My ten-minute play Last Night at the Cherry Pie opens this weekend as part of St. Louis's That Uppity Theatre Company's Briefs Festival of LGBT short plays. I'm really pleased to be part of this effort (even though it's been a remote collaboration), because from what I can tell Briefs has been a bit of a gay institution in St. Louis, and this is unfortunately it's final year. The festival is also a raising funds for the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis.
American Theatre Magazine covered the festival and did a nice write up.
““I feel that it is really important that we have community as much as we can, especially now,” says Joan Lipkin, producing artistic director of That Uppity Theatre Company.
The plays cover different aspects of LGBTQ experience. Shannon Geier’s Twenty Questions follows a family as they adapt to the transition of a transgender family member. When Oprah Says Goodbye, by Dan Berkowitz, is about an unlikely friendship between an African-American lesbian and her roommate at an elder-care facility. Daniel Hirsch’s Last Night at the Cherry Pie takes place at a gay bar that will be closed because of gentrification. Theresa Masters’s Danny Boy follows a gay man who takes care of his ailing, homophobic father. Lipkin’s Our Friends, which has toured the country as part of the After Orlando project, addresses the Pulse nightclub massacre.”