eveningsout

June 15, 2007

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

play hones in on the real-life story about the gay-bashing death of Matthew Shepard. Based on over 200 interviews with inhabitants of Laramie, Wyoming, where Shepard was beaten, and news reports, the play has a documentary feel to it that is riveting and moving.

Even though the play is set after Shepard's death, his presence looms large in a piece that warns of the horrible plight facing LGBT people in a culture that still vilifies homosexuals. This is a play which, in its own subtle and powerful ways, demands change in the society at large.

Love! Valour! Compassion!

By out playwright Terrence McNally, this tragicomedy tells the story about the lives of eight gay men as they spend three summers at a lake house in upstate New York.

McNally seems particularly interested in how these men are coping after ten years of HIV and AIDS has ravaged the community. Stunningly funny and startlingly moving, McNally creates characters who are as diverse as it gets, from a Latin hunk and a blind twink to two aging queens and even a pair. of Jekyll and Hyde-like twins.

The play culminates with a unique and poignant sequence of the men practicing a section of Swan Lake for a fundraiser. It also gained notoriety for its lengthy sequences when some or all of the characters are naked on stage. Yet it never feels sleazy, rather metaphorical for the stories of eight men baring all in their lives as they seek peace, love, revenge and redemption.

Sadly, the film version could not capture the beauty and joy of the play.

The Normal Heart

Along with As Is, this play by activistwriter Larry Kramer was one of the first to deal with HIV and AIDS. It is actually a

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fictionalized recounting of Kramer's founding of the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York City during the early days of the plague.

The play has all of Kramer's own hallmarks as on of the great icons of queer activism anger, courage, and unflinching humanity.

A Poster of the Cosmos

Openly gay writer Lanford Wilson, who has written many plays with queer characters, wrote this one-act monologue about a blue collar working guy in New York City who is being interrogated about the death of his lover.

What emerges in the ensuing hour or so is a heartbreaking story about love and the loss of it.

Framed by the presence of AIDS, the play is a lyrical yet stark portrayal of the layers of pain that queer love must endure both from within and without. Wilson packs into a one-act what most writers struggle to accomplish in full-length plays.

Torch Song Trilogy

Writer, actor and activist Harvey Fierstein's play in three acts-"International Stud," "Fugue in a Nursery" and "Widows and Children First"-celebrates the life and longings of a New York drag queen over many years.

Told with Fierstein's inimitable humor and panache, Torch Song Trilogy really paved the way for a lot of gay theater from the 1980s onward.

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom

This edgy, comedic and meta-theatrical work by über-performer Charles Busch is a farcical cult hit about the disparate yet similar worlds of vampires and movies.

Busch is an icon in his own right, having broken down many taboos in the theater, including the notion of men playing women's roles as serious performances, not ones in drag. This of course opens up the door for Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. Moreover, Busch's unique brand of entertainment, which melds the kitschy with the political has influenced a lot of queer theater and performers.

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07/08

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Annie

October 5 & 6. 2007

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