The first months of the 2011-2012 theater season offer several interesting shows about sexualitysuch as Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, at Victory Gardens through Oct. 9but very few shows about homosexuality or homosexuals. In short, it's a really thin theater season for LGBT themes and stories.
Perhaps the most important LGBT show of the fall already is up and running, the world premiere of Sarah Gubbins' The Kid Thing, which wrestles with lesbian couples and parenting issues. It's a co-production of About Face Theatre and Chicago Dramatists ( running through Oct. 16 at Chicago Dramatists ) and the reviews have been glowing.
Another show, At Ease, also is up and running thanks to a brand-new start-up troupe, The Fine Print Theatre Company, performing at the Viaduct Theater ( through Oct. 2 ) . Authored by company co-founders Heather Bodie and Emily Gann, At Ease concerns a Marine home from Afghanistan dealing with PTSD and the secret that his best Marine bud was gay. At Ease continues at the Viaduct Theater through Oct. 2. This could be an important show, too, although this new troupe is unfamiliar and unproven as of now.
Late in September, Hell in a Handbag Productionsas only they canoffers a drag take on Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which they tastefully are calling Pussy on the House, to be presented at the Athenaeum Theatre, Studio #3, Sept. 23-Oct. 30.
It's nearly a month's wait until another specifically LGBT show hits the boards, when Gift Theatre in Jefferson Park stages Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 ( Oct. 13-Dec. 4 ) , an unusual choice for the Gift company. With Act I set in 19th Century British colonial Africa and Act II set in late 20th Century London, Cloud 9 uses magic realism and genderfuck to take a serio-comic look at racism, colonialism, sexism, sexual role models and self-acceptance.
That's it, friends, for LGBT theater from now through November. There are, perhaps, several shows in which there may be just a bit of LGBT borrowed interest, but it's strictly secondary. For example, First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook currently is offering Tea at Five, a one-woman show about Katherine Hepburn, the great star whom some biographers say indulged in same-sex dalliances.
Similarly borrowing interest, one might consider The Beats at the 16th Street Theater in Berwyn ( through Oct. 15 ) , a restaging of a hit from last season that channels several Beat Generation icons through their own words. Of course, several of them were gay, notably Allen Ginsberg. ( William Burroughs isn't included in this particular remix ) .
And that's it; that's really, really it for LGBT theater. Unless you include works written by notable LGBT authors, but then you're kinda-sorta getting ridiculous. For example, there are at least three Stephen Sondheim shows: Sweeney Todd at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace, through Oct. 9; Putting It Together by Porchlight Music Theatre at Theater Wit, through Oct. 16; and Follies at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Oct. 4-Nov. 6 ) . Also, there are two Tennessee Williams plays to be seen ( not counting Pussy on the House ) , Summer and Smoke at The Den Theatre in Wicker Park ( through Oct. 29 ) and The Glass Menagerie at Oak Park Festival Theatre, Oct. 16-Nov. 13; one William Inge, Bus Stop at Raven Theatre, Oct. 11-Dec. 11; one Nilo Cruz, Beauty of the Father at Urban Theatre Company at the Wicker Park Arts Center ( Oct. 14-Nov. 15; and one Zora Neale Hurston, the familiar stage adaptation of her short stories, Spunk, at Court Theatre through Oct. 9.
Now, if I keep this up I'm going to get calls and emails from the unions for actors and directors and designers demanding equal time for all their LGBT members working in Chicago theater over the next three months, so I'm going to cut it short.
The point is, the low number of LGBT-specific shows certainly does not mean an absence of LGBT artists. We're here, we're queer and we're everywherecertainly no more so than in our theater industry. Don't worry: There will be a lot more LGBT stuff in the 2012 half of the theater season.