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TOWARD THE HORIZON: CONTEMPORARY AS UTOPIC ACTIVISM

Cody Allyn Page

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

May 2021

Committee:

Jonathan Chambers, Advisor

Nermis Mieses Graduate Faculty Representative

Angela Ahlgren

Heidi Nees

© 2021

Cody Allyn Page

All Rights Reserved iii

ABSTRACT

Jonathan Chambers, Advisor

In Toward the Horizon: Contemporary Queer Theatre as Utopic Activism, I pursue two intersecting goals. First, I offer close of theatrical representations of queerness that expand beyond the shallow representations of the not-so-distant past, including the trope of the best friend (G.B.F.) and so-called . homosexual problem plays. Second, I engage with dramaturgies of theatre for social change, those dramaturgical possibilities into scripted drama in support of my argument that contemporary queer theatre creates utopic activist potential within viewing and/or reading audiences.

Over five chapters, I explicate and critically consider queer theatrical works that deploy dramaturgies and pedagogies of theatre for social change, including Bull in a China Shop by

Bryna Turner, Significant Other by Joshua Harmon, Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney,

Scissoring by Christina Quintana, Log Cabin by Jordan Harrison, The by Chad Beguelin and Matthew Sklar, A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson, and by Matthew

Lopez. I build upon the legacies of José Esteban Muñoz and his conceptualizing of

topia on the horion, and Jill Dolans notion of utopic performatives, to argue that these pieces hold the potential to lead audiences towards what I term utopic activism. Utopic activism concerns the potential to create change through the application of pedagogies and dramaturgies of theatre for social change to scripted drama, and in turn prompt audiences toward envisioning, embracing, and enacting a better . Individual chapters draw on a variety of critical modes of investigation including history, historiography, and historicization, empathy, relationships and friendships, and genre conventions to investigate the ways queer theatre creates meaning. iv

My study finds queer representation in contemporary theatre is steadily changing and consistently embracing more complex and affirming visions of queerness. Indeed, while there are many areas still lacking, particularly when it comes to the inclusion of diverse voices published as as well as more diverse characters in queer narratives, the scripts I read suggest a better more equitable future on the horizon.

v

For all the queer ancestors and elders whose voices were never heard, who never had the chance

to sing their songs or celebrate their happiness.

You deserved the opportunity to sing, speak, and dance.

I remember you; I hear you; I invoke you.

May your voices live on through mine. vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Though this dissertation bears my name as its single author, it would not have happened without the support of a larger community of teachers, mentors, family, and friends. Before thanking them, I must first acknowledge that the region where Bowling Green State University and its affiliated campuses are located holds historical and contemporary ties to numerous

Indigenous and Native , including the Wyandot, Kickapoo, , Odawa, Potawatomi, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. I recognize the stewardship, dedication, and continued presence of the Indigenous individuals and tribes for whom the Great Black Swamp and the Lower Great Lakes Region is home. I will work to not only acknowledge these individuals and tribes through statement, but in action and practice as well.

Thanks to my advisor, Dr. Jonathan Chambers, who brought out the best in me even when I did not know what that meant. Thank you for always knowing when a bit more candy was needed to get through the dark. Thanks to Dr. Angela Ahlgren, for the many walks and chats and for always providing a willing ear to help navigate academic life. Thanks to Dr. Heidi Nees for being a fellow historiography nerd and for always bolstering my sense of confidence. Thanks to Dr. Nermis Mieses, from the College of Musical Arts, who has been a willing, eager, and active committee member.

I would also like to thank the various professors and colleagues who have guided and supported me throughout this process. At BGSU, I would like to thank Dr. Lesa Lockford and

Dr. Cynthia Baron, whose courses helped shape my writing and thinking. I started the PhD program with Justin Hopper; I will forever be thankful for his support and friendship. Likewise, it has been a joy working alongside and learning with Leesi Patrick. I am forever indebted to Dr. vii

Quincy Thomas and Professor Sara Chambers, and will always appreciate their willingness to have a conversation, some profound, some funny, and many of them both. I thank as well, Dan and Summer Cullen, for helping make BGSU home. And to the countless others who have become friends and colleagues over the past few years, you have helped me grow.

Outside of BGSU, I owe thanks to Dr. Daphnie Sicre and Dr. Gina Grandi, who showed me extraordinary compassion in navigating academia and were invaluable sounding boards.

Thank you to theatre , a home of scholars who have helped support and guide my thinking through their 280 characters. And to all the LGBT+/Queer scholars who have come before me: your work, your , and your drive have guided and supported this project from the start; thank you for paving the way.

Aside from the colleagues and friends in the field, there are many others who deserve my thanks and gratitude. To my family, thank you for your support even though you typically have no idea what I am talking about; thank you for putting up with my intensity. Special thanks to my sister, Alysha, whose patience was always tested when I had to write rather than pay attention to her. I also thank and acknowledge the loved ones I have lost along the way, particularly the strong women who shaped me: Nanny, Grandma Page, Aunt Pip, Nicole Styer, and Pat Kautter. None of you will ever be forgotten; I carry all of you with me, always and forever. And Danie and Mel: so much of me is because of my relationships with the two of you.

Your friendships have been invaluable, and I treasure them deeply. Barb, you have been a constant partner-in-crime, and I am forever grateful. And lastly, Freddy, who has kept me laughing, and Schane: though we may be miles apart, your friendship and brotherhood means the world to me. viii

Finally, to the queer community: it is an honor and a privilege to be counted as your kin.

Thank you for your bravery, your love, your compassion, and your support. Thank you for offering me a home.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

INTRODUCTION. QUEER THEATRE AND UTOPIC ACTIVISM ...... 1

Key Questions and Theoretical Frames ...... 1

Limitations: Temporal Strictures, Primary Sources, and Me ...... 9

A Brief History of Outlaws, In-Laws, and In-Betweeners ...... 13

Specialized Terms ...... 19

Chapter Summaries ...... 23

CHAPTER I. EXCAVATING AND RE-CLAIMING: QUEER HISTORIOGRAPHIC

ADAPTATION ...... 27

Prologue: An Introduction to Queer History ...... 27

Bull in a China Shop as History ...... 33

Bull in a China Shop as Historiography ...... 36

Bull in a China Shop as Historicization ...... 48

Final Excavations ...... 59

CHAPTER II. BEYOND THE G.B.F.: EXPANDING QUEER/STRAIGHT

RELATIONSHIPS ...... 62

Prologue: A History of Relationships with Heterosexuals in Queer Theatre ...... 62

Friendship: Bridging Differences and Mutual World Building ...... 66

No Safe Spaces: Typical Heterosexual Institutions as Relationships ...... 88

Conclusion: Furthering the Representation of the G.B.F...... 99

CHAPTER III. QUEER-TO-QUEER RELATIONSHIPS: EXPLORATION OF

INTER-COMMUNITY INTERACTION ...... 102

Prologue: Nuanced Queer Relationships in Contemporary Queer Theatre ...... 102 x

Sitting in Discomfort: Queer Relationships as Sites of Critical Feedback ...... 109

Conclusion: Queer Realities & Pertinent Contexts ...... 131

CHAPTER IV. QUEER MUSICALS: CELEBRATING AND RECOGNIZING

THE QUEER SELF ...... 136

Prologue: and the Quest for Queerness...... 136

Music As Pedagogy: What we Learn through Song ...... 143

Musical Theatre Forms: Songs and Meanings ...... 153

I Am: Understanding Myself ...... 154

I Want: Queer Longings for Normalcy ...... 156

Realization and Acceptance: 11 Oclock Numbers and Self Reflection ...... 165

The Queer Experience: Radical Joy as Pedagogy...... 171

Conclusion: More with Feeling ...... 178

CHAPTER V. QUEER THEATRE LEGACIES: CREATING, CONNECTING,

CONTEXTUALIZING AND QUESTIONING ...... 181

Prologue: Building Queer Worlds ...... 181

Create: For Community By Community & Queer World-Building ...... 189

Connect: Characters as Found/Chosen Family ...... 204

Contextualize: Hauntings, Mourning, and Grief as Pedagogy ...... 211

Questioning the Problematic: The Inheritance of Negative Patterns ...... 226

Conclusion: Tracing Legacies, Building Foundations, and Moving Forward ...... 237

CONCLUSION. GLIMMERS, SPECS, AND TRACES: TOWARD THE

QUEER HORIZON ...... 240

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 245 xi

APPENDIX A. CONTEMPORARY QUEER WORKS TO EXPLORE ...... 275 1

INTRODUCTION. QUEER THEATRE AND UTOPIC ACTIVISM

“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”1

Key Research Questions and Theoretical Frames

History is written by the winners, who are those who hold dominant power and exert their sensibilities and customs as “normal.” In line with this rendering of history, queer individuals have frequently been portrayed in theatre as horrible, villainous outlaws (e.g., the predatory or deviant queer, whose purpose is to engender moral repugnancy), in-laws or ineffectual sidekicks

(e.g., the sassy Gay Best Friend or non-threatening queer), or the in-between-tragic victims (e.g., fags dying from aids with little autonomy and rarely allowed to be fully realized human beings).

In the not-too-distant past, these negative and limiting portrayals continued to persist due at least in part to homophobic laws such as the Hayes Code and Wales Padlock Law, and homophobic morality groups like the National Legion of Decency. These laws and groups are representative of larger cultural shifts, social patterns, and of the time.

Homophobia and did not fester only because of hate groups that supported such systems. Indeed, such attitudes were also supported in the arena of law; for instance, was criminalized in the well into the 1950s.2 There was (and in some cases continues to be) a conflation between male homosexuality and child molestation, which was pervasive through much of contemporary queer history in the United States. For instance, Anita Bryant, a well-known anti-Gay rights activist, ran the “Save Our Children”

1 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, , NY: Crown Group, 2007, 80.

2 Richard Weinmeyer, “The Decriminalization of Sodomy in the United States,” AMA Journal of Ethics, November

2014, https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/decriminalization-sodomy-united-states/2014-11. 2 campaign in Dade County, . This campaign sought to allow on the basis of homosexuality. Eventually, this campaign intertwined with the state referendum

Proposition 6, also known as the , which sought the ability to fire any teacher found out to be homosexual, in order to protect students. Additionally, homosexuality was considered by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM as a mental illness until 1986, which further led to homosexuals being arrested or sent to psychiatric hospitals due to their sexuality.3 Since its removal from the DSM, the American Psychological

Association has worked diligently to eradicate a historic stigma associated with homosexuality; however, cultural attitudes and prejudices do still exist.

It is important to note that the bigoted cultural work done by these heterosexist laws and groups merely made official conceptions of the naturalness and goodness of , while at the same time allowing these troubling representations of queerness to prosper.

Thankfully, representations of queerness have become more complex and affirming in recent decades, offering more well-rounded characters and themes that go beyond the morally suspect, one-dimensional, and/or tragically existent. This project chronicles these emergent trends of character representations, corresponding narratives, and thematic structures in contemporary queer theatre, and explores their pedagogical potential for social change.

This dissertation takes a largely literary and dramaturgical approach to investigating queer scripts and performances that are captured under the notion of queerness noted above.

Traditionally, thinking dramaturgically means considering how a script is structured, how

3 Gregory M. Herek, “Facts About Homosexuality and Mental Health,” 2012. https://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html.

3 meaning is created organizationally, and how it functions on the level of form. To provide a fuller reading, I will draw on close reading attuned to dramatic structure. While close reading functions as my primary method, I will supplement these readings within the realm of pedagogies and dramaturgies of theatre for social change (TSC). It warrants noting as well that while I acknowledge that the approach is primarily surveying the way that the work exists on the page through close readings, I will also supplement those readings with information gleaned from their productions. To bring this perspective to the project, I will consult reviews published by media outlets as well as sites and posts.

In considering these themes that have emerged within the past two decades of queer theatre, I interrogate the pedagogical aspects and techniques employed by the writers of these scripts aimed at teaching the audience about queer life, queer people, and queer existence. It is important to note that the pedagogies at play within these scripts are not only for straight audiences (i.e., to teach them how to better interact with the queer community), but in many cases they are also intended to teach the queer community. Thus, by interrogating these expanded expressions of queerness on stage, I investigate how queer theatre functions as theatre for social change. Considering the idea of theatre for social change, the overarching argument I make with this project is that audiences or readers experiencing scripts and/or performances can be moved, both emotionally and intellectually, by the queer material presented and then create change in their social spheres. That is, I will argue that the plays I focus on, move beyond the negative and/or shallow types of queerness noted in my opening paragraph, and in so doing expose audiences and readers to new ways of thinking and being.

To further explore the idea of these plays as theatre for social change and broader representations of queerness on stage, I build upon the foundational works on queer theory and 4 performance of Jill Dolan, particularly her theorization of utopian performatives, and José

Esteban Muñoz, particularly his notion of cruising queer utopias, to argue for the potential for social change through my own conception of utopic activism. Dolan argues “live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world”4; and Muñoz is concerned with the idea that utopia and queerness are always on the horizon, something visible that is not quite there, but something for which we, as society, might strive.5 In conceptualizing utopic activism, I take their ideas further to consider how interactions with scripts (either in solitary, in classroom settings, or in the rehearsal space), and interactions with audiences (through reading, through production, through reviews, or through social media engagement) have the potential to create social change.

I acknowledge that Dolan and Muñoz hold different ideas of utopia, with Dolan rooting her work in the audience experience and Muñoz seeing the potential on the horizon. However, in developing my theories of utopic activism, I bring notions from each together and propose that utopic activism becomes a force for potential movement as well as shifts of thinking and being through pedagogies of theatre for social change. I consider the ways that Dolan argues that audience interaction and engagement offers considerations of how people “can imagine, together, the affective potential of a future in which this rich feeling of warmth, even of love,

4 Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Press,

2008, 2.

5 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, New York, NY: New York

University Press, 2009, 11. 5 could be experienced regularly and effectively outside the theatre.”6 These imagined potential futures and questions, conversations, and insights after engagement are what I consider to be the potential better horizon. In sum, I argue that utopic activism is stimulated through the multiple ways that theater for social change (TSC) is engaged within a scripted drama. By exploring the dramaturgies and pedagogies of theatre for social change within scripted drama, I then point towards the lessons imparted, and the potential better future that is on the horizon. The engagement of these pedagogies is what incites the potential for utopic activism, and the drive to push an audience towards creating social change for a better tomorrow.

As noted above, my study is also influenced by a multitude of approaches drawn from theatre for social change. Specifically, I use ideas drawn from TSC to address the potential to effect change in audiences. Often works thought of as applied theatre or TSC are focused on the process over the product. The plays and musicals examined in my study instead focus on the finished product. Still, I believe there is value in locating TSC pedagogies within these scripts, because as Phillip Taylor states in the preface to Applied Drama: A Facilitator’s Handbook for

Working in Community, “viewing isn’t enough…we need to act upon our viewing as means of transforming the kind of world we live in.”7 By drawing on some of the ideas from TSC, I explore how the scripts and performances create meaning that potentially rally an audience to seek change in their everyday lives. As a caveat to this point, it is important to note that I do not require that the playwrights I consider to explicitly or implicitly identify teaching, pedagogy,

6 Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,

2008, 14.

7 Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton, Applied Drama: A Facilitator’s Handbook for Working in Community,

Intellect, 2013, xi. 6 and/or TSC as an intent. Rather, I am reading conceptions of theatre pedagogies into their work and will then discuss how such pedagogies help foster change within audiences.

I further explore the potential for utopic activism through the ideas of community building, empathy, and reflection. By using the term “community building,” it is important to note that community does not only refer to a geographically close relation of people, but can also refer to groups that are connected through similar beliefs, ideologies, or experiences, as Helen

Nicholson asserts much of the collective identification in this manner is attributed to Benedict

Anderson.8 This project will specifically consider the queer community in relation to by and for.

As Helen Nicholson points out in Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, “a deeper sense of belonging to a community… derives from shared interpretations of experience.”9 She also argues that when people recognize their own experiences in someone or something else it creates a shared understanding of values and stories.10 Therefore, within the pedagogy of community building, authentic connections become important. From this perspective, exploring scripts that are written by a community member or for a specific community is significant, because the potential for social change is gifted through the hope of shared understanding through storytelling.

This acknowledgement of community building through storytelling also allows for the possibility of using theatre to warn audiences of potential pitfalls. It can be easy for certain narratives to become the touchstones of queer experience in storytelling. For instance, we

8 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 84.

9 Nicholson, Applied Drama, 94.

10 Nicholson, Applied Drama, 94. 7 consistently see similar renderings of coming-out narratives in television and film.11 However, it is vital to remember that experience is not universal; the stories of one member of a community will not apply fully and broadly across all members of the community. All stories are important to tell and have worth; however, offering those stories as the universal or only experience within that community is not productive to the process of making space for all voices and experiences.

As the examples I explicate in the chapters make clear, empathy and catharsis are vital storytelling tools for TSC. Catharsis can often be defined in relation to this work as an “organic, extreme emotional release in reaction to watching tragic acts onstage.”12 Empathy is the ability of the audience to critically relate to the plots and/or characters, and to understand or share on some level those experiences. Nicholson acknowledges the power of empathy in Applied Drama:

The Gifts of Theatre: “the social significance of the emotions is that feelings of empathy and affection lead to practical action [. . .] recognising that emotional involvement with others is generative of a caring ethic which, in turn, has wider social implications.”13 While both catharsis and empathy are useful tools with enormous pedagogical potential, both have also been justly critique by noted theatre practitioners. For instance, Augusto Boal criticized catharsis because he looked at it as a hegemonic tool that focused and kept audiences complicit; for him, empathy and catharsis would keep an audience from going out and affecting change. While I agree that

11 Shows and films such as Love, Simon, Love, Victor, Riverdale, Dawson’s Creek, , and Degrassi: The Next

Generation (to name a few) follow similar tropes as their rendering of experience.

12 Dani Snyder-Young, Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change,

Palgrave MacMillan, 2013, 83.

13 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 165. 8 aesthetic distance can help an audience process and think critically about a piece, I also hold that empathy and catharsis play a role in creating meanings and driving an audience towards change.

One scholar who would argue against negative conceptualizations of empathy and catharsis is Audre Lorde. In The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, Lorde famously argues that the erotic, “is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire.”14 Lorde criticizes rationalism and thinking only with one’s head, arguing that doing so is oppressive and distinctly male. Instead, she urges an audience to consider gut feelings and intuition, and to use those non-cognitive responses to help understand the world. Through Lorde’s conception, the consideration of catharsis and empathy become important in guiding the work of TSC because empathy allows an audience to care and feel connected to a narrative. Creating empathy within the audience focuses more on how the audience might come to new understandings or how prompt changes through viewing/reading a script.

Finally, in considering reflection as an approach within TSC, my project supposes, as does Dolan, that utopia is “always in process, always only partially grasped, as it disappears before us around the corners of narrative and social experience,”15 or as Muñoz argues it is always on the horizon.16 This is to say, then, that utopic activism is always in flux; it is something that can be recognized within queer theatre as pointing the audience towards a better

14 Audre Lorde, “The use of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” In Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life:

A Reader, edited by Karen E. Lovaas and Mercilee M. Jenkins, Sage Publications, Inc., 2007, 88.

15 Dolan, Utopia in Performance, 6.

16 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 11. 9 future and encouraging audiences to create change in their own social spheres. Furthermore, while Dolan considers utopic performatives through a lens of Schechner’s “cool down,” I instead position the idea of utopic activism within Muñoz’s conception of ephemera. In short, Muñoz understands ephemera as “remains that are often embedded in queer acts, in both stories we tell one another and communicative physical gestures such as the cool look of a street cruise, a lingering handshake between recent acquaintances, or the mannish strut of a particularly confident woman.”17 Such ephemera are the glimmers, traces, specs, remains, the things that are left hanging in the air like a rumor.18 Tying this to utopic activism means investigating the lessons that the scripts teach an audience, reflecting upon the questions left unsaid throughout a piece, and considering our own culpability and proximity to the problems represented throughout.

In the end, I pursue two intersecting goals with Toward the Horizon: Contemporary

Queer Theatre as Utopic Activism. First, this project presents representations of queerness that expand beyond the shallow representations of the not-so-distant past. And second, this project engages dramaturgies of theatre for social change, reading those dramaturgical possibilities into scripted drama to champion how queer theatre creates utopic activist potential within audiences

(viewing, reading, or ).

Limitations: Temporal Strictures, Primary Sources, and Me

I locate this study as broadly concerning queer plays written after

(1991 and 1993). Kushner’s two-part play was a watershed event in the history of queer theatre because it spoke frankly about gay issues, specifically AIDS, and took a much different tone

17 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 65

18 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 65 10 from previous pieces such as Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985). Angels’ main strengths lay in showing that its characters were all connected simply through existence, and by offering a parable about contemporary politics of the United States. It dominated critical and popular conversations regarding queer theatre for many years following its premiere. With a recent

Broadway revival, and being one of the, if not the most, anthologized queer plays, the show still dominates critical and popular conversations of queer theatre. Angels marks the shift in queer theatre; in this shift, we begin to see more complex representations of queerness that previously, only existed more fully in avant-garde or performance pieces. While I understand the historical significance of Angels in America, I believe its enormous shadow has obscured many works written after it. For this reason, I highlight scripts written in Angels’ wake, that offer complex character representations of queer life, focusing on scripts written from 2000 forward.

While scholarship on the past and the legacy of queer theatre is still being written (e.g., the significant works done by the likes of Tim Miller, Holly Hughes, the WOW Café, and the

Five Brothers are still popular topics in academic contexts, even though much of that work stretches back 30 and 40 years now), there are not comprehensive studies focused on what is happening in our current historical moment or the more recent past. With this study, I address this gap. I also locate this study firmly within the realm of written and published plays and musicals. While this realm might seem traditional if not conservative within the larger domain of performance, I choose to do so because scholarship concerning queer performance has frequently focused on more avant-garde and experimental modes, including queer performance art and queer performance artists. While scholarship written about a specific ’s body of work or about a specific queer theatre piece does exist, scholarship concerned with situating 11 contemporary queer theatre works against and in conversation with each other in a broader sense is lacking.

Furthermore, I only consider scripts that have been produced professionally. While the focus on my analysis is largely literary, I nonetheless contend that scripts that garner professional productions have higher potential to affect audiences and result in subsequent productions in non-professional contexts, including university and community . For this reason, I do not consider scripts that are on sites such as the New Play Exchange, as many included on that site

(and others like it) do not require productions to be included. Moreover, by excluding such sites,

I set a limitation for my exploration of a field that, though small in relation to the field of scripted drama writ large, is nonetheless expansive.

Lastly, and perhaps obviously, in this project I consider only works by playwrights, or in the case of musicals the writer or lyricist, who identify as queer. In this respect, then, I am interested in queer works by queer individuals. This limitation of my study also provides an interesting area of discussion and investigation. By limiting the study through these demarcations, it is increasingly easy to see that published works and plays that are readily available are by white or women. While there are works by queer people of color available, it is heavily skewed to predominantly white and then predominantly male. Scripts by queer women of color then become the most difficult to access through these limitations. I have sought to address the consequences of this limitation in my study, both in terms of how it limits my field of consideration, but also how various keepers continue to disallow the inclusion of queer voices that are not white and/or predominately male. While this is not the primary focus of this project, it is a crucial pedagogical discussion in relation to the broader field and has provided my project a touchstone for future research. 12

As previously noted, this work is significant because through it I seek to address the scarcity of contemporary queer theatre pieces in the broader scholarly conversation of queer theatre studies and theatre studies writ large. By positioning these scripts against and in conversation with one another I seek to illuminate different and similar, as well as more complex, representations of queerness. Moreover, this project highlights the importance of contemporary queer theatre and displays lessons that potential audiences might receive. Lastly, this project gives a platform to the voices of queer playwrights in an effort to highlight works about the queer community by the queer community. To that end, many of the plays and musicals I discuss have not yet been written about critically. In the end, then, while I hope that by writing about them brings each much-deserved acknowledgement, my grander hope is to start a conversation about the remarkable work being done in the arena of contemporary queer theatre.

I believe that it is important to not only situate my work within the field but also situate myself within my work. Therefore, I share my epistemological stance that has led to this project.

I am a white, gay male living in the unceded lands of the United States, specifically in Bowling

Green, and working as a graduate student in the United States higher education industrial complex. The critiques of hegemonic structures including heterosexism and whiteness that permeate this project are not only exploratory of society but are also self-reflexive. My personal experiences influence and inflect my thinking and drive the impetus of this project. I acknowledge that I strive for a pedagogy of equity and justice; however, as humans there is always the potential of failure. My aim within this project is not to speak on behalf of the queer community, but rather to theorize and strategize the methods that might bring a better tomorrow to a community of which I am part. It is my hope that this project creates conversation and 13 illuminates dramaturgies and pedagogies that drive us all towards the utopic potential on the horizon, a place where all individuals might be better represented and appreciated.

A Brief History of Outlaws, In-Laws, and In-Betweeners

As noted in the first pages of this introduction, an important dramaturgical aspect of this project is to explore representations of queerness that go beyond older and shallow tropes. I explore these tropes under the categories of the outlaw, the in-law, and those in-between. The outlaw could also be viewed as the deviant homosexual or the villain. The in-law exists mostly as a desexualized and happy queer whose narrative demonstrates the importance of love and marriage as the champion of the queer movement or as a problem that needs overcome (i.e., a partner that makes “trouble” for the family who is unaccepting of homosexuality). This depiction can also include main characters who function in proximity to another queer character to create conflict within a narrative. Finally, those in-between fall into depictions of queerness that continually repeat throughout queer theatre. These depictions include theatrical scripts that highlight the victims of the AIDS epidemic in historic settings.

These tropes are often found within what has been called “the homosexual problem play.” The homosexual problem play, as described by Colin Chambers in The Continuum

Companion to Twentieth-Century Theatre, is a play in which homosexuality is a minor, decorative problem or in which “the problem of homosexuality” is the major dramatic interest.19

These plays can form a rather in-depth view of homosexuality relative to the time and formation of homosexuality given the time of their composition, e.g., the early 20th century.20 And yet, by

19 Colin Chambers, The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, New York, NY: Continuum, 2002,

305.

20 Chambers, The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, 305. 14 contemporary standards, they too often fall short. As such, throughout this dissertation, I examine contemporary queer scripts not as ancestral to the homosexual problem play, but rather as exemplars of contemporary queer theatre-making, which places at the center queer characters who are fully autonomous and essential to the plot. In instances where the scripts I examine begin to traverse into the realm of homosexual problem play, I endeavor to explore broader societal conceptions and query why those problematic representations persist. In the balance of this subsection, I offer a brief overview of three key scripts that include these problematic representations of the past – i.e., the outlaw, in-law, and in-betweener – in an endeavor to provide broader context for contemporary works I explicate in the chapters ahead.

The Captive by Édouard Bourdet (1926) is a prime example of the outlaw trope. The play’s primary plot revolves around the character of Irene, the daughter of an American ambassador to France, who refuses to move to when her father is promoted. Irene refuses the move because unbeknownst to the characters in the play she has been carrying out a secret affair with Madame d’Aiguines, her lesbian lover. To stay near her lover, Irene convinces her friend Jacques to tell her father that they are a couple and madly in love. In turn, her father accepts that his daughter should stay in the city and be close to Jacques. This decision locks

Jacques and Irene in a covenant that places their desires in opposition. Jacques does love Irene and wants the same from her, while Irene wants Jacques’ friendship so that she can pursue romantic love with d’Aiguines.

This opposition comes to a head when Jacques speaks to an old friend, d’Aiguines, the husband of Irene’s lover. Their meeting quickly turns to Jacques’ questioning d’Aiguines of his suspicions of Irene, which in turn leads to d’Aiguines deflecting, stating that he has no idea regarding Jacques’ line of questions. However, Jacques soon wears the man down and 15 d’Aiguines eventually reveals that Irene’s lover is not another man but “quite another kind of bondage” in that she is in love with a woman.21 Madame d’Aiguines’s husband goes on to tell

Jacques that women of this kind are shadows, that they are a menace, and that Jacques should escape his own captivity. The positioning of Irene’s homosexuality as captivity for Jacques and depravity for it has ensnared, is the cornerstone of the representation of lesbian as outlaw and depicts queer love as a problem for the straight character to solve or overcome.

The relationship between queer and straight within the text is thus predicated on the idea of outlaw homosexuality. Indeed, Irene and d’Aiguines’ relationship exists primarily in the realm of outlaw citizenship, with Irene leveraging her friendship with Jacques to continue her illicit affair, while Jacques hopes for more than friendship from Irene. The heterosexual relationship between Irene and Jacques steadily breaks down because of Irene’s outlaw status; and, when the two finally part at the end of the play it is on uneasy terms. Both are held captive by the depraved state of homosexuality: Jacques is trapped in a loveless relationship, and Irene is trapped in captivity by her lesbian desire. The relationship represented provides little in terms of utopic activism, as the two people in that relationship are consistently at odds with one another, learning little from the other in the process.

Diana Son’s Stop Kiss (1999) exemplifies the idea of the in-laws. While the play takes place before marriage equality existed in the United States the relationship between the main characters, Sara and Callie, is akin to a married couple. As the play unfolds, their relationship is shown as one that has developed over time into one that is loving, trusting, and strong, which

21 Édouard Bourdet and Arthur Hornblow, “The Captive.” Essay. In Forbidden Acts: Pioneering Gay & Lesbian

Plays of the Twentieth Century, edited by Ben Hodges, 85–171. New York, NY: Applause Theatre & Cinema

Books, 2003, 139. 16 makes the climax of the play, a committed after Sara and Callie leave a lesbian bar, even more brutal. This hate crime, which leaves Sara in a coma, provides Son with the impetus to explore the gay/straight relationships. More precisely, Callie’s relationship to Sara’s parents and her past “straight life” are explored through conversations with Sara’s ex-boyfriend Peter.

Through exchanges the audience learns that Sara’s parents do not care for Callie, that they most likely blame her for the attack, and have made no attempts to include her in their daughter’s hospital care. This sort of in-law representation is common in queer media, especially in stories where parents do not support their child’s “otherness.” In many cases, writing their child’s partner out of the narrative is a way of holding on to their child’s perceived . It is also important to note that this is an important historiographic situating of the play as for many years same- couples were denied rights in medical care and often partners would not be able to make medical decisions without explicitly written living wills.

The Normal Heart (1985) by Larry Kramer is an example of a play that illuminates the idea of the in-between, focusing on the tragic victims of the AIDs epidemic. While the critically acclaimed play offers a look at the epidemic, the representation of queer to straight relationships matches the sentiments of the time. Many of the relationships between the gay and straight characters maximize victim status as their building blocks. For instance, the relationship between

Ned Weeks, the protagonist, and Dr. Emma Brookner develops due to the rise of the AIDS epidemic within the city.

Ned, sick of seeing his friends dying, seeks help from a medical professional, and finds

Dr. Brookner, one of the few within the medical field willing to talk about the disease.

Brookner’s willingness to help Weeks derives at least in part from her status as a woman and more specifically, a woman who has been paralyzed due to complications from polio as a child. 17

The friendship between the two is born from their mutual reliance on each other and their desires to help the queer community overcome a ravaging disease. Yet, Brookner’s positionality to

Weeks is still that of a problem that needs to be overcome. She needs to find a cure to AIDS and fix the problem of homosexuality presented through the disease. Furthermore, without the backdrop of the AIDs epidemic to the story, there are questions of whether these two characters would have even become friends and allies in the first place.

It should be noted that in no way do I consider these relationships and early representations of queerness to be “bad” or “exploitive.” As Chambers mentions in describing the homosexual problem play, one must consider these representations akin to the formation, reception, and historiographic situating of queerness to the play’s setting.22 Additionally, I am not arguing whether homosexual problem plays create problematic representations or exploit queerness. Rather, I point to the idea of the homosexual problem play to explore prior portrayals of queerness on the theatrical stage/page and then understand how contemporary scripts are complicating and revising these past representations.

To that end, all the plays or musicals I have examined feature a queer character, whose action is central to the plot. In considering scripts for inclusion, I subjected each to the Vito

Russo test, which is like the Bechdel test. This test sets a standard of inclusivity regarding queerness in narratives; but it is important to note that just because a script passes this test it does not automatically ensure a non-problematic representation. Rather this test is the first step to be used in conjunction with dramaturgy and script analysis. To pass the test, a script must meet three basic tenets:

22 Chambers, The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, 305. 18

“1. [the script] contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, ,

and/or queer. 2. That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their

or identity (i.e., they are comprised of the same sort of unique

character traits commonly used to differentiate straight/non-transgender characters from

one another). 3. The LGBTQ character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their

removal would have a significant effect, meaning they are not there to simply provide

colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or (perhaps most commonly) set up a

punchline. The character must matter.”23

By the Vito Russo Test, I have sought to ensure that each of the queer characters and plotlines are about more than offering , but instead create meaning and focus on hopes, problems, or struggles of the queer community. By examining plays that explore advanced and in-depth depictions of the queerness rather than shallow representations, utopic activism occurs as these plays offer roadmaps for friendship and relationships between and heterosexuals as an area of understanding and growth that position heterosexuals to be better accomplices to their queer counterparts.24

23 GLAAD, “The Vito Russo Test,” GLAAD, https://www.glaad.org/sri/2014/vitorusso.

24 I use the term accomplice in this sentence rather than ally to reflect a shift in social justice and anti-racist movements to push from allyship, which often involves no risk in standing with marginalized voices, to an accomplice. This shift to accomplice suggests someone who uses their voices and privilege to challenge the status quo and might involve risking their social and physical well-being in the process. More information on this shift can be found on https://pitt.libguides.com/antiracism/ally. 19

Specialized Terms

I begin with a caveat: Many terms concerning gender and sexuality are constantly in flux.

This project represents an understanding and usage of such terms relative to the period of its composition, i.e., 2020-2021.

The first term that I use throughout this project is “queer.” I acknowledge that not everyone within the queer community accepts the use of the term queer. As a member of this community, I accept the reclamation of the word queer and its use as a descriptor of my community. Throughout this study, I use the term “queer” in two ways. First, as a noun, I use the term as a stand in for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning, asexual, pansexual, and intersexual community. While I may at times refer to specific sexualities, in referencing the community or the queer community at large, I recognize the multitude of identities that make up that group. In my study, then, “queer” means that the play or musical depicts life for queer characters and situations. I also recognize the idea that the word queer can be deployed as a protector word for those who know they fall somewhere within the queer community but are not yet comfortable explicitly claiming a specific identity. By offering a broad understanding, queer offers those individuals the opportunity to claim their queerness without having to feel explicitly tied into an identity such as homosexual or bisexual.

Second, as a verb, I use “queer” to mean making different or radical. The scripts that I analyze are not only queer because of their depiction of queerness in the script, but often employ numerous formal techniques that challenge, critique, or change dominant conventions of theatre.

In sum, then, I am interested in works that focus on queer subjects (i.e., content) and do so through queer form (i.e., pedagogical, and dramaturgical techniques that resist or reshape traditional modes and expectations). I further consider the application of TSC techniques as 20 queer since they are typically reserved for community-based or applied theatre productions in which work is created as an ensemble or community.

The terms heterosexism and are often interchanged; however, the term heterosexism takes discussions of and the systems that represent oppression further than homophobia. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, heterosexism is the

“discrimination or against non-heterosexual people based on the belief that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.”25 Furthermore, as the

Rainbow Resource Center affirms, heterosexism “has been encoded into and is a characteristic of the major social, cultural and economic institutions of our Western society.”26 Therefore, heterosexism falls into the spectrum of prejudice and oppression alongside , , , and (to name a few). As the Rainbow Resource Center continues to explain, homophobia “refers to the irrational fear, dislike, hatred, intolerance, and ignorance of homosexuality.”27 It can then be understood that heterosexism is “the systemic which leads to, intersects with and fuels homophobia.”28 Additionally, as the Penn State Student Affairs website on introductions to -isms describes it, “heterosexism is about how we ‘normalize’ being straight and identify anything else as abnormal. It occurs in our language, our policies and in our day-to-day interactions with others.”29 Throughout this dissertation, the exploration of

25 Merriam-Webster, “Heterosexism,” n.d., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heterosexism.

26 Rainbow Resource Center, “Heterosexism,” 2021, https://rainbowresourcecentre.org/files/12-11-

Heterosexism.pdf.

27 Rainbow Resource Center, “Heterosexism,” https://rainbowresourcecentre.org/files/12-11-Heterosexism.pdf.

28 Rainbow Resource Center, “Heterosexism,” https://rainbowresourcecentre.org/files/12-11-Heterosexism.pdf. 29 Penn State Student Affairs, “Introduction to Isms,” Heterosexism, 2007. https://edge.psu.edu/workshops/mc/isms/page_10.shtml. 21 heterosexism not only applies to the world of the play, but also in the ways in which it has shaped the critical reception and historiographic moments surrounding the plays. Moreover, throughout this project, I aim to discuss heterosexism as the larger insidious problem for the queer community, and endeavor to name and focus in on the systemic and that impact the queer community (with the larger hope of someday dismantling those systems).

This aim comes with a caveat: While considering my own personal thoughts throughout this project I will describe and use the term heterosexism; however, if a dramatic script discusses homophobia and uses that term, I will in turn follow for that script and use the same language.

In considering language regarding race, the global Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020, aligned with the perpetuation of violence against marginalized people of color, unchecked , and a vexed political climate, exacerbated already tense racial relations within the

United States as a whole, but specifically within the United States theatre industrial complex. As such, like the deployment of terms dealing with gender and , the terms referring to racial identities are also in flux. As the BIPOC Project points out, “the term BIPOC highlights the unique relationship to whiteness that Indigenous and Black (African Americans) people have, which shapes the experiences of and relationship to for all people of color within a U.S. context.”30 Additionally, as Sandra E. Garcia acknowledges in The New York

Times, while the term POC (person of color) dates back centuries, the letters B and I were added to “the acronym to account for the erasure of black people with darker skin and Native American people, according to Cynthia Frisby, a professor of strategic communication at the Missouri

30 Merle and Fiona, “About Us,” The BIPOC Project, 2020, https://www.thebipocproject.org. 22

School of Journalism.”31 Furthermore, as Crystal Raypole reports in her article on Healthline, the term emphasizes more specific acknowledgements of racial struggle that includes:

• People of color face varying types of discrimination and prejudice.

• Systemic racism continues to oppress, invalidate, and deeply affect the lives of

Black and Indigenous people in ways other people of color may not necessarily

experience.

• Black and Indigenous individuals and communities still the impact of

and .

In other words, the term aims to bring to center stage the specific violence, cultural

erasure, and discrimination experienced by Black and Indigenous people. It reinforces the

fact that not all people of color have the same experience, particularly when it comes to

legislation and systemic oppression.32

Therefore, while I use the term BIPOC when talking generally about relations to whiteness, I take the approach of naming specific races and identities within this study when/if possible. I make this intervention to acknowledge the struggles of BIPOC populations, but to also hold space to acknowledge specific racial struggles.

Finally, throughout this project I use the term audience. I understand that relative to the theatre field the most understood definition of audience would be the group of people in a live attendance for a theatrical viewing. While I do indeed use audience to mean those who might

31 Sandra E. Garcia, “Where Did BIPOC Come From?,” , June 17, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-bipoc.html.

32 Crystal Raypole, “Yes, There’s a Difference Between ‘BIPOC’ and ‘POC’ — Here’s Why It Matters,” Heathline,

September 17, 2020, https://www.healthline.com/health/bipoc-meaning#why-it-matters. 23 attend a production, I broaden my definition of the term audience for this project. In doing so, I use the second definition of the word as defined by Merriam-Webster, in which audience comes to mean “a reading, viewing, or listening public.”33 By doing so, I refer to those individuals who engage with dramatic texts either through reading scripts, listening to readings of scripts, or attending performances.

Chapter Summaries

In the following chapters, I explicate contemporary theatre pieces that explore the representation of queerness through numerous pedagogical and dramaturgical advances. My overarching goal is to chart how each of these expanded representations uses dramaturgies and pedagogies, which hold the potential to effect change in their audiences. My chapters include: 1.

Excavating and Re-claiming: Queer Historiographic Adaptation; 2. Beyond the GBF: Expanding

Queer/Straight Relationships; 3. Queer-To-Queer Relationships: Explorations of Inter-

Community Interaction; 4. Queer Musicals: Celebrating and Recognizing the Queer Self, and 5.

Queer Theatre Legacies: Bridging Queer Experience and Performance. I situate the start of the project with queer historiography (i.e., Chapter 1) so that the queer past might offer insight into the queer present. Likewise, in ending the project by tracing the legacies of landmark gay dramas to contemporary practice not only troubles the idea that progress equals linearity, but also makes clear the complex process involved in queer theatre making, specifically the ways in which new visions of queerness are often tied to the past. It warrants noting that while the scripts explicated in each chapter may be applicable under more than one category, my choice to focus the analysis in relation to that one category is driven by what I have come to regard as the heart of the character design and plot of each piece. For instance, while Bryna Turner’s Bull in a China Shop

33 Merriam-Webster, “Audience,” Merriam-Webster, n.d. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/audience. 24 certainly explores queer love, I contend the historiographic adaptation of lesbian history is more central to the narrative; as such, I analyze that play as an example of queer historiographic adaptation.

I begin this project by examining Turner’s Bull in a China Shop in “Excavating and Re- claiming: Queer Historiographic Adaptation.” In this chapter, I explore the play through Turner’s use of history, historicization, and historiography. In this chapter, I argue that the exploration of these three areas under my umbrella term of hist* allows the minoritized queer audience to reclaim an often forgotten and occluded history as their own. From a dramaturgical perspective, the exploration of hist* is like the given circumstances. Hist* then becomes the building blocks to further explorations of queer drama, providing a basis for understanding not only the events in the text of the play, but the events that led to that plays creation.

Chapter 2, “Beyond the GBF: Expanding Queer/Straight Relationships,” and Chapter 3,

“Queer-To-Queer Relationships: Explorations of Inter-Community Interaction” investigate friendships and relationships as critical sites of understanding and utopic activism. In chapter 2, I attend to how Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy push beyond stereotypical representations of the gay best friend in media and discuss how queer friendships with straight individuals provide a roadmap for audiences to consider their own interpersonal relationships. In chapter 3, I use Christina Quintana’s Scissoring and Jordan

Harrison’s Log Cabin to examine how queer relationships are not only sites of learning and understanding, but to also expand the representation of queer relationships to show that the queer community can also perpetuate negativity and heterosexism within the community.

Chapter 4, “Queer Musicals: Celebrating and Recognizing the Queer Self,” takes key concepts from the first three chapters to explore queer musicals that celebrate and recognize the 25 queer self. Through discussion of and A Strange Loop, I examine the form and genre of the queer musical, and I investigate how musical theatre as a site of song and dance entertainment provides a low-risk, comfortable environment in which to expose audiences to different ways of thinking and being. I argue that musical theatre provides an environment for audiences that presents issues in a more palatable manner. Additionally, I explore how the relationships within these musicals create space for learning, and I also investigate specific moments of history important to each show.

I conclude the study with Chapter 5, “Queer Theatre Legacies: Bridging Queer

Experience and Performance.” This chapter is a rumination on ’s The

Inheritance. As the concluding chapter, I analyze how The Inheritance benefits from legacies of landmark gay dramas in the United States. Further, I use this chapter to consider the importance of queer creators to queer drama, and the sense of care and responsibility they share for their work. Ultimately, I attest to the vitality of queer creators of utopic activism within queer theatre by reviewing the strategies that The Inheritance deploys, noting in particular how they stem from earlier works such as The Boys in the Band and Angels in America. Additionally, I not only attend to the beneficial strategies that these dramas share, but I also critique and discuss harmful legacies perpetuated in this newest addition to landmark gay dramas.

The building block of each chapter leads to the structuring of my overarching goal: of providing a nuanced consideration of representational trends in contemporary queer theatre. The first building block is hist*.This foundational block is set in place first because I hold that in order to know where we are, we must know where we have come from; to know where we come from can only be achieved through a simultaneous consideration of history, historiography, and historization. Indeed, a critical and multi-perspectival consideration of the past allows productive 26 parallels between it and the present to be drawn and illuminated. The next block in place concerns queer and straight friendships and relationships. I put this block in place with the aim of charting the ways in which these two disparate groups – who are each in part determined by their own histories and history to each other – hold each other accountable, how they work together, or how they work in opposition to one another. I contend that querying such relationships can bring social change. The next block involves applying the same theories and ideas to queer to queer relationships in effort to show that queer relationships can be just as beneficial, complicated, or potentially problem-causing as queer to straight relationships. Once ideas of hist* and relationships are in place, I am then able to look to further explore the ways in which the genre conventions, in this case queer musicals, effect readings and understandings of queerness. With the inclusion of this building block, I am able to demonstrate the ways in which relationships and history play parts in creating differences between straight and queer characters within a specific genre. The final block returns to a consideration of history, and the ways in which the queer past continues to ghost the queer present. The ghosting of the queer past not only concerns hist* but also relationships, as the relationships charted in each chapter have existed throughout history, and exist contemporarily. The ways in which queer history ghosts queer relationships, both in an emotional and, in some cases, corporeal sense (i.e., a lack of queer elders due to the AIDS epidemic), is vital to acknowledge and explore. Taken together, the five blocks constitute a genealogical study of the cultural, political, and aesthetic legacies underpinning contemporary queer theatre and, ultimately, provide a potential route to direct audiences toward a better, imagined queer horizon. 27

CHAPTER I. EXCAVATING AND RE-CLAIMING: QUEER HISTORIOGRAPHIC

ADAPTATION

“someone will remember us

I say even in another time.”1

Prologue: An Introduction to Queer History

For many in the queer community, knowledge of their community’s history comes from self-taught ventures or the occasional college course. Seldom is queer history taught within the contexts of the United States high school public education system. According to GLSEN, a

Massachusetts’s based LGBT+ advocacy group for inclusive education, in their 2017 National

Climate report on the state of LGBTQ history in the classroom:

Learning about LGBTQ historical events and positive role models may enhance LGBTQ

students’ engagement in their schools and provide valuable information about the

LGBTQ community. Students in our survey were asked whether they had been exposed

to representations of LGBTQ people, history, or events in lessons at school, and the

majority of respondents (64.8%) reported that their classes did not include these topics.

