 The theater center here at the Graduate Center of CUNY is thank you for taking time out on that beautiful day that is happening here in New York. I hear some music, but maybe that's intended, yeah? No, it is not OK. You know, that was ridiculous. So we are here really, truly celebrating a great movement of theater, a movement that really has influenced a global theater, world theater. It was born in New York City. It's still ongoing. The theater of the ridiculous and the ridiculous theater of the company. So a big applause for everybody who came up here. And I would like to say a thank you to John Jastron, who also came to me and said, Frank, you have to do something about this Everett, who worked really a lot of our team. Rebecca, everybody also. Black Eyed Susan, who is with us here. So maybe we'll get to that. We do bridge academia and professional theater, international and American theater. And we are really truly honored and humbled that we were here to show this evening. And thank you really all for coming out. Also, we'll then come to the Mabu Mines. So thank you for coming and living theaters over there. And so as you can see, it's such a significant evening. So I would like to ask Sean to give us who has a book that is upcoming on Charles Lutlman, the Ridiculous Theater. So he's give us a 10, 12 minute introduction about the world of the theater. Since we do bridge academia and professional theater. So this is what I see it in action and emotion. Thank you. And then Everett will take over. And thank you all for coming. And I think this will be quite a unique and really significant evening. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Wow, microphone. It's so thrilling to see such a huge audience here for this. So thank you for coming. If you don't mind, for just a moment, imagine that you have the queer power to travel through and across time. Backward, forward, side to side. You close your eyes and click your ruby slippers. No, your pony hair cha cha heels. No, your patent leather fuck me pumps. Well, whatever makes you feel fabulous, one, two, three times. In a flash, you are transported to the West Village of Manhattan in April 1970, where Charles Ludlam and his new ridiculous theatrical company, or the RTC, are about to perform their play Bluebeard at a gay bar called Christopher's End. This dive is so named for its location at the far end of Christopher Street, though the double entendre is quickly evident. The bar is filthy and raucous and exciting. The playing space at Christopher's End is simply a collection of rickety boards laid across the bar with a painted drop of beakers and vessels suggesting a mad scientist's lair. You are packed tightly into a crowd of young handsome men, some in leather and all in dungarees. The men openly flirt and cling to each other lustfully. The spirit of the Stonewall riot hangs in the thick spring air and the sparkle of disco is only taking shape on a distant bandana-hued horizon. Disregarding any kind of union rules for this is off, off, off Broadway, the play begins very, very, very late. The plot quickly descends into a depraved tale that unapologetically hurls gothic horror against B movies, wrapped around the core of Perot's fairy tale with Bartok's opera, Bluebeard's Castle, Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau, and a dash of Marlowe's Faustus thrown in. This production collages sources liberally and sometimes violently into an exciting new work. As the titular character, Baron Canazar von Bluebeard, Ludlum leads the company, intensely committed to his dream of creating a third gentler genital. He is brash and charismatic, boldly displaying an electric bluebeard, and eventually a nest of pubic hair dyed cobalt to match. The audience is enchanted, whooping at all the inside queer jokes and unafraid to break the fourth wall with a game of call and response, spurred on by a spirit of drunken revelry and Ludlum's occasional winks to the crowd. Although his troupe has gained a cult following over the past three years, this is just the beginning. I first discovered Charles Ludlum in an LGBTQ theater class during my doctoral work at Tufts University. I found Ludlum's plays written in the style called The Ridiculous, Crass and Rockus and Esoteric, plays like Turds and Hell, Bluebeard, Camille, and The Mystery of Irma Vep were confusing and brilliant, like nothing I had ever read or experienced in live performance. As I would come to find out these characteristics are the very hallmark of The Ridiculous style. My classmates largely disliked and dismissed the work as incoherent, but I was hooked. Soon after, I voraciously devoured Ludlum's 29 plays from a tattered volume that I found in the basement of a used bookstore. Sadly, I was only seven when Ludlum passed away. And growing up on a potato farm in northern Maine, I never had the opportunity to see him perform live, let alone access to any professional theaters. Not to pretend that I would have understood his plays as a child. Soon after reading the plays, as well as David Kaufman's incredible biography, Ridiculous, I knew that as a scholar and an artist and as a gay man, I longed to become part of what I realized was a secret, elusive and exclusive club, The Ridiculous tradition. I was even more surprised to find that so little scholarly work was available on Ludlum and his plays, but I also understood how his work could be challenging and difficult to access. Charles Ludlum was queer, a queer. He was a playwright, an actor, a director, a designer, a painter and essayist, as well as a control freak, a diva, a liberator, a homeopath, an inventor, a rebel, a visionary and an iconoclast. As this list perhaps conveys, Ludlum thrived on enigmatic contradiction. He is best known for refining the Ridiculous theater, a distinct genre that is one of the earliest forms of gay theater in the United States. The Ridiculous originated in the 1960s in the filmic and theatrical works of Jack Smith, Ronald Tavelle and John Vakaro. It carried with it a ubiquitous spirit of mid-century gay liberation that was both enterprising, irreverent and mercurial. Tavelle claims to have coined the appellation Ridiculous to define a genre that he saw moving beyond the absurd to the absolutely preposterous. As a distinctly American form, it unapologetically juxtaposes high culture, like canonical literature, grand theatrical traditions and icons of Western history with low pop culture, B-movies, popular entertainments, televisions and icons of celebrity with homage, travesty and perhaps most notably with camp. Ludlum took the early conventions of the Ridiculous introduced by his predecessors and perfected them, creating a sophisticated theater that perfectly represented the spirit of the times. Though Ludlum was a force to be reckoned with in the downtown theater of this period, today too few people outside of the theater in queer communities have heard his name. Although the Ridiculous movement found its footing in the mid 1960s with the early practitioner Smith, Vakaro and Tavelle, Ludlum's approach to the Ridiculous was distinct, creating a unique sensibility that allowed the radical world of the period to coexist within the escapist world of theatrical performance, in turn building a united queer community and communitas that encouraged public visibility on the streets and in the media. Ludlum's Ridiculous was created in an alternative ambivalent gap that eschewed normative hierarchies and values for a queer collectivity, a queered version of the world that demonstrated its live and let live creed through live performance. From these performances, social bonds, excuse me, social bonds were formed that assisted in recruiting the numbers that would make the gay liberation movement a highly visible and united front, a force to be reckoned with. In short, the Ridiculous helped to bring gay culture into the public eye. It was the sense of a productive ambivalence, a refusal to be pinned down or labeled into half of a concrete binary that allowed Ludlum's Ridiculous to thrive in both the theater and beyond and admittedly in very different ways. Although Ludlum adamantly