~ September 10,

It's showtime

As the season begins, there are more theatres, with more plays

by Dawn E. Leach

and Doreen Cudnik

Cleveland-It is theatre season, and there

is a lot of theatre going on in northeast Ohio this year.

Openly gay director Dan Kilbane said there are so many shows in production that theatre companies are scrambling to find space to perform, and good actors are finding themselves doing double duty as companies compete for their talents. Two new companies, The Next Production Company and Bad Epitaph Theater Company, have recently formed and begun producing shows, and Kilbane hinted there will be at least one more by the new year.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender audiences have a reputation for loyalty, and theatre publicists covet the queer theatrelover's attention. Naturally, there is plenty of fare that caters to LGBT audiences.

LGBT theatre package offered

As part of their audience development and outreach plan, the Cleveland Play House has unveiled "Friends to Friends," a theatre package for the LGBT community.

The program was created as a way to bring the LGBT community together "to enjoy two evenings of excellent professional theatre, and party with their friends and loved ones at the Cleveland Play House," said marketing director Peter Cambariere.

“As a gay man, I notice that whenever I get an invitation for a gay event of some sort, it's always a fundraiser," Cambariere said. "While I support those types of events, sometimes it's good to just get together with other gay people and enjoy the theatre without any other strings attached."

If Friend to Friends is a success, Cambariere said it may lead to the Play House producing more work by lesbian and gay playwrights, and containing LGBT

themes.

Jill Levin and Brian Breth are two yuppies whose lives fall apart when they dog-sit for a friend in Sweet Phoebe, now at Cleveland Public Theatre.

instrumental in working with the CWRU faculty to introduce domestic partnership benefits to the university.

"There's always arts and entertainment that's accessible to the gay and lesbian community, but I felt there was a void that could easily be filled, and [Friends to Friends] gives us an opportunity to do that," Howard said. "If the venture proves fruitful and we're able to carry it over into future seasons, we'll be able to accommodate most people's tastes."

Howard added that she would like to eventually see work that is more lesbian-themed, and that deals with AIDS issues, "but we have to get through the first season."

The Friends to Friends membership fee of $60 per person includes tickets for both shows, and the accompanying social event. Following the November 20 performance of Seascape, the group will head over to Code

Terrance McNally's It's Only a Play opens October 15 at the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby.

"The future of Friends to Friends will be based on the success," Cambariere said. “If a large number of people turn out and it's really successful, then next year we'll do more [gay-themed] shows. Basically we're just testing the waters."

The two plays chosen by the Friends to Friends committee, chaired by Dan Dowhower and Kathryn Howard, are Seascape, by gay playwright Edward Albee, and The Emancipation of Valet du Chambre, a world première by playwright Murphy Guyer based on Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Howard works as an AIDS researcher at Case Western Reserve University. She was previously involved in the Happy Feet Dance Collective, a group of women that produced dance and social events in Cleveland's lesbian and bisexual women's community.

Dowhower is an active member of the Human Rights Campaign Cleveland dinner planning committee. He and Howard were

Blue nightclub, where free beer and wine will be provided to club members. Prior to the April 30 matinee of Emancipation, club members will enjoy brunch at the Play House Club, where the bloody marys will flow freely.

Membership Friends to Friends also allows individuals to purchase tickets to any other Play House production at a 30% discount.

To find out more about Friends to Friends, call the Play House at 216-795-7000.

Young, closeted, and in trouble

Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights has carefully nurtured a long-standing relationship with lesbian and gay audiences, intentionally choosing material with queer content that many other theatres won't touch.

One such play is Porcelain, which will appear at Dobama next month.

The play is about a young, gay Asian man living in London who is on trial for the

most sensational tidbits for a documentary being filmed. John is betrayed again and again.

Throughout the play is woven a Chinese fable of the Crow and the Sparrows, in which a crow decides to leave the community of crows to join the sparrows at the opposite end of the field. After struggling to fit in, the crow finally realizes that the sparrows only tolerate him and can't truly embrace him. He returns to the crows, only to discover that he has been changed and now no longer fits in with the crows either.

Asians and Friends Cleveland is in the process of making plans to go to Porcelain, which runs from October 15 through November 6.

Teens in love

Running in repertory with Porcelain is a Dobama Night Kitchen production of Stupid Kids, an Ohio première.

Dan Kilbane-whose name can be found somewhere in most of Dobama's programs in the last couple years-is directing the show, which he describes as the story of "four teenagers growing up in the wasteland that is the suburbs.”

Two of the teens are in the process of discovering that they are gay-and have crushes on the other two, their best friends. The energy is romantic and hot, said Kilbane-and full of all the angst that the teen years bring.

"They're all dealing with trying to find acceptance in the world and coming to terms with their identities," Kilbane said. "They're looking for attention and validation."

The show combines alternative rock music from the 80s and 90s with movement to tell their story.

"Two things that propelled me to do this

show are what happened to Matthew Shepard

and Robbie Kirkland, and seeing kids coming out younger and younger," Kilbane said. Kilbane also finds the play reminds him of his own coming out process.

"I really relate to Neechee [the gay male character]," Kilbane said. “I've done some of the same things that he does in the play."

Stupid Kids runs October 22 through November 6, and is scheduled for performances immediately after Porcelain. There will be a special package ticket to include both shows. For more information, call Dobama at 216932-6838.

murder of his lover. Using an Asian Only a play

minimalistic style, a two-person cast lays out this story of love and betrayal piece by piece.

As the story unfolds, the audience gets to know this lonely, isolated man, who rejected his Chinese name and took the name John. He is Asian in a world of white faces, and gay in a heterosexual culture. He is further cut off from his family because he can't tell them he's gay. He longs to find lasting love, but instead finds fleeting beauty in cottaging (sex in public bathrooms), which leaves him feeling terribly dirty.

A muckraking reporter hounds everyone involved in the murder, trying to dig up the

Another one of the smaller community theatres, the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby, will be presenting Terrance McNally's It's Only a Play October 15-30. This play by the openly gay McNally takes a humorous look at a cast

of misfits and wannabes on the opening night

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