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Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone
- All Projects

Spring 5-1-2019

A Performance of: "The Madness of Lady Bright"

Holly McDowell

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Part of the Acting Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the
Performance Studies Commons

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Honors Thesis Projects - All. 1310.
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 A Performance of: “The Madness of Lady Bright”

A Capstone Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements of the Renée Crown University Honors Program at
Syracuse University

Holly McDowell

Candidate for Bachelor of Fine Arts

and Renée Crown University Honors
May 2019

Honors Capstone Project in Your Major

Capstone Project Advisor: _______________________

Celia Madeoy, Department of Drama
Associate Professor, Acting

Capstone Project Reader: _______________________

Robert Bundy, Department of Drama,
Instructor, Acting

Honors Director: _______________________

Dr. Danielle T. Smith

1
 Abstract

Lanford Wilson’s The Madness of Lady Bright first premiered in 1964 at the
Caffe Cino, and is widely regarded as among the first works of the gay theater
movement. Over the course of this one-act play, an aging drag queen slowly loses
her mind in her New York apartment.
This production examined the themes of Wilson’s play through the lens of
transgender identity, and an updated setting in the 1980s. This time period shapes
the idea of the loneliness of not passing as a woman in a world where being visibly
transgender meant rejection and danger.

2
 Executive Summary

Unsatisfied with the lack of transgender stories being told in the Syracuse

area theater, I decided to use my Capstone project as a way of bringing the issue of

transgender identity to the stage.

I produced Lanford Wilson’s one act play The Madness of Lady Bright, and

played the central character, Leslie Bright. She is described as an aging drag queen,

who, over the course of the play, goes insane, alone in her New York apartment.

Though Leslie is described in the original 1964 script as a drag queen, in this

production I play her as a transgender woman, like myself, and the resulting story is

specific both to the original text of the play and to the audience seeing this play fifty-

four years after its premiere at the Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village.

We updated the setting of the play to the 1980s, drawing the plays’ themes

into a more modern context. Through this setting the audience can understand the

play in terms of a recent conception of identity, which is much different now than it

was when Wilson wrote the script.

3
 Table of Contents

Abstract ………..…………………………………………………………………………..…………………….…2

Executive Summary ……………..……………………………………………………………………………3

Acknowledgements ……………….……………..……………………………………………………………5

Chapter 1: Introduction ...…………………..………………………………………………………………6

Chapter 2: Wilson’s Play ……………..……………………………………………………………………..7

Drag in the 60’s……………………………………………………………………………………….10

Chapter 3: A Unique Production ……………..………………………………………………………11

Time Period ………………………………………………………..…………………………………..13
Music/Musicians ………………………………………………..…………………………………...15
Costumes ………………………………………………..………………………………………………17
Age………………………………………………………………..………………………………………..17

Chapter 4: Influences ……………..………………………………………………………………………..18

Transparent…………………………………………………………………………………………….18
The Danish Girl………………………………………………………………………………………..19
Paris is Burning……………………………………………………………………………………….20
Pose………………………………………………………………………………………………………..21

Chapter 5: Impact ……………..……………………………………………………………………………..21

Works Cited ……………..…………………………………………………………………………..……….…24

Appendix ……………..…………………………………………………………………………..………………26

4
 Acknowledgements

First and foremost I want to thank my advisor and director, Celia Madeoy, who

recognized my passion for this project, and worked with as much passion and

dedication as I did. I also want to thank my stage manager Alyssa Jaffe and my cast

mates Summer Ainsworth and Michael Alexei for their hard work and collaboration on

this project. It would not have been possible without them. Thank you also to Scott Rose

for providing us the space to perform, Rodney Hudson for suggesting the play, Steve

Cross and Felix Ivanov for access to costumes, Diana Angell for keeping everything

running smoothly on the production side, Ralph Zito for his support and the support of

the drama department, Crawford Horton for his collaboration and choreography, and

Amber Gatlin for blessing our set with her beautiful art.

