July 2009 Archives

Last week, I emailed the State Department to complain about their lack of response to the rising surge of anti-gay violence in Iraq.  Today, I got a friendly response!  I've pasted it below.  Emphasis mine.

from: U.S. Department of State <usdeptstate@mailnj.custhelp.com>
reply-to: "U.S. Department of State" <usdeptstate@mailnj.custhelp.com>
to: danfishback@gmail.com
date: Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 6:29 AM
subject: Anti-Gay Violence in Iraq [Incident: 090721-000104]

Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support
center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

Thank you for contacting the State Department.

Subject
------------------------------
Anti-Gay Violence in Iraq
Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Support Agent) - 07/28/2009 09:29 AM
The Bureau of Public Affairs is in receipt of your message.  Please visit our website at www.state.gov for Secretary of State Clinton's speeches and Department publications.

Thank you for contacting the U.S. Department of State.

Question Reference #090721-000104
---------------------------------------------------------------
Category Level 1: U.S. Foreign Policy
Date Created: 07/21/2009 09:43 AM
Last Updated: 07/28/2009 09:29 AM
Status: Solved

[---001:000750:62919---]

Hello all!

I'm writing you from sunny Los Angeles, in the back yard of Sara FitzSimmons and Kevin Kelly, who you may know as my bandmates from Cheese On Bread.  Matt, also from Cheese On Bread, is programming computers (or something) in the guest house, and Kevin is picking up Cheese On Bread's Dibs and Daoud from the airport.  It is the week of The Great Big Cheese On Bread Wedding, and I am the priest.  (No joke.)

Anyway, this is all just to say that "The Mattachine Project" will be debuting material at Dixon Place TOMORROW and WEDNESDAY, and I won't even be there!  When I started out in theater, I would just show up at the venue with a bag of props, run on stage, and do something I'd created all by myself.  Nowadays, as a Respectable Bodyless Playwright, I don't even have to be in the same time zone. 

"The Mattachine Project" is the most collaborative theater piece I've ever worked on (on which I've ever worked).  I am technically the "writer," but much of what you'll see was crafted from the actors' improvisations, from devised scenarios created by the director, and from tireless research and visioning by our dramaturg and producer.  There will even be one or two scenes I HAVE NEVER SEEN.

This is only the first showing of material from what will eventually be a longer and more developed piece.  And while much of the show is historical (retelling the early history of the modern American gay rights movement), I'd wager to say that it's actually about the present moment - a moment in which you participate - and so we are desirous for your feedback!  This is a show about YOU, and so we want to know what you think!  So please come, stay for the talk-back, and then TALK BACK!

Meanwhile, I'll be getting a tan and playing with Phyllis, Sara's and Kevin's pet chicken.

Much Love
Dan

******************************

I just went to The State Department website to send the following letter.  Please do the same!  This is NOT a form letter from an activist organization; as far as I know, LGBTQ groups have not begun organizing around this issue.  (If you have heard otherwise, please let me know.)  We have to do it ourselves!

To whom it may concern:

On May 26, 2009, U.S. Representatives Jared Polis, Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank sent Secretary Clinton a letter urging her to investigate the increasing wave of anti-gay violence in Iraq.  The letter was co-signed by 38 other Representatives.  To date, there has been no public response.  When will Mme. Clinton at least respond to this issue, let alone take action?

Sincerely,
Dan Fishback

Hello List Friends,

You haven't heard from me since the run of my play, "You Will Experience Silence," this past spring.  It's been a pretty intense few months.  During the rehearsal process for that show, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which got quite bad by the time we closed.  For a while, I was seriously considering moving away from New York, living with my parents, and figuring out how to get through the rest of my life with a condition that most doctors claim is incurable.  Instead, I started acupuncture, went on a strict macrobiotic diet, and stopped going out at night.  After a month, I was starting to feel better.  Still slow, but not totally incapacitated anymore.  My half-recovery arrived just in time to go to the MacDowell Artists Colony in June, to work on two new plays, "The Mattachine Project" and "The Material World."  Now I'm back in the city and looking forward to improvising a new, slower-paced version of my previously chaotic lifestyle.

As part of that slowing-down, I won't actually be performing in these new plays.  You can get a sneak peak at one of them when we workshop "The Mattachine Project," July 28th and 29th at Dixon Place's 2009 HOT! Festival.  It's an uber-collaborative piece, and I am the trusty script writer.  Director extraordinaire Stephen Brackett, who miraculously turned "You Will Experience Silence" into a piece of viable theater, will be doing that for this one too.

The two workshop presentations will be preceded by three FREE salon events ("Mattachine Mondays") where we'll present historical films and other information to open a public dialogue about queer politics and queer history.  We're holding our first salon this Monday, and we'll be screening "Hope Along the Wind," a documentary about Harry Hay.

So, mark your calendars!  I'm excited to see where this show will take us, and your feedback is incredibly valuable at this stage.

Wishing you great warmth this summer,
Love
Dan


The Mattachine Project
Directed by Stephen Brackett; Written by Dan Fishback in collaboration with the ensemble: Chris Andersson, Satya Bhabha, Yuval Boim, Michael Cyril Creighton, Sean Donovan and Philip Taratula. Dramaturgy by Ken Nielsen
Tuesday, July 28 & 29 (7pm), Dixon Place (161 Chrystie Street, NYC)
Tickets $15 in advance / $18 at the door / $12 students and seniors

The Mattachine Project is a devised theater piece exploring and responding to the origins of The Mattachine Society, America's first gay rights organization, and its enigmatic founder, Harry Hay.  By juxtaposing Mattachine's much-overlooked history with depictions of contemporary queer communities in New York and the Middle East, the
performance will explore the complicated relationships between queer people, privilege, oppression, and the search for freedom.

http://www.hotfestival.org
http://www.dixonplace.org



Mattachine Mondays
Hosted by Andy Horwitz, Stephen Brackett, and Dan Fishback
Tuesday, July 6, 13 & 20 at 8:00 pm, Dixon Place (161 Chrystie Street, NYC)
Tickets: FREE

Monday July 6th: Hope Along the Wind

The first Monday Salon will feature a screening of the documentary Hope Along the Wind about Harry Hay. Following the screening the performance project will be introduced and discussed.

Monday July 13th: The history of Homosexual Organization

Harry Hay often claimed that he didn’t know about previous attempts to organize homosexuals in the USA or in Western Europe. In this salon we’ll investigate earlier attempts to organize and define gay male sexuality as a way of understanding the unique qualities of the early Mattachine Society.  This historical framework will lead into a discussion of contemporary forms of gay/lesbian/queer activism and organization.

Monday July 20th: Gay Representations on Stage and Silver Screen

From early in the 20th century representations of gay men became part of the standard repertoire of both the commercial and the alternative theatre. This Monday Salon investigates some of the representations of those who were “that way” as a historical background for our new piece. This leads into a discussion of contemporary representations of queer sexuality.

"...women who want without needing are expensive and sometimes wasteful, but women who need without wanting are dangerous - they suck you in and pretend not to notice."


















-some practical, not necessarily revolutionary advice from Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name