Scorching off the success of Hulu’s “Mid-Century Modern,” Nathan Lee Graham will kick off LGBTQ+ Pleasure Month subsequent week with a quick return to the New York stage.
The actor will likely be a visitor of honor on the thirteenth annual “Night of a Thousand Judys,” set to happen at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in New York on Monday, June 2. He’s receiving the second annual Judy Icon Award, which celebrates contributions to queer rights and visibility and is called after Hollywood legend Judy Garland.
Equally, tv and movie producer Jeremy Katz will settle for the Good Judy Award in recognition of his dedication to “uplifting the LGBTQ+ community.”
“They say one is judged by the company they keep,” Graham, whose credit additionally embrace the Reese Witherspoon comedy “Sweet Home Alabama” and Broadway’s “The Wild Party,” instructed HuffPost. “If this is true, then being associated with the incomparable Judy Garland and [2024 Judy Icon Award recipient] Justin Vivian Bond [means] I’m doing something right!”
To mark the event, Graham and the “Night of a Thousand Judys” artistic group have launched a video of his chilling efficiency eventually yr’s occasion. In it, he performs the traditional torch track “Stormy Weather,” which Garland famously crooned at her Carnegie Corridor live performance in 1961 and on her CBS selection sequence two years later.
Watch Nathan Lee Graham’s efficiency of “Stormy Weather” beneath.
Describing “Stormy Weather” as “powerful, daring and scary,” Graham stated the track is “about allowing yourself to feel all of the feels. To purge oneself so that you come out on the other side… maybe? And to do it in front of others takes a certain kind of courage.”
Since its inception in 2012, “Night of a Thousand Judys” has featured a number of Broadway, movie and TV stars. Collectively, they convey a contemporary shine to Garland’s many classics, together with “The Man That Got Away” from 1954’s “A Star Is Born” and, after all, “Over the Rainbow” from 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz,” in a one-night-only live performance.
As in earlier years, this yr’s occasion is hosted by writer-performer Justin Elizabeth Sayre, whose TV credit embrace “2 Broke Girls,” with proceeds benefiting the Ali Forney Middle, a New York-based advocacy group for homeless LGBTQ+ youth. Those that can’t attend the present however nonetheless want to donate to the Ali Forney Middle can accomplish that right here.
Eric Carpenter through Getty Pictures
The 2025 lineup consists of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” veteran Alexis Michelle and Grammy-winning actor and singer NaTasha Yvette Williams, a 2023 Tony Award nominee for the stage adaptation of “Some Like It Hot.”
Talking to HuffPost, Sayre clarified that “Night of a Thousand Judys” was meant as an “inspiration show,” noting: “We’re yet again expanding the boundaries of what Judy means to people and how far and wide her talents continue to reach.”
“She’s a spiritual guide for me,” Sayre stated of Garland, who died in 1969 at age 47. “She demands that I be brave. She grabs me by the hands and tells me to get out there and ‘sing ’em all and stay all night.’”
Sayre, who makes use of they/them pronouns, went on to notice: “How do we reach the hearts of those around us? Not by concentrating on what divides us, but imagining a world in brilliant Technicolor where we all get over the rainbow and find a place like home.”
This yr’s “Night of a Thousand Judys” will likely be significantly significant for Sayre, who’s getting married to their associate 5 days after the present. They’re additionally acutely aware of the many rights rollbacks the LGBTQ+ neighborhood at present faces on the federal degree below President Donald Trump.
“We’re all on the chopping block, whether we realize it or not,” Sayre stated. “But in a moment like that, what are we supposed to do? Hide? Acquiesce to these charlatans and fear-mongers? Hand over the rights we’ve fought so hard for and hide? Not on your life.”
They went on to notice: “I want to be bigger, braver, gayer, more gender-queer, more non-binary, more woke than ever, because the alternative is a world of cruelty and stupidity, and I, for one, refuse to be intimidated by so much stupidity any longer.”
