#Keelay Gipson

[writemarcus]

In Conversation: Keelay Gipson with Marcus Scott

Keelay Gipson, an award-winning multi-disciplinary Afro-surrealist dramatist, activist, and teaching artist, knows what it means to battle your inner demons and come out the other side.

In June 2020, during the pandemic, Gipson’s mother, Gwendolyn, passed away. From the pangs of grief, Gipson began excavating and examining his life and journey as a storyteller. Born in Oklahoma City to a young, unwed mother, the prolific writer was adopted by a Black married couple from the Deep South who relocated and raised him in the idyllic suburbs of Tulsa. It was his mother that nourished his love of theater and the performing arts. Studying acting at Pace, and after a period of being relegated to roles of drug dealers, gang bangers, and sex workers, Gipson turned his focus to writing for the stage and advocating for Black people and Black lives through his work. This would eventually lead to a passionate drive as an activist, with Gipson eventually becoming a member of “We See You, White American Theater,” an anonymously-led coalition of artists that circulated a widely read set of demands for change during a cultural reckoning that saw seismic shifts in and out of the entertainment world.

Now, the award-winning scribe is on the verge of making his off-Broadway debut with the kitchen-sink drama demons., a poetic meditation on loss and legacy. The play, produced by The Bushwick Starr in association with JAG Productions, revolves around the Daimon family who have come together to bury their patriarch and exorcise the trauma passed down to them—but is it too late?

While speaking via FaceTime from his apartment in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, Gipson was in the midst of rehearsals for DOT DOT DOT, a TheaterworksUSA musical commission based on the Creatrilogy trio of picture books by New York Times bestselling author Peter H. Reynolds, adapted with composer Sam Salmond. Below is our conversation about the glass ceiling, gatekeeping, and demons.

Marcus Scott (Rail): Can you describe the journey of going from actor to playwright?

Keelay Gipson: The journey from actor to playwright was really just me following the path of least resistance. I was a student in the Musical Theater program at Pace University (class of 2010) and didn’t find much success in booking roles in my time there. This was way before we were having these kinds of nuanced conversations surrounding race and representation in theater. So I began writing roles for myself to act. I would get folks together in an empty studio and we’d read my plays. Soon I stopped acting in them and would just listen to them. I found my voice while trying to give me and the other brown and Black folks an opportunity to be full artists during a time and in a program where that wasn’t happening.

Rail: How many plays have you written and where does demons. stand among them?

Gipson: I’ve written seven full length plays. demons. is the most recent. I began working on it in the summer of 2019 as part of a joint residency with New York Stage and Film and the Dramatist Guild Foundation.

Rail: While I have my theories—why is the name of your show called demons.?

Gipson: I grew up in a Southern Baptist household. The idea of demons. is something that has always been a part of my consciousness. As a child, I remember my dad telling stories about seeing exorcisms, and it always fascinated me. This idea that something other could be the cause of our afflictions, both mentally and physically. I wanted to toy with that idea. Honor the faith that I grew up with while reclaiming it on some level.

Rail: In a 2020 interview with JAGFest, you said “demons. was a play I wasn’t supposed to write, so I listened to the muse; I sat down and it came out of me.” Can you explain this?

Gipson: As I said, I was in residence with NYSAF and DGF at Vassar in the summer of 2019. I was there to work on another play of mine, The Red and the Black—which is a play about the rise of New Black Conservatism. I often have multiple projects going at one time. A play I’m “supposed to” be writing and a “procrastination play” [laughs]. demons. was the latter. Honestly, it was a thought experiment. I was moving squarely into my mid-thirties and I had seen friends lose parents, and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for what that might feel like. Little did I know, the play would be the precursor for my own experience with the death of a parent during the pandemic. I say, “it wasn’t the play I was supposed to write” but it was the play I needed to write.

Rail: So, what’s it about? What was the inspiration for your play demons.? I assume the loss of your mother.

Gipson: Yeah. So, the story follows a Black family after the death of their patriarch. And what I noticed in dealing with the aftermath of a death is that a lot of stuff comes up, right? So, demons. is an exploration through an Afro-surrealist lens of what comes up after the death of a family member, mainly of a parent. The things that you have to reckon with, things that maybe aren’t yours, but that you inherit. So, there’s this idea of inherited trauma, and especially with Black folks in America, what we pass down to our family members and what we leave behind when we’re no longer here. So, demons. is an exploration of all of those good things that death sort of unearths.

Rail: I followed your journey throughout the pandemic with regards to the loss. Once again, I'm very sorry for your loss, man.

Gipson: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Rail: What was your relation like to your mother?