5
 Introduction

At the beginning of this project, I had yet to see a performance at Syracuse

University or the affiliated Syracuse Stage that has adequately addressed the

transgender identity. As a transgender actress myself, I believe that an important

part of this representation is to not simply represent the stories of transgender

people on stage, but to have actual transgender artists and transgender bodies

telling these stories. I am one of the few trans acting students at the University, so I

wanted to use my thesis project as an opportunity to tell such a story. It was this desire

that motivated me to produce The Madness of Lady Bright.

The Madness of Lady Bright is a 1964 one-act play by Lanford Wilson. Its first

performance in the Caffe Cino was illegal, part of the underground tradition that

launched off-off Broadway and the gay theater movement.1 I wanted to capture the

energy that Lady Bright had when it first premiered, the energy of a play that was

groundbreaking, fiercely original, and beholden to not even the law. It is

groundbreaking, because the role was written for and performed by a man for

years.1 It is groundbreaking just to have a transgender actor on stage in Syracuse,

New York. Even in the larger theater world opportunities for transgender actors are

limited, and within mainstream theater the casting of a trans actor in a classic 20th

century play is revolutionary.

My performance even challenged the ideas of our current government. When

I planned the performance I was well aware of the volatile state of rights and

respect for trans people in this country, but since then it has come out that the

1 Patrick

6
current administration may try to deny the legitimacy (and subsequently civil

rights) of trans people all together.2 This is the kind of ignorance I wanted my

performance to confront, and this play’s history is a demonstration of the power

theater has to do so.

Lady Bright was such an effective beginning to the gay theater movement

because Wilson dared to do what no playwright before him did: portray an explicitly

queer character in a nuanced way. Without a derogatory or ridiculously silly

stereotype to laugh at, the audience was forced to consider the character as a real

and whole human being. Beginning with Wilson, theater audiences were suddenly

encouraged to feel empathy for gay characters, and to recognize the existence of gay

people in their everyday lives.

Ultimately, I hoped for the power of Wilson’s play to spread similar

understanding and empathy for trans people. To this end I decided to play the

central character, Leslie Bright, as a trans woman, even though the original stage

directions describe her as “drag queen”. Although the role of Leslie is traditionally

played by a man,1 I believe that to have a transgender woman in the role speaks

truthfully and deeply to this character’s struggles and motivations. And it speaks

uniquely to an audience at this point in history, when issues of transgender identity

are so present in the public eye.

Chapter 2

Wilson’s Play

2 Green, Erica L.

7
 Beyond my specific point of view, the first responsibility of producing this

play was to do justice to Lanford Wilson’s original script. One of the most significant

factors in the shaping of that script was its original performance venue: The Caffe

Cino. The Caffe Cino is regarded as the birthplace of the off-off Broadway movement,

as well as the birthplace for Lanford Wilson’s writing.3 Wilson first began writing

plays for the Caffe in 1962, and by the 70s had produced at least nine one act plays

there.4 This early work has to be understood in the context of the Caffe, because

they were not, as his later works, written for a Broadway stage. These plays were all

one act plays designed to fit into the time and space constraints of a coffee shop

(image 1).

The setting of Leslie Bright’s apartment was a quite effective way to fit the

play within the original space of the Caffe Cino. I was fortunate enough to acquire

the 914 Works gallery space for the production, which served the piece well due to

intimacy of the gallery, surely a similar size to the original Caffe Cino. Working with

the size of the space, we managed to create an expressive but simple set that

brought the audience into the world of Leslie’s apartment (image 2).

At the Caffe Cino Wilson was not only writing for a specific space, but also a

specific audience; one largely composed of gay men. The early one acts such as Lady

Bright are some of the first plays of the gay theater movement, prior to one of the

most well-known and earliest gay plays on Broadway, Boys in the Band.5 Wilson

himself liked to write in his early plays about characters on the outskirts of society,

3 Pg. 4 Barnett, Lanford Wilson

4 pg. 5 Barnett, Lanford Wilson
5 pg. 14 Barnett, Lanford Wilson

8
including gay men, drag queens, and prostitutes.6 Wilson praised the Cino for “The

incredible freedom of being able to be yourself in that place and outside that place

and in your work. You could just do anything, and that made me want to experiment

like crazy.”7

The absurdist theater movement of the 1960s also inspired Wilson. He

credits writers such as Brendan Behan and Ionesco for their influence, which can be

seen especially in Wilson’s early one acts. Lady Bright, among others of these plays