denied that his work was intended to be grassroots, his voice is too often overlooked, considering that it has helped to inspire progressive changes for the gay community in America for 50 years. In Ludlum's theater, movement towards social change and political progress was directed by a sophisticated exchange of exclusive codes driven by the playwright's reinterpretation of camp. This resulted in a unique approach to a communal and dialogue-provoking reception between the actors and the audience. In forging his own definition of camp, Ludlum was inspired by the novelist Marcel Proust, whose work was to move camp beyond aesthetics to become a guiding principle, or more specifically, a special view of things upon which his tactic to both forcibly and ambivalently throw the audience between worlds of reality and fantasy is based. Ludlum's understanding of Proust is the seed for his personal reinterpretation of the ridiculous with camp as its modus operandi. In his essay entitled Camp, Ludlum clarified this vision, and he said, camp had a homosexual usage. Proust explains it very clearly. In remembrance of things past, there's a long section where Proust describes camp as an outsider's view of things that other people take totally for granted. Because of the inversion, everything that everyone else has taken for granted isn't true for you. Suddenly things become funny because you're seeing it through a mirror, a reverse image. Camp became a sly or secret sense of humor that could only exist to a group that had been through something together, in this case, the gay world. Ludlum reflected his own time through his own lens, that of an openly gay man during the period of sexual liberation. And he defined the purpose behind his mission in writing, and he wrote, the ridiculous theater is a theater that gives a forum to widely express unpopular, non-conformist points of view, thereby preserving a spirit of independence and the importance of the individual. Ludlum's individualism was grounded in his homosexuality. His approach to gayness in both the aesthetic and concept of the theater was as a safe space. He said, gay people have always found refuge in the arts and the ridiculous is notable for admitting it. The people in it, never dream of hiding anything about themselves that they feel as honest and true. Thus the original RTC was a forum for queer expression without proselytizing or attempting to convert the audience. Well, Ludlum was hardly arguing for people to come out of the closet. His theater invited people into a closet of queer fantasy and performance. Gay became normalized at the RTC, and as raucous and wild as the early shows were, there was a sense of calm in contrast to the riots erupting on the streets. Though the basic form of the ridiculous remains primarily the same, social change and personal tastes alter its current and ever-changing appearance. Because the sometimes sporadic and liberal nature of the independent artistic process may overlook its place in the family tree of a genre, like the ridiculous theater, I personally believe it is the responsibility of the theater historian, like myself, to untangle the paradoxes and critically analyze the transcendence of time in order to make a concrete record of this theatrical legacy. I suggest that to watch a neo-ridiculous play and grasp its Proustian subtext is to reconnect viscerally with the origins of the gay liberation movement and the intricate connections between politics and queerness and art. In the climate of its origin, Ludlum's theater was a catalyst for change, but in using a codified language to speak exclusively to a queer audience, in an ontologically queer space, his work was also separist and esoteric, both queerly ambivalent and queerly contradictory. Since Ludlum's passing 30 years ago this year, advancements in civil rights paired with community visibility have forever altered marginalized gay identity in America and beyond. Ludlum was an inheritor and a transmitter of classical theatrical traditions as he created original work through a pastiche of queer themes and culture. The style of work that Ludlum created has continued in the work of artists to honor his work through the metamorphosis and subversion of that work, a queer legacy that is represented by Everett here tonight and this panel of phenomenal artists who are joining us. So thank you. I've chosen to read excerpts from three plays tonight from Compass of the Universe, which was based on Tambor Lane's no, Marlowe's Tambor Lane, and it was the play that the company was doing when the split happened, when Charles Ludlum and the gang broke from the Playhouse of the Universe. They were doing Compass of the Universe and half the company left and went with Charles and they were gonna mount the play anyway and John Carle got an injunction against Charles. They had to prove he was on the play. So Charles named the end of the play and as I heard it, Charles was looking for another title and Mario Montez, the great Mario Montez, said, call it When Queens Collided. Yeah. John and Charles fight, yeah. And I like to do the early plays because they're the most extreme and to me they're the most fun and then we're gonna do a scene from Turds in Hell, which is one of my, I think is my favorite of Charles's plays, of all the plays and I just love it and that's what we're gonna do and then Turds in Hell is just the extremist of it. What I think of the ridiculous is that it's sacrilegious and blasphemous on purpose. I think of the ridiculous myself that it's anti-moral and that it's not un-moral and not amoral. It's just knows that morality doesn't work. It's hip to that. It knows, in fact, that morality doesn't work and the language in Turds in Hell, when we are mounted it in the 90s, by this time I thought, well, the world is all settled down and we get it all and then there's the big crucifixion scene in the Jesus character and half the audience got up and went. I was amazed that he could still shop on this day and age and then we're gonna do a scene from the Grand Tarot which just, based on the Tarot game, it's just another one of Charles' beautiful plays. This one, to me, Grand Tarot defies this kitchen so I'm not gonna try and describe it so I'm just gonna root it for you and I hope you have a good time. Thank you. Conquest of the Universe or when Queens collide by Charles Lugman on a leg for your stomach. Beans! Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. Don't knock Alice or we won't get in the palace. I'm Alice. Beans! Beans! We'd be glad to have, we'd be glad to have some, we'd be glad to have some, Alice. Beans, Magisette! Beans! Beans? Beans! Beans! Remember ladies, you've seen nothing unusual here today. They've denied our high heels, but we'll die with our boots off! The dinner is the thing, wherein I've caught the something of a king! Just then, we'd crave it. On the sixth, hence a pocket full of pride, Four and twenty black birds picked in a pie. When the pie was over, and the birds began to sing, Wasn't that a dainty dish to say they bore a king? Out of your system? This hasn't been for a centre! Not this 12 month fuck thing! Out of my asshole! One to rule each planet. Here's your heinous feed! Remember to us presently, tablaze! Sling a song of six, hence a pocket full of pride, Four and twenty black birds picked in a pie. These have to be my last moments. Let me live in peace. When the pie was over, and the birds began to sing, Wasn't that a dainty dish to say they bore a king? What? To this pie, which its father had thankfully fed. It's true! It's true! The nine turds of Magisette born out of... A cursed deed. What's her name? Carceral! Carceral! You have avenged my death gravely, And paid with your own life! Sucker! It's not what you do. It's how you do it. Carceral! Be free from your burden of sin. There is power in the blood. Would you or evil victory win? There is power in the blood. Actuality. That is a schwell intercourse. What is necessary, therefore, Is the establishment of a sufficient number Of click-schwell disturbances. What is necessary is a rational sex education, Which will affirm the validity of... Life