More than one person I know has boycotted STLtoday.com because of the trollish nature of the comments posted under the stories. (Maybe this is a brilliant ploy to get people actually picking up hard copy papers again?) In any case, I never thought those comments would be useful to anyone, but Joan Lipkin of That Uppity Theater Company, along with Tennessee playwright Sharon Bandy, have turned them into art. Their new play, Beyond Stonewall: Why We March, uses actual scurrilous comments posted in response to an STLtoday story on a local banker who happens to be gay. The play also recognizes the 40th anniversary of Stonewall and Lipkin hopes that it will “encourage people to participate in the National Equality March in Washington D.C. on October 10–11,” or at the very least, “to examine issues closer to home.” The play will be performed this weekend at Metropolitan Community Church:
“The amazing cast of Beyond Stonewall: Why We March spans from 16-year-old Kaitlin Wright, a junior at Metro High School, to Dieta Pepsi, one of the region’s leading female impersonators. Other performers include Carol Robinson, former president of St. Louis Pride, AIDS activist Steve Houldsworth, Theresa Masters and Howie Hirshfield from the Howard Brinkley sketch comedy troupe, Rich Scharf formerly with the DisAbility Project, Equity actors Tyler Vickers and Travis Estes, and deaf interpreter/actor Scott McMasters. Bert Coleman, St. Louis activist who serves on the national steering committee for the Oct 11th National Equality March, former St. Louis Judge Susan Block and artist Claire Medol Hyman will also be performing in the roles of community bloggers. The play follows a newscaster who tries to do a story about an out-of-the-closet, white, gay prominent banker when his interview on the street is highjacked by the ghosts of Stonewall, bloggers, two college students and an African-American lesbian activist. It uses actual comments from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website. Both funny and informative, the 30-minute play presents multi-generational perspectives and differences of opinion in the LGBT community, and explores gay marriage; the Employee Non-Discrimination Act; Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; and gay bashing, among other issues. Ultimately, it suggests that LGBT rights are human rights and should be of concern to all people, regardless of sexual orientation.”
Beyond Stonewall: Why We March
Sunday, September 20, 1 p.m., Free
Metropolitan Community Church, 1919 S. Broadway
314-995-4600, beyondstonewall.wordpress.com
