Andrew Jankowski

1 week ago | wweek.com | Andrew Jankowski

Michael Speciàle converted to Mormonism in the early ‘00s, finding comfort in the religion’s sense of personal order and promises of prosperity in exchange for following the rules. He wasn’t out to himself at the time, but others around him sensed that he was likely gay. Though he attended a performing arts school in Vancouver, Wash., Speciàle still grew up in a community at a time when open homophobia was still socially acceptable.

1 week ago | wweek.com | Andrew Jankowski |Rachel Saslow

Portland Playhouse’s 2024–25 season closer Joe Turner’s Come and Gone opens tomorrow night. But less than 24 hours before curtain, the National Endowment for the Arts informed the theater company via a May 2 email that a $25,000 award to fund the production had been revoked. Staging August Wilson’s play, the email says, no longer aligns with President Donald Trump’s curatorial vision for the country.

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Andrew Jankowski

Alyssa Hughes saysthat her brother, Jason, introduced her to the Japanese art installation concept called wind phones. Itaru Sasaki first installed a disconnected rotary phone, which he called Kaze No Denwa, or wind phone, in his garden in 2010 to stay connected to a cousin who died from cancer.

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Andrew Jankowski

2–5: Rachel WongSounds like: a soundtrack for self-love and situationships. Rachel Wong is glad to reintroduce herself to audiences as one of Portland’s Best New Bands. A seasoned professional musician, Wong, 36, rebranded from an Obama-era singer-songwriter into a soulful pop artist after an eight-year hiatus. In that time, Wong not only accepted her queer identity and started a family with her wife and kids, but came to understand her mental health needs while living with depression.

2 weeks ago | wweek.com | Andrew Jankowski

Out queer male pop stars felt unthinkable 10 years ago. They were more plentiful before the AIDS crisis, but Lance Bass, Ricky Martin, Adam Lambert and Sam Smith were outliers whose legacies homophobes threatened to cheapen and discredit. Now artists like Lil Nas X, Khalid, Troye Sivan and Omar Apollo are voicing and embodying queer men’s dreams, fears and desires openly, in their own words, and finding audiences.