June 5 thru 28 - Fri & Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 2 pm

Arch Brown is a true GLBT cultural hero.  As film maker, playwright, producer, and director he has spent almost as many years promoting gay theater as I have.

Doric Wilson’s

Forever After

Presented by The Arch & Bruce Brown Foundation, Arch Brown, producer, directed by Jim Strait, with Kyle Bradford, Terry Huber, Philip Sebastian Petrie and Tedd Zzenia on a double bill with Robert Askins’s Clean Living.  The Thorny Theater, 2500 N. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs, CA. Tickets: $18, reservations: (760) 325-0853.

October 8 thru 10 - Thur, Fri & Sat at 8 pm

What a nice gift for Rev. Phelps.  A new gay theater right there in his own back yard.  I can hardly wait till he meets Boom Boom and Ceil!  The production has been moved to October to coincide with National Coming Out Day.

Doric Wilson’s

Street Theater

Presented by Stonewall Players of Wichita; Travis M. Hooper, producer, directed by Dale Jones, with Doug Clark, Sean Clark, Justin France, Travis M. Hooper, Terri Ingram, Randy Irvin, Garrett Jeter, Dale Jones, Zach Lattimore, Vivianno Leggaretto, Rebecca Sibolic, Phil Speary & Micheal Tribue.  Metropolitan Community Church, 156 North Kansas, Wichita Kansas. For information call (316) 992-7025 or email @ stonewallplayers@yahoo.com   Tickets: $12 ($10.00 for groups of 10 or more), reservations 316-992-7025.  All proceeds to be donated to Positive Directions Inc.

June 18-July 10, 2009 - Thur & Fri at 8 pm

Ever since AK Miller read A Perfect Relationship more than ten years ago, he has tried to get a production of the play going in Chicago. He wanted the role of Barry, time passed and he has aged—like a very fine wine—into the lead role of Ward. He should be amazing in the part. If you live near Chicago, I am planning to attend the performces of June 25th and 26th, stop by and say hello.

Doric Wilson’s

A Perfect Relationship

Presented by The People's Theater of Chicago with MidTangent Productions, directed by Tony Lewis, with Thad Anzur (Greg), Andrew Kain Miller (Ward), Alex Polcyn (Barry), Partirick Serraro (Hank/Tom/Richard) and Bonnie Varner (Muriel). The Leather Archives Museum, 6418 N. Greenview Avenue, Chicago. Tickets: $10 available at the door.

A Perfect Relationship

continues to be somewhat of a huge hit in New Delhi. It seems to be one of the first “gay plays” to be presented in India. The production travels around to different locations in the city playing mainly to straights. To be out gay risks a ten year prison sentence. (See below)

I just received an email from Sameer Thakur about an upcoming perfroamce: “This is for the benefit of students who come to the American Center library. Around 300 young people will get to see the play. It is part of our campaign against Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a draconian law that makes any sexual act against the order of nature liable for imprisonment up to 10 years. We want sexual rights to be in the order of fundamental human rights. Just the fact that we are being invited by the American embassy is a big deal here."

Talk about a Stonewall + 40 moment! They wanted to bring me over, but I declined. I suspect India has a plethora of sacred white elephants. They certainly don’t need another.

A Perfect Relationship is being presented by Cathaayatra & the American Center, New Delhi on Friday & Saturday, June 12 & 13 at 6:30 pm at the American Center, 24, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001. Entry by invite available from 1st June 2009). Directed and designed by Sameer Thakur, with the following cast, Sukhesh Arora, Ajay Govind, Shiv Narayanan, Arushi Singh & Ranjan Sundaram.

contact Sameer Thakur at cathaayatra@gmail.com

Francine Trevens, another true GLBT cultural hero, also can give Job a run for his money when it comes to patience. She has survived me in full infantile rage with nothing but a smile on her face. She should have stuffed me in a burlap bag and tossed me into the Hudson. There is a long list of people who would have applauded!

STONEWALL + 40

including a scene from Street Theater

6 PM on June 18, Thursday

The art, passion, and soul of the GLBT Movement, in literature and performance, from books by members of The Greater New York Independent Publishers Association, directed by Francine L. Trevens, produced by Perry Brass, with Rhonda Ayers, Norman Beim, Perry Brass, Robert W. Cabell, John Finch, Steven Hauck, Fred Milani, Jeanne Pearson, Alyssa Robbins, Francine L. Trevens, Kay Williams, and special guest, Doric Wilson. Barnes and Noble Bookstore Lincoln Triangle, 1972 Broadway, NYC (212) 595 6859. Free, first come first seated.