is but a lying dream. The only wait who casts the world aside. Cosro is carried off in state. The cast follows his body out solemnly. Beneath, or end of play. Curds in hell. They wouldn't print the title in the timespan. Its name is the human heart. Is the house of life. Woman, the mummer's part. The devil enters the prompter's box, And the play is ready to start. The pin introduces the whores as they enter. The charming whores, those in which beauty consists, The tyrannical... Anyone for indiscipline, The tune-to-mahooch, the compulsive, The tarantula... I will feature in beehive. The scarcely credible, the boise, And last but not least, the empty head. I may be dumb, But you didn't come here for any conversation. Either. Orgon enters in a nun's disguise, And looks the whores over. Oh, proud, fondling whores. In spite of counting rouge and all the gunny lipstick, You smell a death. Are you the gentleman from Shirley? Yeah. I have important news for you. You are afflicted with a grave sickness. What kind of sickness? How have you come by this information? It is an inner sickness. Your body has been filled with the most dangerous poison. I learned this from revelations by the gods. What would you have me do? The only way to cure the sickness is to draw the venom out of you. Oh, you are fortunate in that we are equipped with tools which are capable of extracting the venom quite painlessly. In fact, it is certain that you will find the extraction enjoyable. Yeah! Yum! Yum! The pimp displays the whores' extractors. The pimp removes Orgon's clothes and takes hold of his dick. The whores scream in ecstasy when they scream. What do you think this is, a fucking mic? Come on, spread your cheeks a little wider, baby. It'll fit in there like a glove. Good by the size of that salami, we're going to have to spread ourselves out just a little bit more, girl. I'm sick and tired of working like a whore. Why can't we get those nice thighs just to be a four-and-a-half inches? Oh, I know what you mean. You're going to the ones that just barely tickle your ovaries. I don't know about you girls, but I ain't chicken. I should take it. Hi! You ain't chicken. You're a cowl. Well, the two like that one certainly don't have to have your box scraped. If I continue, he will rise up, become erect, and penetrate me so deeply that I should be marked with stigmata. Dreaming. That thing marks on your chest. To the heart. To the... Right in the room. Suck it yourself, chavistic. The knights are mad about me. Oh, the sultanas. My God! They're making eyes of me. Oh, the cheek. Stroking my butt. I'm not in the business for love, you know. I was in love once, and I got the business. Time moves all heels. I remember that some ten years ago, a beautiful, fresh, plump, young girl, a personal chambermaid of the queen was found guilty of high treason for trying to poison the king, and consequently was condemned to suffer the cruelest debt that could be devised for her. It was decreed that after she had been crucified, she should be kept alive for as long as possible. The sentence was spruciously carried out. When she faded from the pain, the executioner gave her a little glass of liquor to revive her. She only died six days later. Her long suffering, her young age, and her robust constitution had made her flesh so tender, so savory and so sought after that the executioner was able to sell it for more than eight sequins. Eight sequins! Gather up! This inhuman market was so throng with customers that persons of quality esteemed themselves happy if they could buy a couple of pounds. What's wrong with all of them? Thinness is more naked, more naked, more indecent, than corpulence. Look how thick a bay and by. I love you so much. I love you so much. I want to know why when you will come. You are so tasty. I want to taste ye. I will not waste ye. Please give me some. Yum, yum, yum, yum. I was going to call you. Oh, it was terrible. It made my blood stand still to behold what I held. What? What's it? Met your gaze. I saw a young man and a young woman swinging on a gate in the moonlight, biting each other. The impulse to bite is the origin of the kiss. To kiss means the act of biting rather than that of sucking. Suck it yourself, sugar stick. Not only is he strange and queer, but he's also got a one-track mind as well. We always need to make certain effort to understand the love of others and their way of making love. If it were possible to watch the practices of my neighbor, he would seem as strange and even as extravagant and, let us say, as monstrous, as a coupling of a red tile, as exalted and prehistoric monster. There is no exalted pleasure which cannot be related to prostitution. At the theater, the ballroom, each one enjoys possession of all. God is the most prostitute of all beings because he is the closest friend of every individual because he is the common, inexhaustible reservoir of love. Oh, hideous Jewess, lay with me for hire one night, two corpses, side by side. What are you so smug about, you doxy trollop? Nothing. Only this invitation to the biggest party of the year. That turns it ill. The one and only. Yeah, yeah, well, he sure thinks such a thing don't stay calm. But she's no better than the rest of us. I hear she murdered a child. She didn't murder him, just left him on a mountain path. See, I have two heads or something. God is listening intently. Well, fucking the devil has transformed him. The more he realizes it's his mother they're talking about. And she fucks like she's got a newspaper asshole. What is the greatest pleasure in love? To receive. To give oneself. The pleasure of pride. The voluptuousness of humility. To beget citizens for the state. On my part, I say the soul and supreme pleasure in love lies in the absolute knowledge of doing. And man and woman know from birth that an evil is to be found. All voluptuousness. Orgo, left alone, finds the invitation via a drop. The invitation to his long lost mother's wedding. Oh, thou nature art my goddess. To thy law my service is abound. Why should I stand in the plague of customs and submit for the curiosity of nations to deprive me? Just because my mother dumped me? Why, hunchback, wherefore pinhead, how come sex me here? Why, my form is as well compact, my mind is sharp, and my shape is true as any honest madam's issue. Why branday us with base? With baseless? With bastony? Why base? Why basement? Why not try the roof? Well, Orgo, if this invitation gets you on the yacht, Orgo, the base shall grow and prosper. Now, gods, stand up for hunchbacks, for pinheads, for sex maniacs. He exits doing the shuffle off to buffalo. End of play. Well, the grand tarot. The grand tarot by Charles the Edward. And ever since the accident she had been going on about it in such heavens of joy. I've seldom seen anyone so happy. I felt, it felt so suddenly. I was in my bathtub. I fear it's badly damaged. Half of it is down. Such gusts of wind. The way they pull the bushes. How did it happen? Exactly. The pair of scissors it appears was left upon the parapet and caught the lightning's eye. The needle should submit to be struck, strikes me as being so strange. It never has before. My maid has asked me if she may overgulg her and see the ruins. The age holds no horrors for me, not any more. Someday I'll have a house here and I'll grow old quite gracefully. Surely with age one's attractions should increase. I'll be irresistible at 90. A few of us perhaps may. You dear. You will. You used to say it would be in a town with a V. Versailles or Valenbro or Verona. The sphinx spins the wheel of fortune. You said that if the fool can make death laugh he will be spared one extra day. Make me laugh. I'm not afraid. I'll tell you why. You see, I have no doubt to die. Make me laugh. Did you hear the one about the man who died and then lived? Died and then lived? He died. His hair. This one will really slay you. Why did Lothario put it to his girl in the graveyard? Because he thought it would be a good place to bury a step. And not funny. You lose our game of chess. You know, you may be a fool today but when they come for you tomorrow you will be a grave man. The fool