[…] Just under a fifth (19.5%) of LGBTQ students reported that LGBTQ-related topics

were included in or other assigned readings.2

1 Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson (New York, NY: Vintage , 2003), 297.

2 GLSEN, “The 2017 National School Climate Survey,” The 2017 National School Climate Survey, GLSEN, 2018. https://www.glsen.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/GLSEN-2017-National-School-Climate-Survey-NSCS-Full-

Report.pdf, 56. 28

From the dominant view of a primarily heterosexist history, it might not be understood why the exclusion of queer history is challenging for the LGBT community. But when thought of from the perspective of that minoritarian community, it becomes evident. History allows communities to bond through their shared lineage, forges connections between generations based on shared narratives, and gives community a sense of shared identity and worth. Furthermore, the effect of queer history on stage or through reading a script can leave the queer community with important memories and knowledge to shape being and knowing long after interaction with the piece.

Queer historiographic adaptations – that is, scripts that draw upon the moments of the queer past to conceptualize their plots – offer a fruitful site of investigation into the ideas of utopic activism because the past offers a site of learning and exploration into our current climate.

I consider history, historicization, and historiography as spaces that provide building blocks for the audience to begin an understanding in creating change. I argue that utopic activism is achieved on the page and on the stage through pedagogies and dramaturgies of empathy, community building, and catharsis. By analyzing queer historiographic adaptations through these manners, the contemporary audience interacts with the past; then, from such lessons of the past the audience can apply those same ideas to their own lives in an attempt to reach towards that better tomorrow, the utopia that Dolan and Muñoz point towards in each of their works. The glimmers, traces, and specks left behind by our interactions with the works of queer historiographic adaptations are the avenues with potential to lead us to the reality of a better world.

I position queer historiographic adaptation as the first chapter in this project because exploring the past and how an audience might learn from that past is a fitting start. Queer historiographic adaptation is marked as a beginning conversation in the journey through charting 29 expanding, complex, and affirming queer representations in contemporary queer theatre.

Looking at expanding representations of queer historiography is important because as noted above queer history is seldom taught within the public-school system. If any queer history is approached it is often only thought about from the place of Stonewall (1969) forward, by discussing the AIDS epidemic, or is explored through artifacts that were written in a historically situated period (i.e., primary sources such as a piece about Stonewall written during the 1960s).

Regarding queer theatre, many scripts dealing with any sense of queer historiographic adaptations have taken similar approaches.

One potential reason we have not seen many queer historiographic adaptations before this moment in time can be attributed to the relatively short history of queer theatre within the United

States. Most history of queer theatre in the United States begins around 1967 and situates that history within the Stonewall Era and the beginning of the Movement. While there are examples of works of queer theatre such as God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, The

Captive by Édouard Bourdet, or The by Mae West which date back to the turn of the 20th century, these plays were deemed indecent and were quickly disbanded from performance.3 This label of indecency led to a series of laws passed across cities in the United States, the most well- known of these censorship laws was New York’s Wales Padlock Law.4 This law banned

3 My use of the term indecent in this sentence is a knowing nod to and her work Indecent which critically examines the culture and controversy surrounding Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance.

4 This law was named for New York Senator B. Roger Wales, who sponsored . The bill limited what could be shown on stages under the guise of decency. Any theatre found in contempt of the law could be fined and also shut down for a year, as well as face criminal charges. More information about the Wales Padlock Law can be found in the censorship history section regarding The Captive in Dawn B. Sova’s Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125

Stage Dramas, page 38. 30 homosexual depictions on stages. Therefore, many of the plays between the 1920s and early

1960s did not display queerness within their texts; and, if a playwright did add queer sensibilities into a script, it was often coded language or deliberately vague. This coded language or vagueness surrounding characters offered queer audiences a chance to read homosexuality into the narrative while the playwrights still followed the laws of the time. The Wales Padlock law remained on the legislative books until the 1960s, when it was repealed, allowing Mart

Crowley’s The Boys in the Band to burst into the New scene and change the atmosphere surrounding homosexuality on stage.

Due to the fact that queerness was viewed as indecent and kept from the stages until right around the same time as Stonewall is one potential reason that queer historiographic adaptations have not existed before this contemporary moment. For playwrights operating at the time when queerness could return to the stage, they were focused on writing their experiences and their contemporary moments into the theatrical landscape, rather than looking back and considering queerness before them. This time for queer theatre aligned with activism in the sense of saying that homosexuals existed and were not deranged mental cases, and these values then reflected within the theatre as well. Additionally, after the and the acceptance of queerness on stage, the AIDS epidemic quickly followed. Again, due to the hushed nature of government response to the epidemic, and with a view of activism and community, the plays of the 1980s and early 1990s reflected this moment. Therefore, many queer plays from this time focus on the epidemic and the conversations that the queer community put forward in response to AIDs.

My intent in pointing out this history of queer theatre is not to critique a lack of queer historiographic adaptations throughout the timeline of queer theatre in the United States. Rather,

I hope that by pointing out the fact that the plays of the past few decades have had to focus on 31 such important landmark issues offers the reader the opportunity to see how contemporary queer theatre has a chance to move in new directions. While there are still problems of visibility, equality, and heterosexism within our culture, we are at a moment where playwrights have the opportunity to start telling the stories and experiences of our queer ancestors, in new ways which were not accessible in earlier works of queer theatre.

In this chapter I use Bryna Turner’s Bull in a China Shop (2018) to explore historiographic adaptations of queer history. I attend to how Turner gives the queer community a sense of shared history by reclaiming prolific lesbian histories which have been obscured. In doing so, I argue, Turner illuminates their story, which is too often forgotten and hidden by history. In terms of method, I view Turner’s play through a lens of hist*, and analyze specifically her use of queer history, historiography, and historicization to destabilize received history and re- claim prolific and forgotten lesbian histories based on love letters between Mary Woolley and

Jeannette Marks. I have coined the word “hist*” and use the term to demarcate that Turner’s work, and my analysis of it, do not forward a singular vision of history but are multiple and dynamic. I use this term not to conflate the three vastly different ideas of history, historicization, and historiography together, but rather to acknowledge and champion the ways in which these three ideas can intersect and work together. Furthermore, I consider “hist*” in a similar manner as “queer” in offering an umbrella term that can represent all three, while maintaining that they are not the same.5 In turn, I argue that the performance of hist* allows a minoritized audience, in this case a queer audience, to claim the past as their own; by performing the past the queer community can claim, work, and humanize that which came before.

5 My use of the * within this term, is also born from the queering of trans*, which as an umbrella term accounted for a variety of gender identities that were not . 32

As Jacob Juntunen argues in Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil

Rights: Making the Radical Palatable, “mainstream theatre in the U.S. played an important part in assimilating emergent ideologies into the dominant ideology throughout the twentieth century.”6 In sum, Juntunen believes that highlighting the AIDS epidemic through theatre offers audiences a chance to experience social change through their interaction with the . I argue similarly, that through interaction with queer historiographic adaptations, utopic activism presents audiences with the opportunity to interact with queer history. As a result, there is potential for audience members to experience an affective shift in their personal thoughts and social spheres that would begin to transition culture towards a better tomorrow. Throughout this chapter I then relate Bull in a China Shop to pedagogies of history, historiography, and historicization to demonstrate how queer historiographic adaptations provide teaching arenas through the lens of utopic activism.

Bull in a China Shop features five -identifying actors in a fast-paced, strikingly contemporary, yet historically situated play that highlights Woolley and Marks’ relationship and their careers. The play opens before Woolley is appointed President of , and then follows the couple as they move to to start their lives together working at the school. Turner uses significant life events of both women as plot points. She draws attention to Woolley’s international tour as a suffragette and her advocacy for women’s education, as well as Marks’ contributions to Mount Holyoke’s curriculum, including starting a playwriting and theatre program. The play ends after Woolley’s retirement from Mount Holyoke and highlights the pair questioning their ideas of revolution and reflecting on their struggles as partners. These

6 Jacob Juntunen, Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable,

London: Routledge, 2016, 2. 33 events are significant because the lack of knowledge and education of queer history tends to support a narrative that occludes queer individuals as playing significant roles in historic events.

Therefore, retelling the events of Marks’ and Woolley’s lives, while firmly demarcating them as , allows Turner to situate the pair and offer audiences the understanding of how these influential lesbians contributed to historic events.

Bull in a China Shop as History

Before turning to the work of Turner, I first summarize the lives of Woolley and Marks, and the history of their letters that served as source material for Turner. Understanding their history is a strategic dramaturgic intervention and significant theme, as Turner invokes their history throughout her plot. Mary Woolley, born in 1863, was an educator, peace activist, and suffragette. Her parents were a minister and a schoolteacher, a fact that perhaps explains her interest in teaching both Biblical History and Literature. As an adult, she was the 11th president of Mount Holyoke College, serving in that role from 1900 to 1937; she was the last in a line of female Presidents.7 Woolley was a fierce advocate for women’s education both nationally and internationally.8 Earlier in her life, Woolley was the first woman to attend where she earned her bachelor’s degree and then later her Master’s.9

In 1875, Jeanette Marks was born to an engineering professor and his wife. Her father was also the president of the Edison , which afforded the family a lifestyle of privilege. Marks was educated in boarding schools both in the United States and in

7 “A Detailed History,” Mount Holyoke College, April 30, 2018. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/about/history/detailed.

8 “A Detailed History.”

9 “Mary and Jeannette,” Digital Exhibits of the Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, Accessed

April 29, 2020. https://ascdc.mtholyoke.edu/exhibits/show/woolleymarks/aboutmj. 34 before attending Wellesley College.10 When Woolley became president of Mount Holyoke

College, she appointed Marks as an instructor in the English Department, a department Marks would later chair.11 During her teaching career at Mount Holyoke, Marks founded the Play and

Poetry Shop talk lecture series, which invited prominent authors and poets to the campus to discuss literature. Additionally, in 1928 she started The Laboratory Theatre, a project that would become her focus at the college until her retirement.12

According to the Digital Archive from Mount Holyoke College (DAMHC), Woolley

“served as an instructor, associate professor and professor at Wellesley College from 1895 to

1899. [. . .] During this period, Woolley met and formed what would be a life-long partnership with Jeannette Augustus Marks, then a student at Wellesley.”13 The pair would move together to

Mount Holyoke College in 1900, where they lived as an open lesbian couple at a time when it was common for homosexuality not only to be hidden but also prosecuted. In 1937, Woolley retired from her presidency after a controversial battle over her replacement. To her chagrin, the college broke a lineage of female presidents when a man replaced her. After retirement, she moved into Marks’ childhood home, Fleur de Lys, in Westport, New York, where she remained active in her advocacy campaigns. Marks continued teaching at Mount Holyoke until her retirement in 1941. At that point, the two rejoined and lived together at Fleur de Lys until

10 “Mary and Jeannette.”

11 “Mary and Jeannette.”

12 “Mary and Jeanette.”

13 “Mary and Jeanette.” 35

Woolley’s death in 1947.14 After Woolley’s death, Marks continued supporting activist causes until her passing in 1964.

The letters between Woolley and Marks on which Turner bases her drama on have a complicated history with Mount Holyoke College. Several years after Marks’ death, the Mount

Holyoke director Anne Edmonds “received a massive wooden crate closed with a padlock.”15 The box was sent by Marks’ nurse and the executor of her estate and contained correspondence between the two women. However, the locked crate would not be examined until

February of 1975 when the archive librarian finally reviewed the contents.16 These letters were then kept in the library’s “Treasure Room” marked with tape as restricted material until July of 1975 when acting President of the College, David Truman, wrote to the librarians telling them that the letters must not be shared.17 Unbeknownst to Truman, access to the letters had already been granted to a history scholar and alumna of the school, Anna Mary Wells, who was researching and writing a biographical history of the couple.18

Though Wells’ request to access the letters had already been approved, when Wells went to access the letters she was instead denied. Members of the History Department protested this decision, which eventually forced the President into allowing the library to offer the research

14 “Mary and Jeannette.”

15 “Their Letters: A History,” Digital Exhibits of the Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, https://ascdc.mtholyoke.edu/exhibits/show/woolleymarks/historyofthewoolleymarksletter.

16 “Their Letters.”

17 “Their Letters.”

18 “Their Letters.” 36 archive to those deemed “qualified scholars.”19 The letters continued to be restricted from public domain until 1990 when they were moved to a new archive , in the basement of Mount

Holyoke’s Dwight Hall. At this point, new policies were put in place that lifted the restrictions.20

Even though access to the letters was no longer blocked, they appeared to be forgotten until

Leslie Fields was hired as the head of Archive and Special collections in 2012; it was then that she became aware of the 38 boxes of letters sitting in the collection.21 Fields started an online crowdsourced transcription process of the letters hoping that the effort would “begin to right the wrong of how these materials were restricted for so many years by making it easier for current and future researchers to find and use this remarkable collection of personal letters by two fascinating Mount Holyoke women.”22 It was through this crowdsourced project that Turner came across the Woolley/Marks letters and was able to begin work on her project.

Bull in a China Shop as Historiography

With an understanding of the forgotten history of Woolley and Marks and their letters in place, it is possible to analyze the work that Turner does to reclaim their story. From a historiographic perspective it is also important to understand Turner’s potential epistemological stances that undergird her writing. By doing so, I not only consider Turner’s script as a historiographic adaptation and rewriting of history within the narrative, but also the ways in which the script and process of writing the script is also historiographically situated.

Additionally, I take care to not only consider Turner and Bull in a China Shop as

19 “Their Letters.”

20 “Their Letters.”

21 “Their Letters.”

22 “Their Letters.” 37 historiographically situated artifacts of theatre, but also acknowledge and include my own historiographic and epistemological standings. As Thomas Postlewait notes in his introduction to

The Introduction to Theatre Historiography, epistemology is an important consideration to historiographic adaptations and scholarship. Due to the importance of epistemology, he concerns himself with the practical matters which include: “the construction of an event, the criteria for evidence, the narrative aspects of historical writing, the plurality of interpretive models in history, and the nature of the historian’s judgements.”23 In this project, I shift Postlewait’s centering of the historian to the playwright, although one might consider them symbiotic in the adaptation process. By taking Postlewait’s considerations for historical scholarship into the realm of enactment within scripts, we must then consider the playwrights epistemology and the circumstances that surround the creation of a piece as part of the process.

It is important to understand that Bryna Turner is a queer playwright and alumna of

Mount Holyoke College, which of course is also the setting of the play.24 Turner came across the letters between Woolley and Marks by way of an Instagram post; and although she attended the very institution the two women spent their professional lives building, Turner knew nothing of the couple or their lesbian history.25 Inspired (and also troubled) by the fact that she knew nothing of this historically situated and influential couple, Turner decided to write a script in hopes that it would educate audiences on this lost history; in fact, in her author’s note Turner

23 Thomas Postelwait, The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Historiography, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2012, 7.

24 Victor Cordell, “Bull in a China Shop By Bryna Turner,” Berkshire Fine Arts, Aurora Theatre, November 16,

2019. https://www.berkshirefinearts.com/11-16-2019_bull-in-a-china-shop-by-bryna-turner.htm.

25 Cordell, “Bull in a China Shop.” 38 states that the work is “an excavation of queer history, a history that has been buried and hidden and kept from us.”26 The piece, though, goes beyond just an excavation of queer history as Laura

Collins-Hughes points out in her review in The New York Times, arguing that Bull in a China

Shop is also an examination of feminist history, wresting back from straight women.27 The illumination of queer women’s history is an obvious critical frame to the play as both Turner and Collins-Hughes reaffirm; Turner is writing a historiographic project for the voices of women, but most importantly queer women, whose voices are frequently obscured and obstructed from history. In a serendipitous and ironic fashion, I came to learn about Bull in a

China Shop in the same way Turner learned about Woolley and Marks, through an Instagram post shared by Diversionary theatre on their premiere of the play. Like Turner learning about

Woolley and Marks, I knew little of this theatre title and even less of the history of the lesbian couple. The lack of knowledge about both led me to further examine Bull in a China Shop and its forgotten history.

It is significant to note that Turner not only uses this history as inspiration, as other mediums such as biopics and fictionalized accounts do, but she also deviates from the historical record. This deviation from history is evident in numerous ways, including in Turner’s remarks on casting. While Bull in a China Shop is focused on the lives of two white women, Woolley and

Marks, Turner is specific that the casting need not be concerned with historical accuracy.

Instead, Turner advises the director to go against the historical:

26 Bryna Turner, Bull in a China Shop, New York, NY: Samuel French, 2018, Authors Note.

27 Laura Collins-Hughes, “Review: ‘Bull in a China Shop’ Finds a Revolution in One Woman,” The New York

Times, March 2, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/theater/review-bull-in-a-china-shop-finds-a-revolution- in-one-woman.html. 39

This is an excavation of queer history, a history that has been buried and hidden and kept

from us. It’s also a queering of history, a look at past events through a contemporary

gaze. Queering history entails making room for the people who have been routinely

denied a place in the narrative. There are no white men in this play, but it should not be

filled entirely with white women either. This play is filled with purposeful anachronisms.

That’s part of the point. This is a startlingly contemporary play.28

The idea of casting diversely regardless of historical accuracy is not a new concept. There have been examples of scripts and productions that cross cast or cast against history. Yet, one could argue that when theatre addresses issues of identity such as it relates to minoritarian communities, the trend is to cast with an awareness of the subject’s historical specificity; doing so, some would argue, honors the lived experiences of those from the past. While there is much to be said for this point of view, many contemporary artists are resisting the demand for historical accuracy in casting.

To situate Turner’s work among other contemporary examples of cross-casting, one need look no further than to Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the hit , who observes in his Hamilton: The Revolution, “American history can be told and retold, claimed and reclaimed, even by people who don’t look like George and Betsy

Ross.”29 Thus, for Miranda (and Turner too) history can be interrogated by changing the racial identities of the actors portraying those characters involved. With Miranda in mind the question arises: What is made more visible through presenting historical inaccuracies regarding race? In

28 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, Authors Note.

29 Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, Hamilton The Revolution, New York, NY: Grand Central Pub, 2016,

95. 40 an interview with , Miranda offers a useful answer: “In Hamilton, we’re telling the stories of old, dead white men but we’re using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience.”30 While the immediacy and accessibility are true, I argue that these tactics do additional work by causing critical disruption. In modern society, audiences are conditioned to buttress their expectation against something else; with juxtaposition, though, new meanings are created. By changing the racial characteristics of characters creators ask for and invite reinterpretations of history. Through these reinterpretations a different and new understanding of history is made possible. In an age where

LGBT and racial representations are increasingly important and often tracked and scrutinized, having a playwright explicitly say that a show should be more than just white women on stage continues to shift casting cultures. Political acts are never only about immediacy or palatability; yet, both Hamilton and Bull in a China Shop create shifts in casting culture.

In “Toward a More Perfect Hamilton,” Marvin McAllister claims that “Hamilton embraces an exciting idealization of America, rather than a full accounting of what America was, and in many respects still is. Through this ambitious and aspirational musical, minority actors and audiences get to feel more ‘American’ than they have ever felt before.”31 The same may be said of Turner’s work, as borne out in reviews of Diversionary Theatre’s (, 2018) regional premier of Bull in a China Shop. Pat Launer, writing for the San Diego Theatre Review states, “clearly, Turner is giving history a particular slant, in order to let unheard, stifled or

30 Lin-Manuel Miranda and Frank DiGiacomo, “‘Hamilton’s’ Lin-Manuel Miranda on Finding Originality, Racial

Politics (and Why Should See His Show),” The Hollywood Reporter, June 12, 2016. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/hamiltons-lin-manuel-miranda-finding-814657, n.p.

31 Marvin McCallister, “Toward a More Perfect Hamilton,” Journal of the Early Republic 37, no. 2 (2017): 288. 41 ignored voices be heard. In this vein, she also requests that the casting be multicultural. She has achieved her goals at Diversionary Theatre.”32 Likewise, Jeff Smith of The San Diego Reader reveals, “the play combines then and now. As in that great musical, multi-racial casting enhances themes and appeals to a wider audience.”33 Finally, for The San Diego Story, Ken Herman reports that “in Diversionary’s production, following the playwright’s intent to queer history, only two of the five actors are white in this portrayal of the historical social context that was exclusively white.”34 These reviews reaffirm Turner’s request to queer history and acknowledge the enhanced accessibility non-historically accurate casting brings to the narrative.

While I hold that these shifts in casting and calls for non-historically accurate casting are important, I also recognize that there are scholars who have vehemently opposed the trend and have argued specifically against the casting work done within Hamilton. For instance, in her article “Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s

Hamilton,” theatre historian Lyra D. Monteiro states that even “with a cast dominated by actors of color, the play is nonetheless yet another rendition of the ‘exclusive past,’ with its focus on the deeds of ‘great white men’ and its silencing of the presence and contributions of people of color

32 Pat Launer, “A Historical Feminist Activist Is Remembered in ‘Bull in a China Shop’,” Times of San Diego,

October 7, 2018, https://timesofsandiego.com/arts/2018/10/06/a-historical-feminist-activist-is-remembered-in-bull- in-a-china-shop/.

33 Jeff Smith, “Call It the Hamilton Effect,” San Diego Reader, October 3, 2018, http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/oct/03/theater-call-it-hamilton-effect/#.

34 Ken Herman, “Diversionary’s Brilliant New Feminist Play by Bryna Turner–Not a Moment Too Soon!,” San

Diego Story, September 23, 2018, http://www.sandiegostory.com/diversionarys-brilliant-new-feminist-play-by- bryna-turner-not-a-moment-too-soon/. 42 in the Revolutionary era.”35 Joanne B. Freeman also offers criticism of the historical accuracy of the piece in her chapter “Can We Get Back to Politics? Please?” as part of the Historians on

Hamilton project, stating that the musical erases much of Hamilton’s political aspirations and knowledge.36

Why do I mention these criticisms of Hamilton’s cross-cultural casting in a conversation about Bull in a China Shop? Mainly because the same criticisms might be levied at Turner’s work for cross cultural non-historically accurate casting. Specifically, regarding the characters of

Woolley and Marks, historians can draw comparisons to the movement and its treatment of women of color. It is important to remember that while the suffragette movement did help many white women gain the right to vote in 1920, these rights did not apply to all women, specifically women of color in the United States. Women of color were only guaranteed the right to vote by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which better protected voters.37 Black and Indigenous women in particular felt the on-going racial prejudice related to voting practices. Due to these reasons, there could be historian rebuttal to Bull in a China Shop’s non-historically accurate casting as a way of saying that women of color would not have benefited the same as a white woman or that there is potential to absolve or forget about the struggles of communities of color in favor of white narratives.

35 Lyra D. Monteiro, “Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Lin-Manuel Mirandas

Hamilton,” The Public Historian 38, no. 1 (January 2016): 90.

36 Joanne B. Freeman, “‘Can We Get Back to Politics? Please?” Hamilton’s Missing Politics in Hamilton,” in Historians on Hamilton How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past, ed. Renee Christine Romano and Claire Bond Potter (New Brunswick, NJ, NJ: Press, 2018), pp. 42-57.

37 While this better protected voters as a law, there are still many flaws to our current voting systems which continue to oppress and derail voters, specifically marginalized voters of color. 43

In response to those criticisms, I offer thoughts from Joanne Freeman, again writing on the casting of Hamilton, who states that “although there are errors, and much is missing from the play, or simplified to the point of abstraction or near invisibility (for example, the impact of slavery on the new nation), it contains a remarkable amount of history.”38 I agree with Freeman in the consideration that even though there could be errors, the illumination of history is a vital aspect. Furthermore, I turn to Ariel Nereson who argues that “a recent critical conversation among historians and cultural critics has emerged, positioning two lines of primary inquiry:

Hamilton as art/entertainment, and Hamilton as history.”39 Therefore, another important aspect in these criticisms is realizing the difference between these two lines of inquiry, but also the criticisms provide another potential area for utopic activism. If creators or educators are aware that these criticisms might be used in response to a piece how might they turn that into a teachable moment? If Bull in a China Shop is being taught in a theatre course, how can knowledge of the idea of cross-cultural casting include teachable moments of the history of the suffragette movement within the United States? And does this point to the possibility of writing the voices of suffragettes of color back into contemporary knowledge? Similar questions may be asked of a production of Bull in a China Shop; for instance, how might a dramaturge or director use a dramaturgical display or program note to illuminate this history of women’s rights to vote?

By not only taking seriously the notes on not casting historically, but also considering what the casting means in terms of history, it is possible to begin educating on broader historical trends and problems that are often whitewashed and taken “as fact.”

38 Freeman, “Can We Get Back to Politics? Please?,” 43.

39 Ariel Nereson, “Hamilton’s America: An Unfinished Symphony with a Stutter (Beat),” American Quarterly 68, no. 4 (2016): pp. 1045-1059, https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2016.0080. 44

How does Turner take these forgotten histories and reclaim them? To answer this question, I first turn to the work of Sanja Bahun-Radunović. In “History in Postmodern Theatre:

Heiner Müler, Caryl Churchill, and Suzan-Lori Parks,” Bahun-Radunvoić argues that “history becomes a human history only to the extent that it involves the human, that it is accentuated by and refigured through human activity. [. . .] In theater, one may extend this line of thought, history becomes ‘humanized’ and ‘workable’ by/in the very act of performance.”40 Bahun-

Radunović also argues that “voids of history [are] one of the most fruitful and most widely utilized means to capture our discordant, heterogeneous history/ies in performance and offer[s] a vision of history that avoids reification.”41 These voids of history tend to occur due to the

“history as written by the victor” phenomenon; therefore, by examining these voids through performance it is possible to renounce these oft claimed “victor” histories, and instead re-claim forgotten histories of the marginalized.

In considering lost history of Woolley and Marks’ in conjunction with their letters that were restricted for many years, there is a damaged and forgotten queer narrative that must be interrogated. To further investigate this idea, I turn to Heather Love’s theory of feeling backwards. In Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History, Love interrogates the idea that marginalized groups are often “constituted by historical injury, [where] the challenge is to engage the past without being destroyed by it.”42 She goes on to investigate notions of opaque

40 Sanja Bahun-Radunović, “History in Postmodern Theatre: Heiner Müler, Caryl Churchill, and Suzan-Lori

Parks,” Comparative Literature Studies 45, no. 4 (2008): 446.

41 Bahun-Radunović, “History in Postmodern Theatre,” 448-449.

42 Heather Love, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 2009, 1. 45 aspects within and argues that the social, psychic, and corporeal effects of homophobia continue to affect the community.43 Love states that “the emphasis on damage in queer studies exists in a state of tension with a related and contrary tendency – the need to resist damage and to affirm queer existence.”44 Bull in a China Shop allows a tension to exist in reminding the audience of how these women resisted damage and homophobia while allowing an affirmation that queer life and love have always existed. One example of this resistance borne out within the script occurs when Woolley and her subordinate Dean Welsh discuss Woolley and

Marks’ relationship. The conversation begins with Welsh questioning Marks’ teaching style but then turns to the personal.

WELSH. It hasn’t exactly gone [. . .] unobserved that you climb three flights of stairs

each night to kiss Ms. Marks goodnight.

WOOLLEY. And?

WELSH. They’ve noticed, that’s all.45

This exchange highlights a subtle yet relatable phenomenon for queer viewers and readers. Being noticed and having a straight counterpart call attention to queer relationships and intimacy is often fraught with fear due to decades of homophobia.

As a queer person, one is never quite sure how queer intimacy will be perceived by straight counterparts. In her article, “Teaching Young Queers a Lesson: How Police Teach

Lessons about Non-Heteronormativity in Public Spaces,” Angela Dwyer discusses how queer

43 Love, Feeling Backward, 2.

44 Love, Feeling Backward, 2.

45 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 13. 46 bodies perform their queerness in specific ways and how those bodies are often surveyed in public and marked as deviating from a traditional line of heterosexuality. Dwyer reports that

‘Looking queer’ meant not aligning with how bodies should perform sexual and gender

normality in public spaces using (males talked about wearing ‘real tight pair of

shorts’, ‘short shorts’, and being ‘in drag’; talked about wearing ‘ripped up beer

stained studded crap’, ‘the pants and the baggy shirt’), make-up (males spoke about being

‘all prettied up and all my makeup on’, ‘rainbow on my face’), hairstyles (males

discussed having their ‘hair done’ and females having ‘short hair’ and a ‘shaved head’),

colour (wearing ‘rainbow armbands’), voice (males talked about ‘you can tell by the way

I talk’, ‘high pitched voice’), and bodily comportment like walking.46

Ultimately, Dwyer argues that in public spaces non-heteronormative performances of body and self often drew attention of the police to LGBT youth.47 I relate this more broadly past the idea of police forces, into how heterosexuals within public spaces often survey and mark the queer community as different. Therefore, the veiled threat of “they’ve noticed, that’s all” highlights a corporeal and psychologically felt fear that exists still today, but especially for the early 1900s would create apprehension in queer individuals. For Bull in a China Shop, feeling backwards is not just about the characters portrayed in the text, but rather, the damage caused by the nature of a heterocentric history, and the attempts to keep queer people in the shadows. Finally, Love suggests “we cannot do justice to the difficulties of queer experience unless we develop a politics

46 Angela Dwyer, “Teaching Young Queers a Lesson: How Police Teach Lessons About Non-Heteronormativity in

Public Spaces,” Sexuality & Culture 19, no. 3 (2015): 501.

47 Dwyer, “Teaching Young Queers a Lesson,” 502. 47 of the past.”48 Turner’s play allows politics of the past to be developed by offering insight into the forgotten past so that the queer experience might be more fully developed.

Additionally, in “Feminist Performance as Feminist Historiography,” Charlotte Canning argues that “performance [. . .] foregrounds historiographical operations, making physical, gestural, emotional, and agonistic the processes that construct history out of the past.”49 Turner’s text and performance of that text allow readers or actors to construct the forgotten history of the past and display these physical, gestural, emotional, and agonistic moments to an audience or reader. Canning further contends that by situating the connection between the audience and the performer these performed histories “can actively place the past in the community context of present time.”50 Through this historiographic effort, Canning’s ideas may be used to further bolster the argument that Turner operates as a means of feeling backwards, putting audiences in touch with their past.

Furthermore, Canning states, “performance is an act of history because it works to negotiate but not to resolve an important contradiction: history is not the past but a narrative about that past, one that comes to stand in for that past.”51 As a historiographic project, Bull in a

China Shop allows audiences to view that past and learn from it in an embodied way. One way the script does this is by openly highlighting the lesbian relationship of the two women in the time in which they lived. As I mentioned in the opening paragraphs to this chapter, queer history is often thought about from the Stonewall era onward. Due to the heterosexism and ignorance

48 Love, Feeling Backward, 20.

49 Charlotte Canning, “Feminist Performance as Feminist Historiography,” Theatre Survey 45, no. 2 (2004): 227.

50 Canning, “Feminist Performance,” 230.

51 Canning, “Feminist Performance,” 231. 48 often associated with the years before Stonewall, many fail to think of the LGBT community as having a history before that time. By displaying a lesbian relationship at the turn of the 20th century, Turner reminds audiences that queer love existed before 1969, and that even though that love could face hardship it was not always hidden or as secret as history might lead us to believe.

By considering Bull in a China Shop as a historical drama and placing the play text alongside the ideas of Bahun-Radunović and Love, Turner’s work assumes the potential to disrupt and repair the timeline of history in the United States, allowing queer history to be illuminated. I then pose the questions: What might be recognized in these historical aspects of the text? What value comes from revealing history? And what does the cross-cultural casting illuminate within the broader spectrum of thinking about history? By destabilizing what is typically included on the heteronormative timeline, Turner seeks to reincorporate queer history into collective memory. Bull in a China Shop allows the audiences to see what was at stake for both Woolley and Marks, and highlights the love they had for one another, as well as the contempt and hardships they faced. As such the characters at the heart of the piece, Mary

Woolley, and Jeannette Marks, serve as the destabilizing foundations of heterosexual history, reclaiming the voices of the marginalized queer women that Turner seeks to illuminate.

Bull in a China Shop as Historicization

Turner’s endeavor with Bull in a China Shop to reclaim and center queer history is reminiscent of the work Caryl Churchill first sought to achieve in Britain during the 1970s and

1980s with women’s history and still strives for today. As Michal Lachman argues in

“Performing History: Caryl Churchill’s Theatrical Historiography from Light Shining in

Buckinghamshire to Seven Jewish Children,” “Churchill’s historical plays are shaped and governed by two complementary impulses: the need for disruption and discontinuity in 49 constructing narratives of the past and the urge to counter that impulse with a search for cohesion of themes, motives, and ultimately the meanings of the stories told.”52 While Churchill’s work relies heavily on parody to accomplish her goals, Turner instead turns to the characterization of historical figures and allows their stories to disrupt the past. Furthermore, Lachman asserts that

Churchill’s “historical plays are not only composed of images taken from various epochs, but they are also based on fictional narratives intertwined with factual data.”53 The main distinction between Churchill and Turner is the use of fictional versus factual narratives. While Churchill uses fictional narrative and infuses it with the factual, Turner takes factual narrative and infuses it with the fictional. This is to say that Turner uses the letters and life story of Woolley and

Marks as her factual narrative, but then fills in moments with her own plot to form a complete story.

For a more nuanced understanding of how Churchill uses history within her texts, I again turn to Lachman who argues that period plays often use historical settings and period dress to perform the past for the present, and that Churchill often used this method to provide examples that help generalize or magnify the issues of her own time.54 Turner’s writing also evokes another aspect of Churchill: her ability to manipulate numerous Brechtian techniques within narratives. First, Turner uses the historical to probe and investigate contemporary society through the past. As Lachman argues, “Churchill’s drama performs the past according to the

52 Michal Lachman, “Performing History: Caryl Churchill’s Theatrical Historiography from Light Shining in

Buckinghamshire to Seven Jewish Children,” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 19, no. 2 (2013):

417.

53 Lachman, “Performing History,” 425.

54 Lachman, “Performing History,” 426. 50 requirements of the present and historicizes past facts to stress the categorical imperative of her current moral agenda.”55 Both playwrights use the past to underwrite the political and social contexts of the present, or what called “historicization.” By setting his plays within the contexts of the past (arguably often much further back in history than either Churchill or Turner) Brecht drew his audiences into the past, without asking them to immediately think about the social commentary parallels evident in their present lives. And yet, Brecht’s intention was for the audience to attend and leave his theatre while maintaining their critical capacities.

Thus, the audience members engage the larger implications of the show performed; he hoped an audience would then consider their society through the plot of the play and more importantly their society within their contemporary historical moment. In his own terms, Brecht was advocating for deeper connection within his audience, and hoped that they would leave with information that would permeate their reflection process, driving them towards creating change.

Turner takes the approach of both Brecht and Churchill and uses her play not only to make claims about the past, but also the present. The question then becomes, what ideas might Turner be interrogating about the present by using the story of Woolley and Marks?

In her script, Turner has crafted numerous female characters that interact with Woolley and Marks. One such created character is Dean Welsh, a subordinate of Woolley but superior to

Marks. Welsh represents a voice of reason to Woolley but also frequently acts as a stabilizing force of the homogenous, heteronormative, conservative, and masculine.

WELSH. She wrote this note on her syllabus for Lit 101: “All preconceived notions of

genre must be questioned. The canon is suspect. The invisible line between teacher and

55 Lachman, “Performing History,” 428-429. 51

student must be washed away. Therefore, and therein, we will all begin the long-tangled

process of unlearning.”

WOOLLEY. She’s inspired.

WELSH. She’s creating problems.56

While Welsh is worried about disrupting the conventional flow of the school, Woolley instead chooses to focus on the innovations that might foster new pedagogies. In this moment, Welsh echoes a common argument of the present, especially in academia: Do we disrupt the flow and provide what might be best for students, or do we stick to something simply because that is the way it has always been done? I contend that this question has the potential to encourage those in the audience to consider their own perceptions of powerful and of strong-willed, queer women and of academia.

Turner’s work also demonstrates how marginalized groups approach revolution and protest. To highlight these ideas within her work, it is important to understand how marginalized groups can hurt their own cause through disagreement. In the podcast Hidden Brain, horizontal violence is characterized as a phenomenon that occurs “when people turn on other people in their own lives when they are not able to actually effect change against more powerful targets.”57 The term and concept were generated by philosopher Frantz Fanon who wrote about colonial oppression. Fanon found that people often fought among themselves in situations where they found it difficult or impossible to attack those in power or the structures that held them in

56 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 13.

57 Shankar Vedantam, “The Psychological Forces Behind A Cultural Reckoning: Understanding #MeToo,” NPR,

NPR, September 24, 2018. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=650452841. 52 place.58 As a result, horizontal violence often leads to disparate readings in how problems are addressed.

The idea of horizontal violence plays out in Bull in a China Shop when Marks along with her fellow faculty member/roommate Felicity and their students are arrested for protesting in favor of women’s suffrage. Woolley previously declared this protest too risky and said they should not participate in the rally. After the arrest, Woolley and Welsh arrive at the jail house to retrieve their incarcerated faculty and students. In the jail the situation becomes increasingly tense as the women argue over the best ways to approach revolution and change.

FELICITY. I thought you’d appreciate what we’re doing here. We’re fighting for our

rights as women. This is the revolution in action.

MARKS. Don’t bother, Felicity. She doesn’t want a revolution, look at her, she’s fine

where she is.

WOOLLEY. I don’t want a revolution?

MARKS. No, you don’t. You just want power.

WOOLLEY. Oh fuck you, darling. Maybe you’ve forgotten, from your seat of privilege,

what the rest of the world looks like, but I am a fucking revolution.59

Here the audience is shown that Woolley and Marks have a difference in opinion regarding how they should approach revolution. While Woolley believes that change is played like a chess match and must be thought of in the long term, Marks tends to take a “we must act now and immediately create change” approach. Rather than see them come together to try to figure out an appropriate way to incorporate both of their points of view, the two instead fight over whose idea

58 Vendantam, “The Psychological Forces.”

59 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 37. 53 better serves the revolution. While the text demonstrates that the two are on the same side of progress, this fight shows that the two are fighting one another rather than fighting the systemic powers against them. As a result, such powers remain prolific because the women are locked in a fight against one another rather than against dominant forces.

I note that the scene following this moment offers an opportunity to contextualize what happens when people acknowledge their wrongdoing and can move forward together. Woolley realizes that attacking Marks in the jail was a matter of pride, not superiority. Therefore, she comes to Marks to apologize, and seeks her help in crafting a speech for a women’s suffrage protest. It is within this scene that the two once more disagree on how to move forward, and then argue about what type of progress is “right.” Woolley offers a sentiment that seems remarkably salient for a contemporary audience: “I’ll take a handful of small victories over a lifetime of rigid defeats.”60 Though the events in the play are set in the historical past, Turner is a queer playwright writing this line in 2017, a time of vexed political climates within the United States.

Woolley’s fighting is slow and at times it may seem as though the fight has been lost, or that there is nothing more to do. However, it is important to remember that each victory, no matter how small, is indeed a victory; any movement forward is better than constant defeat. My analysis above of Turner’s use of historicization widely focuses on Lachlan’s claim that Churchill used the “past as a collection of exempla, as metaphors or tropes, which help generalize or magnify the discontent she feels towards her own time.”61 I now shift this analysis from Churchill to make further connections to how Turner uses Brecht’s ideas and approaches.

60 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 43.

61 Lachlan, “Performing History,” 426. 54

In “Brechtian Theory/: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism,” Elin

Diamond argues, “if feminist theory sees the body as culturally mapped and gendered, Brechtian historicization insists that this body is not a fixed essence but a site of struggle and change.”62

Relating this theory to Bull in a China Shop illuminates how cross casting might not only add an element of the diversity to the narrative, but also acknowledges the ways that these bodies are not, as Diamond argues, fixed. Furthermore, Diamond argues that the Brechtian historicization

“invites the participatory play of the spectator, and the possibility for which Brecht most devoutly wished, that significance (the production of meaning) continue beyond play’s end, congealing into choice and action after the spectator leaves the theatre.”63 In the case of Bull in a

China Shop this call to action is meant to remind the audience to consider narratives that have been lost and forgotten to time, and to call into question the heterochronology of history.

In considering both Brechtian theory and feminist theory to argue her foundation of gestic feminist criticism, Diamond also brings into conversation Brecht’s understanding of , which she states is “a gesture, a word, an action, a tableau by which, separately or in series, the social attitudes encoded in the playtext become visible to the spectator.”64 In considering gestus in conjunction with the ideas of historicization, I offer another interrogation of contemporary society through the voices of the play. This scene occurs when Woolley meets

Marks in her faculty dorm, and the two share a kiss. They then discuss their daily life at Mount

Holyoke.

62 Elin Diamond, “Brechtian Theory/ Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism,” TDR, 32, no. 1 (1988):

89.

63 Diamond, “Brechtian Theory,” 86.

64 Diamond, “Brechtian Theory,” 89. 55

MARKS. The faculty hate me. So what.

WOOLLEY. Do you really treat department meetings with disdain?

MARKS. It’s like being forced to attend weekly funerals for higher education.

WOOLLEY. Maybe you could practice smiling more?

MARKS. Is there something I should be smiling about?65

It is possible for an audience to interpret this interaction as a common sexist exchange, asking women to smile or smile more. While in this example both Woolley and Marks are female identifying, Woolley could be read as the male/masculine figure. She is the one with more power in the relationship, tends to be the more dominant in the pairing, and has come to Marks’ room in a “calling on” style reminiscent of the male Casanovas of old romance films. In “Smile Boycotts and Other Body Politics,” Marianne LaFrance explains Nancy Henley’s ideas of gendered non- verbal behaviors,

women smile more than men, gaze at others more than men and are touched more than

men not because they are intrinsically warmer or more attentive or more approachable

but because they occupy subordinate status relative to men. In short […] women smile

more because their lower status calls for them to be deferential.66

Henley’s argument is that women occupy the subordinate status, and that this lower status then causes them to have to smile more in relation to others, specifically men. As LaFrance points out, Henley’s beliefs set off an avalanche of critical response; however, the gendered behaviors at the core of her investigation are still scrutinized today.

65 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 16.

66 Marianne Lafrance, “II. Smile Boycotts and Other Body Politics,” & Psychology 12, no. 3 (2002): 319. 56

If the reader considers lines about smiling as a social gest, what does this create or expose? Furthermore, questions arise when one acknowledges that this scene occurs between two women, rather than between a man and woman. I contend that the perceptions of the gendered behavior, not necessarily the actual gender of those involved, are what become important. While it may be one example in an extensive line of oppressive demands, asking women to smile is a theme that recurs throughout history. It continues to be under scrutiny especially in the age of the #MeToo movement, and therefore warrants address. When considering social gestus as connected to feminist criticism, Diamond states that “if we read feminist concerns back into this discussion, the social gest signifies a moment of theoretical insight into sex-gender complexities, not only in the play’s ‘fable,’ but in the culture which the play, at the moment of reception, is dialogically reflecting and shaping.”67 The reader must then consider not only how telling a woman to smile has been interpreted throughout history, but also what that means in our contemporary moment.

I turn now to ways in which Brechtian alienation occurs within Turner’s text. Lachman argues that the “Brechtian technique of alienation or defamiliarization [. . .] helps identify socio- cultural processes as products of a given epoch [… and] serves Churchill in her confrontation with broad cultural phenomena.”68 Turner too capitalizes on the power of alienation through her use of anachronism. Contemporary audiences come to view historical drama with a sense or expectation that these dramas will reflect their perceptions of how history has been and is

“supposed” to be presented. This means that often audiences expect that certain vocabularies, such as swearing or contemporary colloquialisms, are left out as they feel anachronistic.

67 Diamond, “Brechtian Theory,” 90.

68 Lachman, “Performing History,” 417. 57

Unencumbered by the burden of historical accuracy, Turner frequently writes with anachronism, and uses those anachronisms to allow her audience connection to the past through contemporary language. As evidenced in the previous quotes from Turner’s text, the use of swearing is frequently used throughout the text, including the words “fuck,” “shit” and “damn.”

Another example of anachronism within Bull in a China Shop is a scene in which the audience sees an exchange between Marks and her devoted student/mentee, Pearl. Pearl is also the president of a secret society devoted to Marks and Woolley’s relationship. In this scene there are exchanges which blend contemporary discourse and fan studies culture into the historical narrative. The scene brings into discussion the idea of “shipping” a couple, a relatively new term for an old idea. Shipping in fandom studies connotes a group of fans that avidly supports a relationship between two characters. A derivative of the word “relationship,” shipping not only refers to supporting a relationship but often invokes an intense love of that relationship. Fans often create works of art or fiction and participate in active discussions about their favorite

“ships.” Shipping is not a casual fan interaction.

PEARL. We found your letters.

MARKS. Those are private.

PEARL. I know. I told the not to read them, but.

MARKS. And?

PEARL. I want you to know…There are a couple of us. Like you. And we’re all really

shipping you and President Woolley. There’s like a…fan club.69

The use of the term fan club implies that the girls’ interactions with the shipping of Woolley and

Marks is not casual. These young women relate to the couple and look to them as role models for

69 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 19. 58 love. Later in the same scene Marks states “poetry doesn’t come out of fan-fiction.”70 These exchanges display contemporary, anachronistic language at play within Turner’s text. In her strategic use of anachronisms, Turner leads the audience to draw a connection from the past to the present. Or, in Brechtian terms, she makes both the past and present strange.