For the best history of Stonewall, read

David Carter’s Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution

($10.85 on Amazon)

For an excellent overview of Stonewall:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

photo by Shen Wei - NYC - 9 April 2009

face by William T. Long, M.D.

The Advocate is doing a special article for the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in their June/July issue.  As I am a vet of all three nights I am to be featured in the article so they sent a photographer (Shen Wei) to take some photographs. We wandered around Hell's Kitchen (my neighborhood) with him taking photographs and then came back to my apartment on Ninth Avenue.

My Mom used to keep a crystal in her kitchen window. When she died, I took the crystal which is now hanging in my front window and in the late afternoon the sun shines through it making rainbows. It always reminds me of her.

As Shen and I were drinking diet-Coke (I am an addict!) he suddenly grabbed his camera and moved right up on me—inches from my face—and began snapping away in a frenzy. The photo above was the result.

Shen Wei emigrated from China and is primarily an art photographer. Here is his Web site: http://www.shenphoto.com/index.html

Three Score and Ten

My father and me - L.A. - 1939

I was born in Los Angeles on February 24, 1939. My Dad was working temporally in the city, my mom took the train down from Seattle to visit him. I unexpectedly decided to join them. In the back of a taxi cab. I am told dad jumped out of the cab and made it into a nearby bar as fast as he could as mom made it to French Hospital barely in the nick of time. Dad made up for his cowardly departure. According to family legend, from that point onward until he died in 1943, whenever he was near me, dad had me in his arms. Mom said it was almost impossible to get me out of his arms, even to put me to bed. She would wake up at night, to discover she was in bed alone. She would find my father asleep in a chair in the nursery, with me asleep in his arms.

My father died of a heart attack as a captain in the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday, May 5th, 1943, the night before he was to ship out to the African Campaign of World War II. The "heart attack" is a long story, better told at a later time. I never really knew the date he died until I had my heart attack Wednesday, May 5th, 1993 and a cousin of mine pointed out the coincidence of the day and the date. Seems dad had some message for me from the beyond and couldn’t be bother knocking on a table. It also seems I had inherited from him the heart condition.

Tonight I go to Zuni’s where 50 plus of my family of friends will be waiting for me. I am very lucky. Perhaps that was the gist of my dad’s message.

Relationships from Chicago to New Delhi

Ward and Barry in India

Thirty years ago when I wrote A Perfect Relationship, I had two main objectives in mind. First, to preserve a record of the first decade of liberation and the difficulties the male ego presents when a man loves a man. I also hoped that the humor of the play would disarm some small bit of the bigotry that we even now all encounter. Comedy unites. Or so I have been told.

But I had another sort of secret agenda. While I wanted to capture in amber queer NYC in the late 1970s, I also wanted the script to have an extended shelf life. Mark Finley’s flawless revival of A Perfect Relationship here in the city in April 2003 proved the play still has legs, as they say. (http://www.tosos2.org/Perfect.htm ) It also showcased some of the best performances I have ever seen in a play of mine.

Eileen T’Kaye, who picked me up at a burrito stand on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood in the late 1980s, flew East to play a memorable Muriel. Christopher Borg, the single most versatile actor I have ever seen, played Tom, Dick and Harry. (He is waiting for me to make a nasty dig, but I’m not gonna.) As for Barry, one of my all time favorite character inventions, I have been lucky enough to see two actors give definitive performances: the late Adam Caparell back in the 1970s, and Kevin Held in this production. I suspect Kevin would excel in any role in any play I could ever write.

The 2003 TOSOS revival of A Perfect Relationship opened the same night Bush threw his temper-tantrum in Iraq. His war got the audience. There have been other recent productions, including the 2008 Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival in Colorado Springs; William Prater’s production initiating the Black Box Theater in Nashville; and a reading last fall presented by the People’s Theater of Chicago as part of their Legacy Project (http://www.peoplestheaterchicago.org/# ). I watched a DVD of the reading and could not be happier with the cast. (See AK Miller’s reports from Chicago below)

I have just received news that the Chicago reading has developed into a full production of A Perfect Relationship, planned to open June 18 and play Thursdays and Fridays until July 10. Co-produced by People’s Theater and the Leather Archives & Museum, it will be performed in the Etienne Auditorium at the Archive located at 6481 Greenview Avenue, Chicago, IL. (http://www.leatherarchives.org/ ). If I can find a packing crate large enough, I intend to ship myself out to see it. (The last time I was around the leather scene in Chicago was way back in the days of the Gold Coast!)

