Proud Theater: A Queer Youth Performance Model
By
Peter Martin Rydberg
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Theatre and Drama)
at the
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
2012
Date of final oral examination: August 27, 2012
The dissertation is approved by the following members of the Final Oral Committee:
Jennifer Chapman, Associate Professor, Department of Music and Theatre Arts, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire Erica Halverson, Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin – Madison Kristin Hunt, Associate Faculty, Department of Theatre and Drama and Integrated Liberal Studies Program, University of Wisconsin – Madison Michael Peterson, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin – Madison Mary Trotter, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin – Madison Manon van de Water, Committee Chair and Dissertation Advisor, Professor, Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin – Madison
© Copyright by Peter Martin Rydberg 2012
All Rights Reserved i
Abstract
Proud Theater, established in 1999, is a queer youth theatre company based in Madison,
Wisconsin. In “Proud Theater: A Queer Youth Performance Model” I argue that Proud
Theater is an example of a growing number of queer youth performance models in
America that have a direct and measurable impact on their communities, participants, and contemporary discourse in theatre for young audiences, yet models like Proud Theater have received little critical attention. This project provides an analysis of the model’s historical, dramaturgical, ideological, and organizational structures, processes and philosophies. Methodology for the project focuses on primary and secondary sources, two- and a-half years of field observation, and nine personal interviews with company members. Proud Theater is a unique and dynamic theatrical model that transforms shared stories of lived experiences into activist performance, and is one of the longest operating examples of a growing number of similar performance initiatives in American youth theatre.
ii Acknowledgements
This project would not have been possible without support and guidance from a number of individuals over the course of the last two years. I am grateful and indebted to those who have elected to serve on my dissertation committee: My advisor and committee chair
Professor Manon van de Water for her instruction, encouragement, and occasional over- the-head clubbing, along with Professors Jennifer Chapman, Erica Rosenfeld Halverson,
Kristin Hunt, Michael Peterson and Mary Trotter. I am grateful to the University of
Wisconsin – Madison Department of Theatre and Drama professors and staff, particularly graduate secretary Brenda Weiss, who has been a patient resource for me over the last seven years. Additional thanks to University Theatre Managing Director Michele Traband for constant inspiration, faith and good humor; along with Cindy Schkirkie and the rest of the staff of University Theatre. This project would not have been possible without generous funding from the Department of Theatre and Drama, the University Theatre, and the Department of Communication Arts during my graduate studies.
I am exceedingly grateful for the permission, participation and opportunities provided by members of Proud Theater, including: project respondents Sunshine Jones, Sol Kelley-
Jones, Callen Harty, Gavin Logan, Josie Montañez-Tyler, Heather Renken, John Sable, Brian
Wild, and Emma Zeldin for their time and participation; and the youth participants over the last three years who have allowed me to watch silently from a corner of the rehearsal space.
iii Finally, this project would not have been possible without the continued support of friends and family. To my mother, father and grandmother, who have counseled and financed me through the roughest spots; to JS Fauquet, Arrie Callahan, Andrew Wiginton,
Mary McAvoy, Jessica Brown-Velez and Allison Metz - my colleagues at UW-Madison who inspired me by example and encouraged me to keep moving forward; and finally to Morey
Burnard, Dana Pellebon, Cindy Severt, Jesse Fey, Douglas Holtz, Shawnti Fey, and Jeanine
Renfro – constant friends who have kept me sane through the long nights, the frazzled days, and the innumerable canceled social gatherings.
This project is dedicated to the memory of our colleague and friend
Dr. Julie N. Vogt.
iv Table of Contents
Project Glossary v
Introduction 1
Chapter One 17 Proud Theater: A Queer Youth Performance Model
Chapter Two 50 Evolution of the Proud Theater Model
Chapter Three 82 Co-opting Prince Charming: Proud Theater Dramaturgy
Chapter Four 112 Diversity and Mentorship
Chapter Five 135 A Model Season
Conclusion 158
Works Cited 169
Appendices:
A. Proud Theater Capstone Performances 183
B. Institutional Review Board Documentation 186
C. Queer Youth Performance Initiatives 191
v Project Glossary
One challenge of discourse surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity is a confused sub-cultural lexicon, which includes overlapping, contested and contradictory terminology. The Merriam-Webster dictionary includes six separate definitions of queer, and theorists (Dolan, Senelick, Savran, Román) further complicate terms. The following glossary of terms is specific to this research project.
Ally/Allies: A straight identified individual who publically advocates for queer issues (included in this project’s use of queer.)
Androgynous: For this project the term refers to being “neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior” (freedictionary.com). For medical definition see Intersex.
Cross-Dresser: “Persons who cross-dress for entertainment or sexual pleasure” (qtd. in Steiglitz 193). It is important to note that cross-dressers do not necessarily have homosexual inclinations.
Empowerment: “Nurturing belief in capability or competency, or assisting others in gaining a sense of personal power or control over their lives” (qtd. in Thompson 48).
Fag Hag: A self-identified female closely befriended to or by a gay man or a number of gay men. The term can be both self-appointed or prescribed, and, as pointed out by queer historian Vicki Eaklor, is “used by gay men as both a compliment, to include women, and dismissive, to exclude or ridicule them” (152).
FtM: A female-to-male transsexual.
Gay-Straight Alliance: Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) are school-based organizations that, according to James T. Sears, provide “counseling and support... [a] safe space, and serv[e] as a primary vehicle for raising awareness, increasing visibility, and educating about LGBT issues …” (171).
Gender Identity: “The inner conviction that one is male, female, ambivalent, or neutral” (thefreedictionary.com 2012, n.p.).
Gender non-conforming: Displaying appearances or behaviors contrary to culturally expected gender norms.
Gender Role or Expression: An individual’s behavior as it relates to culturally determined gender expectations (i.e. acts masculine or feminine).
Heteronormativity: Defined by Michael Warner and Lauren Berlant as “the institutions, structures of understanding, and practical orientations that make heterosexuality seem
vi not only coherent—that is organized as a sexuality—but also privileged” (548, qtd. in Giannini 1).
Hir (heer): A gender neutral pronoun used instead of her or his.
Homophobia: Fear or hatred of individuals perceived to be non-heterosexual (gay, lesbian, bisexual, person-specific, etc).
Intersex: Sobel and Imperato-McGinley define intersexed persons as individuals who “may have physical or hormonal attributes of both females and males” (qtd. in Steiglitz 194).
LGBT: Acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. There are a number of additional letters that can follow the T: Q (alternately used to mean “questioning” or “queer,” at times both represented with QQ); A (straight-identified ally); I (Intersex) and P (person specific), for instance. Throughout this project I use the LGBT acronym when singling out individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or other non-heterosexual sexual orientation. I use queer more often due to its alignment with Proud Theater’s participant diversity and political ideology (see definition below).
MtF: A male-to-female transsexual.
Preferred Gender Pronoun: A preferred gender pronoun (PGP)refers to an individual’s preference of address by culturally determined feminine, masculine or gender-neutral pronouns. In the United States: feminine as she, her, hers; masculine as he, him, his; gender neutral as they, them, zie, zir, hir.
Queer (adj.) Throughout this project queer will be used politically rather than sexually. Following Jill Dolan, “Queerness has come to encompass numerous strategies, all of which carry the charge of multiplicity, openness, contradiction, contention, the slipperiness of sexual practice seeping into discourse, into fashion, into style and politics and theatre. […] To be queer is not who you are, it’s what you do, it’s your relation to dominant power, and your relation to marginality, as a place of empowerment” (98).
Queer Theatre: “To speak in general terms, queer theatre is grounded in and expressive of unorthodox sexuality or gender identity, antiestablishment and confrontational in tone, experimental and unconventional in format, with stronger ties to performance art and what the Germans call Kleinkunst, that is, revue, cabaret, and variety, than to traditional forms of drama” (Senelick 21).
Sex: The biological definition of sex is “either the male or female division of a species,” (Dictionary.com), but such a simplistic definition is not useful for this project, which examines a context that destabilizes traditional binary and fixed gender identities. Therefore my use of ‘sex’ incorporates Devor’s definition of sex as a “social status” because it “can be determined by virtue of legislation, by virtue of the opinions of medical
vii practitioners, by virtue of legal opinions, or by the fiat of government bureaucrats” (528).
Sex Assignment: Surgically assigning a sex to a baby at the time of its birth when both male and female reproductive organs are present.
Sexual Orientation: One’s sexual inclination as determined by the degree of romantic or sexual attraction to a particular gender.
Straight: A “person who is attracted to a gender other than their own [gender identity]. Commonly thought of as ‘attraction to the opposite gender, but since there are not only two genders (see transgender), this definition is inaccurate” (Gender Equity Research Center n.p.).
Transsexual: The website Transproud (2009) defines transsexual as “An individual who has transitioned, or is in process of transitioning from one gender to another.” (qtd. in Steiglitz 193).
Transgender: “An individual who lives life adhering to an internalized gender identity which differs from one’s biologic or assigned sex” (qtd. in Devor 528).
Transphobia: Fear or hatred of trans-people
Zie (zee): Gender neutral pronoun that used instead of she or he.
Zir (zeer): Gender-neutral pronoun used instead of him or her.
1 Introduction
Queer Youth Performance and The Proud Theater Model
In 2007 I was paging through an issue of Theatre for Young Audiences Today, and happened upon an article entitled “Challenges, Strategies, and Mission: An
Interview with Leaders of Queer Youth Theatre.” As a theatre for young audiences practitioner and researcher with a predilection toward queer theory and performance, the title captured my attention. The article was written by Brian
Guehring, Artistic Director for Omaha’s Pride Players. Established in 1999 as a summer program for the Omaha Children’s Theater, Pride Players is a youth theatre troupe dedicated to writing and performing the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and allied youth. Guehring’s article presented a commentary woven together to mimic a roundtable discussion with leaders of five other queer youth theatre companies in the United States. I did not realize I had stumbled on an article that would become the focus of my doctoral dissertation in
Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to
Guehring, the article included responses from: Evelyn Francis from Boston’s True
Colors Out Youth Theater; Paula Gilovich from Chicago’s About Face Youth Theater;
A. Beck from QSpeak in Phoenix; and Brian Wild and Callen Harty from Proud
Theater in Madison, Wisconsin. Questions for respondents included:
• How does each organization balance the objectives of education, artistry, and activism;
• What specific successes or challenges have companies experienced;
2 • How have companies engaged with and had an impact on their communities;
• How do companies maintain safe, productive space for youth participants;
• How do companies evaluate the efficacy of their programs? (18-22)
Despite the brevity of the article, Guehring’s piece stands as one of the first publications focused on queer youth theatre practices in a professional theatre for young audiences magazine. Somewhere in America, queer youth1 were devising performances about the contemporary queer youth experience. My curiosity was piqued, but the article was broadly drawn, and details as to how and why these companies were founded, the specific cultural contexts of respective communities, their day-to-day operations, and how they utilized dramaturgical strategies with youth were not addressed. These questions became the foundation of this investigation into queer youth performance.
Having read Guehring’s article, I was chagrined that the oldest of these queer youth organizations, About Face Youth Theatre in Chicago, had been established more than a decade earlier in 1994, and was followed quickly by True Colors: OUT
Youth Theater (Boston, 1996), Pride Players (Omaha, 1999), and Proud Theater
(Madison, 2000). Not only had I missed this emergent phenomenon in my field of
1 As noted in the project glossary, I employ the term queer politically rather than sexually. Following Jill Dolan, “Queerness has come to encompass numerous strategies, all of which carry the charge of multiplicity, openness, contradiction, contention, the slipperiness of sexual practice seeping into discourse, into fashion, into style and politics and theatre. […] To be queer is not who you are, it’s what you do, it’s your relation to dominant power, and your relation to marginality, as a place of empowerment” (98).
3 study, but I had done so with one of these four flagship companies performing in my proverbial backyard of Madison. Conjecturing I was not the only theatre for young audiences (TYA) scholar who was unaware of a growing queer youth theatre culture in America, I sought to (at first) create a concise history of the inception and growth of this movement. Initial research revealed that queer youth theatre in
America had been left almost entirely unexamined by the academy. The dearth of research into queer youth performance models is shocking, given the continued and growing presence of companies devoted specifically to, or inclusive of, creating contemporary representations of the queer adolescent experience since the time of
About Face Youth Theatre’s founding.2 These queer youth companies produce unique, innovative work, and engage youth participants in activist performance practices. Whereas activist performance in the adult realm has been a longtime subject of academic interest, especially in the last century of American performance history, activist performance by youth has remained invisible in the academy. For more than fifteen years, companies like Proud Theater have gone unexamined, absent from the narrative of American theatre history. This project seeks, in part, to address this omission, and to provide a useful resource for queer youth performance practitioners and scholars.
This dissertation examines Proud Theater as a theatrical model. I analyze the role the organization plays in its local arts economy; I identify distinguishing organizational, dramaturgical, and ideological aspects that make this model a
2 See Appendix C: Queer Youth Performance Initiatives
4 unique resource for participants and a dynamic subject in contemporary theatre for youth discourse and I explore how the organization advances an activist mission on a local, statewide and national level. After breaking down the model to better appreciate its role in an institutional context, I shift to focus on factors that are specific to the Proud Theater youth performance model: I provide a historical narrative that tracks significant developmental milestones in the model’s evolution;
I detail and use primary evidence to illuminate Proud Theater’s dramaturgical process and activist strategies underlying that process; the roles adult mentors play in the company, their diverse styles of youth engagement, and the significance of
Proud Theater as a site for intergenerational queer cultural transmission. Finally I detail the annual sequence of markers that, together, constitute the model’s season.
This project contributes to scholarship that values practitioners and seeks to expand the discourse between TYA practitioners and scholars in this emerging genre. As such, it provides a model against which other organizations can be evaluated and analyzed, while simultaneously serving as a practical resource, a model for queer youth theatre practitioners. Despite variables across models, an analysis of the Proud Theater model reveals a number of successful organizational and artistic strategies, which makes this research useful for both academics and practitioners.
Literature Review
Research specific to queer youth theatre is scant, but there are some
5 scholars advancing inquiries into this growing discipline. One of the leaders in queer youth theatre research is Erica Rosenfeld Halverson. Her 2005 dissertation,
“Telling, adapting, and performing personal stories: Understanding identity development and literacy learning for stigmatized youth” is a two year case study of a queer youth theatre conducted with members of Chicago’s About Face Youth
Theatre. It is an exhaustive project that investigates the impact that creating performances based on personal experiences can have on the development of LGBT youth. Halverson’s work usefully provides a clearly defined description of About
Face Youth Theatre’s history and organizational structure, and is the only significant analysis of a queer youth theatre model (other than this project) available to scholars. Halverson further considers the complex relationship between narrative, identity development, and the exploration of possible selves through performance in her 2005 article "InsideOut: Facilitating Gay Youth Identity
Development Through a Performance-Based Youth Organization." Another article,
“The Dramaturgical Process as a Mechanism for Identity Development of LGBTQ
Youth and Its Relationship to Detypification,” provides additional details of the
About Face Youth Theatre process. In this article, Halverson argues that positive social identities are constructed during this dramaturgical process through a process of detypification, which, following V. Jenness’s 1992 construction, is defined as:
The process of redefining and subsequently reassessing the social
category [queer] such that it acquires increasingly concrete and
6 precise meaning, positive connotations, and personal applicability.
(qtd. in Halverson, “Detypification” 637).
Detypification, when applied to the similar dramaturgical strategies used by
Proud Theater, Pride Players, and About Face Youth Theatre, end in an activist dramaturgy that has a direct and beneficial impact on participants. The dramaturgy is activist not only in its positive influence on participant development and well- being, but in how it actively contributes to the canon of queer youth plays. Proud
Theater plays represent diverse, authentic queer youth themes and character depictions, reflecting immense pride in the participants’ experiences as queer youth in America. Michelle Freire’s 2003 essay entitled “A different kind of
Community Theatre: Performance Projects with GLBT Adolescents” is an example of a queer youth performance initiative based in Southern California’s “Inland
Empire” (Freire 244) with the Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance, with many parallels to the Proud Theater model but motivated by therapeutic rather than activist ideologies. The co-authored article, “Gay and Lesbian Theatre for Young People,” by Manon van de Water and Annie Giannini provides an analysis of the uniformity of historic representations of queer youth as “damaged” or “at risk” in published theatre texts, and Giannini extends the analysis in her Master’s thesis, entitled
“Young, troubled, and queer: gay and lesbian representation in theatre for young audiences,” which paints a disturbing picture of contemporary queer theatre for youth texts that treat queer as a calamity. This handful of publications represents the majority of research on queer youth performance models in America,
7 evidencing the significant need for additional research in the field.
Methodology
Research for this project centers on participant interviews, company observation, and archival analysis. I received approval by the University of
Wisconsin-Madison’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board
(IRB) on March 10, 2011, authorizing my use of human subjects in my research.3
Due to this project’s focus on an analysis of the model (as opposed to the youth experience) all respondents for this study were over the age of eighteen, so the protocol review was expedited. Interviews with Proud Theater participants were conducted between March 2011 and February of 2012. Respondents all agreed to and signed and IRB-approved Research Participant Information and Consent Form, detailing the research project, what participation would involve, potential risks and benefits to the subject, how interviews would be conducted, transcribed, and approved by respondents, and relevant contact information for myself, Professor
Manon van de Water, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Social and
Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review offices. Participation presented minimal risk. Respondents were not compensated in any form for their participation, and although anonymity was offered, the option was declined unanimously. Project respondents include company founders, recent Proud Theater alumni, and adult mentors past and present. The primary intention of these interviews was to inform
3 See Appendix B: Institutional Review Board Documentation / Protocol: SE-2011-0019.
8 a historical narrative of the founding and development of Proud Theater, discuss dramaturgical motivations, rationale, and process, and interrogate the ideological underpinnings of the organization. Interviews of seventy to ninety minutes were conducted with respondents, and follow-up questions were conducted both in person and through email. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and returned to respondent to validate accuracy or otherwise edit. Questions were designed to be open-ended, and were tailored to each respondent’s current or past role in the company. The following is a list of project respondents and their roles in Proud
Theater:
Callen Harty: Proud Theater Co-founder. Artistic Director 1999; 2001-
2004. Adult Mentor 2007— (Husband to Brian Wild)
Sunshine Jones: Proud Theater Education Director and Adult Mentor
1999-2005. (Mother to Sol Kelley-Jones)
Sol Kelley-Jones: Proud Theater Cofounder. Youth Participant 1999-
2005. Adult Mentor 2009—
Josie Montañez-Tyler: Proud Theater Youth Participant 1999-2004.
Youth Mentor 2005. Adult Mentor 2010—
Gavin Logan: Proud Theater Youth Participant 2005-2008. Adult
9 Mentor 2011—
Heather Renken: Proud Theater Adult Mentor, 2005—
John Sable: Proud Theater Artistic Director, 2000.
Brian Wild: Proud Theater Adult Mentor, 2002-2005. Artistic Director
2005— (Husband to Callen Harty)
Emma Zeldin: Proud Theater Youth Participant 2002-2005. Adult
Mentor 2007—2011
To shape my interviews I drew on Irving Seidman’s Interviewing as
Qualitative Research, which clearly lays out a process for structuring, conducting, and analyzing interviews. Although Seidman recommends a sequence of three separate interviews, I conducted one formal interview with each respondent and was able to follow up with respondents regularly at Proud Theater rehearsals during subsequent months. After transcribing interviews, I followed initial coding procedures detailed in Johnny Saldaña’s The Coding Manual for Qualitative researchers. My analysis of the Proud Theatre model was influenced in its construction by Sonja Kuftinec’s Staging America, which provides a comprehensive study of Cornerstone Theatre Company, a community-based theatre company currently based in Los Angeles. In her study, Kuftinec details Cornerstone’s history,
10 organization, artistic processes, and community engagement strategies using individual company productions as inroads to analysis. Rather than using company productions as a means to address the model, I use various company systems
(dramaturgy, mentorship) as a way to investigate the model.
I observed the company during rehearsals, performances, and meetings between 2010 and 2012. The company produced two shows during this season.
The first was the season capstone Proud Theater: 3D: In Stunning Queer-O-Rama, which I attended at the Frederic March Playcircle at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison on May 21, 2010. Proud Theater also presented a performative retrospective entitled Decade in July of 2010, reviving seminal pieces from the company’s ten-year history. The event was a homecoming, with a cast of over thirty
Proud Theater alumni side-by-side with active youth participants. I was able to acquire extensive interview footage with Decade participants regarding their experiences with Proud Theater from Sol Kelley-Jones’ personal archives.
I started more systematical observation, and focused on the research questions of this dissertation in January 2011. Initially I attended one three-hour rehearsal observation per week, then in March to two per week, and finally into four-to-five rehearsals each week in April leading up to the company’s May 19,
2011 opening night. I took detailed notes during rehearsals and then transcribed them each evening following recommendations found in chapter two of Robert M.
Emerson’s Writing Ethnographic Field Notes, “In the Field: Participating, Observing, and Jotting Notes” (17-38). I observed the company at work silently from the
11 sidelines, moving as unobtrusively from one working group to another. Notes were taken in shorthand to record artistic procedures, participant exchanges, and rehearsal structure. Notes also included questions that occurred to me during each session that were flagged for follow up with an interview respondent. Following each observation I expanded my notes into clearly written entries, with questions compiled at the end of that day's notes. Before being allowed to observe the group, my presence and purpose had to be approved by the youth participants. I was invited to meet with the Youth Artistic Committee (YAC), the elected youth representatives of the group. Following an introduction from the Artistic Director, I was left alone with the youth. After telling them about myself and my research, I asked them what questions they had. They were interested in knowing about my history with activism (moderate) prior experiences working with youth
(extensive), and what I expected my level of interaction with the youth to be
(minimal)” (Field Notes 8 Dec. 2010). I continued to observe the company during their 2011-2012 season, and attended that year’s capstone production entitled
Proud Theater: Beyond.
Along with observing rehearsals, I was invited to sit in on all adult mentor meetings, was added to the company’s email distribution list, Facebook group, and was invited to accompany adult and youth participants to Wausau, Wisconsin, as part of an initiative to open a chapter of Proud Theater in Northern Wisconsin.
Extensive field notes were taken and served as a platform from which I developed a number of research questions for this project, and informed specific questions
12 posed to respondents.
I was also granted full access to the personal archives of Sol Kelley-Jones,
Callen Harty and Brian Wild, and received additional primary documents from other respondents. These archives provided a wealth of primary documentation including production footage, programs, award notifications, grant applications, participant interviews, promotional materials, email correspondence, scripts, and media coverage. These archives were examined for a better understanding of community responses to Proud Theater’s work and local support structures, and they provide personal testimonies as to participatory impact and program significance, all of which serve to verify information supplied by interview respondents.
Besides being a history and model analysis, this project aims to archive
Proud Theater’s history. The appendices include the company’s first script (3
Points, 2000); a number of pages of personal testimony from past and present company members documented in a 2006 paper Kelley-Jones wrote during her undergraduate coursework at Hampshire College; and other pieces representative of the group’s dramatic canon.
Project Overview
Chapter one, “ Proud Theater: A Queer Youth Performance Model,” lays out my central argument, which is that the Proud Theater model has a profound impact on its community, participants, and traditional power structures and programming
13 in American youth theatre. First, I consider Proud Theater’s significance to
Madison’s cultural community as one of the oldest operating queer performance groups in the area. Then I consider how symbiotic partnerships with other organizations have contributed to the durability of the Proud Theater model. I discuss how Proud Theater’s distinct dramaturgy, activist mission, and off-campus strategies make it a unique youth art organization for participants. This line of inquiry leads into Proud Theater’s activist mission, and an overview of how Proud
Theater’s dramaturgy and organizational ideology promotes a politically progressive agenda. I address the immediate benefits to youth participants while delineating between Proud Theater’s process, which can have therapeutic benefits, and the field of drama therapy. Benefits to youth include empowerment through experiential identification, development of performative and interpersonal skills, intergenerational exchange and mentorship. Finally I argue that the Proud Theater model challenges and complicates traditional youth theatre norms including traditional power dynamics between youth and adult participants, thematic and lingual propriety, season scheduling and, finally, detail strategies the organization has implemented to facilitate a positive experience for trans-identified participants.
Chapter two, “Evolution of the Proud Theater Model,” begins by tracing Sol
Kelley-Jones’ early history with progressive activism, and how those experiences connected with her inspiration to establish a queer youth theatre company. I examine Kelley-Jones’ personal history to understand core beliefs received from growing up in what she refers to as a “household of righteous activists” (Interview),
14 including: the power inherent in gathering people together under a unified banner; the importance of self-initiative; the parallel struggles between racial and sexual minority youth; queer as a political rather than a sexual identity; and the power of personal stories as political performance. After providing the historical context for the company’s foundation, I create a narrative of the organization’s early years by following relationships Kelley-Jones fostered with professional theatre artists and social workers to realize her vision. This narrative identifies factors informing the group’s initial dramaturgical and organizational strategies, and shows how the organization grew from an unstructured, reactive cabal of activists to an increasingly codified and professionalized model.
Chapter three, “Co-opting Prince Charming,” details Proud Theater’s dramaturgical process. The chapter begins by plotting out the step-by-step process
Proud Theater uses to develop pieces. In order to make the dramaturgical underpinnings clear, I track a single monologue entitled “Prince Charming” from its inception to performance. This investigation relies on primary documents from the
Proud Theater archive, including discussion transcripts, transcripts of initial improvisations based on the discussion, and a number of distinct and useful iterations that together serve to clarify the model’s creative process. I draw on these primary documents from early in the company’s history (2001-2002) to evidence how the dramaturgy transforms discussion into dramatic action, and how multiple youth perspectives, drawn out through improvisation and group critique, meld to form dynamic performance that is authentic of that youth cohort but
15 removed from autobiographical or documentary performance.
Chapter four, “Diversity in Mentoring,” examines the roles of adult mentors in the organization. Mentorship is defined, and then refined to address those adult roles and responsibilities unique to Proud Theater mentors. This chapter engages with empirical data about mentor/mentee relationships, including the significant impact effective mentoring relationships can have on all parties, and the importance of diverse mentor cohorts. A primary factor contributing to Proud
Theater’s effective mentoring is the diversity within the mentor cohort. Mentors represent a broad spectrum of races, ages, gender, identities, sexual orientations, and spiritual beliefs, which I argue helps to recruit and maintain diversity among youth participants and maximizes potential role models. I also address how the inconsistent theatrical training of mentors affects their approaches to the dramaturgical process, and offer opportunities for youth to work with a number of different directorial styles. This chapter considers the relevance of Proud Theater as a site for intergenerational queer communion and cultural transmission within
American society. I also analyze Proud Theater’s mentor guidelines, ratified in
2012, which explicitly define Proud Theater mentors roles, responsibilities, and boundaries, focusing on specific inclusions that help to further refine an understanding of the Proud Theater model.
The fifth chapter, “A Model Year,” provides a detail of Proud Theater’s annual production schedule, which due to the numerous variations in chronological specifics from year to year, I track according to annual markers which include: first
16 rehearsal; performative explorations; elections; family open house; new participant cutoff; attendance penalties; external submission deadline; script selection; casting; refining and work-shopping; tech week and preshow.
Together, these five chapters provide a detailed analysis of a specific queer youth performance model and its place in contemporary discourse of queer theatre and theatre for youth in America. My conclusion, then, looks to the future of the
Proud Theater model, examining organizational replication strategies as the company begins to establishes Proud Theater chapters across the state of
Wisconsin, with the intent of expanding to a nation-wide organization. I address potential ideological conflicts left unanswered or prompted by this project, make structural and dramaturgical recommendations for the model as it expands, identify practical strategies applicable to other youth performance models, and muse on the future of research, theory and discourse of queer youth performance in the academy.
17 Chapter One
Proud Theater: A Queer Youth Performance Model
American cultural theorist Henry Giroux writes:
Pedagogically and politically, young people need to be given the
opportunity to narrate themselves, to speak from the actual places
where their experiences are shaped and mediated. This suggests more
than letting kids have the opportunity to voice their concerns, it
means providing the conditions – institutional, economic, spiritual
and cultural – that allow them to reconceptualize themselves as
citizens and develop a sense of what it means to fight for important
social and political issues that effect their lives, bodies, and society.
