Gay Play Series begins at Ringwald tonight with Making Porn
Joe Bailey watches from the lighting booth.
“Ok…so we’re going to let it play till about…a minute-fifty,” he explains, “Just start out in the chair and let the music work in until it’s like you have to move.”
On stage Jeffrey Howson is at his mark. Tenuously he sits in a chair; Mary J. Blige pulsing through the air and into his body. He timidly and then confidently glides. Finally it overtakes him.
The scene is starting to spark…really cooking. It’s fun. Light.
Then Chris Burns enter—begin ominous mood shift.
With a crafted sincerity he delivers lines of pure anger, hatred, and confusion.
“I could fucking kill you right now…and no one could stop me,” he hisses.
The play is Break My Face On Your Hand by Daniel Talbott. A part of the 2012 Gay Play Series taking place at the Ringwald and an exploration in homophobic rage…a combination of tension and awkward humor.
Tonight the series will have its grand kick-off with a performance of Making Porn. The play is not only a Ronnie Larsen classic but already familiar to Bailey and Joe Plambeck. Plambeck is directing Robocop: The Musical and serves as media director at the Ringwald—in addition to doing a gazillion other jobs. Both he and Bailey worked in national productions of Porn. It was in these performances that the now married couple met.
“I was teching for it–we were in San Diego and he was performing,” Plambeck explains, “It’s fun. I’m having such flashbacks of San Diego and us meeting.”
Porn, as you may infer from the title, explores the lives of porn actors and the industry. Jack Hawk, an out of work actor and heterosexual, begins working for a gay-porn producer. Hawk’s experience is comically constructed—a jaded porn star and a fellow newcomer adding further relief. There’s a bit of nudity, too.
11 total plays will be performed, split into two blocks across alternating days of the weekend. Block A starts Saturday night and Block B Sunday afternoon. This year 175 submissions were received, arriving from the US, UK and Australia.
“This year they just kept coming. Everyday we’d have 20 new ones. It’s great, but then we realized we were going to have to read them all,” Bailey laughs.
The series will run from June 15th-25th at the Ringwald Theatre in Ferndale. The Ringwald is located at 22742 Woodward Avenue. Admission for Making Porn is $20 or you can buy a pass for just Blocks A & B at $25. Both Porn and a full fest pass still only come in at 40 bucks. For more information call 248-545-5545.
