Arts & Entertainment
Flocking together
Gay playwright explores celebrated bird pairings
‘Birds of a Feather’
Through Aug. 7
The Hub Theatre @
The New School
9431 Silver King Court, Fairfax
703-674-3177
From left, Matt Dewberry, Jjana Valentiner, playwright Marc Acito, director Shirley Serotsky, Dan Crane and Eric Messner. (Photo by C. Stanley Photography; courtesy of Hub Theatre)
Much of gay writer Marc Acito’s work is ripped from the headlines. This applies to his National Public Radio commentaries, and it’s also true about his funny new play “Birds of a Feather” now making its world premiere at the Hub Theatre in Fairfax.
Inspired by two Manhattan stories that got a lot of press about seven years ago, the comedy focuses on gay penguins that fall in love and hatch an egg in the Central Park Zoo, and a messy-but-devoted pair of straight hawks who famously make their home high atop a tony Fifth Avenue co-op. Acito explores what he imagines to be the birds’ motivations as well as the ways in which humans react to these two feathered families.
“What most interested me about the bird stories,” says Acito by phone from his home in New York, “is that both elicited such a huge response from the public. There was a lot of anthropomorphizing going on — the hawk Pale Male was praised as a good father, and the co-op was accused of attempting to unjustly evict a lovely family. The hetero normative hawks were pretty much unanimously supported.”
On the other hand, says Acito, 45, the longtime pair-bonded male penguins Silo and Roy who together hatched an abandoned egg weren’t entirely celebrated. In fact, an award winning children’s book about the penguins’ nontraditional family “And Tango Makes Three” ranks as one of America’s most controversial books, and has been challenged or banned in numerous libraries and school districts.
When “Birds of a Feather” was first read two summers ago at JAW Playwright’s Festival in Portland, (Acito’s home from around 1990 until last year), Hub Theatre artistic director Helen Pafumi contacted Acito. She was eager to mount the show in Fairfax. “There had been controversy about the children’s book in neighboring Loudon County, and Helen thought my play was relevant to the community. Part of Hub’s mission is to facilitate conversation among different factions who live side by side.”
“Hub is a real gem waiting to be discovered,” Acito says. “I realize it might be a little out of way, but I’m hoping gay theatergoers will be willing to make the trek out of curiosity. They can attend a matinee and be back in town for happy hour. If nothing else I know my audiences.”
Staged by Shirley Serotsky, “Birds of a Feather” features a talented quartet who play the penguin and hawk couples (the aptly named Dan Crane and Matt Dewberry), a female zookeeper (Jjana Valentiner) whose best friend is gay man, a birder (Eric Messner), as well as myriad other characters including Mary Tyler Moore, Paula Zahn and a bevy of Catholic school girls.
“All the facts of the play are true, but of course I fictionalize what the birds are thinking,” Acito says. “I certainly feel qualified to write about relationships. My partner and I have been together for 25 years. And while gay relationships are unique in many ways, the fundamentals of living with a partner are the same for everyone.”
Growing up in New Jersey, Acito starred in high school musicals. He describes himself as the guy darting about in Capezio dance shoes and leg warmers. Later he dropped out of Carnegie Mellon’s drama program due to “artistic differences.”
“I thought I could act. They didn’t,” he says.
After more study, he began a professional opera career: “I played character parts — drunks and hunchbacks mostly. It was fun and I learned a lot about comedy and western history, but for me opera was a shoe that never really fit. Ultimately I decided that I needed to create art rather than recreate it onstage, so I began writing.”
He started with the gay press. Next he wrote “How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship and Musical Theater,” a cult novel about theater people. A successful sequel followed. When the bottom fell out of publishing, he returned to theater and relocated to New York, but this time as a writer. Currently he’s collaborating with composer Jeffrey Stock on a musical adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic “A Room with a View” slated to premiere at the Old Globe in San Diego next spring. Buzz is good.
Today Acito is thrilled to have found new meaning in his life and career. “There’s an audience that understands my message and aesthetic, and they’re very much in the theater. This time, I feel that I’ve found the shoe that really fits.”
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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