By exploring the relationship between the two women in terms of shipping and fanfiction, Turner allows the audience to understand the relationship and the culture built around the couple through a contemporary moment instead of relying only on saying that the two were a lesbian couple. In this way, readers of the script familiar with fan culture also understand that the phenomena around the couple is more than their love story. It is that those students also want to see the couple succeed, that these girls look up to them as role models and want this coupling to be what is understood as “endgame.” While Turner never uses this term in her script, I deploy the use of the fan-term here to acknowledge her use of fan studies within her script and to further explain the phenomenon Pearl observes. “Endgame” is a term used in fandom studies meaning that a couple is viewed by fans as being the ultimate option for a relationship, that the two characters are soul mates, and that other pairings with said characters would never be as strong. I apply this term here because Pearl refers to how the couple is a positive, affirming force for these young queer women.

These examples provide insight into how Turner, like Brecht and Churchill, uses historicization within her text. The history of Woolley and Marks acts as a backdrop against which the audience can read contemporary problems through the lens of this history. Regarding ideas of gestic feminist criticism, Diamond argues that gestus makes visible specific social attitudes about gender and that “in generating meanings, it would recover (specifically gestic)

70 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 19. 59 moments in which the historical actor, the character, the spectator, and the author enter representation, however provisionally.”71 Finally, Diamond argues that gestic criticism not only allows a spectator to view the figures within their historical and sexuality specificity, but also allows the audience to consider how the author or playwright fits into the equation. In the case of

Bryna Turner, this means that her positionality as a woman and as a lesbian is also important to the story as women, specifically queer women, are often erased from history.

Final Excavations

I believe that Bryna Turner engages the idea of hist* by using queer history, historicization, and historiography to reclaim a forgotten lesbian past. First, her experience as a queer alumna of Mount Holyoke college inspired her to write Bull in a China Shop. By doing so, her positionality as a queer woman offers her the opportunity to re-claim the voices of queer women who have been occluded from history. Second, Turner revitalizes and illuminates a queer history that was restricted and boxed away by Mount Holyoke College to begin a process of re- claiming the queer history of Mary Woolley and Jeanette Marks. In doing so, she not only offers her work as a dramatic text but also as a queer historiography to reclaim history. Finally, she disrupts the tendency of historical drama to be done in a style of historical accuracy. Instead, she follows the lineages of Caryl Churchill and Bertolt Brecht to use history as the backdrop to make comments on contemporary society. The use of historicization then allows the audience to contemplate our contemporary society through the past.

Bull in a China Shop provides the queer community avenues of rethinking and considering queer histories that have been lost or hidden throughout history. The pedagogical ideas and dramaturgical tools at play within this queer historiographic adaptation (history,

71 Diamond, “Brechtian Theory,” 91. 60 historiography, and historicization) push the audience towards the idea of utopic activism. The ideas of history, historiography, and historicization born out through Turner’s writing activate empathy, catharsis, and community building through shared historic storytelling. Allowing the voices of Woolley and Marks to speak to contemporary audiences about queer and feminist issues positions the pair as movers and shakers whose voices will not and cannot be ignored.

Their voices drive the utopic activist impulse within the world of the play, begging the other characters to do more, and to do better; these voices also drive the utopic activism impulse within the audience asking the same.

Additionally, Bull in a China Shop and similar historiographic adaptations do work to push past representations of queerness in theatre that only display community through the older tropes of the outlaw, in-law, or those somewhere in-between. Such historiographic adaptations take care and responsibility for writing queerness into the collective past of the United States to show that queer individuals have always existed and have been productive or valued members of society. By emphasizing that the queer individuals of the past were more than their sexuality or were important to history in ways other than being looked at as deviant or a problem, historiographic adaptations foster a space of reclaiming and destabilizing narratives that have often been taught as fact. As a result, historiographic adaptations offer audiences, both queer and straight, the opportunity to investigate and prod the shadows of history to examine why we know what we know, and to question if that knowledge is thorough and true.

Specifically, Bull in a China Shop does work to push past the representation of lesbian as outlaw trope and does significant work to overcome the homosexual problem play representation. In my introduction of this dissertation, I reviewed the history, plot, and characters of The Captive, a script that depicts lesbian as outlaw homosexuality despite never showing any 61 explicit acts of lesbianism on stage. Bull in a China Shop provides a clear example of how this contemporary queer theatre piece goes beyond this older representation to instead show a thoughtful, caring, sometimes tense, yet affirming lesbian relationship historically situated between two women who were much more than just their sexuality. Indeed, Bull in a China Shop demonstrates the efforts of Turner, a contemporary theatre-maker, to push past this outdated, problematic representation.

What should an audience do after their interaction with a piece like Bull in a China Shop?

If they are left with traces, glimmers, residues, or specks of things left behind by the performance or from reading – are they meant to encourage one to dig deeper? Should they ruminate and explore further their own histories? The answer and engagement of utopic activism depends on each person, but I believe Turner would answer yes. Turner speaks to her audience on this subject through the play, specifically as Jeanette Marks addresses her class: “Woolf wants you to begin to question the unquestionable [. . .] doubt he, doubt sex, doubt gender, doubt language, doubt everything.”72 As Turner attempts to signify cultural, political, and social change through her work, it is evident that she invokes the same revolutionary ideas within herself as Woolley and Marks did during their tenures at Mount Holyoke College. In so doing, she not only excavates queer history but also urges her audience to question what they know and why.

72 Turner, Bull in a China Shop, 15. 62

CHAPTER II. BEYOND THE G.B.F.: EXPANDING QUEER/STRAIGHT RELATIONSHIPS

“At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.”1

Prologue: A History of Relationships with Heterosexuals in Queer Theatre

The history of queer theatre in the United States is replete with examples of relationships

between queer and straight characters. As noted in the Introduction of this study, many

representations of queerness in the past, which permeate queer and straight relationships in queer

theatre, involved : outlaws, in-laws, and tragic victims, or those “in between.” While

these representations are still repeated, I argue that contemporary queer theatre is expanding

representation into new categories. In this chapter I attend to the relationships between members

of the queer community and the dominant heterosexual society in contemporary queer theatre,

arguing specifically that these relationships are increasingly nuanced and complex; that is, that

they extend beyond the Gay Best Friend or G.B.F.

How does one define the G.B.F.? According to the popular fandom site, TvTropes.com,

the G.B.F. exists mostly to add variety, funny mannerisms, and cheap laughs to an otherwise all-

straight story.2 While it is possible that the G.B.F. will talk about sex, they are seldom depicted

as sexual beings; nor do they show any sort of in-depth affection, ostensibly because of the fear

that heterosexual viewers will find that disturbing or offensive.3 In sum, then, the G.B.F. is a

1 Moonlight (Plan B Entertainment, 2014).

2 “Gay Best Friend Aka: Pethomosexual,”

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GayBestFriend?from=Main.Pethomosexual.

3 “Gay Best Friend,” TvTropes. 63 prop for the straight character, checking the diversity box, but never given the opportunity to present the complexities of queer life.

The G.B.F. rose to popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s, mostly due to the representations of gay men in popular televisions shows such as HBO’s (1998-

2004) and NBC’s Will and Grace (1998-2020), as well as the popular film My Best Friend’s

Wedding (1997). In these examples, as well as others, the G.B.F. type/trope involved a gay male and heterosexual female best friend. This type/trope is dominant throughout media, often shown through women drawing attention to their friendships with gay men, while always drawing attention to their friends’ sexuality. It is never “This is my friend (insert name here)” but is instead “This is my gay friend or gay best friend (insert name here).” The friendship perpetually exists in relation to the sexuality of the gay best friend. For instance, this dynamic was explored in Glee (2009-2015) through the friendships of Kurt and Mercedes as well as Blaine and .

The trope was also explored in the television series Never Have I Ever (2020); Jonah is a high camp character who often offers fashion advice to Devi, Fabiola, and Eleanor. In one particularly memorable moment, in episode 5, when Fabiola comes out to Eleanor, she says “finally a gay friend, it really fits my brand as a theatre wench!”4 While Fabiola is not the stereotypical G.B.F., the recognition of saying gay friend reinforces the tropes power of tying sexuality as capital for friendship. Additionally, the 2013 comedy entitled GBF positions the entire plot of the film around three high school girls fighting for their high schools’ first gay best friend. In the film,

Tanner, a young man who is gay, becomes a prop or an accessory, to allow the female heterosexual protagonists a shot at winning Prom ; thus, Tanner is not presented as a fully realized actualized character.

4 Mindy Kaling, “…started a nuclear war,” Never Have I Ever, , April 27, 2020. 64

While the stereotypical popular culture representations of the G.B.F. remain pervasive, in this chapter I will focus on more progressive examples drawn from contemporary queer theatre, where the G.B.F. dynamic goes beyond those repeated, stereotypical tropes. A similar nuancing has occurred recently in television and film. Take for example, the lesbian and male best friends as depicted in the 2019 Netflix film The Half of It, the sexually fluid best friends David and

Stevie on the sitcom Schitt’s Creek, and the queer and straight girl friendship group of Kat, Jane, and Sutton in the show The Bold Type. During my investigation, I consider how contemporary queer theatre is offering similar nuanced and complex friendships between queer and straight individuals, ones that shift consciousness and understanding towards the horizon of a better tomorrow. From a dramaturgical standpoint, much of this chapter is then based within character analysis, building upon significant themes and pedagogies of friendships and relationships.

Before moving forward with that analysis, it is important to note that in a variety of media the depictions of the G.B.F. are beginning to change to encompass the range of friendships that exist between queers of all types and their heterosexual counterparts (again, for example, such as those in The Half of It, Schitt’s Creek, and The Bold Type). Even so, the plays in this chapter focus on portrayals of the G.B.F. as relationships between heterosexuals and gay males.

While my examples involve the more traditionally defined trope of the G.B.F., I focus on how the queer characters are more than props or diversity checkmarks to their heterosexual counterparts.

More precisely, in this chapter I offer critical readings of Joshua Harmon’s Significant

Other (2017) and Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy (2015). I argue that taken together these two plays locate the relationships between queer and heterosexual individuals or institutions as a site of utopic activism. Significant Other focuses on the character of Jordan and the relationships 65 forged with three of his best friends: Laura, Vanessa, and . The plot concerns Jordan’s upcoming thirtieth birthday, and the anxiety he has about growing older. As my analysis will demonstrate, the relationship between Jordan and his three female best friends transcends the limiting confines of the traditional G.B.F. because he is more than an object to these women.

Instead, the friendships he has with them are built upon mutual love and compassion.

Significantly, Harmon is careful to represent Jordan as more than just his sexuality.

Choir Boy follows rising high school senior Pharus at The Charles R. Drew Preparatory

School for Boys, a Catholic school whose mission is to develop young men into strong, respectable, ethical, compassionate Black men.5 The play is a coming-of-age story, that focuses on Pharus and his uneasy relationship with numerous individuals at his school, an institution that is steeped in vicious anti-gay . Additionally, the play examines Pharus’ role as leader of the boys’ choir and his relationship with his fellow choir members. The relationships in Choir

Boy between queer community and heterosexuals serve to illuminate the complex divide that exists between queer community and heteronormativity.

Throughout this chapter, I focus as well on how the gay-straight relationship represented in these two scripts are built and what the friendships mean to both queer and heterosexual audiences. In doing so, I investigate how these relationships offer potential affective shifts through utopic activism. Additionally, I argue that the relationships explored go into deeper territories than surface level friendship, often leveraging empathy to convey meaning. Indeed, these scripts, I argue, assess deeper bonds between the queer community and heterosexuals and provide nuanced ideas of how these relationships offer utopic potential to both groups. Within the space of the G.B.F. representation, queer characters often interact with heterosexual

5 Tarell Alvin McCraney, Choir Boy, New York, NY: Theatre Communications Group, 2015, 70. 66 institutions related to their straight counterparts. After considering the interpersonal relationships of the G.B.F, I then explore relationships between queer individuals and traditionally defined sites of heterosexuality, such as marriage, education, and religion. In sum, then, the representations in the scripts that are the focus of this chapter highlight relationships that go beyond the older tropes of outlaws, in-laws, and those in-between.

Friendship: Bridging Differences and Mutual World Building

Why is friendship an essential factor in human relations? What power does friendship have in activating utopic activism? Can friendship be a site of affect and change for audiences?

As Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K. Dasgupta, and Jaime M. Grant argue in

Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective, “friendship is integral to vitality. Friendship stokes imagination. Friendship fires rebellions. Friendship provides testimony.”6 Furthermore, as Banerjea et al. assert, friendship often invokes words such as desire, attachment, assurance, love, difference, loyalty, incompatibility, silence, heartbreak, and gossip, and “friendship is believed to be something common, yet something familiar [. . .] it is almost taken for granted and overlooked as an inescapable, recognizable truth of life.”7

Therefore, I believe that considering friendship as a living site of activism and affect provides an opportunity to witness change for the better. Friendship offers space in which one can experience a wide array of emotions and can reflect on those experiences. It is important to note that friendship, as the foregoing remarks make clear, is not only joyous or celebratory, but also includes hard conversations, heartbreaks, and silences. Friendship investigates moments that

6 Niharika Banerjea, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K. Dasgupta, and Jamie M Grant, Friendship as Social Justice

Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective, New York, NY: Seagull Books, 2018, 2.

7 Banerjea et al., Friendship as Social Justice Activism, 4. 67 push individuals’ ways of being within the world; it explores the conversations that force reconsiderations or adjustments to critical thinking, and the interactions that change sensibilities.

The power of affect and critical thinking is also at play in the work of Bradley Bond and

Benjamin Compton, who argue that stereotyping and prejudice of a marginalized group can be reduced when members of the dominant group engage in interpersonal with the marginalized.8 By way of what these scholars term “intergroup contact theory” it is possible to conceptualize how heterosexual audiences observing queer characters by queer authors might bring about change in their social habits purely through exposure to such characters and relationships. Bond and Compton go on to echo my foregoing remarks on the G.B.F. trope, writing that “when gay characters are portrayed on television, they have traditionally been depicted through stereotypes, mocking, or jokes in an effort to provoke laughter from a predominantly heterosexual audience.”9 By shifting the types of representation from such depictions of “the queer character as joke,” and instead focusing on “the queer character as holistic individual,” Bond and Compton found “normalized gay characters interacting with heterosexual characters in validating situations may also be perceived as positive and rewarding by heterosexual audiences.”10

For this reason, when contemporary theatre displays a wider array of queerness, the emerging dynamic friendships between heterosexuals and their queer counterparts open sites of

8 Bradley J. Bond and Benjamin L. Compton, “Gay on-: The Relationship between Exposure to Gay

Characters on Television and Heterosexual Audiences’ Endorsement of Gay Equality,” Journal of Broadcasting &

Electronic Media 59, no. 4 (Oct 2, 2015): 719.

9 Bond, “Gay on Screen,” 720.

10 Bond, “Gay on Screen,” 729. 68 utopic activism that hold the progressive potential to drive audience interactions and positively effect perceptions of queer individuals. These relationships show friendships that go beyond being props or jokes. The dynamics are equal, with the straight character not receiving all the benefits of the friendship while the queer character receives little to nothing in return. Both characters are fully autonomous and have agency. This expanded representation also means that both characters are equally culpable in their shortcomings. Queer characters are not presented as pure paragons of justice without faults, and straight characters are not villainous, unresponsive, and/or uncaring.

As an illustration, I consider first the relationship between Jordan and Laura in Joshua

Harmon’s Significant Other. Both characters are in their late twenties, and within the first scene the audience finds that the pair have been friends for a long time. 11 This scene presents Jordan and his three women friends at the bachelorette for Kiki. The audience quickly learns the women in Jordan’s life are coupling up, getting engaged, and becoming wives, leaving him single and alone. The friendship between Jordan and Laura at times seem to track with the

G.B.F. trope; however, as the play progresses the audience learns that their friendships are stronger and much deeper than that trope allows.

Driven by his fears of his friends leaving him, Jordan starts a conversation with Laura. As they reminisce about their past, it is revealed that the pair previously lived together, have experienced joy together, and would most likely have kids together if no other options were available. They even talk about potentially marrying one another.

11 Using the term scene regarding Significant Other is difficult as the play is only separated into two acts. Harmon states that the passage of time throughout the play is meant to slip from one location to another. Therefore, my use of the word scene in this context, would mean a completed vignette of a singular place before this slippage occurs. 69

JORDAN. I would go to City Hall right now.

LAURA. I would too. But it’s closed.

JORDAN. I know. It’s just…I know life is supposed to be this great mystery, but I

actually think that it’s pretty simple: find someone to go through it with. That’s it. That’s

the, whatever, the secret.

LAURA. You make it sound so easy.

JORDAN. No that’s the hard part. Walking around knowing what the point is, but not

being able to live it, and not knowing how to get it, or if I ever even will…12

The pair go so far as to joke about what their song would be if such things happened:

Celine Dion’s “Because you Loved Me.”13 In this moment, Harmon makes clear that the friendship between the two is already strong, to the extent that they would marry each other.

Clearly, then, this friendship is built upon a strong foundation, with both supporting one another. Jordan and Laura are true friends. Significant to my argument, Laura sees Jordon as a whole person, not just his sexuality. I also hold that this is a friendship that stokes imagination.

To stoke imagination means to conjure new ideas, concepts, or examples of moving through the world. It offers a site of knowledge and potential; should Laura and Jordon not find anyone else they have a solid bond of love and support with each other. This stoking of the imagination eases

Jordan’s fears and anxieties. The bond between them is special, deep, and meaningful.

The next exchange that demonstrates a broader understanding of the G.B.F. trope through

Laura and Jordan occurs when they discuss a work crush. While I have argued that most depictions of the G.B.F. in media leave the queer character as a neutered, non-sexual being,

12 Joshua Harmon, Significant Other, New York, NY: Samuel French, 2017, 13.

13 Harmon, Significant Other, 13. 70 expanding representations instead allows for the infusion of sexuality and desire into queer characters. Expanding this representation accounts for queer desire and offers space for heterosexual friendships to support the wants and needs of the queer character and encourage their amorous actions. Too often, this has been missing in the G.B.F. trope, with the queer character supporting the straight friend, but never receiving the same support in return.

Conversely, Laura supports Jordan and his queer desire.

JORDAN. I was jealous of cement. And you can see his ass, the material of the wet

bathing suit kind of clung to it, and his calves sort of expanded with each step as he

pressed the weight of his body down, and he walked off.

LAURA. That sounds torturous. [. . .]

JORDAN. There’s more.

LAURA. Great.

JORDAN. So I got up, I pretended I had to go to the bathroom, and I followed him into

the locker room, not really a locker room, but it’s a changing room. He’s opened up his

little cubby, but he’s gone off to use the toilet. I can see his bare feet just going into the

stall, so I have thirty seconds, tops. I pick up his shirt, and I smell it.

LAURA. You smelled his shirt?

(JORDAN nods yes.)

How’d it smell?14

Clearly, Laura is invested in Jordan’s story. She not only listens to his desires and longings for his co-worker Will, but she adds to the story, acknowledging his pain when it sounds torturous, and asking clarifying questions, such as how he smelled. By doing this Harmon normalizes

14 Harmon, Significant Other, 18. 71 conversations about queer desire and queer love within heterosexual friendships. Considering the potential to drive activism, heterosexual audiences that have not had similar conversations can begin to see how they might. Laura models a way of thinking about how to bridge such conversations, opening the door to friendships that are equally supportive and meaningful.

Additionally, again, Laura demonstrates a friendship that stokes imagination. She pushes Jordan further, asking him to remember details, and to share special moments of attraction with her; and she prods him, asking him to divulge more images and descriptions of the moment. In so doing, she encourages and desires to live in that imagined space with Jordan surrounding a potential love interest.

Furthermore, through Jordan’s recollection of his desire for Will, Harmon inverts the heterosexist bias at the heart of the G.B.F. trope. Rather than using the queer character as the sounding and support system for the heterosexual, Harmon shows that those relationships can be mutually supportive and meaningful. Most G.B.F.’s function to help their heterosexual counterpart find love, achieve relationship status, or stop them from making wrong decisions when it comes to love; instead, Laura fulfills this function for Jordan. In turn, she takes on the qualities of many traditional representations of the G.B.F. This inversion shows that if it is normal and appropriate for heterosexuals to talk about their love interests, or their desires in a partner, it should then be the same for queer characters. The normalization of conversation around queer desire is one of the first steps in achieving representational equality.

Throughout the course of the first act, both Kiki and Vanessa, the other significant parties in Laura’s and Jordan’s friend group, become engaged and begin planning their . Kiki’s wedding takes place in the first act, and Vanessa’s begins the second act. As noted above, Jordan has trouble accepting that his friends are getting married, and he feels they are leaving him 72 behind. However, as my foregoing explication makes clear, he finds solace in the fact that Laura, also single, is still in his life. As the first act of the play closes, however, the audience, along with

Jordan, discovers that Laura has met a man, Tony. The revelation that Laura has fallen in love with Tony aggravates Jordon’s fears of being left alone and single. To make the situation worse,

Laura does not immediately tell Jordan about Tony, as she is afraid Jordan will react negatively to the news. Instead, Jordan finds out from Vanessa, which exacerbates his reaction and hurt.

Vanessa’s revelation about Tony sparks an animated conversation between the three women about their futures. During this exchange, Jordan is ignored. The act ends with him watching his three best friends slowly slip away from him.

In The Haunted Stage, Marvin Carlson notes that “Derrida and others have argued that all texts are in fact haunted by other texts and can be best understood as weavings together of preexisting textual material – indeed, that all reception is based upon this intertextual dynamic.”15 I contend that the final scene of Harmon’s first act imparts this theatrical ghosting a la Carlson, one that calls to mind a text from the United States musical theatre canon. As the three women begin their overlapping, building, and exceedingly exciting conversation surrounding marriage, one is reminded of the “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” scene in

Company. As Carlson argues, “theatre is a cultural activity deeply involved with memory and haunted by repetition.”16 While the scene differs in significant ways, including that Harmon’s work is a straight play versus a musical and the affiliated distortions from the musicals’ meaning and framing, the scene still brings to bear the feeling and atmosphere of the Sondheim number.

15 Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine, Ann Arbor: MI, University of Michigan

Press, 2001, 17.

16 Carlson, The Haunted Stage, 11. 73

In sum, “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” is a musical number that depicts Bobby as a maddening, terrible boyfriend because of the way he has treated the three women he is

(April, Kathy, and Marta). Together, the three women point out his character flaws all while describing how he might drive a person crazy. In a clever subversion of that canonical text,

Harmon’s final scene of act one flips the script and paints Jordan’s three girlfriends as the thing driving him crazy. The three women excitedly talk of engagement, marriage, love, and how to make their weddings perfect. Meanwhile Jordan sits isolated, alone, and single. He sees his friends slipping away and can feel his growing discontent knowing his friendships are different from what they once were.

The overlapping of Kiki, Vanessa, and Laura’s conversation within this scene is reminiscent of Sondheim’s musical score in which lines of dialogue are being sung in succession and overlapping by April, Marta, and Kathy. The end of the dialogue between the three women in Harmon’s script is even referred to as a “crescendo”.

KIKI. LAURA. VANESSA.

Husband Birch BOYFRIEND Pecan Fondant

Husband Boyfriend FIANCÉ

Husband Boyfriend Fiancé

Husband Boyfriend Fiancé

Husband Boyfriend Fiancé

HUSBAND BOYFRIEND FIANCÉ

HUSBAND BOYFRIEND FIANCÉ

HUSBAND BOYFRIEND FIANCÉ

74

(As the women speak, a spotlight grows on JORDAN, who sits silently, listening. The

light grows brighter and brighter, isolating him even further until the women reach their

crescendo. Blackout.)17

The crescendo makes clear Jordan’s growing fears of abandonment and isolation. His friends are happy, and he feels as though they are moving into happiness without him by their side. He sees this as the beginning of immense change, and he does not understand how his relationships can continue as normal with these three women given their new status as wives, fiancés, and girlfriends. Everything, for Jordan, is changing.

This change to his relationships with these three women is not easy or wanted. As Rona

Kelly points out in “Song Insights: ‘You Could Drive a Person Crazy,’ Company,” “Sondheim’s original concept was to frame this number as an Andrews Sisters-style trio [. . .] their music brought joy and optimism to their audiences during a particularly dark time in history.”18 The irony in this decision was that the three women the song were furious with Bobby, and therefore, they were in their dark time singing happily while feeling horrible. Harmon’s ghosting of this scene shows Jordan standing alone, his friends the object of his anger. This scene exhibits a particularly dark time in Jordan’s life, and signals the shift that permeates the second act regarding his relationship with Laura. If, as Banerjea points out, friendship fires rebellions, in this case, the women, especially Laura, fire rebellion within Jordan.

17 Harmon, Significant Other, 54.

18 Rona Kelly, “Song Insights: ‘You Could Drive a Person Crazy,’ Company,” BroadwayWorld, https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Song-Insights-You-Could-Drive-a-Person-Crazy-COMPANY-

20190223 75

This shift in the dynamic between Laura and Jordan permeates the second act. It reinforces the idea that friendship is not only for the good times, but the bad as well. The repercussions of the schism between Laura and Jordan are especially palpable as the second act opens, when Jordan, on edge, debates sending a verbose, personal email to Will. He knows that the email is not the best idea, so looks for support from his girlfriends to keep him in check and tell him it is wrong to send. He calls each of his friends and is sent to voicemail; he assumes they turned their phones off, something he says is never the case.19 As a result of feeling ignored by his friends, he grows increasingly unhinged.

JORDAN. Do not hit send.

Do not hit send.

Do not hit –

(JORDAN hits send. He slams the laptop shut and screams.)

Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

You fucking idiot you fucking idiot you fucking IDIOT!20

Jordan left to his own devices makes the worst possible decisions, highlighting that his relationship with his girlfriends, specifically Laura, keeps him grounded and centered. This is another inversion of the typical representation within the G.B.F. relationship, as the gay character is typically the centering and moral compass for the straight character, keeping the heterosexual woman in check. Here instead Jordan (queer) and Laura (straight) switch roles and change the dynamic of what has previously been represented.

19 Harmon, Significant Other, 55.

20 Harmon, Significant Other, 58-59. 76

The climax of Significant Other occurs when Jordan confronts Laura at her . Jordan accuses Laura not only of forcing her friends to spend an above average amount of money for her bachelorette, engagement, and wedding parties, but also charges her with moving on without him, and replacing him with Tony.

JORDAN. All the things you got from our friendship, you get from Tony now. Which is

great. But all the things I got, things I really need – I’m not getting them from anyone,

and then you tell me I’m your best friend but it’s so different and I feel so alone,

Laura…21

Jordan’s admission of feeling left behind and replaced leads Laura to question why he never spoke to her about his feelings before this moment. Ultimately, Jordan is unable to answer

Laura’s query and instead continues to levy an assault of how their lives will change for the worse due to her new status as wife. This further supports an expansion of the G.B.F trope. To be sure, as I have argued, typical representations involve queer characters receiving nothing from friendship; instead, they offer support to straight characters. In Significant Other, Jordan clearly demonstrates that his friendship with Laura provided him with support, support that he no longer receives.

Jordan continues to come undone due to his feelings of isolation and . When the argument reaches its peak Jordan unleashes his disdain, slandering Laura as a bad friend. Laura tells Jordan he is uninvited from the wedding if he truly feels this way. Jordan argues, telling

Laura that he would never miss her wedding.

LAURA. But you clearly don’t want to be there, so I am telling you, you don’t have to

come.

21 Harmon, Significant Other, 76. 77

JORDAN. I wouldn’t miss your – that’s not even an option.

LAURA. But I’m giving you the option. You can be my friend and support me, the same

way that I will be your friend and support you when you get married, or you can not

come.

JORDAN. Don’t say “when you get married,” it’s an if, not a when, an if. ‘Cause there

are actually a lot of really good people in this world who never find someone, and I could

be one of those people. So then what? Then what happens to me?

LAURA. Presumably you haven’t been an to all of your friends and so you have

friends.22

Even during their fight Laura remains a force of support, understanding, and compassion for

Jordan. While his argument has been that she has no compassion, she has been there for him consistently, just in new and different capacities. This exchange shows the ever sliding and changing landscape of friendship. It reaffirms that even though things might change and might look different, love and support is the foundation of the relationship. This calls to mind

Banerjea’s last point about friendship: friendship provides testimony. Laura offers meaningful and in-depth advice and insight to Jordan. She continues to love and support him, even after being criticized and shamed.

Furthermore, this dynamic between Jordan and Laura throughout the script displays that queer individuals like all humans are fallible and need to accept culpability for their actions.

Expanding the G.B.F. representation means that both sides of the relationship are open for scrutiny, and that by showing all characters as fully realized human beings one might take lessons from their mistakes. The dynamic between Laura and Jordan affirms this message by

22 Harmon, Significant Other, 81. 78 representing Jordan as being so involved in his personal drama that he is unable to see the hurt and pain he causes in others.

Significant Other ends with Jordan attending Laura’s wedding. The two reconcile as the reception takes place, and their friendship is mended. The conversation between the pair is cut off when Tony gets his wife for their first dance. The DJ begins playing Celine Dion’s “Because

You Loved Me,” Jordan recalls the conversation from the start of the play and solidifies that he will always hold a special place in Laura’s heart. The play closes as the other heterosexual couples join Laura and Tony on the dance floor. Jordan is left to the side watching, alone; but

“he’s getting through it.”23 Through the power of friendship, Jordan has become more self- aware. While the journey was painful, it ultimately illuminated aspects of himself that he needed to face. The journey through Significant Other provides a roadmap to friendship as an affective site for change.

While my analysis of Laura and Jordan has focused on the traditional representation of a

G.B.F. (gay male/straight female) my reading of Choir Boy focuses on how McCraney shifts further away from that tradition. This script primarily concerns the relationship between Pharus, a Black gay male, and AJ, a Black straight male, who not only room together at an elite Catholic boarding school but who also become best friends. I argue that this novel representation of a gay/straight relationship expands the G.B.F. representation in powerful ways precisely because it challenges the common practice of placing gay and straight men in opposition to one another, serving as foils or enemies rather than friends. Media representations of this traditional sort include and Chris Hobbs in (2000), ’s interactions with many of the straight men in Glee, and Brother Boy and Ty’s interactions with heterosexual

23 Harmon, Significant Other, 88. 79 men in Sordid Lives: The Series (2008). Additionally, while representations of queerness (i.e., white queerness) have expanded in media, Black queerness is something that is only recently becoming more mainstream and is still often overlooked. To be sure, as Gust A. Yep and John P.

Elia argue in “Racialized and The New in LOGO’s Noah’s

Arc,” “the explosion of gay and lesbian white images simultaneously reinforces the perception that GLQ people are always presumed to be white, able bodied, and middle class and literally and symbolically erases the lives and subjectivities of GLQ people of color.”24 By Yep and

Elia’s standard, McCraney’s representation of the G.B.F. within Choir Boy re-writes such previous plot structures to account for Black queerness.

Choir Boy is rife with relationships between its main queer character, Pharus, and heterosexual men, most of them (but not all) negative and steeped in heterosexism and shame. A short exchange Pharus has with another student, Bobby, from the beginning of the script exemplifies this negativity:

BOBBY. Sissy.

PHARUS. For there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus,25

BOBBY. Dis sissy…

BOBBY. This -ass nigga.

24 Gust A. Yep and John P. Elia, “Racialized Masculinities and the New Homonormativity in LOGO’s Noah’s

Arc,” Journal of Homosexuality 59, no. 7 (2012): 890–911, https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2012.699827.

25 In Choir Boy, lines italicized within dialogue represent lines that are sung. 80

(Pharus has stopped. The Headmaster notices. Pharus looks behind him and is about to

continue when we shift)26

This exchange establishes at any early point in the plot that Pharus does not fit in and is not accepted by most of his straight classmates.27

Moreover, through this exchange, McCraney highlights the hypocrisy that exists between the poor treatment Pharus is subjected to by many of his fellow students, and the strict rules the students are expected to follow so that they may become strong, respectable, ethical, compassionate Black men.28 Clearly, the relationships between Pharus and most of the straight characters do not reaffirm this mission. This point is underscored repeatedly. For instance,

Bobby and his best friend, JR, relentlessly tease and bully Pharus, with many of their interactions echoing the above excerpt. The pair often refer to Pharus using derogatory slang and slurs, or physically and/or emotionally manipulate and abuse him. Likewise, at one point, David, a student determined to become a minister and who identifies as straight physically attacks Pharus.

This attack leads to David’s expulsion. It is significant that McCraney strongly implies that

David and Pharus had a sexual relationship. Ultimately, though, David’s traditional religious convictions prevent him from committing, and in turn drive his physical attack of Pharus.

Perhaps even more insidious, Headmaster Marrow continually shows his casual heterosexism. I use the term “casual” here because while Marrow does not directly call Pharus a

“faggot” or an “abomination,” he does talk in coded language which reifies his discomfort with

26 McCraney, Choir Boy, 10.

27 Like Significant Other, Choir Boy does not have formal demarcations of scene numbers in the script. Therefore, when referring to scenes I will refer to their placement in the plot rather than by a formal number.

28 McCraney, Choir Boy, 70. 81 homosexuality. On a number of occasions, Headmaster Marrow reinforces that if Pharus tried harder to “fit in” or “hide it a little more” he might be better off and would have better relations with his peers. Additionally, he calls attention to Pharus’s mannerisms and perceived as coded messages of homosexuality.

PHARUS. Sir?

(Pharus’s wrist goes limp. The headmaster corrects Pharus’s limp wrist.)

HEADMASTER. Tighten up.

I need to speak to the student who was…calling you

Things on the choir stand.29

This exchange between Pharus and the Headmaster highlights a common display between representations of queer and straight men, questioning why queer men cannot hide it or make themselves “straighter.” The Headmaster is so imbued with heterosexist belief that he cannot even utter words such as “gay” or “homosexual,” and instead uses “things” as a stand-in.

The Headmaster’s correcting Pharus’ “limp wrist” warrants special analysis. Within popular culture, the limp wrist is a common marker of femininity and is often used to demarcate someone as queer. As Niall Richardson argues in Effeminophobia, , and Queer

Friendship: The Cultural Themes of ’s Playing it Straight, “within contemporary gay culture, effeminacy is often read as suggesting other ‘undesirable’ character traits.”30 The limp wrist even has its own memetic identity within social media, showing pictures of cartoon

29 McCraney, Choir Boy, 17.

30 Niall Richardson, “Effeminophobia, Misogyny and Queer Friendship: The Cultural Themes of Channel 4’s

Playing it Straight,” Sexualities 12, no. 4 (August 2009): 531. 82 characters or other famous individuals with a bent, limp wrist, asking “is he, you know?”31 This representation is especially pervasive in Black queer culture, where homosexuality is seen as an attack on Black and sensibility under the white male gaze. Both Gust A. Yep and

John P. Elia, as well as Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., argue that perceived masculinity within the Black queer world is affected by relations to the white male gaze. That structures of white supremacy and racism permeate all aspects of Black queer performativity and dominate the creation of social constructs.

Pharus’s feminine physicality marks him as deviating from the traditional straight line of heterosexuality. As Sara Ahmed posits, “directions are instructions about ‘where,’ but they are also about ‘how’ and ‘what’: directions take us somewhere by the very requirement that we follow a line that is drawn in advance. A direction is thus produced over time; a direction is what we are asked to follow.”32 Ahmed identifies that these straight lines are what all individuals are expected to align with, that they demarcate one as heterosexual, and they reaffirm “straightness” to ask that no one deviate from that path. Additionally, there is a fear that if people stop walking the path it may disappear completely, and in turn, that heteronormativity might unravel. This metaphor is Ahmed’s way of describing the heterosexual fear of erasure at the hands of the

“other.”

Additionally, Ahmed posits that there is a reward to following the line or directions correctly. That directions constitute a social investment, and a person following the straight line promises a return for more than themselves. There is social capital involved, one that creates

31 An example of the “is he, you know?” meme can be found at https://i.redd.it/bfaumprg2hb31.jpg

32 Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007,

16. 83 good will for the entire community following the straight path. However, if a person turns away from that line or moves away from it completely, they risk having to start over or they lose time, in turn affecting everyone on that path. Ahmed argues that becoming straight means turning toward the objects that are given by a heterosexual culture and turning away from those that take us off that line. Ultimately, for a life to be considered good it has to return the debt promised as social goods; as such, queer lives might be ones that fail to make such a gesture of return.33

Therefore, if queer individuals diverge from the line, from the predetermined socially accepted straight orientation, they risk giving no return and threaten the existence of those still walking said straight path.34 Pharus thus represents a direct conflict to the described “men’s” way of life and their sense of being; men like the Headmaster and Bobby fear Pharus as he deviates from his line, and fear that his existence is a direct confrontation to their own existence.

However, in direct contrast to these men and their relationships to Pharus stands AJ. AJ has not only been Pharus’s roommate for more than a year, but he is also his friend and confidant. AJ not only supports his friend throughout the play, protecting him from the other students, but also calls for Pharus to critically examine his own culpability to situations and to re- examine his way of thinking and being in the world. In the course of the action, other straight characters call attention to their feelings of “falling victim” to queerness. One example is when

Bobby states “what you cool with him too, Jr? Let me find out I gotta watch my cheeks round

33 Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology, 21.

34 I have previously used Sara Ahmed in my article for Theatre Topics titled “Dear Pen Pal: The Queer Peanuts of

Dog Sees God” and pull my summation of her theory of the straight line and repurpose it for my argument in this chapter. 84 you too.”35 Contrasting Bobby, AJ never fears Pharus. He is comfortable and confident in his sexuality and masculinity and never believes that he needs to worry that Pharus will force himself on him.

In fact, in a scene that occurs late in the play, AJ begins to wrestle Pharus, pins him down, and then tickles the physically weaker man. When this occurs Pharus becomes aroused, he yells for AJ to get off him, and retreats to a corner of the room. AJ immediately assumes that he has hurt Pharus and pleads with the other man to tell him what is wrong. When AJ realizes what occurred he promptly apologizes for the actions that led to this moment. He tells Pharus not to go and that he understands how pent up the young man must be, as he has never even caught Pharus in any act of “self-relief.”36 Pharus is deeply embarrassed by the situation and proceeds to tell AJ that he would understand if he wants to leave the room and no longer be roommates. During this conversation, it is strongly implied that Pharus’s previous roommates left because he is homosexual.37 The tender moment between Pharus and AJ highlights friendship as testimony and support. This scene is thematically significant in discussing friendship, because AJ offers Pharus a friendship that includes being able to talk about desire and need without it being conflated to a straight man’s fear of being come onto or forced into a “gay situation.” AJ provides the space for

Pharus to share his true feelings, his desires, and fears where the other straight men ridicule and deride him.

Furthermore, AJ’s depiction throughout this play and this scene heightens the sense that not only does AJ have a firm sense of himself as a straight man, but he also supports and has

35 McCraney, Choir Boy, 22.

36 McCraney, Choir Boy, 87.

37 McCraney, Choir Boy, 87-88. 85 compassion for Pharus as a homosexual. AJ is strong and comfortable within his heterosexuality and does not feel as though a friendship with a homosexual lessens him or calls into question his own orientation. They both are who they are, and neither will change or “convert” the other due to their relationship. AJ’s reaction and support during the previously explicated scene, where he accidentally sexually frustrates Pharus, serves as a roadmap for straight audiences to understand, be compassionate towards, and discuss awkward situations that might occur due to sexuality within same-sex queer/straight friendships. Moreover, AJ’s stance, being firm and confident in his sexuality, reifies the notion that sexual moments are inherent to human life, and things occur that are beyond control. When Pharus becomes aroused due to AJ’s tickling and pressure, AJ immediately recognizes his own culpability in the situation. Rather than blame Pharus and believe the entire situation to be Pharus trying to seduce or convert him to the “queer side,” AJ apologizes for his part.

There are two additional scenes between Pharus and AJ that displays their compassionate and complex friendship. The first scene occurs after Pharus suffers a homophobic attack in the showers. He is punched in the face, and as a result the Headmaster calls the other students to his office for interrogation. During AJ’s conversation with the Headmaster, AJ again finds himself supporting and advocating for Pharus. When the Headmaster asks AJ if he is the one that attacked Pharus, AJ describes his first visit to Charles Drew. He recalls that when he first came to Charles Drew and found out Pharus would be his roommate, his brothers immediately gave him trouble for rooming with a “faggot.” AJ reveals that Pharus overheard this entire conversation, yet was the cordial and delightful, to both AJ’s mother and his brothers, despite their hateful speech. He goes on to describe how Pharus consistently looks as though he is apologizing for everything, always looking down, also conveying a look of sorry as though he is 86 the problem and not society. AJ leaves the Headmaster’s office by telling him the only way he would ever hit Pharus would be if he could permanently knock that look of sorry off his face.38

This scene reaffirms AJ as a queer ally and strong advocate for queer friendship, and demonstrates that he opposes the traditional forces of heterosexuality that attempt to stifle

Pharus. Not only does AJ provide testimony on behalf of Pharus, but he clearly shows that he is ready to lead rebellion in the name of his friend.

The final and most affectionate scene between AJ and Pharus occurs towards the end of the play, on the eve of their graduation. Not being able to sleep, Pharus sings and wakes up AJ.

By this point in the play, Pharus has been barred from singing the school song at graduation due to the situation with David; but, he has hope that the Headmaster might change his mind. AJ is concerned because he recognizes the young man desperately needs sleep and comfort. During their conversation, AJ learns that Pharus’s mother has come for graduation but due to the circumstances leading to Pharus being unable to sing at graduation, not look her son in the eye except to tell him he needs a haircut. AJ recognizes the profound sadness within his friend, and it is then that AJ offers to “hook Pharus up with a cut.”39 As AJ begins to cut Pharus’s hair, Pharus continues to speak, telling his friend about his discomfort and feelings of being out of place in traditional heterosexual constructed spaces. He tells AJ about homophobic comments he received while at a barbershop in his hometown, how he was told at age eight or that he should shut up and not talk to the men, and how he was called faggot by an ex-friend. He recalls that after that moment, he was never able to walk into a barbershop, and told his mother that

38 McCraney, Choir Boy, 108-109.

39 McCraney, Choir Boy, 125. 87 from that moment on he would cut his own hair, never explaining what happened; instead,

Pharus internalized the event and moved forward.40

AJ finishes the hair cut as Pharus ends his story and proceeds to ask Pharus if he is ok having remembered and relived that experience. Pharus responds that he is good, and that his hair looks much better now. AJ suggests that they both attempt to sleep to which Pharus responds that he will try. AJ recognizes the lingering pain and fear within Pharus and makes room in his own bed telling Pharus to sleep with him. Again, this moment is not about romantic or sexual love; instead, AJ senses and feels the hurt in his friend and offers him compassion, comfort, and support in what might be his worst moment. AJ knows that this offering brings no expectation of sexual favor, but recognizes the need of friendship and support.

Similar to Significant Other, this scene between AJ and Pharus invokes a similar scene between Lionel and his roommate Troy in Netflix’ (2017). Like Pharus in

Choir Boy, Lionel knows little of hair care and was wary of going to barbershops because of his

Black queerness and feeling uneasy in the space. Troy offers to fix Lionel’s hair, and Lionel in turn ends up coming out to his roommate. Troy, like AJ, is immediately sympathetic and supportive, telling Lionel that he needs to make sure he “gets these edges super crispy because you mother-fuckers are picky as shit!”41 Lionel says he is not like that, to which Troy replies,

“true you are an original.”42 As does the haircut scene between AJ and Pharus, this scene in Dear

40 McCraney, Choir Boy, 127-128.

41 “Chapter II,” Dear White People, directed by Justin Simien, aired on April 28, 2017, on Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80125301?trackId=200257859.

42 “Chapter II,” Dear White People. 88

White People emphasizes a Black queer/straight relationship based in affection, support, and true friendship, rather than fear of homosexuality or being the object of unwanted sexual advances.

Throughout this section of my study, I have drawn attention to expanded representations of queer/straight friendships as reinforced by the relationships between Laura and Jordan in

Significant Other and Pharus and AJ in Choir Boy. I have explored how these queer/straight relationships based in friendship offer audiences the potential to see new ways of thinking and being regarding their own friendships. As I have argued, these expanded representations of the

G.B.F. have displayed how both queer characters and straight characters are equally dynamic in these representations, and how these plays highlight that both queer and straight characters are culpable in the actions that occur. In my next section, I continue this line of analysis by exploring the landscape of sites and institutions typically aligned to heterosexuality and examine the relationship between these straight institutions and the queer characters that sometimes inhabit them.

No Safe Spaces: Typical Heterosexual Institutions as Relationships

In both Choir Boy and Significant Other, the queer characters Jordan and Pharus contend with their vexed relationships to traditionally defined heterosexual sites and institutions. While relationships are often thought about through interpersonal means, it can, at times, be easy to disregard the relationships between people and heterosexual sites. In this section, I use history and historiography alongside the notions of space, place, and institution to situate Choir Boy and

Significant Other within their contemporary contexts. Furthermore, building upon historiographic situating of Turner’s Bull in a China Shop in chapter one, I suggest that these plays may be examined not only as dramatic literature but as reflections of real-life situations. 89

In Significant Other, Jordan’s main contention is against the institution of marriage as it

has been traditionally defined as “heterosexual.” The arguments that religious and conservative

institutions have regarding national marriage equality may be taken as evidence of how marriage

is still considered by many as a heterosexually defined institution. Likewise, in Choir Boy,

Pharus confronts the traditional heterosexual sites of education and religion; he also recalls how

he experienced heterosexism in a barbershop. Queer people consistently seek out “safe” spaces,

which may be regarded as places where they feel as though they can be their authentic selves.

Often these spaces are carved out specifically for queer people. While these occurrences are

worthy of study, here I am most interested in what occurs when queer people must navigate un-

safe sites or institutions. That is, how are queer relationships toward traditionally heterosexual

identified institutions maneuvered? As into my analysis of these various sites and

institutions, I will first define the concept of “safe space.” I then turn to investigate how Pharus

and Jordan navigate their relationships with traditionally defined heterosexual sites.

