TAKING OFF - June 8, 2016
Tonight, my new solo show premieres at Joe’s Pub. On Friday, I get in a van with my band and take the show down to North Carolina. That might not sound so crazy, until you consider that I’m a transgender woman going to a state where the KKK has been using a new anti-trans law to help recruit members.
My show, Manifest Pussy, is an autobiographical solo rock musical about becoming the woman I am today. Think Hedwig, but real. In it, I combine material from my two previous solo shows, One Woman Show, which tells the story of my life up to the point of transition, and Post-Op, which follows my six-week pilgrimage to Thailand to undergo gender confirmation surgery. The whole thing is stitched together with monologues, spoken word and a kick-ass score by some of the most exciting young composers working in the musical theatre scene today.
On March 23rd of this year, North Carolina Governor Pat McCroy signed The North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (HB2), removing LGBT people from the state-wide non-discrimination policy. This means if you are LGBT and you get fired, evicted, bullied or otherwise harassed because of your sexual orientation or gender identity, you have no protection under the law. In addition to this bold step backward in history, the law also makes it illegal to use a public restroom that doesn’t match the gender on your birth certificate. When the bill passed, my initial impulse was just to go down there and take selfies in all the wrong bathrooms. Then I got a better idea...
As makers and lovers of theatre, many of us believe in our hearts that storytelling is both a sacred and a political act. We love what we do because we believe that through the guise of entertainment we can educate, empower and inspire others. We understand that there is nothing as unifying as a shared experience of live performance. We forget sometimes, when we’re focused on star casting and box office grosses, that what we do has been done for thousands of years in cultures around the world, to pass on moral lessons, establish markers of collective identity and prevent history from repeating itself.
The attempt to police social progress through the legislation of human bodies is nothing new in America. Every great movement for equality has seen a venomous backlash when the fearful and ignorant grasp for the last strongholds of their supposed righteousness. And when we find ourselves making the same mistakes—whether individually or as a nation—we must repeatedly ask ourselves, “What lessons are we refusing to learn?”
That is why we, as theatre-makers, must take to the stage to remind ourselves (and the people that see and hear us) of simple hashtag-able truths like #BlackLivesMatter, #TransIsBeautiful, #WeAreNotThis. That is why I'm getting my act together and taking it on the road.
This whole endeavor is a community affair. Nearly 200 people helped to crowdfund the tour, and over the course of the last six weeks another 20 to 30 people helped me book venues in eight North Carolina cities, offered to house me and the band, design artwork, post flyers, host meet-and-greets and potlucks so we don't go hungry. Over the next ten days I'll be doing a lot more than pissing in men's rooms, I'll be taking some radical new musical theatre on a grass-roots tour of rock clubs, black box theatres and hooka lounges (yes, I'm playing a hooka lounge) to advocate for the LBGT citizens of North Carolina and to help bring the wayward state back over to the right side of history.