Gipson: My mother was my biggest cheerleader. In high school, she was the president of the parent association for the drama program. She got the pass to come do a photo-call during the dress rehearsal; she would be there with her camera in the front row taking pictures, not for promotional use but for the scrapbook. Like, my mom was the one who was like, “Go to New York.” I went to New York a couple times in high school with my drama program and my mom came as a chaperone. We went and saw the shows that we saw with the theater department and then we went and saw our own shows. My mom, she loved theater and she was the one that—when we didn’t have the money and I didn’t know if I could come to New York to go to school—she pulled me aside and was like, “I’m gonna make this happen for you.” She was… she was everything.

Rail: So, you’re working on this play about Black conservatives—I think it’s hilarious cause both of us have written about Black conservatives during the pandemic, by the way—and you’ve got so many other things going on; you’re an advocate, or an “artivist” as you call yourself, being one of the figureheads behind We See You, White American Theater and the issues revolving around that, in tandem with the multiple projects you’re cultivating. So before we get into that aspect of your life, was it hard for you to kind of mentally go from one place to another place? Are you one of those writers where you have to be working on multiple projects or are you one of those writers where you can only work on one project at a time?

Gipson: I have never worked on just one project at a time. I think for me, I need something that’s completely opposite of the thing that I’m supposed to be doing. Like, if I have a commission that’s about a historical moment, then I’m gonna write something that’s wild and fanciful over here to like, break out of that—not monotony—but break out of the sort of structure that one wouldn't give me. So yeah, I’m often working on multiple things just to keep my brain limber.

Rail: That’s interesting. I see the link between The Red and the Black in your artivism, but what about this particular play with regards to it?

Gipson: This play kind of feels like a new era of my artistry. You know, I’ve written several plays that are about race, that are about Black folks dealing with race and racism, and not like, being beat down by it, but finding a way through; and I try to be honest in all of those works, but this play feels very much not a part of that pantheon. It feels like, to quote Toni Morrison, I’m taking the white person off of my shoulder. It’s not about race. It’s about Black folks. I wanna write about Blackness and all its complexity and not in relationship to whiteness or to racism. This feels like a new era of work for me, where it’s just about these Black folks in a room trying to figure out how they move forward after this thing devastates them. In the opening of the play, it says “a Black family and extremists.” Like, that’s what the play’s about. How do we relate to each other? The world sort of doesn’t come inside of the space in this play. It’s about Black folks in a space together figuring it out and not in relationship to society or the political landscape or 2022, 2023… it’s timeless in a way because death will always be true.

Rail: Let’s talk politics. Let’s get into it. There were many incidents over the last three years and many of those incidents in the industry in some way involved We See You, White American Theater. This collective has attracted the likes of Tony Award winners, the Academy Award winners, the Broadway Elite and those on the rise… What was the intention behind that? Was there a litmus for that?

Gipson: I think that during the pandemic, we had a lot of time, right? I’ll say that a lot of people had things in the pipeline and the industry was chugging along. There was no reason for it to change. It was working. Then everything stopped and we had time to look at the way that things are going. Look at our industry for real, holistically, and I think a lot of us brown and Black folks saw that it's not working, not for us, and it hasn't been for a long time. We’ve been tokenized. So, in working alongside those organizations and those movements, I was trying to galvanize other brown and Black folks who felt similarly that the industry wasn’t working for us and we could do better. Like, especially in the theater.

The theater is different than film and television because it’s people in a room breathing the same air, there are people sharing space, right? And I’ve always wondered how we can do better at sharing spaces with one another; and I’m all about community. The theater for me has always been a community-driven space. So, I wanted this community to mean what it says! I do think that it's business as usual a little bit again, which is not concerning because I think that the theater is working the way that it was designed to work. Much like a lot of things in our society. Yes, we can push back on it, but if we don’t imagine new models—like completely new models—then the old models that we’re trying to reform are always going to try to revert back to the way they were working. Cause that’s how they were built to work. So, the momentum of some of these things, like We See You… there are several organizations, I don’t want to just point to that one… but I wonder what their role is now because things kind of feel like they’re back to normal. I mean, the seven Broadway shows that were Black-led that came right out of the pandemic, that’s a great thing. But they all closed pretty early. Even with Ain't No Mo… it’s not working. So what?

It’s not us, it’s not the Black creatives. Right? It's because we know these things that we’re trying to make it better and it’s not getting better. So, it feels like it’s the model. I don't know, I think we need to imagine bigger than we are even doing now. I think we need to think magically, we’re theatremakers, right? We deal in magical thinking. I think we need to do that more when it comes to the theater because right now we’re just trying to polish a turd a little bit, it feels like. [Laughs] Like, we know it doesn’t work. And we had all of this time to try to make it work and it’s still not working. I think of the Cleveland Play House incident that just happened. And I’m like, “How, after all of this time of listening and learning, did we come to this moment?” So, we have to think magically. We need to think bigger than I think we even know.