(48)
Model Significance
Proud Theater offers an opportunity for participants to create a self-narrative reflecting contemporary queer youths’ experiences and worldview. As Giroux suggests, opportunity for self-narration in and of itself is only useful if such a narration is the platform upon which youth can entirely reconceptualize themselves: in this case, through devised performance. The Proud Theater model can have a profound impact on its community, participants, and traditional power structures and programming in American youth theatre. Proud Theater’s significance to its community is twofold: it contributes to Madison’s arts economy
18 and cultural landscape while simultaneously participating in progressive activism.
The company’s modest budget demands expenses be minimized wherever possible, but Proud Theater nonetheless contributes directly to the financial success of the
Madison arts economy by purchasing media advertising, performance venues, storage, rehearsal space and equipment rental, paid employment (for designers/technicians) and contributes to the development of new audiences. As a youth theatre, a queer theatre, and a community theatre, Proud Theater attracts a complex blend of participants, each of whom brings extended families and peer groups to the audience alongside the queer community and area artists. This exceptional reach brings numerous patrons to Madison performance venues who might not otherwise choose to patronize live performance. Proud Theater benefits other community theatres and affiliated organizations through program advertisement exchanges with other area theatre companies such as Broom Street
Theater, StageQ and Mercury Players Theatre, expanding individual company market reach.
Proud Theater also forms partnerships with other queer organizations and businesses. StageQ, for instance, is a regular co-producer of Proud Theater’s capstone performances, which enables Proud Theater to rent the Bartell Theatre venue at StageQ’s reduced rate. The Bartell Theatre also benefits from Proud
Theater productions, not only in that the group’s rental makes for one less unrented week in the venue’s schedule, but the visibility generated by the group, which attracts substantially different audience demographics than the four resident
19 Bartell organizations. Proud Theater also collaborated with StageQ and Perfect
Harmony Men’s Chorus on a production commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots4 entitled Riot Acts. Proud Theater regularly performs at the annual awards ceremony for Outreach, Inc, and has developed relationships with queer-owned businesses for fundraising events. By creating effective relationships with other queer organizations, Proud Theater increases its exposure and legitimacy within Madison’s larger queer adult community.
Proud Theater benefits from its partnerships with community sponsors.
Since it does not own any space for meetings or rehearsals, it relies heavily on the goodwill of ideologically aligned community partners to provide these resources.
OutReach, Inc. served as the initial meeting site for the organization’s first meetings. When the space could no longer accommodate the growing company, they moved into queer-friendly churches, which often provided not only a large multipurpose space, but a number of smaller rooms where multiple pieces can be worked on simultaneously. It is unsurprising that churches have served as the primary sites for Proud Theater’s rehearsals. They are often available for little to no cost, they are public spaces, and in Madison liberal congregations abound. In a 1997 national survey, liberal churches were “often identified as part of the coalition favoring gay rights” (Button, Rienzo and Wald 91). The company has a long- standing relationship with James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Church, but in years when the church became unavailable due to remodeling, the organization relocated
4 The Stonewall Riots occurred in 1969 in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The violent conflicts between police and the homosexual community outside of the Stonewall Inn is considered as the beginning of the gay rights movement in America.
20 to other queer-friendly congregations in Madison, including Bethany Lutheran and the First Congregational United Church of Christ. Proud Theater strives to have a rehearsal space which is centrally located, on public transportation lines, and has space enough inside to allow work on a number of pieces simultaneously.
As one of Madison’s oldest queer arts organizations, Proud Theater is a landmark in Madison’s cultural landscape. Prior to Proud Theater, Madison’s history of queer performance dates back to the 1970s heyday of Broom Street
Theater under longtime Artistic Director Joel Gersmann. Under his leadership,
Broom Street Theater was Madison’s first frequent producer of performances with explicitly queer characters and themes, or stylistically queered seminal texts
(although the company describes its work as “experimental” and does not identify as a queer organization per se). Queer arts initiatives prior to Proud Theater included Madison’s Lesbian Variety Show (1985-1998) the lesbian theatre company Apple Island (1991-1997), and the lesbian improvisation troupe Flaming
Dykasaurus (1996-2001). The only still-operating queer performance group in
Madison that predates Proud Theater is Perfect Harmony Men’s Chorus, founded in
1997. Since Proud Theater’s founding, a number of important queer arts organizations have been established in Madison, notably the adult LGBT theatre company StageQ, yet Proud Theater remains one of the oldest, well-known and prolific queer performance groups in Madison.
Proud Theater is also a unique resource in Madison’s youth arts scene.
Although established well after Madison Family Theater (formerly Children’s
21 Theatre of Madison), a Wisconsin institution for youth theatre founded 1965, The
Young Shakespeare Players (est. 1985) and MadCap Theatre for Young Audiences
(est. 1997), Proud Theater’s accessibility, commitment to devised work, process over product, interdisciplinary performance and lack of school affiliation make it a valuable addition to youth performance opportunities in Madison.
First, Proud Theater is open to all who want to be there, without any fee for participation. Proud Theater does not cap the number of participants who can join each season, and participation is not predicated on audition, interview, or other formality. Although the organization is intended for youth between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis. Some youth remaining in the area following their high school graduation are allowed to participate for an additional season (as was the case with the 2011-2012 Youth
Music Director). If a youth under the age of thirteen wishes to join, the request is considered by the adult mentors. Harty, rationalizing that the fluidity of the age guidelines is necessary to accommodate younger youth who might benefit from participation despite their relative youth, states in our interview: “If a kid under thirteen feels they need to be in this group, they probably really need to be in this group” (Interview). No other youth performance model in the area offers such inclusion and accessibility to their programs.
Second, Proud Theater’s structure places youth in positions of authority and leadership within the organization. A Youth Artistic Committee (YAC) exists to incorporate youth perspective into the organizations daily operations. Some
22 responsibilities include interviewing potential mentors, policing attendance and punctuality, and organizing fundraisers. The YAC is composed of a Youth Artistic
Director (YAD), Youth Music Director (YMD), Youth Dance Director (YDD) and two or three representatives elected by the other youth participants to, in the words of one youth, act as “congress people” to the youth (Field Notes 18 Oct. 2011).
Third, Proud Theater is unique in that it allows youth to completely self- determine their exact degree and method of participation. Space is made for all in discussion and sharing of stories but no one is required to speak. Youth may audition for as many or as few individual pieces as they like, or none at all. In addition to the degree of participation, youth are not relegated to acting roles.
Those interested in dance, dance. Musicians create music. Singers sing.
Proud Theater performs throughout the year at schools, conferences, teacher in-services, workshops, award ceremonies and other special events. Performances are tailored to suit each event, but whether performing a poem about being a trans- youth as an introduction to Chaz Bono for his keynote speech at Fair Wisconsin’s
2012 Leadership Awards Gala, or a standard twenty to thirty minute performance of a handful of pieces followed by a ten to twenty minute talkback led by the youth, each opportunity grows visibility, awareness, understanding, and acceptance of queer youth. Proud Theater does not charge for outreach performances but gratefully accepts any offered donations (Field Notes 26 Feb. 2012). The only time
Proud Theater charges for performances is admission for its capstone production.
The company sees these kinds of activities as fundamental to their mission
23 statement, which is “To change the world through the power of theater” (Proud
Theater, Homepage).
As I state in the introduction to this project, Proud Theater uses an activist dramaturgy. Their process of devising and scripting plays leads to empowerment through self-representation; awareness of situational and experiential similarities with others through the sharing of stories thereby reduces feelings of isolation; and elicits public validation of both negative and positive queer youth experiences.
There is ample evidence indicating that group identification through an understanding of common experiences promotes self-acceptance, awareness and confidence. According to a study by Susan Saltzburg and Tamara Davis entitled “Co-
Authoring Gender-Queer Youth Identities: Discursive Tellings and Retellings,” youth
“who identified as transgender described an emerging illumination that transpired as a result of shared dialogue with other like-peers” (97). In “Common Bonds: An
Integrative View of Mentoring Relationships,” Tammy D. Allen and Lillian T. Eby write “...individuals with similar core characteristics in society bolster their self- esteem and self-identity through a sense of belonging with a particular social or cultural group” (412). As Sunshine Jones suggests:
Youth move from individual models of I’m alone in this world to:
Actually, I belong in the world. Not only I belong in the world and I
belong with others, but: I have a people. I have a people. When you are
part of a minority culture, having a people is important. (Interview)
In addition to the beneficial psycho-social effects group identification and
24 association can have, Helen Nicholson argues in Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre
“...identification with a multiplicity of narratives in drama has the potential to wear away fixed narratives of self and other, identity and difference, and open the spaces in-between where new insights might be generated” (74) and that “…communities of identity are constructed when people recognize their own experiences in others, and share an understanding of each other’s values or stories” (94). In “Telling, adapting, and performing personal stories: Understanding identity development and literacy learning for stigmatized youth,” Erica Rosenfeld Halverson argues:
Performance arts organizations, broadly speaking, provide
participating youth with opportunities to explore possible selves
through role taking and to engage in complex language activities that
promote sophisticated language development. Organizations that
engage youth in what Wiley and Finer (2001) dub the “dramaturgical
process,” a cycle of ‘conceiving, scripting, and staging a performance,’
(p. 125) offer youth additional opportunities for development and
learning. (32)
Unlike any other youth theatre in the area, Proud Theater creates original devised work. Devised work, or performance developed in a collaborative artistic setting, allows youth to self-determine thematic content and dramatic self- representation. This is a consequence of both design and circumstance. There was never any intention to produce published plays at Proud Theater. From the start,
Kelley-Jones wanted the company to focus on telling the stories of the youth
25 themselves. As we spoke in our interview about the founding of Proud Theater,
Kelley-Jones recalled: “It made sense that we would get together and share our stories, and it made sense to get up and inhabit those stories through improv - to work through them together” (Interview).
During the first few seasons occasional instances of published pieces found their way into the group’s capstone productions, such as two songs from the musical RENT in 2003’s We Can See Queerly Now, but the culture of Proud Theater makes youth participants openly disdainful about high school theatre programs that rely on American theatrical standards. Youth express that they are not interested in pursuing theatre: Rather, they are activists who use art as their medium. In the words of one youth: “You can read Shakespeare and not give a crap, but when you are sharing personal stories with people who you have created a family with, you care. And that shows on stage.” (Field Notes 12 Mar. 2011). In fact, according to Harty, only one youth participant ever went on to get a degree in theatre: Sol Kelley-Jones, who received a tailored degree at Hampshire College in
Performance and Protest (Field Notes 09 Apr. 2011).
Harty notes that even had the company wanted to produce published works, the dramatic cannon of TYA plays featuring queer characters was, at the time, virtually nonexistent. “There was simply no canon of plays for queer youth,” Harty recalls. Over the last decade plays for young audiences engaging with queer subjects and themes have started to emerge, but they rarely present queer subjectivities and contexts in a positive light. In a telling study of published queer
26 plays for youth, van de Water and Giannini identify only seventeen American and
Canadian plays with queer characters or themes in them (107), and following an analysis of the themes, content, and dramatic structures of the texts, they conclude:
Plays for young people with gay and lesbian characters or any
mention of homosexuality are rare, reflecting the degree to which
heteronormativity dominates the field. When homosexuality is
represented in theatre for young audiences, it is treated as a calamity,
discretely packaged in plays intended to teach lessons about
tolerance. (103)
Proud Theater’s work serves not only to grow a canon of queer youth performance texts, but it simultaneously undermines the ubiquitous “gloom and doom” representations and didacticism found in published queer youth dramatic texts. There are numerous texts from Proud Theater’s history that evoke a degree of “doom-and-gloom” by addressing hardships faced by participants including: homophobia and hate crimes; harassment or abuse at home and/or school; religious intolerance; inadequate access to social programs, public spaces, and legal or medical resources; self-mutilation; prejudice exemplified by lesbian and gay individuals against other queer minorities; use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs; suicide and homelessness. To be a genuine reflection of their culture and subsequently legitimizing and emphasizing their art’s activist agenda, the world had to be presented in all its complexities. According to Kelley-Jones:
We really honor what was going on in young people’s life... We create
27 in ways that acknowledge the violence housed in our bodies. Without
that, you can’t go on with our process. I think when you walk into an
artistic space – a traditional artistic space – you’re expected to leave it
all at the door...you know, to be there and present and with your
script. ‘You are this character and now go!’ But we were coming in
messy and complex and just… like dripping with: ‘It’s hard.‘ It’s
complex. And it’s beautiful. We honor that and create with that.
(Interview)
But Proud Theater’s canon is filled with stories of love and romance, of triumphing over obstacles, of appreciating the wonders life has to offer, of well- adjusted non-heteronormative family structures and of friendship and redemption.
Through embodying their successes and triumphs and celebrating their experiences, queer youth destabilize entrenched social stigmas of queer youth as
“at-risk” and replace them with more authentic depictions of queer youth culture.
Self-determining representation in performance can, according to Deidre Heddon, have a profound effect on both participant and audience member at an individual and interpersonal level, writing:
Performing stories about ourselves might enable us to imagine
different selves, to determine different scripts than the ones that seem
to trap us. Devising a performance out of the material of personal
experience might enable for new insights into the relationship
between experience and structures of power, between identity and its
28 formation (and reformation). Performing the personal in public might
allow a connection between the performer and the spectator,
encouraging the formation of a community or prompting a discussion,
dialogue and debate. (157)
Performing the stories of contemporary queer youth in a public forum increases visibility of a marginalized group and increases awareness to the unique experiences and challenges associated with being a queer-identified young person.
Increasing public visibility and promoting a deeper understanding of marginalized populations is one of the most fundamental strategies in advancing the banner of equal rights and social justice — and medium matters. Alicia Solomon reminds us that “…the kind of mimetic experience offered in the theatre can by its very process disrupt conventional patterns of seeing, of knowing, and, especially, of seeing and knowing bodies” (9). By creating performative representations of queer youth culture by means of a devised dramaturgy, Proud Theater empowers youth to control their own representations. The autobiographical starting point in Proud
Theater’s dramaturgy allows youth to, in Heddon’s words, “Make visible denied or marginalised subjects, or to ‘talk back’, aiming to challenge, contest and problematise dominant representations and assumptions about those subjects”
(20).
Several studies point to the importance of self representation to youth. In
“The Dramaturgical Process as a Mechanism for Identity Development of LGBTQ
Youth and Its Relationship to Detypification” published in the Journal of Adolescent
29 Research, Erica Rosenfield Halverson writes:
If identities are instantiated in the stories we tell of our lives, then
group storytelling in the [About Face Youth Theatre] context is an
opportunity not just for individual identity construction and
representation but also for the development of cultural narratives
against which youth can understand themselves as individuals. (652)
Emma Zeldin, a youth participant from 2002-2005 and adult mentor from
2007-2011, highlights the profound affect role-taking can have on participants.
Zeldin tells the story of a youth participant:
...who started off identifying as male, and was cast as a trans-woman
in a piece that she tried out for, and by the end of the year she had
transitioned to feminine pronouns and going by a female name. One of
the things that performing gender can do is cast off some beliefs you
had, and some of your ingrained ideas about what gender is supposed
to be. There are actually a lot of youth in the history of the group who,
by being able to play the gender they’re not supposed to be, have been
more free to be the gender they actually are. (Interview)
One reason Kelley-Jones cites in our interview that motivated her to establish a queer youth company was a general lack of resources for queer youth at the time.
In our interview she recalls that school-based Gay-Straight Alliances were “just starting up around that time,” but:
...a lot of youth - for myself as well – school was not a place of great
30 connection, and so to have something that was in the community, was
different… it was important that it wasn’t in school and that it was
more community-based. There was definitely a lack of places where
queer youth could explore identity, explore community, explore our
stories in a way that went beyond victimhood. To make a space where
we could create community together. Perhaps beyond survival –
maybe not beyond victimhood. But beyond just making it. And we
were outside the context of school. (Interview).
Proud Theater and Schools
Proud Theater offers an important option to high school students, especially those who experience hostile school environments. In their 2006 publication
Sexuality in Adolescence: Current Trends, Susan Moore and Doreen Rosenthal review statistics indicating that seventy percent of verbal and physical harassment against
LGBT youth occurs in the school system, and conclude that “schools are a powerful site for homophobia to flourish” (173). According to the Human Rights Watch’s publication Hatred in the Hallways:
Gay youth spend an inordinate amount of energy plotting how to get
safely to and from school, how to avoid the hallways when other
students are present so they can avoid slurs and shoves, how to cut
gym class to escape being beaten up – in short, how to become
invisible so they will not be verbally and physically attacked.
31 (Bochenek 3)
Obviously, if school campuses are sites of homophobia, harassment and even assault for queer youth, removing the queer performance model from the school context promotes physical and mental safety for participants. Kelley-Jones was herself emotionally, verbally and physically abused in her first middle school. She was harassed for wearing rainbow buttons on her backpack, she made posters promoting queer awareness and equality which were defaced and torn down, and she was assaulted - kicked down the stairs by a homophobic bully. Sunshine Jones and Joann Kelley decided (along with their daughter) that a transfer of schools would be the only way to ensure her safety. Jones and Kelley had kept thorough documentation of incidents of harassment and assault against their daughter, and used it as leverage (under threat of litigation) to force the Madison Metropolitan
School District to hire the state’s first Queer Youth Resources Coordinator (Jones,
Interview; Kelley-Jones, Interview).
In addition to being sites of anti-queer violence, school systems promote top- down hierarchies. According to Sunshine Jones, Proud Theater hopes to create a generation of leaders that “sees leadership not as top down, but every person having a part to contribute, and that being rich and strong” (Interview). Harty noted in our interview:
In high school, the seniors pick on the freshman, the freshmen pick on
the junior high kids or middle school kids, all the way down the line.
But because our group is so anti-bullying and focused on respect, we
32 have not seen that. In fact, the seniors, in particular last year [during
2009-2010] took special care to make sure those middle schoolers felt
welcome, and that their opinions and ideas were valued. They helped
the adult mentors with that. Because I think they remember what it
was like to be that age, and to be struggling with some of those same
issues at that same age. When you go through experiences, they
toughen you, in whatever way that might end up to be. But we have a
tendency to remember those, and to hold on to that. We have greater
empathy with those going through the same experiences. So it was
really rewarding to see that they did not, in fact, shun them: They
welcomed them with open arms and validated who they were. They
validated their worth and their opinions.
School can also be a site of colonial politics. In “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Youth Talk about Experiencing and Coping with School Violence: A
Qualitative Study,” Arnold H. Grossman et al., write: “Schooling is one of the cultural institutions designed to socialize youth to 'fit’ into the community. In fulfilling this role, many school personnel become gatekeepers of the status quo, which includes fostering heterosexuality and gender “appropriate” expression (43). In Act Your
Age: A Cultural Construction of Adolescence, Nancy Lesko argues high schools’ treatment of its students as colonial in that they are perceived as “emotional, becoming naturally dependent, and confused; the ‘natives’/students are, as a mass, semihuman” (173). Coupled with the Grossman et al. study, schools promote a
33 cultural and colonial politic: one in which social norms and traditions are reified as correct or desirable, and those at the bottom of the hierarchal model – the student – are viewed with derision.
Not surprisingly, the most hostile audiences Proud Theater has performed for have been on school campuses. Such performances, it is often said within the company, are the most important, because they open up the greatest opportunity for dialogue among diverse groups of youth. For instance, during the 2011-2012 season, Proud Theater youth developed a piece to perform at Madison’s East High
School for their “Words Hurt Week” anti-bullying initiative. A group of six youth, five of whom attended the school, created a sound and movement-based piece incorporating words and phrases like “fag,” “dyke,” “fat-ass,” and “Why don’t you go kill yourself?” into a rhythmic, evocative offering. The group was scheduled to perform for a series of six assemblies, with a talkback following each performance.
During the talkback after the fifth performance one youth audience member called out “faggot!” Another muttered incomprehensible but clearly antagonistic slurs as he was escorted out of the assembly. A teacher attempted to make a “teachable moment” out of the incident, but quickly lost control of a passionately heated debate about morality, gender roles and queer sexuality. The talkback ended prematurely.5
5 Following the incident, the Proud Theater youth went outside the school to vent their frustrations. They loudly derided the audience’s behavior, their conversation peppered with profanity. From a second story window, a teacher called down to the youth to be quiet. The youth, already primed for a fight, expressed that they were blowing off steam after being harassed during their performance. The teacher snapped back that the youth “had to let it go,” suggesting that their recent treatment was in no way as harsh as Americans across the southern half of the nation whom had recently experienced
34 When the youth reported the events of the day to the company, it was decided that one of the adult mentors would set up a meeting between the youth, the school principle, and the teacher involved in order for the youth to have an opportunity to make clear why the teacher’s dismissal (see footnote previous page) of their harassment was symptomatic of a widespread disregard and disrespect of the school’s queer youth. Wild applauded the group following their report, commenting that the performance had been the most important one that year: Not only did it fulfill the company’s mission, but it would lead to increased discourse within the school about the treatment of queer identified youth (Field Notes 04
May 2011).
Process versus Product
Proud Theater prioritizes the youth experience over the theatrical process and product. Immediate discussion of problems and prioritizing conflict resolution are a key part of maintaining a safe space for the intensely personal dramaturgy to take place. If the needs of the participants are not put ahead of the needs of the production, the efficacy of the dramaturgical process is undermined by an environment that, instead of being safe, becomes hostile towards opposing or alternate opinions and points of view. For example, just weeks before the 2010-
a series of devastating tornadoes. The youth were quick to point out that there was a difference between natural disasters and harassment on school grounds during an assembly. The teacher faded from the window, but the confrontation only intensified the youths’ feelings of dismissal and scorn. The youth, visibly emotional following the exchange, were given the option of skipping the sixth and final performance of the day. They decided to see the day though to its conclusion, and reported to the group the following week that the final performance was not only the best of the day, but incredibly well received. (Field Notes 04 May 2011).
35 2011 capstone performance, I observed a meeting among the adult mentors during which Harty commented he was receiving a “weird vibe” from the youth (Field
Notes 20 Apr. 2011). As the rehearsal progressed, it became increasingly apparent that a number of youth were disengaged from the work, disappearing into alcoves and hallways to hiss softly to one another. Unaware of any specifics, the adult mentors stopped the rehearsal and called the company back together. Harty and the other adult mentors expressed their concerns regarding these observed behaviors, and asked the group if anyone needed to share anything. After a moment, one youth volunteered that zie had nearly acted on suicidal feelings earlier that week, and was particularly on edge that evening. Other youth in the group were aware of zie’s situation and had been trying to provide support and guidance discreetly, but their efforts only served as a catalyst for speculation and interest by other youth At that point, rehearsal effectively ended, and the remainder of the evening resembled what I would describe as informal group therapy. A conversation ensued, not focused on the youth who had volunteered the information, but on the experiences other youth had with depression, self- destructive thoughts and coping strategies, all underscored with repeated affirmations of unconditional love and support.6 While little tangible work was accomplished that night, the event sent a clear signal from the adults that the well-
6 Following the evening, the youth whom had been the flashpoint for the discussion met privately with adult mentors. Although Proud Theater attempts to always have a mentor with a social work or counseling background in their ranks, Artistic Director Brian Wild makes clear that the group is not a replacement for professional counseling. In a phone interview I asked Wild about Proud Theater’s reporting practices. He replied that the organization adhere to mandatory reporting standards of physicians, schoolteachers and administrators, child care workers, social workers and clergy (Wild, Phone).
36 being of youth participants was the company’s first priority, not the impending opening night. It also allowed youth an opportunity to articulate their own experiences in a confidential, nonjudgmental, affirming space.
Despite having therapeutic qualities, it is important not to confuse Proud
Theater’s process as drama therapy. Like drama therapy, Proud Theatre’s dramaturgy draws on such techniques as games, improvisation, role-taking, movement, and theatre. But according to Sue Jennings in Drama in Therapy,
“drama therapy is concerned with problem solving and is defined by its concepts and practices” (58), or to put it another way: drama therapy is the use of theatrical techniques to promote health and wellness of the individual, while Proud Theater’s goal is the creation of an artistic product. However, maintaining a balance between sharing stories and descending into group therapy can be a challenge and has even hijacked prior seasons. The 2003-2004 season was a roller-coaster ride of achievement and missteps. Many youth from the season before returned again, and the group began the year with three seasons and one full-length production behind them. The group expanded its touring and special event schedule, performing short pieces for Madison’s Frontiers Men's Group (Bi Bi Miss American Pie, and Queer Is...),
The Madison Senior Center (You Can't Be Gay and Generations) and several narrative pieces at the Wisconsin Rainbow Families Spring Conference and the New
Harvest Foundation’s annual art action, both in Madison. However, according to a number of interviews and evidence from the Proud Theater archives, the progression towards a culminating performance became bogged down as
37 rehearsals disintegrated into what Harty describes as “group therapy” (Interview).
Sunshine also cites a disproportionate number of individual crises among the youth recalling: “just dealing with the crisis week upon week upon week upon week derailed the creativity and the creation process”. The group was mired. Harty recalls:
The group was moving more into a self-help group, and losing its focus on the
social activism side that dealt with the theatre as theatre for social change.
We spent the entire year – actually that was the only year we actually didn’t
have a show of some sort - because of all the drama that was going on. We
were sitting in a circle, talking through people’s drama but not doing any
work with it. (Interview)
Harty admits in our interview that the season became emotionally exhausting, stating simply: “I was tired.” When he stepped down as Artistic Director at the end of the 2003-2004 season, his husband Brian Wild (who joined the group in 2002 as Music Director) was tapped to lead the company the following season with the aim of returning to a focus on the group’s performative mission.
Participant Impact
I have touched earlier in this chapter on some of the aspects of Proud
Theater’s process that qualifies it as activist dramaturgy, including empowering youth through self-representation, sparking civic discourse, and reshaping the dramatic canon of queer youth performance texts, but there are additional, subtle,
38 more complex aspects of activism inherent in Proud Theater’s dramaturgy. The
Proud Theater Model also promotes participants’ positive personal and interpersonal growth and development through teaching fundamental performance techniques, using an activist dramaturgy, and providing a nurturing familial social structure that accommodates participant diversity. Proud Theater helps youth develop fundamental performance skills such as increased awareness and efficient use of breath and body; proximal relationships and image-making; techniques to establish group focus, awareness and energy; playwriting; memorization; performance analysis and critique; handling difficult situations with performance anxiety; and managing costume, prop, and set pieces responsibly and efficiently.
Group authorship demands collaboration, which involves negotiation, argumentation, logic, critical analysis, self-evaluation and introspection. The company also offers youth the opportunity to expand their performance vernacular to include dance and music in their Proud Theater experience.
Proud Theater youth develop not only strategies for proactively engaging with the world around them but also an ability to articulate the influence participation in the company has had on their daily lives. Following a performance at Madison’s Edgewood College, youth participants spoke with audience members for nearly forty-five minutes following a twenty minute performance. During the talkback, youth discussed how Proud Theater gave them personal strength during the rest of their weeks (concluding that when one learns to handle the stress of tech week, one can handle gym class), how their writing skills had grown, and how self-
39 censorship had been reduced by taking part in the dramaturgical process (Field
Notes 13 Apr. 2011). During the talkback at the Edgewood College performance, an audience member asked the youth how they were able to engage in performing such personal and oftentimes painful stories. “Trust,” a youth replied. “No one feels judged or shamed. If there's a place to tell your story, this is it” (Field Notes 13 Apr.
2011). The youth continued, noting that by the time a small group shared a developing scene, individual experiences had been compounded with others experiences into an entirely new whole. They told the audience: “Stories are shared in small groups so it's less intimidating, and when it goes back for the group to see, it’s not your story any more” (Field Notes 13 Apr. 2011). In this way, collective authorship provides an additional layer of participant anonymity and personal removal from a scene. The activist dramaturgy also manifests in how it facilitates interpersonal development through performance practices. Stephani
Etheridge Woodson argues that community-based performance practices with youth have three major benefits for the participant:
1. The performance paradigm allows for complex community
explorations of how performance transmits, reflects, and constitutes
cultural memory and power structures.
