David Darrow (on floor) and Trent Dawson in The Revival
This post was written by guest blogger Joe Basile
At the age of 16, I was lucky enough to see the original production of
Angels in America on Broadway starring Stephen Spinella, Marcia Gay Harden, and Jeffrey Wright, among others. At the time, I had no idea what I was about to see. I was enrolled in a college level musical theater program at NYU (or what seems more like camp looking back) for ambitious young theater geeks. After a day full of singing and dancing our little butts off in the hot studios at 440 Lafayette, we got to see some amazing plays and performances in the evening of all genres.
That night I was blown away by the performance. Never had I seen gay characters explored with such depth and nuance. It was an eye opening experience for me, one that would shape my work as an artist in years to come. (Recently, I was excited to hear about its return to the stage at the
Signature Theatre Company.) Before that, the only gay characters that I recognized in the media were Jim J Bullock from
Too Close for Comfort or John Ritter from Three's Company. One was closeted and the other was faking it. Boy have times changed!
It's been exciting to witness how gay characters in theater, and in film and television have evolved. I've seen more and more playwrights and directors experiment with subtlety and complex issues with gay characters. On the flip side, it's also been fun to watch entertaining romantic comedies like
Trick or even
Another Gay Movie, that quite simply, are pure eye candy and explore a mood or emotion. I love the diversity here.
Another shift in consciousness over the past ten years or so has been the development of the LGBTQ theater community. It's wonderful to see how the community has grown and united to create organizations to tackle health issues, marriage equality, and human rights all over the world.
Why else is this important? I think whenever you bring people together, questions get asked and people start talking. In turn, silence is broken.
Audre Lorde, writer, poet and activist, once wrote:
"What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? For it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence and there are so many silences to be broken."
I can't think of a better non-threatening way to do this then through the structure of a play.
I've been excited to work with
Project Y to help promote their current production of The Revival and to help coordinate their LGBTQ evening performance (
Thursday, Sept 16th 8pm) and matinee performance (Sept 19th 3pm). Tickets for the Thursday performance can be purchased for $15 when you use promo code: LGBT and when you visit
www.broadwayoffers.com.
If you've watched some of our
videos about the show, you'll notice that no one describes it solely as a gay play. Yes, there are gay characters but underneath it all is a story about inner conflict, desire, and the role of religion in our lives (at least in my opinion). Something that anyone can relate to.
I hope that you will join us for these performances. If you like what you see, I encourage you to go to the
New York Innovative Theatre Awards website and vote for our production to bring the attention of our efforts to the larger New York theater community.
See you at The Revival!