Rail: For our readers, what are some things that we need to really look at? You mentioned the seven shows that opened on Broadway in the fall of 2021: Pass Over by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, Lackawanna Blues by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Chicken & Biscuits by Douglas Lyons, Thoughts of a Colored Man by Keenan Scott II, Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage, and Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau. Since that time, shows like Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’, the Broadway transfer of the Asian-led musical K-Pop, MJ: The Musical (also penned by Nottage) and Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders opened and closed on Broadway. Not to mention, Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop.

Gipson: And it won every single award it could possibly win; you know what I mean?

Rail: What are some things that we can look at in general for the field? Because this is a global issue affecting Black, Brown and BIPOC people on both sides of the pond. Using a bit of magical thinking, what are some concepts, machinations or ideas that could work?

Gipson: I think it starts with audience cultivation. Honestly. I think outreach is a huge thing that theaters don’t know how to do because they rely on their subscriber base. That's the truth. The subscriber base we know is mostly older white folks who have disposable income. Millennials don’t have disposable income. And like, I'm sorry, but to get a package at one of these off-Broadway theaters, or to go to a night at the theater and get a good seat, it’s expensive. Right? So there needs to be outreach to people who can't spend a hundred dollars or five hundred dollars or a thousand dollars on a package for a season. And we need to make it cool. Honestly, theater is not cool. It’s only cool when it’s like the hottest ticket in town, right? Right? We need to figure out a way to make theater accessible to people younger than the Boomers and to Millennials that don’t have disposable income. And it’s not gonna happen with one or two nights of Affinity Nights. It’s gonna happen by putting people on late night shows! I don't know. I’m not like a marketing person but to me, it feels like there’s a disconnect between what the theater is talking about. Because once people come see these plays and get talking, that’s where the change will happen. But you gotta get people into the theater and from what I’ve seen, it’s the same people. And yes, there’s Affinity Nights, and so you can go to a Black Theater Night or an LGBTQ Theater Night and see your community. But the truth of the matter is we’re either seeing it for the second time, or it’s because it's your community, you’re finally seeing those people, but they were gonna come to the show anyway.

Rail: Ain’t that the truth. So, you are trying to appeal to a particular audience. How would you market demons.?

Gipson: I don't know. That's interesting because I couldn’t go to churches, I don't think, and market this show in the same way that like Ain’t No Mo’ might be able to. I’m a professor, so I’m going to try and get young people to see this show. Young Black people because this show’s kind of weird. I like weird stuff. Weird Black shows can be successful too. Shows that are weird and Black… there's a place for them. A Strange Loop is weird to me. I’m like, that's cool. Passing Strange, things like that. How can we take Black surrealism, things that are a little left of center, but talk about being Black in a way that is just as valid as something that’s a little more straightforward.

Rail: You’ve grown exponentially as an artist, mostly because of just the nature of the beast. Where do you think the next stage of Keelay Gipson is going?

Gipson: I hope it is still in the theater. Actually, I know it is. I think I'm working on some musicals. I know I’m working on some musicals. I’m working on a new history play about Tulsa (because I’m from Tulsa and I haven’t written about being from Tulsa and being Black from Tulsa, and I think I should do that). So musicals, a play about Tulsa and hopefully, a film or a TV show.

Rail: And if you could bring any family member to see this show, who would you bring?

Gipson: I would bring my mother. Yeah, I would bring my mother. I kind of regret—I’ve told her to wait so many times to, you know, just wait until it’s the real thing. “Don’t come to the reading, just wait till it’s the real thing.” So, I would want her to see the real thing.

Rail: Pleasure to finally meet you, Keelay.

Gipson: No, this was lovely. Thank you. Thank you.

The Bushwick Starr and The Connolly Theater demons. May 20–June 10, 2023 Brooklyn

Contributor

Marcus Scott

Marcus Scott is a New York City-based playwright, musical writer, opera librettist, and journalist. He has contributed to Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Architectural Digest, The Brooklyn Rail, Elle, Essence, Out, Uptown, Trace, Hello Beautiful, Madame Noire and Playbill, among other publications. Follow Marcus on Instagram.

[blackqueertheatre]

What’s Happening Now

Tristan Flournoy

Openly gay Black artists like Robert O’Hara and George C. Wolfe have created work about Black queer life over three decades, but their numbers were fewer and far between. The difference now is the sheer volume of diverse queer voices. Some are even calling it a renaissance.

