Execution of Justice, the documentary drama by Emily Mann, hasn’t been produced in Chicago in many years, so Jonny was curious as to why About Face Theatre wanted to do it now, some 25 years after the play was written, and why they wanted to bring in big-gun director Gary Griffin for it. Fortunately for you, dear readers, your Stage Door Jonny was the only journalist in attendance at a small private soiree last week at Mary’s Attic at which Griffin, Mann and About Face honcho Eric Rosen spoke.
Many readers will know that the play is about the trial of Dan White, the former San Francisco supervisor (like an alderman here) who, in 1978, assassinated gay-friendly San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk. White shot them at their City Hall offices in cold blood—multiple times at point-blank range. White could have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, but his defense team argued, in essence, a temporary insanity plea based on eating too much junk food (the infamous Twinkie Defense). White was convicted only of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years. (After release from prison, he committed suicide in an act of poetic justice.) When the decision was announced, San Francisco’s gay population took to the streets in days of protests at the Civic Center that turned violent.
About Face Artistic Director Eric Rosen says that he and co-founder Kyle Hall had discussed doing Execution of Justice in the company’s earliest days and long had nurtured an interest in the show. More recently, director Gary Griffin met a 23-year-old production assistant at another theater who didn’t know the history of the Moscone-Milk murders and their aftermath. ‘The event changed America more than we know,’ Griffin commented. ‘It changed California politics, and that leading edge changed politics nationally.’ Playwright Emily Mann (who is the long-time artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J.) observed that the murders were indelible, at least to those whom they affected. ‘It was like knowing exactly what you were doing when Kennedy was killed or Martin Luther King was shot,’ she said.
Griffin and Mann both are correct. Along with the Stonewall Riots, the murder of Milk and its aftermath became seminal events in GLBT history. Stonewall was the moment at which the gay community finally said ‘Enough! We will not tolerate repression and persecution any more.’ The trial of Dan White was the moment at which the gay community said ‘Enough! We will not tolerate injustice any more.’ Observed Mann, ‘If Dan White had only killed Moscone, he would have gotten the death penalty. That he killed Harvey Milk (too) was the thing that got him off.’
While the effects of Stonewall and the Dan White trial were—and are—cumulative and still ongoing, it is a fact that the bodies politic of New York, San Francisco and the nation have not been the same since those events with regard to police policies and standards; laws criminalizing homosexuality; hate crimes; and the visibility of the GLBT community as a political bloc. All the drumbeats we sound today—from gays in the military to gay marriage to gay adoption rights to workplace/housing equality—are part of the continuing fight against prejudice and injustice.
And so, the About Face folks think that Execution of Justice still is timely. For the production, which runs Jan. 10-Feb. 18 at Victory Gardens Greenhouse, About Face and Griffin have assembled a sensational production team. The high-tech production will feature a cast of 12, among them some of Chicago’s very best actors, including Sean Fortunato, Ora Jones, John Judd, Steve Key, Keith Kupferer, Amy Matheny, Larry Neumann, Jr. and Elaine Rivkin.
Stage Door Jonny remembers exactly where Jonny was and whom Jonny was doing when he heard the news of the Moscone-Milk murders, and is quite certain that seeing Execution of Justice will bring back strong emotions of anger, frustration and even sadness. Still, it’s one show Jonny already has put on the must-see list.
In other business, we didn’t have an opportunity to catch the show, but performer/dance (and one-time Gay Chicago columnist) Angel Abcede recently starred as The Engineer in Miss Saigon at the North Shore Community Theatre of Wilmette. The production was in November.
For those who fancy fizz, the new Pops for Champagne is up and running at 601 N. State (the old Tree Studios building at Ohio Street), and the original Sheffield digs are no more. The larger downtown venue offers two bars, one of which doubles as a jazz cabaret and a retail wine shop. The Elaine Dame Quartet gigs there Jan. 19-20 and 26-27. The Pops for Champagne Web site (www.popsforchampagne.com) has full details of who’s playing there when.