Of all my plays, A Perfect Relationship, is the most site specific. It is clearly set on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village in the late 1970s. Or it was until about four years ago when Sameer Thakur contacted me via the Internet. He asked my permission to relocate the play to New Delhi. What little I know about Indian culture made me more than a mite doubtful. But, hey, I always say my plays belong to the community they were written for, so I gave my permission. And actually sort of forgot about it. After all, it wasn’t possible, was it? Or was it?

Earlier this year, Cathaayatra (I am told "cathaa yatra" means "journey of stories" in Hindi) presented A Perfect Relationship in New Delhi, hoping the localization would broaden the Indian view of alternative sexuality. Seems it worked and the production directed by Sameer Thakur (Sukhesh Arora, Zain Bhana, Arushi Singh, Shiv Narayanan and Vikrant Yadav in the cast) has proven to be a huge hit. (review links below). As I understand it, they perform the play when and where they can. I am told the audience in New Delhi finds my play very funny. I doubt they realize their laugher reaches all the way from India to New York City where it gives me a very warm feeling on a cold winter night.

This is why I write the plays I write. (And I suspect Marge would be very pleased.)

Reviews for the Indian production:

Press: http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/10/03/stories/2008100350060200.htm ;
TV report: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=37713516

I have never been prouder

Actor wins part by a nose - Photo by Matt Cohen.

The late gay theater pioneer Terry Helbing holds the all-time record for conflict of interest. Not only was he the agent for my play Street Theater, he published it under his imprint of JH Press, produced it at the Mineshaft through his theater company Meridian, acted as one of the political activists in it, and was highly insulted when the gay newspaper he wrote for refused to allow him to review it. Today I am determined to challenge this record.

When I started TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence) in 1974, it was dedicated to "an honest and open exploration of the life experience and cultural sensibility of the GLBT community and to preserving and promoting our literary past in a determined effort to keep our theatrical heritage alive." At the time this was not all that easy. The new plays simply weren’t there. There were sad "coming out plays" and funny "coming out plays" and earnest "coming out plays"— and none were very entertaining. Marshall Mason once described them as "very very soft porn." We had to concentrate mostly on revivals.

Since Mark Finley, Barry Childs and I resurrected the company in 2000, it has been a different story. We have presented a long list of wonderful new scripts: Chris Weikel’s Penny Penniworth; Kathleen Warnock’s Rock The Line, Mark Finley’s adaptation of Young Stowaways in Space, Robert Patrick’s Hollywood at Sunset, David Bell’s Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway to name but a few. Two of our company playwrights are well-deserved recipients of the Robert Chesley Award for Emerging Gay Playwrights, Kathleen Warnock in 2006 and Chris Weikel in 2007.

Which brings us to the TOSOS production of Chris Weikel’s Pig Tale directed by Mark Finley at Wings Theatre. Last week, walking past a book rack, I noticed a paperback blazoned with review quotes: "Fabulous," "Enthralling," "Captivating," "Novel and Surprising" — which more or less sums up my feelings about Pig Tale. It is an impossible premise, made totally believably by Chris Weikel. It has joy and wisdom and laughter and tears and an ending that...well, that you just will have to experience for yourself. As for the plot, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. (Check out the review quotes below.)

Mark Finley’s direction, as usual, makes the complex seem so easy and simple. Tina Howe (the play’s fairy godmother) nailed it when she described Mark’s work as stylish but at the same time real. Mark’s ability to seamlessly mix these two supposedly incompatible elements is why no one else will ever direct the NYC production of any of my plays. With essentially no budget, Mark and the designers have made a small miracle. (Thank you Ray Klausen, Liza has no idea how lucky she is.)

The cast could not be better. Patrick Porter is a romantic leading man right out of the films of the 1930s-1940s. He will steal your heart as he slowly transforms from self-centeredness into the caring lover of the final curtain. But when it comes to transformations, Jesse May wins the Golden Carrot. He spends the play giving a porcine performance with charm enough to challenge the best of the Disney barnyard. Tim Dietrich slipped in under the wire to win the role away from about 30 other very good actors. He takes a pot high to an even higher new high with unerring comic instinct! Moe Bertran (forever Auntie Mayhem) plays a whole parade of characters, lead off by the sweet and demure and splendid Mother Truth.

