Playwrights: About Face Youth Theatre members
At: Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St. Tickets: 773-784-85665 or AboutFaceTheatre.com; $20 or pay-what-you-can. Runs through: July 28
The About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble is celebrating its 20th year by looking back in 20/20, a devised production that celebrates the queer lives being lived its performers now, while shining light on those who have come before.
Directors Megan Carney and Donny Acosta blend stories from previous ensemble members and Chicago artists with the current ensemble's life experiencesand the result is a powerful, joyous and moving evening of theater.
The performers have set their walk through history during a nebulous ball. The time could be now. It could also be the 1980s at the height of ballroom culture, and it often is. ( The audience erupted at the needle drop on Janet Jackson's "Nasty" at the performance I attended. ) The evening's emcee is tour de force AngelÃca Grace, whose confident moves on the runway match her ability to pump up the crowd.
Each ensemble member has a story to share, or a moment to shine, as in Sharon Pasia's inviting admission that she sees figuring herself out as a process, or Mal Blasingame's breakdown of their rightful place as the queer Messiah. Jessica James, Dara Prentiss, Keyonna Jackson and Nina Cajuste all lovingly share the stories of queer folx who have come before, while Lucian Sheldon-Wesley transforms one of the poem they discovered in the About Face archive to a devastating and relevant look at how rejection fuels pain and loss. And because all these stories are told at a ball, there's also a ton of posing and group dancing.
Carney and Acosta smartly let their performers be themselvesa central theme of the show. Before the production's start, each cast member wandered through the audience, welcoming the crowd with genuine clarity. The ensemble members are at their strongest when they support one another as a group, taking one another's hands organically, or lead a round of snaps, or calling out a hard moment. Their bond envelops the audience, as we are included in dance numbers, and encouraged to shout out our own responses to their threads.
Claire Sangster's bright pink lights and Ariel Zetina's bumping music support the celebration and party on display, while the About Face Youth Theatre Ensemble has generated a warm and welcoming space to celebrate queerness and look forward to the future.