(e.g. Ludlow Fair, Home Free), includes heavily stylized absurdist and surrealist

elements.8 In Lady Bright, the characters of Boy and Girl, and the trips through

Leslie’s mind and memory place the play distinctly outside of naturalism. As we

rehearsed this surrealism gave us considerable room to invent and play.9 We

explored powerfully expressive moments such as the opening dance, which used

movement to express ideas such as transition, body image, and passing without

adhering to strict realism (images 3-5). (“Passing refers to a transgender person’s

ability to be correctly perceived as the gender they identify as and beyond that, to

not be perceived as transgender.”)10 We found specific imagery with the character of

Girl, who varied between representing Leslie’s memory, and representing her ideal

self (image 6). We also discovered that we could effectively use contrasting

moments of realism, especially when Leslie interacts with the men, Adam and

Michael Delaney (images 7-8). I loved finding the dynamics of shifting between

6 pg. 307 Savran, In Their Own Words

7 “Caffe Cino”
8 pg. 4 Barnett, Lanford Wilson
9 Wilson, Four Short Plays
10 Lee

9
levels of reality in this play. While all of it is real to Leslie, the removal of the

limitations of naturalism allows the actors more freedom to express and the

audience more freedom to believe in how Leslie reacts to her fantasies.

Drag in the 60s

To understand Lanford Wilson’s creation of the character of Leslie more

clearly, I decided to begin with research of the drag culture of the 1960s. This was

doubly important because I not only wanted to understand the historical context of

the character, but also how the language and culture of the time translates to me as

a transgender woman in 2018. It is interesting that Wilson describes Leslie as a

“drag queen,” a term which came into existence in the 60s as a way to separate

female stage impersonators from “street impersonators,” or specifically homosexual

transvestites who would cross dress for more than stage entertainment.11 This

distinction highlights an important difference between performance and identity,

which was how I began to think about the time period of Lady Bright.

I found it interesting that Wilson, writing during a time of such change in the

gay and drag subcultures, would make the choice to have an “aging” character. The

aging becomes part of her loneliness in several ways, not just the physical isolation

of feeling no longer beautiful, but also her nature as someone stuck in the ways of

the past: obsessed with images and movie stars from the 40s and 50s.12 Leslie is

consumed with glamorous performances during a time when the drag world was

shifting away from performance to focus on identity. This contrast deepens her

11 pg. 113 Balzer

12 Wilson, Four Short Plays

10
isolation because she is isolated from her own, shifting community as well as the

world at large.

Chapter 3

A Unique Production

Playing Leslie as Transgender

Building on an understanding of Lanford Wilson’s words and original intent,

my collaborators and I began to make choices that made our production unique,

contemporary, and specific. Again, one of the most significant is the choice to play

the main character as a transgender woman. When Wilson described her as a “drag

queen” in the 1964 script, the term may have referred to a gay man, or someone

whom, in modern vocabulary, is a transgender woman.13 Coming from a modern

standpoint, I immediately saw the character as a transgender woman from my first

reading of the play.

To justify my interpretation of the character as transgender, it is necessary to

consider the central conflict of the play. Since Leslie is technically alone in her

apartment for the duration of the play, the conflict may seem to only be Leslie

against herself in a struggle to hold onto sanity. But in a larger sense that conflict is

between Leslie and the society that she lives in.

It is clearly loneliness that drives Lady Bright to madness, but that loneliness

does not exist independently. It is direct result of her failure to connect with the

outside world. Again and again her acquaintances fail to answer the phone. Again

and again the people in her memories leave. Over the course of the play an image is

13 pg. 115 Balzer

11
revealed of all the men that Leslie has slept with, none of whom stay with her. But, if

these memories and dial tones make Leslie so lonely, why doesn’t she simply leave

her apartment? She states and restates how she should go out, but every time fails,

constantly finding irreconcilable problems with her appearance.14

These factors that contribute to her loneliness are all products of the society

of the world outside of Leslie’s apartment. The reason that she cannot leave is

because outside she will not be accepted as she hopes to be. Her constant fantasies

of being a glamorous and adored woman are a sign that she is neither of those

things in the reality of society. If she had any hope to be adored in society, she would

go outside to pursue that rather than fear to leave her apartment.

