Dan Myers
This year’s show offers a mix of comedy and drama.
StageQ, Madison’s LGBT theater company, is celebrating a decade of Queer Shorts.
This year’s extravaganza, which kicks off June 12 at the Bartell Theatre, includes 13 plays with a cast and crew of more than 45, chosen from hundreds of local and national submissions. Collected under the theme of “remembrance,” the festival looks back on LGBT history, both serious and silly.
Created in 2005 by former StageQ staff member Katy Conley, the annual festival was intended to provide a platform for LGBT voices in the Madison area. The short plays and flexible rehearsal schedule have allowed first-time performers to stretch their stage legs alongside more seasoned professionals. The end result, say organizers, is the coming together of diverse voices and talents, creating a larger sense of both Madison’s theater and queer communities. StageQ actively welcomes gay and straight participants alike, emphasizing unity among artists and activists.
The reputation of Queer Shorts has grown over the last decade. While it once featured mostly local playwrights, it now produces writers from across the country, says Michael Bruno, current president of StageQ’s board of directors. Bruno has been an active participant and supporter of the festival since joining the company for the third Queer Shorts. The pool of script submissions for the June event topped 300, with scripts from first-time and professional playwrights as well as from other theater companies.
Bruno says StageQ hopes to continue the annual tradition, and he wants to bring the focus back to local playwrights and theater artists to honor the Madison community that has made the festival so popular.
Bruno says there is a “nice mix” of comedic and dramatic pieces this year. One highlight is the one-man show If Knives Were Butterflies by Kiki Kosnick. It is a memorial to the influential Madison LGBT rights activist Felicia Melton-Smyth, who was murdered on a trip to Mexico in 2008. Bruno says the play creates a sense of communal remembrance for the Madison community: “Queer Shorts is our celebration of gay pride in Madison.”
