north of Kansas City to find ourselves in communities where kids in high school … would never even consider being who they are, because of the pushback they’d get from their community and their families. So there are still people and things to sing for.”

Still, there’s no question HMC will start addressing broader issues. “When does the Heartland Men’s Chorus have something to say about racial equality, and when does it have something to say about socioeconomic disparity?” The choir’s recent concert “Modern Families,” for example, already took on questions of what it means to be a family in America today.

It’s something Dustin knows a bit about: Three and a half years ago he and his spouse, Dr. Raymond Cattaneo, adopted Emmaus, and they’ve seen how their very presence at the relatively conservative Church of the Resurrection seems to be changing hearts. “When they see Raymond and I and our little boy, we’re no longer the ‘gay agenda’ ” Dustin said. “We’re a family, who doesn’t look much different from theirs. And that’s how you change minds. … Because before that it’s fear of the unknown. ‘They’re able to marry. That’s going to desecrate the institution of marriage.’ We know that’s not true. … And I’ve seen it first-hand, people who, having had the opportunity to get to know us … have had their minds changed.” And the Heartland Men’s Chorus, which continues to expand its vision to include tours of colleges and smaller communities throughout Kansas, has the same kind of opportunity. “We love to sing at the Folly for this loving audience who supports what we do,” Dustin said. “But we also love taking our voices to places where they might not be as welcome.”

Lee Hartman | KCMetropolis.org

Author Richard Bach once stated, “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” It is these beyond extrafamilial bonds that the Heartland Men’s Chorus along with special guest ensemble the Lawrence Children’s Choir explored to packed Folly Theater on Saturday evening’s “Modern Families.”

The acclaimed Lawrence Children’s Choir demonstrated why it continues to win national awards with a lovely opening set of J.S. Bach’s Bist du bei mir, Brian Tate’s Gate, Gate, Jim Papoulis’ Imbakwa, and Wallace Hornady’s Come and Sing! The young performers were remarkably poised with a well balanced sound and command of rhythm which was most noticeable in alternating 3/4, 6/8 Gate, Gate.

The men of HMC joined for the world premiere of Jake Narverud’s The Weaver. Naverud’s tonal language fit Bryan Welch’s text appealingly. Before the main thrust of the program, HMC’s performance of Andrea Ramsey’s Luminescence was the most noteworthy as it is arguably one of the more musically demanding pieces the chorus has programmed. The chorus afforded itself well especially on the coordinated sibilance of all the ess sounds. Unfortunately not all of the harmonies locked into place so some of the chord structures were unstable.

The second half consisted of the musical documentary “Modern Families.” Narrated beautifully by Gillian Power and Brian Ellison, the work interwove projections and family stories of chorus and community members, dance, pantomimed vignettes, and music; there was even an onstage proposal during one of the breaks. Tears of joy, sadness, and memories abounded. If there was one criticism it was that the stories were far more compelling than the overly repetitive musical selections. There were some fine musical standouts though. High tenor Todd Gregory-Downs soloed beautifully on Craig Hella Johnson’s arrangement of “A Thousand Beautiful Things.” René Clausen’s Set Me As a Seal was the most serious musical work of the piece, and the chorus rose to the occasion by sounding the best it has in years. “Way Ahead of My Time” was a laugh riot, anchored by the sure-footed dancing and impressive pipes of John Edmonds and Steve Jeffrey Karlin. How can you not love tap-dancing cavemen who question their sexuality?! Ending with Macklemore’s “Same Love” was a let-down programmatically as the chorus was relegated to simple vamps. Instead, the chorus should have opted for Mary Lambert’s more inclusive, less baggage-ridden “She Keeps Me Warm” and just altered the pronoun.

As artistic director, Dustin Cates has greatly improved the sound and overall musicianship of HMC. It was great to hear a variety of dynamics, better blend, and more complicated harmonies that had not been as fine tuned in past programs.