I believe the strongest motivation for why society will not accept her is that

she is transgender. If Leslie were a gay man, she would clearly face some resistance

in 1960s (or 80s) society, but a more significant obstacle- significant enough to

prevent Leslie from leaving the apartment- is that Leslie is a woman who has the

features of a man. In that case she has a need to be dressed and styled as a woman in

order to go outside, and any perceived shortcoming in appearance is a roadblock.

And why is it that Leslie has a wall filled with the names of men, and yet she

cannot be with any of them?13 Beyond the threat of AIDS, there is Leslie’s inability to

be true to herself. She sees her true self as a woman and yet sleeps with men who

would see her as a gay man. She cannot stay with them because that would not truly

allow her to be herself. And because she is not being her authentic self, the men cannot

form a true or a lasting relationship with her either. These are strong, clear choices,

14 Wilson, Four Short Plays

12
and they are choices that I can relate to personally, and that are well expressed for

an audience through the physical appearance of my body.

Even if my initial reading of Leslie had not been as a trans woman, in playing

her I would have to deal with the reality of how my physical body looks. It is evident

to most audiences that I am a transgender woman, which automatically raises

questions about the character. The simple appearance of my body tells a story, and

to think of the character’s intentions and obstacles in terms of having a transgender

body works with that story rather than trying to fight it.

Time Period

Another significant choice that changes how this script relates to a modern

audience is the decision to set our production in the 1980s. Director Celia Madeoy

brought up the idea of updating the script in the first rehearsal. It is something I

hadn’t considered before then because I been caught up in researching the effect

that the original time period of 1964 had on the play.

I had begun my research into the drag culture of the time and discovered the

contrast of the drag world’s changing culture with Leslie’s fixation in the past. Her

fantasies often reflect a fixation in the 40s through dated references or music, and

constant references to Judy Garland.15 My first concern in updating the time period

was transferring the idea that this character was stuck in a past world, juxtaposed

specifically with a culture more focused on identity.

Along those lines I suggested the 1980s, partly inspired by the recent TV

series Pose, and the 1991 documentary Paris is Burning, which both deal with ball

15 Wilson, Four Short Plays

13
culture (a drag subculture centering on elaborate “ballroom” and runway

presentations). I thought the time period appropriate for Lady Bright due to the

vibrancy of queer self-expression in the 1980s, which clashed with a lack of

mainstream acceptance.16 17

In exploring this time period with such a queer and sexual story, we also had

to consider the relevance of the AIDS crisis. It became a factor that deepened our

explorations of Lady Bright’s relationships. The fear of attachment from both sides

is increased due to the fear of illness, or of getting attached to someone who might

die. We even decided in a later rehearsal that Leslie’s first and most significant lover

Adam left her because he had HIV and didn’t want to infect her. Motivating the script

this way helped to make that moment clear and specific for us as actors, and

brought the moment to the level of heightened drama that the story requires (image

9).

Another facet of the 80s setting is the clash of ball culture’s underground

nature with the post “RuPaul” world of today where drag has become a mainstream

phenomenon, and transgender people are far more visible in the public eye.18 This

wasn’t something directly included in the action or mise en scene of the play, but it

is important to be conscious of. It informs the audience’s response to the play

because we live in that post RuPaul world, and Leslie in our production lives in the

1980s.

16 Livingston, “Paris is Burning”

17 Canals, Mother’s Day
18 Herman

14
 That means that passing for Leslie is crucial, much like the real life characters

of Paris is Burning. The trans women interviewed in the documentary talked about

their dreams of fitting into society, being like a rich white woman. Passing was the

only hope to achieve this. 19 It meant fitting in and forgoing the social rejection that

came as a result of being trans.20 Personally, as a trans woman in 2018, I do not pass

all or most of the time, but I still leave my apartment everyday unlike Leslie Bright.

