Queer Voices
Queer Voices
November 27th 2024 Queer Voices, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), Catastrophic Theater's "Love Bomb"
Discover the power of student-led advocacy as Cameron Samuels and Hayden Cohen, the dynamic co-founders of SEAT (Students Engaged in Advancing Texas), share their inspiring journey. Learn how these young leaders transformed challenges into opportunities, from unblocking LGBTQ websites in Katy ISD schools to fighting against book removals and anti-transgender policies. With personal anecdotes and their evolution from high school activists to influential advocates, Cameron and Hayden provide a compelling look at the vibrant world of youth advocacy in Texas.
Prepare to be inspired by the proactive strategies students are employing to shape education policy. We delve into the creation of a Student Bill of Rights, collaborations with the Transgender Education Network of Texas, and participation in the 100 Good Bills Project. SEAT’s initiatives, such as the peer mentor network and Texas Legislature Changemaker Boot Camp, equip students with essential leadership skills and opportunities to engage directly in policy-making. Cameron shares his personal transformation, fueled by the discrimination he faced, and his drive to ensure students' voices are heard in the halls of power.
And for a unique twist, explore the intersection of advocacy and the arts with Brian Jucha's interdisciplinary theater work. Brian's latest production, "Love Bomb," brings a fresh blend of music and performance to the Houston scene, inspired by the iconic singer-songwriter Melanie. With heartfelt stories and collaborative efforts, this episode captures the essence of long-term social movements and highlights the enduring fight for student and LGBTQ+ rights, making it a must-listen for anyone passionate about change and the transformative power of theater.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a podcast and radio show that's been on the air for several decades as one of the oldest LGBTQ plus radio shows in the southern United States. This week's episode takes us from the theater seats to a seat at the table, starting with the co-founders of Seat Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, led by Cameron Samuels and Hayden Cohen, and their conversation with producer Deborah Moncrief-Bell.
Speaker 2:She was founded upon the premise that students deserve to have a seat at the table in the decisions that directly impact us, that our voices have power, that we're the experts of our personal experiences in school and so we deserve to have that agency.
Speaker 1:Later, brett Cullum speaks with Brian Yuka, producer of Love Bomb, a show that recently premiered at the Match from Catastrophic running from now until December 7th.
Speaker 3:What I do is interdisciplinary dance theater that has a loose narrative that can be interpreted differently from one audience member to the next. Text in my work is not the primary source of the experience.
Speaker 1:Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:This is Deborah Moncrief-Bell, and I'm talking with Cameron Samuels and Hayden Cohen, co-founders of SEED Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. So let's start with you, cameron. You were named in 2023 as Transitor Grand Marshal for Houston Pride and you also were recognized by the Human Rights Campaign for your work in the formation of SEED, so explain what the organization is and how it got started.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's a pleasure to share more about our student-led effort that grew in greater Houston and have had nationwide impacts and influence for young people across the nation in a time where we have traditionally been left out of the spaces of education policy and our government institutions. The seat was founded upon the premise that students deserve to have a seat at the table in the decisions that directly impact us, that our voices have power, that we're the experts of our personal experiences in school and so we deserve to have that agency to defend our rights as students in school, to not let others decide for us what we can and cannot learn or do, that we deserve that dignity and that our voice matters. And that's exactly what we're doing in our entirely student-led movement, where young people are showing up on the front lines, where these decisions are being made at school board meetings, in the state legislature and even in Congress and the White House. We have students who are developing transferable skills, demonstrating youth visibility in this policymaking. Because we deserve that seat at the table.
Speaker 4:Certainly, and wasn't there a particular thing that happened in Katy ISD that kind of was the catalyst for the formation?
Speaker 2:Precisely Before SEAT was founded, I was leading efforts as a senior in Katy ISD at Seven Lakes High School.
Speaker 2:I couldn't access LGBTQ websites on my school Wi-Fi and we led a movement founded by students to file legal action with the ACLU to pack school board meetings, to show up and build these relationships with school board members and the district administration. We got those websites unblocked so now students can access life-saving resources like the Trevor Project, suicide Prevention, lifeline. But since then KDISD has continued removing books from shelves, including even recently in this week with a controversy regarding Native American literature and cultural competency and training educators to address controversial issues. To steer clear of what this controversy is. We are still facing issues in KDISD with the anti-transgender policy that was passed in August last year, where we had 400 people show up overwhelmingly in opposition to this policy at the school board meeting. But now students are facing the detriment of this policy where they are being outed to their families for being transgender, that teachers are empowered to deadname and misgender students. This does not serve student body of our great state of Texas when we can't find safety and comfort in educational institutions meant to support us.