The LGBT safe space is an initiative created by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight

Education Network) in the 1990s. As Catherine Fox points out in “From Transaction to

Transformation: (En)Countering White Heteronormativity in ‘Safe Spaces,’” the safe space

program “has provided a nationwide focus on creating visibility and educational programs on

college campuses for LGBT students, particularly through the dissemination of training

programs and Safe Space stickers (the hallmark of this program).”43 According to GLSEN, the

overall aim of the project is to help combat heterosexism in the school system, a traditionally

designated heterosexual institution. As Fox asserts, the need for such programs was born from

43 Catherine Fox, “From Transaction to Transformation: (En)Countering White Heteronormativity in ‘Safe

Spaces,’” College English 69, no. 5 (May 2007): 497. 90 the direct correlation to physical violence that many queer individuals face.44 Yet the concept of a safe space, while helpful and sympathetic, can also be problematic and limiting. Christine

Quinan in her essay “Safe Spaces,” points towards this when she questions, “what is safe for some is certainly not for others and because “safety” is a privilege to which not all have access, can safe spaces exist?”45 Quinan’s argument is an important aspect of consideration for the queer community, as it serves as a reminder that experiences are not universal and that even within the marginalized community there are further levels and distinctions of marginalization at play within of identity.

Building on these ideas, I do not think of physical places as safe in the sense that no harm will come to a queer person within that space. Indeed, there is never a guarantee, even when physical safety is thought to be assured. For instance, sites such as school might be termed “safe” even though violence still regularly occurs in that setting; mental and emotional safety are never easily established. Instead, my argument is that the relationship to traditionally defined heterosexual institutions does not create safe spaces in which a queer individual can live their authentic truth. This raises a vital question: What then would occur if these sites of traditional sexuality would become “brave” or “open” spaces?46 Brave/open spaces allow people to interact with their discomfort, these are spaces where they are encouraged to sit in their emotions to

44 Fox, “From Transaction to Transformation,” 497.

45 Christine Quinan, “Safe Space,” in Critical Concepts in Queer Studies and Education An International Guide for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Nelson M. Rodriguez et al. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016), 361.

46 My use of the terms safe space or brave/open spaces are based upon the common understanding of their names. I do not intend to conflate or rehash the concepts of place versus space, rather I am using the common vocabulary. 91 discuss oppression and social injustice. If these institutions present both queer individuals and heterosexuals with challenging materials and difficult emotions, what would they accomplish?47

To begin considering these questions of institutions and sites, I turn first to Significant

Other, and begin parsing out the relationship between Jordan and the institution of marriage. The institution of marriage, in the United States, was a traditionally and predominantly heterosexual establishment until 2015, when the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges declared marriage equality the law of the land. Even with marriage equality, many, especially those within the wedding industry, still consider marriage to be a heterosexual institution as evidenced by numerous court cases and protests involving baking cakes for gay weddings or even allowing gay weddings to occur in certain venues.48 Due to his relationships with Laura, Kiki, and

Vanessa throughout Significant Other, Jordan consistently contends with the heterosexual institution of marriage. Throughout the play, he feels as though he loses his friends, one by one, to that institution.

In the traditional heterosexual wedding context, there is a bride and a groom, both of whom choose a wedding party. The bride typically chooses close girlfriends to be her bridal party, and the groom chooses close male friends as his groomsmen. The men and women chosen as part of these groupings are typically people close to the bride or groom; they are people that hold profound meaning and relationships to those getting married. These choices typically consist of siblings, best friends, etc. And yet, due to the tradition of straight marriage, many men and women feel bound to choose their wedding parties based on the traditional :

47 Quinan, “Safe Spaces,” 363-364.

48 A google search for “gay wedding cake lawsuits” or “gay wedding venue lawsuits” provides numerous articles about this phenomenon. 92 women for bridesmaids and men as groomsmen (consider how the gender binary is reinforced within the names associated with these groups).49 Therefore, when examining close relationships between queer and straight individuals regarding marriage, it is not surprising that problems often arise.

In Significant Other, Jordan, the G.B.F. to Laura, expects that after years of close friendship and sharing a life together that he would be part of her wedding party. The two have lived together, thrived together, supported each other, and have been each other’s ride or die through numerous life events. Therefore, when Jordan is not asked to be part of the wedding party he is hurt.

JORDAN. If I was a woman, I’d be one of your bridesmaids. That’s a fact. You can say

what you want, but you’re being so gendery and you’re like the least gendery person I’ve

ever known, but now you’re getting married and it’s like there’s this whole side of your

personality I never, ever – I feel like I don’t know you.50

Jordan calls Laura’s gendering of her bridal party out as an affront to what he considered Laura’s progressive “non-gendery” qualities. While Laura argues that her bridesmaids are her sisters,

Jordan also mentions that one is her cousin, who Laura has always preferred Jordan over. Laura insists that she is trying to do something “” for her cousin, but in doing so has alienated

Jordan further from an institution that already feels as though it is not meant for him.

Like Jordan, Pharus must navigate his way through relations to heterosexual institutions.

In Choir Boy, he comes up against traditional structures of education, church, and the

49 While I am aware that it is becoming increasingly more acceptable to forgo the gender binary regarding wedding parties, historical, societal, and familiar pressure in many cases keep wedding parties gendered.

50 Harmon, Significant Other, 77. 93 barbershop. Each site offers exploration for how they limit and constrict Pharus’s sexuality and humanity as a gay Black male. As I previously explicated, McCraney works to to the audience from the first pages of the play that Pharus lives his life in close proximity to bullying and “otherness” as evidenced by his treatment from his peers. Many of his classmates pick on him incessantly; it is made clear in the opening scene that he chooses to ruin the singing of the school song because of this bullying. The next scene depicts Pharus being scolded by the

Headmaster of the school for the incident. Here, the victim has become criminal and is being castigated as a result. The Headmaster demands to know why Pharus stopped singing, and what occurred on the stage. Pharus refuses to snitch, citing the school’s motto of respect and brotherhood as his conviction.

The Headmaster continues to push Pharus, asking if he had something caught in his throat. Pharus responds with a clever double entendre about his throat being the “Lord’s passageway, let no follicle formed against me prosper.”51 This response earns Pharus an anxious and exacerbated “Bwoi!” from the Headmaster.52 Headmaster Marrow’s use of bwoi (boy) rather than Pharus’s name and his unease from Pharus’s double entendre further indicates his discomfort with homosexuality. It warrants emphasizing that since the boarding school is affiliated with the , the Headmaster stands in for the institutions of both conventional education and religion. In turn, his heterosexism and effeminophobia become synonymous with the orthodoxy of those institutions, and the vexed relationship between he and

Pharus becomes a stand-in for the larger relationship between queer individuals and educational and religious sites.

51 McCraney, Choir Boy, 15.

52 McCraney, Choir Boy, 15. 94

Another instance of Pharus versus the institution of education occurs when the

Headmaster finds that Pharus, who leads the choir, has kicked Bobby out of the group.

Immediately, Headmaster Marrow attacks Pharus’s decision, and asserts, without evidence, that it was only a petty quarrel that led to Bobby’s expulsion. His siding with Bobby is also informed by his relationship to him; Bobby is Marrow’s nephew. In any case, Marrow’s behavior in this instance echoes a tendency of victim blaming and disbelief, in which institutions or people in power protect and value the heterosexual and traditional, and in turn often do not believe queer individuals’ accounts. It is not until Pharus reveals that Bobby is the one that used racial and sexual slurs on the stage at graduation that Marrow backs off. Pharus expertly navigates the interaction leveraging Bobby’s actions to help him remain the lead of the choir. Towards the end of their interaction Marrow again takes time to point out Pharus’s femininity by calling attention to his limp wrist.

HEADMASTER. Pharus, your wrist!

PHARUS. I’m sorry…Is my wrist the reason why I’m being…I mean it’s a wrist a

Joint on my arm if the science teacher told me right

Can it really be doing…I mean is that why?

What!53

This interaction with Headmaster Marrow marks Pharus’s continued efforts to show dignity and grace against forces that would rather render him silent and invisible.

Of course, Pharus is not just queer; he is also Black. As such, it is necessary to also consider McCraney’s work through the lens of intersectionality. Clearly, Pharus sits at the intersections of queerness and race, intersections that are reaffirmed throughout the play. Beyond

53 McCraney, Choir Boy, 51. 95 this, McCraney includes a number of instances that seem to suggest that intersectionality is not always addressed or valued within the educational sphere. This is explored, in part, through the interactions Pharus has with Mr. Pendleton, a free-thinking, white professor. In his classes,

Pendleton challenges the students’ thinking and encourages them to not only know what they know, but to query why and how they know it. In addition to teaching, Pendleton is also the faculty advisor for the choir. In this context, his interactions with Pharus and the other young choir members position him to be an advocate and ally against the educational institution of which they are all a part.

While Pendleton is a white educator, who often puts his foot in his mouth, he is also willing to do work and challenge his state of mind. It is revealed that he marched with Dr. King and is committed to helping change the world. McCraney makes clear that while Pendleton may not always head towards change with the right action, he is always working to find the right path.

Pendleton’s ally-ship is powerfully displayed in a scene following David’s attack of Pharus in the shower. Here, the audience sees an interaction between Headmaster Marrow and Pendleton that makes clear their differing world views. Headmaster Marrow tells Pendleton that if the fight would have occurred in self-defense or over a disagreement, then he would have known and been prepared for how to handle the situation. But instead, Headmaster Marrow is at a loss. Pendleton challenges Marrow on this point and resists the heterosexist subtext he reads in the headmaster’s response.

PENDLETON. I don’t have any advice for you, Stephen, I really don’t but

I will say this, in forty-nine…fifty…fifty years of this school, in the records or not, this is

not the first time “love” found this form. Won’t be the last. 96

You plan on staying Headmaster, well, I’d prepare for that.54

Pendleton’s interactions with the headmaster, demonstrate his ideals for a better educational setting. By not giving Marrow advice he is telling him that change needs to occur, and that as headmaster his own thinking needs to be part of that change.

I conclude this section by returning to the relationship between AJ and Pharus, considering specifically the ways in which their interactions challenge traditional heterosexuality of the barbershop. Barbershops are a cornerstone of Black socio-cultural experience and provide sites of intergenerational interactions.55 In an interview with The Globe, barbershop owner Lex Andre Daluz confirms this cultural site saying “the barbershop is a center for community for us, especially in the Black community. Growing up, I learned a lot about how men get together in the barbershop and share ideas and perspectives.”56 Bryant Keith Alexander further acknowledges the barbershop as a cultural site in his article “Fading, Twisting, and

Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop as Cultural Space,” where he describes the excitement and experience of going to the barbershop because of the social context, that there were “always old men sitting in the corner playing checkers, reading magazines, and

54 McCraney, Choir Boy, 121.

55 Barbershops as integral sites of Black existence are evident throughout numerous Popular Culture narratives.

Televisions show such as All-American, Black-ish, and Black Lightning, films such as Barbershop, plays such as

Inua Ellam’s The Barbershop Chronicles, and even children’s storybooks like Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by

Derrick Barnes reinforce this cultural institution.

56 Jeneé Osterheldt, “Revealing the Barbershop for What It Is: a Black Man’s Safe Space - ,”

BostonGlobe.com (The Boston Globe, December 27, 2018), https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/12/27/revealing-barbershop-for-what-black-man-safe- space/WDTVix936WsogD4mhRiKhJ/story.html. 97 talking trash, talking community, and talking culture.”57 Subsequently, both Alexander and

Daluz argue that the barbershop is an integral part of the Black male community.

Pharus’s interaction with the barbershop thus demonstrates an intersectional break in his identity. In this site, his Blackness clashes with his queerness. Indeed, his queerness marked him as other within a vulnerable and important site of growing up as a Black boy. Pharus was always aware of his perceived otherness within the space.

PHARUS. I never felt right there. Always felt like the last place I should be, and they

made sure I knew it.58

Yet despite intuitively knowing this, Pharus continued to go to the barber with his friend Kevin because of the importance of this site to Black culture. It was not until Pharus’s friend mocked him in the barbershop that Pharus finally vows not to return.

PHARUS. Kevin looked at me like spit would’ve been too kind, like Hell was a place.

He walked up on me say, “Don’t tell me nothing you faggot. Don’t you say nothing to

me.” Messed-up, though. Made the mistake of looking up after he said that, looked round

for a place to run and all these men, grown men, looking at me, what was I eight or nine?

Looking at me like, “That’s right.” Like, “That’s what you get.” Like they were all with

him and not no one…

Couldn’t even walk in that barbershop

Told my mamma I was cutting my own hair to help her save money.59

57 Bryant Keith Alexander, “Fading, Twisting, and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop as Cultural Space,” Qualitative Inquiry 9, no. 1 (2003): 105, https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800402239343.

58 McCraney, Choir Boy, 126.

59 McCraney, Choir Boy, 127. 98

No longer welcome in the barbershop, Pharus loses a piece of himself. Indeed, in acknowledging that he feels as though he will never fit into the conventionally heterosexual space of the barbershop, he also loses a connection to his Black culture and heritage.

Alexander further describes his own nature as a Black gay academic navigating the world of Black culture in the barbershop setting by describing his cultural performance involved in accepting and recognizing his academic training and culture as evinced by his verbiage, logic, and manner.60 He acknowledges that though he has gendered nature within his identity, he does not always fit comfortably “within conversational spaces marked by heterosexual discourse, which is often the case in the barbershop/salon.”61 Alexander was able to navigate those waters and find space for both to coexist for himself; Pharus, as the young 8 or 9 year old, was not able to do the same. Instead, he recognized how he did not fit within the space and decided to remove himself from the environment.

What does an audience gain by considering queer relationships to traditionally heterosexual institutions and sites? Through the examples of Significant Other and Choir Boy it is my hope that utopic activism is activated when heterosexual audiences see how these queer characters navigate through straight sites. As I hope my analysis has made clear, theatrical scripts can represent and act as brave/open spaces, spaces that offer the audience a chance to sit in their discomfort and critically engage how these straight institutions make queer individuals act, feel, or codeswitch to survive. By observing how institutions and sites traditionally restrict, silence, or edit queer individuals it will become more evident how these relationships flourish on a grander scale in everyday life. If we recognize the problem of these relationships to traditionally

60 Alexander, “Fading, Twirling, Weaving,” 118.

61 Alexander, “Fading, Twirling, Weaving,” 118. 99 heterosexual institutions, we might then be able to move together towards changing these dynamics and prompting real change.

Conclusion: Furthering the Representation of the G.B.F.

In this chapter I have questioned how the relationships between queer characters and heterosexuals portrayed on the page and stage build meaningful lessons for audiences. I have argued that these representations of relationships between the two groups serve as foundational material for audiences to gain a deeper understanding of how relationships between queer individuals and heterosexuals build meaningful connection. Furthermore, I have suggested that expanded representation of the G.B.F. or gay best friend, an otherwise overused caricature, is a rebranding of the trope to develop more fully queer individuals.

Both the queer and heterosexual characters in the scripts I have explicated and analyzed are fully realized and developed characters, neither one relying on the other to have purpose or meaning. Especially for queer characters, this is a necessary and positive trend because much prior representation regarding displaying the idea of the G.B.F. positioned the queer character as ancillary to the heterosexual character. Therefore, by expanding the representation queer authors are saying that both characters are integral to the story. Rather than support being a one-way street in a relationship, these characters equally support and benefit from one another.

By exploring how queer characters experience relations to traditionally heterosexual institutions and sites I have charted how queer characters are affected by heterosexual sites. The examination of Pharus in Choir Boy and Jordan in Significant Other and their relation to the traditional heterosexual institutions such as marriage, education, church, and places such as barbershops, reveals that queer characters often have a vitally different experience than heterosexuals. By analyzing these relations, it is possible to imagine how heterosexual audiences 100 might come to see in new ways how these relationships function, how they silence queer individuals, and how queer individuals navigate those institutions. By drawing attention to the relationships to those sites these depictions highlight the importance of rethinking those relationships. In turn, it is my hope that heterosexual audience members can begin to effect change by rethinking their own relations to institutions that “work” in their favor.

Additionally, I have sought to show how Significant Other and Choir Boy offer representations that revise the queer character as a homosexual problem play. These plays offer representations of nuanced relationships that do not center on the queer character being a problem for the straight character to solve or overcome. Through this exploration, I argue that an updated version of the G.B.F. representation helps increase visibility of the queer community past tropic depictions of the outlaw, in-law, and in-between. Instead, these plays reinforce the importance of relationships between the straight and queer community and explore how these relationships build connection and meaning for audiences across sexuality. Even though homosexuality is presented as problematic within Choir Boy it is done so in a manner that offers conversation and exploration in relation to why heterosexual characters/institutions oppose homosexuality rather than limiting Pharus as a problem to be fixed. The presented problem of homosexuality within Choir Boy through interactions with traditionally heterosexual identified institutions and masculinity further serve to highlight the importance of AJ as an ally and friend to Pharus. For these reasons, I hold that both Significant Other and Choir Boy do important work to confront the stereotypic representations of queerness inherent to the homosexual problem plays of the past.

Ultimately, it is my hope that by drawing attention to these dynamic and varying relationships between heterosexual characters/institutions and queer characters that a healing 101 process might begin within and between the two groups. I hope as well that through exposure those within the dominant group, especially those who have not previously thought about queer issues, might begin to queer their own thoughts about the queer community. It is the critical ability to reassess and reconsider their points of view that will begin to prompt change in the world. To paraphrase José Muñoz, queerness is not yet here, it is on the horizon.62 By acknowledging the relationships and dynamics within these dramatic plots and working together

– queer and heterosexual identified – we may reach that horizon and embrace the utopic activist future.

62 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity, New York, NY: New York

University Press, 2009, 1. 102

CHAPTER III. QUEER-TO-QUEER RELATIONSHIPS: EXPLORATIONS OF INTER-

COMMUNITY INTERACTION

“Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour – and in the oddest places! – for the lack of it.”1

Prologue: Nuanced Queer Relationships in Contemporary Queer Theatre

In Chapter 2, I examined the depiction of straight and queer relationships on United

States theatrical stages. In this chapter, I build upon that work, and focus instead on how queer- to-queer relationships are depicted on the page and on the stage, how meanings of those types of relationships are created by both playwrights and audiences, and what possible pedagogical discussions emerge surrounding their representation. As one of my project’s main goals is to chart how representations of queerness have expanded throughout the history of queer theatre within the United States, this chapter attends to how representations of queer-to-queer relationships have shifted over the past two decades.

While my primary goal is to chart the advent of new queer-to-queer representations, in this chapter I also necessarily focus on expanded and nuanced representations of queerness.

These expanded and nuanced representations include characters that are more racially diverse, and character drawings that reflect a more comprehensive and complex understanding of gender and sexuality. Regarding the move toward greater racial diversity, earlier queer plays often depicted queerness through a lens of whiteness, typically focusing almost exclusively on

1 , Giovanni’s Room, New York: NY, Random House, 1956. 103 friendships and relationships between white gay men or lesbian women, especially, in those scripts that have are more well-known and have garnered professional productions. However, as the following pages will make clear, in the contemporary moment, more racially diverse depictions of characters have emerged and continue to be developed. As a result, audiences are beginning to see on stages in the United States relationships that are not just between white gays and lesbians. Likewise, over the course of the last twenty years there has emerged a more complex and arguably deeper understanding of gender and sexuality. In turn, contemporary queer theatre has engaged in expanding its representations to reflect this new understanding.

These expanded representations include trans and non-binary characters, as well as characters that are not only labeled gay and/or lesbian but instead span the spectrum of sexuality including and .

Central to this expanded representation in queer plays are more nuanced relationships between queer individuals. Throughout queer theatre history in the United States, many depictions of queer relationships have been primarily focused on queer characters as friends, or as same sex partners, or with queers as villains. By drawing attention to these common representational strategies my point is not to argue that these depictions are harmful or shallow, but rather to highlight that for much of queer theatre history a broad goal of the queer community has been acceptance. This want for acceptance is directly related to so-called decency laws and groups such as the Wales Padlock Law, the Catholic League of Decency, and the Hays Code which changed queer representation. The Hays Code, for instance, was a set of rules and governing ordinances for motion pictures produced in the United States. Beginning in the 1930s and lasting for roughly 40 years, the Code was used to subject depictions in film to rigorous 104 scrutiny regarding their “decency” for public consumption.2 Under this Code, there were three areas of representation that films and television productions were forced to confirm:

1. No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who

see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of

crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin.

2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and

entertainment, shall be presented.

3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for

its violation.3

While these three areas were meant to ensure that standards of decency were accurately represented on screen, they influenced theatre as well.

Most often these standards of decency operated on insidious levels often ensuring that the white, cis, hetero-patriarchal standards were upheld, celebrated, and normalized. Often the attacks on decency during this time led to queerness being coded as villainous, perverse, and unnatural. While this rendering of villainous, perverse, and unnatural homosexuality was less explicit in film, similar codes and laws effected representations on the stage as well. For example, the Wales Padlock Law was invoked to shut down productions of The

Captive, The Drag, and God Of Vengeance in the 1920s.

The Wales Padlock law was the theatrical version of the Hays Code which made it illegal to “depict or deal with, the subject of sex degeneracy, or sex perversion” and theatres could be

2 Bob Mondello, “Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 Years On,” NPR, August 8, 2008. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189.

3 Mondello, “Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 Years On.” 105 shut down or fined for disobeying this law.4 This law was sponsored by New York State Senator

B. Roger Wales who sought to preserve the morality and conservative nature of his constituents.

This New York law inspired similar laws across the United States. While this law was meant to limit all subjects of sex degeneracy and sex perversion, the law mainly focused on the censorship of homosexuality and interracial relationships.5 As Michael Bronsky points out in Culture Clash:

The Making of Gay Sensibility, this censorship campaign began in the 1920s against such plays as The Captive, The Drag, The Virgin Man, and SEX.6 This law would remain in legislation until

1967 effecting numerous productions over its time in legislature.7

In contrast, contemporary queer theatre not only depicts explicit queerness but often offers more nuanced depictions of queer life and within that, queer relationships. While represented relationships sometimes include unflattering portraits – including toxicity and depictions that show that the queer community is not perfect – the complexity in them rises above the past, simplistic depictions of yesterday. These depictions not only show straight audiences that queer individuals suffer the same relationship problems as do straight individuals, but also hold the potential to teach queer audiences to be critical of their own culpability and proximity to problematic relationships. It is also important to note that many of these past representations of queerness activate notions and feelings of queer shame within narratives.

Queer shame is a force within the queer community that queer individuals face on a regular basis

4 NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, “,” NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, 2017. https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/belasco-theater/.

5 NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, “Belasco Theatre.”

6 Michael Bronski, Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility, Boston, MA: South End Press, 1984.

7 NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, “Belasco Theatre.” 106 and experience due to their sexuality or . This type of shame is often a force that keeps individuals in the closet until they are ready to come out, but is also felt by out individuals who have to consistently reaffirm their right to live and love. Queer shame often comes from feelings of othering from the heteronormative society. As Margaret Morrison states in

“Somethings are Better Left Unsaid,” “the shame of same-sex lovers has often involved a scorned sexuality (and gender) that heterosexuals have considered sinful and/or criminal.”8 By

Morrison’s standard, I attribute queer shame directly to censorship laws and heterosexist practices that permeated queer performance.

In this chapter I examine two plays which illustrate new visions of queer-to-queer relationships: Christina Quintana’s Scissoring and Jordan Harrison’s Log Cabin. In Scissoring

Quintana focuses on the challenges facing a lesbian couple, Abigail, and Josie, that emerge when

Abigail begins a new job at “St. Elizabeth Rose, a well-established Uptown all-girls Catholic high school.”9 Abigail’s work at the school causes problems when questions regarding decency, derived from her working at a Catholic school, permeate her relationship, both with Josie as well as her new colleagues. Scissoring not only depicts a complicated lesbian relationship, but further explores how ideas of religion and morality limit and provoke queer relationships; how desires, and queer affairs fire new experiences; and how the current political and social culture of the United States alters queerness and queer individuals.

Log Cabin focuses on the intersection of three couples, one gay (Ezra and Chris), one lesbian (Jules and Pam), and one straight (Henry, a trans male, and his girlfriend Myna). As the

8 Margaret Morrison, “Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid": The "Dignity of Queer Shame.” Mosaic: An

Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 48, no. 1 (March 2015): 20.

9 Christina Quintana, Scissoring, New York, NY: Inc., 2019. 107 action unfolds, and as the characters contend with each other, Harrison offers a powerful portrait of how being queer does not absolve one from problematic behaviors and scrutinizes the tense dynamic between the gay/lesbian couples and their trans friend. Log Cabin thus shows the vulnerability for individuals to change, and that while doing the work to be a better person, though always on the horizon, is frequently not easy.

As I argued in chapter two, friendships and relationships are a vital building block in the conceptualization of human desires and learning. Through our relationships we build together and learn from one another to become better citizens and friends. To that end, in this chapter, I again turn to the observations of Niharika Banerjee, Debanuj Dasgupta, Rohit K. Dasgupta, and

Jaime M. Grant, as set forth in Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a

Global Perspective, most notably their argument regarding the necessity and power of friendship. In this chapter, however, I add to the model of friendship forwarded by Banerjea et al., ideas drawn from bell hooks.

In her work, Breaking Bread, hooks discusses the idea that love is not just about romance but also plays a defining role within all friendships and relationships. She argues that “we must think of not just romantic love, but of love in general as being about people mutually meeting each other’s needs and giving and receiving critical feedback.”10 This passionate connection between individuals allows the opportunity for growth and knowledge production that might otherwise never be broached without a connection through love. Furthermore, as hooks relates her vision of love to the words of Martin King in his essay “Facing the Challenge of a

New Age,” she argues that “the moment we choose to love we begin to move against

10 bell hooks, and Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life, Boston, MA: South End Press,

1991, 56. 108 domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.”11 Drawing on hooks, I argue that queer relationships can then be a site of utopic activism as they offer the space for love, growth, and betterment; ultimately, friendships can lead to liberation and freedom by working against the oppression of which hooks speaks.

Throughout this chapter, I not only chart friendships between queer individuals but also relationships that go beyond friendship; as such, the exploration of how these relationships stoke imagination, fire rebellions, and provide testimony is of vital importance. However, how these relationships relate to love and the need for critical feedback are also valuable areas of investigation. To that end, I take hooks’ theorization of love to explore areas of relationships that foster growth, promote healing, and move the marginalized towards liberation. This exploration of love is critical within the examination of queer-to-queer relationships because, as I have previously noted, no one within the queer community is above their own bias and prejudice, and as hooks’ argues, community is a vital building block for change:

working within community, whether it be sharing a project with another person, or with a

larger group, we are able to experience joy in struggle. That joy needs to be documented.

For if we only focus on the pain, the difficulties which are surely real in any process of

transformation, we only show a partial picture.12

Therefore, in the pages of this chapter that follow, I attempt to demonstrate how these plays show a fuller picture of queer-to-queer relationships and queer life – the good and the bad, the

11 bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, New York, NY: Routledge, 2006, 250.

12 bell hooks, Outlaw Culture, 249. 109 love and the hate – and in so doing focus on the ways in which the queer community and queer relationships promote and depict real world issues and conversations in theatre. In turn, I argue that these areas are sites of activism that audiences can then take up in their everyday lives, affect change in the broader social sphere, and advocate for a better tomorrow.

Sitting in Discomfort: Queer Relationships as sites of Critical Feedback

It has frequently been argued that depictions of queer individuals as unnatural, problematic, villains, or bad, reaffirm notions that homosexuality is inherently wrong and evil. I posit instead that a queer community can find great value in sitting with the discomfort that accompanies unflattering or complicated representations, and, in turn, discussing the ways in which those depictions of queer individuals show culpability to their own oppression is vital. Of course, these depictions should not reify the false belief that homosexuality is inherently wrong or evil, but rather should reinforce the notion that all individuals must be capable of self- reflection and change to foster a better environment for all. Indeed, queer individuals are no more absolved from working towards a better future than are straight white men absolved from understanding that any privilege they have has been granted to them by way of hegemony, and that they should seek to use that privilege to help create a just and equitable world.

Both Scissoring and Log Cabin include discomforting situations, and queer characters sitting with and learning from that discomfort. I, therefore, argue that both Scissoring, and Log

Cabin do dramaturgical work to push past the representation of homosexual as outlaw/villain. In doing so, they show how discomfort and prejudice can affect marginalized individuals as well.

As noted in the prologue to this chapter, the main conflict in Scissoring is a growing discontent between the characters Josie and Abigail, a lesbian couple. The inciting incident in the plot is

Abigail being hired to teach history at an all-girls Catholic high school. Early in the play, it is 110 revealed that Abigail’s decision to take this job is, in part, due to her feelings of unresolved guilt connected to her Catholic upbringing. This occurs even though Abigail’s upbringing clashed with her sexuality. Josie, an outspoken artist, who it is significant to note, relies on the financial stability that Abigail’s teaching position provides, initially tries to support Abigail; nonetheless, she also makes clear her belief that her partner would be happier pursuing her PhD at Stanford.

The discomfort and discontent between Josie and Abigail is first brought to the fore when, as part of the contract for being hired, Abigail reveals that she must sign a morality clause. Josie is understandably taken aback by this news:

JOSIE. What about getting married?

ABIGAIL. We’ll get there…

JOSIE. With the morality clause?

ABIGAIL. It’s weird – yeah – but I’ll deal with it.

JOSIE. You’re really willing to step back into the closet?

ABIGAIL. That’s not what I’m doing. It’s not going to be any different with our friends,

or anywhere else – it’s just this.13

Abigail proceeds to defend her decision to accept the job and sign the morality clause on the grounds that she loves teaching and, moreover, that she needs this job to support both her and

Josie. When Josie responds that they are a “team” and therefore should be on the same side,

Abigail turns Josie’s argument to her own advantage by claiming that Josie should support her in her new endeavor.

This exchange calls to mind the remarks on relationships from Banerjea and hooks. I offer a contrasting analysis here, first, exploring Abigail through Banerjea’s notions of

13 Quintana, Scissoring, 14. 111 friendships, and then further exploring Josie through ideas offered by hooks. The charge from

Josie that in signing the morality clause Abigail is effectively “step[ping] back into the closet” echoes Banerjea’s notion of firing rebellion. To extend this line of analysis, Josie provides testimony to Abigail, begging her from the start to not pieces of herself to satisfy the job requirements. Abigail’s attempts to overcome her massive amounts of Catholic guilt consistently brings trouble into the relationship. Eventually, this leads to an even more intense fight between the women that forces them to sit in their discomfort.

ABIGAIL. You should support me. You should understand what the hell I’m trying to

do. Why does me being a good teacher have to have anything to do with being a good

girlfriend? I just don’t see why.

JOSIE. I guess that’s the problem. Beat.

ABIGAIL. Nothing I say is gonna change your mind, is it?

JOSIE. No… A longer, harder beat.14

This fight is an ultimatum for Abigail. Josie is ready for marriage, but Abigail’s upbringing, coupled with the expectations of her job, keep her from completely accepting herself. By extension, Josie feels as though she is not accepted. Josie acknowledges that she can no longer stand by, and that she cannot support someone who is hiding a big aspect of herself.

Josie’s words and actions then echo hooks’ ideas of self-acceptance and growth through relationships. Josie is concerned with Abigail’s self-acceptance and wants to see her move beyond her residual Catholic guilt. Abigail’s signing of the mortality clause and new job at the

Catholic school further exacerbate Abigail’s struggles with her identity. Josie’s intent in starting a conversation around these issues is to offer space that can foster growth in Abigail by drawing

14 Quintana, Scissoring, 38. 112 attention to her repeated tendencies. It is Josie’s hope that by calling attention to Abigail’s problematic behaviors, conversation might occur to affect change. Josie hopes to promote healing within Abigail and help her realize that self-acceptance is a necessary step to allow their relationship to flourish.

JOSIE. I know – you’ve got a big brain inside that skull of yours, but there’s something

lodged in your system that tells you – I’ve never wanted to admit it ‘cause I love the hell

out of you, but you’re…you’re so goddamn ashamed of yourself…

ABIGAIL. I came out to my parents when I was twenty years old, thank you very much.

We’ve been living together for the past five years! None of that would have happened if I

were ashamed of myself.

JOSIE. I know you, Abigail Bauer. I know you better than most.

ABIGAIL. And I know you. You act so New York about it, but don’t sit there and pretend

like you haven’t had all the same thoughts. I’ve known you since you were / twenty-two!

JOSIE. But I grew up! We grew up! And, anyway, this isn’t a competition! Of course

we’re all fucking ashamed of ourselves sometimes. I never said I wasn’t. I just mean, if

we go on thinking we’re less than everyone else, then we’re just gonna go on being less.15

By acknowledging shame and discussing the root of the shame, Josie hopes to move Abigail towards liberation.

As the foregoing analysis makes clear, this discussion of queer shame between Josie and

Abigail is not only a dramaturgical building block to the action of the play but is also socially relevant to the characters. To further illustrate that point, I draw upon Sara Ahmed’s discussion of shame in The Cultural Politics of Emotion. In this work, Ahmed posits that shame is a critical

15 Quintana, Scissoring, 37. 113 tool as it becomes a crucial site for the reconciliation and healing of past wounds.16 Furthermore, she argues that shame has an affective quality because it both exposes and conceals certain wounds but, even more vital, it offers a form of nation-building through a recognition of injustices. For marginalized communities such as the queer community, shame offers an opportunity for -building and site of healing and discussion within relationships.17

To return to the text of Scissoring, Josie’s recognition of the fact that she has been ashamed of herself offers Abigail a reprieve by way of knowledge that others in her community have experienced similar feelings. Moreover, it suggests that there are ways of working through those feelings of shame towards a place of healing.

The in-depth and on-going conversation surrounding guilt, shame, and self-acceptance that rests at the thematic center of Scissoring offers nuanced representations of queer individuals.

It reinforces the idea that queerness is not singular, and that each queer individual has their own story and baggage they must carry and process. While the schism between Josie and Abigail related to shame and self-acceptance ends their relationship, their discussions and support of one another through these difficult conversations further depicts the importance of complex queer relationships and friendships.

Scissoring explores queer relationships through numerous characters with varying levels of understanding and acceptance of the queer self. While thus far I have explored this dynamic exclusively through the coupling of Josie and Abigail, it is relevant to note that theirs is not the only queer relationship represented in this script. Indeed, Quintana’s deployment of multiple queer characters within the plot offers an exploration of considering self-acceptance and how

16 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, New York, NY: Routledge, 2015, 101.

17 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 102. 114 queerness in all its complexity is made visible and discussed. For example, the dynamic between

Abigail and Celia Laroque, her perceived straight, married co-worker, in many respects echoes the relationship of Abigail and Josie. The key difference is that between Abigail and Celia,

Abigail is more confident in her queer self and acceptance of self than is Celia. This relationship shows contrast within Abigail, detailing how a queer individual can be both self-assured but also lack self-acceptance.

Celia is first introduced in act 1, scene 2, when Josie comes to St. Elizabeth to bring

Abigail lunch. Abigail is immediately uncomfortable with this action because she worries that

Josie will “blow her cover” at school and that she will be fired.18 When Celia enters Abigail’s classroom, the couple are discussing their relationship and how Abigail’s job effects them.

Celia’s entrance initiates a beat change that causes a shift in energy, tone, and the direction of conversation:

ABIGAIL. Josie is my –

JOSIE. We live together.

Josie smiles.

CELIA. Roomies! So cool.

JOSIE. Oh, yea – it’s like a sleepover every night, right, Ab?

ABIGAIL. Mhmm.

Celia laughs uncomfortably.19

The discomfort caused when the private relationship between Abigail and Josie is observed by a third party makes clear that Abigail is unsure of who she can trust. That sense of trust is further

18 Quintana, Scissoring, 19.

19 Quintana, Scissoring, 19. 115 challenged when Josie chooses to pick at the secret in jest, and in fact takes pleasure in how both

Celia and Abigail seem uncomfortable with the exchange.

After this initial exchange between the three women, the relationship between Abigail and Celia deepens and develops. They move from being merely colleagues and become close friends who interact with each other frequently. Thus, as Abigail’s trust of Josie is challenged, her trust of Celia is simultaneously built, to the point that she eventually discloses the nature of her relationship with Josie to Celia. When this truth is revealed in act 1, scene 4, Celia acknowledges that she expected this to be the case from the first meeting, but thanks Abigail for telling her the truth.20 Celia then reaffirms that Abigail can trust her with this secret. This building of trust is dramaturgically strategic and thematically significant because as the friendship between Celia and Abigail grows, Abigail’s relationship with Josie, including her trust of her, continues to break down. As the action of the script unfolds, the relationship between

Josie and Abigail deteriorates to the point that Josie moves out of their apartment after Abigail accuses her of cheating with another friend, Diana. As a result, Abigail spirals into shame, and she lashes out at friends, including Celia. When this occurs, Celia and Abigail have an intense argument regarding Abigail’s behavior, in which Abigail tells Celia that she is not some lost cause to be saved and that their friendship is not built or predicated on them saving one another.

Celia responds to this accusation by claiming that Abigail consistently pushes people out of her life.21

20 Quintana, Scissoring, 24.

21 Quintana, Scissoring, 51-52. 116

As the argument intensifies, Abigail continues to be consumed by shame, blaming herself for pushing away her relationships and ruining the good in her life. At the climax, Celia brings

Abigail out of her anxiety by kissing her.

CELIA. Abby….

Abigail paces.

Abby.

ABIGAIL. WHAT?

Suddenly Celia grabs Abigail’s face and kisses her. She pulls away, a little shocked by

herself.

Celia backs away slowly, cautiously…

CELIA. I…uh…sorry. I don’t know – I…yeah…um.

Abigail grabs Celia’s face in turn. They make out fiercely.

Lights down/up.22

This exchange illuminates a few points about the growing relationship between Celia and

Abigail. First, their relationship has segued into a new state of being, something obviously more than friendship but not yet defined. Second, Celia is not as strictly defined as heterosexual as

Abigail, or the audience would have previously thought. Third, this moment will change their interactions and the nature of their relationship for the balance of the play. Soon thereafter it is revealed that Abigail and Celia not only made out, but also had sex. Celia recounts that she

“orgasmed like five” times, to which Abigail coyly replies that she knows.23

22 Quintana, Scissoring, 52.

23 Quintana, Scissoring, 53. 117

Despite having sex, their interaction soon turns into an awkward-post hook-up conversation. Celia prepares to return to her husband, and the pair discuss how they should handle their actions. They both agree they need to process the moment, but Celia also openly admits that she is anxious about the entire encounter and cites her marriage as the reason. The pair continues to discuss how the moment “just happened,” and Celia tells Abigail that “I’m pretty sure I’m straight, though” before she leaves Abigail’s company.24 There are numerous questions raised about the friendship/complex relationship between Abigail and Celia, including whether the pair has stoked imagination and fired rebellion in one another. For Abigail, Celia has forced her into reconsidering her complacency in pushing people away. As a result, Abigail also considers whether Celia is genuinely happy, or if she might also be trapped due to shame and lack of self-acceptance. Likewise, Celia’s imagination is stoked by the sexual experience involving Abigail, and she must begin to consider her own identity as a result, possibly past her own identity of straight married life. Their relationship in this moment is mutually beneficial as it pushes both women to consider and explore ideas of self they previously ignored.

Late into the play, the relationship between Celia and Abigail continues to be a site of growth, understanding, and questioning as the two examine each other’s motives. This growth, understanding and questioning is powerfully evident in act 2, scene 6, where Celia and Abigail discuss the future. The scene begins with Celia entering Abigail’s classroom, and finds her deep in thought. It is quickly revealed that Abigail has applied to the PhD program that Josie pushed her towards and was accepted. Celia challenges Abigail to tell Josie the good news, even though they are no longer a couple, asserting that Josie would be happy for Abigail, and happy that

Abigail is finally making change in her own life. This moment again exemplifies the complicated

24 Quintana, Scissoring, 53. 118 relationship that now exists between Abigail and Celia. The conversation then turns from Josie as the pair discuss how their relationship has changed after their night of sex.

ABIGAIL. You’re married, you’re frustrated. I’m all over the place. And you told me

yourself, you’re straight…

CELIA. I thought so, but…I don’t know, maybe –

ABIGAIL. It’s not worth destroying a friendship over, is it?

CELIA. I can honestly say that I’ve never even thought – about doing what we –

ABIGAIL. You don’t have to explain / yourself

CELIA. It just makes me feel like – yea, maybe I’m not gay, but am I holding myself

back from all of these opportunities?25

Celia is unsure where her exploration of self and sexuality lies. Abigail quickly tries to change the conversation, not because she is uncomfortable trying to help a friend discover their identity, but, rather, because she is uncomfortable discussing such issues within the religious school setting.

This exchange highlights on-going conversations about sexuality and queer representation in contemporary queer theatre, and within everyday life. One of the most thematically resonant aspects of this conversation is the relationship between Celia and Abigail, and Celia’s inability to name her own sexuality. While many in contemporary culture have an understanding that sexuality is fluid and in flux, there are just as many who do not understand this idea. Celia’s inability to name her sexuality in this moment echoes this real-life phenomenon of sexuality in motion and provides potential for audiences to gain understanding of the complexities of naming sexuality. Furthermore, Quintana leaves clues that Celia might have had

25 Quintana, Scissoring, 60-61. 119 numerous factors in her life that led her to assume a heteronormative lifestyle, trying to achieve the “housewife ideal,” rather than live her truth. However, her experience with Abigail and subsequent conversations suggest that this might not have been what Celia wanted. Quintana leads the audience to a place of ambiguity, one that is also experienced by Celia. This depiction of complex queerness, for both queer and straight audiences, reaffirms that sexuality is not a matter of either/or, but is instead a spectrum of possibilities and fluctuations.

Following this path of the complexity of naming sexuality, queerness, a la Alexander

Doty, has an inherent resistance to “the normal” and, in many cases, the need to address explicit labels. While there are wants and desires for labels, in part so that individuals know who is attracted to whom, this is not always possible for queer folks to articulate in succinct manners.

Celia’s struggle to name her sexuality also relates to my use of the word queer, as I discuss in the introduction to this dissertation. Celia could potentially be an example of a person who could use the term queer to resist the necessity to explicitly name a sexuality that does not fit her identity.

Therefore, I contend that a character like Celia is essential for furthering queer representation due to the ways in which she models aspects of self that are central to queer identity, namely the capacity to question one’s conception of self and, in turn, engage in a process of self-discovery.

While the play ends without Celia coming to an explicit decision on her sexuality and self- discovery, having a character like her initiates conversations regarding queerness and identity that are . To be sure, Celia’s representation goes outside typical past representations that might mark her only as “confused” or as a questioning lesbian or following an assumption that she is a straight woman preyed upon by her friend. Instead, Quintana offers a character whose identity is complicated, thus showing that there is more to the sexuality spectrum than straight, gay, and lesbian. Thus, the pedagogical value of the script rest in its ability to stoke the 120 imaginations of the audience, leading them to not only sit in their discomfort but examine their knowledge of sexuality and self-identification. It also holds the potential to fire rebellion and ask them to fight back against heteronormative structures and homophobic practices. And it fosters growth in confronting which, as hooks states, can then move queer individuals towards confronting oppression.

While my examination of Quintana’s depictions of queer relationships by way of

Banerjea and hooks offered an investigation of the complex loving, sexual, and incongruous relationship between Abigail and Josie, and the affirming friendship and sexual relationship of

Abigail and Celia, Jordan Harrison’s Log Cabin focuses on queer relationships that teeter on the edge of toxic. Banerjea et. al argue that “friends remind us of the positive potentials, holding us accountable, and in this way, push us through negativity towards creative possibilities.”26

Building on this observation, I posit that much of what Harrison does in Log Cabin echoes this potential born from the negative. Indeed, the relationships shown in Log Cabin involve nuanced conversations that highlight problems within the queer community and, moreover, suggest paths forward that push through that negativity towards creative possibility.

As noted in the prologue to this chapter, the play centers three couples: one gay, Ezra and

Chris; one lesbian, Jules and Pam; and one “straight”, a trans male Henry and his cis girlfriend

Myna.27 The action occurs between 2012 and 2017 and chiefly takes place in Jules and Pam’s

26 Niharika Banerjea et al., Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective, New

York, NY: Seagull Books, 2018, 3.

27 I use the term straight in quotations here because while the coupling is straight in the traditional sense of man and woman, Henry is a and is, therefore, part of the queer community. His identity should not be overwritten or erased because of who he is dating. 121

Brooklyn apartment. The setting is notable, as it is meant to show the characters have class privilege as well as a liberal identity.28 These given circumstances signal to an audience that the characters are forward thinking and progressive in terms of their relationships and sense of queer community. However, Harrison quickly and strategically subverts these expectations, instead drawing attention to the numerous ways that queer individuals police and harm one another, including people they claim as friends. In doing so, Harrison draws attention to relationships within the queer community that are fraught with power struggles, privilege, and inequity. In sum, then, Harrison uses the friendships between the gay, lesbian, and trans couples to prompt conversations about inequality within the queer community and to urge that audience to examine its own complacency and complicity.

The play opens with a casual gathering of the two queer couples, with Chris and Ezra in mid-story talking about their engagement, an interaction that involved dinner at a fancy restaurant with Ezra’s father. The couple recalls that when they told Ezra’s father about their engagement, Ezra’s father launched into a story about the 1980s and AIDS and how he believed that AIDS was retribution for the queer lifestyle.29 Distraught and appalled by the comments, the couple recount how they left Ezra’s father in the restaurant and immediately returned to their own home. As the discussion continues to unfold, the two couples commiserate and share feelings of not having family acceptance. And yet, this moment of somber reflection is offset by guarded hope in the future:

CHRIS. The world is changing too fast for people to understand.

28 Brooklyn is well known to be both an expensive place to live and is known as being a liberal center of New York

City.

29 Jordan Harrison, Log Cabin, New York, NY: Samuel French, 2019, 8-9. 122

EZRA. The world isn’t changing fast enough. Who cares if they understand.