“The intersection of queerness and Blackness is vast and complex, with identities occupying their own spaces and offering their own perspectives. This community is not a monolith, but rather a tapestry of different experiences of being othered and oppressed.” - quote from Playbill

“While many Black artists are generating work that are nuanced and empowering, and even dissecting of the white gaze, there are still just as many works that default towards “enterpainment.” -American Theatre

“Most stories featuring queer characters of color forefront the atrocities that inherently arise from the stigmatization of one’s sexual agency and one’s race. Rather than showcasing the beauty within the full expression of queerness—such as falling in love or (in A Strange Loop) standing up to your parents—too often writers are defaulting to trauma.” -American Theatre

New playwrights: Aziza Barnes, Azure D. Osborne-Lee: An award-winning Black, queer theatre maker, is the founder of Roots and River Productions and was a member of the inaugural Trans Theater Lab cohort. Mirrors, Osborne-Lee’s first full-length work to receive a full-fledged production, premiered at Next Door at NYTW in February., Brandon Jacob’s-Jenkins, C.A. Johnson, Carmen LoBue, Donneta Lavinia Grays, Michael R. Jackson, Ianne Fields Stewart: Ianne Fields Stewart (pronouns: she/her/they/them) is a black, queer, and transfeminine New York-based storyteller working at the intersection of theatre and activism. Their work and she are dedicated to interrupting the exclusivity of luxury by making things like entertainment, nourishment, and self care accessible to the most marginalized in their community. In a world that is constantly traumatizing Black bodies she believes that Black queer and trans people should have the space and time to center collective emotional, physical, and sensual pleasure., Trey Anthony, Nissy Aya, Owen Dodson, Angelina Weld Grimke, Tracey Scott Wilson, Tarrell Alvin Mcraney, Robert O’Hara, Tanya Barfield, D’bi Young

@BTFACollective, @BwayAdvocacy, @bcefa, @MTFMusicals, @NationalQueerTheater, @TheEachOtherProject, @TheOkraProject, @TransLabTheater

What makes these plays radical is their candor, addressing the audience with frank depictions of queer Black life. Most importantly, these are plays that are creating discourse on what artist Lora Mathis calls radical softness, or “the idea that unapologetically sharing your emotions is a political move and a way to combat the societal idea that feelings are a sign of weakness.”

Not to mention the playwrights who identify as queer but whose plays aren’t chiefly about LGBTQ life: Colman Domingo (Dot), Marcus Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand), Jonathan Norton (My Tidy List of Terrors), Timothy DuWhite (Neptune), Keelay Gipson (#NewSlaves), Korde Arrington Tuttle (clarity), Jirèh Breon Holder (Too Heavy for Your Pocket) and Derek Lee McPhatter (Bring the Beat Back)

https://blacktransmedia.wixsite.com/blacktransmedia

“Black Trans Media is a project based in Brooklyn led by and for Black Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) communities that works at the intersections of arts, media, education, and organizing to address racism and transphobia. We are creating a world where black trans folks are uplifted in our communities and in control of our own narratives and futures.”

https://marshap.org

https://www.podcastofcolor.com

“Podcast of color came about by the four of us feeling there was a void in the media for queer voices. We wanted to offer our own ideas, thoughts, and commentary to the podcasting realm in hopes that we could connect with, heal, and inspire others to be the best they could be.”

https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-twenty-a-conversation-with-aziza-barnes-the-adroit-journal/

“I’d say the act & art of listening. Just listen to women of color. & believe them. like for real. believe what they say. & follow that belief into immediate & concrete action. That’s how we make the literary world safer.” -Aziza Barnes

Citation:

Huynh, Lynn. “Issue Twenty: A Conversation with Aziza Barnes: The Adroit Journal.” The Adroit Journal, 25 Jan. 2019, https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-twenty-a-conversation-with-aziza-barnes-the-adroit-journal/.

[joshuatorrez]

My rendition of 'It's A Man's World' live at Soul Night at Toshi's Living Room, hosted by Shira. Shoot out to SYN City for providing the footage.

[writemarcus]

New York Stage and Film Announces Founders' Award and Pfaelzer Award Recipients

This year’s finalists for the Founders’ Award were Troy Anthony, Zeniba Now, Banna Desta, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Katie Madison, and Marcus Scott.

by Chloe Rabinowitz Oct. 12, 2021  

New York Stage and Film announced today that jeremy o'brian is the recipient of the 2021 Founders' Award, a prestigious award that provides financial and administrative resources, as well as access to the NYSAF artist community. This year's finalists for the Founders' Award were Troy Anthony, Zeniba Now, Banna Desta, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Katie Madison, and Marcus Scott.