Speaker 4:Hayden, you came in on this right from the beginning, I believe.
Speaker 5:Yes, I did, I cannot remember.
Speaker 5:I think I met Cameron, I want to say my senior year of high school or maybe my freshman year of college and that was about the time of the start of the Texas legislative session and we really started connecting on bills, finding other students involved who wanted to be vocal, who are already working in the legislative session, who are already doing things in their school districts, and it really became a more formal organization and a way of giving students their voice, providing a forum for students to use their voices realistically.
Speaker 5:You know there are a lot of folks within SEAT, including myself, who are doing a lot of good work in our school districts, in our schools on the state level. Before SEAT was officially formed, I know I was advocating for my Gender and Sexuality Alliance back in high school and for Wraparound Service Coordinator expansion within my school district back in high school and this formal setting of okay. Now that we're an actual organization, we can do some of this incredible stuff like coalition building. We can formally bring in more students. We can bring in more money and resources so that students have access to be able to advocate for themselves in schools.
Speaker 4:Yeah, has it spread beyond Texas as an organization?
Speaker 5:So we predominantly focus on students' needs and student advocacy in Texas. We are 100% Texas-based. However, we do have coalition partners who are outside of Texas. We have worked with organizations outside of Texas and we also have worked a bit on the federal level. We have a wonderful federal policy, director Ayan, who has done stuff at the White House. We've worked to file a bill with Congressman Maxwell Frost's office the Stop Book Bans Act and so we have done stuff on the federal level that would impact more than just Texas students and coordinated with organizations outside of Texas. But predominantly we're here to help Texas students advocate for themselves and support the work that they're doing in Texas.
Speaker 4:In a lot of ways, it seems like Texas is ground zero for a lot of the things that are going on. What sorts of things are you involved in other than Seed Hayden? I think you have quite the resume.
Speaker 5:I do so. I do a lot of work in partisan politics and I'm going to be careful what I say because Seed is a 501c3, and so we're here to advocate for education and not necessarily Republican or Democrat. But I am involved with the Houston LGBTQ Plus Political Caucus so I screen a lot of candidates, I have a lot of connections through there and that's been a wonderful group to really understand LGBTQ issues, especially on a local level. And then I've worked on some smaller campaigns. I've done other nonprofit work in the legislative session.
Speaker 5:In the last legislative session I was actually working for an organization with their youth advocacy program and I ended up testifying on a few mental health related bills for higher education. They focused a lot on, like, younger people, 18 to 35. So I've been involved in those ways. And then I do a lot for voter registration and education and advocacy. So going into high schools teaching students about the importance of voting, hearing them out, hearing what they, how they relate to voting, how they feel about the Electoral College and about different political issues, and then encouraging them all to get registered to vote. And I'd go in and help everyone get registered.
Speaker 4:Thank you for doing that work. It's just so important and I think it's wonderful that people like you and Cameron are stepping up and, like I say, you're the ones that are going to inherit the mess that we're currently in and hopefully be able to work towards a better future for everyone. The legislative session is coming up again in January here in Texas. Are there particular things that you're looking at that would have an impact that you want to work for or against?
Speaker 5:So when planning for the legislative session, we had a few different ways to go about it, and what we decided was to kind of take inspiration from the teachers union, from AFT, and create a student bill of rights, and this is basically an outline that can be used anywhere on local, state or federal level to basically provide a guideline and an outline for what we're advocating for, based on what students deserve and this was extremely collaborative with students of all ages across the state applicable to high school, college, elementary school, graduate school, whatever.
Speaker 5:And so we created the Student Bill of Rights and that's what we're going to be basing off of a lot of our legislative actions off of and kind of using as an argument for being for or against bills.
Speaker 5:We are working with an organization currently working with a transgender education network of Texas on their 100 good bills project. So filing is probably going to end up being over 100 positive LGBTQ plus bills and we're going to be focusing specifically on pro LGBTQ plus education bills. So we Cameron and I and a few other students have already started bouncing ideas off of for that and we'll be bringing those to legislators very soon, and then we're also keeping our eye on some of the bad bills that we expect to come out of the legislative session, things like trying to get vouchers passed again, more censorship bills, more attempts to ban gender sexuality, alliances to expand internet filters, to ban more books. Right, we're really being hyper aware and vigilant of the potential bills we might see come up in this session and then strategizing amongst ourselves and with our coalition partners and community partners on how we're going to fight each bill as they come.
