Transcripts

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SPEAKER 1: Happiness, is it?

SPEAKER 2: Yes, yes.

SPEAKER 1: Making lists.

SPEAKER 2: Saying words. Repeating your words or you repeating mine. Entering a room when you've just left it, and like an animal sensing traces of you still there.

SPEAKER 1: An herb dressing with the salad.

SPEAKER 2: Yes.

(SINGING) Ordinary things

Ordinary things break my heart too

RACHEL KRANZ: It isn't likely that you'd hear a cheerful love song sung by two women in most Minnesota theaters. And Rees says that that's the reason that the Out and About Theatre Company had to be formed. Ultimately, Rees would like to see all theaters doing plays that relate to gay issues as well as more standard plays.

But for now, with gay people either left out or portrayed negatively, Rees sees a need for theater to deal specifically with gay life in a positive way. He got the idea for the theater when he directed The Faggot last year at theater-in-the-round. He says that the overwhelming response to the play convinced him that gay people need a theater in the Twin Cities, and that straight people would support it.

SPEAKER 3: I guess we were surprised last year when we started, when we did The Faggot the first time. We were surprised at the response we got from the straight community. Before the show opened, the cast was scared to death as to what was going to happen when there was an audience there.

We would rehearse a scene and somebody would say, well, here's where half the audience leaves. And at preview night, which is the first time we had an audience, the cast was overwhelmed by the response from the audience. The thing that we were most surprised about the run last year was the number of straight people that we had in the audience. We estimated that we played to about 40% straight audience. And we're repeating that with this show.

RACHEL KRANZ: So far, the new company has already produced one other play, Boys in the Band, and is planning two more plays for August and September. Rees says there's a difficulty finding good scripts. For example, he was criticized for using the 10-year-old Boys in the Band on the grounds that the show was dated. But he said that new scripts about gay people are hard to find because they aren't very well publicized, and communications between gay-oriented theaters aren't very good.

So far, the political leaders of the gay community have supported the company. But the group is finding it harder to attract a wider gay audience. As for opposition from the straight community, Rees says he's gotten some threatening phone calls. And he has had some trouble finding space to perform. But for the most part, the straight community has been receptive.

STEVE FULLMER: We want people to be entertained. We want them to come into the theater, see what we're doing. Appreciate it as good theater. Appreciate a good story, have a good time.

And when they leave, realize that while they were watching the whole thing, they weren't thinking, this is gay, this is straight. This is wrong. This is right. Anything like that.

RACHEL KRANZ: Out and About Company business manager Steve Fullmer. Rees agrees. He says that the ultimate goal of the Out and About Company is not to exist anymore because gay issues and gay people will be integrated into the mainstream. I'm Rachel Kranz.