August Wilson's "King Hedley II" in Tampa

Photo credit: www.willbeez.com
Due to popular demand, American Stage Theatre Company has extended by one week the run of August Wilson's hit drama, King Hedley II, thru Feb. 22. This is an intense drama that will make you ask all sorts of questions about the elusiveness of the "American Dream," in a society riddled by racism and classism.

King Hedley II will be familiar to audiences who saw American Stage’s critical hit production of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean last season. The death of Aunt Ester, a gamble to peddle refrigerators, a garden of seeds, and a final act of retribution are the threads that make up the tapestry of Wilson’s 1980s installment in the author's renowned cycle of plays.

King Hedley II recently was released from jail and is now trying to sell stolen refrigerators in the poor side of Pittsburg to raise enough money to purchase a video store. As he and his new family begin to rise above their limited opportunities to attain their Ronald Reagan-era “American Dream”, a ghost from the past re-enters Hedley’s life that forces him to confront his own pattern of petty violence, self-destruction, and self-doubts.

Promotional material provided by the American Stage Theater Company

Performances and ticket prices are as follows:
Wednesday and Thursday evening curtain is at 7:30 p.m.
Friday and Saturday evening curtain is at 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinee curtain is at 3 p.m.

Tickets prices are $24-$39 depending on date and time of performance.
Students Rush tickets are $10, 30 minutes prior to curtain.

Please call the American Stage Box Office
at (727) 823-PLAY (7529)

Bonding & Intimacy in Gay-Straight Friendships

Above is the trailer for the play, "Terra Haute."

Have you wondered if it is possible for a gay man to have a platonic, yet intimate, relationship with a straight man?

I think this is one of the central, though no means, only questions, raised in gay writer Edmund White's new--and perhaps, most successful--play, "Terra Haute." Loosely based on another equally well-known gay writer's work, Gore Vidal, In a series of extended essays, Vidal documents his emotionally charged correspondence with Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Vidal, however, denies that he was ever remotely attracted to McVeigh.

Similarly, but not exactly, "Terra Haute" centers around the relationship between an aging, financially comfortable, bisexual journalist and a young, poor, masculine, straight terrorist awaiting execution. What happens when two correspondents, after developing a paper-only relationship, finally meets and sees each other in the true light serves as the conflict of this play.

The drama pivots on the theme of "different types of loneliness," to quote White himself. Like many of his earlier novels such as the highly celebrated, coming-of-age tale, "A Boy's Own Story" and "The Married Man," this play explores "distances in male relationships ... created by differences in age, sexuality or expectations," to quote a New York Times article. White explains also: “I’d hope that thinking about them in terms of their intimacy can raise questions about how they relate to the world,” he said.

So is "Terra Haute" a gay play? Not so, says the playwright. For ultimately this is a play about the humanity of even the most cold or menacing people. The sexuality in the play is simply a vehicle to convey the humanity, the commonality that binds men and women, old and young, children and adults--all of us in this iridescent world.

In that respect, for me, the last two blog entries, including this one, speak to the same undercurrents; We must search for the inner war that often breaks out within us. That war rages on, incessantly, and only we, as individuals, can harness its energies for a greater good.

Support Local Gay Theater

(Courtesy of Brad Minus, photo of Carlos Milan, the sole actor of "Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown")

In an earlier post, I featured a local gay play that is currently running in Ybor City, the old historic part of Tampa. "Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown" runs through Nov. 2 at the Ritz Ybor, 1503 E. 7th Ave., Tampa, and Street Car Charlies, 1811 N. 15th St., Tampa. (727) 644-7077. A funny, sometimes poignant look at the crosscurrents of race and gender in the lives of many different Hispanic gay men, all roles played by one talented actor, this play is being staged by Gypsy Productions.

The local theater company entered into a one-year forced hiatus following the closure of the famous (or infamous, take your pick) Suncoast Resort in St Petersburg. But this past fall Gypsy Productions moved its home to Ybor City, and offered the drama, "Gross Indeceny: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde," at Ritz Ybor, a banquet facility converted into a performance space. The new space is about 25 percent smaller than the last one, but at least the theater is in the middle of the gay district of Tampa, which has gay-friendly shops, restaurants, bars, and clubs (see here for a recent write-up on the theater). Go and support your one and only gay theater in the Tampa Bay Area!

Hysterical Gays (Theatrical Happening)

Gypsy Productions, the popular gay-owned theatrical company that used to be based in St Petersburg, and now in Tampa, is running a new show, Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown. This show is a series of comedic monologues that follow the love lives of seven gay Hispanic immigrants as they navigate the confusions that arise from the intersection of race and gender identities. All performances are at the Ritz Ybor, 1503 E Seventh Ave. in Tampa. Tickets are $25, or $45 for dinner performances. Show times are 8 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. Sunday, and there's a deal for the 8 p.m. Wednesday performances — two tickets for the price of one. The show runs until Sunday, November 2. Tel.: (727) 644-7077

Below is a synopsis of the show, courtesy of Gypsy Productions.

The play is bracketed by the misadventures of the naive Frederico, who arrives in Los Angeles during the first day of the 1992 riots and believes he's witnessing the filming of another Lethal Weapon sequel. He mistakes the looting for U.S. generosity.

Other characters include Vinnie, a kept boy being asked to leave the home of his wealthy sugar daddy because he's turned 30; the Demon Roommate, a lonely young man with an apartment a little too close to the airport; Paco, a Cuban restauranteur who was imprisoned by the Communists in Cuba for being gay and has now been exiled by his right-wing Miami family for the same reason; and the Teacher, a stuffy, sexually repressed English-language instructor who abuses his Latino students when they can't learn properly the "language of Princess Di".

Perhaps the most tragically comic character is aspiring actor Eduardo Troncos. Eduardo bleaches his skin, goes to trendy straight bars, and changes his name to Edward Thornhill III. Edward, a Latino actor passing for Anglo who gets a Latino part, has to deal with his real identity when the producers tell him he is not Hispanic enough.

The play ends with Federico's final misadventure as he tells of his newly found romance, a better job and his acquisition of citizenship in a grand, positive finale.