The difference is not in our personalities, but in our societies. Whereas in my society

I can be accepted without passing and becoming invisible, she cannot. Therefore the

cracks and flaws and failings that she so bemoans in the play really do hold her back,

prevent her from leaving her apartment and seeking a solution to her loneliness.

Music/Musicians

Once we decided to set the play in the 80s, the cast together with Celia began

to start looking for music from the time period to use in the show. The first purpose

this served was to find equivalents to the idols and icons mentioned in the script.

Judy Garland especially is mentioned a good deal in the stage and sound

directions.21 As we looked into music, we thought of similar icons that Leslie would

idolize and imitate from the 80s: Madonna, Cher, Diana Ross. These performers

served as inspiration for my character, who aspires to look and act like those

glamorous women, and also for the character of Girl, played by Summer Ainsworth.

Summer developed a persona that Celia referred to as the “inner goddess,” who

embodies the presence of those performers (images 10, 11).

19 Washington
20 Livingston, Paris is Burning
21 Wilson, Four Short Plays

15
 Additionally, the music itself served as an inspiration for the show. We were

very lucky to have musical theater major Crawford Horton, who agreed to

choreograph several moments, including the opening number. These drew not only

on the literal sounds of Prince and Whitney Houston, but also from Madonna’s music

videos. The video for “Vogue” influenced most of the movements and poses for the

opening dance as well as the costuming (images 12, 13).22 As Leslie transitions from

the male persona into the female, we drew also from the imagery of the “Material

Girl” video, where Madonna is a larger than life figure being fawned over, almost

worshipped by the men in the video (images 14).23 This is paralleled in how the

characters of girl and boy dress Leslie (image 15).

Lyrically, it was fascinating to see how easy it was to find 80s music that

illuminated the themes of the play. There are some fairly obvious correlations such

as the final Cher song “Take Me Home” which begins to play as Leslie desperately

repeats the phrase “take me home.”24 Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With

Somebody,” sets an upbeat tone for the scene when Leslie dances with Michael

Delaney, while the lyrics describe her loneliness and desire (images 7, 11).25 For the

opening dance we originally used Madonna’s “Vogue” which inspired much of the

movement, but then changed to Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” Prince’s lyrics were a

fitting opening to this production. The first words “I’m not a woman/ I’m not a man/

I am something that you’ll never understand” corresponded to Leslie beginning to

visually transform from a male persona into a female. The later lyrics “I’m not your

22 Fincher, Vogue
23 Lambert, Material Girl
24 Cher, “Take Me Home”
25 Houston, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”

16
lover/ I’m not your friend/ I am something that you’ll never comprehend”

foreshadow what the audience later discovers about Leslie’s relationship with the

men in the play.26 Starting with this song suggested Leslie’s character before she

said a word. It also served to introduce the era of the 1980s, and the changing

perception and performance of gender that Prince embodied as an artist and

performer (image 16).

Costumes

The costume pieces were simple pieces that we found or bought that would

be true to the time period and illuminate the character’s glamour. For instance, we

bought a few pairs of chunky, sparkly earrings, several chiffon scarves, and some

chunky sunglasses. I took several pieces of my own with flowing fabric for the

beginning sequence and a skirt that would flow out as I spin for the “Loretta Young”

section. The glistening, green dress that I wore throughout the piece was a lucky

find from movement teachers Steve Cross and Felix Ivanov’s storage at Syracuse

Stage. We decided on the dress because not only did it fit very well and give a

striking image in terms of shape and color, but it was also appropriate for a dress

that I might wear alone in my room as a night gown, and that still expresses the

character’s glamour in an understated way. Having a simple base, it was then

effective to layer other pieces over it such as the chiffon scarves, a cape, or a kimono

that would express Leslie’s visions of glamour and be easily cast on or off with her

ever changing moods (image 17).