The Founders' Award acknowledges an exceptional generative artist, in honor of the founders' enduring commitment to nurturing emerging voices. The Founders' Award is now selected by recent recipients of the award. This year's committee included Ngozi Anyanwu, Keelay Gipson, Kirya Traber, and Max Vernon. Recipients are offered $2500, an extended residency during the NYSAF Summer Season in the Hudson Valley, and financial and administrative support for a project for which they are the sole curatorial voice. jeremy o'brian will curate multiple events in proximity to World AIDS Day, including a conversation that bears witness to the multiplicity of stories available from Black, Queer, HIV-positive artists, which will be available as a live event and audio podcast for streaming. jeremy will also offer a reading of his play boys don't look at boys as a compliment to the preceding conversation.

New York Stage and Film has also announced that Elisa Bocanegra has been named the 2021 recipient of the Pfaelzer Award, created in honor of Producing Director Johanna Pfaelzer's 20-year commitment to nurturing artists and their developing stories at New York Stage and Film.

The Pfaelzer Award is selected in consultation with Johanna Pfaelzer and the recipient receives artistic and administrative support for projects of their choosing throughout the year, culminating in a residency during NYSAF's summer season. The residency is meant to include a reading, workshop, or other developmental activity that best supports the artist and their work. The recipient will be actively involved with the rich community of NYSAF artists and artistic staff and has the opportunity for project mentorship from Ms. Pfaelzer.

"I am excited to be working with New York Stage and Film," said Founders' Recipient jeremy o'brian. "boys don't look at boys is a play of great significance, underscoring my deepest hope for a world where we normalize black boys prioritizing vulnerability, gentleness, and a deep regard for self and the other. My time with NYSAF will be spent developing this play, and I am excited to be introducing myself to the New York theatre community at a time that feels both new, exciting, and burgeoning in its consciousness of what true inclusion and representation might look like."

"I know first-hand the power of a great mentor. Olympia Dukakis was mine, and she encouraged me to start HERO Theatre," said Pfaelzer Recipiant Elisa Bocanegra. "This new chapter in my career is about commissioning and developing new work. I'm so honored to receive mentorship from Johanna Pfaelzer. She's amazing at nurturing artists, manages to understand work-life balance, and is a great leader. I feel very fortunate."

FOUNDERS' AWARD RECIPIENT BIO:

jeremy o'brian is a first-generation Mississippi-born penman. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Tougaloo College before attending and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a Master of Arts in African and African Diaspora Studies. He is the writer and producer of the short film Blu & Sky (2021). He is the recipient of the Birmingham Black Repertory Theatre Company Black Queer Fellowship (2020), Liberation Theatre Playwriting Residency Fellowship (2019), Athena Theatre's Athena Writes Playwriting Fellowship (2018), and the Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Voice in Playwriting Fellowship (2016). His plays include: egg; or anythin' dipped in egg gone soften (Development: Athena Theatre), a curious thing; or superheroes k'ain't fly (Workshop Production: JAGProductions), under one roof; or home to mississippi (Development: Liberation Theatre Co.), and boys don't look at boys (Semi-Finalist: Playwright's Realm Writing Fellowship).

PFAELZER AWARD RECIPIENT BIO:

Elisa Bocanegra is a producer and actor who has now added directing to her credits. She is the founder of HERO Theatre in Los Angeles. Elisa was a TCG Leadership U grant recipient, which allowed her to be part of the Leadership Team at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two seasons. Her directing credits include TROY, where she teamed up with homeless shelters around Los Angeles to raise awareness of the crisis. Other directing credits include The Floating Island Plays by Eduardo Machado and a new project called Nuestro Planeta. This ten-year-long multimedia, new works initiative focuses on educating Latinx audiences about environmental justice within the Americas. Elisa was part of the NEXUS initiative at New York Stage and Film. As a performer, she has worked at many theatres, including The Goodman Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Center Theatre Group, Hartford Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and The Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her film debut was in the Sundance Film Festival winner, Girlfight.

FOUNDERS' AWARD FINALIST BIOS:

Troy Anthony is a Kentucky-born composer, director, and theater-maker based in NYC practicing Black queer joy. He has presented work at The Shed, Joe's Pub, Musical Theater Factory (MTF), Rattlestick Playwright's Theater, Prospect Theater Company, and 54 Below. Commissions include The Public Theater, The Shed, Atlantic Theater Company, and The Civilians. Troy has been seen in The Public Theater's Hercules, Twelfth Night and As You Like It. He is founding director of the Fire Ensemble where he focuses on the intersection between music theater, community practice, and social justice. He's also a 2019-2020 MTF Maker and current MTF board member.

