Red and Boiling @ CalArts 2018

CalArts Festival Theater presents

Red and Boiling

Come out into the light!

Dynamic Drag Duo Lights Up the Stage!

Red and Boiling uses shadow puppetry to shed new light on untold stories of queer womyn from around the world

Hasadick the bearded drag king is somewhere between a passionate queer activist and your favorite Jewish grandmother. He has interviewed queer womyn from around the world, and is here to share their stories verbatim. Rosay, his bougie (and pain in the ass) sidekick took these stories and recreated them in a world of shadow puppetry. 

It’s like soup, a pot of queer stories, a pinch of drag, a dash of lip sync, a few slices of puppetry, some tears, and they always keep it salty.

Red and Boiling, one of three shows presented by CalArts Festival Theater, opens at Venue 13 on Saturday, August 4th at 13:15 and runs through Saturday, August 25th. There are no performances on Mondays.

Tickets for all CalArts Festival Theater shows are available through the VENUE 13 or EdFringe Box Office.

Would you identify your show as 'gay' or 'queer'? What makes you define the show with this label?

Definitely queer. The nuance of labels and language is a big part of our show and the way we describe it. To us, queer is not only a term to define identity, it is also a performance of resistance in itself. Our queer bodies in public spaces, or performance spaces are inherently political and defying the standards of

representation.

Gay men have DICK-tated the narrative represented on stage for years, excluding queer womyn and people that live outside of the binary. Choosing the word queer to represent our interviewees and our show, encourages our audience to think outside of the binary, and to see a more nuanced representation of what queer looks like.

What differences do you see between the labels 'gay' and 'queer'?

Historically ‘gay’ used to define a larger range of identities, however today it is used primarily to represent sexual orientation, specifically cisgender men. To us, ‘queer’ contains the nuance and specificity that ‘gay’ lacks.

It holds the intersectionality of gender identity and sexual orientation, without needing to abide by binary language. Especially as queer womyn, using the word ‘gay’ (that has primarily described gay men) feels like a form of erasure because the language wasn’t made to encompass our identity.  

Why do you think I am asking this question, particularly of your show?

Because when a drag king & drag queen are telling stories of queer womyn verbatim, how could you not? ;)

Dozens of womyn interviewed, from the middle east to the U.S., of different ages, identities, and religions, have never seen themselves represented on stage. Hasadick and Rosay are dedicated to amplifying the reality of queer womyn beyond the act of coming out and Red and Boiling provides that space. Come rediscover your identity and witness an hour of celebration, heartbreak and magic.

But that’s not all, during the fringe the interview process will continue.  Every performance will change as new content is introduced. 

You can listen to the full testimonies on their podcast available at 

www.redandboiling.com. 

One day you’re interviewed, the next you’re in the show. Come out into the light! #redandboiling.

After William Burroughs

Not only am I the best critic in Scotland (subjective opinion), I also work with the most important critic in Scotland, Lorna Irvine (her consistent perspective marks her out from the pack), and I am one of the kindest (although Thom Dibdin might be the kindest, and he has a brilliant beard). In that spirit of kindness, and wanting loads of hits on my blog, I am going to give...

WORDS OF ADVICE TO YOUNG PERFORMERS

Sometimes I am asked if I have any words of advice for young performers.

Well, here are a few simple admonitions for young and old, performer and PR.

Never interfere in a critic and artist fight.

Beware of critics who say they don't want status. The hell they don't.

What they mean is that they want more status; much more, these are the most egotistical critics what can be got.

If you're doing business with a theatre editor, get it in writing; their word isn't worth shit, not with the editorial policy telling him how to fuck you on the deal.

If, after having been exposed to someone's presence, you feel as if you've lost a quart of plasma, avoid that presence. You need it like you need pernicious anemia.

We don't like to hear the word "press officer" around here; we're trying to improve our public image. Building a kindly, avuncular, benevolent image; "interdependence" is the keyword -- "enlightened interdependence".

Life in all its rich variety, take a little, leave a little. However, by the inexorable logistics of the marketing process they always take more than they leave -- and why, indeed, should they take any?

Avoid fuck-ups. Fools, I call them. You all know the type -- no matter how good it sounds, everything they have anything to do with turns into a disaster. 

Trouble for themselves and everyone connected with them.
A fool is bad news, and it rubs off -- don't let it rub off on you.

