A Series of New Plays about what it means to be LGBTQ and American
An Online Streaming AudioCast of New Plays
The AmeriQueer Series is a collection of plays presented as audiocasts exploring the LGBTQ experience within the American identity as a framework for the 2020 election season. These works are insightful, compassionate, and a healing antidote to our politically volatile moment.
About this the series, Executive Artistic Director, Matt M. Morrow says, “I’m thrilled to welcome back Josh Irving Gershick to Diversionary, and introduce MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Samuel D. Hunter to the Diversionary family. At a time when our community is deeply considering the DNA of our country, these new works provide a humane and thoughtful look at what it means to be LGBTQ and American.”
Online access to the audiocasts will be available at www.diversionary.org. Additional information can be found at www.diversionary.org/
Press Inquiries should be directed to Jenny Case, Managing Director at Press@diversionary.org or at 619-220-6830x 201
Dear ONE:
Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America
Written and Directed by Josh Irving Gershick
Featuring George Takei
Audio Streaming: Friday, October 16 – Thursday, October 29th, 2020
Dear ONE illuminates the lives of ordinary queer Americans as recounted through letters, written between 1953 and 1965, to L.A.’s ONE Magazine, the first openly LGBTQ periodical in the United States. Looking for love, friendship, or understanding, they wrote of loneliness and yearning, of joy and fulfillment, and of their daily experiences, hidden from history. This epistolary snapshot of mid-century lives captures the radiant diversity of the American queer community as it was discovering itself, and the dawning of a national movement.
Dear ONE is generously sponsored by Lillian Faderman and Phyllis Irwin
LEWISTON and CLARKSTON
Companion plays focusing on the descendants of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Lewiston and Clarkston
Lewiston
By Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Vanessa Stalling
Audio Streaming: Friday, October 30th – Thursday, November, 12th, 2020
An excavation of the past and how we become who we are, Lewiston focuses on an aging descendant of Lewis who has been selling off her family’s land piecemeal to developers. When an unexpected visitor blasts into her life, she is forced to reckon with family secrets, identity, and her relationship with her homeland.
Additional Credits:
Lewiston is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com.New York premieres produced by Rattlestick Playwrights TheaterDeveloped as part of a 2013 Residency with Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Lewiston was developed by Marin Theatre Company, Mill Valley, California, Jasson Minadakis, Artistic Director, Michael Barker, Managing Director, Margot Melcon, Director of New Play Development. World Premiere Production Presented by Long Wharf Theatre April 13, 2016. Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director Joshua Borenstein, Managing Director
Clarkston
By Samuel D. Hunter
Directed by Matt M. Morrow
Audio Streaming: Friday, November 13th – Thursday, November, 26th, 2020
Clarkston examines our tenuous future by focusing on a young queer descendant of Clark, who, after making the long journey west from his Connecticut home, finds himself stranded in a landscape of chain restaurants and big box stores. As he forms a bond with a local kindred spirit, the truth about life in the great American frontier comes into stark relief.
Additional Credits:
Clarkston is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com.
Lewiston and Clarkston are generously sponsored by Rob Granat and Al Mazur
About the Playwrights
JOSH IRVING GERSHICK’S (Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America) plays include Dear ONE: Love & Longing in Mid-Century Queer America, Coming Attractions and Bluebonnet Court, winner of the GLAAD Award for Outstanding Los Angeles Theatre. He is writer/director of the film Door Prize, winner of the Alfred C. Kinsey Award, honoring film that furthers understanding of gender or sexuality; and author of two acclaimed oral histories Gay Old Girls, winner of the ForeWord Book of the Year Award for LGBT Nonfiction, an American Library Association Book of the Year Nominee, and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist; and Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military, winner of the ForeWord Book of the Year Award for LGBT Nonfiction and a C-SPAN Book TV featured title. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he earned an MFA from the USC School of Dramatic Arts & an MPW from the USC Dornsife College. Gershick is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and a U.S. Army veteran.
SAMUEL D. HUNTER’S (Lewiston, Clarkston) plays include The Whale (Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, GLAAD Media Award, Drama League and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play), A Bright New Boise (Obie Award, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Few, A Great Wilderness, Rest, Pocatello, Lewiston, Clarkston, and most recently, The Healing and The Harvest. He is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, a 2012 Whiting Writers Award, the 2013 Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, the 2011 Sky Cooper Prize, the 2008 PONY/Lark Fellowship, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Idaho. His plays have been produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73, and around the country at such theaters as Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep, Victory Gardens, Williamstown Theater Festival, The Old Globe, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Denver Center Theatre Company, Marin Theater Company, and elsewhere. His work has been developed at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils, and PlayPenn. A published anthology of his work, including The Whale and A Bright New Boise, is available from TCG books. He is a member of New Dramatists, an Ensemble Playwright at Victory Gardens, a member of Partial Comfort Productions, and was a 2013 Resident Playwright at Arena Stage. A native of northern Idaho, Sam lives in NYC. He holds degrees in playwriting from NYU, The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and Juilliard.
DEAR ONE
Friday, October 16th – Thursday, October 29th, 2020
LEWISTON
Friday October 30th – Thursday, November, 12th, 2020
CLARKSTON
Friday, November 13th – Thursday, November 26, 2020
Who
The AmeriQueer Series streaming online as an audiocast and featuring a program of new plays never before performed in San Diego.
What
The AmeriQueer Series streaming online as an audiocast and featuring a program of new plays never before performed in San Diego.
About Diversionary Theatre
Founded in 1986, Diversionary Theatre is recognized as one of San Diego’s best theatres, and proudly showcases the most vibrant and diverse group of talent the city has to offer.
As the third oldest LGBTQIA+ theatre in the nation founded by and for members of marginalized groups, Diversionary Theatre has long been an inclusive space for the queer community and our allies. Intersectionality has always been a priority in our work both on and off stage, and we continue to be committed to social justice and inspiring positive change in our communities, starting from within our own organization.