2. Community-based performance practices with youth address the
fluid nature of identity as situated in space and time through multiple
languages and communicative structures
3. Community-based arts practices are processes and products of
40 mutual discovery, interpretation, and integration. (287)
Proud Theater facilitates youth role-taking, multiple points of view expand and challenge personal views. In addition, it serves as a platform for queer youth
(and adults) to engage with and better understand their trans-identified peers.
Considerations for Transgender Participants
The Proud Theater model pays particular attention to structuring its organization and dramaturgy in ways that help facilitate a positive experience for trans-youth participants by embracing what I call an “operational affirmation of gender fluidity.” What I mean by this phrase is an instantiation in the company’s daily practices and operational strategies that recognize and honor gender as non- binary and unfixed. Manifestations of this operational affirmation include the addition of preferred gender pronouns to introductions, a commitment to gender- neutral facilities, and a commitment to education about trans-issues. Despite a growing awareness and interest in developments in youth who do not identify with binary gender identities, this population has remained largely absent from public discourse, institutional policies and cultural representation. In her 2010 article
“Development, Risk, and Resilience of Transgender Youth” Kimberly A. Stieglitz writes that transgender youth are “almost nonexistent” in empirical studies, and those that do exist “have primarily focused on victimization, education in school systems, serious mental health issues such as suicide, and child welfare within legal systems” (193).
41 There are clear echoes of methodological problems with early studies of gay and lesbian adolescents. James T. Sears argues that the “at-risk” image has been institutionalized by American culture, pointing out the definition of “gay youth” in the encyclopedia of Youth, Education, and Sexualities, includes the following passage:
...research has consistently found that gay youth are at greater risk
than their heterosexual counterparts for: alcoholism, drug use, and
substance abuse; mental health problems such as lower self-esteem
and poor body image; eating disorders, particularly anorexia. In turn,
eating disorders in males are associated with childhood gender
nonconformity, which generally results in bullying and harassment—
and a tendency to attempt suicide. (qtd. in Sears 348)
Savin-Williams and Cohen argue that historical data indicating higher levels of self-harm, abuse, and risk-taking (for instance) resulted from methodological errors behind such studies due to respondents who were predominately “male prostitutes, runaways, and delinquents [and] consequently highlighted the lives of specific adolescents who were, by definition, in physical, psychological and social peril” (25). Makadon et al. point out that it is impossible know how many youth suicides are prompted by “distress” caused by actual or perceived sexual orientation, as data collected from death certificates and psychological autopsies cannot possibly accurately address sexual orientation issues” (87). Makadon’s team controlled a number of studies for other mitigating factors, after which “differences between heterosexual and LGBTQ subjects disappeared” (190). Nonetheless, queer
42 youth, particularly transgender youth, still grapple on a daily basis with this “at risk” perception. “Safe space” as used in the context of Proud Theater has a dual meaning as a space where queer youth can feel secure from any physical, verbal or emotional attacks, but also a space where youth can rise above inscribed feelings of victimization, and are empowered to performatively rewrite cultural misconceptions.
One result of Proud Theater’s facilitation of this safe space is that it affords transgender participants a context for gender disclosure, which Grossman and
D’Augelli argue is of central import for trans-youth (qtd. in Stieglitz 198). Proud
Theater is a space where youth can be free of discrimination and victimization for a few hours each week. One of the company’s former Youth Artistic Directors, whom identifies as non-gendered, reports that their time in Proud Theater gave them the
“strength to overcome internalized homophobia” and “come out as someone who is non-gender” (Proud Theater, Compilation). One company participant, a FtM transsexual who had penned a number of scenes and poems with trans-themes over his tenure, related how Proud Theater impacted him:
People never expected much from me…It sounds cheesy saying it, but
I probably wouldn’t be out, I probably wouldn’t be alive without
Proud Theater. There’s no other space for me – not at home, when I go
home I get told that I can’t be who I am. When I go out, I get the
impression that I can’t be who I am out there. This is the only place I
know where I can do whatever, feel whatever, without being
43 dismissed. (Proud Theater, Compilation)
From the moment one is introduced at Proud Theater, tacit assumptions of gender are destabilized. Introductions include names and preferred gender pronouns or PGPs. Proud Theater newcomers must articulate their preference for address by gender neutral,7 feminine8 or masculine9 pronouns.10 This simple practice achieves a number of outcomes: it undermines assumed gender expectations based on appearance or behavior; honors the prerogative of internalized gender over social prescription; and the act of “asking gender” requires all who choose to engage with the group a moment of personal introspection that carries with it the possibility of understanding gender as something distinct from one’s discreet bits and pieces. Adult mentor and former youth participant Emma Zeldin notes that honoring an individual’s identity is critical for youth who otherwise have no place where they can express an atypical gender identity. According to Zeldin, some participants “use a completely different name and [gender] pronoun [at Proud Theater] than they do in their outside worlds of school or home,” because it is the only space where youth feel safe to do so. In a
2006 interview, a fourteen-year-old transgender participant described the impact one Proud Theater rehearsal had on him:
After my first time at Proud Theater...I felt like there was a protective
7 Zie, zir, hir, they, them 8 She, her, hers 9 He, him, his 10 A common mistake for first time participants disclosing their PGPs to the group is to suggest that they ascribe to “male” or “female” pronouns, as the youth are quick to interrogate how the speaker defines “male” and “female.”
44 shell around me. It’s amazing how one day with a group over a couple
hours can make the entire following week more bearable. And that
didn’t stop after that first week. It continued through the entire year.
It made the last year probably the best year of my life, and I attribute
that entirely to Proud Theater. […] It’s the most un-dysfunctional
family I’ve ever been in. (Proud Theater, Compilation)
Proud Theater participants are conscientious about using correct PGPs, but the mental transition from addressing someone with new pronouns can be a challenge. I observed that youth who shifted pronouns were exceptionally forgiving of forgetfulness among the group. In 2011, one youth asked to be addressed by gender neutral pronouns, but concluded their statement by absolving the group should anyone misspeak. In the words of the youth: “Its hard to change that on a dime. So if you fuck up, I forgive you” (Field notes 23 March 2011).
Another example of Proud Theater’s operational affirmation of gender fluidity is its commitment to gender-neutral facilities. James Reeb Unitarian
Universalist church, the company’s oft-used rehearsal space, does have restrooms for male and female parishioners, but it also has gender-neutral single-occupant restrooms open to all. Gender-neutral restrooms do not force trans-youth to
“choose” between their gender identity and biological sex to perform the most basic of functions. Anecdotally, I was with approximately twenty youth travelling to meet with the fledging Proud Theater chapter in Wausau, Wisconsin in April, 2011. The bus stopped at a rest area, and although I did not myself enter the facilities, Kelley-
45 Jones returned laughing over the color-coded tiles for the gendered bathrooms:
Pink for women and blue for men. She quipped: ‘The blue and pink strategy probably works most of the time. But we got in there and it was a gender free-for- all” (Field Notes 09 Apr. 2011). Gender-neutral facilities also allow youth who wish to alter their physical appearance to align more closely with their actual gender a place to apply or remove make-up, accessories and jewelry, get into binders or change clothes. Gender-neutral facilities are required of host organizations when touring to overnight destinations. In February of 2011, an opportunity for the group to perform in Minneapolis was introduced to the mentors. One of the first considerations was whether or not the host campus could guarantee gender- neutral facilities and accommodations. Even backstage dressing rooms are gender neutral. I was present at the Bartell Theatre in Madison the day Proud Theater arrived to begin their week of technical rehearsals for 2011’s Rockin the Rotunda! I was standing beside the Artistic Director and several adult mentors when youth began to arrive laden with costume pieces and props. As a regular director in the venue, I offered guidance as to which dressing rooms were normally for women and which for the men. The other adults met me with blank stares and I suddenly realized my error: There would be no “men’s” or “women’s” dressing rooms.
Gender would not factor into where youth set up their costumes and makeup, or congregate between scenes.
A third example of Proud Theater’s operational affirmation of gender fluidity is the organization’s willingness to bring in outside resources to educate the
46 company on issues relevant to the trans community. In 2005 a trans-youth participant accused adult mentors of avoiding trans-themes in their work. In my interviews, this exchange was discussed by four respondents (Harty, Jones, Kelley-
Jones, and Zeldin), all of whom suggested that the youth participant was entirely in the right: adult mentors were uneasy engaging with trans-pieces due to a lack of knowledge of trans-issues and fears of misrepresentation. In response to this, the company solicited a transgender panel from the community who spoke to the company about concerns, themes and social stigmas specific to trans-individuals, followed by an extensive question and answer session.
Adult/Youth Dynamics
Finally and simply, Proud Theater is a place of love, where youth and adult participants alike can be assured that their emotional and psychological well-being will be unquestioningly nurtured. There is overwhelming evidence supporting the central importance of a single caring adult in the life of a young person. Dyer and
McGuinness (1996) note that the ‘‘‘presence of at least one caring, emotionally available person at some point (even briefly) in the person’s life’ (p. 277) is a necessary prerequisite to the development of resilience,” (qtd. in Steiglitz 202), and
Marten and Coatsworth (1998) write that “‘decades of accumulated research on resilience links one good relationship with an adult to a host of positive outcomes for children and adolescents, including better over-all psychological and academic adjustment’” (qtd. in Spencer 99). In “A Model of Youth Mentoring” Jean Rhodes
47 cites Olds, Kitzman, Cole, and Robinson (1997) who write:
Theoretically, by modeling caring and providing support, mentors
can challenge negative views that youth may hold of themselves or of
relationships with adults and demonstrate that positive relationships
with adults are possible. The mentoring relationship thus may
become a ‘corrective experience’ for youth who may have experiences
unsatisfactory relationships with their parents. (qtd. in Rhodes 33)
The roles and dynamics of Proud Theater mentors are discussed at length in chapter four, but the Proud Theater model challenges and complicates traditional youth theatre norms such as adult/youth power dynamics, thematic and lingual propriety, firm season and production schedules, and performative authenticity. In our interview, Kelley-Jones states that part of the inspiration for a power sharing dynamic between adults and youth was in response to resources available to LGBT youth at the time. In her words, “There were very few places that got away from a group of adults sitting in a room helping youth, to a place where it could be co- creative” (Kelley-Jones, Interview). Due to the nature of the initial collaboration between a thirteen-year-old-girl and a mature man, the model was developed collaboratively across generations, laying the framework for an organization where youth and adults could co-share power. According to Kelley-Jones:
It was Callen and I in the beginning, and we obviously have different
orientations and genders, and the two of us collaborated really well
together. That’s one thing that was important - as far as gender
48 relations, as far as race/power, as far as age, as a part of all these
systems of power - in who we chose as adult mentors and in who
ended up taking leadership in the group. (Interview)
There are a number of issues that arise that are handled exclusively by adults.
Zeldin articulates the differences between adult and youth participants as follows:
Being an adult has the added issue of being able to solve problems
that the youth may not need to solve, or deal with logistical issues that
the youth may not need to think about. Or provide discipline that’s
just not fair to make a youth do to another youth. And sometimes you
have to be the bad guy as an adult, which we accept because we don’t
want another youth to be the bad guy to others because they’re peers.
But it’s a beautiful power dynamic, and I like to hope that if there
were ever any issues, that we would be able to discuss them –
whether it be me and a twelve-year-old or someone twice my age.
(Interview)
As the brainchild of a teenager, founded in an intergenerational partnership, and dedicated to drawing performance from the lived experiences of the youth, the
Proud Theater model has a deeply entrenched commitment to respectful power sharing between adult and youth participants. During rehearsals, Kelley-Jones would act as a discussion facilitator and improvisation director alongside her adult counterparts in the ensemble. Kelley-Jones grew in notoriety in local and national media as a child founder of a queer theatre group, and became the company
49 figurehead until her departure from the group in 2005.
This chapter has detailed how the Proud Theater model functions as a cultural institution, a unique performance opportunity for youth that destabilizes traditional adult/youth hierarchies and one that engages an activist dramaturgy that can have a beneficial impact on participants and community members. It took, however, over a decade for the model to evolve to its contemporary form. The following chapter provides a narrative detailing how the model developed organizationally, ideologically, and dramaturgically over its first decade.
50 Chapter Two
Evolution of the Proud Theater Model
Proud Theater’s history and ideological foundation is intrinsically tied to the early life experiences of Sol Kelley-Jones. From an early age, Kelley-Jones learned of the strength inherent in gathering people together, the importance of family as a self-selected construct, and that performance as an activist medium was more effective when personalized through the sharing of lived experiences. This history relates how Kelley-Jones’ experiences with activist coalition-building inspired her to conceive of a queer youth theatre, and how she developed strategic relationships with adult theatre practitioners and social workers to realize that vision. The history continues by considering how youth and adult power dynamics have evolved since the company’s founding, and ends with a discussion about structural and organizational changes instituted during the tenure of current Artistic Director
Brian Wild.
Sol Kelley-Jones and Social Justice
Kelley-Jones was born and raised in a queer household deeply engaged in progressive activism, particularly in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality. Her early experiences taught her the power of bringing people together to unite behind a common cause, and the political efficacy that joined voices can have on a community. Kelley-Jones also recognized early on the parallel struggles for equality among racial minorities. Immersed in her mothers’ activist world from an early age,
51 Kelley-Jones learned early in life that unified voices can affect social change. Her mothers Sunshine Jones and Joann Kelley both began their careers working as advocates for victims of domestic abuse. They met working together in Michigan, fell in love, and moved to Madison in 1978. Nine years later their daughter, Sol
Kelley-Jones, was born January 18, 1987. Named for a child from Nordic mythology
“who brings light and hope to the world after a flood” (Darlington 17), Kelley-Jones jokes: “Even in the womb, I had my fist raised in protest” (Interview). Her mother,
Sunshine Jones remembers her daughter’s first protests as an infant slung to her chest. Later, family photo documents a three-year-old girl beside a sign promoting marriage equality easily twice her height (Wild Tribute).
In Love Makes a Family, a collection of stories about LGBT families in the
Unites States, there is a chapter devoted to the Kelley-Jones’ household. In the chapter, Jones and Kelley note the intention behind the choices they made for their daughter’s childhood. They wanted to ensure their daughter had the necessary foundation - intellectually, culturally, and spiritually - to handle the anticipated resistance to their family from the community and the harassment Kelley-Jones might face in school. So Jones and Kelley actively pursued opportunities to expose their daughter to diverse groups of people, points of view, cultural values, and to instill in her the spirit of an activist. It was, in Jones’ words, “conscious parenting,” including living in a “multiracial neighborhood, reading her books with multicultural and gender-inclusive themes, writing stories together about gay and lesbian families, finding a spiritual community that was affirming of our family, and
52 creating an extended family of love” (qtd. in Kaeser and Gillespie 152).
Kelley-Jones witnessed the efficacy of bringing people together for a single cause first hand in her childhood home because her mothers formed local coalitions to address community needs. The first group Jones and Kelley formed was called the Lesbian Parent’s Network (LPN). When Kelley-Jones was born, her mothers knew few other same-sex couples in Madison, and no other same-sex parents.
During the 1980s there were few resources for LGBT couples looking for information on parenting. Sunshine Jones remembers in our interview the only publication available for was Gillian Hanscombe’s 1982 book, Rocking the Cradle:
Lesbian Mothers, a Challenge in Family Living. “That was it. One book out on lesbians having children. I did a research project on lesbian parenting, and I can tell you there was nothing out” (Jones, Interview). In response to the dearth of available resources for lesbian mothers, Jones co-founded Madison’s Lesbian Parents
Network in 1989. The Lesbian Parents Network (LPN) was devised as a resource group where same-sex parents could gather to share their experiences and challenges as a queer household. When the group realized that the issues their children faced in the school system necessitated a group distinct from LPN, Jones
(along with other LPN members) founded both GLADE (Gays, Lesbians, and Allies for Diversity in Education) and a Madison chapter of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and
Straight Education Network, now renamed GSA for Safe Schools in Madison). By the age of ten, Kelley-Jones’ mother Sunshine had received numerous recognitions for her social justice work, “including the Wisconsin Community Fund’s Social Justice
53 Activist Award (1992) and Woman of the Year, from The United (1994)” (Proud
Theater, Utke 3-4), and their family has collectively been awarded Milwaukee
Pridefest’s “Stonewall Award,” and David Runyon’s “‘Shake it Up’ Political
Effectiveness Award” (Proud Theater, Utke 3-4). At age ten, Kelley-Jones was awarded the first “Young Feminist of the Year” by the Wisconsin National
Organization of Women (NOW) and the “Youth Pathfinder Award” at GLSEN’s national conference in Oakland, California. Kelley-Jones became a national spokesperson for marriage equality by the time she was a teenager. By fifteen, she had testified five times before the Wisconsin state legislature, and was named one of “20 Teens Who are Changing the World,” in the March 2001 issue of Teen People
(Proud Theater, Utke 3-4).
The founding of the Lesbian Parents Network is key to the conception of
Proud Theater. The Lesbian Parents Network started off small, with only three same-sex couples with children. When the adults met at the Kelley-Jones’ home, their children would play together. They performed talent shows and created short plays with youth from the neighborhood. Joann Kelley built a small stage in their basement for the youth with a wooden frame and homemade curtains. Organized by Kelley-Jones, the children of the other LPN members (along with friends from the neighborhood) put on plays as part of Kelley-Jones’ birthday parties and for
LPN social gatherings, including the group’s annual Halloween part. Jones recalls:
Sol would direct it all. I remember one year the kids did [a queer
parody of] “Going to the Chapel and Gonna Get Married,” and it was so
54 cute – it was just these little kids. They did a magnificent play about
Tinky Winky being gay, and Sol’s grandma even made her a Tinky
Winky costume. One year she was a drag queen. It was exciting for the
kids. They were someplace safe, and they were really acting out the
things that they knew from their culture and their world. So actually
the Lesbian Parents Network, and the plays that Sol put on, was really
the formation of Proud Theater. (Interview)
These early experiences made Kelley-Jones cognizant of the personal initiative requisite in effective activism. Sol Kelley-Jones’ childhood taught her the power of self-initiative. In one instance evidencing the youth’s self-directed activism, Kelley-Jones’ mother Sunshine recounts a day her daughter arrived from school, upset due to having counted thirty-two slurs used against gay and lesbian people (Jones, Interview). According to Kelley-Jones, “It was 'faggot' and 'gaywad' and 'lesbo' almost every other word. It was an intense, intense environment” (qtd. in Vary n.p.). According to Jones, when they approached the school administration regarding their inattentiveness to LGBT youth issues, their concerns were dismissed as irrelevant for the middle school student body, which was comprised largely of youth of color. So Kelley-Jones, of her own volition, decided to create an educational initiative for the middle school about race and sexual diversity. Jones, who helped her daughter find images for her presentation, recalls the paucity of diversity in LGBT representation during the time. “I tell you, we had to search for those images of multiracial LGBTQ people. We went through every Advocate there
55 ever was in order to find these images” (Interview). Kelley-Jones decided to create an educational initiative for the middle school about race and sexual diversity. She created a questionnaire for students surveying their knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of queer culture and its intersections with racial diversity and went from classroom to classroom distributing them and collecting results. She used her data to develop a presentation for classrooms and published her findings on the school website which enabled all students and faculty to see her project’s findings.
Kelley-Jones began to found activist organizations on her own in middle school. She founded the Madison chapter of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays
Everywhere), which had a significant influence on Kelley-Jones. Through her association with other COLAGE members, Kelley-Jones came to understand her distinct privilege in growing up in a “…a white, middle-class lesbian-parented family of righteous activists” (Kelley-Jones, Archive 1). She realized that her experiences were radically different from those of her peers, and she wanted to find ways to draw attention to the challenges youth faced on a daily basis without the benefit of a supportive, empowering home life. According to Sunshine Jones, it was at this time that her daughter first conceived of a queer youth theatre as a medium to share stories and increase acceptance and understanding of queer youth.
Even before its official formation, Proud Theater ascribed to the concept of queer as a political identity, not a sexual one. The productions Kelley-Jones mounted for the LPN featured youth who were children of same sex couples but who did not necessarily identify as LGBT. Their experiences as youth in a queered
56 social context, however, remained an important and underrepresented part of the queer youth experience. Kelley-Jones realized that “queer” was a much larger umbrella term than those identifying as LGBT. Children of the other LPN couples did not necessarily identify as LGBT, but were nonetheless actively involved in the struggle for equality. Kelley-Jones, who articulates her own sexuality broadly as queer, or simply person specific, invited the other LPN youth along with friends from the neighborhood to participate in backyard productions she staged at their home. This open inclusion of all interested youth established a precedent before the company’s founding that queer for this particular theater company would be an inclusive term centered on political, not sexual identities.
Kelley-Jones’s belief in the political power of personal stories developed from social strategies taught by her mothers and through her use of personal narrative in public appearances to humanize the stories of LGBT civil rights activists. When their daughter first began to attend school, Jones and Kelley would role-play with their daughter on how she could talk openly and honestly about her queer family with her peers, along with strategies to diffuse potential confused or hostile responses (Jones, Interview). Through role-playing, Kelley-Jones realized the potential to investigate and demythologize complex social issues through role- taking and improvised interactions. According to Kelley-Jones, Proud Theater was from the beginning “about combining activism and art and theatre as a powerful tool” (Field Notes 12 Mar. 2011).
Kelley-Jones utilized personal stories in her public appearances advocating
57 for LGBT civil rights. On March 10, 1997, ten-year-old Sol Kelley-Jones faced off with the Wisconsin legislature at a hearing for bill AB-104 in Wausau, Wisconsin.
The bill, if passed, would define marriage in Wisconsin as a union exclusively consisting of one man and one woman. Although the legislative hearing had been moved from Madison, Wisconsin’s politically progressive capital, to a smaller community in a conservative district two hours north, opponents still outnumbered supporters at the hearing (Meunier 1). Tammy Baldwin, a member of the Wisconsin
State Assembly at the time, had invited Kelley-Jones to “give the opening testimony at the hearings” (Vary n.p.). Sitting nervously between her two mothers, the young activist addressed the packed room at the North Central Technical Community
College. She raised her head and began to speak:
Hi, my name is Sol Kelley-Jones. I am ten years old. I am really lucky to
have two parents who love each other very much. My parents are
always helping me and lots of other people too. My friends tell me
how lucky I am because I always have a mom home with me after
school who fixes great snacks. Not everyone is lucky enough to have
two great parents so I know I have a lot to be thankful for. Some
people don’t understand everything about my family – like having two
moms. They ask me, “Who is your real mom?” I say, “they’re both my
real moms.” I have a great family that’s full of love. That’s why is so
hard for me to understand why people are so afraid of us that they
want bills like this. I don’t see any way this bill helps families, and it
58 hurts my family a lot. (Plea)
Following her short speech, the packed hearing room “erupted into sustained, thunderous applause, whistles and cheers” (Meunier 1).
Company Founding
In order to make her dream manifest, Kelley-Jones created strategic partnerships with adults who could assist in facilitating the organization’s founding.
At the age of thirteen, Kelley-Jones had passion, vision, and a trust in queer performance as an effective vehicle for personal growth and political change. She lacked the theatrical training needed to found a company, the administrative and management skills necessary for the company operation, and had no legal authority to enter into contracts. She needed adult assistance. Her first adult allies were her mothers, particularly Sunshine Jones. Jones, a self-confessed theatre novice, had no idea how to help her daughter found a queer youth performance group. Jones facilitated a meeting between her thirteen-year-old daughter and Callen Harty, a
Madison-based playwright, director, and activist. Harty had also been present at the
1996 marriage rally in Wausau, and heard the ten-year old speak that day. He recalls that she was “the most eloquent speaker” during the six-and-a-half hour hearing
(Interview). Two years later, in September of 1998 Harty’s photo appeared in the arts and lifestyle section of the Wisconsin State Journal promoting his upcoming play, Gay like Me (a parody of John Howard Griffin’s classic 1961 novel Black Like
Me). The photo of Harty framed him beside his production’s poster, prominently
59 displaying the show’s title. That day’s newspaper edition appeared in the in the
Kelley-Jones’ household, and while recollections between Jones and her daughter are inconsistent as to who first saw the article, after reading the feature on Harty,
Kelley-Jones wanted to approach him as a partner in making her dream of a queer youth theater a reality.
Sunshine found Harty’s number, and placed a call to him on behalf of her daughter. “Remember,” Sunshine says in our interview, “Sol was just thirteen at the time!” Harty was a stranger, a gay man, and thirty years Sol’s senior. Harty agreed to a meeting. Jones dropped her daughter off at one of Madison’s longstanding
LGBT resource centers OutReach, Inc., where Harty worked as a Coordinator. He listened to the thirteen-year-old’s pitch, and was excited about the idea. He agreed to co-found the company with Kelley-Jones, and the two set to work articulating what, exactly, their queer youth theatre would be. According to Kelley-Jones:
Our hope was to create a place where queer youth, youth from LGBT
families, and allies could creatively explore LGBTQ issues, concerns,
claim and share their stories, make connections with each other, and
experience the hope that comes when you are changing the world
around you. (Archive 1)
Harty agreed to join the initiative as artistic director, although he and Kelley-
Jones agreed they would both be active leaders of the company. Kelley-Jones notes that the early dynamic of a young person and adult working together established the company’s deeply entrenched ideology of intergenerational exchange and
60 collaboration (Interview). Harty’s theatrical training occurred on the stages of
Madison, Denver and New York rather than in a formal training program. Harty is also a lifelong advocate of progressive causes, particularly queer issues. He was a founder of the Ten Percent Society, the University of Wisconsin’s largest LGBT social organization, and following a truncated college experience at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, worked in non-professional and community theatres in
New York and Denver. After returning to Madison he established a long and productive relationship with Madison’s Broom Street Theater as an actor, director and playwright.
Sunshine Jones influenced the overall structure of the company by providing research on similar performance initiatives, and by connecting the organization to other LGBT groups in the area. In her role as self-appointed administrator, Jones, a trained researcher, looked for like organizations that could serve as a model for the emerging organization. Her online search brought her to the website for About Face
Youth Theatre (AFYT). John Sable, who briefly served as Artistic Director for the company in 2000, recalled when he first met with the Proud Theater organizers they watched a video of About Face Youth Theatre’s work, remembering:
They looked like a professional group. They were doing similar things
to what Proud Theater wanted to do, they were making an impact and
they were youth-focused. They seemed to be successful and that’s the
way Sunshine wanted to push it. (Interview)
Information regarding AFYT's membership, dramaturgical process and season
61 schedule were all detailed on the About Face Theatre website, and it is clear from
Sol Kelley-Jones’ archive that her mother had researched the Chicago company. I discovered a color printout of About Face Youth Theatre’s website in Kelley-Jones’ archive dated June 16, 2000 - approximately six weeks before Proud Theater’s first performance. Likely unaware of its influence on the organizational and dramaturgical structure of the company, About Face Youth Theatre served as a primary model for the development of Proud Theater.
Early adult group facilitators included Harty, his niece Lauri Harty (also from
Broom Street Theater) and Sunshine Jones. Kelley-Jones and Harty decided to share the title of Cofounders. The group began with three youth participants: Kelley-
Jones, and two peers, both of whom were children of couples who were part of the
Lesbian Parents Network. Although Kelley-Jones would bring in other peers to rehearsals, their attendance was irregular. The three core youth of the first season consequently had all already performed together in productions for LPN in the
Kelley-Jones’ basement.
The fledging theater group began meeting a few months later on Saturday mornings in January 1999, alternately at OutReach’s facilities and at the Kelley-
Jones’ home. They spent their first months determining company goals, dramaturgical process, and the name of their company. Kelley-Jones recalls the slow progression of development in those first months in our interview:
We didn’t get our name for several weeks. I don’t remember it exactly
how we came to the name [Proud Theater], but it was something that
62 felt powerful, that felt queer. […] The name was something that had
energy, something that had what we wanted to represent, something
we wanted to get out of it. (Interview)
In our interviews, Harty, Kelley-Jones, Sunshine Jones and John Sable all remember the conception phase as an exciting time, but acknowledged that structure for the organization was slow to emerge. Nearly a year after their initial meeting, the company’s conceptual model was still undetermined. During this glacial advance, John Sable, husband to Lauri Harty (Callen Harty’s cousin) joined the group as the group’s drama coach (Proud Theater, Recruitment) and de facto
Artistic Director. Sable had been following the progression of the group’s development second-hand through his wife. He recalls the first year developing the model as a frustrating time for both adult and youth participants. He notes in our interview that at the time he joined the group, there was a conflict occurring between Sunshine Jones and Callen Harty as to the model and mission of the group.
