In the coming weeks, the upstairs venues at the Victory Gardens Theatre will soon be a hive of activity for LGBTQ shows. About Face Theatre is reviving its acclaimed Youth Theatre production of What's the T? and it also presents the Chicago premiere of British playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell's 2008 Olivier Award-winning drama The Pride about two gay love stories set 50 years apart.
Out performer Brian Lobel's BALL and Other Funny Stories About Cancer also comes to the Victory Gardens Theater as part of the 2013 Bodies of Work Festival dedicated to artists with disabilities.
Directing queer youth
Back in 2012, the final performance of About Face Youth Theatre's acclaimed drama What's the T? at Chicago's National Museum of Mexican Art was cancelled due to a power outage caused by a massive weather system that rolled through that day.
"It started a big conversation between the community and ticket holders who wanted to see the show and who were not able to make it because of the power outage or because it was only a three-weekend run," said About Face Theatre artistic associate and What's the T? director Eric Hoff. "There was a big outcry from the community to bring the show back and an angel backer amongst supporters of the Youth Theatre program presented some funds to do a remount."
What's the T? was remarkable for the way it allowed queer youth artists to help create the show with playwright Sara Kerastas over the summer of 2011 and 2012 to address the very hot topics of minority and transgender youth trying (and sometimes failing) to find welcoming safe spaces in Chicago's Boystown neighborhood.
Many of the situations and characters in What's the T? became like a docudrama since the youth ensemble modeled plot points and characters on interviews with many of their peers and on controversies that erupted in Boystown those two summers. The show's emphasis on video and social media also made it a multimedia experience that felt very up-to-date.
"It was very fascinating to watch [Kerastas] stitch together in a quilt-like fashion a narrative out of these various true stories and then adapt it for the stage," Hoff said. "The youth come from all far reaches of Chicago and for this remount they're coming from even further. We're having some college students that are coming from as far as Berkeley, Calif., and Iowa and all over Illinois, so it's pretty exciting to bring a story that is so local and specific to a Chicago neighborhood bring together these outside resources and ideas together."
Hoff is staging What's the T? again after directing the off-Broadway transfer of Ike Holter semi-historical Stonewall Riots drama Hit the Wall earlier this year at New York's Barrow Street Theatre, located just blocks away from the Stonewall Inn. Though the show received rave reviews in Chicago, Hit the Wall divided the New York critics and its off-Broadway run ended earlier than expected in April.
"We're all still baffled as to why whatever marketing efforts and press efforts didn't help pick up an audience," Hoff said. "As for the mixed press, the reviews were all over the map and pretty polarized. I've always been told that polarizing reviews are a sign that you're taking risks and people have split minds to something bold and daringsomething of which I'm proud of."
What's the T? plays at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., from Sunday, May 19, through Sunday, June 2. Performances are at 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays with 3 p.m. Sunday matinees (also 3 p.m. Saturday, June 1). Tickets are $15, $5 for youth and $25 for About Face Youth Theater supporters. Tickets are available at the door or by visiting www.aboutfacetheatre.com .
Living queer and surviving cancer
U.S. health insurance challenges drove Chicago queer performance artist and cancer survivor Brian Lobel to pursue further schooling in the United Kingdom a few years ago. So Lobel, now a London resident, finds it slightly ironic that it was a Liverpool performance of his one-man show, BALL and Other Funny Stories about Cancer, that helped him become a part of Chicago's 2013 Bodies of Work Festival dedicated to disabled artists.
"It's kind of funny in that I used to live in Chicago and that some of the pieces in the show actually premiered in Chicago a few years ago," said Lobel, noting that it was UIC professor and Bodies of Work co-curator Carrie Sandahl who saw his show in England. "I think she programmed me there, and a lot of my work is about is about cancer and illness seen through a disability context, so that's how I became a part of the festival.
Lobel, a former Windy City Times "30 Under 30" award recipient, developed portions of his performance art piece BALL… at the former Chicago companies Bailiwick Repertory in 2006 and Live Bait Theater in 2009, then finally combined the two earlier works with a third piece to form his current show in 2011 in the U.K.
Lobel also cites famed queer and queer-friendly performance artists like Annie Sprinkle, Tim Miller and Holly Hughes as mentors and major inspirations for BALL…, which he says is a funny and poignant look at the intersection of mortality issues with queer lifeparticularly since Lobel was diagnosed at age 20 with testicular cancer before he had even lost his virginity.
"The lesbian community is very good about talking about breast cancer and the gay community is generally really great about talking on HIV/AIDS because they both have a long history with these two illnesses," Lobel said. "But the LGBT queer frame does change other experiences that are standard in life like getting sick and dealing with mortality. I'm glad to be a part of that conversation."
Brian Lobel's BALL and Other Funny Stories About Cancer plays 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 24, at the Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets are $10. Call 773-871-3000 or visit www.victorygardens.org .
BALL is part of the 2013 Bodies of Work Festival featuring visual and performing arts highlighting the work of artists with disabilities, which runs from Wednesday, May 15, through Saturday, May 25, at venues throughout Chicago.
For works in the 2013 Bodies of Work Festival, visit www.bodiesofworkchicago.org .