Age

26 Prince and the Revolution, “I Would Die 4 U”

17
 Another aspect of my look I had to consider was the age of the character. Not

only is the character described as being in her 40s, but there are also constant

references in the play to the character turning old and having features like varicose

veins and wrinkles. I decided at first that I would just have to ignore the fact that I

am physically rather young. But then, one of my professors, Rob Bundy, spoke on

playing age in class. He said that someone who is old does not see themselves as old

in their mind, but simply has a body that is rebelling against them.27 I then began to

consider the possibility that Leslie does see herself as my age, so it makes sense to

have such a young body on the stage. Of course, there are lines that refer to Leslie’s

age, but these come up as obstacles that- considering my physical youth- would

come as much of a surprise to the audience as they might to Leslie, who wants to

imagine herself much younger than she is.

Bringing my own youth and vitality to the character was also beneficial in the

rehearsal process. Celia encouraged this in me, always telling me to go bolder with

my choices, but not pushing me to play the age. By tapping into my own energy as a

young person, I was able to access a really uniquely energized version of the

character that may not completely represent a person in their 40s, but still speaks

truth to the character.

Chapter 4

Influences

Transparent

27 Bundy

18
 Throughout the process of creating the production, we found ourselves

referring often to media- whether from the 80s or contemporary- that shaped our

ideas and context. One recent television show that influenced the production is

Transparent. The show is well known for centering around the stories of trans

characters and is among the first television series to do so. One scene was of specific

relevance to our production. It is a flashback to the main character’s memory of

sitting in a therapist’s office, and as the camera shots change, the character is played

alternatingly by a male actor, representing the actual reality of the memory, and a

transgender female actor, representing the character’s perception of herself.28 This

device is similar to a scene in the play where Leslie watches Girl playing out one of

her memories (image 6). This idea of the imagined self became really prevalent in

our production as the girl character took on the quality of Leslie’s ideal self. The

relationship between the self and the imagined self in the play alternates between

one of inspiration, and one of jealousy.

The Danish Girl

Another image from contemporary film that struck me as we rehearsed is a

scene from The Danish Girl, where the character, ostensibly a male at this point in

the story, goes into a show box and imitates the actions of the girl within.29 This

scene was inspiration for me and for Celia as Girl and Leslie’s motions mirror each

other often in the play. In the same scene where Girl plays Leslie’s past self, I as

Leslie would imitate Girl’s actions, reminding me of the striking image of Eddie

28 Kornick and Soloway, “Born Again”

29 Hooper, The Danish Girl

19
Redmayne in the Danish girl, trying to imitate the ideal of femininity as he watches a

woman stripping (image 18, 6).29

Paris is Burning

Paris is Burning was undeniably one of the greatest influences to our

production. It is a double-edged sword of accurate documentation of the time period

that we were recreating, as well as an example of the glitz, glamour, and

personalities that our production and characters recall.

The film sets clear parallels between the time period of the 80s and the script

of Lady Bright. Visually the hugely elaborate and elegant balls in Paris is Burning

mirror Leslie Bright’s own dreams of glamour. In the documentary, gay and

transgender men and women dress in fabulous outfits that they could not wear

outside of the ball: outfits meant to emulate the runway, a royal ballroom, the stage.

Lady Bright is constantly putting on fabulous outfits and yet never leaves her

apartment, echoing the fantasies of the characters in Paris is Burning, where the

balls “is as close as we’re gonna get to that fame and fortune,”30 and where

“Whatever you want to be, you’ll be. You can become anything and be anything,”32

just as Leslie does alone in her apartment.

The anecdotes of the older drag queens in Paris is Burning capture the part of

Leslie’s persona that is stuck in the past. Since our production takes place in the

1980s, she can no longer be stuck in the 50s, impersonating Judy Garland and

Loretta Young, but she can be stuck in the 70s, in an earlier version of ball culture.

One of the drag queens, Dorian Corey says that “as the 70s came around…it started

30 Livingston, Paris is Burning

20
wanting to look like a gorgeous movie star, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe. Now

they want to look like models.”31 This makes sense of Leslie’s obsession with

emulating movie stars and trying to recreate their elegance.

