GLBT arts at Sleepless Nights - South Florida Blade

GLBT arts at Sleepless Nights

Featuring Betty, band from ‘The L Word’ 

By DAN RENZI

OCT. 29, 2009

At the Sleepless Night 2009 event in Miami Beach, festival participants will have the choice to attend the first-ever contemporary GLBT performing arts showcase.

“A Taste of Out in the Tropics” will feature performances designed to appeal to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered audiences, including live music, male and female drag artists, and “multimedia” art installations.

The headlining act at “Taste” is the “women-led” pop/rock band Betty, who performed the theme song to Showtime’s lesbian drama “The L Word.” Also appearing during the evening will include Drag It Out, a female-to-male drag king show; Juan Carlos Zaldivar, a mixed-media artist who blends video and live performance; and an abbreviated program of songs by Miami Gay Men’s Chorus.  The evening will be hosted by South Florida drag impresario Adora.

“A Taste of Out in the Tropics” is produced by South Florida arts pioneer Robbie Rosenberg, in association with not-for-profit arts organization FUNDarte, as a preview of the upcoming “Out in the Tropics” GLBT contemporary arts festival.  Rosenberg said he is helping launch the “Out in the Tropics” series to diversify the cultural landscape among the local community.

“‘Out in the Tropics’ will bring contemporary, edgy performance work to South Florida,” Rosenberg said.  “It will be more like the New York, San Francisco, London axis of performing arts—the kind of stuff that doesn’t get here at all.  For some reason we don’t get these kinds of artists in South Florida.”

Rosenberg said “Out in the Tropics” will change the image of what “GLBT culture” means to South Florida.

“People think gay culture is just drag shows, and someone singing with a piano,” he said.

“You have to crack through the idea that all gay culture is like that.  [Out in the Tropics] is not a cabaret show. A ‘contemporary arts showcase’ is something different.”

Explaining the role of a showcase specifically for GLBT artists, Rosenberg acknowledged the performing arts already receive widespread support from the GLBT community, but programming that reflects the lives of GLBT people is rare.

“You may go see a production of  ‘Wicked,’ and lots of the guys performing are gay, but the work doesn’t reference gay identity directly,” Rosenberg said.  “It may be campy, it may appeal to gay audiences, but it does not reflect the GLBT experience. “Out in the Tropics” will be performing artists who specifically address queer issues and gender identify, in a way that most performing arts doesn’t show.”

Rosenberg is well known in arts circles as the founder of the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, where he served as Executive Director for fice years.  He developed “Out in the Tropics” after helping to present the 2008 performance art performance “Becoming A Man in 127 Easy Steps,” by female-to-male transgendered artist Scott Turner Schofield.  More than a typical “drag king” performance, Schofield’s show included a combination of monologues and acrobatics amidst video installations; according to his personal website (www.undergroundtransit.com), he created the show to “explore the drama and hilarity of living a new life in the ‘opposite gender.’” The show’s synopsis appears to be somewhat academic; but after his performance Schofield was widely praised for his energy and humor, and audiences embraced “127 Easy Steps,” selling out its run at the Arsht Center’s studio theater.

“It was really exciting,” Rosenberg said of “127 Easy Steps.”  “It was really high-quality work. I know many leaders in the community who went to the show, who didn’t know what to expect—they thought it would be political diatribe, which can be hard to stomach.  Yet it turned out to be something they could really enjoy.”

Rosenberg said for his “Taste” preview, audiences will get a taste of “contemporary art” with Juan Carlos Zaldivar’s mixed-media performance. But Rosenberg said he chose to include traditional “gay” acts like drag performers, a rock band, and the gay chorus to keep the event informal; the featured act, Betty, plays pop/rock music and should appeal to wide variety of participants, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender.

“It’s designed to be lighter, it’s not a theater event you sit down and watch for an hour and a half, people can come and go,” he said. 

Original article at: http://roohit.com/90583

Listen: Transgressing Gender

I got to speak with the very wonderful Peterson Toscano on WNPR today. Click here to listen!

