Out performance artist and playwright Brigham Mosley is used to being asked if his name has anything to do with Brigham Young, the prominent 19th-century leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"No, there's no connection with the Mormon Church, and I'm not Mormon," Mosley said during a recent telephone interview from New York.
"That's always the follow-up question," Mosley said, not knowing exactly why that particular name so enamored his mother before he grew up in the small town of Duke, Okla.
With that question out of the way, Mosley was eager to talk about his return to Chicago for the local debut of his performance art piece Mo[u]rnin'. After. The show receives six performances this month at Mary's Attic thanks to the efforts of Odradek Theatre Company, which also produced Mosley's play Pretty, Smart, Poetic in 2010.
Famed openly gay performance artist Tim Miller has greatly influenced Mosley's performance art work. Mosley first met the famed "NEA Four" artist while as a sophomore six years ago during theater workshops at Southern Methodist University near Dallas. Mosley continued his contact with Miller when he moved to New York three years ago, where he has worked multiple jobs trying to break into the downtown theater scene.
"I got help to develop this piece under his tutelage," Mosley said about the Tim Miller Mentorship, a six-month development process to create new queer work made possible by grants from the National Performance Network, Performance Space 122 and Fourth Arts Block. "(Miller) very much shapes my artistic sensibilities and my life here in New YorkI'll never be able to thank him enough. He's just an angel."
During the six-month period that Mosley had to develop his work, his grandfather died.
"He was the last person that I loved very closely who did not know I was gay," said Mosley, describing his grandfather. "I never told him just because he was from a different time and he was very clear about his feelings about the subject."
The loss got Mosley thinking about his family history in Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century. Mosley says one set of his great-great grandparents were American Indians, but they were able to pass for white and so they refashioned their identity to fit in with the influx of white settlers as the Oklahoma Territory eventually transitioned to become a state.
The ability to compartmentalize and refashion one's outward identity got Mosley to think about notions of queerness in terms of being closeted or out. And the time period of his family history also inevitably made him think of Rodgers and Hammerstein's watershed 1943 musical, Oklahoma!
What originally developed was a piece called Oh Whatta Beautiful Mo[u]rnin', which premiered at PS122 in June 2011 and was later produced at La MaMa ETC as part of the FAB Festival. Mo[u]rnin'. After. is the full-length continuation of the previous piece, which features Mosley looking back on his family history in relation to his own queer life, inter-spliced with characters and key lyrics from the Broadway musical.
"This show, it's been such a journey with me. It's a piece that came out of such an unexpected time of my life," said Mosley, happy with the chance to share Mo[u]rnin'. After. with audiences beyond New York. "It examines grief and loss and ancestry and memory and familial mythology in a way that is playful and hopefully funny."
Odradek Theatre Company's Chicago debut presentation of Mo[u]rnin'. After. plays at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark St. Performances are at 7 p.m. Feb. 14, 16, 17, 21, 22 and 23. Tickets are $10 and available at the door. For more information, visit www.odradektheatre.com or www.brighammosley.com .
Support our troops
Pride Films and Plays is presenting a Stage Door Canteen fundraiser to support its forthcoming world premiere musical Under a Rainbow Flag, which is based upon the true-life story of a gay soldier in the U.S. military during and after World War II.
The event features cast members from Stage Door Canteen performing songs popular during World War II, from Broadway and from Under a Rainbow Flag, which is set to play the Main Stage, 4139 N. Broadway St., from Thursday, March 21, through Sunday, April 21.
Pride Films and Plays' Under A Rainbow Flag Stage Door Canteen is at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15, at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark St. Tickets are $10 general admission and $15 reserved seating. For more information, visit www.pridefilmsandplays.com or www.brownpapertickets.com .
Discounted theater
More than 75 productions are participating in Chicago Theatre Week, a special promotion to highlight the diversity of theater in the Windy City by offering tickets at the reduced rate of $15 or $30. Chicago Theater Week tickets went on sale Jan. 9, and the event runs from Tuesday, Feb. 12, through Sunday, Feb. 17. (True, it's not a full week, but most theaters don't offer performances on Mondays.) For more information (and to see if tickets are still available at reduced costs), visit www.chicagotheatreweek.com .