Patricia Kane's world-premiere comic drama Float centers around five women constructing ( and then deconstructing ) a Christmas parade float in a fictional Midwestern small town. So it's odd that Kane would say, "I have no experience whatsoever" when it comes to building a float.
Instead, Kane uses the float-building situation to illuminate her small-town drama of exposed secrets involving religious conflicts, unspoken affairs and hidden sexuality for her third play written for About Face Theatre ( the others being the twice-produced 1950s lesbian musical Pulp and a literary adaptation of Carol Anshaw's novel Seven Moves ) .
Kane personally knows what it's like to grow up in a small Illinois town ( raised in Chatham, just south of Springfield ) , and how everyone can quickly find out about each other's business.
" [ Chatham ] is mostly a suburb now, but I remember growing up what a big deal it was when we reached the population of 3,000," Kane said in a telephone interview.
Float was developed last year as part of About Face's XYZ Festival, a revitalized initiative spearheaded by artistic director Bonnie Metzgar to showcase a plethora of works in development.
"XYZ really revealed what was needed," Kane said, noting that it was Metzgar's deadline that helped push her to complete the play. Based upon the readings, Kane felt the need to expand the play with a second act two days after the parade. "I just tried to really enliven this whole town and community even more."
Even though Kane wrote the physical float-building into her script, she is still amazed at what director Leslie Danzig ( of 500 Clown fame ) and her design team can do in terms of constructing an actual parade float on stage at Theater Wit every performance.
Deep into the preview process, Kane says she's still tweaking the dialogue here and there, but she knows she has to stop at some point "so the cast has time to let the words become a part of them." ( Full disclosure: Float performer and About Face artistic associate Amy Matheny is an employee of Windy City Media Group, which publishes Windy City Times. )
As with Pulp, Kane said she wrote Float with two guiding principles: To write interesting roles for women of a certain age, and to also bring in a lesbian voice. Kane personally knows it can be an uphill battle for lesbians to be depicted in entertainment.
"Even though Pulp was a huge hit at every venue it has played, it still can't get a New York production and no one will publish it," Kane said, adding that she was told point-blank by the powers that be that there wasn't enough interest for lesbian dramas.
"I personally want to hear more of our stories [ in movies, plays and books ] ," Kane said. "I feel that there's a whole realm that needs to be explored and what I'm trying to do is my tiny part to remedy that."
About Face Theatre's world premiere of Patricia Kane's Float continues in previews until Nov. 18 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont. The gala opening night is 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 19 ( $150 tickets ) , and regular performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sunday through Dec. 12. ( There is no show on Nov. 25. ) Tickets are $25 ( $15 for students ) . Call 773-975-8150 or visit www.aboutfacetheatre.com for more information.
Lesbian from Down Under
Kane isn't the only woman out to make sure that more Sapphic stories get to see the light of day. Australian writer Louise Wadley and her partner/producer, Jay Rutovitz, are making the journey from Sydney to Chicago as one of five finalists receiving a staged reading for Pride Film and Plays' Great Gay Screenplay Contest Finale at the Center on Halsted.
"I want to have strong exciting lesbian heroines in the films I watch and it takes a lot of searching to find that even in the lesbian and gay media," Wadley e-mailed Windy City Times. "Any real depth of characterization is usually the first casualty in the lesbian movies I see. I think it reveals a lack of confidence in our storytelling. That's going to change but it takes time and trial and error."
Wadley describes her screenplay, The Trouble with E, as a "thriller, a road movie and a love story" involving a woman DJ who goes by the moniker of "E" as she stumbles upon a stolen stash of cash and must escape to the Outback to the hoped-for safety of an ex-girlfriend.
Wadley is grateful that David Zak and John Nasca of Pride Films and Plays are putting on the Great Gay Screenplay Competition, since "it encourages us to tell our stories and we get a feel for how they play to an audience before we start filming, so the films we make will get better and better," Wadley said. "Our storytelling and the level of sophistication is a real mirror for who we are as lesbians and gay men, and it has sometimes been a rocky and uneven road."
This is the first time that Wadley and Rutovitz have ever visited Chicago and they're eager to take in the famed architecture and hopefully some gospel music as well. But more importantly, they're also hoping to drum up some more financial backers for the film which they hope to start shooting sometime next year. ( Wadley and Rutovitz hold a pitching event at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21 at the Center on Halsted. )
"What will the Australian story sound like in Chicago voices as they head off into the Outback? I'm dying to know!" wrote Wadley, hoping that her potential film could be as quintessentially Australian and universal as other film favorites like The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding.
"The Trouble with E—she is who she is, a product of her Aussie environment but she is also a girl who struggles to reach past the superficial, to use her gifts, to really reach for the stars and be brave enough to be herself."
The Great Gay Screenplay Contest Finale takes place at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted. Louise Wadley's The Trouble with E is read along with Tom Hietter's Detasseling as part of Program A at 5 p.m. Nov. 20. Program B consists of Chris French's Bethlehem, Chris Mason Jonson and Kate Stayman-London's Skirt and Gary Polston's The Queen of Hearts, which is performed 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21. Tickets for each program are $10, while a weekend-pass is available for $15. Call 800-838-3006 or visit www.pridefilmsandplays.com for more information.