And this obsession with grandeur in no way lessens Leslie’s desire to pass as

a woman. Pepper Labeija, a well-known drag queen featured in the documentary,

has a quote that I believe is particularly telling of the time period, as she describes

the ball category “Femme queens.” “When they’re undetectable, when they can walk

out of that ballroom and into the sunlight and onto the subway, and still have all

their clothes, and no blood running off their bodies, those are the femme realness

queens.”33 This quote is particularly chilling by the end of the documentary, when

one of the central characters, Venus Extravaganza, is found murdered in a hotel

room.33 Despite the glamorous visuals of Paris is Burning, the picture that I most get

from the documentary is a haunting one: of a world where gay and trans people

cannot dare to have the same dreams as their straight counterparts, where they

cannot even live fully as themselves without fear of brutality, where the only safety

is invisibility. That is the world that Leslie Bright exists in, the world that is outside

of her apartment that she fears to confront.

Pose

It is easy to see the influence of Paris is Burning on the recent TV show Pose, a

show which premiered this summer. The show also centers around ball culture, and

tells a fictional story with similar characters and the same setting as Paris is Burning.

While we didn’t take any images directly from the show, it is impossible to deny its

31 Livingston, Paris Is Burning

21
influence since it came out so recently and deals so heavily with the theme of

transgender people in New York in the 1980s. The show reinforced the themes of

Paris is Burning, in terms of how balls recreated glamorous lifestyles, and how

difficult it was to live as a non-passing transgender woman in the time.

One scene especially recalls the description of “femme queens” from Paris is

Burning.32 “You have to pass in every way bitches…passing is your gateway into the

mainstream. You want an invitation into that magical world? You had best come

immaculate…If you ain’t Diana fucking Ross ready to sing the theme from Mahogany,

don’t you set foot on that floor.“33 This quote shows the pressure on trans women in

the 1980s, which I see in Leslie’s character. She wants to be accepted into the

mainstream, and to have the glamour and adulation of icons like Diana Ross, but

passing is the obstacle that she cannot overcome.

Chapter 5

Impact

Before I even knew I would be producing Lady Bright, I knew that I wanted to

speak to an audience about the experiences of a transgender character. Part of the

impetuous of that is that I had not seen anything similar in Syracuse and I really

wanted to bring a unique perspective to the University. In my original thesis

proposal, I said, “It is also important to me personally as well as professionally to

feel represented on stage and in the characters I play. I want to express this part of

who I am and do it in a way that is visible for others who may be undergoing similar

struggles with identity and marginalization that I do.” By bringing something new to

32 Livingston, Paris Is Burning

33 16:10 Canals, “Mother’s Day”

22
the Syracuse theater, I wanted to encourage the audience to consider a perspective

that they hadn’t before, to realize what specific challenges a transgender person

may face, or even just to understand that transgender people are in the sphere of

their school, city, and the art that they consume.

Representation of a diverse range of people on screen and stage is an important

vehicle to spread understanding. Laverne Cox, speaking from her experience as a

transgender television actress, said that “audiences not only have empathy for the

character…but they find themselves having empathy for the actor who plays that

character.”34

That is not to say that my performance or identity eclipsed the storytelling of

Lanford Wilson’s powerful script. On the contrary, it is meant to enhance and

amplify it. It is my hope that everyone who saw the play took away empathy, but

also inspiration and hope. There is not a happy, or even certain, ending for Leslie

Bright or any of the characters in this play. But what is certain in seeing the joys and

suffering of these characters is how far we have come from the time when

transgender or gay people had to hide in shame or fear. I hope that this production

embodied the spirit of the Caffe Cino, both in the theatrical traditions for which the

Cino paved the way, and in the empowerment of its audience. Playwright William

Hoffman said of the venue: “I never would have been a playwright without the Caffe

Cino. I never, certainly would have written about gay subjects that freely. That was

the kind of empowerment that the place gave us. We were no longer victims.” 35 I

hope that by using the theater to give voice to the experience of a transgender

34 Signorile
35 Caffe Cino

23
character that I empower others to do the same with their own experiences, and

broaden the voice of the theater in Syracuse, and beyond.

