Diversionary Theatre Launches 34th Season
Speaker 1: 00:00 Founded in 1986 diversionary theater set out to provide quality theater for the LGBT community. Matt Morrow is entering his fifth year as executive artistic director of the company and he previews its 34th season with KPBS Arts reporter Beth Aka Mondo. Speaker 2: 00:20 Matt, you are entering your fifth year as artistic director here at diversionary theater. So let people know, what does an artistic director do? Are you kind of providing the theme or the direction that the theater is going in? Speaker 3: 00:33 As the executive artistic director of diversionary, I provide the vision for the company. The biggest part of my job is that I program the main stage season of shows that we produce. The other part of my job is that I provide the organization with executive leadership. And so I do all of the budgeting. I do a lot of all of the oversight of marketing the season and fundraising for the season. And uh, I also work very closely with our board of trustees on ensuring the, uh, financial viability of the organization. Speaker 2: 01:05 This is going to be diversionary 34th year. Is there any particular, uh, theme or direction that you feel this year's plays are kind of going towards? Speaker 3: 01:17 Well, when I program a season of plays and musicals, I don't start reading the scripts with a particular theme in mind. One sort of reveals itself to me as I'm reading, uh, the scripts and uh, my producing associate and I read hundreds and hundreds of scripts every year. We usually start reading in the fall and read all winter to early spring and this season what emerged was the theme we are, and it's really about the entire LGBT community. I like to say that this season is our most inclusive season to date. It's about exploring the identity of everyone in our community. And this year we are especially proud to lean into the conversation around gender and gender nonconformity. So that's really exciting. I feel like that's at the forefront of our national conversation right now. You know, providing a platform for our gender nonconforming and Trans Community to be heard and seen, I think is really important right now at this moment in time. Speaker 2: 02:23 And your season is kicking off this week and the first play his girlfriend. We just got to walk by the beautifully messy set that has all this paraphernalia of like music and kind of a femora and all sorts of fun stuff. What is this play about and why did you choose this to open the season with Speaker 3: 02:43 girlfriend is a really sweet new musical. It's by Todd Almond and Matthew Sweet. It's sort of inspired by Matthew Sweet, Seminole nineties power pop album of the same name girlfriend. It's a jukebox musical, but it's, it tells an original of these two young men graduating from high school in 1993 and I'm slowly falling in love with each other and what that means in the 90s and what that means when you're 18 years old and looking at the rest of your life and determining who you are and who you want to be and navigating that really tricky road of identity. This piece in our season really explores a bit of our history as an LGBT community and it does so with a lot of optimism, a lot of sweetness. And it's a very tender coming of age love story. And I feel like it's just a really bright, powerful and optimistic way into our 34th season here at diversionary. Speaker 2: 03:47 And for people who may not have come to the theater before, it's a intimate space where a musical like this, you are literally just a few feet away from the performers. So what is that like for the audience here? Yeah, we have Speaker 3: 04:01 really intimate theater. It's just 106 seats. No matter where you are in the house, you're probably no more than eight feet away from the performers at any given time. And when you're doing a rock musical like this, you can feel it in your bones. You can really feel the music just sort of vibrate your person. Um, so you feel a greater sense of connection to the characters and to the story and you really feel like you're taken into their experience in a more visceral way. Speaker 2: 04:30 This plays a musical, but you also have something like David Sedaris is Santa Lan diaries. Speaker 3: 04:36 Well, what's fun about Santa Land Diaries is that we're actually rethinking our entire venue for it. So it is a one person show. Many people know Santillana diaries as the one person show based on David Sadara says landmark book from the 90s, the Santillana diaries, but we're producing it along with seasons greetings, a companion piece that's very rarely seen and season's greetings is based on a short story by David Sedaris about Mrs Dunbar and it's told in the form of a family newsletter and Mrs Dunbar details her apocalyptic year and what her family has gone through. And it's all about how this woman is working to try to keep our family together during the holidays. So when people come to diversionary for the Santillana and diaries, as soon as they walk into our lobby, they're going to be bombarded by the holiday spirit. Justin Humphries, this genius set designer is going to be working to recreate the Santa Land experience that you have when you go to Macy's. Uh, right when you walk in the door. Usually people when they come to see a show at diversionary, they come up the front steps with Santillana diaries. We're going to take them the backway and wind them up through the backstairs, all of which will be an immersive Santillana experience onto the stage. Brother, I'll meet Santa's, they'll get to set in Sanchez, get a picture taken and then enjoy the show. Speaker 2: 06:01 And are there any other plays coming up in the season that you'd like to highlight for audiences that they might want to be looking forward to? Speaker 3: 06:06 Sure. Well two, uh, the first is a world premier called a kind of by self in Oswald and Sylvan is a really fabulous trans play right based in Los Angeles. And his new play is about a writer trying to write his autobiography about his gender transition while he's navigating, um, uh, his love life and his relationship with his father who's just moved in with him. It's hilarious. It's moving and it's really insightful about, did the trans experience and I couldn't be more excited to be producing its world premier. And then we're also going to be ending the season with the San Diego Premier of the Broadway musical head over heels. This musical is written by the same creator of Avenue Q, Jeff Witty, uh, and it features the songs of the Go-Go's. It's told in a fairy tale form, but it's really about how we live right now. It's based upon the Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney. And it tells a story of, of a royal family who embarks on a journey to save their beloved kingdom from it, from extinction. And along the way, uh, gender roles are up ended a in love is discovered in these various crazy ways, and it's all told to the iconic music of the Go-Go's, um, producing this rather ambitious and large Broadway musical on our intimate stage is going to be a really unique experience, not only for the artists, but a really special experience for the audience as well. Speaker 2: 07:42 All right, well, I want to thank you very much for previewing your 34th season. Yes, Speaker 3: 07:46 thank you, Beth. It's always great to sit down with you. Speaker 2: 07:49 That was Beth huck Amando speaking with Matt Morrow. Diversionary theater kicks off its 34th season tonight with the opening of girlfriend.