Jones advocated for a professional model following the About Face Youth Theatre structure. Harty wanted the organization to remain grassroots, open to all participants, volunteer-driven, and engaged in direct community activism. The momentum had dwindled. Harty invited Sable to join the group as the youth director and facilitator in order to work more closely with the other adults to develop the company’s mission statement.
The week after his formal introduction to the group, Sable met with the youth in the Kelley-Jones’ basement. According to Sable his first impression was
63 that the group was unfocused. He notes they would engage in imaginative play, and would talk about ideas for skits, but they had not yet started to create performance scenarios in any structured way. During our interview, Sable described in passing the seed of what would evolve into Proud Theater’s distinct dramaturgy. In discussing his first rehearsal as adult facilitator with the youth, Sable recalled:
Everyone was ten, eleven...twelve. And we went into Sunshine’s
basement, and we would have this little rap session, and identify
emerging themes. And Sol helped lead some of these questions. It was
very powerful: Suicide was definitely a topic, also abuse,
discrimination, feelings of acceptance and non-acceptance - all these
topics that adults don’t think ten and eleven year-olds talk about. I
remember the kids seemed mature beyond their years. I remember
thinking that we needed to find a way to get this on paper: We needed
to tell these stories. […] We weren’t putting ink to paper at first - we
focused just on sharing stories. They would tell stories, we talk about
them and ask ‘how would we act this out?’, and then we would
improvise. The difficulty was that there were five zillion ideas every
day. That’s how we did our creation process. And of course a lot of
these kids were very flamboyant and they wanted to add this or that
to stories (and I would have to reign it in sometimes) but they would
turn into these really fun pieces that we would work on. We knew we
couldn’t pick the best story, because there were so many of them. And
64 we knew we only wanted to do one piece. We fleshed out the story of
3 Points over a couple of weeks, and it got to the point where it felt
like we couldn’t improvise on it any more - it needed to be written
down.
This process mirrors a frequently used technique by a number of playwright/directors at Broom Street Theater: Actors improvise on a given scenario, the playwright/director guides the process - editing content along the way - and following the rehearsal the playwright/director types up scenes reflecting the improvisation. Since Sable and Harty both came from the Broom
Street group, the predilection for this mode of devised work was second-nature, and it made sense as an approach that allowed the youth to steer the content of the pieces.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Kelley-Jones brought in a number of youth whose attendance was irregular, and this led directly to one of Proud
Theater’s core dramaturgical strategies: passing in-progress dramatic material from one person to another for continued development. This allows any number of voices to contribute to a piece, resulting in Proud Theater’s collective authorship.
Sable noted in our interview a number of times that youth attendance was wildly inconsistent. One week the group would improvise around one person’s experience, and then determine elements or approaches to add or edit during the following rehearsal. Often, the primary source of that story would be absent at the next rehearsal. The solution was simply to have other youth play the part of the
65 central protagonist or narrator of the story. Sable, in maneuvering around absenteeism to maintain forward momentum, accidentally institutionalized into
Proud Theater’s dramaturgy a strategy of shared creation which resulted in stories being developed through multiple participant perspectives.
Negotiating absenteeism also resulted in two other stylistic hallmarks of
Proud Theater’s early years: cross gender casting, and a relaxed adherence to the printed script. A consequence of using actors to develop pieces regardless of gender was a tradition of cross-gender casting.11 Second, despite the presence of a printed text, Sable notes the text was not strictly observed. “The dialogue was set, but I wasn’t really strict on the words, as long as the message was coming across” Sable notes. Josie Montañez-Tyler and Emma Zeldin, both youth participants during the
Sable and Harty Artistic Directorships, laugh as they recall the company’s initial relaxed relationship to the text. “It was all improv,” Josie Montañez-Tyler states,
“We just worked it and worked it and worked it and finally all your lines were in your head.” Zeldin adds: “We made things up on stage. If you watched the same show on different nights, it was completely different. Our sound cues would be totally off because we were making stuff up.” This dynamic has since changed.
Current Proud Theater productions continue to go through the established dramaturgical process, but pieces are eventually finalized, and youth are expected
11 I distinguish here between cross gender casting and gender blind casting: The latter suggests gender plays no role in the casting of a given role or character, whereas cross gender casting speaks to a historic theatrical convention where on gender plays another. There are number of youth who prefer to embody only their own gender identity, which I have observed most regularly with trans- youth, who oftentimes feel that only at Proud Theater can they safely enact their actual gender.
66 to execute performances with professional consistency.
Sable pressed the other adult participants to arrange for a space and date for an initial performance. Approximately a month after Sable’s push for a performance date and venue, the company booked its first public performance. With a clear goal and timeline, the company found a focus in their work. The weeks following were hectic as the company tried to organize in order to mount the show. Sable and
Kelley-Jones worked with the other youth to develop plays about their personal experiences. For their first performance, the youth decided to focus on a story centering on three friends, each negotiating their experiences with queer youth.
One of the three identifies as a lesbian, her best friend is witness to his family’s bigotry, and the third - portrayed as aggressively homophobic throughout - is actually closeted. Kelley-Jones recounts:
It was one of those weird dream sequences – one of those pieces that
goes to another world - and as it turns out in the play, the young man
who is homophobic and a bully is queer himself. That is something
many of us had experienced. As ‘out’ people in the school, the people
we faced - those we got these hard feelings from – when we would
meet them on the street later, they’d whisper: “Hey, yeah, you know, I
was…” We wanted to expose some of that. It had LGBTQ family stuff,
which we’d never seen before. It was a great beginning little piece.
(Interview)
The group met weekly to develop the piece through improvisation and once a
67 solid and consistent structure had emerged Sable typed up the script following a
Saturday morning rehearsal. Proud Theater’s first production was entitled 3 Points, and was produced at Madison’s annual MAGIC (Madison Area Gay Interim
Committee) Picnic in Madison’s Brittingham Park on July 25, 2000.12 The day of the performance the group arrived at the park and saw for the first time their performance space under the park pavilion on a short raised stage roughly eight feet by eight feet square, a fraction of the size of the space where they had rehearsed and blocked the piece. The company realized immediately it needed to rework the staging of their piece for the venue. According to Sable, “We had rehearsed in a basement, and I was used to working in black-box theaters, so somehow we were all assuming we would be in a standard, walled performance space.” He notes the youth made the adjustment to the new space, perhaps because youth were already accustomed to freedom in rehearsals to embellish or alter scenes, therefore adjusting this performance to an unfamiliar space was easier than it would have been otherwise.
A second challenge faced at their initial performance was how to be heard over the milling crowds. “I think everyone was drunk,” Sol Kelley-Jones says, laughing. “Honestly. There were a lot a lot of leather-men around. There had just been a drag show (all of us were very excited about the drag show of course)”
(Interview). Sable recalls that the group had a specific start time, but there was no formal program of events distributed for the event. Although the crowd that
12 See Appendix D for complete text
68 gathered to watch the youth were attentive and respectful, in the background other picnic attendees continued to play Frisbee or socialize. “Everyone was having a good time, whether watching the performance or doing their own thing” (Sable). He recalls in our interview the wind whipping through their open-air venue, forcing the youth to deliver their lines into one of three fixed microphones to be heard over the din. Due to the fixed nature of the three microphones, the youth performed the action of the scenes (playing basketball, for instance) and when it was time to deliver their lines, would step downstage to deliver into the microphone, reminiscent of “reader’s theater without the scripts” (Sable). “You could definitely ask for more cohesiveness in a first show,” Sable says with a smile, “but there was so much energy and excitement in the audience and with the youth that no one cared.”
Company Growth and Development
3 Points was a success not only as a maiden production, but as a promotional tool. Informational fliers were distributed, and at least two people in the audience were so impressed by the group’s work, they joined as youth participants the following season. One of those youth was Josie Montañez-Tyler. She and Kelley-
Jones would grow to be fast friends, and prove to be central figures in the development of the Proud Theater model. In our interview Montañez-Tyler related her initial feelings of awe watching what she saw as “little kids” engaging the LGBT community through performance. She and another peer had been members of the
69 LGBT youth group Teens Like Us, but were unfulfilled by the purely social focus of the group. Montañez-Tyler relates in our interview that Teen Like Us had produced some skits with LGBT themes, but she saw immense potential in Proud Theater and wanted to be a part of it. She joined the following season, the oldest company member at age sixteen.
Montañez-Tyler was but one of a number of older youth recruited to join the company for the second season. Following the first season, Sable recounts in our interview that the company decided to establish a participant age range of between thirteen and eighteen, although participants under the age of thirteen from the prior season were allowed to remain in the group. This decision was motivated in part by challenges presented in maintaining focused rehearsals with the first cohort
(who ranged in age from twelve to thirteen), partly to focus the organization’s target demographic and mission, and in part to ensure a spectrum of youth experiences (Sable). Kelley-Jones’ basement would no longer accommodate a growing theater company. John Sable recounts:
When we went to the church, that’s when Proud Theater really
opened up to everyone. Before that in theory it had been open to
everyone, but the only people who knew about it were in Sunshine
and Joann’s circles and specifically invited by Sol and Sunshine. All of
the youth basically already knew each other. When we moved to the
church, there were suddenly new youth - older youth - and people
suddenly didn’t know each other. (Interview)
70 Sable left the company for personal reasons during the second season and
Harty resumed the responsibilities of Artistic Director, a position he maintained until the end of the 2003-2004 season. The group continued to meet weekly at the
James Reeb Unitarian church and developed pieces for a second performance at the next MAGIC Picnic. The dramaturgical process, still in its infancy, was a slow one.
Over the season the group developed only a handful of pieces, but they were able to begin to expand their exposure in the community with performances at events like the Teens Like Us talent show and the New Harvest Foundation’s awards banquet.
The following summer they performed Chemistry at the MAGIC Picnic along with a number of monologues and a song.
Following a successful second season, the company decided open-air venues for capstone performances were not effective, and the group determined that, while the touring opportunities would still be taken advantage of throughout the year, the capstone production for the 2001-2002 season as well as future productions would take place in a traditional theater venue. Harty secured the Frederic March
Playcircle on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for Proud
Theater’s 2001-2002 capstone production A Mural of Us. The single performance sold out, promoting the group to increase the number of performances from one to two (Proud Theater, Lease) for the following capstone production. Both performances of the 2002-2003 production We Can See Queerly Now sold out.
As described in the proceeding chapter, the 2003-2004 season became mired in the sharing phase of the dramaturgy, and Harty, exhausted, stepped down after
71 that season. When Harty resigned as Artistic Director, there was little formality involved in Brian Wild’s promotion to the position. Interestingly, the appointment was made not by the youth but by Jones. Wild had been brought in during the 2001-
2002 season to work with youth on the productions’ titular musical number “We
Can See Queerly Now,” and remained involved with the group from that point forward on a weekly basis as an adult mentor. Recounting his promotion, Wild recalls that Sunshine Jones said: “‘Well, I guess you’re Artistic Director now.’ I said:
‘Ok.’ And I took it” (Interview).
Under Wild, the group experienced a significant shift in focus from process to product, and the change was not an easy one for the participating youth to adjust to. Wild brought a renewed focus to theatrical quality as an integral part of effective activism. Wild’s goal was to enact a major shift in the company’s focus from the previous season and bring the goal of creating theater back to the fore. For Wild, the quality of the product cannot be divided from the efficacy of its message: “If the message is muddled or looks unprofessional,” he says, “people aren’t going to be as willing to listen to it. [...] When you try to be professional and honest with the message, they will listen” (Interview). In his words:
I came in and put my foot down in 2004. I said: “We are not a social
group, we are a theater group. We’re going to act professionally. We’re
going to keep the drama13 outside. We’re going to focus on the theater.
We’re going to make sure that shows happen here. We say we’re
13 Wild uses the term drama here not to suggest that challenging events should not be part of the dramaturgical process, but that the group would not allow itself to be mired in the sharing process.
72 supposed to be changing the world. We’re not going to be very good at
that sitting in a circle talking all the time. It’s about sharing our
message with people. (Interview)
Wild, a project manager by profession, instituted documentation into the company’s daily operations. Wild created a document entitled “Working within
Proud Theater: Work-shopping ideas,” which explained Proud Theater’s dramaturgical framework for new participants. The codification of permissions and dramaturgical process through these various documents subtly signaled to the youth participants that Proud Theater would not merely become a transient social space for queer youth: Youth would have to commit to the company’s mission.
Wild introduced permission forms, media releases and medical releases into the company - a step that has been seen as critical by some, and detrimental by others.
For Wild, documented media release forms were needed “because both Proud
Theater and the press need[ed] release papers allowing the use of [a] youth’s voice, image, comments or ideas” (Proud Theater, Media). Most participants are minors, so use of their images in promotional materials legally required a parental/guardian sign off. Additionally, the company’s public exposure in local and national media was expanding, and due to the politically charged nature of the group’s work, parents and guardians needed to be aware their child could appear on the front page of the local arts sections. The company’s medical release form poses a range of questions including participant dietary needs, regular medications, allergies, activities prohibited, most recent tetanus shot, and family doctor or
73 insurance provider (Proud Theater, Medical). Both documents require parent/guardian dates signatures, waiving Proud Theater’s liability. These documents not only indemnified Proud Theater against mishaps with youth, but also served as a primary conduit for communication with youth participant parents. Functionally, the new documentation forms established primary and emergency contact numbers, youth email addresses, disseminated information about Proud Theater’s history, listed key personnel for the season and company contacts, the rehearsal and performance schedule (including notations for mandatory rehearsals) for the season, and opportunities for parents to volunteer by providing food or transportation for events. This process ensures a degree of buy-in on the part of youth participants’ families. Although Montañez-Tyler appreciates the need for some paperwork, she points out in our interview that requiring parental or guardian permission might alienate or exclude potential youth participants from whom garnering such permission is impossible due to home contexts or, for others, homelessness (Interview).
When he took over for Harty as Artistic Director, Wild redistributed much of the in-rehearsal direction of scenes, monologues, poems and songs to the adult mentors. Perhaps in response to this shift in participant dynamics, under Wild, the roster of adult mentors shifted accordingly to include fewer adults mentors whose primary experiences were therapeutic, and more who came from the realm of theatre. This shift was made possible (in part) to the growing level of theatrical skills and experiences adult mentors were bringing to the group. During Harty’s
74 tenure in the position, the Artistic Director was the de facto director of every vignette, and the number of youth participants (and resulting number of scenes) were fewer under Harty than Wild.
These changes instituted at the top of Wild’s tenure as Artistic Director met resistance from the youth, and the youth “pushed back” (Wild, Interview).
According to Zeldin, who was a youth participant during Harty’s last year and
Wild’s first as Artistic Director, youth who had worked under Harty rejected Wild’s overt push towards a product (Interview), which created an atmosphere of hostility mentioned in a number of personal interviews including those of Kelley-Jones,
Wild, Harty, Zeldin, and Jones. One strategy Wild initiated to mitigate the conflict was the establishment of a Youth Artistic Committee (YAC) and a Youth Artistic
Director (YAD).
The Youth Artistic Committee consists of “no fewer than two and no more than five youth at the discretion of the Artistic Director” to serve as “ambassadors of youth needs, concerns and desires to the adult mentors of Proud Theater” (Proud
Theater, Agenda). Their role is:
• To support the mission and structure of Proud Theater, including all
rules, guidelines and policies defined by Proud Theater
• To assist in fostering focus within the rehearsal space
• To serve as a communication conduit between the youth
participants, the youth leadership, and the adult mentors.
• To work alongside the Youth Artistic Director, Youth Music Director
75 and Youth Dance Director implementing the year-end show
• To work with the Youth Coordinator to establish or communicate
upcoming events or performances in the community
• Interviewing potential new adult mentors of behalf of the youth
(Proud Theater, Agenda)
Representatives to the Youth Artistic Committee are democratically elected in an instant-runoff style election. Unlike positions appointed by adult mentors (Youth
Artistic, Music, Dance, and Technical Directors), the youth democratically elect peers to represent their concerns and opinions to the adult leadership.
A prime example of the role the YAC plays in regulating the group happened during the 2010-2011 season when a youth participant was dismissed from the group for disrespecting a mentor. Prior to the opening of the next week’s rehearsal, the adult mentors called the YAC into a meeting and explained with minimal detail what actions had been taken. The YAC agreed that the adults had taken appropriate action, but they wanted to be the ones to discuss the situation with the rest of the group without the mentors. They expressed that they wanted to make sure that the situation didn’t become rumor or gossip, or that it would deflate the energy and focus of the group for the evening. They also wanted to revisit with the rest of the group the Participation Guidelines, to remind one another what each person had agreed to regarding proper conduct. As they left, Kelley-Jones asked the YAC how long they needed with the rest of the youth. The reply of: “We will send someone for you when we are done” reflects the authority felt by youth to address concerns
76 with the rest of the group without adult facilitation (Field Notes 06 Apr. 2011).
The Youth Artistic Director was the first of the youth director positions, and was created at the same time as the YAC. Youth director positions, which now include Youth Artistic, Music, Dance and Technical Directors, are appointed by the adult mentors rather than elected by their peers. The appointment choice falls predominately to the corresponding adult mentor (i.e. the Music Director appoints the Youth Music Director), but the decisions are discussed between adult mentors due to overlapping interest by youth and to consider mitigating factors. For instance, participant age factors into decisions because if two qualified youth have expressed interest in a position, the candidate with fewer seasons remaining to serve in that position is given priority (all else being equal). The first year Wild appointed a Youth Artistic Director was also Kelley-Jones’ last as a youth participant. His choice to appoint her as the group’s first YAD was “a no-brainer”
(Wild, Interview). Youth Directors, like the other YAC members, act as youth advocates and communication conduits to the adult mentors. In addition, each is responsible for conceiving, scripting and directing a piece for the capstone production.
By the time the company entered its tenth year, the group had a firm grasp of its process. Harty returned for the 2005-2006 season as an adult mentor after a year hiatus, and the return of Kelley-Jones as a part-time adult mentor brought a renewed attention and focus to the inclusion and development of pieces directly addressing queer issues. Both Kelley-Jones and mentor Heather Renken note in
77 interviews that between Kelley-Jones’ departure at the end of 2005 and her return in 2009, the individual pieces produced by the company had broadened in focus from issues specific to the queer youth experience to broader treatments of themes such as bullying, drug and alcohol use, and peer and parental relationships. Renken viewed this as a natural thematic evolution that reflected and honored participant diversity (which includes many straight identified youth), and prioritized issues most immediately impacting participant experiences. Although amenable to Kelley-
Jones’ redirection of the group’s focus, Renken defends the legitimacy of producing work that is not overtly queer-themed. She argues:
Even if we blatantly say: ‘We’re going to have two boyfriends’ or
‘We’re going to have two girlfriends,’ or ‘There’s a trans person in the
room...’ Whether we address that or not, the fact that the identities of
some of the people on stage are queer, the people writing it are queer,
that alone is enough to ‘queer’ any theme. (Interview)
During initial discussions with charter members of Proud Theater Wausau, Wild provided the figure of “at least seventy-five percent” of the pieces in a production should be queer (Field Notes 12 Mar. 2011).
With the not inconsiderable exception of Proud Theater’s recent expansion to include additional chapters across the state (and, ultimately, across the nation), the most recent evolutionary shift in the Proud Theater model has been the development of a summer program. The initiative started in Madison during the summer months of 2010. Zeldin and Montañez-Tyler held an informal writing
78 workshop series with interested youth from the group, and met with six youth weekly throughout the summer to mentor the youths’ writing. Zeldin states in our interview that the group wrote original plays, poems and monologues, practiced workshopping the pieces with one another, and sought to enhance their aptitude at providing constructive criticism. “If it’s not Shakespeare, What is good dialogue?? I didn’t know any of those things when I joined [Proud Theater] in high school.”
In the summer of 2011, Wild established a formalized but optional summer schedule for Proud Theater comprised of a number of workshops. He believed a number of the youth would benefit from being able to commiserate with their
Proud Theater peers on a weekly basis over the company’s summer break.
Knowing attendance would be inconsistent, Wild conceived of weekly workshops that would focus on fundamental theater techniques, personal development and workshops on progressive activism. Wild reached out to Madison’s theater community and invited local artists to lead a series of workshops during the summer months. Workshops took place Wednesdays throughout June, July and
August, and workshop titles included:
Building your theatrical toolbox: Tips and Tricks for voice and body
Fired up, Fierce and Fabulous!
Stage Movement Workshop
Kindness, Not Weakness Workshop
Playwrighting and Troubleshooting
Directing Workshop
79 Monkeying Around Improvisation Workshop (Wild, Summer
Schedule)
Organizational Independence and Expansion
The organization was also putting down a strong foundation for its expansionist agenda. Sunshine Jones was leading the effort to organize a non-profit entity dedicated to supporting Proud Theater, in order to facilitate a transfer of sponsorship from OutReach - a relationship that was beginning to wear thin from
Wild’s perspective (Wild, Interview). The move was prompted by OutReach’s contractual fee of ten percent of the company’s income, and, for Wild, it was impeding the progress of establishing another Proud Theater chapter in Wausau,
Wisconsin, and the fiduciary services provided by OutReach, Inc. seemed disproportionate to the loss of revenue (Wild, Interview). OutReach’s contracted ten-percent share of Proud Theater’s profits was insignificant when the company was only collecting $2,000-$3,000 annually in grants and ticket sales. But when the
Mukti Fund awarded the group $10,000 for the 2010-2011 season, the loss of
$1000 to OutReach seemed excessive to the adult leadership. 2012 marked the official transfer of Proud Theater from OutReach as its umbrella organization to the newly-founded Art and Soul Innovations. According to the organization’s website:
Art and Soul Innovations encourages artistic expression, personal
development, and leadership in LGBTQ and allied youth by supporting
the youths' original works and by helping the youth to educate their
80 peers and the community through the presentation of those works.
(Art and Soul)
The arrangement with Art and Soul Innovations allows Proud Theater to utilize their nonprofit status without having to pay a percentage to a fiduciary representative. According to Art and Soul’s articles of incorporation, their board of directors consists of Brian Wild (President), Callen Harty (Vice-President), Darlene
Harbick (Treasurer), Susan Slotten (Treasurer), Heather Renken, and Sol Kelley-
Jones (Art & Soul). In severing their relationship to OutReach, Proud Theater achieved its organizational independence, and the authority to determine their future independent of an external fiscal sponsor.
This season also found the company moving aggressively forward in establishing a Proud Theater—Wausau chapter. On March 12, 2011, nearly two- dozen adults and youth met to have an exploratory conversation about Proud
Theater, and how (and if) a chapter of Proud Theater might be founded in the
Wisconsin city of Wausau. Boasting a population of just under 40,000 according to the 2010 Census, Wausau is the northernmost city in the state with a significant population, surrounded by forests and farmland. Wausau has but one-sixth of the population of Madison, lacks Madison’s suburbs, and is relatively secluded from other urban centers. It is also Wild’s hometown. “It’s the perfect place for Proud
Theater. It needs a Proud Theater,” Wild relates in our interview. “The trick is to make sure that Proud Theater Wausau is able to be what they need to be, and not try to be what Proud Theater Madison is” (Interview). Proud Theater-Wausau
81 began its firs season in the fall of 2011 and presented its first performance, Proud
Theater-Wausau: Coming Out! July 13-14, 2012 at the First Universalist Unitarian
Church of Wausau.
In the fall of 2012, Wild established a team to lead a chapter of Proud Theater in Milwaukee, and plans on developing a group in Eau Claire in the Fall of 2013.
Wild is also working with college students and other young people in what Jeffrey J.
Arnette terms “emerging adulthood” (469) in Stevens Point, Wisconsin to establish a university-based Proud Theater variation, an initiative tentatively dubbed Proud
Theater: Beyond.
The evolution of the Proud Theater model has been a result of progressive ideologies, calculated strategies, and fortunate accidents. While it had drawn from other performance models, it is a distinctive, unique youth performance model with an activist dramaturgy at its core. In the following chapter, I focus on how the company dramaturgy functions from the beginning to the end of its process, which may be a useful resource for Proud Theater participants in fledgling chapters or other practitioners of devised youth performance.
82 Chapter Three
Co-opting Prince Charming: Proud Theater Dramaturgy
Thus far, this project has established my central arguments and a narrative for the evolution of the Proud Theater model. In order to fully understand how the model works and to further an awareness on overt and covert activism inherent in its process, this chapter details Proud Theater’s dramaturgy and ends with an extended example that tracks the development of a single monologue from initial brainstorming sessions through its final performance.
Proud Theater dramaturgy begins with the sharing of stories and experiences revolving around a predetermined topic. Once the topic is introduced to the entire group, youth break into smaller groups to discuss what they know, attitudes towards, or experiences related to the topic. Each group is facilitated by a mentor.
Mentor facilitation styles are diverse, as I expand upon in chapter four, but is generally conducted by asking questions of the group that prompt perspective taking, personal reflection, and complicate issues. Mentors ensure that space is made for all voices in the small groups, often soliciting responses directly from reserved speakers. Mentors also moderate time to avoid any one youth hijacking a discussion. Hijacking occurs when a single person becomes the focal point for the discussion phase, and happens when a story is particularly shocking, traumatic or complex. The family atmosphere established in Proud Theater rehearsals prompt youth to support and nurture their peers in these instances, and it is easy to slip from focused discourse to group therapy, functionally undermining the heart of
83 Proud Theater’s dramaturgy which is the multiplicity of experiences coming together to create an entirely original dramatic piece.
Small group discussion can last from ten to thirty minutes, but there are no set rules as to how a group might transform a dialogue into an improvisation.
Improvisations may logically follow a concluded discussion, or mentors may initiate improvisation mid-discussion by asking: “What might that look like?
Someone get up and show us that moment” (Field Notes 20 Mar. 2011). Youth take turns improvising the scenarios, swapping roles and trying different in-role tactics to achieve character goals. The process used mirrors some of those utilized in
Boal’s forum theater and Michael Rohd’s Theater for Community, Conflict and
Dialogue, and other applied theater practitioners. Each improvisation is analyzed for its authenticity and dramatic potential, and then the process repeats for the remainder of the rehearsal period.
A second avenue for pieces to be introduced is for texts that have been written outside of rehearsal to be brought in for the company’s consideration. To be a part of a Proud Theater production, authorship needs to be relinquished by the contributing youth. Zeldin states:
We make it clear to all the youth that once they submit a piece to
Proud Theater, they have to let their authorship go. You’re not going
to see names in the program under each piece indicating authorship,
because it really does become a collaborative piece. Very few are not
changed in our process. That’s a good thing, because we want multiple
84 voices in the group. This isn’t a one-person group - or else we would
do other people’s plays. So we make sure that people know if this is
something you cannot change, if you are tied to exactly the way the
script was written, don’t submit it. (Interview)
I would add that allowing for submission developed outside the rehearsal hall enables youth to delve into topics and themes that they might not in the presence of their peers, or express themselves in ways that seem contrary to their public persona. Following the sharing of the piece and possible identification of originating author, the group analyzes the works’ structural strengths and weaknesses, shares responses to individual characters, interrogates the efficacy of the piece as political theater, and discusses potential improvisational inroads.
Another inroad to performative explorations can be through movement and music. Since the creation of the youth music and dance director positions, each capstone production has included youth-created songs and choreography. Youth might bring in a melody they have composed and use others as sounding boards, or lyrics might appear needing to be set to music. Movement explorations can serve as the foundation for the Youth Dance Director’s (YDD) piece. The YDD during both the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons began with a concept for a movement piece, recruited a handful of youth, and used the small company to develop choreography to communicate the concept. This group of performers normally becomes the final piece’s core company. Like both the devising strategies and the text analysis and editing inroads, music and movement explorations are shared at the conclusion of
85 rehearsals.