Speaker 4:How does someone find SEAT and get involved? I?
Speaker 2:can jump in here to say that SEAT is a peer mentor network where we don't necessarily have a centralized, more organizational branding. It's very much built upon the efforts of the students who this movement represents. A movement relies on bringing people in and having conversations, building those relationships and cultivating personal growth and leadership development. And that's exactly what SEAT serves to be. Where students often come to us because they have issues that are taking place in their schools or they have that dread or want to do something about these challenging issues that our generation is facing, and they don't necessarily know where to begin. But they know that something can be done and we partner with students across Texas to build that confidence, to skill build, to broker connections with the media or organizational partners so they can learn to public speak, to represent their school district and the student experience that they embody, to have these opportunities for policy transformation and cultural shifts in their community.
Speaker 2:One recent program that we held this fall semester is the Texas Legislature Changemaker Boot Camp, which is a partnership that we had with the Youth Democracy Lab in organizing this boot camp that recently graduated 43 students in Texas.
Speaker 2:43 students have graduated from 10 hours of action-based learning and, as Hayden eloquently expressed, we are now shifting gears into authoring student-led bills and now as well, with this program, not only do students have that opportunity to write bills of their own to actually shape the Texas legislature in the way that they want, but they now also have the opportunity for internship matching both inside lawmaker offices in the Capitol and then also with professional advocacy organizations in the Texas educational political landscape. So we are facilitating these internships with these partners and offices where students can be part of actually changing these institutions, progressing them, bringing their expertise as a student and their career goals and ambitions to actually have an internal stake and capability to transform these institutions. So we will have direct liaison to the Texas Capitol, not only with the relationships that we've already built with lawmakers, but to actually have highly trained and highly competent student leaders who can imagine really big for what Texas can look like if we all come together and advance the status quo.
Speaker 4:Cameron, you've moved on to college and I assume that you are involved in other activism at the college level. I'm thinking back to when you very first started and what that must have been like. What gave you the ability to go talk in front of the school board and to recruit other students to be involved? What was going on that led you to that and what did it feel like?
Speaker 2:That's a really great question, because I've always been an introvert. I've been someone who just loves education, I've been the self-proclaimed nerd and I never really felt that confidence to go up in public and speak my mind. I didn't have that confidence. I didn't really know that this was something I could do and I was just accidentally forced into this by the discrimination that I faced in KDISD to jump into this whirlwind of movement building and challenging oppression, working to better not only my situation as a student but my peers and classmates and all those who would come after me. It was something I never really expected and it was challenging at first to go out of that bubble that I didn't know that this was something I could do, to be an advocate on the front lines of change, but I knew that not seeing students at the forefront, that was something I wanted to change. I wanted to be a part of changing that, to flip the narrative on its side, that students actually do have the ability to show up in these spaces. That me both adults and my peers and I knew that we had momentum growing, not only on the advocacy side but in terms of solving this issue where students are not at the table and I know that now, as a college student after graduating high school.
Speaker 2:I know that now, as a college student after graduating high school, I at the helm of building this movement with amazing people like Hayden and seeing that we together have these experiences through the past few years of doing this incredible work as Hayden outlined, and now we have something to share with those who are currently in high school or even in middle school Generation Z and Gen Alpha and the come up in middle and high school and growing as leaders, where I never wanted any student to feel alone and isolated like I did when I stood up to my school board by myself, the only student in that room, and just feeling the chills down my spine and the trembling in my arms and legs as I was speaking to my school board and just not really finding any sort of support or comfort in that cold room, and to return with a movement of students and supporters to have all of this support.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure that every student has that opportunity and that's why I'm so invested in building this movement of students, not only to be leaders and to change unjust systems of oppression, but, in a sense, that I too have become an educator, have become a mentor where I am helping students thrive, but then learning from them in that process. That this is a learning process for me to become a better person, a better leader, a better educator. And if we don't see our life as being able to take it forward, to invest in those who come after us, then what are we doing it for? Is the question that I asked myself.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and I think you'll find, if you talk to activists through the years, that many of them will say how they didn't know they could do it until they did it. And then you also gain so many skills and become educated by doing the work. So I think that's very exciting, and you just gave a list of new labels for various generations. I'm going to have to catch up with what's going on. So, hayden, how was it for you when you took that first step?