Banna Desta is an Eritrean and Ethiopian-American playwright and screenwriter who crafts stories about and for the African diaspora. For the stage, her short play Pining, a tragicomedy that explores the thrills and shortcomings of attraction, premiered at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and was published by Samuel French in 2019. For the screen, she is currently a staff writer for the BET+ series First Wives Club. Most recently, she wrote a short film for the 2021 Disney Discovers showcase, collaborating with the next wave of up and coming actors and directors in New York and Los Angeles. Prior to that, she wrote and co-produced the feminist, comedic short film Akinyi + Yvonne, which was the official selection for numerous festivals. She was awarded the John Golden Prize for excellence in playwriting at NYU, where she received her MFA in Dramatic Writing.

Gethsemane Herron (she/her) is a playwright from Washington, D.C. She has developed work with JAG Productions, The Hearth, Magic Time @ Judson, The Ice Factory Festival at the New Ohio Theatre, Playwright's Playground at Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Fire This Time Festival, Roundabout Theater Company, WP Theater, Ars Nova, and the Playwright's Center, where she is a 2021-2022 Jerome Fellow. 2020-2022 Ars Nova Play Group member and 2020-2022 WP Theater Lab member. Additional residencies from The Liberation Theater Company, Virginia Center of the Creative Arts, VONA, Tofte Lake and the Millay Colony, where she was the recipient of the Yasmin Scholarship. Winner of the Columbia@Roundabout 2020 Award. Winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Finalist for the Van Lier Fellowship at the Lark. MFA: Columbia University. Proud member of the Dramatist's Guild.

Katie Madison is a composer, writer, director, producer, and musical theatre artist currently based in the Canarsie and Munsee Lenape land also known as Brooklyn. She's a 2021 New York City Artist Corps Grant Recipient, and was chosen by The Downtown Alliance in collaboration with En Garde Arts and The Tank to re-open New York City in their first live performance post pandemic. She was a Critical Breaks Resident with Hi-Arts in April 2021 and her work has been commissioned by the University of Michigan's Musical Theatre Department, Crossroads Theatre Company, The American Opera Project, The Civilians, Milwaukee Skylight Theatre, The Tank, and Judson Memorial Church. Her show [ taking ] space was 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab Finalist, and she was one of three finalists for the National Black Theatre's Soul Producing Residency that same year. Find her digital work online // instagram: @kvmad // soundcloud:kvmad // www.kvmadison.com

Zeniba Now (she/Z) is an award-winning creator whose writings, musicals, songs, and performances have been seen all over the world and all over the internet. She describes herself as a musical storyteller and artscientist working in various mediums with subject matters ranging from quantum liberatory sci-fi to gynecology slapstick. Connect with Z's work via www.zenibanow.com

Marcus Scott is a playwright, musical theatre writer & journalist. Selected works: Sibling Rivalries (Long-listed for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award; finalist for the 2021 Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and the 2021 ATHE-KCACTF Judith Royer Excellence In Playwriting Award; semi-finalist for 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award and the 2021 New Dramatists Princess Grace Fellowship Award), Tumbleweed (finalist for the 2017 Bay Area Playwrights Festival; semi-finalist for the 2017 New Dramatists Princess Grace Fellowship Award), Cherry Bomb (recipient of the 2017 Drama League First Stage Artist-In-Residence) and Sundown Town (Abingdon Theatre Company's Virtual Fall Festival Of Short Plays). His articles appeared in Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, American Theatre Magazine, Playbill, Elle, Out, Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Follow him: New Play Exchange. Learn more about her at her blog: http://writemarcus.tumblr.com.

[writemarcus]

Black, Queer, and Here

In a post-‘Moonlight’ world, writers like Michael R. Jackson and Jeremy O. Harris are making the case for LGBTQ stories that go beyond the gay white experience.

BY MARCUS SCOTT

Last month, when Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop earned unanimous praise upon opening at Playwrights Horizons, it was a pivotal moment for me as a spectator. As someone who is also a Black, gay, musical theatre writer, I saw myself and my story onstage for the first time. I guffawed, clapped my hands, snapped along, celebrated the pageantry of Black excellence, and even teared up a bit during the play’s climax.

For the first time I didn’t have to undertake the mental gymnastics all marginalized people are basically required to do once they enter the theatre; to empathize with the white, often male protagonist as default. Not to mention, there was additional apprehension. Any time I saw a story centered on LGBTQ characters, I could usually predict what I was getting myself into: either comedic NutraSweet schmaltz with heart, or a maudlin tragedy where happy endings are laughable and everyone dies in the end.

But this was different. Led by a colossal, virtuoso performance from Larry Owens—not to mention anchored by an all-Black, all-queer ensemble of multitalented, triple-threat featured players—A Strange Loop (now extended through July 28) is a singular, seminal Bildungsroman that casts a subversive, critical third eye on both mainstream and nether regions of the Black gay American experience that had not been shown before.

