items tagged with Quad Citians Affirming Diversity

For the final production in her company’s 10th-anniversary season, New Ground Theatre Artistic Director Chris Jansen chose to direct a rather epic piece: the debuting period drama Under the Radar, which features numerous plotlines and changes of locale, and concerns our area’s gay scene in the late 1970s, with particular attention paid to the relationship of one long-term gay couple.

Based on that description, it sounds as though Jansen is tackling a Quad Cities-based, pre-AIDS version of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Yet when, with a good-natured laugh, she says of the mammoth undertaking, “Some idiot wrote 11 characters into it,” know that Jansen isn’t being derogatory. At least, not toward anyone but herself.

HOLDING TREVOR and ICE BLUES

Even though they share the "gay film" label, the two evening presentations at the Quad Citians Affirming Diversity's November 15 film festival - Holding Trevor and Ice Blues - don't have that much in common: The former is a frequently comedic drama about gay youths in Los Angeles; the latter is a mystery featuring a gay detective in upstate New York.

Yet the movies do share one rather inspiring trait: Instead of making pious assertions that gays are "just as good as everyone else," they make the point - and make it subtly - that gays are just as goofy and messed up and human as everyone else, which is a far more inspiring and realistic message. They also share another trait: Both movies are really entertaining.

SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM

A 2003 episode of Will & Grace finds Will on the phone with an acquaintance who recently came out of the closet, and who is initiating himself into the gay lifestyle by watching appropriately themed movies on DVD.

"Barry," Will explains, "it's okay that you didn't like The Broken Hearts Club or Kiss Me, Guido. Let me tell you a little secret that we try to keep within the community. Gay movies suck. But until the laws change, we're still obligated to go see 'em."

SCOUT'S HONOR

"To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight" have, since 1910, been the closing words of the Boy Scout Oath. The question of what, exactly, constitutes "morally straight" is the subject of Tom Shepard's award-winning documentary Scout's Honor, which will be screened at the Figge Art Museum as part of Quad-Citians Affirming Diversity's June 16 fundraiser.