A scene from The Break Up Notebook: The Lesbian Musical. Photo credit:Ken Jacques Photography.

2008 News Archives

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2008

CONTACT: Dan Kirsch, Executive/Artistic Director
or Travis Guss, Patron Services Manager
619.220.6830

Diversionary Theatre announces 2008-2009 season of six plays
Two new musicals have West Coast Premieres; two special world premiere projects

“We always like to give our audience a couple of surprises,” said Dan Kirsch, Executive & Artistic Director of Diversionary Theatre, as he announced the 2008-2009 season. “In addition to producing the West Coast Premiere of two new musicals, we’ll also produce Jean Paul Sartre’s classic fantasy No Exit. We’ll work with local choreographers to create a new event, Dance/Theatre, creating new dance works inspired by past Diversionary productions. And we’ll celebrate Harvey Milk, an early hero of the gay community, with a new play by local playwright Patricia Loughrey.

“We’re very proud of our unique mission – to tell lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) stories,” continued Kirsch. “Other than No Exit, which was written in 1944, all of the other shows on our season have premiered since 2005. We hope the community will come share our past and our future as we celebrate another new season of great theatre.”

The six-show season includes the new musical Yank!; Jean Paul Sartre’s classic fantasy No Exit, directed by Esther Emery; a new send-up of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge in Rouge – A British Music Hall Christmas Carol, directed by Rayme Sciaroni; the comedy As Much As You Can, directed by Antonio T.J. Johnson, in collaboration with San Diego Black Ensemble Theatre; Carol Lynn Pearson’s drama Facing East; and Douglas Carter Beane’s biting comedy The Little Dog Laughed, directed by Robert Barry Fleming.

Diversionary will also produce two special world premiere events as part of their Queer Theatre project: Dance/Theatre, where six local choreographers create new dance works inspired by a past Diversionary production, with Peter G. Kalivas as artistic director of the project; and Dear Harvey, a new work by Patricia Loughrey and directed by Dan Kirsch that celebrates Harvey Milk.

The plays:
YANK! West Coast Premiere! July 10-August 17.

Book and lyrics by David Zellnik, music by Joseph Zellnik. Igor Goldin will direct as well as recreate Jeffry Denman's original choreography, with musical direction by Amy Dalton; in association with The Gallery Players (www.galleryplayers.com). Featuring Tom Zohar, with Michael Ahmad, Zachary Bryant, Jacob Caltrider, Rocky DeHaro, Eric Dowdy, Tom Doyle, Juston Harlin, Tony Houck, Sven Salumaa and John Whitley. An official event of San Diego LGBT Pride.

Some WWII buddy stories didn’t make it into the history books. A love song to Hollywood's "it takes one of every kind" platoon flicks and to 1940s Broadway, Yank! tells the story of a war reporter named Stu and an army private named Mitch who fall in love and struggle to survive in a time and place where the odds are stacked against them. Suffused with period songs (swing, big band, boogie-woogie), Yank! explores what stories get told in wartime, and how WWII became the great catalyst in bringing gay men and women together. “Yank! overlays a modern gay sensibility on a typical wartime crew to illustrate the sheer hell, internal and external, gay soldiers endured….More-complex emotions than many musicals allow are present.” - Back Stage. Visit www.yankthemusical.com for more background and history of the show.

NO EXIT. September 11-October 5.

The classic fantasy by Jean Paul Sartre, adapted from the French by Paul Bowles. Directed by Esther Emery. Hell is other people. Two women and one man are locked up together for eternity in one hideous room in hell. The windows are bricked up; there are no mirrors; the electric lights can never be turned off; and there is no exit. The irony of this hell is that its torture is not of the rack and fire, but of the burning humiliation of each soul as it is stripped of its pretenses by the cruel curiosity of the damned.

In January, the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle named Emery the inaugural recipient of the Jack O'Brien Excellence in Directing Award.

SCROOGE IN ROUGE - An English Music Hall Christmas Carol. West Coast Premiere! November 20-December 21.

Book by Ricky Graham and Jeffrey Roberson. Music & Lyrics by Jefferson Turner. Directed by Rayme Sciaroni, with costumes by Jennifer Brawn Gittings. Three actors play 23 roles in the gayest Christmas show you’ll see this year! A new quick-change, cross-dressing version of the Dickens classic, set in a Victorian music hall. “The clever pleasures of Scrooge in Rouge are abundant, varied, risque and virtually nonstop. It is uproarious entertainment; a brilliantly constructed funhouse that works on so many levels… It plays giddy games of gender, identity, reality and theatricality, all within the framework of the music hall… There's a wonderfully unnecessary seaside number, for no reason other than it was obligatory music hall fare. And there is a new Tiny Tim every night! – The Times Picayune (from the world premiere in New Orleans last Christmas season).

AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. January 8-25.