bends over and death gives him a swift kick in the ass. Too shabby. I thought you said you could beat him with your eyes closed. Ah, I was at disadvantage. I had my eyes open. The fool has made that laugh. He wins one extra day on Earth. What will you do with your one extra day? I think I'll sleep late. Let's return to the Netherworld. Yes, it is a touching moment when they administer the last secret. The last sleep. The last dream. The last dream? You, do you know the High Priestess? Intimately. Do you know where she is? On the other side of the river. Sticks, sticks and stones may prick my bones. Will you take me to her? There's a fairy leaving every minute for Hades. Hades? I've heard so much about your wicked city. I'm dying to see it. Take me to her. Smell, Miss White Rose. You have re-played Kara. Dysentery. Typhoid. The four princes of the Blood Royal in the Palace of King Deck. This is it. Everything's slipping. I'm falling inside. Now that's all right. Don't fight it. Go with it. Think of all the guys who have done it before you. You've got company. High class company. Bonsai, kid. The magician falls into a death-like sleep inside the sarcophagus. The angel of tempering for peers pouring water back and forth between two chalices. Who will carry his ashes onto the mountain? I will. You? Who are you? I'm a thoroughbred mongrel related to all the earth and nothing human is foreign to me. And what can you do? I will open the doors and castles of death and now forever the laughter of children shall spring forth from cauldrons. All is empty. All is equal. All hath been. I breathe the odor of duct eternity. I will terrify and subvert them with laughter. Give me back my father. Your father lost a father and that father lost his. Don't you know, fool, that lives must die passing through nature to eternity. But I have three wishes and I want my father alive again. Granted, the sarcophagus opens. The magician comes forward dressed as a mummy. Congratulations, father. You're a mummy. I wish the high priestess were here. Granted. Look at that old better woman. This is the high priestess. Oh, no! No, you are old! Old! In my own young days I had a hundred letters from a man of God's sight better than he is. They came like raindrops in May and I had a high head at the time and I sent no answer. Don't think. Because you see me alone now that I was in one of the handsome men in the old doing days when Shoshu came to me she now shot to the back of Cootley that came to me in the moonlight and in the dark night and in the night's flooded with rain and in the black face of the wind and a wild swish of the snow he came as often as the rain falls from the heavens ninety-nine times and then he died and I am still a virgin ever virgin, ever virgin unto eternity and his ghost is around me driving me on with the madness. I wish the high priestess young again. You're out of wishes? You wasted this wish on English pudding? How could you? I hate you, you fool! You idiot! Father, why have you not forsaken me? Look, the fool has wept a tear it is a green tear The star holds up a jewel I am new at weeping All the tears a fool can weep will not make the high priestess young again. Caruso's calliachi plays and the fool rends his garments with weeping when the moon wipes his face his face appears on the cloth His heart is broken in the future let those who play the fool have no hearts The sun, the moon and the stars dress the fool as Christ and the magician as God the Father the old lady becomes the virgin Mary They assume the possessions of Michelangelo Pietà End of play Are you there? Normally it always works out that I have a tear but this is a good sign But though let's have our first congratulations again I think a round of applause and thank you for putting this together So maybe a question to all of you first What is the theatre of the ridiculous and the ridiculous theatre company what does it really mean to you What is it really all about? Well, for me No, it gave me a place to be I've said this before many times but I grew up knowing that I was different and thinking that there was no place for me and then I found the theatre and the first things I ever seen the company do was taboo teblos and it was a fundraiser they played a scene from each play they had done for the ten years of their existence and I wasn't in the group yet and the first thing I ever saw was Black Eyed Susan doing a Zuni Feinschmecker the rehearsal in Caprice and I walked in and my world just turned upside down and then I watched they did a scene from Camille and I had just met George Osterman speaking of George I had just met him that afternoon and I met him as a boy and he was a pretty boy and then I went to the theatre that night for the performance and I met George as Bunny Bezwick in Hot Ice and it opened my mind and it was finally a place for me and I was among like people so that's what it means to me when did we do it? Let's ask Glenness it means revolution to me it means people standing up for who they are it means people not being afraid of themselves or hating themselves but reveling in the fact that we all are different and that is something that is very important to the world all of our differences are important to the world and that's what it means to me I think it was a matter of being in the presence of genius I went to see Charles Ludlam in Caprice and at the end of the first scene he draped himself gracefully across the Shea's Lounge glamorous, beautiful the Shea's Lounge was painted on a backdrop when I first met Charles I was a puppeteer and I had been a puppeteer Marionettes mostly for quite a long time touring all over the country to do things for children and another friend of mine had met Charles and I think have been maybe one of the productions or something and he said maybe you should try and see if you can get into this company because I think it's really great so I went down to Sheridan Square where we had our little theater down in the basement kind of thing Charles came up out of the basement because he had been told that this girl was interested and I'll never forget what he did he took his hands and put them on my shoulders and he looked at me like this and he said yeah, you'll do and you know it was my home for a theater for 10 years at least 10 years and it showed me what theater can do politically and particularly for marginal people which at that point in time a lot of gay men and gay people generally were and you know I think that all of us who were in the company or maybe even saw a lot of the shows would say that that that was what it was about you know, that's what it was about we are just as good as anybody else you know, so that was great I would say, for me I got drafted at very short notice into the theater my first show there as a performer was Terz and Hell the revival in 1988 and Black Eyed Susan was my mother and they had replaced John Brockmire because John Brockmire had been ill and he kind of disappeared a couple days before the show started and Everett called me up and said would you come in and audition for this and I was auditioning for Orgo and the Hunchbacked Pinheaded Sex Maniac and I said okay and I remember that when I came in Everett and Larry Kornfeld where they were directing and so during the audition Everett came up to me and said okay, can you read these lines like Sylvester the cat okay, hey and so then Everett walked over and Larry and they came over and said well it's yours if you want it and I said okay and two days later we opened and so I had to learn the role in two days the thing that's taught me the ridiculous theater has taught me is freedom, freedom of creative expression every time I got like oh I don't know if I could you know I didn't know whether Everett would say to me just go out we called it Barracuda Theater just get out there and just chew the scenery and we were given freedom to perform and freedom to create and that's what I got out of it and from that freedom it gave the audience a freedom to be able to play with us and it was a real exchange that's the one thing unlike any other show I've ever done is that at the ridiculous