So too begins An Austen Armoire, a cozy game that invites Austen fans of all ages to play, read, make, and share in the world of Elizabeth and Mr. An Austen Armoire is an illuminated novel-a time-based casual game wrapping like a cozy shawl around Volume 1 of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's witty comedy of manners—one of the most popular novels of all time—that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary.
TeCo Theatrical Productions Launches the PlayPride LGBT Festival
IMAGE ABOVE: Six Texas playwrights will compete for favorite one-act as voted on by audiences at the PlayPride LGBT Festival in September. Pictured (L-R): Randy Frank Eppes, Bill Richard, Christopher Soden, Antay Bilgutay, Lon Rogers and Buster Spiller. Photo courtesy of TeCo Theatrical Productions.
What do an English teacher, an arts fundraiser, a published poet, a former Peace Corps volunteer, a theater critic, and a former Catholic priest all have in common?
They are all chasing after $1,000 prize money and bragging rights for the Audience Favorite Award in the inaugural bow of the PlayPride LGBT Festival, an evening of short one-acts penned by resident playwrights about the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community of Texas.
The festival, produced by TeCo Theatrical Productions in Dallas, shows September 4-14 at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center, an intimate venue in the popular Bishop Arts District south of downtown.
The festival was inspired by Randy Frank Eppes' script Three Guys In A Bed, the story of a gay couple who pick up a guy to come home with them for a night of sexual pleasure. The morning after reveals the reality of who is actually in their bed and the discovery, disagreement, and discussion. The script was submitted for consideration to participate in TeCo's annual New Play Competition last winter but was not deemed appropriate for the family-skewed audience that usually attends that competition.
But TeCo's producers loved the script and decided to create this new themed festival. As with the winter festival, audience members at each performance will vote on their favorite one-act, and the winning playwright will be awarded $1,000 given to the local LGBT charity of their choice. Pride in winning will be their personal award.
Aside from Eppes, other works in the performance of one-acts include Mama's Boy by Antay Bilgutay (winning playwright of the New Play Competition in March) Jerone has had a fight with his cosmetician boyfriend Carson, and when Carson drops by Jerone's apartment to talk, he discovers the underlying fears that caused the fight; Water by Christopher Soden
Evan knocks on the door of a stranger to ask for a glass of water in the Texas heat; Foreplay by Lon Rogers A gay teenager visits a prostitute for surprising reasons; Pot Liquor by Buster Spiller When Jeffrey and his partner Montre come to live with his religious grandmother, issues of death and dying, fluid sexuality, and unconditional love are front and center; Trapped: A Confessional Tale by Bill Richard The awkward exchange of a priest and penitent in a church confessional leads to one of them feeling trapped.
A+C spoke with two of the finalists, poet Christopher Soden and former priest Bill Richard, about their works and outlook of the festival.
A+C: What was your inspiration for your selective one-acts?
SODEN: There's a certain kind of straight man, so submerged in what I call 'male warrior code' (an ideology ingrained in our culture) that they are profoundly uncomfortable with any sort of gracious or charitable impulses from or towards other men. Anything that feels remotely like tenderness or kindness is strictly forbidden, because they've been led to believe it's a footstep on the path to male sexual connection. They can't explore loving feelings towards other men because that might take them to a place that for them, is unthinkable. It's an internalized homophobia. So, my inspiration for Water was simple: What if one man, because of exigent circumstances, were more or less forced to ask a stranger (a very butch guy) for a simple favor? A glass of water. Where would that lead us?
RICHARD: When I was a younger priest I had a rather uncomfortable encounter in the confessional with a woman who was convinced I had feelings for her. She wouldn't take no for an answer. I felt trapped in my own confessional. I struggled to find a way to treat her respectfully and kindly. That experience was the kernel which generated the creation of my script. But in my play the priest is straight and the penitent is gay (and a man!). So the original experience was more of a launching pad, a catalyst, for coming up with something entirely new.
A+C: How can art, and theater in this case, alter the public's view of the LGBT community?
