BLACK LESBIAN THEATRE

Black Lesbian Theatre? Girl, are you kidding? Now, we all know about Black American theatre, sure. That goes all the way back to The African Company, established in 1820. An am- ateur group, it performed in a ram- shackle building at the corner of Bleek- er and Mercer Streets in New York's low- er Manhattan. And there is lesbian the- atre, its history shorter and more ob- scure, usually hidden behind the less provocative lable of "Women's Theatre." But Black Lesbian Theatre? Come off it! Well, at least nine women, black lesbians, every one, don't intend to come off it, but rather, as Aretha says, "Jump to it!" Really, why not? What's the big deal? Each of us sitting in that circle on Thursday, 30 September at the Berkeley Women's Center, was an un- mistakable, inescapable picture of sur- vival. We are black, we are women and we are lesbians. To have made it to that circle, we each "performed," in some way, every day of our lives. We knew our lines, knew when to come in, knew when to stay out. We knew if we went up on our lines, if we weren't quick studies, we'd be taken on out, not called back.

But that's no news. Most black women anywhere, lesbian, straight, what- ever, perform major and minor miracles to make it through 'til the next day. We all know survival. But we also know that just surviving doesn't necessarily make good theatre. That takes other skills--acting, set design, lighting, sound, writing, producing, directing.

It quickly became clear that the women in the circle that night are after quality.

"I want it to be good." said one sister. "I don't want to do shit the- atre.

So, what do we have to make good theatre happen? We went around the room and talked about why we'd come, what we wanted a black lesbian theatre to do, to be, and we put out what we were about, what we each could bring. What we have is pretty amazing. We are actors and writers and technical women. There is a little directing and producing exper- ience. Our knowledge and skills range from novice to professional. One wom- an's last appearance on stage was in the sixth grade: "I still remember the standing ovation I got!" For another, "I knew when I was in my Mama's belly I was going to act." And she's been doing that almost ever since.

We have former street and children's theatre performers, a woman who was with the Theatre of the Deaf in Minneapolis, one from the Avanti Dance Theatre in

Philadelphia, another who worked with Yolanda King's Drama Theatre in New York. We have a poet who has read in Califor- nia, Colorado and New York. One of us has written a one-act play about women in prison, another is writing her first novel--the main character is a black lesbian playwright. Two of us are jour- nalists with backgrounds in radio, tel- evision and newspaper reporting and production.

As we talked, we discovered how a- like our lives have been, and how dif- ferent. Two of us grew up dancers, training in classical ballet, dreaming of professional careers. Our parents, cautious for and protective of their very young black daughters, pointed us in other directions, towards the suppo- sedly more economically stable worlds of education and sociology ("With a degree in that and 50%, might buy you a bus ride," one sister quipped. And we all knew what that was about). Some of us knew, almost from day one, that we were dykes. Others took 30 or more years to figure it out. We are out to some of our families and that is about both pain and joy. One of our mothers dances with her daughter at The Jube. For other mothers, and fathers, it's more than they can do to even say the word "les- bian," much less know that that's part of who their daughter is. If we only looked to ourselves, fewer than ten wom- en, where we've been, who we are, we would have material enough for years of work.

Or

We don't yet know what kind of the- atre we want or will be able to do. We could concentrate on developing a full- fledged company, complete with permanent stage, performing full-length plays. we could start on a smaller scale, doing readers' theatre, with a minimum of props and staging. There is also a wide country between those two alternatives which we can explore. As BLN goes to press, we've held two meetings. We've talked a little bit about some of the issues we'd like to look at theatrical- ly, among them, women in South Africa; coming out; being a black lesbian in the black community; personal experiences with racism; racism in the media.

There was something very special about that first night we came together, black lesbians interested in the thea- tre. We all expressed an urgent need to make real, enduring connections with other black women, unafraid of being who we are. We all, in one way or another, expressed disatisfaction with the Bay Area's women's community, for all its talk of political consciousness and pol- itical progressiveness: It's still a

(Cont'd on p.8)

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