Building a Theatrical Vernacular: Responsibility, Community, Ambivalence, and Queer Theatre

Abstract

I originally presented the bulk of this article as the keynote at the Queer Theatre Conference presented in New York City last spring. "Queer Theatre, A Conference With Performances" was held April 27-29, 1995. The conference was presented by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and co-sponsored by the CUNY Graduate Center's Theatre Program; it was co-hosted by the Arts Program at the Judson Memorial Church, New York Theatre Workshop, La Mama E.T.C., and .the Joseph Papp Public Theatre. Because of the visibility and heft of CLAGS and its hosts, the conference was advertised nationally and attended by scholars, practitioners, critics, and spectators from around the United States. Because of the historical importance of the Queer Theatre conference, I've decided that I want to mark the occasion of that event here by preserving the keynote much as it was delivered. Often, when academics publish work that began as a lecture or a paper, our effort is to mask the original constituency for which it was written. Rather than subsuming this piece in a rethought set of propositions, geared to a more readerly audience, I want to evoke the moment into which these words were spoken.