RICHARD: When someone offers you a gift of any sort it disarms you in a sense. It removes a barrier. I sing with the Turtle Creek Chorale. Joining together with other men who love to make music is its own reward. But the power of choral music with its harmonic blend of voices wedded to meaningful lyrics has a way of entering the hearts of listeners, softening them and opening them to new understandings. The theater has its own power to build bridges with an audience. Playwrights create a world for audiences to ponder and experience. The viewers implicitly or explicitly connect with elements that ring true to their own experience or have epiphanies that challenge their presuppositions and awaken new understanding. That slice of life presented on stage is also offered as a gift for the audience to witness. From a safe distance a viewer less familiar with the gay community can see that, though many of the surface details and circumstances are different, there is a common humanity which underlies them.
A+C: Is the LGBT community well represented on stages in North Texas?
SODEN: Yes, I sincerely believe that it is. In addition to Uptown Players (whose season is built on representing the alternative lifestyle, and also produces a Pride festival of full plays), the rest of the theater community — Rover, Second Thought Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Contemporary Theater of Dallas, WaterTower, Jubilee — has certainly not avoided staging plays with gay characters and content. I am thrilled that Dallas has finally numbered itself among the major cities that host LGBT Theater Festivals every year. If I could make a wish list, it might not hurt to have a troupe dedicated to edgier, angrier queer content.
A+C: This PlayPride Festival is something new from a smaller longstanding company that isn't directly tied to the LGBT community. What does that say to you?
RICHARD: I applaud TeCo for taking the initiative to host these performances. I have had the opportunity to read the other scripts and each one is excellent. And the thought of all six diverse perspectives on life in the LGBT community being played out together on stage each night is really amazing. The fact that it is being produced by a theater not associated with the LGBT community is both a sign of the progress society is making in reversing the marginalization known in previous years and also a positive step in furthering the 'normalization' of gay people.
SODEN: I'm very excited about the new PlayPride Festival. I'm impressed that TeCo came up with this solution, when they felt Mr. Epps' play was inappropriate for their more traditional, annual competition. They could have just as easily pulled the plug, and ended it there. But they chose to see it as an opportunity to provide a venue for LGBT playwrights. We live in the Bible Belt, and, as you say, they're not directly associated with the gay community. Yet they stepped up and made a place for us.
Show dates are September 5 –14, 2014, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday performances only 7:30 p.m. nightly with a preview performance on Thursday, September 4, 2014. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. A discount rate of $12 per ticket will be applied to groups of 15 or more people. To purchase tickets, visit www.tecotheater.org/season.php or call (214) 948-0716. All performances at Bishop Arts Theatre Center in Oak Cliff.
—SCOT HART
EDITOR'S NOTE: Buster Spiller has won the 1st annual PlayPride LGBT for Pot Liquor. The cast included Nadine Marissa Donaldson, Jerrica Roy, Gerald Taylor II, and Quinton Davis. Spiller plans to donate his $1,000 winnings equally to Living Faith Covenant Church and Abounding Prosperity.
Pride is a word that has had a number of changes in meaning over its lifetime. In addition to functional shift (taking on a new part of speech) and semantic drift (an evolution of usage resulting in changed meaning), both of which are common to many words in English, pride has undergone some subtle shifts, one of which is occurring right now. Language change in real time!
A flag waving proudly
The noun form of pride precedes the verb, although both are quite old (the verb has been in use since the 13th century, and the noun since Old English). In its original sense, pride was hardly something to be proud of, as it carried the meaning of 'inordinate self-esteem' and 'an unreasonable conceit of superiority.' In early use pride was also often found in capitalized form, referring to one of the seven deadly sins.
The use of pride to refer to a reasonable form of self-respect began to appear in the 14th century, and the word has taken on a number of other shades of meaning since then. Pride may still switch easily between positive and negative connotations; as is the case with many other polysemous words, it is generally easy to tell which meaning is intended, based on context ('We took great pride in our daughter's honesty' vs. 'His overweening pride in his hair left me feeling unwell').
