AirSpace

Alan Reade
Bear-A-Go-Go!
Thursday, June 7; 8 pm
Friday, June 15; 8 pm
Location: Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, 4235 19th St @ Collingwood
$7-$12, Sliding Scale
Phone for Tickets: NQAF: 415.552.7709, Buy Tickets onLine: NQAFestivalTickets

Alan Reade
Bear-A-Go-Go!
Asexual, lazy, bitter, angry, self-absorbed, oversexed, willing to sell out to the first skin magazine that’ll have ‘em –and those are the good parts! Alan Reade’s Bear-A-Go-Go! is a very personal look at body image in the gay male world, as seen through the filter of the “bear” subculture. We’ve come such a long way from Stonewall … or have we? Alan’s seven characters illuminate stereotypes of fat gay men-from the obese troll devouring every chicken leg in sight, to the Internet geek afraid of being judged in the physical world, to a big player in the Bear universe, where being rotund and furry is a surefire way to get both laid and fetishized. The show, which pulls no punches, looks at how one subculture marginalizes another one through the filter of being a chubby among skinnies.

Alan Reade
Alan, a native of San Francisco has been writing and performing poetry, comedy and multimedia pieces for well over a decade in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York City. Past pieces span in range from his comedic-piece-with-dolls Barbie and the Big Hole to his poetic requiem Lazarus. In 1995, Alan produced, directed, and acted in Bitchy Bitch LIVE!, a play adapted from Roberta Gregory’s Fantagraphics comic Naughty Bits. Alan has performed his characters from Bear-A-Go-Go! in two Viva Variety! benefits and at the Bear Icons festival in Boston. So far, Bear-A-Go-Go!, created during a residency at the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, has given Alan the opportunity to perform the most character-based work of his career, and to connect with audiences in an entirely new way-which we will leave to your imagination.

Craig Acosta Rowe
The Day I Kissed Mike Sanchez
Friday, June 8; 8 pm
Saturday, June 16; 8 pm
Location: Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, 4235 19th St @ Collingwood
$7-$12, Sliding Scale
Phone for Tickets: NQAF: 415.552.7709, Buy Tickets onLine: NQAFestivalTickets

Craig Acosta Rowe
The Day I Kissed Mike Sanchez
For those who have been asked “what are you?” The Day I Kissed Mike Sanchez explores the growing borderlands of identity politics. Between ethnicities and sexualities Craig Acosta Rowe mixes memory, performance poetry, and traditional theater techniques to navigate the collapsing binaries of queer/straight, Anglo/minority in this provocative solo show. A meditation on adolescent love, fantasy, and contemporary relationships, Sanchez centers on an individual’s search for acceptance in-between communities leading to a spiritual journey for the Aztec figure Xochipilli.

Craig Acosta Rowe
Craig Acosta Rowe is a mixed-blood Chicano living in San Francisco. He holds a bachelors degree in English from the University of Washington and a Master of Arts in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara. A Regents Fellowship recipient, he is currently a PhD student in the UC Berkeley Department of Dramatic Art. In addition to an AIRspace residency at the Jon Sims Center, Acosta Rowe has worked locally as a writer and performer with Rhodessa Jones’ Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, the Chicano Secret Service, and the Lesbian Playwright Festival at the Magic Theater. Under the mentoring of Cherrie Moraga at Stanford University, Acosta Rowe is at work on new play.

Trauma Flintstone
A Return to Caffe Cino Parts I & II
Part I: Saturday, June 9; 8 pm
Part II: Thursday, June 14; 8 pm
Location: Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, 4235 19th St @ Collingwood
$7-$12, Sliding Scale
Phone for Tickets: NQAF: 415.552.7709, Buy Tickets onLine: NQAFestivalTickets

Trauma Flintstone
A Return to Caffe Cino Parts I & II
A Return to the Caffe Cino, Part I —The Madness of Lady Bright by Lanford Wilson and Bittersweet Eros, a one-act travesty based on Terrence McNally’s play, Sweet Eros. Featuring Trauma Flintstone, Steven LeMay.

A Return to the Caffe Cino, Part II—Georgie Porgie by George Birimisa and What Is Making Gilda So Gray? by Tom Eyen. Featuring Trauma Flintstone, David Ortmann.

Trauma Flintstone
Trauma Flintstone just returned from a successful Off-Broadway run of Christmas With the Crawfords. Locally, he is best known for outrageous characters, including Liberace in Gross Indulgence: The Trials of Liberace, Patty Andrews in The Andrews Sisters’ Hollywood Canteen and Meredith Silberstein in White Trash Compactor. Flintstone also appeared in the popular long-run hits Dirty Little Show Tunes and Jungle Red. He is most proud of his artist-in-residency with the Jon Sims Center for the Arts, having developed an evening of pre-Stonewall theatre called A Return to the Caffe Cino.

 

About AIRSpace
The works selected for presentation in the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts’ “Best of AIRspace” series focus on theatrical forms. Both Craig Acosta Rowe and Alan Reade have fashioned solo pieces that wrestle with mutable queer identity and Trauma Flintstone has resurrected pre-Stonewall plays that still pack a relevant punch for contemporary queers while providing a history lesson about the origins of modern gay theater. AIRspace (Artist In Residence) is an innovative work-in-progress laboratory for the initial development of new performance works by lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered performing artists and artists exploring same-sex and gender issues. The program allows residents to explore the creative process and to develop their performing arts craft. The in-progress nature of AIRspace performances educates audiences about the artists’ creative processes and the discipline employed (performance, dance, theater, music, and interdisciplinary) while generating critical feedback for the development of the work. For more information about ongoing AIRspace performances or how to apply for a residency, please call the Jon Sims Center at 415.554.0402 or visit www.jonsimsctr.org.