On Thursday, March 5, 1987, the chorus brought two stars to Davies Symphony Hall.
The bill
The Chronicle announced that female impersonator Charles Pierce and Broadway and cabaret singer Barbara Cook would appear with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus in “A Night to Remember,” with proceeds benefiting the chorus. The Sunday Examiner & Chronicle ad listed Gregg Tallman as musical director and billed the evening as a benefit for Golden Gate Performing Arts, the chorus’s nonprofit.
Paying off 1981
The money mattered. A month later, the Examiner reported that the chorus had just paid $61,753 toward its 1981 national tour debt, with $66,000 still owed, and that four members had mortgaged their homes to cover the tour. The Bay Area Reporter later recalled the Cook and Pierce evening as one of the chorus’s signature collaborations.
From the archives: this post retells reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle. The original articles survive only in newspaper archives, so we have told the story here in our own words. Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.
Sources
- San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, “Charles Pierce and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus with Barbara Cook (advertisement)”, March 1, 1987. sfchronicle.com
- San Francisco Chronicle, “Gay Chorus Benefit”, March 3, 1987. sfchronicle.com
- San Francisco Examiner, “Gay chorus: Voices of life amid death” by Elizabeth Fernandez, April 7, 1987. sfexaminer.com