Some pieces shared at the end of rehearsal are fully formed scenarios, and include a clear line of action, complex characterizations, and engage with the issue at hand with authenticity and sincerity. Just as often, however, small groups must articulate their scenarios to the rest of the group sans performance due to the work getting mired in the discussion phase. As an example of the latter, at the top of the
2011-2012 season, youth were working to create pieces developed from the word
“transgender.” At the close of rehearsal, one group who failed to present a piece spoke to the ensemble of the challenges their group had with creating a piece they felt they had little direct experience with and feared offending others through misrepresentation, which had derailed the groups productivity. Most pieces fall somewhere between these two extremes. Harty notes that it is irrelevant if a group returns with a “polished” piece at the end of a rehearsal, because even if a particular scenario fails to develop in performance, “it might become an inspiration for a piece down the line” (Interview). The entire group is given an opportunity to provide feedback on shared work. Youth and adults all participate in discussing pieces. Strengths are identified, questions are asked regarding plot or character confusion, and potential conflicts are also identified at this point in the process. In order to keep the process from becoming bogged down with youth expressing the same points repeatedly, the company uses finger snaps or “sparkle fingers”14 as a way to express agreement without interrupting the current speaker (Field Notes 09
14 Sparkle fingers consist of extending one’s hands and rapidly wiggling the fingers
86 Mar. 2011). A formal vote to determine whether to accept the piece for development is not called, but the group’s analysis and response to a piece usually results in group consensus one way or the other. Through this process of bringing the small group to the ensemble for direction, all participants have an opportunity to contribute another perspective to the work. In this way, even if a group of youth remains consistent over the weeks in developing a piece, all voices have a chance to affect the final text.
Language
Honoring the “dripping complexity” alluded to by Kelley-Jones in the previous chapter can result in dramatic content that can be contentious within the group. Two regular points of contention that arise from this honest and open thematic address arise from the use of homophobic and racist speech, debates about fairness in representation, and imagery and themes relating to queer youth sexuality. The use of language and words historically used as weapons against the
LGBT community, or those that evoke strong images of pain, abuse, or hate is invariably a cause for debate among company members. The opening words of The
Gauntlet (2001) were: “Fag! Nigger! Queer! Cock sucker! Ass fucker!” (Mural of Us).
Underscored by the grinding sound of “Into the Void” by Nine Inch Nails, homophobic, racist and other profane language was hurled at an actor approaching the stage. Running just under ten-minutes in length, The Gauntlet ignited a debate between youth and adult company members over linguistic realism versus public
87 propriety. Proud Theater adults at the time expressed their discomfort at the language (Harty, Interview), but according to Kelley-Jones, the youth stood their ground. According to Kelley-Jones: “We said Hell no! This is the way it actually happens. These are the words that are used and we need to use them” (Interview).
The compromise reached was that the youth would address the use of hurtful language to the audience as part of a preshow curtain speech, but Harty confessed it to be a lesson learned: “I was initially resistant to the strong language they wanted to use. […] But in order for the piece to be honest it had to be that way. [...]
And they were right. And they convinced me they were right” (Proud Theater,
Archive). The debate established the group’s historical precedent of taking on the language of victimization to repurpose it for progressive activism.
Participants interrogate the dramatic necessity of profane and offensive language. Where it seems language is used casually or for shock value, it is usually replaced with more benign word choices. In one rehearsal, Kelley-Jones addressed in a small group the use of the word “bitch” in a piece. The youth responded initially that the word was so commonplace it was meaningless. Acknowledging their point,
Kelley-Jones pushed the youth on the issue, and asked the group how it was intrinsic to the dramatic needs of the piece. The youth acquiesced, and determined that the use of the term was not essential, and Kelley-Jones encouraged them to find something that felt “equally natural” through improvisation (Field Notes 20
Apr. 2011).
This example is not intended to suggest, however, a linguistic prudishness on
88 the part of the adult mentors. In fact, it seems that since The Gauntlet first initiated a debate about hate speech as an artistic choice, youth cohorts have shrunk from using such language in their improvisations. Whereas early Proud Theater cohorts relished in the opportunity to use the language of oppression they faced each day in the development of their work to both comic and poignant effect, contemporary cohorts display acute cautiousness in the use of language for fear of offending audiences. I have observed on a number of occasions mentors – especially those who were once youth participants – goading youth not to shy away from realistically representing the language they are exposed to. Such a consistent prodding on the part of the mentors is interesting on a number of levels, and evidences the tension between allowing youth to direct content and encouraging youth to be fearless engaging with authentic and painful language. Over the last two seasons I have observed adult mentors challenging youth not to shy away from using language that was reflective of their experiences - no matter how cruel such language could be. My two years of observations as well as interviews conducted for this study including those with Kelley-Jones, Montañez-Tyler, Zeldin and mentor
Gavin Logan, indicate mentors have been more willing to encourage youth grappling with transgressive language than youth participants have been inclined to do. Field notes report Emma Zeldin stating that she is “against any censoring,” reminding youth that the promotional materials all state that “Proud Theater performances are intended for mature audiences” and “these are youth experiences, even if it's hard to hear. Discomfort can be a positive” (Field Notes 09
89 Mar. 2011). On the same night, Heather Renken cautions youth against softening pieces at the expense of authenticity (Field Notes 09 Mar. 2011). Josie Montañez-
Tyler says in another rehearsal notes, “just cause it doesn't look good doesn't deny the reality” (Field Notes 20 Mar. 2011).
This linguistic role reversal evidences a direct influence on the part of the adult mentors in script development, and Proud Theater mentors must maintain a balance between pushing youth to grapple with hate speech with an awareness that language, its use in our culture and the queer community alike, changes with each successive cohort, and the generational difference in the prevalence and affect of hate speech is even more profound. Therefore, that which is “authentic” also shifts from cohort to cohort and across generations. Mentors should not presume their experiences as youth a decade or more ago reflect the lived experiences of contemporary youth cohorts.
Because adult mentors cannot anticipate the changing lexicon and vocabulary of successive cohorts, they must make sure that they are not projecting archaic or outmoded language on a younger generation. There are other instances of adult influence on the overall theatrical product. Each piece, except those created by the youth directors, is directed by a mentor. Wild determines the theme and writes the theatrical framing device for each capstone production. During the 2010-
2011 season, Wild realized he wanted to include a play that addressed youth who get kicked out of their homes after coming out to their families, and he wrote a
90 piece and brought it to the group for a reading the following week.15 Montañez-
Tyler notes in our interview that mentors can find themselves pushing topics on youth that no longer have the resonance that they may have had two decades ago:
I think [mentors] can make more of an issue of something than it has
to be. For instance: Problems with color in school. It might have been
a problem when I was back in high school, so I might bring it up, but it
isn’t an issue for them now. And when you bring that up to a kid now,
they’re like: “Uh, no. I go to East [High School]. Everything is mixed up
already.” I mean, my experience at East was way different than say
someone going to Hamilton, who would be like, “Yeah I got beat up for
dating someone of another color.” That was a different world to me.
And you bring up all this race stuff now like its heavy, you know, and
the youth are like “It’s not like that for us anymore.” They’re not
interested in it.
Representation
A second point of regular contention focuses on balanced representation. For instance, during one rehearsal a small group shared a scene about domestic abuse.
The family, composed of a physically abusive father, an emotionally negligent mother, and a young victim were portrayed as an economically disadvantaged family. Youth expressed concern that the piece was unfairly singling out
15 This is the only such instance on record of a piece being authored by a mentor.
91 impoverished families as spaces ripe for domestic violence. A healthy round of snaps signaled group agreement, and the following week that aspect of the piece was revisited (Field Notes 13 Mar. 2011). Another instance included a religious figure who was a two dimensional antagonist. Concern were raised that the only religious figure represented in the entire capstone production was wildly demonized, and that audience members could read that as the group’s overall attitude towards organized religion (Field Notes 01 May 2011). Proud Theater youth also look to the fair treatment of jocks and bullies, being quick to point out when such characters are being portrayed stereotypically (Field Notes 21 Apr.
2011).
The third regular point of contention as to propriety includes scenes that address queer youth sexual acts. In the 2010-2011 season a piece entitled It was developed. The piece was a collection of monologues and poems that, for some participants, were too explicit in nature. At that rehearsal I wrote in my field notes that it was the first time I had seen a clear an obvious division between the older and younger participants. The disconnect revolved around what aspect of the collection of pieces was transgressing beyond performative appropriateness. The older youth’s primary concerns were not knowing whom had authored individual pieces for sake of interpersonal comfort in the anonymity of the author, and that some of the imagery was too vivid and could conjure up painful images. One youth expressed concern that a phrase like “he’s inside me” could be scary for people who have had negative sexual experiences. The younger participants expressed more
92 concern about sexual behavior being presented in the show at any level, noting that their families and friends would be in the audience and the content could be overwhelming, as if queer as a concept was fine but as an expression of attraction was off the table.
The Example of Prince Charming
To illustrate the performance development process at Proud Theater the next section tracks the development of a monologue, entitled “Prince Charming,” which was performed at least twice in 2002 by Sol Kelley-Jones: once on May 25,
2002, as part of a performance entitled Rights and Recognition: Same-Sex Marriage
Collage, and again in the second half of the 2001-2002 capstone production A Mural of Us. Through this example, we can understand how freeform discussion is mined for gems of dramatic potential and how pieces are informed by multiple points of view. Multiple versions of text-in-development reveal distinct transformation in each successive incarnation. First I examine the framing of the topic through an analysis of the group’s initial brainstorming document in order to demonstrate how discussion of primary themes (in this case same-sex marriage equality) are expanded on and complicated by participants. Next I trace the literary genesis of the Prince Charming character from passing mention in an improvisation transcript, to a focused metaphor at the core a new piece. I follow the piece’s development through multiple participant improvisations and points of view, demonstrating how Proud Theater’s dramaturgy integrates multiple narratives into
93 a cohesive devised dramatic text.
A handwritten document pulled from Sol Kelley-Jones’ archive bears the heading: “Same Sex Marriage Piece” (Proud Theater, Brainstorm). The heading clearly identifies the framing device for the discussion (same sex marriage) and identifies the end goal of the process as a theatrical product (a “piece”). The clear frame of “Same Sex Marriage” guides the discussion, which begins with brainstorming and free association. The 2001-2002 Proud Theater youth cohort consisted of roughly a dozen youth by the time of the capstone production, but it is impossible to determine how many youth were present during the rehearsal that produced the document. It cannot be determined from the archive whether the impetus for the topic came from the youth participants or adult mentors, but the march for marriage equality for LGBT citizens had entered our national discourse at the time the discussion was transcribed. Legislation supporting gay marriage and civil unions was catalyzing political initiatives at the time: California, Hawaii,
Vermont, and the District of Columbia all developed (and passed) some form of legislation protecting domestic partner benefits or civil unions between 1992 and
2001. Legislation prohibiting recognition of same-sex couples had been passed in a dozen other states and was at that time being introduced to the Wisconsin legislature. In addition, a number of participants were either children of same-sex households (like Kelley-Jones and her peers from Lesbian Parent Network couples), or, in the case of adult participants, in long-term same-sex relationships themselves like Harty and Wild. Despite not knowing where the seed for the chosen frame
94 came from, it is evident that the topic was one intimately connected to the lived experiences of many participants. The document reads:
SAME SEX MARRIAGE PIECE
Youth voices in favor:
1. It would be “our” baby - not just one of our babies. Lesbian couple
dreaming of having a child.
2. Young person with gay dads - one is sick. The sick dad is the non-
biological father and the one who works. Youth wants to go to college
- will be denied benefits + social security. Are all kids really equal
when some are denied social security?
3. Agony over heterosexual kids of gay parents wanting to get
married but feeling guilty because parents did not have access.
4. Religious aspect - religious figure (Rabbi?) argue in favor of unions
from an organized religion standpoint.
-Youth who is LGBT and very spiritual who want to have a
traditional religious ceremony
5. The constitution doesn’t say that everyone has equal rights EXCEPT
people who are LGBT. An academic student...
6. Fighting for Friends (Brainstorm)
The group began by discussing the list of scenarios detailed above, and those discussions were transcribed and served as the foundation for over a dozen scenes and monologues during the 2001-2002 season. What is made clear by the
95 subheading “Youth Voices in Favor” is that the compiled list was created collectively with youth (and adults) present and engaged in a discussion, and it also evidences the company’s early commitment to youth direction over dramatic content. The list gives us insight as to what themes associated with marriage rights resonated most strongly with the youth. The first scenario, a lesbian couple negotiating parenting and legal documentation, reflects lived experiences of adult participants (like Sunshine Jones), but indicates an awareness of the youth as to the impact legal inequalities have on family stability. It also critiques parentage as a titular versus a relational or even genetic bond. The use of the word “dreaming” instead of “wanting” in describing the lesbian parents’ outlook reflects the standard of the times, when gay adoption was more widely stigmatized in American culture.
The second scenario presupposes gay parentage (by biological reproduction on the part of one partner as opposed to adoption) and explores realistic scenarios encountered by same-sex couples in American culture. This scenario addresses parents who come to identify as LGBT following prior heterosexual unions, which draws a sharp distinction between benefits afforded to heterosexual couples that are denied same-sex couples. In this instance, the family breadwinner is not a legal part of the family, and therefore his incapacitation jeopardizes the security of both his partner and child, conjuring conflicts surrounding same-sex partnerships and social security or pension and health benefits. The scenario ends with a question musing if marriage inequality for adults results in youth inequality.
The third potential scenario highlights voices of non-LGBT identified youth
96 from same-sex households and the guilt that can result from being conscious of heterosexual privilege. Heterosexual youth growing up in same-sex households, whether the parents are legally married, domestic partners, or living in a state that fails to legitimize same-sex marriages, are continually negotiating tensions between a social tradition valorizing the institution (if not sanctity) of marriage for heterosexual youth while being acutely aware that the dominant model of parenting these youth understand and have experienced is degraded and devalued by the same voices reifying the sanctity of marriage. The “straight guilt.”
The fourth performance scenario grapples with the intersection of faith and sexuality from two distinct vantage points: A representative of a religious tradition arguing for marriage equality against observed doctrine, and an observant LGBT youth committed to marriage as an institution but wanting to have the public and spiritual affirmation and ceremony depicted in their faith.
The fifth scenario displays an awareness of the constitutional principles underlying the marriage equality debate. This prompt also shows that not all ideas become fully formed in the brainstorming process. There is a broad idea introduced, as in the other offerings, but unlike the other offerings the dramatic conflict is absent. There is an attempt at identifying that type of character that might be involved in a scene addressing constitutionality: “An academic student” (although it is unclear at which grade, degree, or educational institution the character is in).
The final example appears incomplete, listing only a wide theme. Unless the discussion came to a sudden end due to time restrictions or another intervention, I
97 suggest that the brevity of the final point may suggest that the ensuing conversation either A) identified the theme as not focused enough on the topic and was a separate theme unto itself or, B) felt that it was an easy topic to incorporate across a number of suggestions and shows the importance of brainstorming as part of the discussion phase. These scenarios give us a sense of this particular cohort’s experiences and awareness of what was certainly considered an “adult topic,” and reveals a youth perspective on both lived, witnessed, and imagined realities.
Prince Charming: Discussion
The following excerpt, while lengthy, is but a small portion of a longer record, and gives an intimate perspective into early Proud Theater discussion phases. The central images and theme underlying the genesis of “Prince Charming” appear at first buried within a larger conversation. The exchange is an excellent archival document demonstrating an instance of Proud Theater dramaturgy in action through the sharing of personal experiences along a specific theme (gay marriage rights), but it is as yet a conversation, not a dramatic exploration. The attention to detail in the typography of the transcript is noteworthy, so all typographic elements have been reproduced in the excerpts throughout this section verbatim, including all grammatical and typographic errors. Names of youth participants have been anonymized. Situated in the middle of a much longer discussion transcript, we see a first glimpse of Prince Charming:
sunshine: i see her, i have watched what she has been through. i have
98 watched how she has stood for the community that she loves. i have
watched her kicked at school. i have seen things written on her
student council poster. i have seen her knocked down the steps.
and then she stood there, and she;s been there. why wouldn’t i want
her to be able to move through that door that’s closed. what i what I
want for everyone is to be able to move through that door that’s
closed. all closed doors. 16
D______: speaking of those opened doors. man, i don’t even think i can
get through them. i mean, i try my hardest to. we try doing a lot, but i
don’t htink it’s gonna happen. people’s talking about all these rights
and stuff,. i mean, i have my girlfriend and i love her with all my heart.
she’s fine. she is my life. i mean, i would do anything to keep her
happy. and when she wants to get married and i can’t give that to her,
that’s one of the things that hurts the most. i mean, i can give her
happiness and joy, but i can’t give her the right to get married. cuz,
you know, i want to be that prince charming who gets down on my
knees and proposes and everything. but there are just so many
16 Sunshine Jones’ contribution evidences the active participation in the sharing process by the adult mentors at the early stages of Proud Theater. This dynamic adds an additional depth to the conversation by the addition of a multigenerational perspective, moreover serves to build relationships between adult and youth participants, yet the degree of adult participation in the sharing process has decreased over the years. Adult mentors now focus on facilitating conversations between youth rather than actively contributing to the conversation. “It's not our business to share our experiences,” Harty says in a pre-rehearsal meeting, “We facilitate their stories” (Field Notes 26 Feb. 2012), or as he states in our interview, the role of the mentors is “acting as a guide” (Interview).
99 things...it’s ridiculous. i mean, i can’t get that right. i see people who
are over here who have the right to get married and take advantage of
it. and the people who are over here who have the right to get married
but can’t because they’re not het. what kind of bullsh*t is that? i
mean, studs can;t get married. we just want the right to get married
and be with someone for a long time. (Proud Theater, Improv 7)
The passage gives us insight into the attitudes and opinions of one youth participant on the subject. D_____ wants the fantasy of an idealized heteronormative marriage, envisioning a scenario where she “gets down on knees and proposes and everything,” which is, in its own way, reductive in its narrow conception of a heterosexual experience. The addition of the word “everything” at the conclusion of the statement indicates that half-measures are not acceptable compromises. The speaker is made weak, ineffective and a victim of the legal system, suggested by the phrase “when she wants to get married and I can’t give that to her, that’s one of the things that hurts the most.” The statement evidences a youth articulating an awareness of the institutionalized legal disenfranchisement they experience and its direct impact on their ability to self-determine their future. Despite borderline pessimism, the speaker reveals a faint optimism regarding the likely success of marriage equality, which I would argue is distinctly representative of contemporary youth cohorts not present in any previous generation. For the speaker, it is not a question of if she will be married, but when. One strategy the speaker uses to articulate the complexity of hir frustrations (expressed as “...but
100 there are just so many things... its ridiculous”) is to reduce the debate to a simplified
“us” versus “them” binary. The use of profanity signals frustration for a social construct where heterosexuals are able to take “advantage of the system” while others are denied the ability to see their fantasy through to a fairy tale ending. Or, to keep the fairy tale theme going: happily ever after.
Prince Charming: First Version
At the next week’s rehearsal, Kelley-Jones assumes the story and modifies it, demonstrating how a second point of view on an experience can draw out and enrich the original story. I call this first monologue “Prince A.” She focuses on a single image from D______’s experience: the heteronormative archetype Prince
Charming. The primary changes in this version include an improved dramatic structure, a tonal shift in the character’s outlook and clear audience engagement strategies. Further, it exemplifies why no individual authors are not assigned to pieces. As a personal experience becomes part of a dramatic investigation, it is taken up by others, transformed, and returned again into a collaborative pool of creation. The core of the original experience remains, but the detail is entirely remade:
Sol: This girl, she’s so awesome. she just rocks my world. she’s
breathtakingly beautiful. her smile could...i don’t know...change
anyone’s heart, i guess. her mama must have been a thief, cuz she’s go
diamonds in her eyes. when i’m with her, it feels like anything’s
101 possible, ya know? we look up at t stars together and we dream about
what could happen someday. we’ve been together four years, since we
were sophomores in high school. we love each other so much. we
look up at those stars and we dream about having a big wedding. i’ve
always dreamed about a prince charming swooping down to take his
wife. i always wanted to be him. i always wanted to be her night in
shining armor. get up on the top of the world and declare my love.
then i wanted to get down on my knees and ask her to be my wife. but
studs like us, we don’t have those rights. so many choices we can;t
have. i just want tto make her happy, you know? make that dream in
the stars come true. (Proud Theater, Prince A)
The first notable distinction between this improvisation and the source text is its developed dramatic structure. Although there is no clear antagonist, Prince
Charming has been drawn much more vividly as a protagonist. The Prince
Charming character, a traditional literary and dramatic archetype representing the patriarchal heterosexist standard, is co-opted here by Proud Theater youth to serve instead as a hero in the seemingly mythic quest for queer equality. Prince Charming as protagonist is more complex in this rendering, although still incomplete when considered through Stanislavsky’s classic GOTE (goal, obstacle, tactic, expectation) character analysis questions. The Prince’s goal is to marry hir paramour, but must first contend with the obstacle of discriminatory legislation. However, in this nascent incarnation, Prince Charming lacks any kind of discernible strategy to
102 overcome the obstacle, and no suggestion of the characters expectations as to how the conflict will resolve. Both of these latter elements become more fully developed in subsequent incarnations. The girlfriend, representing the speaker’s unattainable dream, opens the monologue as a paragon of romance, clearly depicted using vivid phrases like ‘breathtakingly beautiful” and with a smile that could “change anyone’s heart” (Proud Theater, Prince A).
This improvisation uses increased imagery and evokes classic Romanticism, comparing the smallness of the lovers the wide universe with phrases like “looking up at the stars together and we dream...” and “get up on top of the world...”.17 The repetition of images of stars, the sky, dreams, fantasy all work together to create a dreamy, light, romantic tone. The speaker shares their dream of a “big wedding,” with the imagery of Prince charming swooping down, rescuing the proverbial damsel in distress from the dragon of discrimination and inequality.
In this version, the girlfriend becomes a muse prompting the Prince to action, rather than the first version in which the romantic object was a passive subject in the narrative. In doing so the piece refocuses on love as a motivation for action rather than something oppressed by outside forces, inverting the power dynamics of external oppression and self-determination found in the transcript. The language also becomes more hopeful with phrases like “when with her... / feel anything possible / look at stars and dream,” and the character’s outlook for the future shifts from one of doubt and pessimism to one that acknowledges current struggles for
17 This is also a direct pop culture reference to a line in James Cameron’s film Titanic.
103 equality but does not portend an equally oppressive future context. There is a distinct tonal shift towards playfulness in this version as well from phrases like
“she’s go diamonds in her eyes” to ending on a happy note, one rooted in belief in an individual’s efficacy to make “that dream in the stars come true.” Prince
Charming begins as a traditional archetype and its queered through the course of the monologue through co-opting heteronormative behaviors like “... get down on my knees and ask her to be my wife” which queers traditional romantic masculinity.
Finally, there is a subtle messaging at work on the audience. The beginning of the monologue effectively establishes Prince Charming as our protagonist who is unable to effect change within dominant structures, which is the core conflict in this variation. The denial of rights is introduced only after the speaker has gained the audience’s sympathy, which not only enhances the dramatic arc of the piece, but sets up an audience expectation of success that is ultimately denied them at the end of the monologue. By not resolving the ending, the audience is left to long for a happy ending but is denied such closure, in a way sharing the feelings of exclusion and denial voiced by the Prince. This first example of an improvised monologue by one youth, drawn from the transcribed story of another youth, lays the foundation for the following extended example of Proud Theater’s dramaturgy at work.
Prince Charming: Second Version
The second version, which I have called “Prince Monologue B,” was the first
104 to be performed for the public, and displays a clear intermingling of D____ and
Kelley-Jones’ perspectives. The first half reverts to a more faithful adherence to
D_____’s original text:
Speaking of those doors, man, we are trying our hardest to get
through them, but I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. People talk about
rights and stuff, but is that all we’re talking about? I love my girlfriend
with all of my heart. She is my life. I would do anything to keep her
happy. I can give her happiness and joy even though I can’t give her
the right to get married. Because, you know, I’m going to be that
Prince Charming who gets down on my knees, and proposes and
everything. She’s breathtakingly beautiful. Her smile could change
anyone’s heart. When I’m with her, it feels like anything’s possible, ya
know? Her momma must have been a thief, because she’s got
diamonds in her eyes. And if I have to kick down that door, I’m going
to keep trying to find a way through, because that’s what Prince
Charming does, right? (Proud Theater, Prince B)
The piece’s tone shifts from Kelley-Jones’ “dreamy fantasy” into a hybrid of two participants’ perspectives . The piece reincorporates D______’s initial opening metaphor of doors, but does not suggest they are open: the character simply says
“we are trying our hardest to get through them,” returning to the overtones of doubt (along with “...but I don’t know if it’s gonna happen,” which follows later), coupled with expressed feelings of disenfranchisement the speaker in “...I can’t give
105 her the right to be married” prevalent in the former version. The latter half of the monologue remains predominately Kelley-Jones’ voice. This demonstrates personalizing while collaboratively developing a monologue. Kelley-Jones adapts the rhythm and detail of the piece’s language to suit her personality, but does not revert to her initial interpretation. Although we lose a good amount of the imagery - particularly the sense of dreaming, the stars, and the smallness of the individual in the world - the end of the piece maintains its overall positivity and optimism. In the hybrid variation, instead of not being able to be Prince Charming, this Prince is determined to give hir love “happiness and joy” by kicking down the doors between the Prince and marrying hir princess. It evokes persistence. Prince Charming doesn’t stop (“I’m going to keep trying to find a way through...” even if zie has to
“kick down that door...”). The oppressive metaphor of the door has been repurposed as a dynamic, triumphant image. The melding of D_____’s and Kelley-
Jones’ variations strikes an effective balance between D_____’s pragmatic pessimism and Kelley-Jones’ playful optimism, which humanizes the somewhat two- dimensional renderings of each individual youth.
Prince Charming: Third Version
Another version of the monologue includes a number of hand edits to the text, which I have called “Prince Monologue C.” It cannot be determined when hand edits were added: only that they were, and most likely before performance, but after the performance script had been printed for participants. The printed
106 versions are identical but there are handwritten notes. Represented here, I attempt to represent the document. Struck-thru letters have been crossed out, and bolded words have been added in pencil:
Speaking of those doors, man, we are trying our hardest to get
through them, but I don’t know if when it’s gonna happen. People talk
about rights and stuff, the right to that piece of paper, but is that all
we’re talking about? I love my girlfriend with all of my heart. She is
my life. I would do anything to keep make her happy. & I can give her
all the happiness and joy in the world even though I can’t give her
the right to get married. Because, you know, I’m going want to be that
Prince Charming who gets down on my knees, and proposes and
everything. up on the rooftop of the world and declares my love &
then gets nimbly down on my knees & asks her to be my wife.
She’s breathtakingly beautiful. Her smile, it could change anyone’s
heart. When I’m with her, it I feels like anything’s possible, ya know?
Her momma must have been a thief, be’cause she’s got diamonds in
her eyes. And if I have to kick down that door, I’m going to keep trying
to find a way through, because that’s what Prince Charming does,
right? (Proud Theater, Prince C)
While D____’s essential experience remains, Kelley-Jones’ voice comes through in performance with subtle differences. Kelley-Jones personalizes the story for the character by the subtle shift from “it” to “I” in “When I’m with her, I
107 feel like anything’s possible...”. Another change substituting “I don’t know if...” with
“I don’t know when...” enhances Prince Charming’s optimism and suggests a certain inevitability that the current system of oppression will be overcome. In this example, the Prince has become a vehicle for change powered by the inspiration of a lover’s smile.