24
 Works Cited

Patrick, Robert, director. Caffe Cino: Birthplace of Gay Theater. YouTube, YouTube, 3
Dec. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhmed817w8.

Green, Erica L., et al. “'Transgender' Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump
Administration.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-
sex-definition.html?module=inline.

Wilson, Lanford. Four Short Plays. Dramatists Play Serv, 1995.

Barnett, Gene A. Lanford Wilson. Twayne, 1987.

Savran, David. In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. Theatre

Communications Group, 2001.

Washington, Allison. “My Experience during the Trans Dark Ages – Allison
Washington – Medium.” Medium, 23 Oct. 2016, medium.com/@allisawash/quora-
asked-me-about-my-experience-during-the-trans-dark-ages-648f060fa458.

Lee, Jae. “What Does ‘Passing’ Mean within the Transgender Community?” The
Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 June 2017,
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-does-passing-mean-within-the-transgender-
community_us_593b85e9e4b014ae8c69e099.

Fincher, David, director. Vogue. Warner Bros. Records, 1990.

Lambert, Mary, director. Material Girl. Warner Bros. Records, 1985.

Cher. “Take Me Home.” Jan. 1979.

Houston, Whitney. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).” 2 May 1987.

Prince and the Revolution. “I Would Die 4 U.” 28 Nov. 1984.

Bundy, Robert. “DRA 420: Advanced Scene Study, Poetic Drama.” Class. 20 Sept.
2018.

Kornick, Stephanie, and Jill Soloway. “Born Again.” Transparent, season 4, episode 5,
Amazon, 22 Sept. 2017.

Hooper, Tom, director. The Danish Girl. Universal Pictures, 2016.

Signorile, Michelangelo. “Laverne Cox Opens Up About Cisgender Actors Playing

Transgender Women.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 June 2017,

25
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/laverne-cox-cisgender-actors-trans-
women_us_594518b4e4b0f15cd5bba58e.

“Caffe Cino.” Youtube, In the Life Media, 28 July 2009,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKS3f5zxdys.

Balzer, Carsten. “The Great Drag Queen Hype: Thoughts on Cultural Globalisation
and Autochthony.” Paideuma, vol. 51, 2005, pp. 111–131. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/40341889.

Livingston, Jennie, director. Paris Is Burning. Off White Productions, Inc., 1990.

Canals, Steven. “Mother's Day.” Pose, season 1, episode 5, FX, 1 July 2018.

Herman, Alison. “Talking to Cocreator Steven Canals About 'Pose'.” The Ringer, The
Ringer, 4 June 2018, www.theringer.com/tv/2018/6/4/17424678/steven-canals-
pose-fx.

26
 Appendix

Image 1: Caffe Cino 1964 Photo: Robert Patrick

Image 2: Lady Bright set in 914 Works, Art by Amber Gatlin, 10/3/18 Photo:
Dominic Martello

27
Image 3: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 4: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

28
Image 5: Michael Alexi as Boy, Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright, Summer Ainsworth
as Girl 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 6: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright, Michael Alexi as Boy, Summer Ainsworth
as Girl 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

29
Image 7: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright, Michael Alexi as Boy 10/3/18 Photo:
Dominic Martello

Image 8: Michael Alexi as Boy, Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo:
Dominic Martello

30
Image 9: Michael Alexi as Boy, Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo:
Dominic Martello

Image 10. Summer Ainsworth as Girl, Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18
Photo: Dominic Martello

31
Image 11: Summer Ainsworth as Girl, Michael Alexei as Boy, Holly McDowell as
Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 12: “Vogue” music video, song by Madonna 1990 Directed: David Fincher

32
Image 13: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 14: “Material Girl” music video, song by Madonna (pictured) 1985 Directed:
Mary Lambert

33
Image 15: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright, Summer Ainsworth as Girl, Michael Alexi
as Boy 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 16: Prince on stage, 1986.Photo: Photoshot/Shooting Star

34
Image 17: Holly McDowell as Leslie Bright 10/3/18 Photo: Dominic Martello

Image 18: The Danish Girl, Sonya Culllingford as Striptease Artist, Eddie Redmayne
as Lili 2015 Directed: Tom Hooper

35