By Paul Oakley Stovall. Directed by Antonio T.J. Johnson. In collaboration with San Diego Black Ensemble Theatre. Finding the funny in family conflict when a black gay man brings home his white lover. When Jesse returns home to Chicago for his brother's wedding, he surprises his family by bringing along his Swedish boyfriend. Jesse's three siblings have varying reactions to the couple: his half-sister is supportive and anxious for the family to fully accept them as a couple; his younger brother is resistant to welcoming a white man into their African-American family; and his deeply religious sister thinks that Jesse is betraying the memory of their deceased parents by "choosing" what she considers a sinful, unnatural lifestyle. Through card games, language lessons, and literature, they all strive to live, love, and give as much as they can.

Johnson is Executive Director of San Diego Black Ensemble Theatre, and as an actor, recently played the lead role in the Cygnet Theatre/SDBET production of August Wilson’s Fences.

FACING EAST. March 19-April 5

By Carol Lynn Pearson. Director to be announced. The suicide of their gay son forces a Mormon couple to confront the limits of their spiritual teachings. As an upstanding Mormon couple reel from the suicide of their gay son, they are stuck between their faith and their new reality when they encounter their son's partner for the first time. Although centered on Mormon characters, the play is for anyone of any faith, anyone with a family, anyone who has felt the pain of loss, anyone with hope for change.

The premiere of the play in Salt Lake City in 2006 coincided with the 20th anniversary of Pearson’s seminal book Goodbye, I Love You, the story of her life with her gay husband Gerald, their 12-year Mormon temple marriage, four children, divorce, ongoing friendship, and his death from AIDS in her home, where she cared for him. Last summer the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “Pearson has never remarried. "That has been a disappointment in my life," she said. There's also been grief along with joy, bafflement and a strange sense of wonder in the lives of her children. As for her oldest, Pearson drew a deep breath before relating this chapter. Like her mother, Emily married a gay man and subsequently divorced him. That man is Steven Fales, creator of the widely traveled solo show Confessions of a Mormon Boy. (Fales performed the show at Diversionary during the summer of 2005.) Emily, hewing to her mother's past, is now writing a book about her life with a gay Mormon husband.”

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED. May 7-31

By Douglas Carter Beane. Directed by Robert Barry Fleming. A biting, contemporary comedy about the price of Hollywood celebrity. This comedy follows the adventures a movie star who could hit big if it weren’t for one teensy-weensy problem – his agent can’t seem to keep him in the closet! Trying to help him navigate Hollywood’s choppy waters, the devilish agent is doing all she can to keep the star away from the cute call boy who’s caught his eye and the call boy’s girlfriend (wait, the call boy has a girlfriend?). Will there be a happy ending as the final credits roll? “Theatergoers have cause to rejoice. Devastatingly funny, with dizzy, irresistible writing that brings down the house.” – NY Times

Fleming won a 2008 Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Featured Performance by a Male in a Musical for his performance in Ain’t Misbehavin’ at the San Diego Rep. He is an Assistant Professor and Theatre Director Designate of the Theatre Arts Program at the University of San Diego.

Special Events:

Under Diversionary’s Queer Theatre banner, two new projects will have their world premiere. Queer Theatre gives voice to the stories of LGBT people, and is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation New Connections Fund.

DANCE/THEATRE. February 5-8, 2009. Inspired by Theatre/Created through Dance. Peter G. Kalivas will be artistic director for this new project that brings past Diversionary productions to life through new dance pieces, created by local choreographers, including Javier Velasco (San Diego Ballet) and Deven P. Brawley (D'Shire Dance).

DEAR HARVEY. By Patricia Loughrey. April 23-25, 2009. Directed by Dan Kirsch. In 1978, Harvey Milk challenged the gay community to fight for our rights. Thirty years later we celebrate his courage. Loughrey will ask the community to participate in this project by writing a letter to Harvey Milk, expressing the gratitude for the freedoms we celebrate today because of his work and vision.

Queer Theatre – Taking Center Stage. Diversionary’s play development program will continue during the year with a playwriting class led by Patricia Loughrey, and readings of two or three new plays. The program honors the ideas, the energy and commitment people have made to write LGBT stories. More than 70 new plays with LGBT themes get submitted to the program each year.

The Year Ahead

Productions will have three to six week runs, with 16 or more performances per run. Each show will preview on Thursday and Friday night, with openings on Saturday nights. Performance schedule for the year is Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8:00pm, Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00pm, and selected Monday’s and Wednesday’s at 7:30pm.
Discounted six-show subscription packages ranging from $98 to $216 are now available through June 1 (prices go up on June 2). The early bird discounts include a package with a 45% discount. There are no handling/service charges for tickets purchased through Diversionary’s box office.
Single tickets go on sale six weeks before the opening date of each show. Group sales for any show during the season can be arranged now by calling the box office. More information about all the shows and season subscriptions are available through the Box Office at 619.220.0097 or at their website at www.diversionary.org.
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Diversionary’s mission is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily.

Major support for Diversionary Theatre is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.