The show follows Usher (Owens), a young, NYU-educated, overweight Black gay man working as an usher at a long-running Broadway musical and struggling to write a musical about a young, NYU-educated, overweight Black gay man working as an usher at a long-running Broadway musical and struggling to write a musical (hence the loop in the title). A Strange Loop is a visceral, soulful, psychosexual panoramic pièce de résistance that may just be the most radical Off-Broadway musical of its kind. Contextualizing everything from #MeToo, Moonlight, Tyler Perry, Stephen Sondheim’s Company, and second wave feminism, Jackson’s show is a potpourri of popular culture, existentialism, and metafiction—a dazzling coming-of-age artistic journey of self-discovery.

My sentiments for the show have been shared. In a post-show talkback on June 19, “Pose” star Billy Porter joined Jackson, choreographer Raja Feather Kelly, and playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins onstage to discuss the musical. The event, which was attended by top names in the theatre community (such as Lin-Manuel Miranda), was presented by Ucross, a prestigious residency program in northeast Wyoming. Porter choked back tears as he began the panel: “To sit up there and see my life onstage, when everybody said that my story wasn’t valid—to see that up there, to see it so brave, and to see it so bold. To see it so truthful, so complicated, so honest, and so unapologetic, has been one of the most wonderful nights for me in the theatre.”

Over the course of the 2018-19 season, I saw 100 shows, and few of them affected me like Jackson’s musical. None of those other shows centered on queer bodies of color. In all fairness, it’s not like a lot of theatres are producing plays by or about queer people of color. And when they do, it’s sanitized, ambiguous, and not complex—for example, Celie and Shug’s neutered romance in The Color Purple.

Earlier this year, in a lively panel about the state of the American play (copresented by American Theatre and Signature Theatre), playwright and director Robert O’Hara wryly offered some insight into the queer POC experience in American theatre. Speaking about the 2017-18 season, O’Hara pondered the state of Broadway, which was littered with prestige London transfers or star-driven assembly line revivals of treasured classics. But he also noticed a third trend: “the amount of gay white men we have on Broadway this year.” Naming Angels in America, The Boys in the Band, and Torch Song, all of which were written by white gay men, O’Hara remarked, “There’s too many white gay people, particularly white gay men and their struggle being white and gay and male. Do we really need that many conversations? To some people, that’s diversity. But to me, that’s just more white folks onstage.”  

Though theatre prides itself on being a space for outcasts, and most of its preeminent artists are gay men, their visibility often comes at the expense of other members of the LGBTQ community. In the theatre, LGBTQ plays have often centered solely on the experience of gay white cis-men and (only recently) cis-women, while people of color war in the margins for mainstream acclaim.

Whether it’s about the gay civil rights movement (Mart Crowley’s seminal The Boys In The Band, Dustin Lance Black’s 8), the HIV/AIDS epidemic (Larry Kramer’s definitive The Normal Heart, Tony Kushner’s iconic Angels in America, William Finn’s neurotic Falsettos) or communal inherited trauma (Moisés Kaufman’s triumphant docudrama The Laramie Project, Matthew Lopez’s Broadway-bound The Inheritance), gay white men have dominated queer stories, creating nuanced characters and becoming the epicenter of the narratives of LGBTQ culture.

Openly gay Black artists like O’Hara and George C. Wolfe have created work about Black queer life over three decades, but their numbers were fewer and far between. The difference now is the sheer volume of diverse queer voices. Some are even calling it a renaissance.

I trace it to the film Moonlight. Released in 2016 to universal acclaim under the helm of director Barry Jenkins, and based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unpublished semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Moonlight became the first film with an all-Black cast and the first LGBTQ film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The victory was a watershed moment in popular culture, sparking public interest in Black art and queer stories.

Ever since, queer Black theatre artists have begun to storm the proverbial tower in droves: McCraney recently returned to Steppenwolf in Chicago with Ms. Blakk For President, and his Choir Boy had an acclaimed run on Broadway after making the rounds of the nation’s regional theatres. Donja R. Love, an HIV-positive gay Black playwright, saw the world premieres of his queer period dramas Sugar in Our Wounds and Fireflies. Jordan Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo earned an extended and lauded run Off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Hailed as “The Queer Black Savior the Theater World Needs” by Out magazine, Jeremy O. Harris became a literary sensation and enfant terrible of the theatre world after Slave Play and Daddy had their world premieres this past season (Slave Play will transfer to Broadway in September).

