Gay Our Town- Page 2
Gay Our Town
#25Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 11:41am
Goth, you are being willfully obtuse. It's a *new work* inspired by Our Town. It's not Our Town. No themes are being shoe-horned into an existing play.
and it all comes back down to:
Wait...are you saying that people on this board have mis-read or ignorantly decided it was one thing when it clearly is something else?
Yeah, that sounds about right....
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#26Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 11:42am
Kad, maybe you're the one being obtuse. Or maybe the article is poorly written. While it does say that the title will be changed, it also says:
“Playwright Casey Llewellyn will use [Thorton] Wilder’s text and strive to maintain his aestheic [sic] and social relevance while she considers cultural and social issues within contemporary society,” a description of the NEA grant states. “The play will explore questions of love, marriage, and loss within the context of a town where the inhabitants’ gender and sexual identity are fluid.”
#27Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 11:53am
It's still a new work. Even if it's using existing text- in ways that, as of now, are not defined.
Our Town is a work that has had countless riffs and adaptations and derived work. Why are you taking issue with a queer take on it? Because the NEA has given them a grant?
#29Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 12:10pm
So it will be like one of those modern adaptations of Chekov's plays - i.e. Drowning Crow (The Seagull). Okay, fine. Guess I should have actually read the article rather than depending on someone else's summary of it.
I have an idea though: why not use that $10,000 to develop a new work that ISN'T a riff on a play we have all already read or seen (possibly multiple times)? I'm all for plays being written that reflect the mixed gender/race/whatever households we now have, but why can't it be COMPLETELY new work? That would be such a better use of that valuable NEA money.
#30Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 12:41pm
What does it matter if it's going to an adapted work or an original one? The grant is going toward a project that is supplying an established, socially and community-minded theatre company with a history of public engagement that wants to produce a socially-conscious piece of theatre by an emerging young playwright with the means to do so.
The grant they received, NEA's ArtWorks Grant, specifies: "Art Works grants supports the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts.
#31Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 12:48pm
I mean...WEST SIDE STORY is fine and all...but WHY COULDN'T IT BE A COMPLETELY NEW WORK??
F*cking seriously? I don't even know where to begin.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#33Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 12:58pm
"I mean...WEST SIDE STORY is fine and all...but WHY COULDN'T IT BE A COMPLETELY NEW WORK??"
Bad analogy. WSS was a completely new work. Romeo & Juliet doesn't contain language like "sperm to worm and birth to earth." Nor are any of the characters given names that are even close to those in R&J. The way this article makes it sound is that Mr. Webb and Mr. Gibb are going to be horsing around behind the barn.
#34Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 1:14pm
You literally have nothing to base that on except your very specific reading of the article. The script does not yet exist.
By the way, Foundry is the company that gave us the Taylor Mac/Lisa Kron GOOD PERSON OF SZECHWAN. I think they deserve way more than $10K in public funding.
#35Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 1:17pmEven in the one article you cite, Goth, nothing makes it sound like that. You know absolutely nothing about this work beyond the fact that it's inspired by "Our Town."
#36Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 1:36pm
From the article:
“The play will explore questions of love, marriage, and loss within the context of a town where the inhabitants’ gender and sexual identity are fluid.”
[...]
“It’s really interesting to grapple with belonging, and family, and community within a queer community,” she added."
Yeah... this really sounds like a big queer orgy.
Of all of Goth's conservative freakouts, this one is the most inexplicable and stupid.
#37Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 4:15pm
"sperm to worm and birth to earth."
Birth to Earth? Really?
I'm sorry but "womb to tomb" is too good to misquote at this late date.
You're making Arthur very angry rolling around in his.
#38Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 4:29pmDidn't 'sperm to worm' get sanitized to 'birth to earth' in the film?
#39Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 6:21pm
Having been George in a production of Our Town, I really see no point. There are plenty of LGBTQIA plays that could be produced instead of changing an already existing show.
I'm all for classics being put on or revived (especially if there's a purpose to the production) but we need to make room for shows that aren't getting attention. It's almost as repetitive and boring as the same block of shows that tour everywhere (Wicked, The Lion King, Annie, etc).
I'm interested in how it turns out, though. They'll have to really deliver their work or it will be picked at as much as it is now.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#40Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/14/15 at 10:41pmInstead of calling it Gay Our Town they should call that Our Town Gay, as in "I don't know about yours, but our town gay."
#41Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/15/15 at 7:42am
". . . instead of changing an already existing show."
Am I just reading wrong when I think that this isn't a queer production of "Our Town" but rather a new play inspired by the Wilder?
#42Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/15/15 at 8:28amNo. No you are not. The article explicitly says that is the case.
#43Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/15/15 at 9:42amSort of like Wilder's own "The Matchmaker" being inspired by/adapted from John Oxenford's "A Day Well Spent" and Johann Nestory's "Einen Jux will er sich machen," before being turned in "Hello, Dolly!"?
#44Gay Our Town
Posted: 1/15/15 at 10:11am
Don't forget Stoppard's ON THE RAZZLE.
Good Christ, people are being unbearable about this.
Videos