Which brings us to the person I always consider essential to a successful production. Back when I still directed, Billy Blackwell was my stage manager. He anticipated what I wanted before I even knew I wanted it. He died and I stopped directing. Jennifer Marie Russo is an even better stage manager. Perhaps the best I have ever encountered. To read her daily notes to the company is to know the true purpose of poetry! Her cheery demeanor and technical competence has guided this production through unreliable lights, bleeding actors and flying feet.

Pig Tale was first performed as a reading earlier this year as part of the TOSOS Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwright Project. I have never particularly liked readings, I tend to hopefully count the remaining pages. But thanks to Kathleen Warnock and Mark Finley (and the Dramatists Guild Fund), this year’s Chesley/Chambers series provided some of the most exciting theater I have seen in years. The roles that Patrick Porter and Tim Dietrich now play, were read by TOSOS company members Steven (Confessions of a Mormon Boy) Fales and Kevin (America’s oldest living juvenile) Held. Both were wonderful but ultimately not available.

Finally, I personally would like to thank Jeffery Corrick and the people of Wings for inviting TOSOS to participate in their Gay Play Series. They have been very generous with their help. But there are dark clouds ahead for them. After twenty-two years of presenting new plays and musicals by American writers and composers, they are in danger of being forced out of their space. One more OOB venue might bite the dust. It would be wonderful if the GLBT community would rally round to save this important institution, but having dedicated fifty years to this community, I tend to suspect it is very unlikely.

It is not a conflict of interest to say that Pig Tale is what TOSOS is all about. What TOSOS was in fact created for. And that answers the question I get almost daily since I first started TOSOS. This is why there needs to be "gay theater." I doubt Pig Tale could have been presented with any more honesty and integrity than TOSOS has provided. The people and events and productions of TOSOS are why I do what I do. They are in fact what I am all about. Mark Finley’s production of Chris Weikel’s Pig Tale and the TOSOS family and friends validates me. And my life. And like I say at the top of this post, I have never been prouder.

NY Blade’s Top 10 - 2008 / NY Theatre.com "Pick of the Week"

Quotes from the reviews:

"Let's face it: Men are pigs - and frankly, some of us have dated more than our fair share of oinkers. But none of us has been as bad off as poor Johnny Lovejoy when his long-term trick, Dave, transforms into an honest-to-goodness pig in Chris Weikel's charming queer confection Pig Tale; an Urban Faerie Story. Whether it's the snout or Dave's unseemly habit of rooting through the garbage, one fact is clear: The boy is swine....With witty banter, Weikel turns the notion of happily ever after on its well-worn head, injecting camp and fetish gags (furries, anyone?) into Pig Tale's fractured fairy-tale format....Weikel creates an engaging metaphor for modern relationships as Dave transforms from sexual object into human romantic partner." Paul Menard, Back Stage

"Pig Tale...is a very smart, witty, and funny play...Chris Weikel wrote a really sweet and honest play. His characters are fully developed and engaging. The story is also refreshing and it doesn't fall into the clichés that gay-themed often do. Mark Finley has done a stellar job directing this piece. The staging feels very organic. I also thought that the set was really great. Ray Klausen has a great eye for detail...Patrick Porter is terrific as Johnny...Jesse May is amazing as Dave...Tim Dietrich is hysterical as Kyle...Moe Bertran is extremely entertaining in his many parts...(Pig Tale)...is definitely worth the trip to the Wings Theater to see." Roger Nasser, nytheatre.com (http://www.nytheatre.com/)

"...Weikel subtitles his work "an Urban Faerie Story." Call it a sweet love story, as well, which deserves a place beside such seasonal fantasies as Hansel and Gretel and The Nutcracker...Pig Tale will warm your heart." - Bruce-Michael Gelbert - Q OnStage.com (http://www.qonstage.com/)

[Wings Theatre Company presents the TOSOS production of Chris Weikel’s Pig Tale, directed by Mark Finley. Playing December 5 to January 3; Mon-Thur-Fri-Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 3:30 pm (No performances Christmas Day or New Year's Day) at Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street in the Archive Building. Tickets: $20 (students & seniors: $16). Reservations: 212-627-2961.]