Leigh Hendrix is a Providence, RI based theatre artist and educator. How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less is her solo performance piece and this is her blog.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less Show - Again?
I am performing the solo show that just won’t quit, How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less, again for one night in Providence at the end of the month. June 29th, the tail end of Pride month. I continue to be beyond proud of this piece of theatre that I’ve worked to make over the past few years, even if I keep thinking I’m done performing it, that maybe it has run its course. I don’t know that it has completely and the only way to really find out is to put it in front of folks again. It seems like the right thing to pair a performance of How To Be A Lesbian with the beginnings of a new show that for now is called Studies of a Story: You Just Need A Little Lipstick. I think it is the new thing I will be digging into for a long time, an exploration of family storytelling, my relationship with my mom, and the transformative powers of lipstick. I am excited to allow one to lead into the other and see what that can begin to look like.
As many performances as I have done of How To Be A Lesbian and as many different types of people and audiences that have enjoyed and connected with the show, sometimes I’m still surprised by the thing I made and wonder if I can still perform it as it is with my political and aesthetic and personal points of view shifting and changing. I don’t think the piece is going to change much in form or content anymore so maybe it is something that was and is and now it’s on to the next thing. But I have found myself missing Butchy McDyke and I wonder what will happen if I put her out there again right now.
I am also thinking of Pride and the alternatives to Pride events that are happening this month in Rhode Island, things designed to be a more radical queer response to remembering Stonewall and celebrating a diverse community and resisting the corporate homogenized “official” events that leave so many people out and remove a lot of the real potential politics from the month.
I performed already at one event, an evening of theatrical works-in-progress with some rad queer theatre artists but the production of How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less isn’t going to be included on the collected events calendar for the radical queer events because it isn’t quite radical enough I suppose. I am part of the reason for this being left off, I questioned myself whether it was the right kind of thing for the calendar but I know that I’m a queer voice and that How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less is a really accessible show that appeals to a lot of people but I think it is a radical queer story because it is my story and I am telling it onstage in front of people. The risk of this show is a big one and I still feel that when I perform and that is why I want to keep performing it.
There are not enough queer stories and queer voices on stages and I am committed to being a professional lesbian theatre artist and telling some stories that we own so that no one else will try and tell them for us.
Here is the facebook event for this show.
The street in Bywater where I’m staying while I perform my show at the New Orleans Fringe Festival. You guys. You. Guys.
Also, it is hot here and the South Carolinian in me who feels at home in it is battling with the Rhode Islander who is like, “What the hell November?”
Butchy McDyke and How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less will be back in action so soon at WAM Theatre’s O Solo Mama Mia Festival!
It’s The Day of The Show Ya’ll
I submitted my NYCFringe application for How To Be A Lesbian in 10 Days or Less. This performance would hopefully be a lot less like doing Covered Wagons again with Corky at the Blaine Sesquicentennial.
It’s sort of a long shot and then sort of not. But the work on the application and the thinking about the show and why it would both be ready for a production in New York and why it would benefit from being a part of the Fringe has felt like a big step forward with the project. I know where I am headed with the piece and I am prepared to ask for things - money, places to perform, technical support when I get to the place I am performing that does not include my own i-Pod nano, etc.
There’s a work in progress showing coming up for the resident artist’s at Perishable Theatre and I am working with my most excellent director in preparation for that and for the WAM Oh Solo Mama Mia Festival in the Berkshires in May.
Take that flu and general inertia that will be blamed on the flu even if that part started a long time ago - onward!