Hartford Advocate: Stage - Transgendering the Stage

New Haven Advocate, CT, USA


Transgendering the Stage

Two shows with transgender themes and genuine theater values come to Hartford

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

By Christopher Arnott


--
Transfigurations — Transgressing Gender in the Bible

7:30 p.m., Sept. 11. Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Ave.,
Hartford. (860) 249-1207, charteroakcenter.org.
<http://www.charteroakcenter.org/>

Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps

8 p.m., Sept. 18-19. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford. (860)
232-1006, realartways.org
<http://www.realartways.org/>
--


Peterson Toscano eagerly promotes the upcoming performances of Scott
Turner Schofield's Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps and Toscano's own
Transfigurations — Transgressing Gender in the Bible as "two plays
about transgender themes by two relatively well-known queer
performance artists," which is true enough, but some of the words in
that description deserve special emphasis.

Toscano's first piece, the very funny yet very personal Doin' Time in
the Homo No Mo Halfway House, was confessional in nature. His latest
work, however, is less personal — it's about transgendered people, and
he is not himself transgendered. The characters he's portraying lived
thousands of years ago. Toscano's changing costumes while managing a
tricky script based on close readings of Christian and Hebrew
scriptures. To flesh out the revelations, he interviewed over 20
contemporary transgendered people and "wove their words into the
experience," as he puts it. Mainly, Toscano says, "I used tools I
learned as an Evangelical Christian — Bible study."

"People are shocked by the scholarship," he says proudly. They're also
apparently knocked for a loop by the show's theatrical, mindblowing
surprise ending. "The ending is so shocking that the tech people
who're working with me have missed their lighting cues," Toscano
laughs. "I have to prepare them carefully. Scott [Turner Schofield]
told me 'You totally fucked with my head with that ending.'"

For his part, Schofield has augmented his latest solo show, his third,
with aerial ballet. He also stands out on the queer performance
circuit by not technically being queer — he's a straight man who used
to biologically be a woman. His work generally explores his spiritual
and anatomical journey from female to male, but he has always made
sure he brings a show. Besides the intense acrobatics (which Schofield
mastered expressly for this show), Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps
lives up to its title by having audience members suggest which of the
actual 127 stories Schofield is prepared to deliver. There's also a
recurring "decoder ring" element copped from a child's "choose your
own adventure" book with alternate endings. Asked how he came to such
a structure, Schofield jokes that "I ran out of metaphors." His
breakthrough piece, Debutante Balls, played with multiple meanings of
"coming out," while his earlier Underground Transit used subway
imagery to represent submerged urges and "underground" culture.

"As an activist, I use what I know about theater, and my shows are
done for anyone who enjoys theater," Schofield explains. He's seen the
results of shooting for larger, broader audiences. When 127 EASY Steps
got an unexpected rave review in a mainstream newspaper in his native
Atlanta, "the weirdest corners of Atlanta society came to see it. And
they came away saying 'I understand now — I just needed a story.'"

Peterson Toscano freely admits that he's grown as a performer since he
first hit the circuit with Homo No Mo. That piece was undeniably
entertaining but mostly about sharing a real-life story and building a
movement, and that's where it was most successful. Toscano takes
credit for coining the term "ex-gay survivor," for those who've
endured treatments to remove or deny their true homosexual impulses.
Though Toscano has been based in Hartford since 2001, the Sept. 11
performance at Charter Oak will be the official Connecticut premiere
of Transfigurations, which he has been touring for two years now. The
show has been seen throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada, England,
Wales, Northern Ireland, Sweden and South Africa.

For Toscano, touring to colleges, churches and community centers
allows him the best of both worlds — a place to perform and an
audience that isn't as "settled" as what he feels he would find in
more conventional venues. Removed from the presentational trappings of
theater, his audiences often fall into what he describes as "an
intense strain of concentration, a Quaker meeting kind of silence."

His prowess as an actor and speaker has grown, but Toscano hasn't cut
back on controversiality. Between Homo No Mo and Transfigurations he
devised Queer 101: Now I Know My gAyBCs and The Re-Education of George
W. Bush: No President Left Behind. It's his need to engender
understanding and compassion for misunderstood areas of society that
led him to the Bible for source material. "Part of it is about social
justice. The Bible has so often been used against sexual minorities. I
decided, 'I'm going to go for the positive.'" Transfigurations
features six different people drawn from Hebrew and Christian
scriptures, their stories acted out by a narrator. That narrator is,
"a disciple of Jesus," Toscano explains, "who's purposefully ambiguous
— we don't even know what gender."