(Beat. PAM raises her glass.)

PAM. To the future. May it get here soon.

ALL. (.) May it get here soon.30

While Chris and Ezra are upset from rehashing their exchange with Ezra’s father, Jules and Pam take the moment to share their own exciting news, hoping to cheer up the men: they are shopping for sperm, and plan to have a child together. Pam and Jules joke that they thought about asking

Chris and Ezra but, ultimately, chose not to because it would be too “complicated.”31 The scene ends with the four friends sharing laughs and thinking about the possibilities the future holds.

This opening scene is thematically significant for several reasons. First, it establishes an expectation that this play might be based in the dichotomy between queer and straight individuals. Indeed, the story of Ezra’s father and his reaction to the engagement announcement suggests that this story might focus on an “us versus them” narrative, and an exploration of how the straight community often treats the queer community poorly. Likewise, Jules and Pam’s announcement about the pregnancy might also support this potential narrative as queer adoption, pregnancy, and child raising are issues that are consistently attacked by conservative politicians and groups in contemporary society.32 However, as the plot unfolds, it becomes clear that both threads are red herrings. The script is not about the marginalization of queer folks by those who are straight, but instead about how queer folks sometime participate in their own marginalization.

30 Harrison, Log Cabin, 10.

31 Harrison, Log Cabin, 11.

32 At the time of writing this chapter, November 2020, there is a case before the Supreme Court arguing for queer couples to be allowed to foster children. 123

Additionally, the exchange that expresses guarded hope in the future, as noted above, initiates a sense of irony that permeates Harrison’s script. The couples discuss how the world needs to change, and moreover comment on the fact that for some people the world is changing too quickly, which is why some have problems adjusting, and that ultimately, the world needs to change faster, and that people need to change with it. The irony of this exchange is slowly revealed, as the ostensibly liberal minded couples end up being people who are not changing fast enough and are themselves having problems adjusting. More precisely, when faced with understanding and supporting a trans friend, the four queer individuals show that they have not changed, and their own ignorance and prejudice shine through, making life tough for their friend.

In scene 3, a few months have passed. Chris and Ezra are awaiting a subway train. The pair holds decorations; their dialogue reveals they are on their way to a shower for

Jules and Pam’s new baby boy. This scene is the first indicator of the complicated nature of the relationship that exists between the queer individuals. Chris and Ezra, feeling as though they are in a safe space, discuss openly their thoughts and opinions of Jules and Pam, some of them negative. They note that while they love their friends, they are annoyed that they must buy the decorations, and throw the shower for the couple, rather than Jules and Pam doing so on their own. While in the plot of the play this is a small, quick incident, it is dramaturgically significant in that it serves as a moment of complication and foreshadowing.

The idea of safe and protected spaces that encourage open talk and conversation is further solidified in scene 4, which takes place one year after the train scene, where the couples celebrate

Pam and Jules’ son, Hartley’s, first birthday. While Hartley is sleeping, Chris and Ezra again recount a dinner story to Pam and Jules. This time their story involves concerns their friend

Henry and his girlfriend Myna. During this discussion, it is revealed that Henry is a trans 124 masculine man, who had been friends with this group before his transition. In a particularly cringe-worthy manner, as the four friends talk, Chris consistently misgenders Henry calling him

“she.” When Chris is called out by others on this point, he responds, “Fuck, I am so / bad.”33 His response comes across as a joke, as though he has no intention to learn to use the right pronouns, and yet also acknowledges he knows at some level he should aim to do better.

Ezra and Chris explain to Pam and Jules how the dinner party with Henry and Myna proceeded. They describe how Henry placed food before the two couples: two pieces of fish in front of Ezra and Chris, and one piece of fish in front of him and Myna. Chris muses that the placing of two pieces of fish before Ezra and Chris while only putting one in front of Henry and

Myna must have been a tradition that Chris and Ezra did not understand. However, Ezra’s immediate response to this “unknown tradition” was, “Look: two pieces for the boys and one piece for the girls.”34 At this point, Pam and Jules react with disgust and discomfort to this misgendering. In response, Ezra defensively shifts the conversation to how he has known Henry for twenty-four years, and wonders if he is just supposed to erase all his memories.

EZRA. So he’s Henry now, fine, easy, but am I supposed to edit all my memories and do

a search-and-replace? And why would he even want me to? Helen existed, she was a

person –

CHRIS. Probably he would say she wasn’t, but –

EZRA. But he would be wrong. Were you not a person when you were in the closet?

(Little beat.)

33 Harrison, Log Cabin, 17.

34 Harrison, Log Cabin, 18. 125

I’m like the only one who misses her.35

Pam and Jules then ask how Henry reacted; Ezra responds that he fears his friendship with Henry might never fully recover.

The dinner between Chris and Ezra and Henry and Myna immediately calls to mind the dinner between Chris, Ezra, and Ezra’s father, explicated in the first scene. The main difference, of course, is that with the second dinner involving Henry and Myna, Chris and Ezra assume the role of Ezra’s father. Henry experiences an aggression at the hands of his friend, someone who he considers close. This close relationship is reaffirmed by the acknowledgement that Henry and

Ezra have been friends for twenty-four plus-years. It makes sense, then, that Ezra’s aggression toward Henry, whether willful or not, and without apology, harms Henry. The parallels between

Ezra and his father regarding how they replicate aggression is obvious. However, what is most notable is that while Ezra and Chris can understand the aggression committed against them by

Ezra’s father, they cannot empathize or understand how they did the same to Henry. In this failure to understand they become complicit in against members of their own queer community.

After Ezra says that the dinner with Henry and Myna never recovered, the four friends continue their conversation, further solidifying their discomfort and aversion to change regarding trans rights and issues within the queer community. Jules is the first to voice her discomfort and talk openly.

JULES. You know what? I think that sucks.

(PAM puts a cracker in her mouth.)

35 Harrison, Log Cabin, 19. 126

I mean that’s the whole thing with the trans movement. We’re all trying, right? We’re all

fully interested in navigating this brave new world with them but it sometimes seems like

they want us to get it wrong.36

This initiates a conversation between the four friends, where they talk openly about their discomfort and how they feel as though they are being victimized for trying. The group discusses

RuPaul and his transgressions in using words like “” and make jokes about Stonewall before they turn to a more nuanced discussion of Henry. During this part of the conversation,

Jules shows her own ignorance and tendency to perpetuate transphobia.

JULES. That’s the other thing. Trans guys get to be ass-slapping misogynists because

it’s, you know, part of their journey – they’re giving masculine privilege a test drive. And

don’t get me started on trans women.37

Again, this assertion reinforces that the group is not actually interested in learning or growing, but instead are content with their own relative privilege and secure place in society.

To this point in the script, the six main characters have not yet shared the same space;

Myna and Henry have only been discussed. Nonetheless, Harrison deftly constructs their complex friendships, largely via exposition, to illuminate a toxicity between the gay men, the lesbian women, and a trans man, that too often has played out in actual social life. I contend that

Harrison’s illumination of this conflict between queer folks is the thematic center of the script. I also contend that the representation of these vexed, toxic relationships provides a site for utopic activism. More precisely, the conflict experienced has the potential to provide queer audiences, via this negative example, a primer of the work it must do, and how it must constantly evaluate

36 Harrison, Log Cabin, 20.

37 Harrison, Log Cabin, 21. 127 its own complacency to heterosexism and transphobia. Harrison makes a compelling argument that to move forward, the queer community must examine its privileges, and use queer voices to fight for all members of its community. Moreover, the scripted conversations between Chris,

Ezra, Jules, and Pam are informative because they illustrate a dangerous and destructive tendency: that when people feel safe and comfortable, they will discuss what they honestly believe, even if they present a different public face. In this case, the way that the group interacts with Henry when he is in the room versus how they discuss him when he is not around is vastly different.

Scene 6, which takes place at Hartley’s second birthday party, brings together the six friends for the first time in the action of the play, and is the first time that Henry physically appears on stage rather than being talked about in the past. Before the arrival of Henry and

Myna, Chris, Ezra, Jules, and Pam once again discuss the proper ways to address and interact with their trans friend. Again, the couples discuss issues and use language they would not if

Henry were in the room. In many respects, their discussion echoes in striking ways problematic and ignorant talking points that too often haunt conversations regarding trans individuals. They talk about Henry’s genitals and wonder aloud if he has had surgery. As well, they assert as fact the problematic hypothesis that trans people will regret their new identities. On this topic, Jules says that “at some point, a trans person will say, ‘I made a mistake. I was so sure. I thought I was a woman born in a man’s body.’”38 They go on to discuss the “nubs” of bottom surgery, again, reinforcing the fascination with a trans persons genitals. The fact that their friend Henry is the subject of these offensive ruminations and conjectures, highlights how the gay men and lesbian women in this story are not as far from some of the transphobic conservatives as they believe

38 Harrison, Log Cabin, 28. 128 themselves to be. This conversation comes to an abrupt conclusion when the doorbell buzzes. At this point, the entire atmosphere of the party shifts as the four friends know that Henry and Myna have arrived.

EZRA. That’ll be him.

CHRIS. (Reinforcing this.) Him.

EZRA. All together now

CHRIS, JULES & EZRA. Him.

PAM. (Disapproving.) Guys.

(PAM goes for the door.)39

In this moment, Chris, Jules, and Ezra make another tasteless joke at Henry’s expense to reaffirm his gender identity. Pam, on the other hand, shows the most growth amongst the friends. Her parenthetical stage direction, “disapprovingly,” demonstrates that she is not comfortable with the discussions surrounding Henry. Yet, she is not able to completely break the status quo and confront the transphobia within her friends and lover.

The arrival of Myna and Henry brings immediate unease; there is an awkward attempt to change the subject so that Henry will not suspect they were discussing him. Henry immediately launches into friendly conversation with his friends. He regales his friends with stories of picking up women at a rave before the conversation turns once more to questions about Henry’s genitals and potential to conceive children. This conversation between Ezra, Chris, Jules, Pam, Myna, and Henry is difficult, and uncomfortable. Nonetheless, the conversations in scene 7 that discuss trans rights and issues are integral for these characters and their growth. Furthermore, this conversation activates notions of friendships that hold each other accountable as these friends are

39 Harrison, Log Cabin, 31. 129 shown moving together through difficult topics. These conversations also hold the potential to remind audiences that they, too, should investigate and challenge their own biases and complacency.

The climax of the scene occurs when a heated debate about privilege breaks out. It begins when Henry asserts that as a trans man he has it rougher than the other individuals at the birthday party. Chris, a Black gay man, does not take kindly to the idea that a white man (Henry) believes that he, a Black man, has more privilege. Henry’s belief that Chris has more privilege stems from a conversation regarding cis versus trans identities. In Henry’s account of the world, being trans, even a white trans individual, affords less privilege than being a gay Black man. In discussing what the terms cis and trans mean, Ezra and Chris become increasingly upset that they are being lumped into a group of men that perpetrated hate and bullying against them when they were young.

CHRIS. You’re putting me in a category with all the high school fucktards I had to grow

up with in Wichita. The ones who played lacrosse and dated cheerleaders and dressed up

in their cheerleader girlfriends’ outfits on Halloween for fun, who cut class and never got

caught, who called me faggot. Or n****r.40

Chris and Ezra explain that they are upset at the use of the term cis because of the proximity and similar sound to the word sissy, a word that is often used to emasculate gay men and bully them into submission or is levied as a gay hate slur. Chris and Ezra believe that the use of the term cis

40 Harrison, Log Cabin, 37. While the full word appears in the script, for the purposes of my dissertation project I am following the guidance of Dr. Koritha Mitchell and her online article “Teaching & The N-Word: Questions to

Consider.” Mitchell strives to make her classroom a place of inclusion for all students and free of . While this word is not being uttered aloud, I believe it can be triggering for some in written form. 130 lumps everyone together and that in doing so, they (Chris and Ezra, men who have been marginalized and hated) are reduced to being classified with their oppressors when they see themselves as vastly different. Myna and Henry argue that they are not saying that all cis people are the same or even hold the same beliefs, but rather that cis individuals have innate privilege.

The use of the term cis gender identifies a group of people that “are easier for society to accept.”41 Similar to conversations regarding , cis privilege does not mean that these gay men and lesbian women have not had rough times because of their sexuality, but points towards the discussion that their and genitalia have not provided extra hurdles and boundaries toward acceptance.

After this scene, the play tracks numerous subplots, including fights between the friends, and a moment of between Chris and Ezra. These subplots further serves Harrison’s theme: the importance of growing with relationships. One significant subplot involves Henry,

Ezra, and Chris deciding to have a child together, with Henry bearing the pregnancy. In scene 12,

Henry, Ezra, and Chris have a moving conversation about what having a child would mean for

Henry. In the course of this conversation, Henry reinforces the sacrifice he will make by going off hormones, and giving up the person he has become in the past two years. This touching moment between the three shows how their friendship has brought them through their negativity to a place of positive creation.

However, thematically the pregnancy also serves to show the hate and ignorance that is alive within this world. In scene 13, the friends once again gather at Pam and Jules apartment, this time to celebrate the now pregnant Henry. Harrison, again, uses Ezra’s father has a symbol

41 Harrison, Log Cabin, 39. 131 of heteronormativity as the pair describe how the man turned their joyful announcement of having a child into something perverse.

EZRA. So my dad says, “You got you friend Helen knocked up? Does that mean you’re

both straight again?” And I say, “Yes, Dad. You were right all along it was just a phase.

Helen is growing her hair back, and I’m gonna get some pleated, whatever, khakis…No,

Dad. Chris and I wanted a baby, and Henry (who is a man and always has been a man)

wanted a baby, and Henry’s eggs and Chris’s sperm played well together, so yay.”42

Ezra’s description of the interaction with his father shows that Chris and Ezra have moved passed their transphobia. Their friendship and interaction with Henry provided them with the space to grow as individuals and overcome their own negative and hateful perceptions.

The friendships and relationships of Log Cabin force the traditionally gay and lesbian characters to sit in their discomfort and grow as humans. Harrison shows how friendships can be sites of utopic activism, and how those friendships can prompt growth. As a result, the audience is invited to go along on the journey, and in so doing consider how it might do better as well.

Conclusion: Queer Realities & Pertinent Contexts

As I have argued in the preceding chapters, it is critical to understand and acknowledge the contexts in which work is created. To that end, I believe it is significant to situate both

Scissoring and Log Cabin within the personal and/or broader histories that surrounded their creations and productions.

To begin, my foregoing analysis of Scissoring centered on the idea of queer shame, and especially how it relates to religious institutions. It is significant to note that Quintana has

42 Harrison, Log Cabin, 66-7. 132 asserted that shame is an important aspect of the work, and informed even her choice of title.43

Regarding this, as she recalls in a 2018 interview with The Lark, she was talking with a friend and told a joke that involved the term “scissoring”; later, that joke became the basis for the working title as a way of combating queer shame. Quintana goes on to recount that when she told the woman she was dating at the time her planned title, the response was immediately negative.

The heated exchange that followed only strengthened Quintana’s resolve; she knew at that moment that “Scissoring” was exactly the right title: “I felt a knot twist deep inside me. In that moment, I knew that I had to call the play SCISSORING to combat her shame and my own—to feel myself flush, to live in that feeling. To title the play this way meant to be seen and to reckon with that visibility.”44

In the same interview, Quintana also recalls that playwright Eric Micha Holmes commented that her play provides a much needed and updated theatrical conversation on gay shame. Quintana tells her interviewer that Holmes’ suggestion is generous; and yet she also acknowledges that the only reason she can provide any conversation on the topic is because she has been able to push through her own shame. In working through this shame, Quintana wonders if many queer playwrights have resisted labeling themselves in a certain fashion because straight, white men always get to be free of labels.45 In any case, through self-examination and discussions with supportive family and friends, Quintana came to realize that the stories she tells are imperative, and that she never wants to stop telling stories of queer women of color. She

43 Christina Quintana, “What’s in a Name? Why SCISSORING,” The Lark, May 16, 2018. https://www.larktheatre.org/blog/whats-name-why-scissoring/.

44 Quintana, “What’s in a Name? Why SCISSORING.”

45 Quintana, “What’s in a Name? Why SCISSORING.” 133 takes seriously her responsibility for writing forgotten and ignored stories, because “to quote playwright Sarah B. Mantell, we live in a world where we’re simultaneously told, ‘It’s fine now’ and also ‘But not there/here/now/in that way.’ A world where someone might be utterly out in one aspect of their lives and utterly not in another. A world in which people can love watching Ellen but discourage their children from coming out.”46 Thus, Quintana asserts through her graphic play title the responsibility she feels to be bold, to be brave, to draw attention, and to help foster change in the theatrical world. As such, she recognizes that titling a play Scissoring is about reclaiming language and subverting expectations.

Context is also significant in the case of Log Cabin. Whereas the personal context illuminates Quintana’s intent, the production context of Harrison’s is telling. In short, his script represents one of the few ever written that includes a trans character, played by a trans actor, and produced professionally. The landmark production occurred in New York City, in June of 2018, at , and featured Ian Harvie in the role of Henry.47 The inclusion of Harvie is especially noteworthy when considered in relation to some of the controversies that occurred on Broadway during the same time.

In early 2020, two popular musicals, Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, came under consistent and pointed fire from the trans and queer communities. Both musicals feature the trope of a straight man “becoming” a woman. As Christian Lewis describes in a review of Tootsie for Out

Magazine, “the musical relies on the terribly dated ‘man in a dress’ comedic trope, which is

46 Quintana, “What’s in a Name? Why SCISSORING.”

47 A Strange Loop, which I attend to in chapter four, as well as Head Over Heels, included trans/non-binary characters played by trans actors. 134 deeply rooted in transmisogyny.”48 Lewis further describes that the “almost entirely male creative team doesn’t even come close to having any meaningful discussion of drag or gender; everything being a means to an end, in this case, a laugh.”49 The problematic nature of this trope relating to the source material films, Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, was also critically evaluated in the Netflix documentary, Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen. The documentary while discussing the source material, confirms Lewis’ point about the stage musicals: this trope is damaging for the trans community. Thus, in seasons where professional theatres have included damaging narratives to the trans community, the inclusion of a trans character within Log Cabin proves necessary to combat problematic representation and tropes.

As well, like Scissoring, the title of Harrison’s play has significant meanings and connotations, both to the story and to the queer community at large. As the Artistic Director of

Playwrights Horizon, Tim Sanford noted in an interview about Log Cabin, “I assumed most people would pick up the reference to ‘Log Cabin Republicans,’ 50 the organization of , dedicated to conservative fiscal policies and libertarian social politics.”51 As

Sanford, and the website for LCR suggest, this is a group of queer individuals that celebrate

Republican leadership and courage over the years. The idea of Log Cabin Republicans hints at a proximity to heteronormativity and protection by proximity to straightness; it thus points toward

48 Lewis, Christian, “‘Tootsie’ May be Funny, But It’s Hella Problematic,” Out, May 6, 2019, https://www.out.com/theater/2019/5/06/tootsie-may-be-funny-its-hella-problematic

49 Lewis, “‘Tootsie’ May be Funny, But It’s Hella Problematic.”

50 More information about Log Cabin Republicans available at http://www.logcabin.org/about-us/.

51 Tim Sanford, “From the Artistic Director: Log Cabin,” Playwrights Horizons, 2018. https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/trailers/artistic-director-log-cabin/. 135 comfort and ease. Harrison expertly shows that even liberal empathetic queers might not be as open minded and accepting as they would wish. While the gay and lesbian couples in Log Cabin would denounce the ideologies of Log Cabin Republicans, they benefit from the proximity to heteronormativity and cisgender privilege.

In the course of the interview, Sanford acknowledges that there is a second meaning to a log cabin: a literal place, most often in the woods and perhaps a second home, that can function as a refuge. Harrison’s play poses some fundamental questions about the idea of a place of refuge: who is inside, how did they get there, and are they allowing others in? In asking these questions, Harrison, like Quintana, pushes his audiences, both queer and straight, to consider our own lacunas, the areas in which we have an unfilled space or gap in knowledge. By examining those lacunae, and our proximity to dominant power structures, conversations surrounding who is benefiting and why can begin occurring. It is then possible to begin change. 136

CHAPTER IV. QUEER MUSICALS: CELEBRATING AND RECOGNIZING THE QUEER

SELF

“Live your life and tell your story in exactly the same way: truthfully and without fear!”1

Prologue: Musical Theatre and the Quest for Queerness

Musical theatre has a history of entertaining the masses while simultaneously teaching and prompting change. As writes in the foreword to John Bush Jones’s Our

Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre, writers of musical theatre realized that serious statements could be presented in these works in an entertaining fashion.2 Harnick notes how he began his career as a musical theatre writer because he believed in the power of the medium to effect change through a feeling of shared community in which audience members become receptive to new information and learn from lessons imparted.3 I share Jones’ view on the educational potential of musicals, and throughout this chapter, I argue that pedagogical and dramaturgical models of musical theatre provide space to change the world.

Of course, queer characters are not necessarily a new phenomenon to musical theatre.

Throughout the history of the form, queerness has been variously represented; however, especially in the more distant past, these representations were mostly covert or coded. Examples include experiences of queerness written in coded language in musical numbers (e.g., Porter’s “I am a Gigolo” from Wake Up and Dream (1929) and Rodger and Hart’s “My Heart Stood Still”

1 Michael R. Jackson, A Strange Loop, New York: NY: Theatre Communications Group, 2020, 56.

2 John Bush Jones, Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social History of the American Musical Theatre, Lebanon, NH:

University Press of New England, 2003, foreword.

3 Jones, Our Musicals: Ourselves, foreword. 137 from the revue One Dam Thing after Another (1927)); characters being read as queer by the queer community (e.g., consider Stacy Wolf’s queer readings of Elphaba and Glinda in

(2003), and readings of Matron Mama Morton in (1975)); and/or characters written explicitly queer, but remaining secondary characters to the plot, with little to no autonomy (e.g.,

McCarthy and Montgomery’s Irene (1919), which includes a male homosexual character named

“Madame Lucy,” and the character Duane in Applause (1970)). Furthermore, while (1994) is heralded as a genre changing and queer musical, the queer characters such as Collins and

Angel or Maureen and Joanne, while compelling, are not as central to the plot as the straight

Mark, Roger, and Mimi.

The presence of queer content in the form may be owed in part to the fact that many of musical theatre’s key-makers – i.e., composers, lyricists, script writers, directors, choreographers, etc. – were/are queer. For instance, while Cole Porter wrote during a time when homosexuality was actively persecuted, current consensus is that he was queer. Because of the time in which he lived many of Porter’s experiences of queerness are subtly written into his songs; so, while his characters are not explicitly queer, queerness exists in his writing.4

While the history of queer musicals produced in the United States can be traced back to the early 1900s (e.g., Irene), since the 1970s many musicals have featured explicitly queer characters and content. Some of these shows, including La Cage Aux Folles (1984), Kiss of the

Spiderwoman (1993), Rent (1994), and The Boy From Oz (1998) not only feature queer characters, in some cases lead characters who are queer, but also were successful in mainstream

4 In “‘You’ve Got that Thing’”: Cole Porter, , and the Erotics of the List Song” David Savran investigates these writers use of the list song as means to combat heteronormativity and also examine the intrinsic ties to the closet for writers of their time. 138 commercial theatre and/or received critical acclaim and awards. While the advances made by such shows should be lauded, it is nonetheless important to note that many of them at the same time still fall into classic and problematic representations of queerness – i.e., the outlaw or the in- law tropes – or present queerness through the idea of the homosexuality “problem play” forcing straight characters to overcome queerness to resolve the plot. For instance, while La Cage Aux

Folles ultimately ends with a of queerness, most of the musical is about overcoming the perceptions of queer fathers, specifically, the fear of how Jean-Michel’s fiancé’s family will accept Albin, a .

Furthermore, while the history of explicit queer musical theatre reaches back to the 1970s

(at least), it also remains true that far too many of the works in the repertoire of queer musical theatre written since that time had limited/small runs (e.g., Al Carmine’s The Faggot (1973), which received great reviews but ran for only 203 performances; Fred Silver’s In Gay Company

(1984) ran for about 204 performances; and Lerner and Strouse’s Dance a Little (1983) ran for 25 previews and one performance), and/or were not produced commercially (e.g., Mark

Savage’s The Ballad of Mikey (1994)), and/or garnered little attention from the mainstream theatre community (e.g., The New York Times banned advertising for Gulp (1973)). These musicals began to bring explicit queer representation to the theatrical stages after being heavily obscured and coded for decades.

However, while these queer musicals made enormous strides in terms of bringing queer people more fully to the stage, it is also true that diverse representation of queer people (both in terms of type of sexuality as well as intersections of race) within musical theatre is a relatively new phenomenon. As I will argue in this chapter, over the course of the last two decades there has emerged a wider range of queer characters portrayed on the musical theatre stage, going well 139 beyond white gay men. While these advances are promising, it is also important to note that diversity is still lacking, specifically when it comes to characters that anchor a production.

In the pages that follow, I focus on two contemporary queer musicals that not only present queerness within their main characters and storylines, but also celebrate the queer self as a site of acceptance and self-understanding and are not focused on white gay males: The Prom

(2018) and A Strange Loop (2019). I hold that because both prominently feature a queer main character, and the book writers make use of contemporary queer culture and moments to craft their plots, both may be regarded as significant progressive interventions in the subgenre of queer musical theatre.

It warrants noting that both The Prom and A Strange Loop have been critically lauded and have received numerous awards and recognitions. The Prom, with a book by and

Chad Beguelin, music by Matthew Sklar, and by Chad Beguelin, was a 2018-2019 The

New York Times Critics Pick, won the 2019 for Outstanding Musical, and received numerous Tony Award nominations including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. Additionally, it was announced in 2019 that would adapt the stage version of the show into a movie musical for streaming site Netflix. Similarly successful is A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson which has received numerous recognitions, including being the first Off-Broadway musical by a Black queer writer, composer, and lyricist to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. This Off-Broadway production also garnered numerous nominations and won numerous awards, including the Award for

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical; The Drama

Desk Award for Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Actor in a Musical, Outstanding Lyrics, and

Outstanding Book of a Musical; The New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical; 140 and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best New Musical. Before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down theatres in early 2020, the show was set for a restaging at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC, in September 2020; this restaging has been rescheduled for Summer 2021.

For the purposes of my argument, these critical accolades and commercial successes support my claim that queer representation within musical theatre are increasingly complex and nuanced, and moreover, that a thorough investigation of it might very well illuminate future trends of theatre-making in the United States.

The Prom is a comedic musical theatre romp through the ideas of performance-based allyship, queer isolation, and queer acceptance. The musical centers the experience of lesbian student, Emma, who not only has been kicked out of her parents’ house for being queer but has also been barred from attending prom with a same-sex date by her conservative school board in small-town Edgewater, Indiana. While Emma is content letting this slide, and does not consider herself political or an activist, forces outside of her control do not feel the same way. A troupe of shamed actors and theatre professionals from New York City, who were deemed narcissistic and self-centered in a review for their newest Broadway show, chose Emma as their “pet project,” with the aim of rehabilitating their image. This group descends upon Edgewater to challenge the conservative minds of many of Emma’s classmates, and in so doing hope to change the perception that the profession has of them. While the work of the theatre artists from New York starts as a self-serving performance project rather than true allyship, during their time in

Edgewater this group changes in significant ways. In turn, Emma also changes through her interactions with the group; she eventually finds her voice and comes to accept who she is. In the end, Emma, with the help from her new friends, paves a way for her town to understand that acceptance and empathy will guide them all toward a better tomorrow. 141

A Strange Loop is a metatheatrical musical about a musical theatre writer creating an original piece of musical theatre. While the play is not overtly autobiographical, it is based on and centered in Jackson’s lived experiences.5 A Strange Loop follows the character of , an usher for the Broadway production of Lion King who is not content with his life. The musical follows Usher as he lives life as a Black, queer man in New York City and chronicles his constant multiplicities of self as he navigates the many intersections of his identity. The other characters that join Usher on stage are played by an ensemble of six actors who become physical representations and manifestations of Usher’s innermost thoughts and feelings. These characters switch between abstractions of Usher’s inner feelings – such as his self-worth, self-loathing, and sexuality – as well as concrete representations of people in his life – such as his overbearing parents or his latest Grindr hookup.

The “strange loop” referenced in the title is a concept and theory drawn from cognitive science. According to Eric Weisstein, a strange loop is described as a “phenomenon in which, whenever movement is made upwards or downwards through the levels of some hierarchical system, the system unexpectedly arrives back where it started.”6 The title also references a Liz

Phair song, as well as alludes to W.E.B. Du Bois’s “description, in The Souls of Black Folk, of the ‘double consciousness’ of living while Black.”7 In sum, Jackson’s musical explores the strange loop phenomenon through Usher’s experience, and charts his trajectory through systems

5 Jackson refers to the show as self-referential rather than autobiographical.

6 Eric Weisstein, “Strange Loop,” Wolfrom MathWorld, 2020, https://mathworld.wolfram.com/StrangeLoop.html.

7 Sara Holdren, “Theater Review: The Influence of Anxiety in A Strange Loop,” Vulture, June 18, 2019, https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/michael-r-jacksons-a-strange-loop-at-playwrights-horizons.html. 142 and offers an understanding of what it means to arrive back in the same place you started, having moved through the strange loop.

Through the following analysis of The Prom and A Strange Loop, I chart the potential for utopic activism within the musical theatre form. I investigate how musical theatre as a site of song and dance entertainment provides a low-risk, comfortable environment that can expose audiences to different ways of thinking and being. Through the guise of singing and dancing, these musicals explore queerness without preaching best practices of allyship. I view these musicals in similar fashion to John Bush Jones, whose work I cite at the beginning of this chapter. In sum, Jones interrogates the space between social movement and politics within musicals, arguing that musicals are “a form of popular entertainment for fairly broadbased audiences, [and they] variously dramatized, mirrored, or challenged our deeply-held cultural attitudes and beliefs.”8 As does Jones, I believe that musical theatre is a form meant to be widely enjoyed by a broad audience while offering the space to achieve social change.

The argument that follows is also informed by the work of Daphne A. Brooks, who argues in “‘Once more with Feeling’: Popular Music Studies in the New Millennium,” that form, politics, and feeling are the “three directions in which clusters of experimental and iconoclastic popular music studies scholars have headed over the past decade in a half as the field has continued to evolve.”9 This chapter follows the path that Brooks charts, by investigating the ways in which form, politics, and feelings create affect in the queer musicals The Prom and The

Strange Loop. Ultimately, I argue that these queer musicals teach valuable lessons about the

8 Jones, Our Musicals, Ourselves, 1.

9 Daphne A. Brooks, “‘Once More with Feeling’: Popular Music Studies in the New Millennium,” Journal of

Popular Music Studies 22, no. 1 (2010): 101. 143 queer self and acceptance for both queer individuals as well as heterosexuals. This occurs by using raw and honest moments, or even through lyrics that are unsanitized for popular consumption. As the balance of this chapter will make clear, queer musicals, such as those which are my focus, can dramatize, mirror, and challenge deeply held cultural attitudes and beliefs, and offer the space to prompt change in audiences.

Music as Pedagogy: What we learn through Song

“Conjunction Junction, what’s your function? Hooking up two boxcars and making ‘em run right, Milk and honey, bread and butter, peas and rice.”10 Many who grew up from the 1970s forward in the United States are undoubtedly familiar with Schoolhouse Rock, a popular television cartoon series that taught lessons about grammar, science, math, and history. The program, which originally ran on Saturday morning, was known for its educational content

(vetted by an education specialist), always delivered by way of catchy music and memorable lyrics. The popularity of the program eventually led to the development of Schoolhouse Rock

Live! (1993), a live musical revue of the Saturday morning cartoon series that continues to educate and instruct children (and nostalgic adults) through song. In recalling Schoolhouse Rock,

I point towards the pedagogical impact that music and lyrics have on individuals. In the case of

Schoolhouse Rock, by using catchy tunes and memorable lyrics to impart educational content, the creators developed impactful lessons about various subjects for young audiences. From this specific example, I assert a larger premise that will fund the argument I make in this chapter: that entertaining music lessens the labor of learning, in that it teaches audiences valuable lessons, even if they do not realize they are actively learning.

10 Bob Dorough. Conjunction Junction. YouTube. American Broadcasting Co., 1974, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoBE-E8VOc. 144

This premise is supported by numerous studies. For example, in “Memory for Music:

Effect of Melody on Recall of Text,” Wanda Wallace describes that music aids facilitation of learning and recall because of the ability to recognize and identify surface characteristics through stimulus.11 She argues that the use of music helps support the encoding and decoding process of information, because it connects information to the music and forges a bond between the two.

Likewise, Sandra Calvert in her study, “Impact of Televised Songs on Children’s and Young

Adults’ Memory of Educational Content,” states that songs have long been used as approaches towards educational concepts in childhood. Calvert cites numerous examples, including the

ABC’s song, Sesame Street, and, of course, Schoolhouse Rock.12 In their research, both Calvert and Wallace indicate that repeated exposure to songs positively influence recall of information.

In like manner, Keith Smolinski points to the powerful learning potential that music has offered science teaching praxis. Smolinski describes the use of original music in his science classroom and reports that students who interacted with content by way of music reported higher test scores.13 Similarly, Donna Governor, Jori Hall, and David Jackson explore the efficacy of music in science education in “Teaching and Learning Science Through Song: Exploring the experiences of students and teachers.” They argue that music has an integral place in education, both from a constructivist approach but also from socio-cultural perspective, as well as a

11 Wanda Wallace, “Memory for Music: Effect of Melody on Recall of Text,” Journal of Experimental Psychology:

Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, no. 6 (1994), 1482.

12 Sandra Calvert, “Impact of Televised Songs on Children’s and Young Adults’ Memory of Educational Content,”

Media Psychology, 3, no. 4 (2001): 325.

13 Keith Smolinski, “Learning Science Using Music,” Science Scope 35, no. 2 (October 2011): 43-44. 145 cognitive viewpoint in making connections in learning.14 Governor, et al. additionally argue that music is a building block of everyday life for most young people: “songs can transfer knowledge and elicit emotion, and have potential to reach students in ways other teaching strategies cannot.”15

A parallel argument is made by Drew Shade, Keunyeong Kim, Eun-Hwa Jun, and Mary

Beth Oliver in “Using the ‘New Directions’ to Move Media Viewers in the Right Directions.”

They argue that music is often used as a site of learning through empathy and emotion, inviting the audience to feel and connect to the narrative on a deeply personal level.16 Shade et al., further their points by stating “that music and musical performance may be able to raise levels of elevation due to increased emotional understanding […] This reasoning is based on the idea that music often does more than just express emotions; music also produces emotions (Scherer &

Zentner, 2001).”17 If the idea of elevation, as Shade, et al. reports, is a heightened and meaningful affective state that produces altruistic motivations within an audience due to increased emotion, music might be one of the best mediums for this process to occur as music can both express and produce. As Governor et al. states, music has a unique ability to teach

14 Donna Governor, Jori Hall, and David Jackson, “Teaching and Learning Science Through Song: Exploring the

Experiences of Students and Teachers,” International Journal of Science Education 35, no. 18 (2013): 3117.

15 Governor et al., “Teaching and Learning Science Through Song,” 3118.

16 Drew Shade, Keunyeong Kim, Eun-Hwa Jung, and Mary Beth Oliver, “Using the ‘New Directions’ to Move

Media Viewers in the Right Directions,” In Glee and New Directions for Social Change, edited by Brian C. Johnson and Daniel K. Faill, 3–15. Leiden: Brill | Sense, 2015.

17 Shade et al., “Using the ‘New Directions’ to Move Media Viewers in the Right Directions,” 4. 146 because of its “social nature, emotional impact, ability to carry a message, accessibility, and relevance.”18

I cite these educational studies to support my point that music is a site of learning, recall, and emotional connection. Building on them, I propose that queer musical theatre imparts lessons to its audience through musicality. Songs and music not only provide ample sites of learning, through lyrics and recall, but create and evoke emotion within the audience. The idea of empathy means that an audience feels with characters rather than feeling for them; audiences see the world through their eyes and come to better understand the world. As Jonathan Cohen states in “Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences with Media

Characters,” “by introducing other perspectives and persuading others to identify with them, new possibilities for understanding are opened that may result in attitude change.”19 Cohen’s argument invokes intergroup contact theory, which I have cited in previous chapters, and claims that empathy fostered towards fictional characters within the queer musical can offer better understandings of real life situations and people. Queer musicals become vital because they can make lesser known or talked about situations more familiar to an audience that might otherwise never be exposed to such topics.

Additionally, as music is typically a site of entertainment and “fun,” learning about issues facing queer individuals through the medium of music might seem lower stakes to an audience.

These lower stakes help audiences feel comfortable learning new lessons regarding those marginalized peoples and issues. Governor et al. address this idea by invoking the idea of

18 Governor et al., “Teaching and Learning Science Through Song,” 3118.

19 Jonathan Cohen, “Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences with Media

Characters,” Mass Communication and Society 4, no. 3 (2001): 269. 147

“musical imagery repetition,” an idea that was conceived by Sean Bennett in 2002 that asserts that songs meant for learning are often written to a generally catchy beat, and are songs that are meant to get stuck in your head.20 While the songs in these musicals were not necessarily written as education or pedagogical tools, I nonetheless believe their potential to educate audiences thrive in their entertainment value and the ways in which the songs permeate an audiences memory.

An example of a song within The Prom that teaches audiences while also being an empathetic and “bouncy beat” is “Love Thy Neighbor.” This song is performed by Trent, a member of the New York City troupe of actors, who was trained at Julliard and is always ready to remind anyone of his pedigree. Trent is enamored “by the power of Lady Theatre,” and joins the shamed actors in their quest to rehabilitate their image.21 In the course of the song, he addresses hypocrisy when people choose to use the bible as a weapon against the LGBTQ+ community. This song imparts to the audience of listeners, as well as Emma’s classmates, that if one is going to use the bible to “pray away” the gay, one cannot cherry pick pieces of the scripture, which is often how the bible is used in such arguments. Trent begins the song by stating to Emma’s classmates that “I’m pretty sure there are rules in the Bible that you guys are breaking every day.”22 Emma’s classmates immediately take offense to this notion and try to argue. Thematically this is significant to the plot of the show, as Trent reinforces the double standards often levied against the queer community then, through sassy and upbeat lyrics,

20 Governor et al., “Teaching and Learning Science Through Song,” 3118.

21 Chad Beguelin, Bob Martin, and Matthew Sklar. The Prom, New York, NY: Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2019,

7.

22 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 91. 148 provides numerous examples of this hypocrisy. He begins by targeting mean girl Kaylee and her tattoo, as well as Shelby’s loss of before marriage. Trent then targets a student whose parents divorced before addressing all the young men,

TRENT. There’s no way to separate

Which rules you can violate

Let’s hope you don’t masturbate

‘Cause the scripture says we’ll have to

Cut off your hands.23

Throughout the song, Trent provides examples of “sins” that people do on a regular basis that by biblical standards are as morally wrong. Through his use of lyrics and catchy upbeat music, audiences are ear-wormed with a tune that teaches and imparts wisdom about a book that often is used to condemn homosexuality.

To further address the ability of both The Prom and A Strange Loop on their ability to create empathy and advocate for social change through song, I look to some reviews, as well as social media posts, to understand audience’s engagement. While admittedly anecdotal, my findings are nonetheless telling. Regarding The Prom, Jesse Green remarks in his review for The

New York Times that, “it consistently delivers on its entertainment promises as well as its Golden

Age premise: that musicals, however zazzy, can address the deepest issues dividing us.”24 David

Rooney, discussing similarities between The Prom and the West-End ’s stage hit

Everybody’s Talking about Jamie, states that The Prom “points toward a generational shift in

23 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 93.

24 Jesse Green, “‘The Prom’ Review: Bringing Hands to the Heartland,” The New York Times, November 16,

2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/theater/the-prom-review.html. 149

LGBTQ acceptance, providing upbeat acknowledgment of the capacity for open-mindedness among today’s youth even in churchy communities.”25 Likewise, in his review for

BroadwayWorld, Michael Dale speaks to the empathy of the production reporting that “along with all the laughter, there’s a great deal of feeling in The Prom, a musical that helps prove there’s no better spectacle on Broadway than inspired writing, terrific melodies, big enthusiastic performances and a production loaded with honest-to-goodness heart.”26 David Cote also reflects upon the “bouncy beats” of The Prom relating the tunes to its artistic descendants such as

Hairspray or Mean Girls, and notes that for a Broadway that seemed to lack soul in many musicals, The Prom delivers in , craft, and heart.27

These reviews engage the power of The Prom to foster empathy within its audiences. The reviewers further report that the show offers space for the audience to learn about issues that deeply divide people within this country. They also highlight the importance of The Prom to the

LGBTQ+ community, stating that the musical provides a space to foster acceptance and discussion. I acknowledge that these reviews are more general in their rendering of the songs and

25 David Rooney, “‘The Prom’: Theater Review,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 16, 2018. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/the-prom-theater-1161145.

26 Michael Dale, “BWW Review: Brooks Ashmanskas Gives a Classic Musical Comedy Star Turn in Hilarious and

Touching THE PROM,” BroadwayWorld.com, November 16, 2018. https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Review-Brooks-Ashmanskas-Gives-a-Classic-Musical-Comedy-

Star-Turn-in-Hilarious-and-Touching-THE-PROM-20181116.

27 David Cote, “In a Crowded Broadway Season, Queer Teen Love Story ‘The Prom’ Deserves the Crown,”

Observer, November 16, 2018. https://observer.com/2018/11/review-queer-teen-musical-the-prom-deserves-a- broadway-crown/. 150 lyrics within The Prom. For a more nuanced look at the importance of the songs and lyrics as well as the cultural significance of the show, I turn to social media postings and engagement.

The importance of the lyrics and messaging of the show is evident on “#TheProm” social media sites, which include an onslaught of positive messages about the show, its premise, and its promise to deliver queer representation on the stage. Speaking to the power of the music and lyrics within the show, many of these social media posts invoke the lyrics to bolster their points about what the show meant to them as audience members. A prominent example of this phenomenon is Chris Rice, a Broadway actor, who posted a photo of himself and his husband

Clay dancing and included the lyrics “I just want to dance with you, let the whole world melt away [. . .] All it takes is you and me and a song.” This post aside from numerous likes, had many Instagram users commenting sharing emoji hearts or comments such as “gotta love that unruly heart of yours,” or “this is my favorite song,” or “I love The Prom!” Furthermore, the use of the song lyrics in conjunction with a photo, reinforces the celebration of queer love and joy on social media.

Another example from Instagram is Jody Smith Harper, a NYC based actor, who on

August 4, 2019 was married to her partner in front of the Broadway audience of the show. The wedding was officiated by the writer of the show and occurred during the curtain call. In the caption for her photo kissing her wife on stage she acknowledges that The Prom is “a piece of art that has meant more to me than just about any other.”28 Harper’s post echoes what many of the reviews point towards: the power of the musical to shift LGBTQ acceptance and foster empathy.

The invocations of the lyrics in social media posts and the discussion of the importance of the

28 Jody Smith Harper, “The Prom Wedding Photo,” Instagram, August 4, 2019, https://www.instagram.com/p/B0waKUfHhbW/?igshid=dq3wzwc5gpy1. 151 show as art prove that the music is a central tenet of The Prom, and further support my argument that empathy is built for audiences through such musical numbers. Similarly, in an interview with Forbes, Caitlin Kinnunen, who played Emma in the Broadway production, remarked that she has never been part of a show that has such an impact on the audience. Kinnunen goes on to acknowledge her hope that as the show lives on it will “just continue to spread its love and hope and joy. And that is its legacy.”29

A consideration of some reviews and posts about A Strange Loop tell a similar tale.

Vinson Cunningham of , draws attention to the ways that the lyrical cleverness of Jackson’s show allows the audience access to Usher’s emotions and inner thoughts.30

Cunningham goes on to mention that Jackson’s use of ghosting genres of music, such as the pop musical artist Usher and gospel music, not only draw the audience in through familiarity but sharpen Jackson’s criticisms of structures such as race and religion.31 Likewise, Frank Rizzo reports that the musical is “bolstered by vibrant songs and cutting lyrics.”32 And Sara Holdren acknowledges that the character of Usher does not try to charm the audience, and that the ensemble consisting of the characters thoughts does this instead. For her, Usher is “an overweight, angry, lonely, smart, desperate, self-destructive mess. Owens’s brave, raw

29 Molly Sprayregen, “Caitlin Kinnunen, Star Of Broadway’s The Prom, Reflects On Her Trailblazing Role,” Forbes

Magazine, August 1, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollysprayregen/2019/08/01/caitlin-kinnunen-star-of- broadways-the-prom-reflects-on-her-trailblazing-role/#cde17cb354e3.

30 Vinson Cunningham, “The Ecstatic Doubling of ‘A Strange Loop,’” The New Yorker, June 24, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/01/the-ecstatic-doubling-of-a-strange-loop.

31 Cunningham, “The Ecstatic Doubling of ‘A Strange Loop.’”

32 Frank Rizzo, “Off Broadway Review: ‘A Strange Loop,’” Variety, June 18, 2019, https://variety.com/2019/legit/reviews/a-strange-loop-review-musical-1203245457/ 152 performance is a bracing clapback at a city, a culture, and a profession obsessed with image and rife with hypocrisy.”33 Holdren’s comment depicts how Usher through his performance and songs shows the audience a more insidious look at not only New York City but also the LGBT+ community and teaches the audience new lessons regarding both. Finally, speaking to the power of the music and show overall, Elysa Gardner opines:

A Strange Loop, is entertaining, moving and disconcerting, leaving us a bit unsure of

what a proper response should be. Laughter? Tears? Rage? I suspect Jackson would

approve of all three, and add another: Engagement. When Usher sings, “I should stop

overthinking/And do the thing that’s tough,” he is urging that we all summon the courage

to do that thing, however each of us defines it.34

Gardner points to the power of plotting and music, and how the piece invites the audience to summon courage to go out and affect change.