theater you always played with your audience it was play, it was play house you know and I just feel very grateful that I was able to come in and work with Susan and work with Bill Ver and I remember one last thing I'll tell you before it was after the show opened and I was playing Orgone John Brockmire showed up one time and he was sitting at the audience and after the show I came out and I had taken my makeup and my giant penis off and John looked at me and he goes you Eve Carrington that was my introduction to John I had seen Artificial Jungle before in other shows but anyway that was my experience I think for me coming from an academic perspective but also someone who loves theater kind of as everyone has said is a spark that really ignited gay theater in America and it all traces back to that and the book that I wrote is really about love them but also his legacy and there are so many young queer performers today who owe everything to the ridiculous theatrical company whether or not they know it I think a great example is there's a chapter of the book dedicated to Taylor Mack and what Taylor Mack is doing is coming inherently from this to the point where if you went to the 24 hour marathon concert the final song is called Get Up and Play and it's coming specifically from that sensibility I don't want to be contradictory here I want to preface that because Charles did not think he was doing gay theater he was totally against the notion of gay theater what he was into and I think of the ridiculous as the first honest gay voice in the theater it was where the queer didn't have to die but Charles said if the queer is going to commit suicide it should be for a fabulous reason not for, not to like the children's hour and crap like that before this the queer had to die then it had to die horribly and because Charles said he didn't want to do to the theater what people do to people he didn't want to impose these limits on people and it can't be queer theater it can't be queer in the queer it can't be gay theater because so many of the great practitioners were straight so it's an honest voice for gay people and you're right I think it was on the wave to Stonewall but it learned from the people that came before it and it was feeding off of this this revolution that was taking place and getting its freedom from that and then you get this group Black Eyed Susan and Bill Varench on Brockmire and Jack Mallory and Richard Currie and Lola Paschalinski and you get these people in Mario Montez and here they are they didn't know they were revolutionizing it and they did know I'll take that back they did know they were revolutionizing the theater but it wasn't oh let's go revolutionize the theater let's go have fun while we're revolutionizing the theater and it has, like you said part of the reason we went under is because we spawned competition and the competition was as good or better and it just left us behind I just want to jump in and take off on whatever it said I came to New York when I was 18 years old and I was one of those gender non-conforming people that sort of fit in in the gay world that didn't fit in the straight world that was sort of in between and this was in the 70s and I lived on 10th Street and University Place in a hotel for like $35 a week and my friend and I one night I had the most excruciating truth it was, I mean it was so painful I never felt pain like that in my life and my friend had these tickets to this show and I was like I don't want to go I can't go he's like oh take some aspirin you'll feel better I was like no I don't want to go and so it was just a block away I think it was on like 11th Street or 13th Street I'm not sure which where the earlier theater was but it was the production of Camille and the reason my friend wanted to go was because our dear friend Ethel Eichelberger was in the show and we knew him from Rhode Island and so we went to see Ethel well I had no idea what I was in for within the first few minutes of Camille my toothache completely disappeared I had no pain I was crying with tears of laughter and it just struck me it was just such an odd thing that I had come to New York and fell into this unbelievable theatrical experience and the thing that Everett said about the honesty there was just such honesty on that stage of these people like me and some of them were like me doing what they really love to do and it really inspired me and kept me in pursuit of some type of theatrical career and then lastly when I auditioned for Everett in Bluebeard and I got the part it was the most incredible wonderland of fun that I have ever had any time in my entire theatrical career every night it was just a joy to be in that crazy, kooky, intense amazingly skilled performers in the company it was just one of the most wonderful experiences of my life I'm so amazingly grateful that I've had the chance to do that but I think it's not so much about queer theater but just being recognized for your talent regardless of what your calling is what your identity is or what you're presenting in the world it really opened the door for me to just be free and to have a tiny bit of confidence in pursuit of what I love to do and most of the theater in New York back then anyway you were either in the closet or you were playing straight and as far as marginalized people I mean we are still marginalized we're not there yet I don't want to fool anybody thinking that we've made a lot of great strides but we are still marginalized as queer people in the theater and thank God something like this exists for us I think we came after I didn't know Charles I actually have only known Everett for about eight years we did a production some of us here did a production together in the style of the ridiculous Cornberry with Bill Hoffman Bill Hoffman who just passed away and I remember being so terrified of Everett on stage because he was playing his fire-breathing pastor I'd never met him before and I was like holy shit this guy will eat me alive if I let him but then we became sitting backstage getting acquainted and talking waiting to go on he was such a lamb and we've just been best friends and then he introduced me to all these people and I've been fortunate enough to do some other readings of the ridiculous theater so maybe a question towards the mechanics of the production the way you produced altogether did he write the play tell at home together how long did you rehearse how long was it financed and how long did you play how did it all happen in ten words or less we have some time there might have been some acid involved there might have been some acid involved well I don't think as far as I know from just my experience the only play that was totally written when we went into rehearsal was Deringa for blundered that was the only play that I remember that was a total script other than that the play he wrote as we went along I remember one play I forget what it was maybe I forget the name of the play but we would write it he wrote it as we went along and Charles one day said to me don't worry ever it's a great role because we would have love and then one day we did the exquisite torture and I was the costume designer on that as well and I had four hundred dollars to costume this massive show and then as the play would come in each day you'd get a new thing of the play and I guess I must have been bitching about what a hard job doing the costumes was and then Susan came up to me with the script and she said oh look at what this says Everett and it says she changes for dinner I have to go find another dress because we were probably all paying you know so it was it was there was a freedom and a chaoticness but it all came together so how long was the rehearsal process wasn't it the day evenings or how many weeks it's hard to say it varied from show to show and it was mostly at night because people had to work and the funding I mean in the early place when I wasn't there I don't know how the funding was but then with Bluebeard that's when the company got government funding and they got funded from the National Endowment and I don't know when the state started to kick in