Douglas McKeown, facilitator Tom Ledcke, founder
Doug McKeown on QUEER STORIES: One evening in 1995, I sat waiting for a show called Queer Stories for Boys to begin. I was skeptical. It sounded like it would be all about sex. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but a whole evening? A change of lighting and two minutes in to the first story, I was hooked. These were regular people! The stories they told, if not always specifically “gay,” were definitely queer. There was sharp intelligence and a general hilarity anchored by the fact that these stories were all true - a Queer Stories mandate. Above all, even given the sometimes devastating insights into the foibles of families and friends, I was struck by the group’s overall generosity of spirit. I became facilitator in 1998.*
Tom Ledcke on the HISTORY: Queer Stories started in 1992. The first workshop was held at P.S. 122 in New York after I attended a Tim Miller intensive performance workshop. The group moved to Dixon Place and finally to the LGBT Center on Thirteenth Street, because I wanted a closer connection to the queer community.* Our first performances were at Dixon Place and then a couple of benefits for the LGBT Center, and for Orange Thoughts Theatre company. HERE Theatre was a regular spot for a while and then Solo Arts Theatre. Our exercises, evolved from theatre games, are pretty much a mish-mash of Spolin, Neighborhood Playhouse (Meisner) and improv from when I was in Fourplay Improv Group in the late '80s. My main objective was to try to keep queer men from editing themselves. This is still my goal with the new improv group, One In Ten, and with Queer Stories West, based in Seattle. *The New York workshop closed down in February, 2008, and no longer meets.
**NOW! **Queer Stories for Boys** is a book! In bookstores everywhere! Go to our BOOK PAGE to read more about it
Stories ... as honest as they are queer... [told] with elegance, wit, sadness, and joy.
—Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty
... Wonderful anthology
—HX Magazine
Generous, amiable anthology ...
—Richard Labonte, Books to Watch Out For
Queer Stories for Boys: True Stories from the Gay Men's Storytelling Workshop, is published by Thunder's Mouth Press, a division of Avalon Publishing. This trade paperback contains 52 of our stories by 20 contributors, all of whom have performed with us publically over the years. The book can be ordered online from www.amazon.com or from www.barnesandnoble.com |
(above) some of us who have performed ~ James, Robin, Brad, Doug, Rich, Neil, and George
For more, see Public Appearances...
|