One of the more recent shifts in the word is concerned with the modern gay rights movement, which, if it may be said to have originated with any one event, is tied to the riot that occurred at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28th, 1969, in which some 400 people protested the police raid of that establishment. In June of the following year marches commemorating Stonewall were held in Los Angeles and New York City. Pride is frequently found, modified by gay, in early texts referring to these events.
Issue 19 reaches the stands on Monday June 29, the day after New York's mass Gay March and Gay In, concluding a week's activities on Gay pride and liberation.
—John Heys, Gay Power (New York City, NY), Vol. 1, issue 19 1970
The Central Park gathering is rescheduled for Sunday, May 31. Until Christopher St. Liberation Day the committee will meet in conjunction with the Political Affairs Subcommittee on Gay Pride Week, chaired by Barbara Glover.
—(Minutes of Meeting) MS Gay Activists Alliance, 21 May 1970
At about the same time there is also evidence of gay pride being used in reference to a collective sense of self-worth, rather than tied to a specific event.
Gay pride and self-consciousness are valid tools to fight oppression.
—Marty Stephan, Gay Power (New York City, NY), Vol. 1, Issue 8 1969
Gay pride seems to be catching, York University in Toronto, Canada has an on campus organization, York University Homophile Association.
—Homophile Action League (Philadelphia, PA), 26 Dec. 1970
Prior to pride being associated with the gay rights movement, it was occasionally found modified by black, especially during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
An interesting article titled, 'Black Pride: a Woman speaks for Her Race,' appearing in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly, is authored by Mrs. Kimbal Goffman .. In her piece, the author expresses hope for dawning of the day when Negroes shall have more of pride in race and in the customs, habits and achievements of Negroes.
—Pittsburgh Courier, 18 Feb. 1939
Warcraft 3 dragon ball z map ai download. I think it was Martin Luther King—and I don't always agree with him but I must in this case if I'm quoting his words—who said that to him 'Black Power' should be interpreted as 'Black Pride.'
—Stanley G. Robertson, Los Angeles Sentinel, 28 Jun. 1968
Gay pride was eventually shortened to pride alone, and began to be used as a shorthand for the events of LGBT Pride month, which is held in June. Initially, we see pride used in capitalized form and followed by the year in which it occurs.
Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire For Macbeth
Groups, merchants, craftspeople and individuals interested in attending Pride '78 should call.
—Gay Community News (Boston, MA), 18 Mar. 1978
Dennis Gilding is masterminding a gala charity drag marathon at the Hippodrome on June 20th—all proceeds going to Pride '88—with 26 drag performers already confirmed.
—Capital Gay (London, UK), 19 Jeb. 1988
As Pride celebrations and events have progressed from year to year they have been attended and celebrated by an increasingly broad range of groups (adding those who identify as bisexual, transgender, straight allies, and others). By the early 1990s, we see written evidence that reflects the broadened scope of Pride events: the date is often dropped, pride is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, and it is applied to a much wider range of events.
A+C spoke with two of the finalists, poet Christopher Soden and former priest Bill Richard, about their works and outlook of the festival.
A+C: What was your inspiration for your selective one-acts?
SODEN: There's a certain kind of straight man, so submerged in what I call 'male warrior code' (an ideology ingrained in our culture) that they are profoundly uncomfortable with any sort of gracious or charitable impulses from or towards other men. Anything that feels remotely like tenderness or kindness is strictly forbidden, because they've been led to believe it's a footstep on the path to male sexual connection. They can't explore loving feelings towards other men because that might take them to a place that for them, is unthinkable. It's an internalized homophobia. So, my inspiration for Water was simple: What if one man, because of exigent circumstances, were more or less forced to ask a stranger (a very butch guy) for a simple favor? A glass of water. Where would that lead us?