but that was the funding and then you'd have to fundraise and make money the best way you could one thing I just wanted to add too I came in when Everett started directing I had seen Charles I had met Charles but I never worked in the company when Charles was directed and the one thing that Everett always taught us is just work with what you've got like one night in Bluebeard I'm sure you remember that the set started to collapse in the middle of the scene and there was this whole big scene when it goes into the laboratory and the set just started coming down it was a couple of days after opening and we just went with it what we did was we all stopped and we looked at the scene falling the scenery falling down and then we just went on with the play it's the same with Camille Everett was doing a big scene one time and a giant cockroach fell from the ceiling onto the floor and all Everett did was he just heard and he goes and then he went on with the scene and that's what we were taught to do just be like just go with it you know if everything's falling down just keep going and that was the fun part of production really that was a funny night with the roach because there was this huge laugh and John Claude Vassaud was in it with us and it was this huge laugh and it was kind of one of the sad scenes and I couldn't figure out what the last of was I was wearing a dress so it couldn't be my fly was down I didn't know what it was and then I turned and there was this giant water bug and I had this big dress on and I went fine I congratulate myself that I didn't kill it because I would have lost the public we were doing Camille and I'm sorry we were doing Carmen Everett had written an adaptation of Carmen for the ridiculous and he played Carmen and one night we're backstage a whole group of us me, Lennis Cheryl Cheryl Reeves and Everett had this long he had this denim gown on that had a long ass train this long train and as he's entering to the stage we saw a mouse on the end of his train so now there's the four of us we're trying to get the mouse before he goes out on stage with it which we couldn't do so the mouse became a star of the ridiculous but what were difficult moments dangerous moments, complicated moments in the life of the company I remember a story that Charles told me it was a tambolini tambolini's gate on 2nd Avenue and like 10th Street there was a wheel of fortune on a balcony and someone was underneath it and the wheel started to come and it was loose and somebody ran and saved the day that's the scariest story I've ever heard and it was in turns and hell but I don't know exactly who was where when that happened and Madame here got hurt one day really bad when a piece of scenery fell over and she slammed into it in the dark that was horrible I had a severe panic attack on stage once and and if any of you had a panic attack it's horrible and you know and I was with Julia and we had a scene and everything started to sort of go away and all I did was I couldn't do anything I just turned and walked away and I was in this sort of state and so the ridiculous was a boot camp for me and this was like an example because I went backstage and I lost it and ever it went out until the audience that I was not well and about 15 minutes later we continued and it was maybe the scariest moment of my life and to continue night after night after that but along the same lines as everyone's been saying I went into the ridiculous and it expanded my who I was from the very beginning because when I auditioned for how to write a play I thought that I was you know most appropriate for the henchmen of the general and that ever cast me as the general and I was like oh me and he saw something in me that I had not yet seen and along with that at the same time I was pinned this thrust into this sort of this chaotic family but what in my mind I thought of as real theater you know you just you go out there and you give it your all and we gave it our all and at the same time I was developing and as a gay man and I had a partner at the time who had gone to Juilliard and he was like a proper actor and but surprisingly enough there was instances that he was afraid to be completely out because of fear that he would not get work or how his agent might perceive him and at the same time I was part of this company so it was a development as an actor as a person and as a gay man so and it was frightening at times as I just mentioned but it was I wouldn't be who I am today without it I just remember one time I remember Everett going doing Camille in London and we had to to make the entrance onto the stage we had to go underneath the stage and it was like the house in Alice in Wonderland it just kept getting smaller and smaller toward the end we were having to crawl like this and one night Everett was going we were doing the third act and as we were going underneath there was this low beam and Everett bashed his head and I remember that that I think Everett carried on but we were really concerned because he really hit his head and we still had to do the third act I mean I don't know he was like he was in such a jolly mood that I just remember he bashed his head and he was like it was my mood one night we were doing I came into the company when we did Midsummer Night's Dream I was in Everett's master class and then he invited me to be in the company and play Titania and one night Everett was playing a character that had to wear one of those Roman helmets that had the brush on top and next thing he comes running into the dressing room the hat had cut him across his nose and he was bleeding and since I had everything I need for everybody and the entire cast in my dressing room they used to call it the general store Everett comes running in and says I need a bandaid right back out on stage so about really looking I handed him a bandaid and when he came off the stage from doing the scene I realized I had given him a Snoopy bandaid and we went on stage with Snoopy right across his nose so before we go to some audience question I think we have Susan with us and Ali and also John and if it's possible to ask you some memories maybe about Charles and what it meant to you to work with so that's okay I met Charles Ludlum in college we were both at Hofstra and it was a very different time for me I was very very shy then and afraid but I knew that I wanted to act and I was studying we had a wonderful scene study teacher she was truly magnificent she was recognized as such and I was but I was backstage at the Hofstra theater watching a play watching a rehearsal from backstage I wasn't in the play and there was a man that came up next to me and he said you look at the theater and I just I don't know how it happened I just turned quickly and said I couldn't believe I did that and he grabbed my hand and he said well stick by me babe you'll see the east so we became friends and we did a play there that he directed and I was a young woman all my relatives had died and I was a young woman with my husband and he the man that was playing my husband he was about six feet four a lot taller than me and he we both died in an accident so we go to the grave where all my relatives are my aunt and the people that died stay at the age that they died at so my aunt is not older than me she's five years old but Charles said about that he said to the guy that was playing my husband he said you have to just crawl on your knees and that's what he did during that whole play but you know what after it happened the people that saw the play the professors they recognized his talent but they weren't eager to um say so and they we told everybody not to speak to us and it was because at the end of the play we didn't take a bow because we all died in the play so the professors said okay nobody's speak to them and finally one woman who eventually went to Hollywood played on television for years um she was she played all major parts at Hofstra then she just whispered in my ear and she said I just want to tell you that I really liked you I liked the play but don't tell anybody I spoke to you and I realized when I came to New York Charles and I met