The performers in Sunday’s production of the “Queer Monologues” didn’t share the same stories, sexual orientation or amount of theatre background experience. What they did share is their desire to end discrimination for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning community.
About 200 people gathered in Allen Auditorium to experience the pleasure, laughter, pain and, occasionally, discomfort the monologues inspired.
“The show takes what has been a marginalized story and puts it on the center stage,” co-director Milbre Burch said.
Throughout the two-hour production, 19 monologues were performed. Performers penned some pieces, and others were professionally produced. Because parts of the script are written every year, the performance is never the same.
“This is a living script,” co-director Bryan Vandevender said. “It changes year to year. This year, we had almost all new work.”
LGBTQ Resource Center Coordinator Ryan Black was especially proud of this fact.
“These aren’t scripts that we just found somewhere else and decided to perform,” he said. “Either our performers this year wrote them, or they are scripts from previous years. It’s very unique.”
In her piece “Becoming an Insider,” graduate student Hung Chiao said she had never even contemplated embarking on a relationship with a woman. Dating men her entire life, Chiao found herself falling in love with a female when she was 27. She now proudly calls herself a bisexual.
“I’m still me, but my perception of the world is never the same,” she said.
Not every performer was a member of the LGBTQ community because of their sexual orientation. Some were allies. Christy Hutton, Counseling Center Programming and Outreach coordinator, was one example of this.
“I am a straight, white, Baptist from Texas, and I am on your side,” she said in her script for “Evolution of an Ally.” “Deal with it.”
Some monologues strayed from the serious nature of other pieces, and instead opted to elicit laughs from the audience. Hutton’s “SPERM Panel” mocked the world’s straight-dominant society, telling audience members not to be afraid to come out of the closet as straight.
“If you think you might be straight, you’re not alone,” performer Kayden Prinster said.
“MU Straight People Embracing Romantic Monogamy” was the name of the student organization in the piece.
“There have been many important heterosexuals throughout history, for example, Adam and Eve,” Prinster said, continuing the audience’s laughter.
Performers ranged in theater experience and stage comfort. But this didn’t impede the production, the directors said. Rather, it enhanced it.
“We had quite a broad range of experience and comfort levels,” Vandevender said. “And I think that is what made it awesome.”
All of the performances were unique outlets for the cast to express their thoughts and feelings about being a member of the LGBTQ community.
“It provides a need that is not addressed elsewhere,” Vandevender said. “I don’t think there’s another event like this.”
And judging by the final performance, the cast seemed to agree.
“I am fucking proud of who I am,” the cast said in unison.