Transcripts

MARIANNE COMBS: In "Looking for Normal," currently on stage at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage, Roy and Irma have been happily married for 25 years until Roy tries to explain to Irma that he knows inside he's a woman.

ROY: What if you woke up tomorrow morning, and your hands were twice their size, and there was stubble on your cheek and your breasts were gone, and you knew you'd have to go into work in a suit and tie with all the other men, and laugh, and gesture in all the right places so that no one would ever know that you're not one of them? Now, imagine having to play that part for the rest of your life day after day after day.

IRMA: Did you feel this way when you met me?

ROY: I suspected it. Yeah.

MARIANNE COMBS: As the play continues, Roy's family and friends all have their own reactions to Roy's decision to get a surgical procedure to become a woman. At first, his wife, Irma, is horrified, but eventually she realizes she still loves the person she married and decides to stay with him or now her. The actors who play Irma and Roy, Frank Wagner and Sally Ann Wright, are married in real life. They've been wanting to produce, "Looking for Normal" for years, not because it's about being transgender, but because it's a really good love story.

SALLY ANN WRIGHT: It's about people's ability to love each other regardless of what decision is made. And I think we feel like there's not enough of that.

FRANK WAGNER: It was a labor of love because it was like, oh, these two people, they love each other so much that they can't let each other go. And it's kind of like us.

MARIANNE COMBS: "Looking for Normal" is one of many productions that deal with transgender identity and issues. "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is a popular musical. And then there are movies like "The Crying Game," "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," and "Transamerica."

In recent years, transgender stories have been getting more regular exposure on Twin Cities stages. Claire Avitabile is the artistic director of 20% Theatre, which focuses on creating theatrical opportunities for women and for people who identify as transgender or queer. Avitabile says she's received numerous scripts for plays that depict transgender people, how they want to be seen, as just another character.

CLAIRE AVITABILE: We're trying to stay away from the Lifetime movie aspect of the storytelling. And a lot of these plays that we're getting and that we will produce include real experiences. And they're not necessarily there to educate the world only, but to show these people on stage as though they are no different than anyone else on stage.

MARIANNE COMBS: The Twin Cities is host to an array of services, both social and medical, for transgender people. Debbie Davis is executive director of the Gender Education Center. She regularly consults with corporations and schools on how to handle an employee or student who is transitioning from one gender to another.

Davis worked with the cast of "Looking for Normal" and even has a cameo appearance in the play. She says theater manages to put a human face on transgender issues to people who might not otherwise be sympathetic. She says it makes sense that the Twin Cities is telling more transgender stories on stage.

DEBBIE DAVIS: Our transgender community here in the Midwest is extremely active, extremely vital. And we were the first state in the United States to offer basic protections for transgender people in our state's human rights act. That was back in 1993, 15 years ago. And it wasn't until another seven years till any other state joined us. So it is a wonderful place to be.

MARIANNE COMBS: Davis says it's too bad that there are also comic stereotypes out there of men in drag or that news stories will tend to hold up one transgender person as the representative of an entire community. But she says even bad news and stereotypes raise awareness of the presence of transgender people. And at this point, she'll take it. Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio news, Minneapolis.