Both Transfigurations and 127 EASY Steps benefit from a supportive
Hartford GLBT community. Toscano's Charter Oak booking is a fundraiser
for the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition (transadvocacy.org), while
Schofield's two performances at Real Art Ways (augmented by a Trans
Community Forum at the same space, 7:30 p.m., Sept. 16) came about
through a grant he received from an anonymous donor during his
extended Atlanta engagement. The money was given so the show could be
toured in areas of the country "where good work was getting done" with
transgender issues.

Schofield, who performed at a Yale transgender awareness event in
2007, says "Becoming a Man is my highest artistic achievement at this
point." And you can emphasize that any way you like.

Originally posted here

Thoughts on Schofield's gender-bending Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps - Entertainment

The Rice Thresher > Entertainment

Thoughts on Schofield's gender-bending Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps

By Andi Gomez

Published: Thursday, February 26, 2009

Updated: Sunday, March 20, 2011 18:03

Nudity, beer chugging, acrobatics and an explosive, menstrual pad-launching rendition of Hedwig and the Angry Inch's "The Origin of Love" - sound interested?Everyone should be. If more people started going to shows like Scott Turner Schofield's Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps, the world would be a more accepting place. We would see a society in which we seek to understand rather than to exile, and more people would be prepared to accept and help fellow human beings in their struggle to figure out who they are, regardless of sexuality and gender differentials.

Schofield is an award-winning performer and transgender activist who has toured around the country since 2001. He has performed two other solo acts: Debutante Balls and Underground Transit, and his book Two Truths and a Lie has been nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards. Last weekend he was at Houston's DiverseWorks with his newest performance, Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps.

As I drove over to DiverseWorks last Saturday, I had no idea what I was about to experience. I had no idea I would be watching a woman-turned-man get naked in front of me on a stage within the first 10 minutes of a performance. (He only stayed naked for about five minutes.) 

I like to think of myself as a very accepting person, but I'm ashamed to admit that before this show, that mental image may have made me squirm a little.

But after it happened, I was actually really surprised by how, well, natural it felt.

Hilarious, emotional, explosive - and just a bit heart-wrenching at times - Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps is so successful because you not only feel like you are witnessing someone's private transgender experience, but you actually feel like you are inside of the experience with him.

The key to the success of this performance is its intimacy. From the set to the audience participation to the conversational ingenuity of Scott's portrayal, everything about his performance invites the audience into his world while forcing us to question the mainstream culture that surrounds us.

I'll start with the set, because it strikes me as magnificently effective at constructing an atmosphere in which the audience feels like it's being let in on something personal. Simplistic but intimate, a stripped mattress lays on the floor and above it hangs what looks like a crimson cloth cocoon. Three triangular white drapes hang at the foot and sides of the bed; a screen is placed at the back. The audience sits on three sides of the stage.

All of a sudden the cocoon starts to move and Scott comes out, weaving his body up and down and around the symbolically blood-colored cloth that now flows to the center of the mattress as a recording of his voice narrates the moment of his conception. Finally, Scott jumped to the floor. He addressed the audience, throwing the white drapes to all three sides of the stage, bringing everyone in the room into what he calls his fort, much like the ones he used to make as a kid. He asked the people in the last rows to pull the drapes back so that they form a straight line, cracking a joke about how "tight and straight is what we value in this culture." He explained that the fort is a safe place to sexually explore and then promises to the audience that "once we're in the fort, I'll tell you everything."

The title Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps refers to a decoder ring that is projected onto the screen at the head of the bed. Something like a pie chart, each chunk of the decoder ring is identified with a number and holds heavily-loaded word such as "butch," "gay," "stealth" and "feminine." Scott explained that when combined, these numbers and their words tell about 127 little bits of his identity. He has a story for each one. However, the title is slightly deceptive, as he does not have time to tell 127 stories but rather has the audience request certain numbers and he responds with many stories as he can within his hour on stage.

Scott's stories range from downright comical, to shockingly painful, to thought provoking. Story 47, for example, combines the words "man" and "stealth" and he muses over what penis he would have genetically inherited had he been born with a male body. Then he pulls out three soft packs (attachable penises that create a bulge under pants) of different sizes. He begins to walk around the stage, juggling the three penises. He stops, turns to the crowd, gives a mischievous smile and states, "I'd be a shower, not a grower."