In sum, the reviews, and social media posts regarding both The Prom and A Strange Loop point to the numerous ways in which their musicality and lyrics activate learning potential for audiences. The songs in both pieces produce meaning that provide audiences with routes to think through real-world issues in a low-stakes entertainment filled environment. Due to this reasoning, the music produced by both shows holds the potential to activate areas of utopic activism by pushing audiences closer to a better tomorrow.

33 Holdren, “Theater Review: The Influence of Anxiety in A Strange Loop.”

34 Elysa Gardner, “A Strange Loop: The Cycle of Life, on Repeat,” New York Stage Review, June 20, 2019, http://nystagereview.com/2019/06/17/a-strange-loop-the-cycle-of-life-on-repeat/ 153

Musical Theatre Forms: Songs and Meanings

Throughout the history of theatre in the United States, the genre of musical theatre has expanded to include numerous types or subgenres. These types include the book musical, concept musical, issue-driven musicals, and/or jukebox musicals (to name just a few). Each type includes idiosyncratic ideas and approaches to bring an audience into the narrative. As the opening pages of this chapter make clear, I am intrigued with a queer musical theatre subgenre, and within that area of study, the ways in which common song types frequently used across the various subgenres operate in unique ways. From a dramaturgical and structural, there are three song types that I will consider in relation to The Prom and A Strange Loop. Those song types are the “I am” song, the “I want” song, and the “new song” or the “11 O’clock Number,” which I contend might better be regarded as the “realization song” in queer musicals.

The “I am” song offers an understanding of the character, specifically who they are or how they feel. These songs provide the audience with character-building insight. The “I want” song tells the audience what the characters truly desire and what motivates them. These songs can often function as love songs, but I argue, in queer musicals, the “I want” song often has higher stakes for the queer characters than they have for straight characters. Finally, the idea of

“new song,” are numbers that do not fit into the other two categories because they require specific dramatic needs. 35 The naming of this type of song might be a bit of a misnomer, as the songs are not distinctly new, but rather they are songs that do not fall into the other two categories. Therefore, in my conceptualization of this project, I look at “new songs” through the consideration of the dramatic needs of the 11 O’clock number or the Self-Reflection/Acceptance number.

35 John Kenrick, Elements of a Musical: The Score, http://www.musicals101.com/score.htm. 154

I Am: Understanding Myself

As noted above, the “I am” song is a song that offers the audience insight into a character. These songs provide an understanding of who the character is at their core. Not every character in a musical has an “I am” song; but those who do usually use it to further their story through music and/or reveal hidden aspects of the self, that might be too difficult to say in

“normal life.” In sum, the “I am” song, is “a song which establishes a character’s personality, role in the plot, and/or motivations right away.”36

In The Prom, Emma is given an “I am” song entitled “Just Breathe.” Sung shortly after opening numbers that introduce the overarching narrative and establishes the backstory, “Just

Breathe” is the first song that the audience hears Emma sing. It functions to reveal to the audience how this character feels about living in a small town in Indiana and explores her hidden hopes and desires.

EMMA. Note to self

People suck in Indiana

Leave today

Pray the Greyhound isn’t full…

Try journaling or start a blog

Just end this inner monologue

Seethe if you must

But just breathe.37

36 Tv Tropes, “‘I Am’ Song,” TV Tropes, Accessed July 22, 2020, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IAmSong.

37 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 19. 155

These lyrics highlight the troubles Emma faces. Her words reveal her constant need to breathe and to get through the day, as well as her thoughts to try little things, such as journaling, to maintain her composure and interact with her neighbors. This song also establishes the theme of the consequences of sacrifice: Emma is consistently sacrificing herself and her happiness to make those around her comfortable. Her approach, as expressed in the lyrics, is to push down pieces of herself, in an effort to maintain some form of status quo for her straight counterparts. In short then, this “I am” song shows the many ways that Emma has come to compartmentalize and sacrifice key aspects of her identity.

Like Emma, Usher’s “I am” song, “Today,” displays a wide range of emotions and expressions that befall him at the start of The Strange Loop. This song begins with Usher, who is barely scraping by in New York City, making clear his discontent with his life. In it he describes how he wakes up each morning telling himself that he will do more and be different, and yet he also recognizes how he remains in the strange loop that consistently brings him back to his start.38 He is stuck. What is particularly compelling about Usher’s “I am” song, and marks it as a unique example of this song type, is that it is not only Usher who sings the song but other characters as well, who supply additional context in the form of his Thoughts. These added voices/Thoughts highlight Usher’s often-unstated doubts and fears and make clear that his struggle to figure out who he is in the world is a struggle that is widely shared.

Thoughts that emerge in the course of “Today” include Usher’s incessant self-loathing, which reminds him daily of “how truly worthless” he is.39 He is also haunted by Thoughts of student loan debt, of sexual ambivalence and hook up culture, and of not being Black enough.

38 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 19-20.

39 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 19. 156

One of his Thoughts checks-in to ask if Usher is “ready to invest in the Beyhive, the Stellar

Awards, or Wakanda Forever so we can finally get you into something unapologetically

Black.”40 In sum, these Thoughts represent Usher’s continued state of anxiety, and his struggles with being himself.

The “I am” songs of both The Prom and A Strange Loop serve as introductions to the queer characters. They provide insight to the characters’ hopes and dreams, and yet also their doubts and anxieties. By exploring these doubts and anxieties through song, the audience is offered the chance to see how queer individuals often fight their inner voices on the daily basis to just survive in the world. While straight individuals can empathize and understand the ideas of doubts and anxieties, the “I am” songs for both Emma and Usher further describe how these negative feelings are particularly potent when one is part of a marginalized group. The “I am” songs in both musicals define notions of these queer protagonists through their own negative reflections of themselves, as well as their own hopes for a brighter future.

I Want: Queer Longings for Normalcy

In a Howlround article titled “Gimme Gimme: The I Want Song in Musical Theatre” from February 2016, Sarah R. Warren states that this is a type of song that is a “convenient form of character development where the protagonist croons their way through a detailed description of their heart’s desire.”41 Furthermore, the TVTropes entry on “I want” songs notes that these songs typically offer the audience the ability to identify with a protagonist. The author of the entry goes on to mention that “some musicals use this song as an opportunity for social

40 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 19.

41 Sarah R. Warren, “Gimme Gimme: the I Want Song in Musical Theatre,” HowlRound Theatre Commons,

February 26, 2016. https://howlround.com/gimme-gimme. 157 commentary, focusing almost as much on what the characters are trying to escape (usually crushing poverty) as on what they’re trying to achieve.”42 Numerous characters within a musical can have an “I want” song; it is not limited only to protagonists.

In The Prom, the over-the-top Broadway star, Dee Dee’s “I want” song is titled “It’s Not

About Me.” Dee Dee is the leader of the disgruntled actors who descend upon Edgewater to rehabilitate their image in the public eye. Dee Dee, who recently starred as Eleanor Roosevelt on

Broadway, has come under scrutiny by critics for being too self-centered. Her hope is that by fostering a relationship with Emma and helping her achieve equality, the public opinion will sway to her side. “It’s Not about Me” provides the chance to explore the character’s ideas of allyship, and potentially prompts discussion regarding intent versus impact. Indeed, I argue that the writers of The Prom strategically allow Dee Dee’s intent at the point when the song is sung to remain humorously ironic, which in turn leads the audience question if she is really helping in the way she believes or if she is merely performing the idea that she is an ally in a way that is advantageous to her.

While I have termed “It’s Not About Me” an “I want” song, in truth it slips back and forth between being an “I am” and “I want” song type. In the course of it, Dee Dee often makes remarks that are clearly about establishing her well-developed (i.e., arrogant) sense of self; and yet throughout she is also furthering the idea that she wants to create change for Emma. It might be safe to say that the “I am” of Dee Dee is often nothing more than her selfish “I want.” In any case, Dee Dee’s “I want” song shows a strikingly different version of a character’s core and desires. This is one way in which the musical theatre song forms demonstrate the privilege of

42 TV Tropes, “‘I Want’ Song,” TV Tropes, Accessed July 22, 2020, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IWantSong. 158 straight characters versus queer characters. While Emma’s “I am” focuses on her insecurity and desires to just get through the day, Dee Dee’s “I want” song ironically celebrates straight characters’ allyship and showcases the privilege to have wants that extend beyond herself. As the song is sung, the question hangs in the air: does Dee Dee truly mean what she says or is she merely performing the right things to say to satisfy her own narcissistic ends?

Prior to “It’s Not About Me”, the audience learns that Dee Dee’s last Broadway show was negatively reviewed and criticized as narcissistic and self-centered. As noted earlier in this chapter, in response to these critiques, Dee Dee and her band of fellow New York City thespians decide to take-up an activist cause to show that they are more than what these reviews say. The group descends upon the small Indiana town without prior discussion with Emma. They then take it upon themselves to speak on her behalf – again without consulting with her – and fight the school board to allow Emma to take her same-sex date to the prom. Dee Dee’s grand and dramatic entrance into the town hall meeting provides the first ironic juxtaposition of the performance of “It’s Not About Me”: while the words of the song continually dictate the Dee

Dee at some level genuinely thinks none of this is about her and is instead about Emma, her actions, thoughts, and nature reaffirm that she wants it to be all about her.

DEE DEE. I want to tell the people

Of whatever this town’s called

I know what’s going on here

And frankly I’m appalled.

I read three-quarters of a news story

And knew I had to come

Unless I’m doing the “Miracle Worker” 159

I won’t play blind, deaf and dumb!43

As this excerpt from the opening of the song makes clear, Dee Dee’s want is to tell the town that they are wrong for their treatment of Emma. And yet, in the course of “It’s Not About Me,” Dee

Dee constantly positions her criticisms of the situation in relation to herself. On the one hand, in order to present herself as an ally, she must make sure it is understood that she is upset and

“appalled.” However, at the same time the lyrics make clear that she knows little of the situation and is performing allyship by not knowing the name of the town or admitting that she read

“three-quarters of a news story.” This raises the question: does she even know the full account of what has happened to Emma?

As the song pushes forward, Dee Dee goes on to continue her criticism of the town and levies numerous assaults at the town folk for their treatment of Emma. However, again, Dee Dee continues to relate the experience back to herself rather than Emma. In fact, Dee Dee when it comes time to name the girl she is there to advocate for she draws a blank, leaving her troupe of fellow thespians to fill in Emma’s name for her.

DEE DEE. Listen you bigoted monsters

Just who do you think you are?

Your prejudice and oppression

Won’t get past this Broadway star.

Stealing the rights of a girl

Who is an L.G.B.Q. Teen

I’ve been far too angry to google

What those letters mean

43 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 25. 160

But it’s not about me

It’s about poor…

BARRY, TRENT, SHELDON & ANGIE. EMMA44

This section again highlights Dee Dee’s constant re-centering of herself within Emma’s fight.

Not only does Dee Dee not know Emma’s name, she also does not know what LGBQ means.

While Dee Dee continues to assert that “It’s Not About Me,” she constantly undercuts that claim.

In “It’s Not About Me,” Dee Dee expresses her want to be regarded as a LGBT ally, which will lead to a better life for her. To be sure, any change that occurs for Emma is incidental to Dee Dee’s larger, self-serving goals. And yet, as the plot unfolds, and as her interactions with Emma lead to a deeper understanding of what it has cost the teenager to be a lesbian outsider, Dee Dee undergoes a significant change, moving from a shallow performance of allyship to an eventual accomplice willing to make genuine sacrifice and fight on Emma’s behalf. Dee Dee’s move toward embracing a more authentic brand of allyship is solidified after she performs “The Lady’s Improving” in act 2, scene 13. During an exchange with her romantic interest, Principal Hawkins, she begins to see the error of her way. Hawkins tells her that to be a good person, one must care about other people and put their hopes and well-being before one’s own.45 This exchange shakes Dee Dee who admits that she has no idea how to behave in such a fashion. She reveals to Hawkins that, she “need[s] to be de-programmed [. . .] to unlearn things like shoving and taking, and learn things like smiling and tipping. And I need help to do that. I

44 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 25.

45 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 87. 161 need a teacher. Please?”46 Thus, “It’s Not About Me” establishes a humorous starting point from which Dee Dee can grow and become a more authentic ally.

In stark contrast to Dee Dee’s humorous “I want” song is the “I want” duet between

Emma and her girlfriend Alyssa. “Dance with You” is a simple love duet between the two main romantic leads. The song highlights the desire of both women to dance with each other at the prom, free of judgement and hate. The song begins with Emma openly pointing out that she never wanted to be a symbol, a trailblazer, or riot maker/advocator for LGBTQ rights.47 Instead, she openly tells Alyssa that all her inner desires revolve around their night, their happiness, and their love.

EMMA. I don’t want to be a scapegoat

For people to oppose

What I want is simple

As far as wanting goes.

I just wanna dance with you

Let the whole world melt away

And Dance with you

Who cares what other people say.48

Emma’s wants are simple: to share one perfect, happy dance with Alyssa. However, due to the homophobic oppression of the town, Emma’s want is not possible, and the couple is instead left to sing about their wants rather than live their happy moment.

46 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 87.

47 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 33.

48 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 33. 162

This is a repeated motif for queer characters in queer musicals. Indeed, queer characters’

“I want” songs are often expressions of desire for simple loving moments that cannot occur due to heterosexist and oppressive societies that shun them for their desires and differences. The comparison between Emma and Alyssa’s “I want” song, with its plaintive message of wanting to share their love and dance together, sits in stark contrast to Dee Dee’s more grandiose desires and self-serving motives in “It’s Not About Me.” “It’s Not About Me” reaffirms the power of heteronormative society in the ability to privilege desires beyond the day-to-day survival, a privilege that many queer characters are not able to share. Furthermore, the relationship built between Dee Dee and Emma throughout the course of The Prom recall the arguments I made in chapter two, in advocating for friendship between straight and queer characters as areas for growth and learning. Therefore, while “It’s Not About Me” demonstrates Dee Dee’s initial passive and performance-based approach to activism, her engagement and friendship that is built throughout the musical takes Dee Dee on the journey towards true activism and allows her to ultimately effect change in the young woman’s life.

A similar pattern is apparent in the “I want” songs from A Strange Loop. To begin, in the previous section, I argued that “Today” is illustrative of the “I am” song type, in that it reveals

Usher’s inner anxieties and self-effacing descriptions. Yet there are ways in which “Today” is also an “I want” song, in that in the course of singing it Usher reveals his desire to break his own cycles and to “try,” “to make no compromises,” “to break the cycle that’s so ingrained in [him],” or “to make people see the true potential in his story.”49 Additionally, Usher’s conversations with his thoughts during this number further serve to reinforce his goal to make it through his day and overcome his anxieties.

49 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 20-21. 163

Throughout A Strange Loop, there are two other “I want” songs that follow each other in the script and thematically work to reveal Usher’s motives and desires. The first song is entitled

“Exile in Gayville,” a song that acknowledges how Usher feels both within and outside of to the gay community. “Exile in Gayville” addresses Usher’s want of something more than what he has found through interacting with numerous gay men on hook-up apps such as Grindr, , and

Adam-for-Adam. And yet, as the title of the song implies, he also addresses how he feels himself an exile within the very marginalized culture that should provide respite. In the course of the song, he bemoans how the “gaytriarchy” of white gay men rules the world of sex and dating in

New York City.50 In this number, the audience is presented with the myriad ways that anonymous men or those men that consider themselves part of the “gaytriarchy” gatekeep sex and often replicate racist, body-shaming, and vile behaviors behind their screens. The song calls for the white queer community to consider its own complacency, or its own “white, gay Dan

Savagery.”51 is a white gay male known for his podcast , but most widely known for being the starting influence of the “ Movement” in 2010. While

Savage has done much good for the queer community, he has also been criticized widely for his tone-deafness regarding queer intersections with race. Due to this tone-deafness, Jackson uses his name in this lyric as a doubling of do-good white gay males that also perpetrate “Savagery” against queers of color.

After “Exile in Gayville,” Usher’s thoughts once again become iterations of pervasive gay hook-up culture, appearing to him as imagined men who want to flirt and then fuck. These imagined men interact with Usher; and when he is unable to successfully flirt, the thoughts

50 Jackson, “Michael R. Jackson Breaks Down His A Strange Loop Score.”

51 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 39. 164 berate Usher telling him “see that’s really why no one wants to fuck him.”52 “Second Wave” addresses how the “second wave feminist” Usher regards himself to be, is at war with the “ sucking Black gay man” who is constantly at odds: wanting to go out and party on a Friday night but also critical and apprehensive of hook-up culture.53 This “I want” song not only discusses the duality of want within Usher, but also critiques and explores how Usher falls outside the norm of what he perceives to be the quintessential queer man. Additionally, the song points out the fear of rejection and racism within the gay online hook-up scene that is both toxic and pervasive.

USHER. So I fall outside of the norm

Cause I burn my bra to keep warm

While most of my brethren swarm

To Beyonce and

And bareback and and so on.54

Usher sees himself as different but also desperately wants to connect to something more than himself. Yet again, his thoughts and anxieties keep him locked in place, and return him to the start of his strange loop. The song may be regarded as Jackson’s endeavor to show how perceptions and longing influence queer men, and in this case Black queer men, on their journey towards self-acceptance and comfort.

As the foregoing examples make clear, queer characters’ “I want” songs typically are about their wants and desires to live and move through the world in the same manner as their straight counterparts, or about their fears and anxieties on how to exist in a world where they are

52 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 41.

53 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 42.

54 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 42. 165 continually told how to live. On the other hand, most heterosexual “I want” songs are given greater latitude, and often explore more diverse wants and desires. This contrast echoes and reflects real life phenomenon in which queer individuals, especially queer individuals of color, are not able to move through the world in the same manner as their straight counterparts. I contend that the “I want” songs echo a deep oppression of the queer marginalized community.

While there are many arguments that “gay marriage” fixed the heterosexism problem of the

United States, heterosexism is still largely unchecked. There are still ways for employers to fire individuals for being queer, and hate crimes aimed at queer individuals still occur regularly

(especially hate crimes perpetrated against trans women of color).55 The queer “I want” song serves to remind audiences of the on-going desire of queer identified individuals to simply exist and love. In other cases, the “I want” shows inner desires that stem from consistent anxieties and self-doubts that lead queer characters to simply want more for their lives. Such anxieties and doubts come from their treatment as part of marginalized communities, where often the desire for something more is the desire to be equal or “normal.” The “I want” in the queer musical exists as a utopic activist point of discussion to open conversation towards this simple desire, and drive audiences towards letting queer people simply live.

Realization and Acceptance: 11 O’clock Numbers and Self Reflection

The final type of song is the “new song,” which encompasses songs that do not fall under the categories of the “I want” or the “I am.” In this section, I consider the “new song” as 11

55 According to the Campaign (HRC) website, at the time of this writing (February 2021), there were at least 44 transgender or gender non-conforming individuals fatally shot or killed by other violent means during

2020. The HRC also draws attention to “at least” because often these crimes go unreported or misreported. 166 o’clock numbers and explore how these songs typically become moments of self-reflection and acceptance. According to Ben Rimalower for .com, the original meaning of the term “the

11 o’clock number” came from a reference to the song that would occur around 11:00 pm when shows had an 8:30 pm curtain time.56 While the original meaning of the song had to do with physical time of the performance, sans any concern for the particulars of plot, these numbers evolved to have a specific meaning to musical theatre scholars. As Rimalower points out, “first and foremost, the 11 o’clock number was an invigorating highlight to leave the audience delighted at the end of the show, a memorable melody they could leave the theatre humming, and often something of an up tune to brighten their mood.”57 The song changed further when book musicals became more character driven and the 11 o’clock number, in turn, became about a character experiencing some form of realization, reversal, or change of heart that drives the musical towards it close.58 Famous examples of 11 o’clock numbers include “I Know Where I’ve

Been” from , “Back to Before” from , “Cabaret” from Cabaret, and “Rose’s

Turn” from .

The Prom’s 11 o’clock number belongs to Emma and is titled “Unruly Heart.” The penultimate song of the second act of the show, “Unruly Heart” begins with Emma addressing her laptop, prepared to record a video on social media. With her guitar in hand, she speaks to her on-line audience, telling them her story, from her perspective, for the very first time. Emma’s encounters throughout the show have provided her with confidence and self-acceptance to finally

56 Ben Rimalower, “‘This Time For Me’: The Essential 11 O’Clock Numbers,” Playbill, July 19, 2014, https://www.playbill.com/article/this-time-for-me-the-essential-11-oclock-numbers-com-324660.

57 Rimalower, “‘This Time For Me’: The Essential 11 O’Clock Numbers.”

58 Rimalower, “‘This Time For Me’: The Essential 11 O’Clock Numbers.” 167 speak out for herself, her queer community, and for others who feel like her. Following a theme through the script of changing through those around you, Emma’s interactions with the

Broadway stars, shifted her perceptions of self. As a result, she is more open, confident, and willing to challenge the status quo. Her chance to show the world her new, confident self is inspired by the actions of Mrs. Greene, the homophobic head of school board (and mother of her girlfriend, Alyssa), and some hostile students who endeavor to create a “fake prom” and humiliate Emma. Fueled by this indignity, she decides to speak out to create change. The song begins with Emma playing her guitar and singing:

EMMA. Some hearts can conform

Fitting the norm

Flaunting their love for all to see.

I tried to change

Thinking how easy life could be

I just kept on failing

I guess that was a sign

That there wasn’t much hope

For this unruly heart of mine

Then you came along

And right or wrong

Feelings began to overflow

We had to hide

Thinking that no one else could know.59

59 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 106. 168

As the song continues, Emma recounts much of what has been shown to the audience throughout the musical. She lays bare her feelings of isolation in seeing heterosexuals being able to love freely; she expresses her desires of wanting to be able to conform and be “normal”; and then begins to describe the complex feelings of finding someone to love while also feeling as though that love must remain hidden for safety. As the previous chapters in my study make clear, these feelings of anxiety are repeated often within queer narratives as markers of queer experience and storytelling. While it is important to note this type of experience is not universal, this repeated motif is a theme to which the queer community can relate and is viewed as the driving force of much of the change within Emma.

Continuing, Emma grows more confident in herself – thanking the group of friends she has brought around her – she directly addresses her status as a lesbian in a conservative small town:

EMMA. And though I don’t know how or when

But somehow I learned to see

No matter what the world might say

This heart is the best part of me

So fear’s all in the past

Fading so fast

I won’t stay hidden anymore

I’m who I am

And I think that’s worth fighting for.60

60 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 107. 169

As Emma continues her song, both her confidence and her willingness to be an activist shift.

Somewhere along her journey something changed within her, marking her as different from the start of the musical; she now realizes that staying hidden is not a possibility and that she needs to be vocal. By telling her story she might be able to not only influence change in people who do not support her, but she might also be able to encourage others to speak their truth and impart change in their own spheres.

This hope is confirmed when lights come up on students who are commenting on and engaging with Emma’s video. These students quickly interact with Emma, telling her that they are similar or expressing their own coming out stories. One student even discusses a secret relationship he has kept hidden with his boyfriend, like Emma and Alyssa. They repeat to her that she is not alone, as she reaffirms that they are also not alone. The voices grow in harmony, together they make a pledge to no longer remain hidden or in the shadows. Then their voices together realize that

ALL. And nobody out there

Ever gets to define

The life I’m meant to lead

With this unruly heart of mine.61

Emma and her collective queer supporters emerge as proud queer individuals and ground themselves in the firm stance that they will be who they are with no shame, and that no one will be able to tell them they are wrong. Emma’s 11 o’clock number charts her trajectory throughout the musical. “Unruly Heart” explores how she began her narrative as the quiet lesbian not

61 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 108. 170 wanting to create ripples, and then affirms her desire to create change and be outspoken and unabashedly herself.

The realization song of A Strange Loop also marks a moment of transition for its protagonist and explores what it means to move through a strange loop. The titular song, “A

Strange Loop,” finds Usher at a precipice, with the self-doubt of the past on one side and self- revelation of the future on the other. As the song begins, Usher seems to be once again at the same place where he started, faced by the daunting question: will he change his life forever or will he remain the same?

USHER. Sometimes I feel so ugly

Sometimes I feel so smart

Some people stand together

Meanwhile, I stand apart

Should I give up on hoping

My point of view will shift

And let this agony

Just be my greatest gift?62

Significantly departing from his past habits, Usher choses to let his agony be his greatest gift in this moment. He realizes that though he is different, his standing apart from the crowd in fact gives him a powerful, self-affirming vantage point on life and experience.

He then goes on to conquer his thoughts and overthinking nature by realizing that there is nothing wrong with him and that he does not need to change. Instead, Usher realizes that by accepting all aspects of himself he can release his inner hungry lion and overcome things such as

62 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 97. 171

“toxic Tyler Perry,” and “white, gay, male tyranny.”63 Usher’s recognition that there is indeed nothing wrong with him transforms him from moments of self-loathing experienced in Usher’s

“I am” song “Today,” and instead demonstrates Usher’s newfound confidence in a place of self- acceptance, ultimately, closing his strange loop.

The 11 O’clock or realization/self-acceptance song of both musicals hold the potential to remind audiences that there are many self-imposed blocks toward acceptance that queer individuals must overcome. Both The Prom and A Strange Loop use the often-used musical theatre song types to navigate how their queer characters must learn to accept themselves in order to move through their lives and come to terms with their identities as part of a marginalized community. Both “Unruly Heart” and “A Strange Loop” provide space to explore the thoughts and feelings of the queer characters and offer the audience the ability to critically engage what it means for queer characters to come to terms with self-acceptance after navigating their feelings of “otherness.”

The Queer Experience: Radical Joy as Pedagogy

In her study The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Sara Ahmed argues that heteronormativity affects body surfaces and involves ways of orienting the physical self towards and away from others in an attempt to preserve the heterosexual ideal.64 She goes on to note that “to practise

[sic] heterosexuality by following its scripts in one’s choice of some love objects – and refusal of others – is also to become invested in the reproduction of heterosexuality,” and to suggest that the following of this script makes strong claims for men/women couplings.65 As a result, queer

63 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 97.

64 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, New York, NY: Routledge, 2015, 145.

65 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 147. 172 subjects often feel fatigue due to the corrections and departure they make in order to maintain a feeling of heteronormativity and prevent the presumption of failure by not following prescribed scripts.66 Building on Ahmed’s ideas, I am led to ask: What happens when queer orientations are normalized? What occurs when queer musicals shift from a predisposition with queer/straight relationships and power dynamics of heteronormativity? What follows when heteronormative straight narratives are destabilized, and queer joy is centered?

The world of The Prom is not a utopia; most queer narratives are not set in Schitt’s

Creek-esque towns where heterosexism and hate do not exist. The Prom reminds audiences from the very start of this reality for queer individuals through the schoolboard’s treatment of Emma and to not allow her to bring a same sex date to her senior prom. It is further solidified through the character of Mrs. Greene, who is a constant foil to Emma. The world of

The Prom solidifies the real-life experience of queer individuals who feel fatigue at those corrections and departures with which they must contend daily. However, while this hate exists within The Prom, it is not a convention that breaks down and destroys queer joy from being produced; instead, it amplifies that joy by offering an obstacle that must be overcome. The presence of queer joy is palpably present in two ensemble numbers, “Tonight Belongs to You,” and “It’s Time to Dance.”

“Tonight Belongs to You” is the act one finale of the show. The number begins with

Emma’s prom makeover with her “Uncle” Barry. As he sings, he shares secrets of looking great and having confidence to make waves in life. He encourages her to go big, own her sexuality and self, and make the night her own.

BARRY. One thing’s universal

66 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 147. 173

Life’s no dress rehearsal

So why not make some waves before it’s through?

Go big, or you’ve blown it

It’s time that you own it

Let’s make it clear that tonight belongs to you.67

Barry’s confidence and advice begin to build Emma’s own sense of self, an aspect of her identity that blossoms in the second act. Other students also join in this number highlighting their own confidence and dreams for prom to be everything for which they hope. And yet, as the number continues, the horrific truth drops as the audience realizes that the school board, led by Mrs.

Greene, and some members of the student body, have tricked Emma. While they have planned their own elaborate prom for the “normal girls,” they have also planned a fake prom for Emma.

While Emma is ultimately upset and traumatized by this moment, it also fuels her fire to create change and fight back throughout the second act. Her queer joy, momentarily offset, cannot be destroyed.

The finale of the show, “It’s Time to Dance,” which represents the culmination of numerous characters’ journeys, offers a strikingly different tone from “Tonight Belongs to Us.”

“It’s Time to Dance” commences after Emma, with the help of her friends, plans, decorates, and holds an alternative inclusive prom that invites and accepts all through its doors. Mrs. Greene again tries to thwart this plan but is told that as it is not a school sanctioned event and held in a public space, she cannot do anything to stop this from happening. This leads her daughter Alyssa to come out, choosing her happiness with Emma rather than living a lie. In the end, then, Emma and Alyssa are finally able to achieve their queer joy and make good on the desire expressed in

67 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 62. 174 their “I want” song: they are able to dance happily and openly in front of their peers at prom.

Thus, “It’s Time to Dance” celebrates queer joy by recognizing the need and power of carving out accepting, brave spaces for queer youth:

EMMA & ALYSSA. Build it now

Make people see

How the world

Could one day be

It might come true

If we take a chance

But till that day comes

I say cue the drums

It’s time to dance.68

The number builds to its climax as straight and queer couples enter the prom eager to celebrate and dance on a night that belongs to their happiness.

Significantly, this number was performed at the 2018 Annual Macy’s Day

Parade.69 The performance of the song made waves with conservative media and viewers because the end of the musical number included a same-sex kiss between Caitlin Kinnunen

(Emma) and Isabelle McCalla (Alyssa), marking the first time in the 92-year history of the that a same-sex kiss was featured in the programming. However, not every viewer was happy about this moment. In her recap of the parade for ThinkProgress, Jessica M. Goldstein reported about the outrage on twitter from conservative group ForAmerica. Goldstein shared that

68 Beguelin et al., The Prom, 122.

69 This performance can be found at YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEgtl5f8e8 175 the group tweeted that NBC and Macy’s had “blindsided parents who expected this to be a family program” and instead was a program that showed two girls kissing and broke the innocence of youth across the United States.70 This treatment and conversation surrounding the kiss at the Macy’s parade further illustrates how the ideas set forth within “It’s Time to Dance” remain controversial for many. This moment echoes Ahmed’s assertion that following the scripts of love objects which call for men/woman couplings invests in the reproduction of heterosexuality. Therefore, a same-sex kiss on the Macy’s Parade would be in direct contention with the call to maintain heteronormativity. Furthermore, this controversy echoes the plot of the musical itself: conservative groups that want to crush queer joy under the premise of “family decency,” while the queer creators and shows continue to carve out space for how they believe the world could one day be.

This moment demonstrates how theatre and performance offers avenues of remaking or shifting change in the world. The fact that this simple kiss caused so much controversy for being shown in a mainstream television broadcast highlights the necessity for representation and conversation surrounding sexuality in our programming. Furthermore, this kiss – again, broadcast on the 92nd anniversary of the parade, and occurring in 2018 – raises the question: why did it take so long for any form of queer representation to be included in such performances?

Additionally, while it could be read that NBC and Macy’s response is based in profit cost analysis, I nonetheless assert the importance of this moment. That regardless of the intent and analysis behind the decision, seeing a lesbian couple included within the programming is a milestone for queer representation in popular culture. Furthermore, this moment pushes us further towards the idealized potential on the horizon if we continue to work towards it. The

70 Goldstein, “Macy’s Parade Features Its First Same-Sex Kiss, Conservative Group Is Appalled.” 176 lyrics of “It’s Time to Dance” bridge notions of utopia a la José Esteban Muñoz by recognizing and championing a world that could one day come to fruition if the characters build together towards that goal. These lyrics activate the sense of a better something is on the mythic horizon, not quite in our reach yet, but able to be achieved together with work.

As noted above, The Prom was adapted for television, and released by Netflix in

December of 2020. While this adaptation led to many criticisms and controversies on social media concerning the poster, which minimized the love between Emma and Alyssa, as well as the casting of in the gay role of Barry, there was one great benefit of queer joy that resulted from the film. Jo Ellen Pellman, who played Emma, and Ariana DeBose, who played

Alyssa, both queer actresses, started The Unruly Hearts Initiative after portraying these dynamic characters. The pair state that they

created the Unruly Hearts Initiative for anyone who is driven to get help or inspired to

make a donation after watching THE PROM on Netflix. Often when we’re overwhelmed

and looking for help, we don’t know where to begin. The initiative connects our young

audiences with trusted organizations that advocate for the LGBTQ+ community through

resources.71

Pellman and DeBose plan on hosting events to raise funds for their endeavors and actively seek to connect young queer individuals with help and support as needed. The pair created queer joy out of their experience with the musical, and plan to use their to better their community as a result.

While A Strange Loop also celebrates queer joy, it does so in ways strikingly different from The Prom. As my foregoing analysis makes clear, The Prom culminates in a big queer

71 Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose, “About,” Unruly Hearts Initiative, December 2020. 177 ; conversely, A Strange Loop displays its examples of queer joy in subtler ways throughout its plotting. First, as noted in my examination of the song, “A Strange Loop,” this self-acceptance song offers one celebration of queer joy, albeit one more modest and perhaps more individually focused than a big queer dance party. And yet, this humbler expression of queer joy is no-less profound. To be sure, by overcoming his self-perceptions and doubts Usher feels ready to break his strange loop and make progress in his life and on his musical; that choice to tell one’s queer life story is in and of itself is a celebration of queer joy. Second, and connected to the first point, Jackson’s writing and use of self-referential material celebrates queer joy through a queer writer writing his experiences into the story. Due to Jackson’s position within the Black queer community the nuances and situations within A Strange Loop celebrate queer joy as natural and real. Third, queer joy is evoked through the song “Sympathetic Ear” in which one of the Thoughts in Usher’s head takes up the vision of a theatre patron from Florida who offers Usher specific advice for living life.

PATRON. Stay the course, seize the day

Ride the horse into the fray

Live your life and tell your story

In exactly the same way:

Truthfully, and without fear

Despite those who wish you would disappear

Find joy inside your life while you’re still here

That’s your challenge from a sympathetic ear.72

72 Jackson, A Strange Loop, 56. 178

The patron encourages Usher to find his joy while he is still on the earth, which reminds the queer community that there is privilege in being alive right now.

Like The Prom, A Strange Loop celebrates queer joy in the popular culture that surrounds the show. The musical caused historic waves by being awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

This is a moment of joy for numerous reasons, including that musicals are seldom granted the same amount of recognition by the Pulitzer committee as are dramas. Add to this, A Strange

Loop marks the first time that a musical was awarded the Pulitzer without being produced on

Broadway. Moreover, A Strange Loop receiving this honor marks the first time that a musical written by a Black queer man has received the award. These critical accolades and achievements were matched by its noted commercial success: A Strange Loop sold out most of its Off-

Broadway run. While the immediate future of the show is clouded due to the ongoing pandemic, it nonetheless seems certain that the play has a bright future and will continue celebrating queer joy.

Conclusion: Once More with Feeling

As I noted in the prologue of this chapter, queer characters are not necessarily something new to musical theatre. What is relatively new, however, is the proliferation of musicals that deal with explicitly queer leads and follow narratives of queer life. While the two musicals explored in this chapter are not the only examples of queer musicals that should be celebrated, they stand as evidence of how queer themed musicals and characters are changing in positive ways. Not only are The Prom and A Strange Loop significant because of their narratives and representation, but both shows went further in creating shifts in social justice culture surrounding their productions in contemporary culture. 179

Throughout this study I have sought to argue that it is essential to continue to show a diverse variety of queer voices within queer musical theatre. This move to embrace more diversity needs to be apparent not only in the works being written and produced, but also in casting decisions and the hiring of other artistic personnel (i.e., directors, designers, choreographers, etc.). Two other recent queer musicals, Head over Heels and Everybody’s

Talking About Jamie, are examples of casting within queer musicals that have begun seismic shifts. For instance, ’s casting as the Oracle of Delphi in Head Over Heels: A New

Musical, marked the first openly to originate a role on Broadway. Likewise, the lead character of Jamie (while based on a true story about a white male) has been played by actors of color, and numerous characters within the show are written for non-white actors including Black, Iranian, and Asian characters. Additionally, as scholars continue to address these developing trends in queer musical theatre, it is urgent that they also continue to explore the works that draw attention to the diverse realities of the queer community and the world.

As Daphne A. Brooks states “exposing and examining the self in writing about music can yield profoundly insightful revelations that extend far beyond the self.”73 I believe her point also stands true for queer creators crafting musicals. These works not only open expressions of self, but they extend beyond the writer as well. For queer audiences, these works allow pieces of queer individuals to be seen or read for the theatrical stage and offer discussions and nuanced depictions that are not often seen within musical theatre. These works also offer straight audiences the opportunity to be able to connect with a story and situations with which they may not be familiar. As such, the straight audience is exposed to those new ways of thinking or they become aware of situations that they never considered because of their privilege. These areas

73 Brooks, “‘Once More with Feeling,’” 102. 180 offer the space that point us towards something new, something better if we work together and try. By singing out, and trying once more with feeling, that horizon is reachable. 181

CHAPTER V. QUEER THEATRE LEGACIES: CREATING, CONNECTING,

CONTEXTUALIZING, AND QUESTIONING

“It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.”1

Prologue: Building Queer Worlds

“Representation matters.” Over the past few decades, this two-word credo has been a rallying cry for many groups including scholars of popular culture, as well as audiences, calling for more fully realized queer characters. While this call has been mostly aimed at culture makers working in television and film industries, it is also felt in theatre. Consumers that have been traditionally marginalized, including queer consumers, now demand characters that represent their complex lived experiences in actual social life, that is, that “matter.” These queer consumers are no longer willing to accept characters meant to only check a diversity box, to serve as a foil, or whose sole function is the best friend to the straight main characters. This cry calls for characters that mean something, who have autonomy, and are essential to, if not central to, the plot.

In this chapter, I investigate Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance (2018). I attend to this widely popular and critically lauded script alongside foundational queer works, Boys in the Band

(1968) by Mart Crowley and Angels in America (1991) by . I argue that The

Inheritance not only represents the functioning of queer life in the contemporary moment, but also engages with how contemporary queer communities relate to the past. In doing so, Lopez

1 E.M. Forster, Maurice (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011). 182 charts a roadmap for utopic activism. His play, like those that came before, establishes that queer life and culture is vibrant and important. It departs from those earlier pieces as it explicitly explores the insidious effects of self-hate and heterosexism within the queer community; that is, the ways in which queer men contribute to problematic behaviors. Thus, Lopez affirms that while much of queer life is celebrated and has become better (as compared to the 1950/60s or before) there is always room to grow. The Inheritance demonstrates the potential of a better world on the horizon if we work together to build that opportunity.

Throughout this chapter, I build upon the groundwork laid in the preceding chapters.

Again, drawing upon theories of dramaturgy and pedagogy, I bridge gaps between historiography, genre, and emotional relationships to investigate The Inheritance. I begin by exploring the ways that queer creation provides vital areas of discussion regarding queer theatre and the ways in which theatre for community and by community offers potential learning as utopic activism. Then, I explore the “found family” dynamic within the plot. By exploring the concept of found family, I advocate for how this important queer kinship structure is infused into contemporary queer theatre as a familiar narrative thread to which many members of the queer community might relate. I then attend to the numerous theatrical queer hauntings of history and culture that Lopez deploys in his sprawling epic drama. These hauntings teach or reinforce to both the queer and straight audience numerous aspects of queer history and culture that must be acknowledged and remembered to move toward the utopic horizon imagined by Muñoz. Finally, by exploring controversies that surround The Inheritance I address the ways that queer theatre can continue to push towards a better tomorrow and imagine the myriad discussions that must occur to achieve equity within queer theatre. I conclude this chapter with final reflections on the legacies of queer theatre and landmark gay dramas. 183

One aspect of making fully realized and believable characters is the bridging of queer life and culture to performance. This means not only including explicitly queer characters in plots, but also allowing queer writers to write their life experiences into scripts. The benefits of doing so are multiple. To begin, queer authors offer their queer audience the ability to connect with similar experiences. In turn, the queer audience builds a connection to the plot, and experiences a sense of authenticity or verisimilitude because they experience a piece of themselves reflected.

Moreover, for heterosexuals that audience these works, the inclusion of queer life and culture offers the opportunity to learn about and recognize moments that are meaningful to the queer community, thus providing an insider perspective of cultures and experiences that matter to their queer neighbors, friends, and family members.

This chapter explores the phenomenon of queer life, culture, and experience reflected on the page and stage. In the pages that follow, I draw connections from the contemporary to the past, considering the ways in which queer theatre has developed, and the legacies that both benefit and problematize current practice. By doing so, I argue that contemporary queer theatre- makers, committed to depicting queer life and culture in all its complexity, encourage utopic activism. In making this argument, I do not contend that queer theatre and plays from the past have not done important activist work; rather, I focus on how plays in our contemporary moment push further, and in so doing, encourage audiences to prompt change, or reconsider points of view. Furthermore, I confirm the importance of these works from the past, as their legacies have helped build queer theatre into a recognizable genre. This exploration maintains one of the ideals of theatre for social change, which highlights that theatre for community and by community is a worthwhile and important endeavor. However, I hold as well that it is also incumbent on scholars working in the present to discuss and problematize the tropes that permeate the history of queer 184 theatre and bring attention to such issues. Ultimately, scholars working the field of queer theatre must remember that considering problematic issues within scripts does not take away their value to queer theatre history, but rather demonstrates the ability to think critically and understand that we can simultaneously enjoy, applaud, and critique.

Though the dramaturgical strategies employed by Crowley, Kushner, and Lopez in The

Boys in the Band, Angels in America and The Inheritance respectively are distinct from each other, they are similar in their collective call for human connectedness, aimed at propelling audiences forward, stronger and together. Whether or not these playwrights realized it when they were writing these works, each provided audiences insights novel to the mainstream theatre of their respective times. Regarding their thematic similarities, in his review of The Inheritance on

Broadway, Tim Teeman notes that all three plays, “chart a path that [their] LGBTQ audience knows all too well in millions of different individual ways: a route that can encompass pain, rejection, the closet, and self-acceptance to searching for fulfillment, healing, purpose, and connection (if one is successful.)”2

These three plays – The Inheritance, Angels in America, and The Boys in the Band – are often referred to as landmark gay dramas, representative of the eras in which they were written.

Crowley’s The Boys in the Band, created during the Stonewall era, was one of the first gay theatre pieces to be performed on stage after the repeal of the Wales Padlock law in New York

City. After years of censorship under that law, it was one of the first pieces that included explicitly queer characters talking about queer life and experience. Likewise, Kushner’s Angels in America is critically acclaimed for its depictions of gay life in the 1990s. The production of

2 Tim Teeman, “‘The Inheritance’ on Broadway: An Epic Story of Gay Ghosts, for Good and Bad,” The Daily

Beast, November 18, 2019. 185

Angels is often cited as a moment of shift in theatre history, where gay theatre became more mainstream due not only to Kushner’s endeavor to represent gay life in ways not theretofore seen, but also because of the number of awards and critical praise it received.

The Inheritance premiered in London in 2018 before transferring to Broadway in the fall of 2019. Like Kushner’s work, it is a sprawling epic that spans over 6 hours of performance. The script, running almost 300 pages, thematically uses E. M. Forster’s as a conceptualizing plot. As the very title of the piece implies, one vital aspect explored by Lopez is intergenerational friendships and relationships between members of the gay community. More precisely, it features an older generation – Henry and Walter – a middle generation – Eric, Toby, and their friends – and the younger generation – Adam and Leo. These three generations of gay men, with different experiences and attitudes, converge and connect to tell their stories.

In its summary of the plot, Playbill.com notes that the play “occurs in contemporary

Manhattan, where Eric and Toby are 30-somethings who seem to be very much in love and thriving. Chance meetings lead to surprising choices as the lives of three generations interlink and collide—with explosive results.”3 Many critics, including Terry Teachout, Tim Leininger, and Ben Brantley, compared Lopez’s epic to Kushner’s Angels, noting similarities in length while also questioning if the show is truly worthy of that comparison. Regarding the comparisons to length, Michael Billington, writing for , explains that for an audience that spends weekends binging seasons of television on Netflix, six hours in theatre to

3 “The Inheritance London @ Noël Coward Theatre,” Playbill, n.d., https://www.playbill.com/production/the- inheritance-noel-coward-theatre-formerly-albery-2018-2019. 186 engage a sprawling epic is an easy sell.4 Furthermore, in , Terry

Teachout notes that critical consensus confirms that The Inheritance is the 21st century successor of Angels in America, but also contends that The Inheritance fails to justify that consensus.5

Conversely, as noted above, Teeman draws connections to both The Boys in the Band and Angels in America and considers The Inheritance their 21st century successor.6 Furthermore, he argues that The Inheritance “is not a coming out play but a coming-to-terms one—a reckoning of the psychological and cultural residue LGBTQ people accumulate personally and collectively.”7

Another significant connection between The Inheritance and Angels in America is their shared concern for the AIDS and HIV epidemic. As entry into a discussion of this connection it is important to first address how I intend to use these terms, which are too often misused and interchanged. In discussing AIDS and HIV, I follow Alyson Campbell and Dirk Gindt who note the following in their introduction of Viral Dramaturgies: HIV and AIDS in Performance in the

Twenty-First Century:

different contexts have led to different terminologies [. . .] HIV (human

immunodeficiency virus) to designate the virus that attacks the human immune systems

4 Michael Billington, “The Inheritance Review – Angels in America Meets Howards End,” The Guardian, March

29, 2018, 21.

5 Terry Teachout, “‘The Inheritance’ Review: Show, Tell and Repeat,” The Wall Street Journal, November 21,

2019.