Do not proffer sympathy to the artist who has had a negative review; it is a bottomless pit. Tell them firmly, "I am not paid to listen to this drivel -- you are a terminal fool!" Otherwise, they make you as self-obsessed as they are.


Above all, avoid confirmed Fringe veterans. They are a special malignant strain of fool.

I imagine that you expected a little more than a William Burroughs rip off. So did I, but after I decided to cut and paste his advice, and adapted it for the Fringe, I was laughing too much to give my advice. And you know what they say about advice: give it to someone, because you are never going to use it. 

I promise next, time, I'll deal in a few specifics.

Cameryn Moore @ Sweet Grassmarket. Fringe 2018

Terrible Sex Tips
 at the 2018 Fringe. It runs at 21:10 every night of the Fringe (except the 14th), also at Sweet Venues in Grassmarket.

World premiere at 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

From unexpected undies to staying out late in Cowgate, professional smut-monger Cameryn Moore has a weird, wonderful sex story for every occasion. Slut-shaming. Capitalism. Substandard dildos… it’s all on the table in Cameryn’s new sex-ed storytelling show, "Terrible Sex Tips: Live & Uncut," making its world premiere this August at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In "Terrible Sex Tips," the American phone sex operator-turned-playwright sets her comedic talent loose on cultural norms and awful advice columns, drilling down to their crappy core to illuminate why we need to set those expectations on fire and start from scratch. "Terrible Sex Tips" is brazen yet biting sex ed for any adult who wonders what’s beyond scratchy lingerie and “Tickle His Pickle” (yes, that’s a real book title).

“As often as I might say ‘cock’ or ‘cunt’ in my work, none of these stories are meant to shock,” says Cameryn. “I just want to get people to talk about what they really, really want, and for that I need to talk about the hard and/or wet stuff. Real, rowdy, and a little ridiculous is the best way to go.” 


Would you identify your show as 'gay' or 'queer'? What makes you define the show with this label?

Terrible Sex Tips is queer, because I'm queer and some of the stories included are about my same-sex experience. So there's some hot girl-on-girl action in it (jk, it's not very hot, terrible sex tips, remember?), but there's also a lot of shenanigans with cisgender dudes as well. 

The amount of time that different kinds of sex and kink get play in this show is pretty representative of how much play they have or have had in my life. Which is definitely queer.

What differences do you see between the labels 'gay' and 'queer'?

Gay is pretty much for men only, in my book, unless I'm being ironic and talking in a deliberately simplistic way. Queer is more accessible to people of all genders, and it is inclusive of different experiences of bisexuality and pansexuality. 

It's also got a bit of a political edge, which I like. I came out in the U.S. right around the time that Queer Nation emerged; that was a very formative time for me.

Why do you think I am asking this question, particularly of your show?

Looking at the show write-up and the way that I deliberately reference women's magazines and their terrible sex advice, it would be easy to assume that I am straight. Looking at my picture, people often assume that I'm a lesbian. 

I talk about my past and present relationships with men quite openly, but I also frequently reference the 11 years I lived with a woman. Bisexual invisibility and erasure is a real thing; people frequently jump to conclusions and they are frequently wrong.

Cameryn tells her smut around the world at comedy shows and her own world-infamous Smut Slams (dirty storytelling open mics), which have sold out comedy clubs and performance palaces from Vancouver to Berlin to Wellington, NZ. She is also the creator of five critically acclaimed solo shows and one-woman plays, including the award-winning Phone Whore, slut (r)evolution, and nerdfucker. 

Thoughts on the Big Fire

The internet is the place where serious events - like an iconic Glaswegian building burning down for the second time in the same decade - are subsumed to individuals' desire to variously virtue signal, reveal their ability to identify conspiracies or make it all about them. So here's my take on the fire that has destroyed the Macintosh Building that is round the corner from my house.

Note: I breathed in fumes from the flames and nearly got hit by a massive ember, so my opinion is totally valid.

1. Please don't rebuild it again. Rather, clear up the mess and leave it as a ruin. The amount of money it would cost to rebuild - and I hope that the insurance premiums would cover this - could be better deployed on other projects supporting the students and the art school. Sure, the Mac brings in the tourists, but leaving it as a ruin could do that, especially if it was treated as a site of historic interest. People go to ruined castles all the time, and they aren't so conveniently situated next to a shopping centre.

