By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 12-12-08
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Jim Fisher wanted to write a book about the evolution of gay theatre but didn’t have the time for another large writing project. The prolific Fisher was already in the thick of editing a theatre reference and writing a book on “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner.
So Fisher, who heads the theatre department , instead compiled and edited a collection of essays by diverse scholars on the subject. He wound up with “We Will Be Citizens: New Essays on Gay and Lesbian Theatre,” McFarland, 232 pages.
“Both theatre and American society have been changed by the ‘coming out’ of gay life over the last 30 years and just the diversity of that life and how it’s depicted in these plays,” Fisher says. “We may have come full circle. There isn’t an aspect of American life where we haven’t seen gay people, gay characters, being central to that particular part of our world.”
“Citizens,” which Fisher describes as eclectic but representative, includes 12 essays that address issues such as AIDS, homophobia and contemporary American politics. Fisher contributed an introduction and an essay to the collection, which covers the post-1969 period.
Gay playwrights such as Tennessee Williams wrote with a “gay sensibility” long before their works addressed homosexuality head-on, Fisher says. In Williams’ 1958 play “Suddenly Last Summer,” for example, the gay character is dead before the play begins. Gay theatre progressed from closeted works to tolerance plays to what Fisher calls post-tolerance drama.
“Within 20 or 30 years gay dramatists have gone from being ostracized and feeling the need to be in the closet to being largely equal citizens,” he says. “Plays began to include gay characters without making a particular point about it.”
Editing “Citizens” has been a happy compromise to writing the book himself, Fisher says. “It’s like working with the best class you’ve ever had. I’ve learned a lot about a subject I thought I really knew something about.”