The handwritten notes give us insight into Kelley-Jones’ exceptional ear for effective speech at a young age. Words are excised for clarification/removal of clutter and there is a focus on using more concrete words: “rights and stuff” becomes “the right to that piece of paper.” Other modifications, for instance changing “because” to “’cause” in the phrase “Because you know” not only enriches the language, but is appropriate for the informality of the classic pickup line “You’re momma must have been a thief, ‘cause you’ve got diamonds in your eyes.” The language in this variation becomes more theatrical and active, as in the line “I want to be that Prince Charming who gets up on the rooftop of the world and declares my love & then gets nimbly down on my knees & asks her to be my wife,” which creates a dynamic image in the mind’s eye and lends itself exquisitely to performance. While the story is not one person’s, the embodiment of character is a singular responsibility. Actors must ensure the words they use flow naturally and easily. As there is no playwright authority, youth are able to adapt company- devised pieces to suit their speaking patterns and styles.
Prince Charming: Final Version
108 The final version of this monologue is preserved in performance on video from 2002’s capstone production A Mural of Us. Sol Kelley-Jones pops onstage in bold pink, just-too-large long sleeved “Wisconsin Hockey School” shirt sporting the
University of Wisconsin’s mascot, Bucky the Badger, atop long black pants and white sneakers. She sports a short bowl cut with her bright blonde hair. She smartly sets down a black egg crate, rises, and moseys towards the audience, gesturing casually with her arms and shrugging largely. She smiles, and begins to speak:
Speaking of those doors of justice, we are trying our hardest to get
through, but I don’t know when it’s gonna happen. People talk about,
the right to that piece of paper, but is that all we’re talking about? See,
I got this girlfriend. She’s awesome! (to the heavens:) She just rocks
mah world! I love her with all my heart. She is my life. I would do
anything to make her happy. I can give her all the happiness and joy in
the world. Im gonna be that Prince Charming who gets up there on
the rooftop of the world and declares our love. And then, gets humbly
down on my knees and asks her to be my wife. She’s breathtakingly
beautiful. Her smile, oh! That could change anyone’s heart. When I’m
with her, I feel like anything’s possible, ya know? I swear, her momma
must have been a thief, ’cause she’s got diamonds in her eyes. If I have
to kick down that door to do it, I’m going to keep trying to find a way
through, because hey! - that’s what Prince Charming does, right?
(Mural of Us).
109 She saunters offstage to the audience’s light laughter.
The original material for the monologue contributed by D______underwent a dynamic transformation through combining multiple youth perspectives (D______’s and Kelley-Jones’) and developing them collaboratively with peers and adults.
Consistent elements include the framing metaphor of the closed door, a longing for a queer fairy tale ideal embraced by the dominant culture, and an emphatic affirmation of the emotional strength of queer youth romantic relationships. The monologue began as a serious, somewhat pessimistic outlook on a polarized worldview, composed of an unfocused stream of informal language. The final version in performance is playful, reflecting cautious optimism derived from an active resistance to social bias and legislative discrimination. The language is conversational and concise, utilizing concrete words and excising clutter. This final version in performance also transforms the framing metaphor of the closed door, which is in the first instance an insurmountable obstacle but in the final version, a temporary barrier between the Prince Charming and hir happy ending - a divide that like the field of thorny brambles in “Sleeping Beauty” or the height of
Rapunzel’s tower - will be overcome by the Prince’s perseverance.
The process of incorporating multiple voices into a single piece provides cohorts with a number of lenses through which they can view an experience, and different methods of responding to social inequity. Although it draws heavily on fairy tale imagery, the piece is not a sugar-coated, “Disneyfied” story, but more akin to Grimm’s fairy tales, which maintain macabre, violent and sexual overtones as a
110 means of balancing out the fairy tale’s inevitable happy ending. The final version has a Prince who reveals hirself as an optimist, and a warrior for equal rights, whom despite all the obstacles the world can put up, will “break through” the door between hir and hir lover, and find a way to live happily ever after. Embodying the process of fighting for love and proposing marriage may have no legal significance, but in performance it can serve as a model of a potential future, one that provides hope, faith, and active engagement with the eternal task of “kicking down doors.”
By asking the audience directly for their validation at the end with the line “that’s what Prince Charming does, right?,” the audience is left to contend with the queering of the traditional archetype: acknowledge the validity of a queer Prince
Charming (and more subtly equal rights) or reject the premise altogether?
This chapter, which has detailed Proud Theater’s dramaturgical process provides not only an useful detail of sequenced steps in the creation of pieces, but also, through the analysis of the development of a single piece, evidences how
Proud Theater’s dramaturgical process transform discussion into dramatic action and by processing the action through multiple perspectives, increases anonymity and opens inroads to group authorship while maintaining a sense of authenticity.
Absent from this analysis of Proud Theater’s dramaturgy are the facilitating adult mentors influence on the process, product, and participants, which I take up in the following chapter, “Diversity in Mentoring.”
111 Chapter Four
Diversity in Mentoring
The quality of mentoring between Proud Theater adults and youth is exceptional, and is key to the organization’s success and longevity. Mentors have always been an integral part of the organization, but only recently have their roles and responsibilities been formalized with established guidelines and boundaries.
Proud Theater mentors are a diverse cohort, singularly committed to Proud
Theater’s activist mission and its youth participants. For the purposes of this project I follow the definition of mentors and mentoring provided by Dubois and
Karcher’s review of empirical data on mentoring relationships, which are:
Mentor: According to the University of South Florida, someone who
“acts as teacher, sponsor, counselor, developer of skills and intellect,
host, guide, exemplar and one who supports and facilitates the
realization of the young mentee’s dream” (qtd. in DuBois and Karcher
4).
Mentoring: The National Mentoring Partnership, defines mentoring as
“a structured and trusting relationship that brings young people
together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support, and
encouragement aimed at developing the competence and character of
the mentee. (qtd. in DuBois and Karcher 4).
In addition, Dubois and Karcher identify three core premises of the mentor/mentee relationship:
112 1. a mentor is someone with greater experience or wisdom,
2. the mentor offers guidance or instruction intended to promote the
protégé’s development,
3. there is a trusting emotional bond between the mentor and the
protégé (qtd. in Spencer 101).
Over my years observing the company at work, I have been consistently impressed by the roles the mentors play and their loving, engaged relationships with youth. Proud Theater mentoring is formal, “in that the programs are managed, often by a community or voluntary sector organization, rather than informal involving naturally occurring sets of mentoring relationships” (Miller 307). Proud
Theater mentorship also evidences both instrumental and psychosocial dynamics, as defined here by Liang and Grossman:
The instrumental style of mentoring involves advising the protégé
about practical issues that relate to his or her success (e.g., career
advancement, academic, involvement in risky behaviors, etc.). The
psychosocial style emphasizes the interpersonal relationship between
the mentor and the protégé through which the latter receives
emotional support (243).
The minimum ratio of adults to youth in the company seems to balance out at approximately one adult for every five youth participants. The maximum number of youth who can work effectively in an hour-long improvisation scenario is between five and six. Scenes are developed simultaneously using different mentors as
113 directors, one director for each scene, resulting in at least one adult for every five youth. The small ratio allows for extensive, direct interaction between youth and mentors. There is empirical evidence showing that strong mentoring relationships can have a positive effect on risky or self-destructive behavior in youth. In The
Blackwell Handbook of Mentoring: A Multiple Perspectives Approach, Lynn Blinn-
Pike summarizes a review of empirical literature on outcomes of formal mentoring for youth. Her review, entitled “The Benefits Associated with Youth Mentoring
Relationships” shows:
Significant improvements were evident in attitudes towards school,
confidence in school success, bonding with school…attendance…
academic grades…and involvement in college preparation activities
[…]; showed significantly improved relationships with
families/parents…and peers […]; were significantly less positive about
drug use…showed significantly better reactions when presented with
situations involving drug use…and were significantly less likely to
start or continue using alcohol or drugs […]; showed positive
outcomes [in delinquency rates] […];had significantly higher scores on
measures of self-control…well-being…and self-worth/self-
esteem/self-concept…as well as higher aspirations for the future.
(175-180).
Diversity and Mentorship
114 A central factor responsible for the group’s effective mentorship is the diversity of the mentoring group. According to Wild:
Mentors should be a good mix of men, women, people of different
gender identities, and people of different ethnic identities. That’s one
of the things we were really lacking for a long time. […] I want more
youth of color to share their stories, because they are very different
than youth who are white, or youth who come from privilege. I want
those stories as part of it and part of that is having a strong mentor of
color. (Interview)
Diverse mentors attract more diverse youth cohorts, and the diverse mentoring cohort provides a broad spectrum of potential role models. Youth gravitate toward role models who they perceive to be similar to them. The similarity-attraction theory, according to Bernadette Sanchez and Yarí Colón in their article “Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Mentoring Relationships” suggest:
“...given the opportunity to choose their own mentors, youth more often would select mentors of the same race, ethnicity, or culture” (195). This theory is evidenced by Renée Spencer’s article “Naturally Occurring Mentoring
Relationships Involving Youth,” who reviews current empirical studies regarding mentor/mentee relationships, 18 and concludes “that youth tend to have mentors who share similar racial, ethnic and class backgrounds” (110). Ensuring that Proud
18 Including studies by Cavell et al., (2002); Klaw and Rhodes (1995); Rhodes t al., (1992, 1994); Sanchez and Reyes (1999)
115 Theater’s adult mentors are as diverse as their youth participants is a necessary strategy in developing strong adult-youth relationships.
The diversity of Proud Theater youth changes from season to season, and while the most recent two years of youth has had an uptick in participation by youth of color, youth diversity had decreased during the first part of Wild’s tenure as Artistic Director. Wild recognized that the racial diversity of the group was waning, and in response he approached Montañez-Tyler, soliciting her to rejoin the group as an adult mentor for the 2010-2011 season. In our interview, Montañez-
Tyler comments on the racial disparity within the group at the time of her return compared to a decade earlier during her time as a youth participant:
Well when I was in it, the group was about fifty-percent youth of color.
In fact, there may have been more minorities than whites in the group.
When I came back and saw Proud Theater this year, I was like,
“Ooooooh it got white up in here!” What happened? They were right –
all the mentors of color were gone. […]I was sat down and was asked
what we needed to do to get more minority kids in Proud Theater. I
was like, well, you need minority mentors. That’s just the way it goes.
People – if there ain’t any body like 'em – why would you do it, you
know? It’s like Proud Theater being run by straight folk – it’s like:
Where are the gay kids? Well, where do you think? (Interview)
A diverse adult mentor cohort attracts a more diverse youth base, and provides a wide spectrum of role models for youth, offering tangible and immediate
116 models of being queer in a world after adolescence. Adult mentors demonstrate to youth that adults can be gay and happily married,19 proudly out within a minority race or culture, or embraced as a transgender individual. As mentors model different “ways of being” in adulthood, youth can recognize similarities with themselves, and subsequently envision potential future selves. Sunshine Jones believes the primary function of adult role models is to “instill hope” (Interview).
Proud Theater mentors collectively embody eight qualities identified by Grossman and D’Augelli as those most important in role models among youth based on a study of 250 lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, ages sixteen to twenty. Youth were most drawn to role models with the following characteristics:
1. Open about their sexual orientation, or lived freely;
2. Intelligent, strong-minded, or demonstrated leadership;
3. Desirable physical appearance or sexually attractive;
4. Talented or demonstrated professionalism;
5. Sociable, fun, amusing, had a good sense of humor or demonstrated
a positive attitude;
6. Supportive, caring or provided information and resources;
7. Successful (other than financial), and
8. An honest, moral, good person. (qtd. in Grossman et al. 40)
19 Wild and Harty are openly affectionate towards one another, exchanging kisses between bites of pizza prior to rehearsal (Field Notes 26 Jan. 2011)
117 Through their various roles and responsibilities as mentors, their open and honest means of presenting themselves to the rest of the world, Proud Theater mentors embody all of these identified qualities.
Heterosexual mentors can also mitigate entrenched mistrust among LGBT youth who have experiences of harassment, abuse, and discrimination from the heteronormative world. Proud Theater mentor Heather Renken noted in our interview how her status as a straight/married/Caucasian/mother-of-two could be an obstacle to forming relationships with some participants. “…because I do remind them of their parents.” Renken describes her experience as such: “I feel a wall come up between us. ‘Can I trust you?’ they ask, ‘because there are other adults in my life
I can’t trust who look and sound a lot like you.’” Renken believes her presence as a mentor evidences:
...that there are a lot of straight allies out there – that you’re not alone
– but that there is this whole community supporting you, and that
they don’t have to be exactly like you to support you, and that you
have a right to that, and it’s important.
To me, one of the most interesting things about the adult/youth dynamic at
Proud Theater is that it is one of the very few sites for intergenerational queer communication and cultural transmission, primarily due to deep-rooted (if evolving) social prejudices against queer adults as corruptors of youth. According to Jones, at the time of Proud Theater’s founding “there was very little intergenerational contact except for connection that crossed boundaries that those
118 of us who are adult mentors don’t believe in – and that’s sexual boundaries between generations” (Jones, Interview). While the number of sites for intergenerational queer transmission has increased since the company’s founding,
Kelley-Jones points out that many of these emerging sites are focused on “helping youth rather than engaging with them” (Interview). As queer visibility expands in popular culture, perhaps over time such sites for multigenerational exchange may become less essential for queer communities, but as Zeldin points out in her interview, all generations of a movement need to be engaged in order to advance a common cause:
I think sometimes, because there are so many stigmas attached to
being queer, which include pedophilia, I think it is so hard for
different generations of queer people to connect, and I think that is so
incredibly sad, because intergenerational communication is vital, I
think, for movements to happen. They aren’t going to know where I’ve
been unless I tell them, and I wont know where they’ve been unless
they tell me.
Codifying Mentor Roles
At first, the term “mentors” was not used at Proud Theater. During the first three seasons, youth and adults all participated in active topic discussion, and were listed collectively in capstone playbills under the headings “Proud Theater Is:”
(Proud Theater, Playbill). The following season, an adult mentor was excused from
119 the company because of conduct deemed inappropriate by the rest of the adults in the group. Kelley-Jones reports in our interview:
We had one adult mentor, for example, who broke a boundary that we
felt was inappropriate with a youth, and this man knew that it was as
well. And it was someone we all knew and we all liked and he was
wonderful – and we were friends with - but we had to ask him to not
be in that role. That’s when we started using the word “mentor.”
The incident described above occurred midway through the tumultuous
2003-2004 season that, as discussed earlier, failed to produce a capstone production and ended with Harty’s resignation as Artistic Director. As noted in the previous chapters, Wild’s term saw a dramatic turnover in adult mentors. Perhaps due to the new leadership, documentation practices and adult cohort, mentor guideline development dropped from the company’s priority list. When Kelley-
Jones returned to the organization in 2009, she rekindled the conversation about codifying mentor roles and responsibilities, and together with Montañez-Tyler, created a draft document during the 2010-2011 season. Prompted in part by the organizations expansion to Wausau, the draft guidelines were finalized by the adult mentors and ratified in November 2011. The guidelines are in fact a contract, signed by each adult mentor. The signatory pledge reads that mentors unable or unwilling to adhere to the guidelines agree to the “forfeiture of mentorship and affiliation with Proud Theater” (Proud Theater, Mentor). The first section, “What it means to be a Proud Theater Mentor: We are here to serve, not to be served” covers
120 behavioral expectations for mentors. Behavioral expectations address how mentors approach the dramaturgical process, behaviors they should and should not model, remain aware of contemporary issues and news impacting the queer community, and the organization’s commitment to mentor diversity. The first section of the document reads:
What it means to be a Proud Theater Mentor:
We are here to serve, not to be served
Foster contextually appropriate self-expression and self-
empowerment within the Proud Theater youth.
1. Mediate and facilitate consistently as an adult voice of reason, not as a
friend or therapist.
2. Seek to reflect the diversity of the group within our own ranks.
Commit to the active pursuit of diversity and acceptance within the
Proud Theater group.
3. Maintain strong boundaries with youth in order to foster respect, and
create a cooperative sharing of power.
4. Stay educated and current on activism issues, events, and concerns.
5. Stay consistent with commitment to the rehearsal and performance
schedules.
6. Lead by example.
121 Although the word “boundaries” appears only once in the first section, the second section of the guidelines are devoted entirely to defining what such a concept means within the context of Proud Theater:
Boundaries
Mentorships-not friendships
1. Mentors will not engage in romantic, flirtatious, and/or sexual
relations with youth.
2. Mentors will not use verbal or physical violence towards youth or
adults.
3. Mentors will not participate in, or discuss present or glorified use of
drugs and alcohol.
4. Mentors will not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol when
representing Proud Theater.
5. Mentors will be responsible for limiting access to inappropriate
content including but not limited to: drugs, alcohol, sex, violence,
inappropriate language, and “isms” on all social networking pages.
6. Mentors will not attend events or parties with youth that are not
OK’ed or sponsored by Proud Theater unless prior contact and/or
relationship is disclosed. Proud Theater-related meetings should
happen in a public place after notifying at least one other Proud
Theater mentor of said meeting.
122 7. Mentors will check in with each other regarding issues or concerns
related to excessive or problematic contact from youth outside of
sponsored Proud Theater events.
8. Mentors will not hold grudges; every day is a clean slate.
Mentors will actively work to deescalate and mediate conflict and
drama between the youth.
9. Mentors will respect the confidentiality of youth by not discussing
youth issues with anyone other than other mentors in the group.
(Proud Theater, Mentor)
Some boundaries are to be expected from any youth based organization (i.e. no sexual or romantic engagement with or physical/verbal abuse against participants; not to be intoxicated while representing the company and maintaining in-group confidentiality, other boundaries are tailored to the group’s particular dynamics and modus operandi. One interesting boundary addresses the rise of social media in American culture. Most company members - adult and youth alike - use Facebook and it has become a virtual world demanding virtual boundaries.
Mentors do not need to “friend” youth via social media, but most do due to the group’s family dynamic and to announcements regularly disseminated through the group’s Facebook page. Proud Theater mentor guidelines demand mentors monitor and restrict content on their personal social media sights so as not to include or propagate “inappropriate content” (Proud Theater, Mentor) relating to sex, drugs, and profanity and discriminatory language.
123 Boundaries, as defined by Proud Theater’s mentor guidelines, are not necessarily rules that limit interaction: some of them insist the most appropriate boundary is an open door. Boundary guidelines six, seven, and eight all serve to open lines of interaction and communication. The sixth guideline was motivated by the growing number of Proud Theater mentors whom had been youth participants in prior seasons. Proud Theater has an unofficial rule about alumni becoming mentors: there must be at least one intervening year between being a youth participant and a mentor. However, this still allows for mentors who are relatively close in age to the youth cohorts and likely have pre-existing social relationships with one another. Demanding mentors disclose their social interaction with youth outside Proud Theater is both a way of maintaining professional distance but also helps to indemnify the organization against potential legal ramifications.
Not being intoxicated while representing Proud Theater makes logical sense
(per point four), but I find it interesting that the group clearly limits freedom of discourse about intoxicants. This struck me because such a guideline seems to run counter to the directness and honesty with which the group addresses other hot- button social topics. In my field notes I record a number of instances where alcohol or drugs are present in a scene and interestingly, without prior exception, substance use is depicted as an unqualified negative factor. I find it odd that a group as committed to the fair depiction of traditional queer antagonists accepts such a one-sided treatment of chemical use disingenuous. I do not suggest that mentors should be encouraging youth to use intoxicants, but to demonize them outright
124 smacks of thinly veiled self-censorship. Having observed more than two years of rehearsals and productions, I have been a fly on the wall for dozens of conversations among youth participants, and there is no question that drugs and alcohol play a role in their lives - but not necessarily more than in any American adolescent’s life, and as an enjoyable social recreation (legal issues not withstanding). Although never one to impose his opinions on others, the only mentor I have head speak openly about chemical use is Harty, sober now for more than two decades, who shares his own life experiences when the issue of substance abuse comes up.
The guidelines reflect behaviors already practiced by the current mentors at
Proud Theater—Madison, but it is an important guiding document for new mentors
– particularly those from emerging Proud Theater chapters like Wausau whom do not have the benefit of working alongside experienced Proud Theater mentors regularly.
Artistic Diversity
Another aspect of mentor diversity manifests in how each guides or directs youth in the development of their pieces, and the mentors are aware of how their diverse approaches can benefit their process:
Harty: Having people specialized in different thinking is very helpful.
Emma and Sol are very good with poetry, Heather does a lot of the
125 exercises. She’s excellent with students, a great actor, but she brings a
lot of that academic background to it. (Interview)
Renken: I think having different directors is really good – that
individual youth in four different pieces can be working with four
different directors. Learning how to work with different people is very
important when it comes to theater training. The thing you’re doing
that one director loves, another might not. It helps you learn to be
adaptable. (Interview)
Zeldin: I think we have a great mix of people who bring different
things. That also helps the power dynamic. If a youth wants a
projection or volume exercise I can say, ‘I don’t know – go talk to
Heather, ’cause she knows those things.’ Or, ‘Do you have an improv
game?’ ‘No, go talk to Callen.’ Its great to have that interplay. Whereas
if someone came to Callen and said, ‘Hey I’m interested in reading
queer poets from the twentieth Century in the Harlem Renaissance,
he’d say ‘Go talk to Emma.’ (Interview)
Sol Kelley-Jones is, according to Callen Harty’s recollection, the only Proud
Theater alum to major in theatre at college following Proud Theater (Interview).
Kelley-Jones attended Hampshire College in Connecticut, where she received a tailored a degree in Theatre and Social Justice. As she directs youth, Kelley-Jones
126 watches from a corner of the room wearing an expression of intense sympathy for the unfolding improvisation (Field Notes 05 May 2011). She closely follows the actors’ impulses closely, watching for physical or vocal cues that help indicate what the performer is aiming to do, and then asking questions about her observations to encourage participants to articulate their motivations and instincts. When the scene derails or ends, she directs with frenetic enthusiasm. Kelley-Jones moves through the space, thrusting actors bodily into spatial relationships or poses, or modeling with her own voice and body. She uses positive redirection to help actors combat physical habits, praising the naturalness of such habits but then delineating the difference between natural and theatrical gestures as they relate to size and intentionality. She cheers: “That was good - but it could be better!” (Field Notes 28
Apr. 2011). Kelley-Jones deftly coaches youth through the internal character motivations while simultaneously addressing the function each character serves in the dramatic structure. Her attention to detail, responsive and deft application of a number of directorial tactics, and overall ease in the rehearsal space is a testament to her acquired professional skills and her long history with the company’s dramaturgical process. “I believe that youth are capable of creating brilliant art,” she says during our interview, “it takes adults willing to guide and help facilitate that, and do so in a way that is not imposing, but draws out what is already there.”
Callen Harty’s approach to scene direction is wildly different in tenor than
Kelley-Jones’, despite an equally long engagement with the company dramaturgy.
Unlike Kelley-Jones’ formalized theatrical training, Harty developed his skills by
127 immersing himself in theater as an adult. Steeled by a decade of experience as an actor and playwright at Madison’s Broom Street Theater, Harty displays a quiet ease in his approach to direction. Harty’s approach is calm, thoughtful, and unhurried. “I’m pretty Zen about everything” he comments in our interview. Harty allows scenes to play out, usually without interruption on his part. After youth run through a section, Harty will often begin by asking the participants “how they felt” the scene went (Field Notes 08 Jan. 2011). Youth articulate as best they can the perceived strengths and weaknesses of their work, and Harty uses their feedback as a platform for his direction. While he coaches somewhat less than Kelley-Jones as to character motivations and diverse performative tactics, he helps youth meet challenges of performance such as strategies for line memorization or how to enhance sightlines by remaining physically open to the audience. Harty’s small group rehearsals are focused, reaffirming, and filled with laughter. He directs with a distinct sense of playfulness. When a youth comments that his husband (Wild) had coached them to play a moment with a different intention than Harty had just suggested, he laughed gleefully, overrode his partner’s direction (following immediately with a half-hearted demur to Wild should he want to change it back in the future) (Field Notes 22 Apr. 2011).
Watching Josie Montañez-Tyler direct youth oftentimes makes me laugh aloud. She is sardonic, glib, playful, combative, and yet has an exceptionally honest and genuine interactive dynamic with the youth. Montañez-Tyler, like the rest of the adult mentors discussed here, has a long history of working within the Proud
128 Theater dramaturgical structure. There is an easiness to her casual demeanor.
Following a break, one youth asks where another had disappeared. Without missing a beat Montañez-Tyler gestures towards the door saying “Aw, we tossed her along the side of the road, we’re gonna go on without her.” (Field Notes 16 Mar.
2011). Or, later, when the same group was struggling through a movement and rhythm based piece and began to lose focus on their work, Montañez-Tyler stopped the action, called the youth out on not engaging with the work, and ended by saying: “If that happens again, someone's gonna get stabbed” (Field Notes 16 Mar.
2011). The youth all laughed in response. Montañez-Tyler smiles and continues the rehearsal, effectively having refocused the youth on the task at hand through loving, unapologetic directness. Montañez-Tyler continually pushes the youth in her pieces to make decisions, insisting that she is only there to give her opinion, and telling the youth “the responsibility to actually do a show is all on you” (Field Note
27 Apr. 2011). That said, Montañez-Tyler has an excellent ear for effective dialogue, and is able to convey concepts to youth to develop the nuances of their delivery.
I’m the minority mentor. There to help the kids feel better. I like to
think that I am the perfect combination [Laughs.] (Oh, I love myself!)
When the kids need to be rounded up, I can do the loud thing. If I need
to be stern I can be snap right into that. If I need to be all happy and
fun – that’s what I am. […] Not to keep my own stats, but we did
fourteen nights of creating, we had ten groups over those nights, and I
think all but two of my groups had something at the end of the night
129 to share with the rest of the group, you know? I make that shit
happen. So maybe that’s my part? (Montañez-Tyler)
Brian Wild’s innate musical ear manifests itself through his direction, placing timing and pace at the center of his pieces. He provides soft, metronomic ticking with his voice as the youth work through lines. Wild coaches moments with beats:
“Give it a count of two' or 'three' for setting up timing and moments (Field Notes 20
Apr. 2011). Wild gives notes: “sudden and crisp instead of relaxed” for one youth,
“quicker” for another (Field Notes 21 Apr. 2011). He discusses with the youth how to endow the silence of pauses with significance, or the “musicality of silence”
(Field Notes 21 Apr. 2011). He coaches tactics that keep youth active in scenes where they lack lines. In one instance, Wild suggests to a youth playing an observer that they should try “visually processing like the Terminator,” referring to the
Arnold Schwarzenegger movie cyborg whose vision is filtered through a computer processor that assesses its surroundings and potential threats. I recorded this direction made a remarkable difference in the actors during the following run through (Field Notes 21 Apr. 2011).
Heather Renken received her degree in Theatre from Butler University, is a longtime member of the Madison community theater, current Artistic Director of
Broom Street Theater, and has been an adult mentor for Proud Theater since the
2005-2006 season. I was excited to see Renken work with the youth well before having opportunity to do so. When I first began regular observations of the company in January 2010, the scripts for the season had not been finalized or cast.
130 Renken, who had recently ascended to the position of Artistic Director for Broom
Street Theater, was absent from a number of rehearsals that month, and each week youth vocally pined for her presence (Field Notes 20 Apr. 2011). I noticed in the adult mentor meetings Renken’s talent for effectively developing scenes - particularly complex or conceptual pieces – was commented upon regularly by the other mentors. When Renken arrived one wintery Wednesday, she was tasked with working with youth on a piece titled “Storybook.” My field notes reflect an exchange between the other mentors the proceeding week that they would wait to workshop the piece until Heather returned to lead its development (Field Notes 27 Apr. 2011)
— with good reason. In our interview I asked Renken what niche she filled in the mentor cohort. She responded:
Probably out of the adult mentors I have the most formal theater
training, and have probably done more technical work than many of
them. I’ve worked in professional and semi-pro environments, so I do
bring that experience with me.
Renken’s academic understanding of non-realistic performance styles and long history of working with Broom Street Theater, which is dedicated to experimental performance uniquely qualifies her to handle some of the more conceptual pieces that emerge from the dramaturgical process.