Speaker 5:I shared some of the same feelings as Cameron when I started advocacy. One of the big things I started working on was the sexual education curriculum in HISD, because we have TEKS, which is our standard Texas curriculum, but then HISD, houston Independent School District, they have their own sort of guidelines for educators which, yes, you have to include TEEEX, but these were additional and some of the guidelines I thought were kind of messed up for the sexual education curriculum, for the health curriculum, and I had to do a lot of searching. I had to ask a few teachers and I finally figured out a few folks to speak to and they told me I'm the wrong person or they were the wrong person that I should speak to and I need to speak to. And they told me I'm the wrong person or they were the wrong person that I should speak to and I need to speak to other people. And it was a bit. It was a bit confusing, but even as a what was I 15, 16 years old, I did figure it out. I spoke to the right people, we made some change, and same goes with the trans restroom policy. I brought it to a few folks and they connected me with the dying student congress that we had at the time and we all ended up speaking on that at a school board meeting. So I didn't speak in front of a crowd starting out alone, but it was definitely nothing like what we have at C where, oh, you want to speak at a school board? Okay, well, we'll get five more students to show up with you, so you have some moral support. It was nothing like that. And also something that was different was when I was starting out in advocacy and policy spaces and political spaces.
Speaker 5:It was in the midst of the pandemic and I think advocacy during that time looked very different than what it looks like now. Right, then I was meeting with folks either in a mask outside or most of it was virtually. I had been virtual for a while and so it looked very different and a lot of things had changed. Nowadays it's a lot more in person. Everything we can do is a lot more in person. Right, we're now paying for transportation for students to get to places to testify, and there's a lot more that goes into that. That didn't when I was in high school, but I still think in high school I felt like I was the only one standing up a bit because nobody else around me was thinking about these issues. Nobody else was bothered that trans students had to just use the nurse's restroom but in another school 10 minutes away they could use whatever restroom they felt comfortable using. It seemed like I was the only one recognizing these issues and trying to advocate for them, and it was funny when I brought it to my principal.
Speaker 5:She was like I don't know what you're talking about. You mean, there's an issue with all of you going to the nurse's restroom in your five-minute break between classes, what? And so it was definitely a lonely fight at the beginning.
Speaker 4:This is Deborah Moncrief-Bell, and we're talking with Hayden Cohen and Cameron Samuels, the co-founders of SEAT Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, and they've done a whole lot of work to do that. The group was recognized recently at the Transgender Unity Banquet. I don't remember the name of the award that was given. Can you recall, hayden? I?
Speaker 5:would have to physically look at the award. I know it was won for a collective organization. It was actually specifically for an ally organization, which we kind of laughed about because some folks are allies to the trans.
Speaker 4:You have been aided by other organizations and gotten training, so that it becomes easier, because you're not going in there without knowing a little bit. I think the first time I ever lobbied it was in Congress and I was talking to Bill Archer, who was at the time the most conservative voting member of Congress. This is many, many years ago and I didn't know I had not received enough training. I had gotten a little bit from the National Organization for Women, but essentially we just went in there and talked to him. I don't know that we made any difference, but it let me know that it was something that I could do. What have been the most important lessons that you have learned? And, hayden, you can start, and then we'll ask Cameron.
Speaker 5:I will tell anyone this, and Cameron knows this all too well If you want to make some significant change, if you want to make some longstanding change, you can't do it alone. You really have to be working with other folks. And I think SEED's so special because we are learning off of one another and it, as Kara mentioned, it is more of a peer mentor network, right? Nobody's in this alone, nobody's testifying alone. We're, we're watching each other, we're sending each other texts of encouragement, you know, and we're all kind of in this together, as well as with other organizations outside of us, um, actualual, like adult, adult people who have done this for many years, who maybe have degrees by now.
Speaker 5:So I think that's one of the most important things. And then I think the other thing is you really have to be passionate. That was, I think that's, why I ended up going on for so much of high school, because there weren't other people around me that were that kind of that, had that kind of passion. And with seat when you get to meet the students a part of seat you see so much passion with them. You see so much we have a hebrew word for it, but like so much I don't know how to explain it in english, but basically a lot of passion, um for the work they're doing right.
Speaker 5:These are students who are directly affected by these issues, who have felt the consequences of these bills or their policies and felt disenfranchised by them, felt like this was affecting their education, this was affecting their livelihood in schools every day, and so they're fighting to make this change.
Speaker 5:They're doing it for themselves, they're doing it for their peers, they're doing it for their siblings. This change, they're doing it for themselves, they're doing it for their peers, they're doing it for their siblings, and it's something like you've never seen before, when students will do anything and everything to make change in their communities. And I think that's one of the biggest tools we have is our encouragement of each other, and our passion to keep going is our encouragement of each other and our passion to keep going. I know that there have been very long days in the Texas legislature, days where you're starting to drive from Houston at 5 am, you're not getting home till 1 pm or you're staying overnight for a day or two, and it's so important that we keep this passion with us that we're encouraging each other throughout this.
