Sky Gilbert - Quillette

The Sad Spectacle of ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’

No, the female impersonators reading stories to children aren’t ‘groomers.’ They’re just needy gay men desperate for validation from straight society.

Sky Gilbert

26 Feb 2023 · 11 min read

With Theatres Shuttered, I Tried to Stage a 'Zoom Play.' (It Didn't Work)

I once directed a classical musical—Anything Goes—at Canada’s Shaw Festival. But that’s the only play I’ve directed that was seen by a large audience.

Sky Gilbert

9 Mar 2021 · 8 min read

R.M. Vaughan (1965–2020): A Beautiful Mind Silently Extinguished in a Time of Fear

We were Oscar Wilde’s great-grand-nephews, dandy aesthetes obsessed as much with the curl of our hair as with art or politics.

Sky Gilbert

6 Nov 2020 · 8 min read

For Gay Men Who Came of Age in the 1980s, a Grim Sense of Déja Vu

Surrounding all of these movements has been the metaphorical connection of disease with not only illness, but also impurity more generally—concepts that have obvious and horrifying linkages to racist political movements.

Sky Gilbert

12 Apr 2020 · 8 min read

By Seeking ‘Safer Spaces’ for Actors, We’re Creating a Hostile Environment for Art

I honestly have no idea why any actor would want to appear in a serious play featuring protagonists who are not, in some way, “screwed up.”

Sky Gilbert

7 Feb 2020 · 8 min read

The Rise of ‘Drag Kids’—and the Death of Gay Culture

There was—and will always be—promiscuity, homosexuality, prostitution, fetish culture and adultery—because sex is human.

Sky Gilbert

10 Aug 2019 · 13 min read

Quillette Podcast 36 – Gay Icon Sky Gilbert on Being Excommunicated by the LGBT Theater Company he Founded

Jonathan Kay talks to Sky Gilbert, gay playwright and drag queen, about the history of Canada’s gay community and being excommunicated by the LGBT theater company he founded. Sky Gilbert wrote about this ordeal recently in Quillette.