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Lavender Magazine, Issue 302
December 22, 2006-January 2, 2007
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Stages of Development
by John Townsend
 
(Clockwise from upper left: Kay, Julian, Louisa, Rosie, Jeffry, Ashlee, Jason, Brittany)
Photo by Lavender Studios/Hubert Bonnet
“Outward Spiral Theatre Company is dedicated to producing theatre from a Queer point-of-view. We strive to entertain, educate and act as a catalyst for social change through inclusive, multicultural, provocative artistic expression.”
--Outward Spiral Mission Statement
Since 1995, Outward Spiral Theatre Company (OSTC) has served as the region’s premier queer theater. During its first decade, the troupe produced a season of plays each year, many of which received rave reviews, placing ahead of titans like the Guthrie, Jungle, and Penumbra on annual Top 10 lists.
However, in recent years, OSTC’s paradigm has shifted—something virtually unheard of in long-standing theater companies.
Typically, once a theater stops producing straight (no pun intended) plays, the curtain falls, and everyone exits.
That would have appeared to have been OSTC’s fate, as several years ago, then-new Artistic Director Jeffry Lusiak was left with the company’s impressive legacy, but no funding and essentially no infrastructure.
The broader GLBT community had a feeling, albeit debatable, that because mainstream theaters increasingly were including queer plays in their seasons, perhaps a need no longer existed for exclusively queer theater.
But Lusiak sensed specific queer needs that only queer theatrical performance truly, deeply could address—possibilities necessarily requiring a safe space and a specific mission in order to be explored.
As if by fate, Lusiak, a man of the arts, met up with Louisa Hext, a queer woman with extraordinary organizational smarts. Though the pairs respective strengths were quite different, their core values regarding queerness and society were quite similar.
With feedback culled from attendees at a town-hall style meeting at Mixed Blood Theatre a little over two years ago, the seed for serious community outreach was planted.
A youth performance troupe, Empowered Expressions was formed under OSTC’s umbrella in collaboration with the District 202 queer youth center. But it was balanced wisely with the inclusion of older queer-identified people.
Poet Andrea Jenkins first worked with OSTC to develop and perform for the 2005 Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Dinner.
As Jenkins says, “We performed in front of 1,500 people, and even though we were ‘preaching to the choir’, as it were, the piece still came off as cutting-edge and informative, because we explored issues of race, gender identity, and class that sometimes get overlooked within the LGBT community.”
Jenkins also appeared in OSTC performances like the Transgender Day of Remembrance in November and Queertopia at the Twin Cities GLBT Pride 2006, which are apt to become a new tradition.
After Walker Arts Center ended many years of producing its annual Dyke Night during Pride 2005, Hext and Lusiak approached one of the esteemed curators of that event, Eleanor Savage.
Hext recalls, “Eleanor actually became cocurator with Jeffry. We put together this weekend event as one of the Pride events. [The Pride Committee was] so excited to work with us! And that was the first time I would say we had a much broader audience of all kinds of people, whether they identified as GLBT, whether they were allied, whatever. It was a very well-done cabaret.”
Performers like Foxy Tann, Morgan Thorson, Venus, Dykes-Do-Drag, Grace Darling, Kats Fukasawa, Running On Empty, and Karyn and Sharyn (on video).
Savage was especially motivated, stating at the time, “When the government is actually trying to subvert my rights, passive acceptance is not an option. Passionate artistic expression is the fuel that fires my existence. It’s wonderful that Outward Spiral is launching this righteous, sexy event.”
The queer-community cross section of those who both attended and performed in the first annual Queertopia brings to mind the spectrum of organizations that OSTC has related to over the past few years: District 202, HRC, Minnesota AIDS Project, Minnesota Teen AIDS Prevention (MN-TAP), Patrick’s Cabaret, Steven’s Square Center for the Arts, and Twin Cities Public Television.
In April, Empowered Expressions partnered with Intermedia Arts, SASE: The Write Place, and Minnesota School OUTreach Coalition (MSOC) to produce The Day of Silence/Night of Noise, which included personal testimonials.
So, it’s no wonder OSTC is being taken seriously nowadays. Even before it recently received a $4,000 Philanthrofund grant, fund-raising had been going well. Because of that grant, you can see Empowered Expressions’s mostly teenaged performers at Patrick’s Cabaret on a regular basis throughout 2007.
According to Hext, it will be a great character builder for queer youth involved: “There’s a sense that this is work. You get paid for your creativity. You get paid for the time you invest in it. It’s hard work. It’s not a lot of money, but you get paid.”
Hext adds that performers get to sell tickets at a certain rate that becomes their income. Hence, they learn about business, and the marketing of one’s abilities. It’s not just about snaring a 15-minute slot “to be seen.”
Patrick Scully of Patrick’s Cabaret, who has been a pioneer in spiriting forth bold queer work, either by himself or as a facilitator-producer, likes the connection with OSTC and District 202, and wants it to grow.
As Scully notes, it “adds to our outreach programs for high school students, and it expands our commitment to presenting queer artists by offering this opportunity.”
Lusiak explains that he “wanted to find out what stories queer youth have to share, and how the stories change fro their generation to our generation. How are they viewing the world, and what can we learn from them? They’re at a point of discovery where they haven’t put on all the other armor that hides things.
“Kay Adams, one of our strongest poets, came through the summer, and wouldn’t talk for months. And then, at our Night of Noise’s open mike, he’s like, ‘I’m a gay Somalian.’ That was the first time anybody had heard him speak!”
Another central OSTC figure is Jason Bucklin, Associate Artisitc Director. He’s active in development of a DVD for District 202’s Tobacco Program, to be distributed to local high schools and their Gay/Straight Allinces, that discusses smoking, specifically as it relates to youth and the queer community.
Bucklin observes, “The youth wanted to make sure it didn’t use the normal tactics of fear, guilt, and shaming, as they feel it makes the viewer defensive, and not listen to the message. What we’ve done is get some facts, but combine them with personal stories o whe they—for those who smoke—first started smoking, reasons why they will eventually quit, and what it will actually take to get them to quit.”
Of course, artists would be nowhere without supporters.
For instance, as Heidi Schreiber remarks, “I have always had a passion for theater, participating in my high school’s plays, and then later, supporting theater as well. The thought of a queer-perspective theater company intrigued me. I attended the fundraiser held in June for Queertopia, and was completely taken with the energy, professionalism, and vision of the company.
“How wonderful if this would have been available to me 35 years ago, as a young lesbian in a homophobic society. I made a commitment to Outward Spiral that night to support them financially, and als found out that my employer, Prudential Financial, would also match dollar-for-dollar all the money raised, up to $5,000.”
Schreiber ended up holding another fundraiser for Empowered Expressions in her home.
Such fervent support warms the heart of Hext. And thanks to smart management, those dollars are well-channeled.
Now, OSTC has neither office nor expensive stage and storage space to pay for, as in earlier phases. Funds go directly to projects, many of which are already in place for 2007.
OSTC is open to new blood—not just theatrical talent, but also people with skills other than artistic who can help continue the organization’s hard-won stability.
As Hext puts it, “We’re viable. We’re here to stay.”
Reprinted with the permission of John Townsend and Lavender Magazine
Photo by: Lavender Studios/Hubert Bonnet
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