Bonnie Metzgar, the new artistic director of About Face Theatre, knew she had big shoes to fill as successor to Eric Rosen, co-founder ( in 1995 with Kyle Hall ) of the queer-centric theater company. Appointed last May, Metzgar was the first 'outsider' and non-Chicagoan to crack the troupe's top management. She brought sterling credentials with her, leaving her post as director of the graduate playwriting program at Brown University and artistic director of Brown's New Plays Festival. Previous to that, Metzgar was associate artistic director of Denver's Curious Theatre Company ( 2004-2007 ) , and associate producer of the Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival ( 1995-2003 ) . She also served as producer and co-creator with playwright Suzan-Lori Parks of the year-long 365 Festival based on Parks' play cycle 365 Days/365 Plays, which was produced internationally from November 2006 until November 2007.
A few differences between Metzgar and Rosen are immediately clear. To begin with, she's a woman. Joke. She also prefers to refer to 'queer' performance or literature rather than using the ever-expanding list of initials—LGBTQY—favored by Rosen. But she has no plans to change the essential mission of the company: to present productions exploring issues of gender and sexuality, many of them self-developed new works. About Face also will remain in residence at the Center on Halsted Hoover-Leppen Theater, 3656 N. Halsted.
Metzgar took up full-time residence in Chicago only last July, settling in Edgewater with her partner, a Yale University theater academic. In addition to their professional responsibilities, the two are the mothers of an eight-month old daughter. But parenthood aside, Metzgar's first task was to whip together a 2008-2009 About Face season. That season will open with The Young Ladies Of ... ( sic ) , written and performed by drag artist Taylor Mac ( Sept. 26-Oct. 26 ) . The season will continue with a major new production of John C. Russell's mid-1990s play Stupid Kids, and close with the world premiere of What Once We Felt by Ann Marie Healy.
For this special Theater Issue of the Windy City Times, Metzgar spoke about her new job and the About Face season.
Windy City Times: The one-person show seems to follow in the tradition of such About Face solo pieces as I Am My Own Wife and Clay, the hip-hop show.
Bonnie Metzgar: When we are young, many of us in the queer community go to a lot of clubs and see a lot of solo performance in a club setting. And some of the quality of that is not Pulitzer Prize winning writing, but it's fun and it's part of our tradition. Taylor Mac is surprising. He's a fantastic playwright. Think of this as a play, even though he performs it himself. The writing is really incredible. He's a club performer, and he opens for people like Nina Hagen, so there's kind-of a rock-and-roll aesthetic. [ But ] this piece is a play, and I think it will surprise people.
WCT: I have a colleague who says that men doing drag is like white actors doing blackface.
BM: Personally, I love drag. But Taylor's not that kind of a drag performer. He's not impersonating a woman; in fact, he's badly wearing these clothes. He's got clothes all over the floor and he sort-of puts them on, more like artifacts. He talks about himself as a pastiche artist, but also as a Shakespeare's Fool. He's asking questions about his own identity. He's much more of a clown in the way that a clown might wear a crazy hat. He's much more playful.
WCT: About Face usually includes one 'name' play in the season; perhaps a commercial hit with some marquee value, such as Take Me Out or The Little Dog Laughed, or a work by a well-known queer writer such Jim Grimley. Your first season seems to be more of a leap of faith.
BM: Well, I think Stupid Kids is a classic among late 20th-century gay plays. Here in Chicago, there was a well-known production done in 1999 by Roadworks. John C. Russell is an important writer. I think of him as contemporary with Angels in America and a voice from that particular time. It's the time when this theater was founded.
Here we are about to do a benefit to mark the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepherd, an event that was so important to us. And yet our kids have never heard of him. They don't know what that is. So the reason to do Stupid Kids is not only to remind our hardcore audience and give them an opportunity to revisit a period in time, but also because I feel we have a responsibility to queer youth today. So, I'm thinking of that as a new classic work. I've built the whole season around Stupid Kids. I agree John C. Russell is not the household name I wish he were. He died in 1994 at the age of 31. But that play has been done all over the country and was important for me to start with. Looking at what was available to me, in an election year, it was more important that a work was remarkable then that it have name recognition.
[ Note: Metzgar plans an elaborate multimedia production of Stupid Kids—a play about teenagers—that will incorporate members of the About Face Youth Ensemble into a regular mainstage show rather than isolate them in an exclusive Youth Ensemble show as in the past. The production will run in mid-winter. ]
WCT: Is it your plan to make About Face a little edgier, a little more 'out there?'
BM: Our mission is to be in dialogue with issues of sexuality and gender. And the question 'What is gay [ or ] queer theater?'—I want our audiences to be involved in that question with us, and sometimes the most interesting play is not overtly queer at all. What Once We Felt, the world premiere we are doing in the spring, is not at all a gay play. You know, it's asking questions that are much more universal. But you look at it through the lens of what it's saying about gender and sexuality. Chicago audiences are curious, and so I'm going to expose them to very interesting artists and we'll see how they respond.
WCT: Will you retain the ensemble of About Face artistic associates such as Elizabeth Laidlaw, Jessica Thebus, Scott Ferguson, Amy Matheny and others?
BM: I'm meeting with them all of this year. They need to discover the purpose of that artistic associates body, and I really need to feel there is a dialogue going on rather than just a loose affiliation. So that's a very active question that they're looking at, I'm looking at, and hopefully artists who want to be part of an organization like that, we'll find a way for them to stick around. Others, whose careers have taken off, or don't need that kind of association, they'll probably be forever a part of the family but there won't be a formal association.
WCT: In addition to the three-play mainstage season, you're introducing a new play series, Chicago XYZ.
BM: The national community thinks of About Face as a place where interesting new work is developed. I'm a writing fanatic, I love great writing. So we'll do a reading series of new plays by lesbian writers [ including Leigh Fondakowski, Patricia Kane and Sally Oswald ] . I want harder-to-categorize projects, too, that are harder to develop. For example, I'm bringing in Dan Rothenberg and Dito von Reigersberg, members of Philadelphia's revered Pig Iron Theatre Company who will begin to rework a classic musical theater score. I'd love to team them up with Chicago's 500 Clown. Those two companies have never worked together. They're both crazy in totally different ways, they both approach text in different ways. Neither of them is queer-identified at all, it's a really other-kind of experiment. So I'm really looking at diverse models for developing work.
WCT: Are you looking for scripts or are you looking for artists?
BM: I love reading scripts. Most people hate it. I'm always open to a writer I've never heard of, and that's the best way. But at the end of the day, I love a long-term relationship with artists. I've known Suzan-Lori Parks for going on 20 years. So I am looking for artists whose work I love so much that I want to work with them time and time again.
