Diversionary Hosts Reading Of OUR GAY APPAREL

From Christmas 1995 thru Christmas 1999, Diversionary Theatre presented the comedy Our Gay Apparel as a holiday offering to the community. Written by late Artistic Director Robert Joseph, the play was a tradition for five years - the only play in Diversionary's 25-year-history produced that many times.

"The play was first presented 15 years ago," said Dan Kirsch, Diversionary's Executive & Artistic Director. "The LGBT community has come a long way since then, but there are still people coming out every day, having to hide their identity, worried about what their parents will say or do, wondering if they will be loved. If we remind ourselves of that, we can laugh along with this story and be grateful that we've come as far as we have."

The story: Alice invites five friends to celebrate the holidays at her wealthy parents' mountain cabin. Alice hasn't told her parents she's a lesbian, and surprise(!), the parents show up and everyone has to pretend to be heterosexual - the flannel-shirt wearing lesbian has to don a dress, and the fey boy has to get out of his Diana Ross-like singing group drag and don a suit. Time to butch (or femme) it up!

To celebrate their 25th Anniversary, Diversionary will do a one-night reading of Our Gay Apparel on Wednesday, December 8 at 7:30pM. Kirsch will direct, and the reading will feature Diversionary alums Karson St. John (The Little Dog Laughed, [title of show]), Tony Houck (Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins, [title of show], Scrooge in Rouge), Heather Paton ([title of show]), John Martin (It's a Fabulous Life and the 1996 production of Our Gay Apparel), Kevane La'Marr Coleman (As Much As You Can), Kate Hewitt (Looking for Normal, Corpus Christi), Rayme Sciaroni (music and lyrics, The Daddy Machine and director of Scrooge in Rouge). Wendy Maples of InnerMission's Dog Sees God rounds out the cast.

The reading of Our Gay Apparel also celebrates the artistic leadership of Robert Joseph, one of only seven who have held artistic or executive leadership in Diversionary's 25-year history (Thom Vegh, Reuel Olin, Robert Joseph, Gail Feldman, Wayne Tibbets, Chuck Zito and Dan Kirsch). He also wrote the comedy-thriller nooses, knives and lovers, the first play in Diversionary's then-new space on Park Boulevard in 1994. Robert resigned his role in 1995 and planned to do more writing, but unexpectedly died the following year. David Yoder, the director of the 1995 premiere of Our Gay Apparel, wrote these notes about Robert and the production: "Robert wrote Our Gay Apparel in an attempt to address a need many gay and lesbian have around the holiday season. In his own words, ‘a lot of us reach a point where we're not comfortable being with our families for whatever reason - because we're not out or because, especially in contemporary society, we're so far away from where our families live, that we have to turn to each other to develop our own traditions and be family for each other.' With craft, intelligence, humor and not too little camp, Robert achieved in creating a play that speaks to our community."

David continues, "Robert was about creating opportunities - opportunities for actors, designers, playwrights, technicians, volunteers and directors. He attempted to provide a nurturing environment for gays and lesbians to enact what our own lives are about. A place where we can blossom and grow from a comfortable place by just being who we are. He said that we all have a cloak or a disguise to make ourselves comfortable in the world. He provided an opportunity for us to take off our disguises and be who we are with other people who will love us and welcome us and just let us be."

Diversionary Theatre was started in 1986. The mission of the theatre is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily.

Our Gay Apparel will have one reading on Wednesday, December 8 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $12 general admission, $9 for Diversionary subscribers and $6 student rush. For information, call the box office at 619.220.0097 or log on to www.diversionary.org.