Kimball Allen, host of the glitz-camp variety show, Triple Threat, slated regularly at Seattle’s Triple Door Theater, has lived in the Emerald City just a handful of years. Yet, Allen is well aware of the talent pool the city has to offer. And the skillful artists that saturate the city move him so that he knew he had to bring them regularly under one roof – and so his show, some two years ago, was born.
My encounter with Hardly Boys begins with a bang. At six-thirty (our appointed meeting time), I sit in Little Oddfellows (our appointed meeting place) and finish the last of my yogurt (not appointed, but satisfying). I watch from my seat across the room as the band walks in, looks around, and then, before I can say anything, sits down with a person who is definitely not me.
“I’m a writer and a storyteller. Different stories need different kinds of voicing.” These are the words of SassyBlack – aka Seattle’s Catherine Harris-White – an artist, producer, writer and all around versatile expressionist who generates work at such a high volume that it can feel at times that she’s doing so that no one genre, label or category can catch up to her.
Phillip Chavira, recently hired as the new Executive Director of the Intiman Theater, has a motto: “Keep color on stage.” And he means it. Prior to moving to the Emerald City some three-and-a-half months ago, Chavira produced Eclipsed on Broadway in New York City, which featured the first-ever all-female cast, playwright and directing team on the famous theatrical thoroughfare.
Seattle filmmaker Wes Hurley recently debuted his newest project, Little Potato, to cheering audiences at SXSW. Metaphorically, the movie (co-directed by Nathan Miller) is a story about suffering repression and experiencing relief. Literally, though, the story is about Hurley and his mother leaving a dangerous and corrupt Russia to find freedom in America.
Re-bar occupies a strange and lovely place in Seattle – both spatially and historically. The bar, located in the nebulous Denny Triangle, has provided a safe space for queer nightlife in the city for decades. It’s also where Nirvana staged its record release show for Nevermind (and where the band was famously kicked out of that same night).
Miss Coco Peru has been there and done that – all in a shoulder-length, red flip hairdo, naturally. Unlike most drag performers, Ms. Peru forewent lip-synching and dancing and instead made a name for herself as a monologist and creator of one-woman shows. A period of successful performances in New York’s cabaret circuit eventually led to stints in film and television.
With a composed, sweet, and measured voice, the woman behind the spastic, exaggerated femme persona known as Cherdonna Shinatra describes her upcoming projects. The tone of the conversation is markedly different compared to the character’s at-times cartoonish physicality, but the woman behind Cherdonna, Seattle’s Jody Kuehner, has no problem with the concept of dichotomy.
Keon Volt Price is not afraid of sex – not afraid to talk about it, to dance sexually in public or even to laugh about it. “Sex is in every culture,” says the Seattle-based 29-year-old dancer and burlesque performer. “No matter how you feel about it, it’s in every culture.”
For Seattle’s Marc Kenison – known also by his stage name, Waxie Moon – boylesque is still shaping and defining itself as an art form. Kenison, a prolific performer who identifies as a boylesque dancer first and foremost, says the style was born from early 20th century burlesque shows.
The kink phenomenon of pup play, role-playing the persona of a puppy, shows no signs of slowing down in its popularity. I recently got to chat with Pup Turbo, Northwest Puppy for 2016 and current reigning International Puppy. He’s passionate about his kinks and sharing them with the community.
What makes a game queer? How do we make our games more inclusive, and extend out into the community? These questions and many more are explored among fans and at conventions, but in recent years, the study of queerness in games has extended into more academic pursuits.