Towards the end of the show this character, who for the past hour had awed the audience with his charisma and humor in discussing such a complicated topic, reveals his insecure side. We hear some recordings of a phone conversation in which a friend of Scott's explains to him that it is all right to not know how to be a man because the "idea of being a man is just an idea" and that "you happen any way you choose." The room gets a little darker and Scott quietly explains, "My body tells my truth. but sometimes the story is so big I have to lie just a little, and it hurts just a little." We get an image of him sitting in the dark with a syringe, "morphing" himself as he continues to describe the concern he has to live with: that the hormone injections he takes regularly may have negative health implications in the future.

The show closes on an open-ended note, as he says, "I haven't figured out the end. . All I can do is be a man, and know when to leave."

I can't express the impact this performance had on me. It has certainly made me ponder what constitutes gender, acceptance and how the constant evolution of the individual in personal and public spaces is something that we all go through in our own ways, yet we tend to shut off the process of understanding evolutions different from our own.Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps was only showing in Houston last weekend, so I wish I could have shared this earlier, but I recommend that you go see him if you ever get the chance.


Andi Gomez is a Lovett College Senior.

Thoughts on Schofield's gender-bending Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps - Entertainment - The Rice Thresher - Rice University

Performance deconstructs definitions - Arts

Performance deconstructs definitions

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 18:25

Author: J.P. Allen

Amid the flurry of Winter Term events and speakers, performance artist Scott Turner Schofield quietly staged one of the most unusual, exceptional presentations Middlebury College has seen all year. Schofield was invited to Middlebury by T Cooper ('94), and visiting Winter Term professor, who included some of Schofield's works in T's class, "Transgressive Fiction."

Schofield began his genre-crossing performance by handing cups of sweet tea to every audience member and politely chatting about his Southern upbringing. After pouring the last of the tea, he turned his blue-eyed, open face to his laptop and called up a picture of a large, segmented circle with words like "male," "female," "gay" and "straight" written in each slice.

"Which of these words would you use to describe me?" he asked. After some sheepish seconds and a few mumbled audience responses, Schofield launched into what he called "the nuts and bolts." He is a man who was born a woman. Although he has not yet undergone (and may never undergo) expensive and complicated "bottom surgery" that would replace his vagina with a facsimile penis, he has been injecting testosterone for years and is convincingly male in appearance. He is a "lesbian-turned-straight guy" as his books' dust jackets concisely state. However, his journey through the maze of gender and sexual identity has been far from direct. Schofield's work is based in the psychological, emotional and philosophical effects of that journey.

Schofield did not perform full versions of his works. Instead, the presentation was minimally structured and highly participative: the audience asked questions about Schofield's life and work and Schofield answered with conversation, multimedia presentations from his laptop or performances of selected pieces. The writings, which Schofield called simply "stories," varied in style, from poetry to prose-poetry to monologues with stage directions.

The event was a cross between an interview and a collaborative storytelling session, with Schofield assuming the roles of master of ceremonies, tour guide and human exhibit. The medium (or, more accurately, media) of the performance dovetailed with its larger themes. "Gender is a performance," Schofield remarked, but unlike a play or poem, gender performance is constant, unavoidable and inherently multimedia. Every moment is simultaneously "real" and performed.

Many of those moments can be hilarious. Schofield's performance thrived on the humor generated by breaches of social norms. For instance, he told a harrowing, hilarious story of returning to Georgia to participate in a friend's debutante ball (a ceremony ironically known to Southerners as "coming out"). Because very few people in his hometown knew he was a transsexual, he was forced to pull together a convincing female outfit, crossdressing ("double-crossing?") back to his former gender.

Some of Schofield's stories seemed too funny or dramatic to be true, prompting one audience member to ask simply, "Do you embellish?" Schofield smiled. "Great question," he said. "It's not about embellishment. It's about word choice: what choices do you make about telling the truth?" In writing, one can choose to move "closer to" or "farther from" a story, but in either case, Schofield believes, the story can retain an authentic core.

Perhaps the greatest joy of the event was Schofield's obvious love for his job. He praised live performance's ability to reveal truth "through stories, not through lecture" and to forge genuine human connection. "Performance is one of the last bastions of incredible grassroots action," he said. "If you're going to open your heart to anything, you have to see the performer, you have to see each other and the performer has to see you." For these reasons, Schofield refuses to perform for more than 100 people at a time.

Schofield's presentation uniquely combined form, structure and content into a compelling, earnest statement of identity.

Originally Posted Here