RICHARD: When I was a younger priest I had a rather uncomfortable encounter in the confessional with a woman who was convinced I had feelings for her. She wouldn't take no for an answer. I felt trapped in my own confessional. I struggled to find a way to treat her respectfully and kindly. That experience was the kernel which generated the creation of my script. But in my play the priest is straight and the penitent is gay (and a man!). So the original experience was more of a launching pad, a catalyst, for coming up with something entirely new.
A+C: How can art, and theater in this case, alter the public's view of the LGBT community?
RICHARD: When someone offers you a gift of any sort it disarms you in a sense. It removes a barrier. I sing with the Turtle Creek Chorale. Joining together with other men who love to make music is its own reward. But the power of choral music with its harmonic blend of voices wedded to meaningful lyrics has a way of entering the hearts of listeners, softening them and opening them to new understandings. The theater has its own power to build bridges with an audience. Playwrights create a world for audiences to ponder and experience. The viewers implicitly or explicitly connect with elements that ring true to their own experience or have epiphanies that challenge their presuppositions and awaken new understanding. That slice of life presented on stage is also offered as a gift for the audience to witness. From a safe distance a viewer less familiar with the gay community can see that, though many of the surface details and circumstances are different, there is a common humanity which underlies them.
A+C: Is the LGBT community well represented on stages in North Texas?
SODEN: Yes, I sincerely believe that it is. In addition to Uptown Players (whose season is built on representing the alternative lifestyle, and also produces a Pride festival of full plays), the rest of the theater community — Rover, Second Thought Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Contemporary Theater of Dallas, WaterTower, Jubilee — has certainly not avoided staging plays with gay characters and content. I am thrilled that Dallas has finally numbered itself among the major cities that host LGBT Theater Festivals every year. If I could make a wish list, it might not hurt to have a troupe dedicated to edgier, angrier queer content.
A+C: This PlayPride Festival is something new from a smaller longstanding company that isn't directly tied to the LGBT community. What does that say to you?
RICHARD: I applaud TeCo for taking the initiative to host these performances. I have had the opportunity to read the other scripts and each one is excellent. And the thought of all six diverse perspectives on life in the LGBT community being played out together on stage each night is really amazing. The fact that it is being produced by a theater not associated with the LGBT community is both a sign of the progress society is making in reversing the marginalization known in previous years and also a positive step in furthering the 'normalization' of gay people.
SODEN: I'm very excited about the new PlayPride Festival. I'm impressed that TeCo came up with this solution, when they felt Mr. Epps' play was inappropriate for their more traditional, annual competition. They could have just as easily pulled the plug, and ended it there. But they chose to see it as an opportunity to provide a venue for LGBT playwrights. We live in the Bible Belt, and, as you say, they're not directly associated with the gay community. Yet they stepped up and made a place for us.
Show dates are September 5 –14, 2014, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday performances only 7:30 p.m. nightly with a preview performance on Thursday, September 4, 2014. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. A discount rate of $12 per ticket will be applied to groups of 15 or more people. To purchase tickets, visit www.tecotheater.org/season.php or call (214) 948-0716. All performances at Bishop Arts Theatre Center in Oak Cliff.
—SCOT HART
EDITOR'S NOTE: Buster Spiller has won the 1st annual PlayPride LGBT for Pot Liquor. The cast included Nadine Marissa Donaldson, Jerrica Roy, Gerald Taylor II, and Quinton Davis. Spiller plans to donate his $1,000 winnings equally to Living Faith Covenant Church and Abounding Prosperity.
Pride is a word that has had a number of changes in meaning over its lifetime. In addition to functional shift (taking on a new part of speech) and semantic drift (an evolution of usage resulting in changed meaning), both of which are common to many words in English, pride has undergone some subtle shifts, one of which is occurring right now. Language change in real time!
A flag waving proudly
The noun form of pride precedes the verb, although both are quite old (the verb has been in use since the 13th century, and the noun since Old English). In its original sense, pride was hardly something to be proud of, as it carried the meaning of 'inordinate self-esteem' and 'an unreasonable conceit of superiority.' In early use pride was also often found in capitalized form, referring to one of the seven deadly sins.