6 While this chapter primarily focuses on connections to the works of Crowley and Kushner, there are many playwrights that have done extensive writing and work in this same tradition, including (but not limited to) Paula

Vogel, , Terrance McNally, Larry Kramer, and Caryl Churchill.

7 Tim Teeman, “‘The Inheritance’ on Broadway: An Epic Story of Gay Ghosts, for Good and Bad,” The Daily

Beast, November 18, 2019. 187

and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) to designate a clinical syndrome and

the collection of various opportunistic diseases and infections that attack the body as a

result of a weakened immune system. The acronyms HIV and AIDS should not be

conflated.8

As do Campbell and Gindt, I refer to these terms with an “and” rather than with a “/” to avoid conflation. This allows for the understanding of how the two terms work with each other but are also separate. Additionally, as the pair state, using HIV alone as a term for understanding and encompassing all stages of the disease is not only scientifically erroneous, but also morally and potentially ethically problematic. Doing so not only erases the epidemic of the 1980s but is a privileged seat that eradicates the fact that many people around the world are still dying of

AIDS-related diseases today.9

Additionally, Campbell and Gindt coin the term “viral dramaturgy” to not only discuss the patterns of content, organization, and structures, but also how those elements contribute to the thinking about socio-political and cultural worlds in which the works take place. In nuancing this history, they situate as significant David Román’s argument regarding AIDS representation in the contemporary moment: that despite “how ‘privileged gay white men might be based on their race, gender, and class, they nonetheless suffered tremendously’ and their experiences, artistic and activist responses deserve to be treated with respect and documented by scholars, without shaming or blaming them.”10 Finally, Campbell and Gindt reaffirm visual artist Felix

8 Alyson Campbell and Dirk Gindt, eds., Viral Dramaturgies: HIV and AIDS in Performance in the Twenty-First

Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 33.

9 Campbell and Gindt, Viral Dramaturgies, 33.

10 Campbell and Gindt, Viral Dramaturgies, 15. 188

Gonzalez-Torres’s idea that audiences at “live performances carry the experience of both the performance and the affective communities they become part of out into the world. Further, when performance is recorded, documented, talked about or written about, this experience proliferates and ripples further outwards.”11 I relate Campbell and Gindt’s thinking to Dolan’s lens, through engaging and sharing narratives with audiences, those audiences then become

“affective communities through their shared experience.”12 Therefore, the experiencing of the queer communities’ narratives offers space of utopic activism as audiences are called to enact change in their broader communities and personal lives.

This chapter does not explicitly investigate the corporeal effects of HIV and AIDS within these plays; however, the inclusion of the conversation about HIV and AIDS within The

Inheritance adds the diverse and marginalized voices of the queer community into conversations about the disease and epidemic, something that is often missing. Additionally, building on

Román’s argument that, “the ‘post-AIDS discourse’ that emerged in 1996 shifted attention away from the disease for some, but it also highlighted new urgencies especially around the topics of race, money, and the law,”13 I attend to how The Inheritance profitably furthers the discussion of the intersections of race, class, and privilege within explorations of sexuality and theatrical legacies. As Gonzalez-Torres argues regarding live performance and the ripple effect, it is my belief that the potential for utopic activism is itself a viral dramaturgy as the space for creating change in social spheres will ripple outward through communities. Finally, throughout this

11 Campbell and Gindt, Viral Dramaturgies, 11.

12 Campbell and Gindt, Viral Dramaturgies, 9.

13 Campbell and Gindt, Viral Dramaturgies, 22. 189 chapter, I draw upon my personal audience experience of The Inheritance on Broadway in

December 2019, to make further claims about how this script worked in production.

Create: For Community, By Community & Queer World-Building

The first shared aspect across the plays is that the characters created in each are drawn from real life examples, and are more broadly representative of the queer community, rather than inauthentic caricatures. While the circumstances across the plays vary greatly, dealing with a dinner party gone wrong, fighting the AIDS epidemic and having visions of prophetic angels, or dealing with the contemporary political climate and repercussions of that climate, the characters resemble people of real life. One reason for this is that all three playwrights identify within the queer community and write from their experiences and connections. Crowley confirmed the

“drawn from real-life” aspect of Boys in the Band in a 1996 interview with Patrick Pacheco for

Newsday, noting that he “knew a lot of people like those people [. . .] They were miserable and bitchy. If I was wrong, then it was definitely a reflection of what was wrong in my head. But that’s the way I saw things then.”14 Likewise, in an interview with Jill Taft-Kaufmann published in Text and Performance Quarterly (TPQ), Kushner states that coming out provided a political context for his life and that his numerous interactions with ACT UP throughout his lifetime led to his writing.15 Similarly, Lopez states that he wrote from a place of personal experience: “I wanted to write a play that was true to my experience, my philosophy, my heart as a gay man

14 Patrick Pacheco, “8 Men Out / The First Major Revival of `The Boys in the Band,’ the 1968 Play That Rattled

America’s Closet Door, Marks How Far Gays Have - and Haven’t - Come in 28 Years,” Newsday, June 16, 1996,

C15.

15 Jill Taft‐Kaufman, “A TPQ Interview: Tony Kushner on Theatre, Politics, and Culture,” Text and Performance

Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2004): 51. 190 who has enjoyed opportunities that were denied Forster.”16 The playwrights’ statements demonstrate that each wrote from their lived experiences. In doing so, they advocated for characters and situations.

One might ask: why is it important that gay characters be created by someone within the queer community; if a writer is good, shouldn’t they be able to write any experience? While the answer to this question theoretically might be “they should be able to,”, as some of the arguments I have made in previous chapters has made clear, history has shown that this too often results in gay characters that are written stereotypically, mockingly, as a means of comic relief, and/or as side characters whose primary aim is to check a diversity box. Furthermore, in queer writings by non-queer individuals, sexuality is often erased. Conversely, queer playwrights writing from their experiences within the community shifts focus onto dynamic characters that are imbued with complexity. One can consider Brokeback Mountain (2005), directed by Ang

Lee, as a notable example of the discussion of authenticity to queer cinema-making. While the film met grand critical reception, there were many who criticized the film as well for its portrayal of gay life. As William Leung points out in his article “So Queer Yet So Straight: Ang Lee’s The

Wedding and Brokeback Mountain,” “Ang Lee’s films may very well not have been queer enough; yet, anything queerer might not have been straight enough to achieve what Lee’s films were able to achieve.”17 While Leung acknowledges that Lee’s position as a straight cinema maker afforded the film a place in cinema history by leveraging acceptability politics,

16 Matthew Lopez, “What I Wanted to Say in ‘The Inheritance.’ And What I Didn’t,” The New York Times,

February 7, 2020.

17 William Leung, “So Queer Yet So Straight: Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain,” Journal of Film and Video 60, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 25. 191

Leung also points out that “it should be obvious that Ang Lee and queer are incompatible almost to the point of being antithetical—and anyone wishing to experience “true” queer cinema should look elsewhere.”18 Additionally, Leung explains that cinema makers tend to adhere to a queer or straight discourse, and that for the straight cinema-makers “they tend to be uninterested in queer; and even when these directors attempt queer, the outcome is often formulaic, awkward, uninspiring, or downright dull.”19 Leung’s expression of straight versus queer cinema-makers underscores my analysis of queer versus straight playwrights.

Furthermore, the importance of such affirming and nuanced characters may be understood by way of intergroup contact theory. As I noted in chapter two, Bradley Bond and

Benjamin Compton argue that intergroup contact theory takes a stance that stereotyping, and prejudice of a marginalized group can be reduced when members of the dominant group engage in interpersonal contact with the marginalized.20 Therefore, from a dramaturgical standpoint, the interaction of queer characters written by queer authors might effect change in social habits and ideologies purely through exposure. The validity of this theory is addressed in an article that appeared in The New York Times discussing reader’s responses in watching The Inheritance. In that piece, audience member Amy Hufford states, “as someone who was young and not part of

18 Leung, “So Queer Yet So Straight,” 25.

19 Leung, “So Queer Yet So Straight,” 26.

20 Bradley J. Bond and Benjamin L. Compton, “Gay On-Screen: The Relationship Between Exposure to Gay

Characters on Television and Heterosexual Audiences’ Endorsement of Gay Equality,” Journal of Broadcasting &

Electronic Media 59, no. 4 (February 2015): 719. 192 the community impacted by AIDS, I didn’t fully grasp the breadth of the suffering.”21 Hufford goes on to state that she connected to character, Margaret, understanding that “parents can relate to saying things they later regret and [that they] worry about the damage done by their words and actions.”22 Hufford’s statement that she was not part of the community impacted by

AIDS affirm that her interaction with The Inheritance showed her stories with which she was not familiar, and provided her space to think about said issues in new contexts. As a result, she began to rethink her own complacency to heterosexism and the queer community. This affirms the potential for an audience to engage outside of their typical experience, and then rethink their conceptions of the everyday world.

This experience is also a necessary reckoning for members of the queer community. As

Ryan Hamman states in the same article, “as a gay millennial, I’ve never felt a piece of theatre heal something in me and break me at the same time.”23 Harry Althaus echoes similar sentiments: “I am part of the generation of gay men who survived the worst of the AIDS crisis, and frankly I was unprepared for the depth of feeling the play would generate in me.”24 These statements support the idea that “representation matters,” in that it allows queer individuals to feel as though parts of their own stories or their own experiences are significant by seeing them reflected to broader audiences.

21 Editorial Staff, “Readers React to ‘The Inheritance’: ‘We Are All Just Humans Looking for a Purpose,’” The New

York Times, February 7, 2020.

22 Editorial Staff, “Readers React to ‘The Inheritance’.”

23 Editorial Staff, “Readers React to ‘The Inheritance’.”

24 Editorial Staff, “Readers React to ‘The Inheritance’.” 193

Lopez uses his position within the queer community to write moments, big and small, that connect to both queer and straight audiences. Some moments are overtly visible for both audiences, while others are meant specifically for a queer audience. One such moment occurs with a sound cue, the recognizable chime of a Grindr notification. As this cue occurs, all the gay characters reach for their phone to check their notifications. In the Broadway performance I attended in December 2019, this elicited a mixed reaction from the audience. I noticed laughs and chuckles from the presumably largely queer audience who have extensive ties to or knowledge of the dating/hook-up app and looks of confusion or non-interest from others who had no connection or knowledge of the app.25 Small moments like this appeal to the power of queer creation by queer playwrights.

In considering queer world-building and the given circumstances of queer history, another thematic conversation that Lopez writes into his plot concerns the need to remember community and collective history. Lopez, through his characters, makes claims about the nature of community and the fear that it could slowly slip away. The character Eric reinforces the value of community numerous times throughout the play.

ERIC. And in queer culture, we feel the stirring of pride when we reflect on the meaning

of Stonewall, Marsha Johnson, , Edie Windsor, Matthew Shepard, Islan

Nettles, and the bravery of the people on the front lines of the epidemic. And to let that

go means we’ve relinquished a part of ourselves. If we can’t have a conversation with our

25 I read this audience as largely queer due to the number of queer couples that were visible in the audience when I attended the Broadway performance. 194

past, then what will be our future? Who are we? And more importantly: who will we

become?26

Eric recognizes that community, pride, and knowledge of the struggles of the past is what will keep the queer community moving forward. The questions that he poses in this monologue and similar instances are not just for the characters in the play but to those engaging it. What will happen to queer community if we cannot bridge the past and the present? Where will we go?

Who will we be?

In many ways, Lopez’s characters reflect similar ideals of those written by Kramer. A gay playwright and AIDS activist, Kramer was notoriously known for not caring who he upset or angered with his progressive agenda for the queer community. He frequently worried that the queer movement would end in a sacrifice of the communities’ own values in exchange for acceptance.27 While this point of view is evident in Eric’s aforementioned quote, it is again reinforced during part 1, act 2, scene 2, during Eric’s thirty-fourth birthday party. Within this scene, Eric and his group of friends discuss visibility and identity politics and societal participation within the queer community. The exchange gets heated as the men share their points of view.

JASON 1. I mean, sure it’s great Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing Milk, but

American students are still taught nothing about queer history. Tristan’s niece may know

‘yas kween’ but I bet she can tell you nothing about the UpStairs Lounge fire, Barbara

Gittings, or the sip-in at Julius’.

26 Matthew Lopez, The Inheritance (Faber & Faber, 2020), 90.

27 Kramer died on May 27, 2020. The numerous obituaries, social media posts, and memorandums recount and affirm his fight for the LGBT+ community and his progressive fight towards a better tomorrow. 195

TRISTAN. And I’m still waiting on that biopic nobody’s yet bothered to

make.

ERIC. Yes, my point exactly! It feels like all the different facets of queer culture are

being stripped for parts and that the community that I came up in is slowly fading away.28

Through the middle generation characters of Jason, Tristan, and Eric, Lopez acknowledges the responsibility of queer community to teach, empower, and love one another, so as to continue its legacy and remember its history.

This exchange echoes Kramer’s worry of exchanging values for acceptance. Jason 1 draws attention to the trouble of mining pieces of queer culture for commodification (such as using the term “yas kween”) but divorcing the struggles and history of queer community at the same time (not knowing the history of the UpStairs Lounge fire for example). While I acknowledge there is genuine care by heterosexual playwrights to write queer stories, the benefits of queer work produced by queer individuals comes in the sense of responsibility for sharing community stories and experiences. Furthermore, queer writers write from a place of experiential knowing, and therefore, imbue their work with inside contextualization that differs from straight creators, offering another area of community building and understanding.

Lopez’s use of queer culture by mentioning events such as the UpStairs Lounge fire or the sip-in at Julius’s is also a call to action for the queer community, a moment of recognition: if you do not know about these events, then educate yourself further. Teeman echoes this moment of recognition in his review: “The Inheritance is the equivalent of a history lesson, and a morally necessary one. By harking back to that terrible time, the young men [. . .] hopefully learn

28 Lopez, The Inheritance, 86. 196 something about responsibility, both personal and collective, and about caring for each other today.”29 Furthermore, Lopez is acknowledging the tendency of schools to obscure marginalized histories. By not teaching these moments within educational institutions, the burden of knowledge remains with queer individuals to educate themselves on their own histories.

The weighty responsibility for sharing experiences and experiencing queer history, may be underscored by the work Marvin Carlson undertakes in The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as

Memory Machine. In his chapter regarding theatrical hauntings of texts, Carlson argues that “the narratives most effective in stimulating the proper emotions for tragedy are those that the audience will accept as probable, and already known and accepted stories provide the least obstacle to audience believe and acceptance.”30 In drawing upon Carlson, I recognize the importance of Lopez’s narrative being drawn from queer culture that spans literature, theatre, television, and society. The words in Lopez’s script are haunted with aspects of queer culture that offer access, relatability, and education. These hauntings occur through conventions such as mentioning historic moments like the UpStairs Lounge fire and the sip-in, or using Howard’s

End as source material.

While Howard’s End is not an inherently queer novel, its author, E. M. Forster was a gay man who struggled to accept his sexuality throughout his life. His work Maurice, published after his death, has become a critical part of queer culture. Within the sweeping plot of the show,

Lopez writes E. M. Forester as a character named Morgan. There are numerous scenes that take place outside of time and space in which a group of unnamed young men are writing their own

29 Teeman, ”The Inheritance on Broadway.”

30 Marvin A. Carlson, The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine (Ann Arbor, MI: University of

Michigan Press, 2011), 21. 197 life stories. Morgan appears to them as a mentor and writing instructor. Furthermore, through his teachings, Morgan reaffirms Carlson’s claim that already known, or ghosted stories, create believability and acceptance in an audience.

MORGAN. Hearts still love, don’t they? And break. Hope, fear, jealousy, desire. Your

lives may be different. But surely the feelings are the same. The difference is merely

setting, context, costumes. But those are just the details.31

In other words, the details allow the story to feel unique, while recycling stories and plot points gives the experience a sense of newness; or, as Carlson argues the recycling of “familiar narrative material is a phenomenon seemingly as old as the theatre itself.”32 Furthermore,

Morgan’s statement regarding how emotions feel the same is an invitation across both heterosexual and queer audiences to remember that while circumstances, settings, and contexts may be different, the base feelings of hope, fear, jealousy, desire, and love can be empathetically felt despite one’s sexuality.

Additionally, by drawing upon real-life situations, Lopez masterfully inserts contemporary queer life into performance. A few of the queer references Lopez draws upon include James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name, stories of

Fire Island, The Strand Bookstore, Edward Carpenter and George Merill. Dramaturgically these hauntings not only serve as cultural references, to impart lessons of queer culture and history to the characters, but also serve to educate the audience, who have the potential to be unaware of their meanings and importance. Following this logic, the references of significant pieces of queer culture within the text can be explored as a site of utopic activism. The text encourages the

31 Lopez, The Inheritance, 9.

32 Carlson, The Haunted Stage, 44. 198 audience, as well as the characters, to learn more about cultural signifiers and understand why they are vital to the queer community.

Another responsibility of queer creators is to not let their work be watered down or sanitized in the name of acceptability politics. I relate this once more to Kramer’s hope that queer community would not be destroyed in the name of acceptance. Furthermore, subverting the urge to sanitize keeps the spirit of the queer community strong by resisting a rewriting or taming of queer community and politics. There are numerous examples of queer content in various mediums being made more palatable, so that it may be produced or accepted in the mainstream.

Jacob Juntunen argues, however, that mainstream theatre has the power to disseminate new perspectives. In Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Rights: Making The Radical

Palatable he argues that mainstream theatre has a role in subverting and changing the dominant ideology of the United States cultural production industry.33 Juntunen states that by incorporating

“emergent ideologies into a mainstream setting they become part of a new national imaginary and thereby shift the dominant ideology.”34 He goes on to say that this is often distressing because during an assimilation process the radical is often tamed and presented as a more palatable version for the dominant audience.

While I agree with Juntunen’s point about using mainstream theatre to help disseminate new cultural production, I contend that queer creators have a responsibility to resist the taming process so that their work remains biting and explicitly queer. I, therefore, believe that it is possible to disseminate queer content to mainstream audiences, without losing the bite or

33 Jacob Juntunen, Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical

Palatable (London: Routledge, 2016), 4.

34 Juntunen, Mainstream AIDS Theatre, 4. 199 importance of what might be deemed too radical. Lopez does this throughout his script by writing experiences that hold the potential to create discomfort. One such instance is when Toby and Eric have sex for the first time in the play. In the Broadway production, this scene was done fully clothed, using physical theatre movement to conjure sexual nature, while Lopez’s words paint a picture for the audience.

TOBY. Remember that time on Fire island when we watched those two guys fucking in

the Meat Rack? That was so hot.

ERIC. That’s working.

TOBY. Yeah. I wish we’d done that. I really wanted to but you were afraid of ticks. You

riding my cock on a sheet in the Meat Rack. Or maybe a quilt. A quilt is thicker. Like my

dick in your mouth. Oh yea, there we go.

ERIC. Fuck me, Toby.

TOBY. Yeah, you want me to fuck you?

ERIC. I just said that I did.

TOBY. Right. I was just going along with, I…right, I’ll fuck you like we’re in the Meat

Rack.35

Not only does Lopez write to his queer audience by bringing up the idea of the Meat Rack in Fire

Islands Pines, a location that a straight audience might not know exists or understand the importance of to the queer community, but he does not sanitize what these men are saying to each other. Their speech and discussion about sex is vivid, it is intense, and it is meant to arouse.

This is not a script that minces language to sell an audience on its acceptability.

35 Lopez, The Inheritance, 32. 200

Lopez continues his use of heightened, arousing language throughout the scene. Toby and

Eric both describe the sensations occurring as they fuck one another. The scene gets more intense as it, and the characters, reach their respective climax.

ERIC. Fuck me harder.

TOBY. That feel good?

ERIC. That feels amazing. I love you, Toby.

TOBY. Oh God, I’m close already. Shit, I’m sorry.36

This scene not only clearly demonstrates the intense sexuality of Toby and Eric, but also reaffirms their love for one another. Lopez normalizes queer sex as a loving and natural part of a relationship, and I argue, that presenting queer sex in this form begins to make the radical palatable by displaying a human act.

As noted above, in the Broadway production, this scene was acted through physical theatre while fully clothed, yet the words and actions of the actors portrayed the intimacy, raw sexuality, and deep passion for one another. Throughout theatre history, there are examples of heterosexual sex scenes likewise explicitly occurring on stage; for example, the hayloft scene in

Spring Awakening, “Come with Me” from Lippa’s Wild Party, Laura Eason’s Sex with

Strangers, or David West Read’s The Performers. I draw attention to this history because Lopez follows a tradition of displaying sex on stage with his homosexual characters and refuses to negotiate their queerness or sexuality by doing so. The fact that the actors in The Inheritance remained clothed while numerous heterosexual love scenes take place naked on stage highlights the ongoing inequity of representation and acceptance of queer sex versus straight sex. This

36 Lopez, The Inheritance, 34. 201 further demonstrates that while representation is steadily increasing, there is still a disparity within representation.

Lopez’s frank language and in-depth storytelling might be what makes individuals uncomfortable with his work. Yet his refusal to shy away from sex and presenting it as part of a queer experience is noteworthy. Not only is presenting sex a way of normalizing queer sex for heterosexual audiences, but this presentation also holds the potential to open conversations around queer sex and safety practices that are often forgotten or ignored. Like Jason I’s point about queer history not being taught in school, students, while they receive sexual education, often do not receive knowledge in the form of queer sexual education. By writing frankly about queer sex, Lopez is saying that these conversations are not only justified but essential for queer youth because they must be educated to thrive and stay safe and healthy.

Throughout the play, both Adam and Leo represent this ideal; both are young gay men, and both had experiences that they might have been able to avoid if their lives were different.

Within the plot of The Inheritance, these experiences are conveyed to the audience in two vastly different ways. Adam’s experience is narrated to Toby, this narration holds a duality in nature first seeking to convey information about Adam’s past after Toby accuses Adam of not having

“life experience.” This is because Adam wants to be cast in Toby’s Broadway play, and Toby does not believe Adam has the understanding to portray the character for his play. Second, this narration is meant as a seduction and arousal technique from Adam toward Toby. At the start of part 1, act 2, scene 1, Adam describes a bathhouse visit to Toby. Through the course of this story, he describes the feeling of being wanted and performing sexual favors for men.

Ultimately, Adam’s bathhouse adventure, he tells Toby, led to an orgy where Adam was exposed to HIV. While Adam spent days concerned that he might have contracted the disease, fortunately 202 for him as a young man of wealth and privilege, his parents were able to intervene. Due to this privilege, Adam was able to quickly receive PEP treatment and remain HIV negative.37 Yet his exposure, and fear of the virus, remains with his character. Adam uses this storytelling exchange to show Toby that he does indeed understand what it means to be afraid, and his anger boils to kicking Toby out of his apartment after sharing this story. In this moment, Adam fully realizes his power.

While Adam’s experience was narrated as a conversation between two men, Leo’s experience takes place in real time within the course of the play. Leo, who is portrayed by the same actor as Adam, has similar encounters throughout his plot progression in the show.38 Leo, like Adam, falls under Toby’s spell. However, unlike Adam, Leo does not recognize his power and falls into Toby’s web of horrible life decisions. Leo is a hustler, a sex worker, on his own, with no support and is taken under Toby’s wing when Adam begins dating another man, and

Toby realizes he will not have what he desires. In part 2, act 1, scene 4, as Leo falls further under

Toby’s alluring spell, he becomes increasingly drug dependent. His drug habit leads to a co- dependent relationship with Toby, in which Leo longs to please Toby. As a result, while the two party on Fire Island, Toby suggests that Leo participates in an orgy (like Adam’s bathhouse story) to both please Toby but also unbeknownst to Leo, as payment for more drugs.

37 PEP is short for post-exposure prophylaxis. This is an emergency treatment that must be started within 72 hours of exposure and lowers the chances of contracting the virus.

38 Adam and Leo are played by the same actor, and throughout Toby makes numerous mentions of how they appear similar. It is heavily implied that Toby only is interested in Leo because of his similar look and because he could not have Adam. 203

DEALER. Yeah. There’s a full-on fuckfest happening at my place right now. My friends

have been wanting a piece of your boyfriends hot ass since you got here. Are you into

sharing your toys? (Then, holding up a packet of crystal.) Because I’m definitely into

sharing mine. Come to the party and you can have all you want…

LEO. Why don’t you go without me?

TOBY. No! I wanna watch all those guys with their hands all over you. Sucking you.

Fucking you. It’s why we came here, isn’t it?39

The above exchange between Toby and his dealer necessarily highlights that Toby only sees Leo as an object to control and use, while Leo genuinely loves Toby. Regarding the above proposition, Leo is reticent at first; however, he eventually gives in to please Toby and allows the men of Fire Island to take advantage of him for his lovers’ benefit. It is later revealed that Leo becomes HIV positive, and his life is forever changed.

The narratives of the sexual activities of both Adam and Leo speak to the importance of knowing and understanding safe sex practices, but also of the need to talk about queer sex writ large. Additionally, Adam and Leo’s experiences speak to the importance of discussing queer relationships. As I illuminated in chapter three, there has not often been discussion of toxic queer relationships within staged drama. Seeing these types of representations offers fruitful grounds of analysis for the queer community to dissect and learn that not every person loves you as you imagine. Rather, all people (despite sexuality) are capable of abusing and/or manipulating people to reach their own nefarious means. Furthermore, Lopez writes frankly about Leo being a young, homeless, queer sex worker, a representation that is not often, if ever, depicted for Broadway stages.

39 Lopez, The Inheritance, 204. 204

In addition to the script talking about these issues, the Broadway production took up the mantle of sexual education. Throughout the run, and playwright organized talk- back sessions with different organizations to educate audiences about the importance of safe queer sex practices. These talk-back opportunities were announced mainly through The

Inheritance’s Instagram account under the hashtag LobbySeries. These talk backs were educational opportunities bridging the world of the play to real life experts in the fields of queer sex and HIV and AIDS awareness. These educational opportunities offered space to shift the culture around the taboo nature of talking openly about queer sex in broader spaces.

Additionally, as I noticed when I attended the two performances, condoms were available throughout the theatre and literature about safe sex practices was openly displayed.

Ultimately, Lopez’s position within the queer community informed numerous creative factors of the play. As a member of the LGBT community, Lopez created characters and situations that stemmed from his real-life experiences as a gay man. Additionally, Lopez took responsibility for presenting an unsanitized version of queer life and wrote frankly and bitingly about situations and culture. The interventions Lopez made – in his script, with production choices, and through educational opportunities such as talk-back programming – reaffirm the importance of queer theatre made by queer creators.

Connect: Characters as Found/Chosen Family

In the section above, I argued the importance of for the queer community and by the queer community. Building upon the necessity of queer creation to the importance of landmark gay dramas, in this section I attend to the significance of found or chosen familial relationships between queer characters in all three plays. By doing so, I argue that the representation of these non-traditional familial relationships captures a vital aspect of queer life. As I argued in chapters 205 two and three, friendship and relationships are a vital part of queer kinship bonds and traverse the areas of empathy, love, and growth as areas for bettering oneself. In this section, I take the ideas explored within those chapters further by exploring the concept of the chosen or found family, which is a kinship structure that goes beyond friendship or romantic relationship. The idea of chosen family versus blood/traditional family structures resonates in queer narratives.

Before offering examples of chosen family in gay theatre history, it is useful to understand what chosen family means to the queer community, how chosen families operate, and what these chosen families offer queer individuals. Pallas Gutierrez, a GLADD campus ambassador writes that they,

came across a term that described this patchwork community I had grown up in: found

family [. . .] found or chosen families play an important role in the lives of queer people,

as 39% of queer adults have faced rejection from their birth families. Found families can

fulfill survival functions as well as emotional ones; 40% of homeless youth are

LGBTQ, and found families can sometimes help find someone a place to stay.40

By Gutierrez’s understanding, the found family is a queer kinship structure of substance due to the heightened risk for queer individuals to face rejection from their biological family.

Additionally, Gutierrez points out that chosen family is pivotal to queer kinship because the chosen family displays that “there are people who want to hear from me and who care about me, beyond the people who are obligated to, and I cannot overstate how important that validation is.”41 In the article “Why Queer People Need Chosen Families,” Kyle Casey Chu echoes this

40 Pallas Gutierrez, “The Importance of Found Families for LGBTQ Youth, Especially in a Crisis,” GLAAD, April

15, 2020, https://www.glaad.org/amp/importance-of-found-families-lgbtq-youth.

41 Gutierrez, “The Importance of Found Families for LGBTQ Youth, Especially in a Crisis,” GLAAD. 206 sentiment: “queer people have built chosen families since time immemorial: families we construct by hand and heart, in an effort to seek out the support and love one’s biological or legal family might not be able to provide.”42 Therefore, chosen families offer spaces of acceptance and support, and potential homes should queer individuals face rejection from biological kinship structures.

However, I must also note that, in the queer community, chosen family does not necessarily occlude biological family from its structure. In their study on chosen family,

“Conventional and Cutting-Edge: Definitions of Family in LGBT Communities,” Kathleen E.

Hull and Timothy A. Ortyl report that “in several cases, respondents not only described chosen and biolegal family as complementary but explicitly noted that chosen family can include biolegal family members.”43 In fact, Hull and Ortyl found that “most of the respondents who included chosen family in their definition of family described chosen family members as co- existing with biolegal family in an expansive, inclusionist definition of family.”44 It is certain that the idea and definition of family, and who is included as part of that chosen family, varies differently amongst queer individuals and within the queer community. However, what these varying reports confirm is the importance of the chosen family kinship structure to queer individuals. The chosen family is a place of acceptance, love, and support against a world of heterosexism and hate.

42 Kyle Casey Chu, “Why Queer People Need Chosen Families,” Vice, November 13, 2017, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbkp7/why-queer-people-need-chosen-families.

43 Kathleen E. Hull and Timothy A. Ortyl, “Conventional and Cutting-Edge: Definitions of Family in LGBT

Communities,” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 16, no. 1 (2018): 38.

44 Hull and Ortyl, “Conventional and Cutting Edge,” 38. 207

I again turn to intergroup contact theory as a site of utopic activism in considering the found family, as a means of offering an understanding of the queer family-making process. In

The Boys in the Band the characters are uneasy friends at best, constantly at odds with one another, and often fighting; however, it is also evident this group of men rely on one another.

Considering the time when it was written, the late 1960s, the support of fellow homosexuals was often necessary for survival. Thus, while the group seems uneasy by 2020 standards and audiences question why these men stick together, in the context of the 1960s found family meant survival even amid uneasy friendships.

Angels in America also has instances of this uneasy and yet necessary dynamic. In the case of Prior and Louis, there is a reliance on each other as support systems at the start of the play. While Prior’s diagnosis of AIDS ultimately breaks down this support structure, it is nonetheless evident. Additionally, for a period, similar support structures can be seen in Joe and

Louis’s relationship as they carry on an illicit affair. While this structure also eventually breaks down, these moments of solidarity and support for one another are pertinent.

The Inheritance is then the most recent in this line of theatrical legacy that draws upon the found family as a character enriching and building dynamic within queer plays. Lopez fills his stage with a group of queer men that are closely tied to the main characters of Toby and Eric.

Throughout the course of his sprawling plot, Lopez demonstrates how this group of men create the queer kinship structure of the chosen family. Furthermore, Lopez also thematically engages the idea of biological family versus chosen family throughout his script. For instance, Eric discusses how he has supportive parents (he lives in their family rent controlled apartment in

New York City and would more than likely consider his blood family as part of his chosen family); however, Eric still shows how the queer kinship of the found family boosts his own 208 conceptualization of self and community. In stark contrast to Eric’s experience of family is

Adam. Adam describes that his parents constantly travel, and as a result they are never home.

Therefore, while they offer Adam support in the forms of privilege, class, and finance, he receives little in the form of compassion and love.

The relationship between Adam, Eric, and Toby displays a sense of passing queer culture from one generation to the next, all done within the context of the found family. Adam is unaware of much gay literature, television, and culture. Eric steps in as a mentor; he shows and teaches Adam pieces of his queer culture to which he otherwise had no access. In one poignant moment, Eric critiques Adam’s economically privileged upbringing, ironically noting his lack of queer cultural capital, having grown up in Manhattan but never engaging with queer films or theatre. For instance, Eric mentions that Adam has never seen a Truffaut film, and the young man’s lack of knowledge around black and white cinematography. The conversations surrounding Adam’s cultural upbringing (or lack thereof) leads to Eric acknowledging that they

(Eric and Toby) love to broaden their horizons, and they now will do the same for Adam.

MORGAN. Eric and Toby took Adam under their wings that spring and early summer,

folding him into their lives as if he had always been there. Adam found himself at Eric

and Toby’s with increasing frequency, even going so far as to leave some clothes in their

guest bedroom.

YOUNG MAN 1. A fondness and an intimacy grew between them – a kind that Adam

had never experienced before with older gay men.45

Eric and Adam’s relationship is influential throughout the script, not only as a way of transmitting queer culture, but also as a way of bridging queerness intergenerationally and

45 Lopez, The Inheritance, 45. 209 showing that chosen family has no age limit. Adam is then quickly introduced to other gay characters and becomes part of a broader chosen family.

While The Inheritance focuses primarily on the relationship of Eric and Toby, the main couple of the play, the audience is introduced to a broader contingent of their friends including

Jasper, Jason 1 and Jason 2, and Tristan. Together this group celebrates birthdays and weddings, and even supports each other through the loss of friends; they are, in effect, a found family. Not only does this found family bolster each other in times of triumph, but they also critically reflect and call out the toxic traits or thinking they hold in their everyday conversations. This kinship structure shows that support is not just meant for good times, but also helps navigate through the bad to grow as humans. The found family kinship structure in this case echoes the argument made in chapter three related to Banerjea’s theory that friendship holds people accountable and helps push through negativity.

In part 1, act 2, scene 3, of The Inheritance, the support structure of the chosen family is highlighted as the men contend with the events of November 8, 2016; the night Trump won the

United States Presidential election. The Broadway production started this scene with the found family celebrating. On the minimal set, there were , , and party supplies with various characters dressed in “I’m With Her” shirts and additional Hillary Clinton garb. The scene advances as the night goes on, and as numerous states begin calling their numbers, the characters interact with each other sharing space and heartache. They show support and love to one another and share alcohol believing that there could still be a chance for a Clinton victory.

As more states report their numbers, the friends draw more inward, realizing a Trump victory is certain; they watch with growing dread as their hopes fade away. This scene depicts the support 210 structure inherent to the found family kinship structure and reaffirms the importance of that structure to queer individuals.

The found family dynamic appears again in part 2, act 1, scene 5 when Eric marries

Henry. During this scene Eric and Henry exchange their vows at Henry’s Hampton’s beach house. However, before they wed, Toby and Leo (fueled by cocaine) arrive to “rescue” Eric from his bad decision.46 Eric is uncomfortable with this intrusion and his found family of friends immediately step in to combat the situation.

Jason 1. Toby, what do you think you’re doing?

Toby. I’m saving Eric!

Leo. Maybe we should go.

Tristan. Toby, you have got to go.

Leo. Toby, maybe we / should go.

Tristan. Toby, get the fuck outta here.

Jason 1. Come on, Toby, why don’t you and I take a walk.47

Tristan and Jason 1 immediately jump in to help support Eric. While Jason 1 and Tristan’s approaches differ – Tristan is ready to fight while Jason 1 tries to deescalate the situation – this exchange reaffirms that both Tristan and Jason 1 are people who care deeply about Eric. There care is not a sense of obligation but rather of family and support. The pair prove that they will fight on behalf of their kinship structure.

Highlighting The Inheritance as the most recent of landmark gay dramas to incorporate the found or chosen family dynamic is significant because all three plays (The Boys in the Band,

46 Lopez, The Inheritance, 214.

47 Lopez, The Inheritance, 215. 211

Angels in America, and The Inheritance) necessarily reinforce the importance that this queer kinship structure can hold for queer individuals. Each play represents understandings and situations of this dynamic relative to the time in which the play was written, but nonetheless reinforce this structure. Lopez brings this structure to the forefront of his work by drawing upon the found family in numerous scenes. By doing so, Lopez activates notions of empathy and love that I discussed within chapters two and three through Banerjea and hooks. Eric and Toby’s chosen family echoes that these relationships are integral to vitality, that they stoke imagination, fire rebellion, and provide testimony. The love fostered in this kinship structure offers space to both meet individuals needs but also provide critical feedback. Ultimately, the found family shows a deep-rooted connection and relationship, the representation presented in this kinship structure is far beyond the gay best friend or limited representations of queer friendships of the past. Additionally, Lopez demonstrates that the concept of found/chosen family is critical because quite often for queer individuals blood family can be fraught with problems due to abandonment and criticisms that come with being queer.

Contextualize: Hauntings, Mourning, and Grief as Pedagogy

In my first chapter, I addressed queer historiographic adaptations and argued that they could be regarded as a site of utopic activist potential. I now turn towards history again; but rather than discussing pieces set in specific historical contexts, I investigate how a piece set contemporarily interacts with the past and learns from history. More precisely, in this section, I explore how The Inheritance discusses one of the darkest moments of queer history, The AIDS epidemic. By doing so, I argue that Lopez enacts theories of staging loss and performance as commemoration, in an endeavor to guide an understanding of the weight felt by the queer community in that historic moment. Furthermore, I point to how feelings of grief, shame, 212 mourning, and remembrance hold the potential to activate meaning in an audience. I attend to this in a twofold manner, first by exploring the ways in which the present-day queer community interacts within the corporeal and emotional effects of the AIDS epidemic within the plot, and then through exploration of how Margaret, the only woman and straight character in The

Inheritance, interacts with the same.

In 1989, Douglas Crimp penned his essay “Mourning and Militancy” in response to the

AIDS crisis. In this essay, he set forth his thoughts on the nature of public mourning rituals and their efficacy (or lack thereof) for political movement. Crimp not only draws upon his own wisdom as an AIDS activist but calls upon other voices, including Larry Kramer, to confirm his stance. Crimp states:

public mourning rituals may of course have their own political force, but they

nevertheless often seem, from an activist perspective, indulgent, sentimental, defeatist-a

perspective only reinforced, as Kramer implies, by media constructions of us as hapless

victims. "Don’t mourn, organize!" the last words of labor movement martyr Joe Hill is

still a rallying cry, at least in its New Age variant, "Turn your grief to anger," which

assumes not so much that mourning can be foregone as that the psychic process can

simply be converted.48

Crimp’s impassioned plea to the queer community is not to overlook or forget that they must mourn their losses. Indeed, he argued that the queer community had to feel their losses, something that often was not allowed in public during this time either due to family policing of funerals or the potential shame of being outted as homosexual. And yet, significantly, he also

48 Douglas Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy,” October 51 (1989): 5. 213 believed that the community needed to use their mourning and emotion to do more than mourn.

To that end, he sought the power of mourning AND militancy, the potential for activism to rise up out of queer mourning and effect change in the world.

I acknowledge Crimp because I believe that his points about the connection between mourning and militancy remain trenchantly accurate. The two, tied together, can create meaning for the queer community, and can be a fruitful site of discussion to drive audiences towards activism. My arguments above regarding the importance of queer content being un-sanitized, echo Crimp’s statement that “alongside the dismal toll of death, what many of us have lost is a culture of sexual possibility: back rooms, tea rooms, bookstores, movie houses, and baths; the trucks, the pier, the ramble, the dunes. Sex was everywhere for us, and everything we wanted to venture.”49 By this standard, writing queerness into narratives should never be done to garner the acceptance of the “mainstream” (i.e., heterosexual) audience. I take Crimp’s notion further in stating that alongside the death toll and the culture of the time, the loss of the AIDS crisis is still tangible.

In writing The Inheritance, Lopez highlights the disconnection many have to queer history and culture, and the promise of connection, by crafting a plot that focuses on three generations of gay men sharing and weaving their lives together. Throughout the script, while he makes clear that there is no one “right” way of being homosexual or one universal story associated with being queer, there is nonetheless a shared history and community, and the AIDS epidemic is a piece of that story. In their chapter, “Deference, Deferred: Rejourn as Practice in

Familial War Commemoration,” Karen Savage and Justin Smith argue the importance of “the significance of ‘handed-down’ artefacts of memory to the ‘generation after’, and the

49 Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy,” 11. 214 performative possibilities of engaging with such materials in personal acts of familial commemoration.”50 As I argued in the foregoing section, familial ties of found family are often explored within the queer community as a way of understanding and connecting to a shared queer past. Within these narratives, there is value in the older generation being able to pass down history and memory in the form of artefacts to the generation that comes next. Here I argue that in The Inheritance Lopez speaks to the particular power in the passing of grief and loss as a generational artefact and profitably explores how those dynamics permeate community for both queer and straight individuals.

Throughout the course of the play, Eric fosters a close relationship with his upstairs neighbor, an elderly gay man named Walter. Walter, as the audience finds out, has close ties to the AIDS epidemic, having not only lived through it, but also because he took care of numerous

AIDS victims when no one else would help. The relationship between Eric and Walter also demonstrates the dynamic of passing grief and loss as generational artefact in a more concrete way, especially when considering the loss of the AIDS epidemic. At the end of the first act in part 1, the two men engage in conversation. The topic turns towards the AIDS epidemic, with

Eric admitting that he could not imagine the loss. In response, a dialogue between Walter and

Eric begins, with large chunks of narrative monologues by Walter, explaining to Eric what exactly this moment in history was like. After setting up the reality of the history, Walter then asks Eric for the name of a close friend and he begins describing how each of Eric’s queer

50 Karen Savage and Justin Smith, “Deference, Deferred: Rejourn as Practice in Familial War Commemoration,” in Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration, ed. Michael Pinchbeck and Andrew Westerside (Springer

Nature, 2019), 56-57. 215 friends would be affected during the height of the epidemic; as Walter goes on, the ghosts of

AIDS victims fill the stage, driving home the corporeal loss.

WALTER. Because they cannot be legally married, abandonment is simpler. Jason has

left him.

YOUNG MEN. (variously)

Patrick is dead.

Alex is dead.

Colin is dead.

Lucas is infected.

Zach is dying from pneumocystis carinii.

Chris is healthy.

His partner has just been diagnosed.

You just visited Mark in the hospital. Tonight you will visit Will.

Eddies funeral is tomorrow…

Andrew is dead.

Jacob is dead.

WALTER. That is what it was.51

Throughout Eric’s conversation with Walter and the appearance of the Young Men (ghosts of

AIDS victims), Walter’s recollection of the AIDS epidemic serves as a site of grief and connection not only for Eric but also potentially for an audience who either was too young to live through the epidemic or had no close connection to it.

51 Lopez, The Inheritance, 64-66. 216

In this moment, Walter becomes what Chloé Déchery declares a “site of absence,” the space between absence and presence, past and present, and history and memory.52 Walter’s memory and recounting of what the AIDS crisis felt like to Eric offers a glimpse of that history, and a glimmer of understanding to those too young to remember. Walter bridges moments between the past and the present, between the living and the dead, and between history and memory bringing heightened awareness of the haunting grief caused by AIDS. Ultimately,

Walter’s recollection of the AIDS epidemic reminds audiences, specifically the queer audience, of Crimp’s message of mourning, to remember its grief, but to make it something productive in the continued fight.

Furthermore, Lopez’s discussion of grief and a continued fight offers the audience an example of utopian performatives as described by Dolan. In short, Dolan argues that audiences

“can imagine, together, the affective potential of a future in which this rich feeling of warmth, even of love, could be experienced regularly and effectively outside the theatre.”53 Walter echoes this utopic potential in the final lines of the play:

WALTER. You do what they could not.

He lovingly takes Henry’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply.

You live!

52 Chloé Déchery, “Staging Absence and Performing Collaboration in A Duet without You,” in Staging Loss:

Performance as Commemoration, ed. Michael Pinchbeck and Andrew Westerside (Springer Nature, 2019), 179.

53 Jill Dolan, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press,

2008, 14. 217

The stage is flooded with golden light. The house glows intensely. Then black. End of

Play.54

Through Walter’s final lines, Lopez encourages his audience to do what many queers of the past were unable to do due to homophobia, societal constructs, the AIDS epidemic, or a myriad of reasons: live and love. The stage direction that the stage is flooded by light and glows intensely echoes the emotional climax of Walter’s hope. Lopez points towards the horizon where queerness is more fully accepted and normalized. Moreover, I contend that Walter’s words are meant to inspire the entire audience despite various sexualities, offering space where queer and heterosexual individuals fully accept one another and work together to create a better tomorrow.

To nuance this reading, I once more turn to Marvin Carlson, highlighting another example haunting through the narrative of the AIDS epidemic and its close connection to the central story of The Inheritance. The AIDS epidemic has dominated much of queer storytelling because of the LGBTQ+ community’s proximity to the disease, and the exacting death toll. As

Juntunen notes in Mainstream AIDS Theatre, The Media, and Gay Civil Rights, “without question, HIV/AIDS struck the gay community hard in the 1980s and 1990s, and a robust theatre movement rose up to address the massive loss of life.”55 As a result, the AIDS epidemic, the grief born from the epidemic, and the continued ramification of AIDS permeates queer storytelling as a site of ghosting because it is a narrative to which the queer community is intrinsically tied. AIDS provides a story that many are familiar with, and as such, the value of the theatrical haunting is that it provides historical, societal, and cultural context.

54 Lopez, The Inheritance, 297.

55 Juntunen, Mainstream AIDS Theatre, 2. 218

Furthermore, I believe that the work that Lopez does in using the AIDS epidemic as source material and background for his play pushes beyond past representations of the crisis on the United States theatrical stages. As I noted in the introduction of this study, many of the AIDS plays that exist take place during the height of the epidemic with a focus on characters that are either dying of AIDS, have died of AIDS, or are fighting to have people recognize AIDS is real.

The Inheritance instead calls upon the ghosts of the AIDS epidemic as characters for present day characters to learn from and grow, a depiction that is different from the AIDS plays of the past.

