A Series of Unmentionable Acts

A Series of Unmentionable Acts is the inaugural performance for Queertauqua. The 2-hour experience includes orations, period music, and theatrical staging of now recognized gay historical events that occurred simultaneous to the heyday of the early-20th century Chautauqua (a traveling tent show), but were taboo and never celebrated due to their “unmentionable” nature.

Reimagining the Chautauqua and offering it in several locations throughout the Kansas City Metro area, A Series of Unmentionable Acts centers the performance reenactment of: Heinrich Ulrichs’s inspiring/thought-provoking address to the German assembly in 1867, becoming the first public “coming out” story; Henry Blake Fuller’s “At St. Judas’s” (1896) effectively the first homosexually-themed play published in the United States; and a Womanless Wedding, a mock wedding where all roles were played by men circa 1880s-1930s.

Campy, melodramatic, and deathly serious while underscored by period music and choruses of tra-la-la, these acts reveal a viewing of the “unmentionable” late-19th and early-20th centuries culture that has been left unheard and unseen. Prior to each performance, anticipate a history lecture on the source materials. Staged in a queer and gaily manner, A Series of Unmentionable Acts will address contemporary historicism of the LGBTQ community in the changing conservative Midwest of today.

A Series of Unmentionable Acts grows out of a decade of artistic production, which has been informed by Kansas City’s LGBTQIA+ communities. In 2011, I found a home in the city’s queer community while researching William Inge, the Kansas playwright, and was introduced to Stuart L. Hinds and Christopher Leitch, founders of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA). GLAMA provided a safe space to research and to formulate a story about 1940s-1960s gay history.

In February of 2012, the tenants at 31st and Troost Avenue temporarily moved, so we could present An Otherwise Hopeless Evening within the walls of the legendary Jewel Box Lounge (home of “The Most Unusual” Kansas City’s first “femme mimic” revue, 1948-1982). The collaboration with director, Travis Chamberlain, included a world-premiere anthology production of four short “homophile” plays by Inge and a site-responsive exhibition of original artworks. Casting was local and needed the LGBTQIA+ community’s support. Auditions took place at the queer ally organization Paul Mesner’s Puppets and rehearsal and studio space

provided by Hoop Dog Studios, a lesbian owned artist studio warehouse. In addition to the sold out 28-show run of the production, a drag panel discussion, a conversation between the collaborators and cast, and an authentic drag show performance occurred in the space. The reception of the production was featured through local media such as KCUR, The Kansas City Star, KC Studios, Provincetown Independent, and Provincetown Banner and nationally in Out Magazine andTimeout Magazine.

Making connections with LGBTQIA+ supported organizations and spaces has become an essential element of my artistic practice. In A Mystic Bond Makes All Men One (2015), I examined notions of place, asking how public areas such as bars, libraries, and parks act as third, shared spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community. Recordings of discussions in queer bars and on Friday nights at a gay bowling league in Mission, Kansas, as well as an original score recorded by members of the Heartland Men’s Chorus in Liberty Memorial Park, played through speakers and in audiobooks in the stacks at UMKC’s Nichols Library.