The use of pride to refer to a reasonable form of self-respect began to appear in the 14th century, and the word has taken on a number of other shades of meaning since then. Pride may still switch easily between positive and negative connotations; as is the case with many other polysemous words, it is generally easy to tell which meaning is intended, based on context ('We took great pride in our daughter's honesty' vs. 'His overweening pride in his hair left me feeling unwell').
One of the more recent shifts in the word is concerned with the modern gay rights movement, which, if it may be said to have originated with any one event, is tied to the riot that occurred at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28th, 1969, in which some 400 people protested the police raid of that establishment. In June of the following year marches commemorating Stonewall were held in Los Angeles and New York City. Pride is frequently found, modified by gay, in early texts referring to these events.
Issue 19 reaches the stands on Monday June 29, the day after New York's mass Gay March and Gay In, concluding a week's activities on Gay pride and liberation.
—John Heys, Gay Power (New York City, NY), Vol. 1, issue 19 1970
The Central Park gathering is rescheduled for Sunday, May 31. Until Christopher St. Liberation Day the committee will meet in conjunction with the Political Affairs Subcommittee on Gay Pride Week, chaired by Barbara Glover.
—(Minutes of Meeting) MS Gay Activists Alliance, 21 May 1970
At about the same time there is also evidence of gay pride being used in reference to a collective sense of self-worth, rather than tied to a specific event.
Gay pride and self-consciousness are valid tools to fight oppression.
—Marty Stephan, Gay Power (New York City, NY), Vol. 1, Issue 8 1969
Gay pride seems to be catching, York University in Toronto, Canada has an on campus organization, York University Homophile Association.
—Homophile Action League (Philadelphia, PA), 26 Dec. 1970
Prior to pride being associated with the gay rights movement, it was occasionally found modified by black, especially during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
An interesting article titled, 'Black Pride: a Woman speaks for Her Race,' appearing in the February issue of the Atlantic Monthly, is authored by Mrs. Kimbal Goffman .. In her piece, the author expresses hope for dawning of the day when Negroes shall have more of pride in race and in the customs, habits and achievements of Negroes.
—Pittsburgh Courier, 18 Feb. 1939
Warcraft 3 dragon ball z map ai download. I think it was Martin Luther King—and I don't always agree with him but I must in this case if I'm quoting his words—who said that to him 'Black Power' should be interpreted as 'Black Pride.'
—Stanley G. Robertson, Los Angeles Sentinel, 28 Jun. 1968
Gay pride was eventually shortened to pride alone, and began to be used as a shorthand for the events of LGBT Pride month, which is held in June. Initially, we see pride used in capitalized form and followed by the year in which it occurs.
Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire For Macbeth
Groups, merchants, craftspeople and individuals interested in attending Pride '78 should call.
—Gay Community News (Boston, MA), 18 Mar. 1978
Dennis Gilding is masterminding a gala charity drag marathon at the Hippodrome on June 20th—all proceeds going to Pride '88—with 26 drag performers already confirmed.
—Capital Gay (London, UK), 19 Jeb. 1988
As Pride celebrations and events have progressed from year to year they have been attended and celebrated by an increasingly broad range of groups (adding those who identify as bisexual, transgender, straight allies, and others). By the early 1990s, we see written evidence that reflects the broadened scope of Pride events: the date is often dropped, pride is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, and it is applied to a much wider range of events.
People attending pride celebrations should also circulate and sign the Stonewall 25 immigration petitions.
—International Gay Association Bulletin (Brussels, Belgium), 1 Oct. 1991
I don't know if I'm going to Pride this year.
—Mike Wyeld, Capital Gay (London, UK), 16 Jun. 1995
Attempting to predict what a word will end up meaning is often an exercise in futility, and pride seems to still be in a state of flux. But that is simply the nature of a living language: messy, hard to pin down, and relishing change.
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Playing Pride & Prejudice 1: An Austen Armoire For Mac Osx
Merriam-Webster unabridged