2. Please don't rebuild it again. I appreciate that the skills needed to restore the building to its former appearance are important to maintain, and I don't want the craftsmen and artists who would get work to lose out. But maybe they could be employed to embellish existing art spaces, or the new ones they could build with the insurance money. Little bits of Macintosh style scattered around the city. I hear that some of the interior work had not been put into the building before the fire, which would mean it is safe. Put it somewhere interesting. A nice wood panel or two would go well in the many contemporary buildings that have a surgical atmosphere. It could even become a tourist trail: find the Macintosh details.

3. Please don't rebuild it again. Contrary to popular opinion, the art school is not a building (cf. a church is its congregation). It was a beautiful building, and any new build on the site would be ugly by comparison (cf. the rebuild of the art school building on the other side of the street). But a complete remake of the Macintosh building would be an imitation, a copy that has more in common with a Disney palace than a slice of heritage (itself a commodified word). Use the insurance money to further the facilities for the students of the art school: do they have enough studios? 

4. Please don't rebuild it again. But don't put student flats in its place. Frankly, Glasgow has a reputation for things burning down. Not getting into the conspiracies about why so much of the architectural heritage of the city has ended up a hollow shell, but that lovely Greek Thompson church on the other side of Sauchiehall Street met Mr Flames not so long ago. There are plenty of spaces - old tenements and that - which could be converted. Use them, and leave the site of the Mac as a ruin. 

5. Please don't rebuild it again. This is a terrible thing to have happened, but I reject the sentimentality about objects - the most important thing is that no-one was injured in the fire, and the bravery of the fire-fighters who are still hanging about my street and keeping an eye on the aftermath (and a big up to the Salvation Army for giving them cups of tea and that from their emergency van). Glasgow has had a rubbish attitude towards its built environment for years - a big motorway through the city-centre, anyone - so the Macintosh has become an icon as one of the last great buildings left. Rebuilding it isn't a way of avoiding hard questions about how we treat the cities that house us, employ us and, sadly, oppress us with a plethora of potato-stamp quality new flats and offices. 

6. Other opinions are available. I understand that this might seem harsh and untimely. I know there is an attachment to the Mac. If it is rebuilt, I won't be sulking: hopefully, I'll be living here when it gets restored to its glory, and get to walk past it on my way to the office. 

7. Other opinions are available. Rebuilding the Mac would show how indefatigable Glasgow is. It could stimulate tourism, represent a pride in the city and a respect for its heritage. Of course.

La JohnJoseph @ Summerhall. Fringe 2018

Would you identify your show as 'gay' or 'queer'? What makes you define the show with this label?

Deffo queer, I always want to flag that up to the audience. I feel that gay theatre very often has a tone between teen drama ("Why doesn't that cute guy call me?) and drawing room melodrama ("Josh, I think we should try an open relationship).  

It's like when women who experienced the sixties say that the sexual revolution was a one way street, that the pill simply allowed and men to fuck whomever they want with no real responsibility. Gay theatre sort of does that doesn't it? Provides the excuse for you to put your baseball cap on backwards, cruise your cast mates, break up with your boyfriend, and dedicate the summer to taking selfies of you and yr new squeeze hungover  at Starbucks, before the whole thing explodes in a fireball of bad drugs and Kat Von D highlighter, like the season finale of A.N.T.M.

What differences do you see between the labels 'gay' and 'queer'?

I see gay as, "I am a person of gender A who is primarily attracted to people also of gender A, in contradiction to the social and cultural norm that I should be attracted to a person of gender B, and this has been my major dislocation from society. 

I demand reparation for that dislocation and concurrently celebrate it when I say I am gay."  How can I, as a person who has no concrete gender, who does not comply with the sex I was assigned at birth (and so can't date/fuck/love people of the "opposite" gender) be gay? Gay needs opposition, it needs binary gender to function. 

Queer isn't seeking fixity, queer is questioning, queer is saying, "Okay so

credit: Attila Kenyeres

you're a trans male drag queen who is pregnant with a baby you are carrying for your two gay best friends - do you want to go to the movies?" You don't actually have to be gay to be queer, that's the kooky thing. 

The problem is of course, eventually queer will reach a point of stasis, and marketability and then we'll all have to go off further into identity politics and fashion more new language, once the Halifax has started offering Queer Mortgages. 

Why do you think I am asking this question, particularly of your show?

Because of my immense sexual charisma surely?