“Storybook” probed domestic abuse, but it its initial structure was a kind of nonlinear fairy tale. Renken met with the youth and processed through the piece professionally and methodically. The group began by reading through the text,
131 followed by a discussion. “We talk about what works, what doesn’t work, and really focus on compassionate but constructive criticism,” Renken says. “I think that experience is probably the strongest theater experience you get from Proud
Theater” (Interview). During the discussion Renken spoke about the difference between realistic and non-realistic performance styles, and made all the youth repeat confidently with her: “This is not realism” (Field Notes 27 Apr. 11). Renken, more than any other mentor, uses exercises derived from a number of performance theories to activate script development and address performative challenges.
Renken’s process of experimentation allows her to draw on a number of seminal acting strategies, and in our interviews she cites Boal, Meisner, and Spolin as some of her influences. “We are getting some realism, some group work and some improv out of it. Some of it is mechanics as well – vocal work and vocal control.” She runs the piece three times, using each as an acting experiment. First she asks youth to think of an archetype of pop culture or other icon on which to base their character.
The youth move through the text mimicking the voice and mannerisms of their model, generating a good amount of laughter. Renken runs the scene again, this time coaching the youth to perform all of their lines and actions over the top. Each character chooses a representative gesture to be incorporated repeatedly during the following improvisation. “Its not going to be like this in performance” she reminds the youth, “Its just an exercise” (Field Notes 27 Apr. 2011). She encourages youth to commit fully to any physical impulses that arise during the improv.
Following the exaggerated run, Renken asks the youth if they would be comfortable
132 trying the piece without words. “No,” one youth immediately responds. The others in the group looked dubious (Field Notes 27 Apr. 2011). Renken gently prods them, asking them to try. The youth acquiesce, and Renken has them set their scripts aside as they run the piece as a pantomime. At the end of the piece she asks the youth: “what did you find?” The group discussed the three approaches to the script, and make choices as to how to edit the structure and content for the following week. As time for the evening winds down Renken doles out homework for the following week, each tailored to individual actor needs: one is given memorization strategies, another projection and diction exercises, another a note to make additional physical choices for their characters (Field Notes 27 Apr. 2011). At the conclusion of one evening observing Renken in action, I understood why youth and adults alike spoke so highly of her role as a director.
Emma Zeldin is the self-proclaimed mother figure of the group, and develops close personal relationships with the youth. She has a particular soft spot for trans- identified youth, which are also the focus of her graduate work at the University of
Boston where she moved at the end of the 2011-2012 season. Despite her maternal disposition and close ties with the youth, she is an aggressive director. She leads her scene work with immense energy and drive, and pushing more towards an end product than any of the other adult mentors (Field Notes 12 Jan. 2011). Zeldin uses emotional recall as a tool with the youth, asking them to “remember a time they felt like that” while developing a character.
133 All Proud Theater mentors bring with them a long history of involvement with the organization, and each is adept at facilitating the company’s dramaturgy.
The diverse styles of coaching and directing allow youth an opportunity to be exposed to a range of theatrical techniques and theories.
Mentor Qualities
One primary factor at the heart of Proud Theater’s strong adult/youth dynamic is the diverse composition of the adult mentor cohort. Another factor behind the success of the Proud Theater mentoring dynamic is a genuine concern for and constructive engagement on the part of the mentors. I asked each respondent to articulate the role of, or desired qualities in, a Proud Theater Mentor.
“We are all very patient with people and genuinely care about the youth,” Renken says in our interview. She observes in her time with the organization that Proud
Theater mentors “tend to be very good with youth, tend to be compassionate, and patient folks. Those who aren’t tend not to last as long.”
Harty’s response came without hesitation:
Mentors have to be good with youth. They have to be absolutely
trustworthy. They have to be able to listen. They have to want to be
there. If you have to rope somebody into this job it’s not going to
work. They have to be really passionate – I think committed – to civil
rights and about queer issues. (Interview)
134 According to Wild, he looks for honesty tempered with compassion. “I think the adult mentors need to be bluntly honest with youth sometimes, and not afraid to tell the youth: “This isn’t your greatest…” But...it is a different way of saying things. You guide them to better art or a better way of thinking without demeaning them.”
The powerful mentoring relationship between adults and youth is a keystone to Proud Theater’s success and a major aspect of its benefit to youth. It is worth noting that all mentors are volunteers. Their commitment to one another, the youth, and the company’s mission of fostering activism through performance makes them an effective cohort. The benefits of their mentoring: serving as role models; providing love and support; fostering intergenerational queer cultural transmission; and diverse performance training should not be undervalued. This analysis of the role of a Proud Theater adult mentor is a vital component for understanding the model and usefully replicating the organization to new communities. Yet having covered organizational development, dramaturgical process, and effective mentoring strategies, absent from this model analysis is an examination of how these strategies work together to form a cohesive season schedule. Proud Theater’s dramaturgy demands an extended time for development, and the season schedule must remain flexible to accommodate varying rates of progression across youth cohorts. The next chapter, “A Model Season,” provides a layout of a sequence of seasonal markers that occur each season, from the first rehearsal until opening night.
135
Chapter Five
A Model Season
Proud Theater’s annual production schedule is crafted at the top of the season to accommodate participants’ school schedules and holidays when conflicts and absenteeism are historical precedents, yet it remains fluid to respond to the immediate needs of the company. Proud Theater’s season begins approximately two weeks following the start of classes for the Madison Metropolitan School
District (MMSD) and concludes just before or just after the academic year. Proud
Theater’s schedule accommodates MMSD’s holiday and in-service breaks throughout the year. Capstone performances are scheduled as early as six weeks before or two weeks following the end of the school year, depending on venue availability. Performance dates too near the end of the school year are problematic due to conflicts that arise from end-of-year events such as music concerts or final exams, as are performances scheduled too long after the end of the school year due to summer jobs or family vacations. A more sentimental consideration: a date that must be avoided for either rehearsals or performances, which has historically sparked protest from participants and their families, is Mother’s Day (Wild,
Interview). Nonetheless, there is a set sequence of markers that plot out the season which are consistent across seasons. The markers are first rehearsal; performative explorations; elections; family open house; new participant cutoff; attendance penalties; external submission deadline; script selection; casting; refining and
136 workshopping; tech week and preshow graduation and curtain speech.
I. Nightly Schedule
A standard Wednesday night rehearsal schedule at Proud Theater is constructed as such: food delivery and gathering at 5:30; youth-led warm ups and a simultaneous adult mentor meeting at 5:45. The adult mentor meeting from 5:45-
6:15 is a necessary time for adults. Kelley-Jones believes having a time where mentors can meet without youth present allows mentors to “check in with each other, find out if there are things going on with young people, hold each other accountable and support each other. Mentors need a place for adult confidentiality”
(Field Notes 12 Mar. 2011). The company joins in an opening circle for announcements and to receive the plan for the evening at 6:15. Rehearsals end between 8:30 and 8:45 on most days, and prior to casting the last half hour of each rehearsal is dedicated to sharing and critiquing small group work. Every rehearsal ends with a closing circle and time for participants to express appreciation for anything that had made them feel good that day. One youth appreciated the group for “putting up with me being a bitch” (Field Notes 16 Mar. 2011); another thanks the group for supporting her since she had been “in a bad place at the top of rehearsal but was feeling much better after rehearsal” (Field Notes 20 Mar. 2011); another appreciates someone’s socks (Field Notes 26 Jan. 2011). When all youth have had a chance to share their appreciations, the circle (still holding hands from appreciations) has a ceremonial “stomping to the center,” which involves
137 exaggerated, rhythmic unison stomping and chanting, ending in a pandemonium of
bodies and noise in the center of the circle. Following “the stomp,” rooms are
picked up, and youth are ushered out of the rehearsal space.
I. First rehearsal
The first rehearsal usually takes place during the second week of the
Madison Metropolitan School District’s schedules class schedule. When the first
rehearsal is called to order all youth and adult members sit in a circle. Wild
welcomes the group and introductions are followed by a brief explanation of Proud
Theater’s history, mission and process. Next the group works on developing codes
of conduct for the year. The codes of conduct are collected on a document entitled
“Guidelines for Participation in Proud Theater” and is revisited and revised every
season according to the direction of each cohort. Guidelines are printed in contract
form and signed by all participants. The 2010-2011 guide for participation included
just over two dozen guidelines including:
Don’t yuck my yum
Everyone can lead, regardless of ______(age, experience, etc.)
No one has to identify
Everything is confidential
(Proud Theater, Guidelines)
I single out these four examples because they are indicative of the core directives
that lead to creating a safe space for youth to share stories and collaborate to
138 develop authentic representations of the queer youth experience. The first, “don’t yuck my yum,” means that if one person likes something – be it peanut butter, the color pink, or NASCAR – no one is allowed to insult or deride them for their preference or, in other words, to say “yuck.” This guideline ensures that youth can feel free to be open and honest, and to enjoy that which they like without fear of scorn or judgment.
The second guideline, “Everyone can lead, regardless of ______(age, experience, etc.)” harkens back to the company’s founding narrative, which hinges on the cooperation of a teenager and a grown man to found the company. This guideline empowers new participants to boldly lend their voices to the groups dynamic, and by virtue of specifying age and experience, suggests again that youth are as important in the leadership of the model at adults. It also reflects Harty’s statement quoted earlier about how Proud Theater undermines traditional school hierarchies.
Third, “No one has to identify” means that participants do not need to identify as a specific gender, political or social affiliation, or any other label. While this may seem to run counter to the inclusion of PGPs in group introductions, I have witnessed numerous introductions where the participants state that they will respond to any pronoun. Particularly with sexual orientation, Harty notes in our interview that there have been many youth, even multi-year participants, “who never identified as gay or lesbian or straight.”
The fourth key guideline that creates a safe space for Proud Theater
139 dramaturgy is in-group confidentiality. “The key to making the process effective is maintaining personal privacy and confidentiality” Harty states (Field Notes 12 Mar.
2011). Confidentiality during the development process is critical to the dramaturgy’s efficacy. Throughout the season, the group continually reaffirms its collective commitment to confidentiality. Discussion and story sharing take place in small groups, and personal information shared in these small groups are confidential from the larger group. Anything said with the entire company present is expected to remain within the rehearsal hall. Harty admits in our interview that confidence has been breached before, but instances are rare. Youth responsible for such transgressions are held to account by the entire group. Participants who break confidentiality are dealt with swiftly before in-group tensions escalate. As with most conflicts and transgressions in Proud Theater, the consequences are considered on a case-by-case basis and take mitigating factors into consideration, including circumstances surrounding the incident and the overall trustworthiness of the offending youth. There are no “insignificant” breaches of confidence and indirect references regarding others through social media sites are treated with the same gravity as overt hallway gossip.
Along with discussing and agreeing upon participation guidelines, youth participants generate a list of potential themes or issues they might want to address during the season. This list is recorded by one of the adult mentors (usually the artistic director) and kept on file for the course of the season. For instance:
140 Proud Theater Topics 2007-2008
Sex
A. Testing
B. Safe sex
C. Birds and Bees stories
D. Birth control
E. Promiscuous Parents
F. Talking to your doctor about being sexually active
Teenage Pregnancy
Stereotypes
A. Gay Camp
B. Assumption of sexual orientation based on appearance
C. “Typically” Gay
D. Assume all gay people are promiscuous
E. Butch/Femme Lesbian role
Phobias
Heterophobia
Homophobia
A. Not allowed at partner’s funeral
B. Accepting to your face, unaccepting behind your back
C. Gay Bashing
Drugs
141 Relationships (Proud Theater, Topics)
Not all topics on the list are addressed over a season as central themes to frame discussion, but many manifest over the course of the company’s capstone productions.
III. Performative Explorations
Performative exploration inroads include drama-based devising strategies, text analysis and editing, and movement or music. Performative exploration may not begin the second week if new introductions or a delay in developing participant guidelines occurs. The performative exploration process that forms the bulk of the company’s new material are those that derive from drama-based devising strategies. Youth are given a topic, theme, question, or other prompt on which to focus their discussion. For the first writing exercise of the 2011-2012 season, youth were partnered in groups of two or three and tasked with writing a two person dialogue inspired by the question “What is the experience of queer youth in your school?”
The effectiveness of the prompt lies in its phrasing, as all the participants are students. While some participants are home schooled, they can still speak to school contexts directly or indirectly. It does not ask “What is your experience as a queer youth in school?” Depersonalizing the question neutralizes the implication that only queer-identified youth can respond with authority, and honors the perspectives of youth who identify as straight allies. In addition, the phrasing of the question does
142 not demand a personal experience, merely a point of view. All youth are able to respond regardless of whether they have direct or indirect experiences with the topic. Youth break into groups of three to six and each group finds a space to have a focused discussion following the theme as detailed in the previous two chapters.
IV. Elections
At the top of the season youth leadership positions are discussed, and youth are encouraged to express their interest to an adult mentor for nomination. This begins with a group discussion reiterating the responsibilities of the Youth Artistic
Committee (YAC). Mandatory meetings and expectations are discussed by youth and adults, and the conversation is capped by the Artistic Director, who reminds the youth the intention of the YAC is to ensure lines of communication between adults and youth remain open. Once youth directors have been determined, they are informed of their role in order to recuse themselves from the YAC election so as not to skew the results (youth appointed to these positions automatically have seats on the five-to-six person YAC). YAC elections takes place five to eight weeks into the season, which allows youth time to familiarize themselves with one another on a personal level, an opportunity to see one’s artistic and collaborative skills in early rehearsals, and allows individuals to gauge their interest in a company leadership position. On the day of elections, youth are offered one last opportunity to run for the YAC. Proud Theater uses an instant-runoff system of voting. Youth rank their first, second and third choices for Youth Artistic Committee
143 candidates. Candidates are allotted points based on ranking, and receive one, two or three points for first, second or third places respectively. The youths with the overall lowest numeric score win the Youth Artistic Committee positions. All ballots are collected, tabulated, and results are announced at the conclusion of the evening.
The announcement of election results for the YAC usually happens in conjunction with the announcement of the Youth Artistic, Music, and Dance Director positions.
V. Family Open House
A recent marker in the Proud Theater schedule is an open house for families.
As Artistic Director, Wild sent youth home with packets for parents and guardians, which included company information and promotional material, contact information, rehearsal schedule and media and medial release forms. However, as the company expanded in its number of participants, and increasing number of parents and guardians wanted to know more about the group, its process, how to voice concerns, or to learn how to support the group. In response, the company hosted its first family open house in the 2011-2012 season. The meeting allowed mentors, parents and guardians to meet face to face and to ask and answer questions. The agenda distributed to open house attendees on the afternoon of
February 26, 2012 read as follows:
• Welcome and Overview
• History of Proud Theater
• Introductions of adult mentors
144 • Introductions of the YAC - Youth Artistic Committee
• What Proud Theater does - our mission, process and structure
• The end of the year performance - why attendance and support are
so important!
• Family and friends support - performance crunch time
• Question and Answer time (Proud Theater, Family)
Each agenda item was assigned to a mentor confident in speaking to the point.
During the question and answer session, the discussion revolved primarily around scheduling concerns from the parents. Youth were not communicating when they had rehearsals (and it was noted that one parent hadn’t been told about the open house until that morning); youth were getting back late from rehearsals and falling behind in their sleep and schoolwork; and parents asked if there were there ways to coordinate youth rideshares among parents and guardians. (Field Notes 26 Feb.
2012). Questions that could be addressed were, and those that could inform the model in the future (such as creating an parent/guardian post board to help coordinate youth transportation) were recorded.
VI. New Participant Cutoff
Youth may join the company until a predetermined date, roughly the last week of November. After this date, new participants are only considered in exceptional cases, and the option must be voted on by the rest of the youth. During the 2010-2011 season, for example, Wild was contacted by a woman serving as
145 guardian to a ward from out of state. The youth had struggled living with their parents in a small, socially conservative setting, and while the move to Madison afforded an opportunity to experience queer youth culture in a liberal environment,
Zie knew no other young queer identified peers. Zie’s temporary guardian contacted Wild to ask if the youth could join the group after the New Year’s break.
Wild’s responded that the deadline for enrollment had passed, but due to the youth’s specific circumstances, he would bring the question to the rest of the youth.
The next week, Wild polled the youth as to whether they would consider an
“exceptional case” for a late addition (Field Notes 12 Jan. 2011). Details as to the circumstances were left vague, but was presented merely as a case Wild believed warranted consideration. The youth responses largely positive, framed by personal anecdotes highlighting the importance of Proud Theater in their lives, one youth saying that no one should be denied a chance to join Proud Theater, garnering snaps of agreement from the ensemble (Field Notes 12 Jan. 2011). During the discussion youth addressed the notion of fairness, pointing out a vote of ‘yes’ would undermine precedents. Youth also wanted to ensure if the youth was allowed to join the group, they understood it was not a social group and that there were real time commitments. In addition, they wanted Wild to talk to the youth about the
Participation Guidelines and attain their signature. Following the discussion a vote was taken, and Wild was authorized by the company to invite the youth to the following rehearsal. (Field Notes 19 Jan. 2011).
146 VI. Attendance Penalties
Beginning in January youth attendance is tracked, and absenteeism affects the number of pieces a participant will appear in. Youth who have displayed high rates of absenteeism are cast in fewer pieces and less central roles. Roles can also be taken away and pieces can be cut entirely due to absenteeism. On April 18, 2011, youth determined an attendance policy for the group, and when the first week of
January arrived in 2012, the following was posted the following season on the group’s Facebook page by one of the youth from the previous year. The post read:
Hey everybody! So last year we instated a system for attendance, and
because we're nearing show time, and some people have been
showing up late, we're going to instate it again. So! This what we
sayin'.
5:15- doors open at JReeb. Be there if you want to socialize and stuff,
eat, etc.
5:30- WE START. This means you need to be there. Then. Warm ups
begin then.
5:30-5:35- Grace period... This means if you come a little late, we
understand. But please don't make it a habit. Josie will cross her arms
at you.
5:35-5:45- If you walk in during these ten minutes, you are TARDY.
Two tardies equal an unexcused absence. NOTE: If you can't help
147 coming a little late, call an adult mentor. If it's a legitimate excuse, (as
in you are stuck in traffic, not that you wanted to go bathtub shopping
and blew off PT)(I don't know) then we totally understand and you
will not be marked as late.
Later than 5:45- You will be marked absent. That's super harsh, I
know, but you guys gotta show when we need you to. Two absents
equal a loss of a part.
So in paraphrased form: Be here at 5:30. Tardy x2= Absence Absence
x2= Loss of a part For those who can't do math: Tardy x4= Absence
I love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu *smooch* See ya'll in a few days ;)
(Proud Theater, Facebook)
Any youth who fails to adhere to scheduled rehearsals can be penalized, and exceptions can only be extended based on a vote by the entire youth membership.
One youth during the 2011-2012 season couldn’t make a majority of rehearsals outside of the group’s regular Wednesday nights, but they wanted to remain in the capstone production in a piece they had helped initiate. (Field Notes 09 Mar. 2011).
Another youth, a longtime participant, had started with the group at the top of the season, dropped out early on, and returned in early January wanting to rejoin, or at the very least, “just hang around” (Field Notes 18 Jan. 2012). In both instances, the adult mentors referred the inquiring youth to the larger group for a decision. In
148 both cases exceptions were denied by the rest of the company, citing “fairness and consistency” as primary factors (Field Notes 18 Jan. 2012 ; Field Notes 09 Mar.
2011).
VIII. External Submission Deadline
Proud Theater youth generate numerous ideas for poems, monologues, scenes and songs, and they regularly use adult mentors as sounding boards.
Consequently, as the list of pieces in development is updated, many as-yet- unwritten titles begin to appear. The external submission deadline occurs one to two weeks before script selection, which usually occurs in February, and the deadline is reinforced orally, by email, and through social media.
IX. Capstone Framing
Show order is determined by the Artistic Director and reflects a tonal balance in each act between the comic and dramatic, length of pieces, and logistics like costume and set changes. Proud Theater has historically developed a thematic frame for the capstone production. Before Wild’s tenure, the frame was decided upon by the company through a brainstorming and voting process. Due to the diverse thematic content that emerges from each season, framing concepts were broad and largely only in name as part of the capstone production’s title. As Artistic
Director, Wild integrated the conceptual frame into the performances more holistically, writing framing narratives that involve the entire ensemble. During the
149 2010-2011 season, the state of Wisconsin was embroiled in public protests sparked by conservative Governor Scott Walker’s administration’s dismantling of
Wisconsin’s collective bargaining laws. The youth of Proud Theater were actively engaged in protest, leading school walkouts, protesting at the capital, and performing spoken-word pieces in the capital’s crowded and boisterous rotunda.
The activism of the youth provided Wild with the inspiration for that season’s title and framing device: Proud Theater: Rockin’ the Rotunda! The backdrop of the set was Madison’s skyline, and the first act concluded with a company piece developed from youth protests at the Capitol building, ending with a rousing call-and- response with the audience of: “Tell me what democracy looks like! / This is what democracy looks like!”
X. Auditions and casting
Before casting, youth are encouraged to think about roles or pieces they would like to try out for. Most roles are open to all auditionees, but there are two notable exceptions: poems or monologues and original music. These pieces are first offered to the youth who wrote the piece. If they do not want to perform their work, it is cast from the remaining pool of interested youth.
Casting decisions are informed by performer aptitude, attendance (discussed earlier) and fair distribution of roles. Performer aptitude includes both a performer’s inherent, learned or potential performative acumen, as well as a performer’s significance to a given piece. The first factor - performative acumen - is
150 distinct from traditional notions of acumen in that pieces are not cast solely on a performer’s skills. In her 2006 essay, Kelley-Jones writes “Proud Theater stands on the principle that everyone’s voice is valuable and worthy of being heard, therefore casting isn’t based only on ‘talent’ as in traditional theater, but on commitment to the group and the growth opportunity for each teen” (Archive 12-13). Performative ability, while important, is less important to the group than ensuring that all participants have an opportunity to share their voices. Yet some roles, while not precast per se, might have been developed by a specific youth, resulting in a role that relies largely on a specific individual’s personality. In such instances, the role in question is still open for all youth to audition for, but the casting choice seems a foregone conclusion.
Fair distribution of roles is influenced by youth interest, ability and accountability. Youth interest is expressed most directly by their participation in the casting process. A youth’s perceived ability in this context is distinct from their performative acumen. Ability here also considers a participant’s relationship to privilege. Sunshine Jones addresses this factor in Proud Theater’s casting process:
Although it’s hard for youth new to our process to accept at times,
with feelings of entitlement if they’ve put in a lot of time with Proud
Theater, we seek to recognize different access youth have to privilege,
taking into account other systems of oppression or access in their
lives when, in casting, we weight youth’s commitment and the time
given to the group. A youth struggling with poverty, transportation
151 restraints, institutionalized racism, learning disabilities, or with an
unsupportive family, may not be able to give as much time to Proud
Theater like youth with more privilege. We seek discourse about the
realities of our multiple identities and issues openly, and wrestle with
privilege as we learn from each other. (qtd. in Kelley-Jones, Archive
12-13)
In keeping with providing opportunities for all interested youth performers, casting decisions are made at both the individual and collective level. Although the casting falls to the individual assigned as director for each piece, decisions are finished following casting rehearsals among the adult mentors. Youth directors audition their pieces first in order to secure their desired casts, and mentors cast the other shows around the youth decisions.
XI. Workshopping and Refining
A significant shift occurs in the momentum of the group as it gears up for its capstone production, during which pieces are workshopped and refined. April marks the earliest month a year-end production might take place, but capstone performances have happened in each of these months. After casting, the rehearsal schedule shifts from once to twice weekly until six to eight weeks prior to the capstone performance. At approximately four to six weeks before performance, the schedule intensifies even further with rehearsals occurring nearly every day. The entire company is called twice each week, and the remaining evenings are scene-
152 specific calls. This specificity allows for accommodation of individual youth schedules (schoolwork, jobs, curfews) while affording the most time possible for the direction of each piece. This pattern of biweekly, full-company runs and off-day scene work continues until tech week, the week before performance where the company loads in to the performance space. Youth are made to take ownership of the capstone production. Throughout the season mentors remind youth that the role of the mentor is not to force a capstone show out of a season of work, but rather to facilitate such a project if the youth commit to doing the work necessary to achieve it. Adult mentors have no problem suggesting that they are willing to walk away from the production. During one pre-rehearsal meeting, Kelley-Jones commented that reminding youth that “mentors aren’t the ones on stage and at risk of being in a crappy show” and that if the youth do not want to do the show, the mentors will not force the issue (Field Notes 17 Apr. 2011) had proven an effective tactic to refocus youth in rehearsal and encourage attendance.
XII. Tech week
Tech week begins with load-in, usually the Sunday before a Friday opening night. During load-in, youth and adults load into the venue all necessary technical equipment, costumes, props, and other theatrical elements. Although an all-day event for the technical director and adult mentors, youth are often dismissed mid- afternoon for a break before returning for an evening cue-to-cue and transition rehearsal. The evening rehearsal focuses on ensuring that designers, directors and
153 stage management concur on sound and light cues and that they are recorded in the master prompt book. All scene change assignments are doled out to youth, and time is taken to addresses any safety concerns regarding the set or performance space.
The second and third technical rehearsals focus on moving through the entire show with added technical elements of costumes and props besides set, lights and sound.
Due to the complexity of technical elements and the overall length of the capstone show, it is rare that this first run-with-tech can be accomplished in a single evening.
By the third tech rehearsal youth are often visibly showing signs of exhaustion. If possible, an early dismissal occurs following after this rehearsal in anticipation of the following night’s dress rehearsal. The fourth technical rehearsal operates as if in show conditions with all technical elements in place. Youth are called in time to warm up together before they must evacuate the stage for an imagined house opening. Backstage the lights are dimmed, and conversation in the common room is hushed.
XIII: Preshow: Graduation and Curtain Speech
Prior to opening night’s performance, Wild and the entire ensemble gather for one more circle on the stage following group warm ups. Wild gives a short speech of thanks for the company’s accomplishments over the season, and the company holds one final appreciation ceremony for the season. During appreciations just before Proud Theater: Rockin’ the Rotunda!, the process was highly structured to ensure all participants receive personal recognition. Following
154 the group appreciation, Wild takes time to recognize participants who, for lack of a better term, are graduating from the company.
All Proud Theater performances begin with a curtain speech by one of the youth participants. Although each youth personalizes their delivery of the curtain speech, the fundamental content has remained the same since the company’s beginnings. First, the audience is warmly welcomed to the production. Welcoming the audience is a clear signal for the start of the show and calls the audience to attention. It also establishes a direct connection between performers and audience members, and in undermining the actor/spectator divide of a fourth wall, theatrical illusion is broken, and youth establish themselves as themselves first, characters second. Finally, it offers the company a chance to express their sincere appreciation for their audience, many of whom are participants’ family, teachers, friends, as well as Proud Theater alumni and sponsors, and Madison’s queer community. The welcome personalizes the experience for performer and audience alike and immediately establishes a dynamic of familiarity, lightheartedness, and togetherness.
“Proud theater was started in January of 200020 by a teen with a big dream: that dream was to change the world through drama” (Proud Theater, Curtain). The fact that a thirteen-year-old activist founded the company always leads off a brief description of what Proud Theater is. More than novel trivia for the audience, emphasizing this aspect of the creation of the company adds legitimacy to youth
20 The official month and year that OutReach became Proud Theater fiduciary sponsor (Outreach).
155 authority in the company and, consequently, authenticates the content of individual pieces and the performances themselves as youth-inspired. The group is then defined to the audience as a gathering place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, teens (youth may follow “transgender” with any number of additional labels such as questioning, queer, faerie, person-specific, gender-fluid), youth who have grown up in gay families, and supportive allies ages thirteen to eighteen. Some curtain speeches have included a list of communities or schools represented by the ensemble. Others have emphasized the group’s commitment to ethnic and racial diversity in participation. These details can be extensive, but serve to accurately reflect the diversity of the participants to the audience, opening up and complicating spectator’s understanding of the numerous and complex identities within the LGBTQA pantheon.
The audience is informed about the dramaturgical process used in the creation of the show, and the significance of the process is also disclosed: by incorporating a number of perspectives informing each piece, stories shift from the real to the fictional, and no one person’s story appears on stage. Occasionally a youth will note that there are no individual authors credited in the program — a reflection of the group’s collaborative ownership of material. This then segues into a notice that actors play roles that might not reflect their actual sexual orientation, gender or experience. An important result of disclosing the dramaturgical process and underscoring the fictitious nature of the pieces and performance ensures anonymity for those individuals whose stories provided the groundwork for pieces.