In the play, Walter passes away and leaves his upstate New York home to Eric. This home was the place that during the 80s, Walter took care of many young men who were dying of

AIDS. When Eric finally gets to visit the home, he has a vision of the ghost of Peter, the first of a long line of young men that Walter helped.

Suddenly, the various rooms of the house start to fill with young men. The house is filled

with ghosts.

MAN. It’s so nice to finally meet you. We’ve heard so much about you.

ERIC. Me? Who are you?

MAN. I’m Peter.

ERIC. Peter?

MAN. Peter West. I’m a friend of Walter’s. Welcome home, Eric.56

In the Broadway production, as Peter introduces himself and the stage direction indicates, scores of young men filled the theatre through numerous entrances in the audience and on the stage.

These men, of all races and sizes, introduce themselves to Eric as ghosts of the AIDS epidemic.

As these ghosts fill the stage the lights go down on the first part of The Inheritance. This

56 Lopez, The Inheritance, 152. 219 powerful moment connects Eric to the audience in a sense of communal grief at a visual representation of loss. In performance, both Eric and the audience were silent as the first part concluded.

This appearance of ghosts in this scene is intrinsically tied to the relation of the AIDS epidemic to the plot. However, throughout the narrative another ghosting also takes place. On a number of occasions, the youthful versions of both Henry and Walter manifest through memories shared by the older men. This more subtle haunting of memories further allows the past and present to converse with one another. In part 1, act 2 the ghosts of Young Henry and Young

Walter not only serve to tell the story to the audience of what happened in their past, but they also literally haunt Henry. Together the remnants of their younger selves remind him of his grief, his mistakes, and the choices he made during the height of the AIDS epidemic. This ghosting serves as a site of remembrance, evoking Henry’s memory of turning his back on his lover and his community due to fear, panic, and disease.

YOUNG HENRY. After all these years, you can still see Walter’s face in that moment,

contorted with fear and confusion.

ERIC and YOUNG WALTER. Look at me.

HENRY. I can’t.

YOUNG WALTER. He is our responsibility.

HENRY. I’m responsible to you, to my boys, to myself, and to no one else.

ERIC. You got back in the car.

YOUNG WALTER. Henry!

ERIC. You drove away. 220

YOUNG WALTER. You left me alone.57

Henry’s memories during this scene are brought about because Eric has been making similar choices as Walter, in trying to save Leo. This recalls the past for Henry, and he begins to exile

Eric, in the same fashion he did Walter during the AIDS crisis. This scene shows that Henry is still set in the same mindset and uses the story as an ultimatum for Eric to choose Henry as he is or lose everything. This ghosting continues to effect Henry. His interactions with the ghosts of his past, as well as considering his future with Eric, bring about change within his own social sphere as a gay conservative. Ultimately, this leads to him changing his opinion on love and loss and committing to helping others.

Henry is an example of seeing change occur within the LGBT community, and an example that the LGBT community can create and personify their own problems. However,

Henry is also an example of utopic activism at work; his interactions with the younger generations, and with a more diverse group of younger gay men, begins to set him on the path toward change. His trajectory, from his introduction to his final scene, varies vastly. Henry though is but one character that audience members might see themselves through.

I have discussed the ways that hauntings effect the characters of The Inheritance. In the above analysis, I have done this through discussion of literal ghosts of dead characters or through the youthful memories of characters appearing and engaging with present-day characters. I now attend to a more metaphorical type of haunting. Through the character of Margaret, the only straight woman in Lopez’s world, I explore the ways in which shame and grief haunt and ghost characters to offer space for growth.

57 Lopez, The Inheritance, 229. 221

In her now foundational study, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Sara Ahmed argues the efficacy of shame as an emotion, and the productive values that it produces for an audience.

Ahmed argues that “shame becomes crucial to the process of reconciliation or the healing of past wounds. To acknowledge wrongdoing means to enter into shame; the ‘we’ is shamed by its recognition that it has committed ‘acts and omissions’, which have caused pain, hurt and loss for indigenous others.”58 Through Ahmed’s notions of shame, I investigate Margaret, who I believe

Lopez uses as a model for approaches of allyship to the queer community.

Lopez introduces Margaret midway through the second part of The Inheritance. Her entrance into the action occurs as Eric becomes acquainted with Walter’s home that is now

Eric’s per Walter’s last request. Margaret is the caretaker of the house and has deep connections to both the home and to Walter. When she is first introduced, she appears to Leo, as Eric is elsewhere on the property exploring; she gets a feel for the young man and pushes him to tell her about Eric. When Eric appears, they talk more about the house and when Margaret first came to the property in 1989. At this point, it is revealed that Eric has not told Leo about the history of the house or its connections to the AIDS epidemic. Margaret asks Leo what he knows of the plague, when he responds with knowing little she begins to tell him more. Through her, Lopez offers the audience the first explanation of straight grief and shame at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

MARGARET. I suppose it’s because these men’s illnesses required that Americans

think about the means by which they contracted it. It required that we look at gay men

and accept their nature, accept their affection and their desire for one another as equal to

58 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015), 101. 222

our own. Most people couldn’t do that. And so, in our discomfort, we let them die. For

years, men came to this house in search of compassion, and Walter took them in. He

allowed them to leave this world with the kind of dignity they had long been denied while

living it. I know this because one of the men who came here to die was my son.59

In her explanation to Leo about her son, the audience not only receives a lesson from Margaret in understanding that the straight citizens of the United States allowed queer individuals to die because of their discomfort regarding homosexuality, but additionally, they learn that she has an intimate connection to AIDS and grief because her son died from the disease.

During this conversation with Eric and Leo, Margaret is obviously uncomfortable with her past; yet Leo continues to push and question. He asks her to tell him more about her son and the history of Walter’s house. She begins by telling Leo about her youth, becoming a mother out of wedlock, which marked her as different and sinful within her Catholic family. She then describes the sensation of love that overcame her when she gave birth to her son, knowing, in that moment, her love would be everlasting. This first section of her story sets up a familiar narrative: the joy and love that is felt for a newborn child.

Margaret then goes on to describe Michael’s upbringing. She says that he was “kind, gentle, and honest. A touch willful, but also a touch fragile. Michael was effeminate as a child.

We called it ‘sensitive’, of course.”60 Margaret’s language in describing her son growing up is coded with queer identity. She goes on to say how she prayed to God that her son be protected and that he would not be queer. Leo asks if those prayers were answered; Margaret responds by describing how she took destiny into her own hands. She recalls that she bought her son a set of

59 Lopez, The Inheritance, 275.

60 Lopez, The Inheritance, 276. 223 weights and encouraged him to grow muscles. At the age of 18, when Michael told his mother that he was moving to New York City, he towered above others at “six foot three and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds of pure, solid muscle.”61 Margaret felt confident in the fact that if she could send her son out into the world with an imposing physique she hoped that “would keep the queers away.”62

She then describes to Leo the night before Michael left for New York City. The pair stayed up talking all night because Margaret knew if she fell asleep, she would wake up to her son moving. During this discussion, Michael came out to his mother, telling her that he was homosexual and that he was moving to New York City to find love. Margaret recalls for Leo how she was unable to cope with this revelation at the time. Instead, she told Michael that he was confused, afraid, and much too young to understand his own feelings. Again, this narrative is a ghosting of coming out narratives and experiences of the queer community, creating a common thread for straight parents who have had similar experiences. Margaret proceeds to tell Leo that she realizes now that she was the one that was afraid: afraid of losing her son, and afraid of what might become of him. She also regretfully tells Leo that her words to Michael were if he were going to be that way, he could not be her son, and that he would die of disease and end up burning in hell. In this conversation, Margaret expresses her regret and shame. She goes on to tell Leo that if she knew that her son would only live a few more years that the entire conversation might have been different. She admits she would have “recognized his desperate need for understanding and compassion. [She] would have shown him kindness.”63

61 Lopez, The Inheritance, 276.

62 Lopez, The Inheritance, 276.

63 Lopez, The Inheritance, 276. 224

Following this, Margaret then describes to Leo how over the next few years she spoke intermittently to her son, always short and tense conversations, with no real substance. Then she received a phone call from Walter. She recalls that the first question she asked was, “Does he have it?” When Walter told her yes, she immediately made plans to see her son. She explains how angry she was at him in that moment. But when she saw her son, a shell of the man he once was, she sat, slipped her hands into his once more and waited for him to squeeze them as he did as a child. She tells Leo how she kept a vigil until Michael opened his eyes to say hello to her, and then she continued holding his hand until he slipped away hours later. She further describes how a closeted man owned a funeral home, and that with each death Walter would take the bodies to this man who would cremate them, and Walter would bring them home and hold a ceremony for each person.64

Margaret tells Leo that after Michael’s funeral she returned home; however, she was unable to forget Walter or his home. She returned to the house, moving in with Walter and helping care for each new man that came to them. She tells both Eric and Leo that she helped

Walter care for and bury over 200 gay men on the property during the height of the epidemic, and that within the house there is a list of names of all the men. She admits that she has forgotten names, but that she has never forgotten their faces. She tells the pair that the “faces have

64 During the height of the AIDS epidemic many funeral homes would not touch victims of the disease because of the fear of how the virus was spread. This led to many bodies being unclaimed by families, and to the creation of mass graves such as the NYC site on Angel Island. See Bass, Risser, Woljcik, and the LA Times article “What Risk does AIDS Pose to Funeral Homes?”. 225 remained with me all these years, like ghosts. Michael’s and so many others. A haunting, if you will. A necessary haunting.”65

Margaret’s explanation of being haunted by the faces of the men she helped Walter care for again calls forth Carlson’s conception of theatrical ghosting. Here, I deploy his concept in conjunction with Ahmed’s ideas of grief and shame. To begin, Margaret understands her shame in how she treated Michael when he came out to her. As a result, she lost her son emotionally, but then physically to the AIDS epidemic. Losing her son, Margaret was unable to stand idly by; she could not forget the house, and therefore, helped Walter care for those individuals like her son. This allowed her to become a caregiver and a mother once again and begin to make her own repentance for alienating her son by continuing to work and provide for those like him.

The use of Margaret’s story is what Ahmed refers to as an “exposure moment.”66 Ahmed recognizes that within shame there is an intense and painful feeling that is bound within how one feels about oneself. She argues that shame is a “witnessed act” that when under the gaze of the other creates feelings of embarrassment and holds the potential to want to turn away.67 Leo witnesses Margaret’s shame through her story about her son; but rather than turn inward and refuse her past, Margaret instead leans into that shame and uses her story to explain her own growth. This raises another question: If Jenkins is correct in asserting that “shame demands we explore relational processes and attempts to understand how they become embodied and reinforced through political, cultural, familial, economic, racial, religious and personal

65 Lopez, The Inheritance, 280.

66 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 103-106.

67 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 103. 226 interactions,”68 what does experiencing Margaret’s shame and coping mechanisms in response to her choices grant a heterosexual reader or viewer?

I argue that through her storytelling, Margaret models the value of leaning into discomfort and recognizing while one might have been wrong in the past, it does not need to mean that one is a bad person now. Shame holds the ability to say, “I know more now, I have grown, and I am regretful of what occurred in the past.” Thus, shame does not need to be an embarrassing limiting emotion, but rather can spur one on toward productive growth.

Furthermore, the use of hauntings, throughout The Inheritance, offer many potential areas of learning and growth within the plot. Such hauntings hold potential for both queer and straight audiences through the stories being presented, and by offering information that might not be readily available to either group. Therefore, the hauntings in conjunction with explorations of grief and shame hold utopic activist potential for a broad audience.

Questioning the Problematic: The Inheritance of Negative Patterns

As I have argued throughout this study, I believe that the historical situating of the scripts is an important part of dramaturgical analysis. Following this, I hold that while these three plays share legacies that have proved beneficial to the development of contemporary queer theatre, they also include questionable/problematic themes, tropes, and dramaturgical practices that must be acknowledged and critiqued. Therefore, in this section, I examine these more negative tropes and portrayals and argue that these plays grew out of a United States theatre complex that must do more and be better both in terms of thinking about representation but also in our criticism and discussions of theatre. By having these conversations and recognizing the patterns that exist, it

68 Louie Jenkins, “Trace: Shame and the Art of Mourning,” in Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration, ed.

Michael Pinchbeck and Andrew Westerside (Springer Nature, 2019), 211. 227 might then be possible to move closer to a better tomorrow by being able to advocate and push for more nuanced and new representations and voices that have not previously been allowed to speak.

The most significant critique spanning the three plays is the collective centering of whiteness and, in turn, how characters of color are treated. To begin, The Boys in the Band,

Angels in America, and The Inheritance all include characters of color, and in this regard, they can be lauded for inclusivity. And yet, an analysis of how these characters operate, and how the plays’ overall relations to whiteness function, reveals the ways in which they also come up short.

Bernard, the only person of color in The Boys in the Band, is subjected to blatant racism at the hands of his friends, who relative to the time, do not realize their racism. The labor to explain how such interactions are steeped in racist ideologies is unfairly placed on Bernard alone; he must do the emotional work to help correct his friend’s behavior, especially Emory, who frequently “Uncle-Toms” him. Likewise, in Angels in America, the audience is introduced to the character of Belize/Mr. Lies, again the only character of color. Belize is a caregiver and nurse that helps care for Roy Cohn. In his interactions with Roy, the racism (and classism) of the

1980s becomes clear. Like Bernard, Belize operates as a symbol of compassion and forgiveness, often absolving the white figures of their “sins.” Despite Cohn’s ignorant treatment and terrible demeanor in his interactions with Belize, when Roy begs to not die alone, Belize’s humanity takes center, and he stays with the man he deemed a monster. Belize, like Bernard, is another example of character carrying racial emotional weight for the white characters.

The Inheritance is trickier to navigate when considering the racial legacies of gay drama.

Written by a playwright of color, there is a recognition of race within the script, though Lopez 228 has said addressing race is not a central theme of the play.69 As such, while the play offers more characters of color than its predecessors, it nonetheless still centers whiteness through its main characters, Toby, Eric, Walter, and Henry. Tim Leininger points towards criticisms from the gay community about the diversity of characters within the Broadway production. He notes that

“there have been complaints from members of the gay community that there is a lack of diversity of gay men and that they aren’t represented in ‘The Inheritance.’”70 Charles McNulty, of The Los

Angeles Times, further notes that “the focus on gay white men (amid a refreshingly multicultural cast) seems questionable, character psychology becomes opaque in the unnecessarily repetitive second half and the sentimentality sometimes feel manipulative.”71The New York Times solicited reader opinions on the play as well. In that forum, Karl Hinze pointed out that “the end of Part

One gave me hope, but Part Two felt to be more of the same: a mostly white, mostly handsome,

30-something perspective. While it was moving to be in a theater with many gay men a bit older than myself who seemed incredibly touched by the play, it didn’t work on me in the same way.”72

69 Lopez, “What I Wanted to Say,” The New York Times, February 7, 2020.

70 Tim Leininger, “Stage Review: ‘The Inheritance’ Beautifully Written, but Takes Too Long to Tell,” TCA

Regional News (Tribune Content Agency LLC, November 22, 2019), https://www.journalinquirer.com/public/stage- review-the-inheritance-beautifully-written-but-takes-too-long-to-tell/article_4d833b82-0d46-11ea-9062- a3cf16da53db.html.

71 Charles McNulty, “THEATER REVIEW; Sobs Indeed and so Much More; The London Hit ‘The Inheritance’ Is

Matthew Lopez’s Gay Magnum Opus,” Times, November 18, 2019, E1.

72 Editorial Staff, “Readers React to ‘The Inheritance’: ‘We Are All Just Humans Looking for a Purpose’,” The New

York Times (The New York Times, February 7, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/theater/the- inheritance-audience-responses.html. 229

Clearly, as the above reviews confirm, The Inheritance centers whiteness. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that these characters are written and created by a playwright of color. Lopez’s experiences and his voice exist within each character. In an interview with The

New York Times, Lopez criticizes how playwrights of color are asked to always talk about race, but the same criticism is never asked of white writers.73 This critique is, again, evident by comparing The Inheritance to both The Boys in the Band, and Angels in America. Reviews of both Boys and Angels seldom mention problems of racial representation within the scripts, scripts written by Mart Crowley and Tony Kushner, two white men. In the same The New York Times article, Lopez states that there is a responsibility to one’s community, and that a playwright must consider their personal experience within the creative process. Therefore, while his characters may be white, he argues that his experience and voice create racial didactics even if it seems race is not being discussed. Thus, as an audience, we must also consider what it means for these white characters to be written through the experience of a Latinx gay man.

This leads to another avenue of inquiry: When considering the larger history and encompassing trends of theatre in the United States, is it reasonable to ask if there might be another reason that Lopez centers whiteness in his play? While I accept Lopez’s answer of how his voice and experiences offer his marginalized experience through his character’s regardless of race, I also question what other factors might be at work. At a time when more actors of color, specifically Black actors are coming forward to describe their experiences of racism within the

United States theatre institution74, this question becomes more pressing. Furthermore, as Greg

Evans reports for Deadline, the Broadway League reports that as of 2019 while non-Caucasian

73 Lopez, “What I Wanted to Say,” The New York Times, February 7, 2020.

74 While I specifically mention theatre in the United States, I realize that this is not a distinctly American problem. 230

Broadway theatre attendance is on the rise, Broadway audiences remain predominantly white, maintaining 74% of the audience.75 Therefore, the question of what is palpable for a primarily white Broadway audience and if a white audience will accept characters of color is a viable line of inquiry into considering play creation. The experiences and stories being told by creators of color cannot rule out the fact that this attitude persists in a system that has benefited whiteness for decades in this country. In other words, how are the structures or perceptions of those structures maintaining a world that refuses the marginalized a seat at the table?

Considering issues of race within the plot, I argue that Lopez uses his white characters to explore deeper racial relations within the world of the play. Furthermore, I draw upon Warren

Hoffman’s work, The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical, and consider his chapter about The Music Man. Hoffman argues that even when a show is predominantly white and seems as though there is no conversation about race – there is indeed conversation about race.76 Additionally, in considering the representation that Lopez puts forth by the characters of color are legacies to explore in this work. Tristan is a strong, HIV-positive, Black queer physician who often offers counterpoints and arguments that push the white characters into new realms of thinking. These observations often clash with the white perspectives, specifically in the world view of the Republican elder, Henry. Tristan’s character also offers representation that is not often seen on the Broadway stage regarding queer people of color. His positive HIV status as a Black man is only recently becoming a representation seen within mainstream theatre in the

75 Greg Evans, “Average Age For Broadway Attendees Isn’t Getting Any Younger, Says Report,” Deadline, January

13, 2020, https://deadline.com/2020/01/broadway-audience-demographic-report-broadway-league-1202828973/.

76 Warren Hoffman, The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

University Press, 2014), 93. 231

United States. Within the history of HIV and AIDS depictions on theatrical stages, HIV and

AIDS have typically been embodied through white gay men. This has been evinced through productions of The Normal Heart, Angels in America, The Baltimore Waltz, and Love! Valor!

Compassion! to offer a small sampling. While the United States theatre institution is beginning to see more diverse representations of HIV and AIDS within dramatic scripts and on stage, much of U.S. theatre history of mainstream HIV and AIDS representation has been limited to white bodies.

Tristan sits at the intersections of numerous perspectives – i.e., a queer Black man living with HIV – which offer him the space to critique and push characters into new modes of thinking. For instance, when Eric hosts a dinner party to introduce his friends to his new lover

Henry, the dinner quickly becomes fervent when the conversation turns to politics and Eric’s chosen family finds that Henry is a Republican. In a heated discussion about the AIDS epidemic,

Tristan smartly relates the disease to Trump and Trump’s America.

TRISTAN. Then what about that man you gave money to? Where would he fit in this

analogy? You could say that he is HIV. And, like HIV, he’s replicating his genetic

material from tweet to tweet, from person to person, institution to institution, across the

entire nation. Consequently, America is now falling prey to opportunistic infections its

immune system had once at least been able to fight: fear, propaganda, sexism,

homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism. And so, like any person with untreated

HIV, this nation has developed the American Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Maybe we

should just call it what it is and diagnose it properly: America has AIDS.77

77 Lopez, The Inheritance, 171. 232

As this excerpt makes clear, Tristan offers perspective and grounding to the other characters in

The Inheritance. However, much like Bernard and Belize before him, he is responsible for the emotional weight of white characters throughout, especially his friend Eric. In the heat of a fight with Eric, regarding privilege, power, and status, he stands his ground. “This country doesn’t deserve people like me. I don’t owe this country a goddamned thing. America isn’t worth saving anymore. But I am.”78 While, Tristan deals in emotional weight and educational aspects of whiteness throughout The Inheritance, he has a strong sense of self-worth and identity that helps him combat racial tensions. Furthermore, his strong sense of self offers him the ability to push past the prior representations such as Belize and Bernard, in order to advocate for himself.

The problems inherent in these plays extend beyond representation of race. To be sure, another questionable legacy at play is the casting decisions of these plays related to body type. In bridging this argument of casting choice and body type, I draw upon production stills from the professional productions of The Boys in the Band79, Angels in America80, and The Inheritance81, specifically considering the revivals of the former plays in 2018, to accentuate another trait which becomes evident across the casts. In all cases, there are specific body types cast for these shows. All the men cast in these productions are conventionally beautiful, strong bodied, and

78 Lopez, The Inheritance, 235.

79 “The Boys in the Band on Broadway,” The Boys in the Band on Broadway, 2019, https://boysintheband.com/.

80 Adam Hetrick, “Angels in America, Starring Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, Closes on Broadway July 15,”

Playbill (PLAYBILL INC., July 15, 2018), https://www.playbill.com/article/angels-in-america-starring-nathan-lane- and-andrew-garfield-closes-on-broadway-july-15.

81 Ryan McPhee, “Two-Part, Gay-Themed The Inheritance Will Play Broadway,” Playbill (PLAYBILL INC., June

6, 2019), https://www.playbill.com/article/two-part-gay-themed-the-inheritance-will-play-broadway. 233 would look good galivanting on stage in tight underwear, as they do in the Fire Islands scene of

The Inheritance. In fact, many of the bodies would be considered what the gay community refers to as “twinks.” Writing for the online magazine them, Connor Franta defines the term as a sub-community within the queer community populated by young men who are “typically slender, hairless, usually blonde, and usually white.”82 Throughout queer history different monikers have been used to describe this sub-section of community, but regardless a focus on this type of body has remained.

For instance, on the front-page of the website for The Boys in the Band 2018 Broadway revival is a black and white photo of the nine cast members in black turtlenecks looking at the camera. While there are two men of color in the photo, all these men are similarly framed, lean and taut. They are, in effect, twinks. Likewise, Adam Hetrick’s Playbill article on the 2017 revival of Angels in America is similar in terms of celebrating the twink body type. In this case, the lead photo is of Andrew Garfield and James McArdle, sitting on a bed; McArdle is laying in a shirt and boxers, while Garfield sits in his pajama’s. Again, the two actors in the photo fit the twink build. Further scrolling through the other production photos on this page, confirms that the bodies cast in this production are all lean and fit. Finally, production stills from The Inheritance accompanying Ryan McPhee’s article on the production in Playbill focus on nine buff, young men, often galivanting in their speedos, their bodies fully on display. In a series of photos, these men appear in various states of interaction with one another; but clearly each body is firm, muscled, and scantily clad. Taken together, these photos affirm the same body type.

82 Connor Franta, “Connor Franta Breaks Down the Definition of the Word ‘Twink,’” them. (Them., June 8, 2018), https://www.them.us/story/inqueery-history-of-the-word-twink. 234

Clearly, the gay community is not just one type of body; and yet these bodies most often reflected on stage are consistently the same. Why is it that a variety of male body types are not seen on the stage? Could this be a larger reflection of the perception of vanity within the gay community? As several scholars studying body image within the gay community note – including Christine Yelland, Yolanda Martins, Marika Tiggemann, Libby Churchett, Jason

Saucier, and Sandra Caron – while body image issues tend to be thought of as an identity issue associated with females, there is a growing concern over male body image. More overt are the problems of body image to the queer male community. To that end, objectification theory, as described by Martins, Tiggemann, and Alana Kirkbride, seeks to account for the rise of body image issues within the gay community. They argue that objectification theory means that

“individuals who live in sexually objectifying cultures may adopt an observer’s perspective and base judgments about themselves and their bodies on the extent to which they emulate the sexual and body ideals of their culture.”83 Martins, et al. describe the phenomenon of objectification theory through women’s bodies but also argue that gay men live within a similar sphere of body objectification due to high levels of and high emphasis on physical attractiveness, most notedly a lean and muscular body.84 The sexualization of the gay body within media, advertising, and entertainment creates a space that according to Saucier and Caron allows for the internalization of images which in turn creates the pressure to conform to those

83 Yolanda Martins, Marika Tiggemann, and Alana Kirkbride, “Those Speedos Become Them: The Role of Self-

Objectification in Gay and Heterosexual Men’s Body Image,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 33, no. 5

(2007): 636.

84 Martins et al., “Those Speedos Become Them,” 636. 235 images.85 Yelland and Tiggemann support these findings as well, arguing that “gay men (like women) believed their physical appearance was more important to others than did heterosexual men, and their muscularity in particular was more important than for either heterosexual men or women.”86

What do these studies mean when considering body images presented within queer theatre? Drawing from the assumptions of mass media consumption and body image summarized above, I argue that body image transmits through the viewing of staged bodies. Therefore, the same arguments apply relating the thin, muscular, lean bodies presented to internalized feelings and discomfort with body image. Seeing the same types of bodies presented on stage continually reinforces the idea that these bodies are the idealized and perfect specimens of the gay community. Like the findings of Saucier and Caron, the bodies presented in The Inheritance, as well as the revivals of both The Boys in the Band and Angels in America, clearly further idealized the young, muscular, and lean body. Furthermore, as Nicholas Lanzieri and Tom Hildebrandt discuss, regarding body vigilance and self-objectification within objectification theory, self- consciousness and surveillance of one’s appearance does not occur “in isolation but rather it’s conducted comparatively by using the idealized images as a frame of reference to evaluate the

85 Jason A. Saucier and Sandra L. Caron, “An Investigation of Content and Media Images in Gay Men’s

Magazines,” Journal of Homosexuality 55, no. 3 (February 2008): 506.

86 Christine Yelland and Marika Tiggemann, “Muscularity and the Gay Ideal: Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered

Eating in Homosexual Men,” Eating Behaviors 4, no. 2 (2003): 114. 236 self and the other.”87 Again, I wrestle with the question that if this is the type of body continually presented, what messages are being sent to a multitudinal and diverse audience?

As are issues of racial representation, body type casting in theatre is held in place by long-held practices. In pointing to this parallel I do not mean to conflate body image and racism, but rather highlight the history of harmful casting practices, as well as harmful theatrical criticism practices, that reinscribe both racial and body type values. To highlight this, I draw attention to a gay off- piece that premiered in the Spring of 2019 entitled Camp

Morning Wood: A Very Naked Musical written by Jay Falzone. The play centers a couple that find their way into a camping trip set in a gay nudist site. Reviewing (I use this term loosely) the play on BroadwayRadio’s “This Week on Broadway” critic Peter Filichia launched a now- infamous amongst the queer theatre community, body-shaming tirade against numerous members of the cast. Rather than focus on acting, staging, directing, or any insight toward design, Filichia instead focused on actor’s body types (bodies that do not conform to the twink category) and their penis sizes.88 Filichia suggests that actors were miscast within the show and that the show was closing due to a lack of well-endowed actors being on stage, and then offered a back-hand compliment to a “substantially overweight” actor for his courage to be naked on stage while also reporting some actors will do anything to avoid waiting tables.89

87 Nicholas Lanzieri and Tom Hildebrandt, “Using Objectification Theory to Examine the Effects of Media on Gay

Male Body Image,” Clinical Social Work Journal 44, no. 1 (2015): 106.

88 Christopher Peterson, “BroadwayRadio Critic Body Shames Performers in Review,” OnStage Blog (OnStage

Blog, July 10, 2019), https://www.onstageblog.com/editorials/2019/7/9/broadwayradio-critic-body-shames- performers-in-review.

89 Peterson, “BroadwayRadio Critic,” OnStage Blog. 237

Filichia’s review of the musical, as well as his hyper fixation on both body type and penis size, reaffirms the argument of objectification theory, and further confirms a bias against different bodies on the stage. Furthermore, his critiques against body type could potentially serve to reinforce decisions of casting directors to not cast such bodies. It is additionally necessary to point out that while reviews for The Inheritance note that the actor playing Adam strips to a full- frontal reveal in the show, there were no extended conversations in those reviews surrounding his lean, muscular, white body or the shape and size of his penis.

I believe that considering these questions will allow theatre consumers to think more critically about why certain practices are pervasive in contemporary theatre. If we consider these contexts that govern the creation and writing of stories and we call for them to change, we can create a more equitable world for the theatre community. Rather than be critical of playwrights of color for how they draft their stories, we should be critical of the systems that led them there.

Utopic activism in theatre realizes that conversations around race, body positivity, and body diversity need to continue within our staging practice. Furthermore, theatre creatives should continue to advocate for a shift in presenting broader body diversity across theatre in the United

States. By including more racial and body diversity, theatre can more broadly reflect the diverse community it seeks to serve. By examining these structures, perceptions, and barriers we can begin to undo them, and as a result get an even vaster and widely varied collection of storytellers and creators to the table.

Conclusion: Tracing Legacies, Building Foundations, and Moving Forward

Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance is a sprawling piece of theatre, that aims to address many conversations while simultaneously remaining true to the experiences of its main characters. This chapter has highlighted the ways that Lopez’s work builds upon landmark gay 238 drama and creates utopic activist potential in audiences. In this regard, I build upon Ben

Brantley’s statement, that a goal of Lopez’s play is ““to question, to create, to contextualize, to – oh, why not? – only connect.”90

First, through the various inquiries I explored in this study, there has been a repeated theme and understanding of the importance of theatrical works created for the queer community by a queer creator. This exploration hits on Brantley’s point to create; Lopez’s work writes queer culture into the world and allows a queer audience to be seen and acknowledged. Moreover, specifically through his use of the found or chosen family dynamic, Lopez connects to his audience by thinking about the queer kinship structures of community.

Contextualizing the grief and hauntings of the AIDS epidemic is also an invaluable aspect of Lopez’s script. The characters and their individual stories and experiences within foster the deep wells of empathy. This empathy is produced not only for the queer community but also for the heterosexual audience. The numerous theatrical hauntings throughout the play offer sites of remembrance and understanding, while also offering avenues of exploration of emotions such as shame and grief. The Inheritance thus asks those interacting with it to question their own lives and choices and reflect upon their own inheritance of empathy and emotion.

Finally, my discussion and exploration of The Inheritance further solidifies that theatre is a site to question: a work can be applauded while simultaneously scrutinized and critiqued. This investigation reminds theatre practitioners and lovers alike that while we can appreciate plays for going in new directions and presenting representation on stage, we can also question and be

90 Ben Brantley, “‘The Inheritance’ Review: So Many Men, So Much Time,” The New York Times (The New York

Times, November 18, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/theater/the-inheritance-review-broadway- matthew-lopez.html. 239 critical of stances within those shows. In the case of The Inheritance, this means having deeper conversations about racial diversity within queer theatre and questioning many aspects of race within broader discussions of theatre. The Inheritance also draws to mind questions of body representation on the stage and why the same body types are pervasive. It falls to us to ask challenging questions and seek answers to create change within the form.

By tracing The Inheritance through other landmark gay dramas such as The Boys in the

Band, and Angels in America, I have necessarily had to return to the legacies of queer theatre. On the one hand, these legacies recall feelings of familiarity and ease. At the same time, however, as my analysis has made clear, these legacies also reveal more insidious practices that need addressed and changed if we hope to create a theatre that better serves all. 240

CONCLUSION. GLIMMERS, SPECS, AND TRACES: TOWARD THE QUEER HORIZON

“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves, and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act.”1

The main goal of this dissertation has been to argue that expanded representations of queerness within contemporary queer theatre in the United States hold the potential to drive audiences towards utopic activism. By doing so, I have explored the pedagogical and dramaturgical approaches that the exemplative queer plays and musicals take in pushing their audiences to consider ways in which dramatic plots and characters reflect the current societal impressions and trends of our culture. As my readings make clear, I am drawn to a variety of sources that support and reaffirm the radically oriented dramaturgies and pedagogies explored.

This vision of theatre calls to mind a quote, the authorship of which is disputed, but that was first attributed to Bertolt Brecht in Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard’s 1993 work, Paulo Freire: A

Critical Encounter. McLaren and Leonard state that Brecht believed “art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”2 The origin or the authorship of this quote aside, I believe it speaks to the power of theatre and the potential for utopic activism. To be sure,

I hold that theatre can be both the mirror and the hammer, and that the promise of utopic activism represents that duality.

1 Chase Strangio, “A Conversation With Trans Rights Activist Janet Mock,” ACLU of , January 14, 2017, https://www.aclu-il.org/en/news/conversation-trans-rights-activist-janet-mock.

2 This quote was first recorded in Leon Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution in 1924, with a quote that read “Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer; it does not reflect, it shapes.” 241

Along these same lines, I am drawn as well to the words of Sean Michael, who is part of the q collective, a St. Louis based queer theatre. In their curtain speeches and artistic director’s notes, Michael frequently claims that “art cannot change the world. Art can change people’s minds and people change the world.”3 In many respects, I take this as a more contemporary testament of the same belief credited to Brecht, i.e., art is not a mirror but a hammer. And yet

Michael makes a crucial intervention to this premise. For them, and for me as well, theatre or art itself is not what will make the change; rather, people will. To be sure, I believe audiences

(whether viewing, listening, or reading) engaging with art/theatre, will be empowered to begin effecting change in their lives and, by extension, the world. In doing so, they move themselves and the world steps closer to the new, utopic horizon.

Of course, this notion of the utopic horizon and utopian performatives call to mind the works of both José Esteban Muñoz and Jill Dolan, whose theories have informed my own conceptualizing of utopic activism. In reflecting more deeply upon the ideas of Muñoz and

Dolan in these concluding pages, I turn briefly to two allied ideas that hold the potential to activate the queer utopic: queer failure and queerness as an entity.

Regarding the former, in her article “La Chica Boom and the Pedagogy of Queer

Failure,” Erin Kaplan discusses the potential for queer failure. In sum, Kaplan draws upon the works of Muñoz and Jack Halberstam to argue that the ways that an audience might fail to read a performance or script in an intended way still creates meaning. Through an in-depth examination of Xandra Ibarra’s performance practices, Kaplan notes that

3 Sean Michael, “Transluminate Program,” Q Collective, 2020, https://theqcollective.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/trans-2020-program.pdf. 242

In "failing" to create art that provokes spectators into a moment of pedagogical reflection,

she has in a way uncovered something possibly more significant in terms of a project of

performance as a tool of critical pedagogy, she has provided spectators, critics, historians,

and theorists a study of her audiences—a study of whiteness, of privilege, of what the

dominant culture is capable of when a queer, Brown, body stands naked before

it.4

Kaplan’s considerations of queer failure calls attention to the possibility that even when an audience fails to reflect upon a piece of art along the lines intended, that failure might still create the “utopian kernel.”5 Muñoz discusses these “utopian kernels” as instances of possibility, and as a “performative illustration” of different courses traveled in relation to heteronormativity. He argues that “queerness and the politics of failure are linked insofar as they are about doing

‘something else’.”6 Within that “something else” there are the glimmers, the traces, the specs, and the remains. It is within this ephemera that even failure can provide meaningful insight and hold the potential for utopic activism; even those glimmers, traces, specs, and remains hold the potential to create shifts in an audience’s ways of thinking and being.

As for queerness as an entity, I turn to Tavia Nyong’o who recalls in “José Muñoz, Then and There,” that Muñoz hated what he called “gay pragmatism,” or what is often referred to under the guise of homonormativity, which is the overlaying of heteronormative ideals onto

4 Erin Kaplan, “La Chica Boom and the Pedagogy of Queer Failure,” Theatre Topics 30, no. 2 (July 2020): 94-95.

5 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, New York, NY: New York

University Press, 2009, 154.

6 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 154. 243 queer identity.7 I believe that the plays and musicals I have explicated and analyzed in Toward the Horizon in fact fight against this idea of gay pragmatism and champion queerness as its own thing. These plays do this by actively creating new queer worlds and queer characters for the stage, and strategically expand upon and/or reject previously overused narrative, representational, and thematic tropes. By revising and/or pushing past these worn-out tropes, the scripts at the heart of Toward the Horizon stand as examples of the ways in which contemporary queer theatre continues to actively construct and explore queerness. Thus, while some of the plays and musicals I have highlighted might contain elements of the status quo, the queerness presented and performed in each may be regarded as an act of resistance against the heteronormativity that continues to perpetuate. Indeed, as my foregoing analyses have made clear, each script considered offers a fight against the dominant group and offers opportunities for reflection.

Joshua Chambers-Letson states in After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life, that Muñoz believed that performance was about the future.8 For him, the queer stage is dialectical, in that it allows the present and the future to exist together and offers audiences access into queer worlds that exist and could/will exist. Chambers-Letson argues that

“performance doesn’t just rehearse , it makes it anew, again and again.”9 As my foregoing chapters make clear, I believe that contemporary queer theatre makers are making it

7 Nyong’o, “José Muñoz, Then and There.”

8 Joshua Chambers-Letson, After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life, New York, NY: New York

University Press, 2018, 24.

9 Chambers-Letson, After the Party, 24. 244

“anew, again and again,” and in so doing providing through their works the opportunity for audience to reflect on their own culpability and proximity to problematic behaviors and thinking.

As I conclude, I feel compelled to acknowledge yet again that this project builds upon the legacies of queer theatre makers that have worked in the United States for many years, always challenging in their own ways convention and the status quo, and championing the ways in which contemporary queer works continue to effect change and shift perspectives through new works. In the spirit of awareness of the past, while looking toward the future, I recall the oft- quoted line from the end of Angels in America, part 2, when Prior addresses the audience directly:

PRIOR. This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will

be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We

won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The

time has come.

Bye now.

You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.

And I bless you: .

The Great Work Begins.10

If Angels in America tells audiences that the great work begins, Toward the Horizon and the queer works examined within argue that the work of queer theatre is on-going and incomplete.

And that’s what makes it queer.

The Great Work Continues . . .

10 Tony Kushner, Angels in America (Theatre Communications Group, 2001), 280. 245

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APPENDIXA A. CONTEMPORARY QUEER WORKS TO EXPLORE

The following is a list of English queer themed plays, these plays follow the limitations of this study situating from 2000 until present. This list is by no means comprehensive or complete but rather provides readers with additional works to be examined through the dramaturgical investigations charted within this project.

• 8 by (2011) • Arias with a Twist by Joey Arias

• 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche by Evan (2008)

Linder (2014) • Banana Boys by Evan Placey (2016)

• A Complicated Woman by Ianne • Bare: A Pop by Jon Hartmere

Fields Stewart (2019) (2000)

• A Life by Adam Bock (2016) • Based on a Totally True Story by

• A Strange Loop by Michael R. Roberto Aguiree-Sacassa (2008)

Jackson (2019) • Bathhouse: The Musical by Tim

• Act A Lady by Jordan Harrison Evanicki (2006)

(2006) • Be Happy Be Mormon by Kimball

• Adam by Frances Poet (2017) Allen (2014)

• Agokwe by Waawaate Fobister • Beloved King: A Queer Bible

(2016) Musical by Jade Sylvan (2020)

• All that I Will Ever Be by Alan • BLKS by Aziza Barnes (2019)

(2008) • Blowing Whistles by Matthew Todd

• 's and Their Men by Jordan (2005)

Harrison (2008) 276

• Body Awareness by Baker • Cock by Mark Bartlett (2009)

(2008) • by Irene Sankoff

• Bootycandy by Robert O'Hara (2014) (2017)

• Break Through by Alexandre Wall • Kink in My Hair by Trey

(2011) Anthony (2007)

• Bright Half Life by Tanya Barfield • Dada Woof Papa Hot by Peter

(2014) Parnell (2016)

• Bull in a China Shop by Bryna • by Jeremy O. Harris (2019)

Turner (2018) • Doctor Cerberus by Roberto

• Buyer & Cellar by Jonathan Tolins Aguiree-Sacassa (2010)

(2013) • Dog Sees God by Burt Royal (2004)

• Buzzer by • Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit

(2016) Them by A. Rey Pamatmat (2012)

• Canary by Jonathan Harvey (2010) • Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley

• Cardboard Pianos by Hansol Jung (2000)

(2016) • Eris by John King (2018)

• Care Takers by Billy Cowan (2018) • Everybody's Talking about Jamie by

• Casa Valentina by Tom MacRae (2017)

(2014) • Fireflies by Donja R. Love (2018)

• Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin • From White Plains by Michael

McCraney (2018) Perlman (2012)

• Closer to Heaven by Jonathan • Fucking Men by Joe DiPietro (2009)

Harvey (2001) • by Lisa Kron (2013) 277

• Galatea by Lawrence Aronvitch • In Gabriel's Kitchen by Salvatore

(2009) Antonio (2007)

• Gay Bride of Frankenstein by Dane • In the Middle by Donja R. Love

Leeman (2008) (2018)

• Gently Down the Stream by Martin • Indecent by Paula Vogel (2015)

Sherman (2017) • It Shoulda Been You by Brian

• Geography Club by Brent Hartinger Hargrove (2011)

(2003) • Joni and Gina's Wedding by Ann

• God of Vengeance: A Play by Lipert (2002)

Donald Marguiles (2004) • Just Press Save by Rodney Hicks

• Her Naked Skin by Rebecca (2020)

Lenkiewicz (2008) • by Harvey Fierstein

• High by Matthew Lombardo (2011) (2012)

• Hir by Taylor Mac (2015) • Like Me by Jon Smith (2014)

• Holding the Man by Tommy Murphy • Lord Arthur's Bed by Martin Lewton

(2006) (2008)

• Homefree by Lisa Loomer (2017) • Love Alone by Deborah Salem Smith

• Homos, or, Everyone in America by (2015)

Jordan Seavey (2017) • Love the Sinner by Drew Pautz

• by (2010)

(20030 • Luminescence Dating by Carey

• I love to Eat by James Still (2018) Perloff (2007)

• If/Then by (2013) 278

• Marcus: or The Secret of Sweet by • Priscilla, Queen of the Desert by

Tarell Alvin McCraney (2010) Stephan Elliot (2011)

• Mary by Thomas Bradshaw (2011) • Prisoners of Sex by John Roman

• Measure for Pleasure by David Baker (2010)

Grimm (2006) • Proud by John (2009)

• Mirrors by Azure Osborne-Lee • righteous kill, a requiem by Nissy

(2019) Aya (2020)

• Mother Clap's by Mark • Romance by (2005)

Ravenhill (2001) • Rotterdam by Jon Brittain (2015)

• Mothers and Sons by Terrance • Say You Love Satan by Roberto

McNally (2013) Aguiree-Sacassa (2005)

• My Big Gay Italian Wedding by • Secrets of a Gay Mormon Felon by

Anthony Wilkinson (2003) Kimball Allen (2012)

• Mystery of Love and Sex by Bathesba • Significant Other by Joshua Harmon

Dordan (2015) (2015)

• Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts • Six Dance Lessons in Sex Weeks by

(2010) (2001)

• one in two by Donja R. Love (2019) • Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris

• Perfect Arrangement by Topher (2018)

Payne (2016) • Soho Cinders by Elliot Davis (2011)

• Plague Over England by Nicholas de • Some Men by Terrance McNally

Jongh (2008) (2007) 279

• Sons of the Prophet by Stephen • The Breakup Notebook: The Lesbian

Karam (2011) Musical by Patricia Cotter (2005)

• Sordid Lives By Del Shores (2000) • The Color Purple by Marsha

• Southern Baptist Sissies by Del Norman (2005)

Shores (2013) • The Drunken City by Adam Bock

• Speech and Debate by Stephen (2008)

Karam (2008) • The First Domino by David

• Steve & Idi by David Grimm (2009) Copeland (2009)

• Sugar in Our Wounds by Donja R. • The Gay Heritage Project by

Love (2018) Damien Atkins (2018)

• Taboo by Charles Busch (2002) • The Goat, or Who is Sylvia by

• by Richard Greenberg (2002)

(2002) • The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly (2017)

• Telstar by James Hicks (2005) • by

• Temperamentals by Jon Marans (2004)

(2009) • The Hot Wing King by

• That Day in Tucson by Guillermo (2020)

Reyes (2018) • by Stephen Karam

• The Auden Test by Lawrence (2015)

Aronvitch (2019) • The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez

• The Beebo Brinker Chronicles by (2018)

Kate Ryan (2009) • by Michael Zam (2010) 280

• by Moises • by Laura Wade

Kauffman (2000) (2015)

• The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later • Touched by John Baker (2010)

by Moises Kauffman (2009) • The View UpStairs by Max Vernon

• The Last Sunday in June by Jonathan (2017)

Tolins (2004) • When Last We Flew by Harrison

• The Legend of McBride by David Rivers (2010)

Matthew Lopez (2014) • Wig Out! by Tarell Alvin McCraney

• The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas (2008)

Carter Beane (2006) • The Wild Party by Andrew Lippa

• The Men from the Boys by Mart (2000)

Crowley (2002) • Will You…Hold My Hair Back by

• The Nance by Carmen LoBue (2020)

(2013) • Witness Uganda by Griffin

• The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell Matthews (2015)

(2008) • Wolves by Steve Yockey (2012)

• The Plays by John • WTC View by Brian Sloan (2005)

Roman Baker (2008) • Yank! A WWII Love Story by David

• They Walk Among Us by Nicholas Zellnik (2005)

O'Neill (2002) • Yellow by Del Shores (2013)

• Thrill Me by Stephen Dolginoff • Zanna, Don't! by Tim Acito (2003)

(2003)