again we had parted we met again and that time we just stuck close together and he was just he was a wonderful director he was a very brilliant man and he had the gift of language he didn't need him in encyclopedia dictionary he was just able to express himself so brilliantly and he was able to direct and I remember once a wonderful direction he gave me which I'm sure that Stanislavsky used um it was in Bluebeard and he was I was the young girl and he was talking to me on stage and we were rehearsing and he said uh when I talk to you yes you're looking into my eyes yes but you know it's when somebody else is talking to you listening there are other thoughts going into your going through your mind at the same time he said remember that it was a brilliant direction that was it thank you what are your memories just it was a very moving evening and I just want to thank everybody for all of their efforts this evening Charles was very very important to me and he was my work consistently since his death and he was a genius I just wanted to say that to the gentleman who gave the academic reading earlier that I wish someone hopefully who is on Charles's side from the academic community gets it together to really talk about and give him the credibility that he needs culturally I think a book about Charles that is really informed is overdue unfortunately the man that should have written it had just died he was another dear dear friend Leon Katz who maybe you know he just died in Los Angeles and it's going to be a ceremony for about two weeks and we'll try to get out there because he was a dear friend and we were yelled together but I can tell you Leon would have really written the book one and he spoke about Charles repeatedly when I talked to him what I wanted to say was that the followers tradition a couple of people that have been really mentioned were Alfred Jarre particularly and the whole tradition of Alfred Jarre and the iconic classic you know gender oriented tradition I think Alfred actually had a fair time Oscar Wilde before Wilde died at the end you know and he's one of my heroes and all the whole comedia tradition going into the working method the entire Italian comedia tradition I think a couple of but there are so many incredible historical sources that go into the work of Charles who just moved it along and I think he needs his place in history and I hope that someone gets the funding and the time and the equination who is enough of a scholar to do it right to really honor Charles the way he should be honored Charles book is coming out soon in November so I hope you have some leaflets out so please do check it out and we go to Marvin, maybe Richard and then John Thank you Wonderful evening a very moving one I want to I think the evening would not be complete without a couple of perspectives that haven't been touched on but are very important one of these is a personal and one is a general thing and the personal is I have to say how tremendously moving and important in my life the theater the ridiculous was as a straight person I came to New York from Kansas and there's no straighter but with a fascination for theater and I went to some of the early theater the ridiculous and then I was hooked and I never missed a production over many years and I have to say that for me also a whole new world opened up and you must remember that the theater the ridiculous also opened a vast new world for the straight community too. It just has to be said the other thing that needs not been said but it ought to be said it's a word too about the audience the those of you who remember the theater the ridiculous audiences will remember that they were not like any other audience I can remember for two reasons that go together one is immediately when you came in you felt you were part of a community there was a kind of spirit and anticipation and excitement about it which only grew as the evening went on so but that happens other times in theater audiences often form solid communities but what made this community different from any other community is that as the evening went on and this goes back to the incredible range of Charles's imagination and work that is all the way from the the oddest pop culture and obscure films to the most esoteric literary references to obscure quotations from third rate Ibsen plays and whatever which meant that nobody in the audience had Charles's eclectic mind and could get it all but everybody got some of it and so you had this strange experience that there was a continual ripple of laughter and shrieks of laughter from two or three people in different parts of the house all during the evening and I'll never forget that peculiar kind of community along mixed with all these individual reactions that I saw in every production I saw Thank you that was Marvin Carlson the colleague here the most most formal theater historian but Richard many Well I would like to add that the title Terz & Hell comes from Bill Ver who had an art named Terz & Hell and he used to always tell us when they were kids they would say Terz & Hell and Charles kept a notebook of titles and random thoughts and so I'm sure that it came from that notebook like when we were playing Brussels and discovered that Stella Artois was a name I think there's a character in Caprice named Stella Artois we had discovered that name in bars in Brussels I saw Queens Collide at the Theater for New City on 2nd Avenue and then fell in love with the company really with Bluebeard at the Performing Garage it was just a stunning big production of Bluebeard and Charles ran into my friend Bob Jack Caliejo at a party and this was the spring of 72 and he said do you suppose Richard would do the lights for Unix of the Forbidden City and Bob Jack said yes we'd love to and so we signed on as the lighting crew for Unix and brought our friend John Brown along to do sound and one thing that Bob Jack and I brought to Charles was traditional stage craft he had been having drops that Laura Wilson painted and it was some nice things but he was really fond of traditional stage craft and the first example would be Bob Jack's Marzipan set for Camille and then there were the traveling versions which were just drops but in conversation with Charles he was working on a film script called Stage Blood and he was talking with Bob Jack and I had an evening about his idea for this backstage Hamlet something and Bob Jack said well what if there was a turntable and that's how Stage Blood became a play from a movie script you said you know you have to this evening what did you fit in on the new year yeah I was talking to Frank and I said we have to have something on Charles but I first thing I thought was Caprice at the performing garage in 75 or 76 I think and it really like everybody is saying it was sort of like the world shaken up and turned upside down and I remember not being able to tell what was really going on which meant that something really good was going on but there were so many references the whole entire cast seemed like they were completely crazy to me my crazy people had come onto the stage which was thrilling actually so also all the other things the references to pop culture to all kinds of high-level culture mixed together huge influence to so many people because it gave us permission to do that the other fun just a funny thing is that I had gotten to know Stuart Sherman a bit and I was doing Chang the Void Moon at the Pyramid Club we started doing it and I invited Stuart and he said oh can I bring a friend and I said oh sure no problem this was very early on you know I had no idea what I was doing and I remember being up in a booth somewhere before the show looking out and seeing Stuart and then Charles London was with him and I thought oh my god this is the end of the world Charles London has arrived at this crazy club and sees this disaster of a show that I'm doing everything is finished because actually you know at that point to me the three or four or five kind of superstars in our community so it was Stuart Sherman, Richard Foreman Charles Ledlum Librawer so it was people like that but I mean all these names