156 The curtain speech also includes a disclaimer about the use of language in the show. Discussing the use of language at the top of the show accomplishes a number of functions. Fundamentally it serves as a content warning. While the utility of providing a language disclaimer at the top of the show gives already-seated audience members little time to reconsider their evening plans based on this new information, it does at the very least alert parents present with youth that they may have to engage in a discussion about language and the politics of hate. The note about language is not an apology: It is an admission of youth reality outside Proud
Theater walls. For their first indoor performance at Frederic March Playcircle,
Kelley-Jones said this regarding the group’s youth of language:
As youth, we want you to know that we struggled with the use of
strong language in one of our pieces, The Gauntlet. Although painful,
we chose to use this language because it honestly depicts the kind of
harassment we go through in the halls of our schools. We want to
acknowledge that it is difficult to hear, and appreciate your
understanding. (Proud Theater, Curtain)
Whether at the top of the show or elsewhere, sponsors are invariably acknowledged and special thanks are extended to volunteers, community partners and organizers. This recognition underscores broad community support for the organization As with most nonprofit, volunteer organizations a nice, cheap “thank you” goes a long way in validating the contributions of individuals and groups supporting the company, and public thanks is a good strategy to maintain strong
157 relationships with behind-the-scenes supporters.
After the public thanks to supporters, the youth speaker invites the rest of the audience to become involved with Proud Theater through volunteering their time, donating money, or becoming a participant. By this point in the curtain speech, the close relationships between the work happening on stage and the audience has been overtly made, so that before the show begins, the audience is already implicated as partners in its success.
The curtain speech ends with “theatrical housekeeping”: The audience is asked to turn off electronic devices, to refrain from taking photos or video, and invited to stay following the performance if a talkback has been planned (talkbacks do not traditionally take place after capstone performances due to the length of the show).
Proud Theater’s seasonal markers evidence how this model executes its activist dramaturgy and organizes itself over the course of a season. Throughout this project, I have presented central arguments as to Proud Theaters importance as a theatrical model in chapter one, the evolution of the Proud Theater model in chapter two, its dramaturgical process and significance in chapter three, the key role of strong mentoring dynamics in the organization’s efficacy, and the event sequencing provide in this most recent chapter. I conclude by looking to the model’s future development, and inroads to further discourse relating to queer youth performance models.
158
Conclusion
As I ponder Proud Theater’s expansion, I am left with a number of conclusions drawn from this research project, as well as some questions that warrant further consideration as this model transitions from a localized to a nationalized presence.
First, queer culture in America is evolving at an exponential rate, even if we consider only the development that has occurred during the course of completing this research project. In 2008 Connecticut and Oregon passed legislation granting gay and lesbian couples some legal rights (as domestic partnerships and civil unions), and California’s Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples had a legal right to marry, which was repealed by voters under a referendum called
Proposition 8 (in 2012 the repeal was deemed unconstitutional by the California
Supreme Court, and is currently heading to the hearings at the Supreme Court). In
2009 Iowa, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire all legalized gay marriage, and
President Obama assigned a “referendum allowing the same-sex partners of federal employees to receive benefits” (Infoplease). In 2010 the U.S. Senate repealed Don't
Ask Don’t Tell, a policy that barred openly gay men and women from serving in the military, the District of Columbia legalized gay marriage, and musician Ricky Martin came out to the public. Also in 2010, sex advice columnist Dan Savage started The It
Gets Better Project, a YouTube-based project of videos targeting queer youth with a simple message for LGBT youth: It gets better. According to the organization’s website:
159 The It Gets Better Project has become a worldwide movement,
inspiring more than 50,000 user-created videos viewed more than 50
million times. To date, the project has received submissions from
celebrities, organizations, activists, politicians and media
personalities, including President Barack Obama, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Lambert, Anne Hathaway,
Colin Farrell, Matthew Morrison of "Glee", Joe Jonas, Joel Madden,
Ke$ha, Sarah Silverman, Tim Gunn, Ellen DeGeneres, Suze Orman, the
staffs of The Gap, Google, Facebook, Pixar, the Broadway community,
and many more. For us, every video changes a life. It doesn’t matter
who makes it. (itgetsbetter.org)
As Chaz Bono, transgender son to the iconic American couple Sonny and
Cher, was at the center of a conservative protest for his inclusion on the reality television show Dancing with the Stars, 2011 saw New York become the most populous state to legalize same sex marriage, and President Obama’s administration’s announced it would no longer be enforcing the Defense of Marriage
Act, which legally defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Maryland and Washington state both legalize gay marriage, and for the first time in
American history, the sitting President publically affirmed his support for same sex marriage. Celebrities Anderson Cooper of CNN and actor Jim Parsons of The Big
Bang Theory come out as gay, and Barney Frank becomes the Unites States first legally married gay Congressperson. The television show Modern Family, which has
160 as central protagonists gay parents, is one of primetime’s most popular and critically acclaimed comedies. Queer is becoming a central part of American discourse, and since Proud Theater’s organizational and dramaturgical structure is an ever-changing manifestation of the immediate attitudes, opinions, and dynamics of successive cohorts, it is important that we attempt to understand significant shifts in queer culture, and queer youth culture in particular.
In the 2008 Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Health, Makadon et al. Report: “Overall, with the adolescent patient, non-binary models of sexual orientation and gender are common, and labels are often difficult to characterize”
(86). Lesko suggests this phenomenon can be attributed to postmodern trends, writing “Postmodernism works against the liberal humanist belief that human beings have an essential core ‘self’ that is unique and imagined as deeply inside or internal to an individual” (17). In “‘Label Jars Not People’: How (not) to Study Youth
Civic Engagement,” Mark Flacks Writes:
[S]tudents from all walks of life seem to resists the notion that they
could or should identity themselves with particular groups. On one
hand, this could reflect the ‘epistemological fallacy’ discussed earlier
whereby many young people are essentially blind to the ways their
lives are structures by their membership in various collectives, but on
the other hand, it can just as plausibly be interpreted as a reflection of
a particular king of political/social consciousness , as opposed to
ignorance (78).
161 Especially among queer youth, sexual identity locations and definitions are growing in fluidity and complexity, unseating traditional “fixed” concepts definitions of gay, lesbian or bisexual. Chun and Singh summarize a number of studies21 and conclude empirical data has shifted over the last decade and reflect “new trends among youth who identify as bisexual (or some other form of sexually fluid) and eschew traditional sexual identity labels (434). In the article “Development of
Same-Sex Attracted Youth,” Savin-Williams and Cohen write that despite scant empirical data, “contemporary youth appear to be more fully embracing bisexuality and other nontraditional expressions of sexuality, including sexual fluidity, gender- based fluidity, and identity refusal” (39). Traditional (Western) binary definitions of gender are also destabilized in the way gender-nonconforming youth discuss gender identity. Saltzburg and Davis interviewed gender non-conforming youth, and observed that “The youths’ conversation reflected a much more complex, textured experience in which their gender identities are less rigidly defined and separated, representing a blending of gender-being and for some a similar cross-over into the realms of sexuality” (103), concluding:
The discourse of this current generation of gender non-conforming
youth reflect the advancement of gender-identity development as a
complex, dynamic and fluid process, defying prescriptive uniformity
and pathologization” (105).
What then happens to models like Proud Theater? It remains to be seen how
21 Including Entrup & Firestein, 2007; Russell, Clark, & Clary, 2009; and Savin-Williams, 2005
162 this cultural shift will impact Proud Theater’s expansionist agenda. After all, a central purpose for founding Proud Theater was due to lack of visibility of and resources for queer youth. This rapid shift in America’s treatment of, legislation for and discourse pertaining to queer issues points to an advancing cultural shift towards one accepting of queers in society, as has occurred in many ways with racial and religious diversity. While society is yet a long way from mainstreaming of queer culture and individuals, sexual and gender identities as norms, they are becoming increasingly an accepted part of the American cultural landscape. Proud
Theater will continue to be a powerful model for advancing visibility and awareness of queer youth and agendas in regions across America (and the world) where such acceptance of queer individuals and culture is slow in coming, but even if intolerance and bigotry are entirely rooted out of society, the model continues to be useful for practitioners and scholars, which leads to my second conclusion.
My second conclusion is that even if a cultural sea change occurs and gender and sexual identities become insignificant facets of daily exchanges and public discourse, the Proud Theater model remains and important youth performance model: It usefully demonstrates a means of creating activist performance through devised dramaturgical approaches; it provides a framework for structuring a season that allows for flexibility in execution while maintaining dramaturgical momentum; it evidences how mentor diversity can increase participant diversity, promote personal growth, well being, and sense of belonging; it is an example of organizational power sharing between adults and youth, dismantling traditional
163 top down hierarchies; and finally because Proud Theater and other queer youth performance models are unique and expanding discipline and practice, and should rightfully be recognized as a significant development in America’s theatrical history. It also provides an answer to the conundrum Anna M. Giannini finds herself addressing at the conclusion of her master’s thesis “Young, troubled, and queer: gay and lesbian representation in theatre for young audiences.” She writes:
…I wish to pose a larger question: given the ideological constraints on
the issue, should theatre for young audiences even attempt to explore
homosexuality? The “something is better than nothing” approach
clearly does not suffice. If the field is limited discourses that
stigmatize and pathologize gay, lesbian, and same-sex attracted young
people, I wonder if the “nothing approach” might be best… (58-59)
When the query is considered through the lens of Proud Theater’s dramaturgical process, which actively works against the stigmatization and pathologization identified by Giannini, the answer seems to be that theatre for young audiences must continue to explore homosexuality. The key, it seems, is allowing youth to point the way, and for adult practitioners to listen carefully and guide them along a performative path of their own devising.
This research serves as an addition to current scholarship investigating queer youth theatre and drama in the United States including the work of Brian Guehring,
Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, Jennifer Chapman, Manon van de Water and Anna M.
Giannini. The project started as a response to Brian Guehring’s 1997 article in
164 Theatre for Young Audiences Today, which broadly surveyed trends and useful strategies among queer youth theatre practitioners, and it concludes having rendered a deeper and more complex picture of the history, structures, and ideologies underlying one company. Using Guehring’s work as a touchstone informing my research questions, this case study has analyzed the impact a model can have on its community and participants, highlighted specific cultural and historic contexts from which the model emerged, detailed the process and ideological underpinnings of a youth-based activist dramaturgy, identified annual markers that form the skeleton of a fluid production schedule, and investigated the roles, responsibilities and importance of diversity among company mentors. Until now Erica Rosenfeld Halverson’s research on About Face Youth Theatre had been the only critical analysis of a queer youth theatre model, and there are a number of intersections between this work and Halverson’s, some due to organizational modeling on the part of Proud Theater facilitators, others seemingly coincidental.
Both projects are case studies of queer youth theatre groups in America’s Midwest that utilize activist dramaturgical strategies to transform lived experiences into performance, but Halverson’s model is located in a highly urbanized setting, is structured to be more reflective of professional performance models, and is vastly different in terms of participant accessibility and community outreach. Together the Halverson’s work and this project provide a starting point for a comparative analysis of multiple queer youth theatre structures. This project also contributes to research examining entrenched heteronormative ideologies and practices in
165 American high school theatre programs. It usefully answers to lingering questions articulated in the conclusion of Jennifer Chapman’s 2005 doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison entitled “The Theatre Kids: Heteronormativity and High School Theatre,” wherein Chapman recommends additional "qualitative studies about how theatre can better serve non-heterosexual students, build heterosexual allies, and challenge heteronormative behavior, language and assumptions” (197), which this dissertation has addressed. This work may provide inroads to creative approaches to undermining heteronormativity’s grip on high school theatre by serving as a resource for high school theatre and drama instructors and coaches interested in creating devised performance with students.
This work expands discourse initiated by van de Water and Giannini on problematic queer representations in published queer youth plays, and helps to answer Giannini’s conundrum, posed earlier, as to whether or not theatre for youth should continue to explore queer themed performance.
There are a number of aspects to the model that I believe are critical to its success, including: its commitment to in-group diversity; its operational affirmation of gender fluidity; active fundraising; committed participants; organizational strategies that increase youth empowerment; and its accessibility for youth. In addition, mentor guidelines that establish clear relationship parameters and participation guidelines created by each annual cohort to maximize conduct buy-in is an effective company practice that can be emulated by other youth performance models. The benefits I address in this second conclusion suggest that there is clear
166 value in the model even in a potential post-queer American culture, which brings me to my three overall recommendations aimed at practitioners interesting in working with or developing this model: relax, respond, and revise.
First, one must relax. As chapter five makes clear, there is a necessary fluidity to Proud Theater’s annual schedule as it is impossible to anticipate how any given cohort will progress through the dramaturgical process, what performance opportunities may arise, or who may join or leave the organization. I have learned much from watching the Proud Theater mentors adjust in the moment to an ever- shifting situation on the ground, radiating with the persistent faith that everything will work out for the best.
My second recommendation to practitioners, respond, suggests that one can be relaxed with a degree of informality and fluidity in the process and procedures, but that the counterbalance to relaxation is knowing what to respond to and when, as in the example I note in chapter one when a rehearsal was stopped to address in- group tensions stemming from a youth struggling with self-destructive impulses.
Third, revise simply is intended to remind practitioners that the current model analyzed here developed through a combination of intended successes and unanticipated challenges. Those who wish to effective work with the model must pay attention to what they find themselves responding to, and create strategies to address those points in the future. Based on my observations and history with the company I would recommend a number of potential revisions for the model as it continues to develop into a national organization. These include:
167 • Consider centralizing information into a remote-access database containing
completed and in-process scripts, contact lists, calendars and archival
material.
• Make standardized publicity and touring packets available on the company
website.
• Find additional ways to solicit youth input in the framing and organization
of capstone productions and to steering the development of new Proud
Theater chapters.
• Foster relationships with diverse social justice organizations to
development mutually-beneficial initiatives.
• Work towards increasing nutritional content of food provided at rehearsals
and performances.
• Investigate potential compensation structures for personnel as the
company expands to a national entity.
• Develop a common theatrical vocabulary among participants at the top of
the season by teaching fundamental performance techniques and strategies.
• Establish dedicated time during each rehearsal for youth to use Proud
Theater as a forum to express emotions in a structured way, particularly in
the final weeks leading to a capstone performance when stress among
participants is elevated.
In the end, this project has sought to analyze and define a flagship theatrical model in American queer youth theatre. Other models will have radically different
168 founding narratives, organizational structures and dramaturgical processes, but research such as this project contributes to a better understanding of a growing field of theatrical practice and scholarly discourse in the United States.
169
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Appendix A
Proud Theater Capstone Performance History
184
Proud Theatre Capstone Performance History
2011-2012 Proud Theater: Beyond. May 3-5, 2012 Fredric March Play Circle, UW-Madison Memorial Union
2010-2011 Proud Theater: Rockin’ the Rotunda! May 19-21, 2011 Bartell Theatre, Drury Stage, Madison, Wisconsin.
2009-2010 Proud Theater: 3D - in Stunning Queer-O-Rama! May 20-22, 2010 Fredric March Play Circle, UW-Madison Memorial Union
Proud Theater: Decade July 23-25, 2010 Broom Street Theater, Madison, Wisconsin.
2008-2009 Proud Theater: Full Circle May 21-23, 2009 Fredric March Play Circle, UW-Madison Memorial Union
2007-2008 Proud Theater: Loud and Clear May 29-31, 2008 Bartell Theatre, Evjue Stage, Madison, Wisconsin.
2006-2007 Proud Theater: Plugged In Bartell Theatre, Drury Stage, Madison, Wisconsin. May 10-12, 2007
2005-2006 Proud Theater: Unplugged La Follette High School May 5, 2006
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2004-2005 Proud Theater: R Evolution May 10-12, 2005 Drury Stage, Bartell Theater, Madison, Wisconsin
2003-2004 No Capstone Performance22
2002-2003 We Can See Queerly Now: An Evening with Proud Theater June 13-14, 2003 Fredric March Play Circle, UW-Madison Memorial Union
2001-2002 A Mural of Us: An Evening with Proud Theater May 25, 2002 Fredric March Play Circle, UW-Madison Memorial Union
2000-2001 Chemistry and Other Skits July 11, 2001 MAGIC Picnic, Brittingham Park, Madison, Wisconsin
1999-2000 Three Points July 15, 2000 MAGIC Picnic, Brittingham Park, Madison, Wisconsin
22 See chapters two and three
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Appendix B
Institutional Review Board Documentation
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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISONResearch Participant Information and Consent Form Title of the Study: Proud Theatre as Theatrical Model Principal Investigator: Dr Manon van de Water (phone: (608) 263-3933) (email: [email protected]) Student Researcher: Peter M Rydberg (phone: (608) 843-1282) DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH You are invited to participate in a research study about Proud Theatre, a queer youth theatre company based in Madison, Wisconsin. You have been asked to participate because you are a central figure in Proud Theatre's founding and/or the group's ongoing activities, or you are a prominent member of the Madison arts scene. The purpose of the research is to better understand how Proud Theatre operates as a queer youth arts organization – specifically to define the model, unpack the significance of the organization in the context of American community-based performance, theatre for youth, and queer performance and activism. This study will include present and past participants of Proud Theatre, specifically organization founders, adult artists and mentors, and past youth participants now over the age of 18. Additionally, this study will utilize long-standing, prominent members of Madison’s arts and activist communities, to help locate the subject (Proud Theatre) firmly in a specific socio-historical context. Interviews with study participants will take place in a location of the interviewee's choosing in or around Madison, Wisconsin. Interview locations will be selected for comfort, confidentiality, and capability to record interviews free of external distractions. Additional information may be acquired as necessary via electronic correspondence with respondents whom have agreed to participate in the study. Audio tapes will be made of your participation, unless communication occurs via electronic mail. The audio recordings will be heard by Peter M Rydberg or Dr Manon van de Water. Tapes will be retained until the research project is complete, not more than two years before they are destroyed. Email correspondence will be read by Peter M Rydberg or Dr Manon van de Water. Emails will also be retained until the research project is complete, not more than two years before they are deleted. WHAT WILL MY PARTICIPATION INVOLVE? If you decide to participate in this research you will be asked to participate in a live, tape recorded interview with Peter M Rydberg regarding your objective knowledge and subjective opinions regarding Proud Theatre's history; organizational structure and/or operations; artistic process and/or product; dynamics between adult and youth participants; activist strategies and/or agendas, and the impact on participants' personal and/or social development. Alternately, you may be contacted with concise questions intended for clarification or added context via electronic mail. Interview participation will last approximately 1 hours per session and will require 2 sessions which will require 2 hours in total. Additional permission will be requested should extended participation be desired.
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ARE THERE ANY RISKS TO ME? Current adult participants in Proud Theatre - the Artistic Director, for instance - will be reporting observed or second-hand information regarding youth participants, which current or future youth participants may not agree with, thereby possibly impacting the relationships between youth participants and adult mentors/teaching artists. ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS TO ME? This in-depth study will help current adult participants and adult facilitators better understand their organization as it relates to their local youth/arts/queer resources, and will contextualize their organization alongside other groups with similar missions or creating similar work. It will also be the first study documenting the organization's history, artistic strategies, or offering critical analysis of the artistic product. There will be no financial gain from the project for the researcher or its participants. HOW WILL MY CONFIDENTIALITY BE PROTECTED? While there will probably be publications as a result of this study, and adult interviewees will be quoted directly, any identifiable information from interviews regarding youth participants - past or present - will be removed. Tape recordings and electronic correspondence will be destroyed following the research project's completion. If you participate in this study, we would like to be able to quote you directly. If you agree to allow us to use your legal name in publications, please initial the statement at the bottom of this form. WHOM SHOULD I CONTACT IF I HAVE QUESTIONS? You may ask any questions about the research at any time. If you have questions about the research after you leave today you should contact the Principal Investigator Dr Manon van de Water at (608) 263-3933. You may also call the student researcher, Peter M Rydberg at (608) 843-1282. If you are not satisfied with response of research team, have more questions, or want to talk with someone about your rights as a research participant, you should contact the Education Research and Social & Behavioral Science IRB Office at 608-263-2320. Your participation is completely voluntary. If you decide not to participate or to withdraw from the study it will have no effect on any services or treatment you are currently receiving. Your signature indicates that you have read this consent form, had an opportunity to ask any questions about your participation in this research and voluntarily consent to participate. You will receive a copy of this form for your records. Name of Participant (please print):______Signature Date
University of Wisconsin—Madison FWA000005399
Protocol: SE-2011-0019 Approved: 3/10/2011 Expires: 3/9/2012
______I give my permission to be quoted directly in publications without using my name.
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Notice of Action University of Wisconsin–MadisonInstitutional Review Board (IRB)
Principal Investigator: Manon van de Water, PhD Department: Theatre and Drama Co-Investigator: Peter Rydberg Point of Contact: Peter Rydberg Protocol Title: Proud Theatre as Theatrical Model Protocol Number: SE-2011-0019 IRB: Social & Behavioral Sciences IRB (Contact: Lill Larson, 263-2320) Committee Action: Approved on: March 10, 2011 Expires: March 09, 2012
We have received the information you sent regarding the above named protocol. This information complies with the modifications required by the Institutional Review Board, and your protocol is now approved. You may begin collecting data at any time. Thank you for your cooperation.
Special Notes or Instructions: The modifications requested have been submitted and this protocol is now approved per 45 CFR, 46.110 (b)(1), 7, as a study of group characteristics using interview procedures. No personal or identifiable information will become a part of any publications without signed consent for its use. Risk is considered minimal. ______INVESTIGATOR RESPONSIBILITIES:
Unless this protocol is exempt, or the IRB specifically waived the use of written consent, an approved consent form that is stamped with approval and expiration dates can be found on IRB WebKit. To find the stamped consent form, go to IRB WebKit at https://rcr.gradsch.wisc.edu/irbwebkit/Login.asp. Login and open this protocol number. The link to the consent form can be found on the left side of the page. All copies of the form must be made from this original. Any changes to the consent form must be approved in advance by the IRB.
Any changes to the protocol must be approved by the IRB before they are implemented.
Any new information that would affect potential risks to subjects, any problems or adverse reactions must be reported immediately to the IRB contact listed above.
If the research will continue beyond the expiration date indicated above, a request for renewal/continuing review must be submitted to the IRB. You must obtain approval before the current expiration date. If you do not obtain approval by the expiration date noted above, you are not authorized to collect any data until the IRB re-approves your protocol.
Signed consent forms must be retained on campus for seven years following the end of the project.
If you are continuing to analyze data, even though you are no longer collecting data, you should keep this protocol active.
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Notice of Action University of Wisconsin–MadisonInstitutional Review Board (IRB)
Principal Investigator: Manon van de Water, PhD Department: Theatre and Drama Co-Investigator: Peter Rydberg Point of Contact: Peter Rydberg Protocol Title: Proud Theatre as Theatrical Model Protocol Number: SE-2011-0019 IRB: Social & Behavioral Sciences IRB (Contact: 263-2320) Committee Action: Approved on: January 23, 2012 Expires: January 22, 2013
Special Notes or Instructions: This protocol was expedited per 45 CFR, 46.110 (b)(1), 7 as continuing review where no problems are being reported. Per 45 CFR, 46.110 (b)(2), 4 additional participants will be recruited. The IRB determined that this was a minimal risk study and no additional risks have been identified.
______INVESTIGATOR RESPONSIBILITIES:
Unless this protocol is exempt, or the IRB specifically waived the use of written consent, an approved consent form that is stamped with approval and expiration dates can be found on IRB WebKit. To find the stamped consent form, go to IRB WebKit at https://rcr.gradsch.wisc.edu/irbwebkit/Login.asp. Login and open this protocol number. The link to the consent form can be found on the left side of the page. All copies of the form must be made from this original. Any changes to the consent form must be approved in advance by the IRB.
Any changes to the protocol must be approved by the IRB before they are implemented.
Any new information that would affect potential risks to subjects, any problems or adverse reactions must be reported immediately to the IRB contact listed above.
If the research will continue beyond the expiration date indicated above, a request for renewal/continuing review must be submitted to the IRB. You must obtain approval before the current expiration date. If you do not obtain approval by the expiration date noted above, you are not authorized to collect any data until the IRB re-approves your protocol.
Signed consent forms must be retained on campus for seven years following the end of the project.
If you are continuing to analyze data, even though you are no longer collecting data, you should keep this protocol active. University of Wisconsin—Madison FWA000005399
Protocol: SE-2011-0019 Approved: 3/10/2011 Expires: 3/9/2012
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Appendix C
Queer Youth Performance Initiatives
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Queer Youth Performance Initiatives
Organizations dedicated to queer youth performance
About Face Youth Theatre Chicago, Illinois Year established: 1994 www.aboutfacetheatre.org About Face Youth Theatre was created as a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning young people to tell their stories and create community. (About Face Youth Theater “Homepage”)
Pride Players Omaha, Nebraska Year established: 1998 www.rosetheater.org Pride Players use improvisation to create songs, poetry, monologues, scenes and skits that explore what it means to be a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or straight-allied teen in Omaha. (Rose Theatre “Homepage”)
Proud Theater Madison, Wisconsin Year established: 1999 www.proudtheater.org Proud Theater is a youth run, youth organized queer theater group that performs around the Madison area (in schools and local theater venues). Our mission is to change the world through Art, Heart and Activism (Proud Theater, Homepage).
True Colors: OUT Youth Theater Boston, Massachusetts Year established: 1999 www.thetheateroffensive.org True Colors is one of the nation's first and only touring theater programs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth and their straight allies (LGBTQQA), ages 14-22. True Colors' original work captures the complexities of the lives of LGBTQQA youth, their experiences of dealing with discrimination, and their hopes for the future. Troupe members tour their original play to schools, community groups and events throughout New England. (True Colors, Prospectus)
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Dreams of Hope Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Year established: 2003 www.dreamsofhope.org Dreams of Hope's performance troupe of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight youth [create and perform] new works of drama, song, dance, and poetry, all based on their lives. Youth perform 18-20 outreach shows at non- traditional venues [in addition to a year end capstone production]. (Dreams of Hope, Homepage)
Theatre Askew Youth Performance Experience (TAYPE) New York City, New York Year established: 2004 www.theateraskew.com/taype.htm TAYPE is an educational theatre program that empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and their allies in the New York area by nurturing and developing their unique theatrical voices. Under the mentorship of working artists within a professional theatre company, TAYPE participants are guided through the creation and production of self-generated and collaborative theatre projects. (Theater Askew, Homepage)
QSpeak Phoenix, AZ Year established: 2005 www.phoenixtheatre.com QSpeak Theatre provides a safe space for queer youth and their straight allies to engage in community dialogue and affect positive change through storytelling and performance in order to bring awareness to their own lives and experiences. (Phoenix Theatre, Homepage)
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Organizations inclusive of queer youth performance
The Out & Allied Project Portland, Washington Year established: 2000 www.addverbproductions.org/programs/outallied The Out & Allied Project (Formerly known as the Queer & Allied Youth Writing Project) The Out & Allied Project [...] centers around teen participants writing performance pieces including short plays, spoken word, and poetry that address issues of cultivating allies among queer and questioning youth. (AddVerb, Homepage)
Walking Elephant Theatre Company Petaluma, CA Year established: 2005 www.thewalkingelephant.blogspot.com Walking Elephant Theatre Company guides actors seven to seventeen years old out of the classroom and into real-world, project-based education experiences that connect them with their local and global communities to explore compelling social issues. Cast members interview relevant community members about "the elephant in the room" - discrimination, bullying, homophobia, habits, special education - to create “word-for-word” documentary theatre and films. (Walking Elephant, Homepage)
Riot Youth Ann Arbor, MI Year established: 2010 www.neutral-zone.org/programs/43/riot-youth Riot Youth is a youth-led, safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, questioning youth and their allies (LGBTQQA) at the Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor’s youth-driven teen center. Through leadership skill building, community organizing, networking, support and socializing, Riot Youth connects youth to build an inclusive community. (Neutral Zone, Homepage)