What makes these plays radical is their candor, addressing the audience with frank depictions of queer Black life. Most importantly, these are plays that are creating discourse on what artist Lora Mathis calls radical softness, or “the idea that unapologetically sharing your emotions is a political move and a way to combat the societal idea that feelings are a sign of weakness.” In one of the most pivotal scenes in Choir Boy, one of the boys chooses an a cappella rendition of “Love Ballad” (originally by Jeffrey Osborne of L.T.D.) to express his love for another boy, but imagination ends up being the closest he’ll ever get to confessing his feelings. In Sugar in Our Wounds, an enslaved man offers another reading lessons, but the subtext is that of romantic yearning. In Slave Play, an interracial gay couple undergo therapy, in an effort to reconnect. These writers subvert and comment on the oppressive systems that affect disenfranchised and marginalized people without attacking or distancing mainstream audiences.

Not to mention the playwrights who identify as queer but whose plays aren’t chiefly about LGBTQ life: Colman Domingo (Dot), Marcus Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand), Jonathan Norton (My Tidy List of Terrors), Timothy DuWhite (Neptune), Keelay Gipson (#NewSlaves), Korde Arrington Tuttle (clarity), Jirèh Breon Holder (Too Heavy for Your Pocket) and Derek Lee McPhatter (Bring the Beat Back). Chief among these is Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who was listed among the Top 20 Most-Produced Playwrights of 2018-2019 and has been honored as a two-time finalist for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, respectively.

As writer-activist Darnell L. Moore noted on Twitter: “In the past few months, I’ve witnessed displays of brilliance—Black queer men who have created theatrical works that dig into the complex interior lives of Black characters. Their works disrupt & reimagine all we believe to be true about the limits of Blackness, of gender. They poke at the grounds of Black radical politics by illuminating how the freedom dreams conjured by some of the Blacks often function as nightmares for some others—trans folk, queers, drag queens, the not-respectable. They remind us about the futility of white liberalism. They refuse the white gaze.” He characterized these plays as “Black folks-loving art works” which “preach and sing and lament and celebrate and bear witness and take up arms and push and pull us.”

At the same time, Moore does wonder “how these works might be received if the creators and/or main actors weren’t Black gay men.” He has a point: Queer women, trans, or gender non-binary writers still struggle to be seen, with only a few receiving recognition such as Aziza Barnes (BLKS), Tanya Barfield (Bright Half Life), Tracey Scott Wilson (Buzzer), Nissy Aya (righteous kill, a requiem), and Ianne Fields Stewart (A Complicated Woman).

While many Black artists are generating work that are nuanced and empowering, and even dissecting of the white gaze, there are still just as many works that default towards “enterpainment.” Coined by playwright Aurin Squire in his play Zoohouse, “enterpainment” is a trope that calls for historically oppressed people to be forced into situations where they must put their suffering and victimhood on display for the education and edification of the masses. This exercise in emotional masochism has been at the forefront of many Black plays, with this trope being weaponized and commodified. Many Black characters in general are defined by their pain, and in plays that center on LGBTQ people of color, too often that pain is doubled because of their race and sexual orientation.

The “bury your gays” stereotype is still very much the norm for these plays, including some of the ones mentioned above. For example, in Donja R. Love’s Fireflies, the protagonist is a woman who clings to the memory of the woman she loved who was horribly murdered in the streets. The main character in Chisa Hutchinson’s She Like Girls is a 16-year-old lesbian who is shot and killed at the climax of the play.

Most stories featuring queer characters of color forefront the atrocities that inherently arise from the stigmatization of one’s sexual agency and one’s race. Rather than showcasing the beauty within the full expression of queerness—such as falling in love or (in A Strange Loop) standing up to your parents—too often writers are defaulting to trauma.

But this is part of a larger issue: that of Black artists working within a primarily white system who feel they must commodify their pain for white consumption. And of white producers not feeling like they’re able to challenge artists of color to look deeper, of them thinking of these artists as a single diversity slot or purveyor of issue plays, instead of artists whose careers and ideas need to be invested in. At the live event, Robert O’Hara had some advice for white producers: “You have to be able to live inside the power and the privilege that you have, and also continue to demand the rigor, intellect, and dexterity that the work requires so that it does not just become a play but a [major stepping stone for a] career.”

Recently I ran into Jackson at Musical Theatre Factory’s High Five, a gala hosted at Town Stages; he was being honored that night. Before I could congratulate him, he kindly rebuffed. “There’s still work to be done,” he said as he was greeted by eager patrons and admirers. He’s not wrong. In 2017, Pew found that younger, non-white, and low-income people (lower middle-class people of color) were more likely to self-identify as LGBTQ than whites, debunking the myth that Blacks and Latinos are overwhelmingly homophobic.

Reality is more complex than we give it credit for. And considering that Broadway is in need of new musicals in it’s 2019-20 season, there really is nothing more topical than, to quote A Strange Loop, a “big, Black, and queer-ass Broadway show.”

Marcus Scott is a New York-based playwright, musical writer and journalist. He’s written for Elle, Essence, Out and Playbill, among other publications.