were floating around what apparently was our own little world and they were actually changing a lot of things everywhere else it wasn't just in our own little world but anyway afterwards Charles was great to me always so supportive of the younger generation never, he just he was wonderful to know after that eventually he got to work with Ethel and Susan so his influence just has gone everywhere people that really don't realize it but it's really true I do think it also influenced television completely it's incredible how it's influenced what happens on sitcoms these days sometimes I can't believe I'm to know where it really started leaking out into the culture and all these things have been made possible anyway so before we open up any comment or to what we just heard or from you guys or okay so we can take a couple so let me put the answer one and one up two anybody else so we start great okay so we start over here and so who was the first was you right so hello as one of the designers who had several years of great work with you guys one of the things that you gave everyone who designed for you was the chance to have an audience pee their pants at your designs and that's a really rare thing and so I found this last night this is from the 1993 Lisa Bennett and Everett and Everett plays an evil person we were very worried about the right wing America rising and he reads a storybook to some children we might just want to take a peek when we did Linda someone told me came up to me and said that we didn't feature things in our work and I thought that was a thing to take quite seriously and so the play that Mark Bennett and I wrote we wrote a musical called Linda and I based it on Anthony Trollop's Linda Tressel and it was the only novel that Trollop wrote that didn't take place in England or something but I played the Reverend Dr. Charlotte Drum and Lisa Hergo played Linda and she was this closeted lesbian who ran a wandering and she was in love with Lizzie the Lezzie who was the trained conductor and there was this kid, Grant Neal played Gabriel who was like this kind of idiot and I came into the thing to take over the world my plan was to take over the world for Jesus and the kid was a dope but I said to him, you're not stupid you just got to learn the effect so I I'm talking how to read using my cump God it was a pop-up version of my cump and I'm going to open it how did it pop up? I guess the other one two in the face she slapped two in the face and the soundtrack was gorgeous and there would be a bunch rally and the other one with the oh it was fun first birthday oh yeah burning frost he's going to take over the world and what happened and it was had a forward by Gabriel Conner forward by Gabriel Conner and then Gabriel learned to read he became an evil genius and he became the founder of the Aryan Nation and I based it was a scene when Lizzie and Linda were escaping from the Nazis from the Aryan Nation and they were on a train and I stole the scene from a western movie where they're fighting on the train and they have to be escaping and the Aryan Nation attacks the train and they beat up Lizzie well at the end Gabriel and myself we got crushed by a giant Bible thank you in this there was armoured shanks which I learned later that Eureka hated the role but she was so fabulous in it I loved her in it and she invented the excromatron 9000 where she was I read this thing in National Geographic about in the 60s that we were trying to turn excrement back into food and Eureka invented it and it was a toilet bowl talking of names and armoured shanks is a toilet bowl in London so I stole that from Charles and she would turn shit into food and Jamie this was the movie you won this one because banana came out poor David I was so evil today but David directed it but Jamie did the props and there was a when she put the shit in the machine she dropped this shit in the machine and it turned it into food and a banana came out and I thought it should be a brown banana and Jamie said no no it has to be a yellow banana and then we would peel the banana and you were so right Jamie and the audience would squirm and they would what was the second question oh it was you yes so I'm going to apologize in advance for being a little emotional but I think it's an important and sad part of the story which is my best friend came to we came to New York City in the 80s and whenever it refounded the troop Jim Lam and he starred in a number of shows with you a lot of you acted with him and he died of AIDS as a very young man in this community and his memorial was in the theater in Sheridan Square I remember it to this day and I have the story of AIDS and gay men and our community's experience of AIDS is written so deeply into this group the role you all played well obviously starting with Charles but across the life of the troop and supporting the community and creating a place where we could love each other and stay honest and funny during the crisis is one of the most important parts of that history I became a scholar of AIDS in part because of that but I just wanted to honor the communities holding of each other through that crisis and really all of you that I remember and Everett in particular your role in his life and the life of so many actors who lived and died through that period I just I'm sorry to take it down but I don't feel like it's a downer I feel like it's a really important it's at the heart of this work and it shows everywhere the beauty and sorrow and tragedy that befell our community and is still in our community so I wanted to thank you for that and for the evening as well that was an excellent last word and I think that the certainly the tragedy of AIDS effect on the ridiculous is one of the greatest tragedies but I just wanted to say something lighter which is that the my experience in going to a dozen or more shows that Charles staged it's something that happened to me in those shows that has never happened before since which is when I came out of the show my stomach was in pain from laughing so much those shows were just a non stop laugh from beginning to end and it was in the stage craft of them remembering Black Eyed Susan doing that strip tease with the hand puppet of the devil they were sublime moments but they were incredibly funny and you just you just I was absolutely in pain for like a whole day after going to see a Charles love them play every time maybe one more first of all I was much too young to take in the ridiculous I've heard stories from one of my friends who is a part right there so thank you this has been really helpful just to get more of a context a historical context of what you guys were doing for me that's very important as a theater artist my question is I know that Irma Vap came back Red Bull had done a production to be doing a production of Artificial Jungle do you know of any other ridiculous style productions that will be coming back that we can see to at least get a sense of what you guys did and how it can live on I think to take a mic I think that in the fall we're going to do Conquest of the Universe at Lamama but we are doing I was supposed to bring postcards and I forgot them but for the theater breaking through barriers is doing the Artificial Jungle and they've been directing it and we open in two weeks and the actors are so fucking great and they're really going to do Charles Proud but I don't know of any beside that and just to close what are the future of you the theater of the ridiculous what are your plans ahead for next years or the years up I don't know it's what it is which is a good way to go to find things out in your tradition I hope you all will stay we will have a little reception here I know there are many more testimonies or comments that could have been done but I also I want to thank Frank and Rebecca for getting us together thank you it really is a tremendous honor first 50 years are the hardest so let's celebrate it's the celebration of the life and work of Charles but also the company everybody involved so congratulations and really I would like to a very big standing applause for that company and what it stands for