Speaker 4:And Cameron. How about you? What has been what you have learned from doing the work?
Speaker 2:How can I follow that? Thank you, hayden. And I could add that movements don't happen overnight. That's one thing I've learned. Movements take time. It's a long game. It's about taking the moment and making a movement out of it to advance the status quo, to move the needle, and that can be accomplished by something like a hashtag, by legislation, by a lapel pin. But really it's more about what's built by the people. There has to be a person, there needs to be people behind those tactics.
Speaker 2:As Hayden expressed, we are a movement of people and I learned that we will lose. That does happen. There will be losses in this long game, but we can look back and see that we have made progress, that these little losses over time have been accompanied by major wins, that we are moving the needle and it is difficult to continue on our way because, being a movement built by people, we need to take care of ourselves. We need that healing and restoration while lawmakers are passing very cruel policies. While lawmakers are passing very cruel policies, cruelty is their point. They want to crush us, our heart and our soul, and that's where we stick together. We stand up for one another. When one person can't speak for themselves, we work to help elevate each other. We are in this together and that healing will result in balance, where we aim to make these policy shifts. But we also know that we have an audience of the public too, that if the public is not on our side, then of course we're going to see these policies take place.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say the court of public opinion is something that we most definitely have to keep in mind, where, if we are only looking at the wins and losses politically, then we are forgetting about the public that is around us in our everyday situations and those shifts are just as impactful because those are people who can be part of our movement.
Speaker 4:What you just talked about brings me to my next question. And we can't ask for donations. But other than that, how can the public, how can we who want to be allies, have an impact on the work of SEAT?
Speaker 2:Every person has a role they can play. Everyone has an individual expertise, is positioned in a unique role as an individual, as a part of the workforce, as a person of their family. There is there is a unique way that each person can show up, and who better to know what that way is but each of ourselves? So, listening here today to y'all identify what you can do to show up. There's more than just one way, but start with that one way when you can show up by making your voice heard in the circles around you, or taking it even a step further and posting on social media, writing an op-ed or speaking at your school board meeting or the state legislature. Our voices can have impact and when we do it together, then we are stronger, in a sense that this is not just one person alone, and showing up can mean financially, but that's not the only way toward one objective and one goal. We, with our many different tactics and contributions, will ultimately be stronger when we act like a majority.
Speaker 4:And I think I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 5:I did want to answer Bill on this one. I think for folks who are specifically looking to get plugged in and associated with SEED, we do have a lot going on on social media, so following us on social media, but we also, on our website, studentsengagedorg, we have a get involved tab so you can book a meeting with an organizer, you can email us if you'd like to get involved. A lot of folks hear about SEAT through pieces that we've been a part of, with publications or times that we've spoken at events, or maybe times that we're tabling at events, and so we have plenty of folks who will just email us and be like hey, I'm a student at this place and I'd like to get involved with y'all, and as students we actually have a Slack, but for adults we can communicate through email or social media, and those are some great ways to kind of get plugged in to the work that we're doing and so that we can also support the work that students want to do on their own. Well, not on their own, because we'll be with them.
Speaker 4:And Hayden, you were a recent recipient of a Gayist and Greatest Award from that. Readers of Outsmart magazine I don't remember what category that was in readers of outsmart magazine.
Speaker 5:I I don't remember what category that was in it was the most prominent or, yeah, most prominent lgbtq plus youth activist and it was funny because I accepted my award and I had to get the x's written on my hand because I was under 21 at the club I feel venue.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry you cut out part of that. Say that sentence again.
Speaker 5:It was the most prominent lgbtq, lgbtq youth activist, and it was funny because at the venue that they held the awards party at, I actually had to get massive black X's drawn on my hand because I was too young.
Speaker 4:You were underage for drinking alcohol, so they had to make sure that you weren't served anything. I was the only one with that on, believe me, yeah and there was a lovely write-up in Outsmart Magazine featuring Hayden, and that's another good way to learn about some of the issues that CD is working on. Hayden and Cameron, I appreciate you being with us here on Queer Voices. Is there anything else you want to tell us that we didn't cover?
Speaker 2:I guess public education is going to be a major issue in the upcoming state legislative session. So there are intersections between public education.
Speaker 4:Stop, stop, stop. Start that sentence again, because there was some crosstalk there. So say again, starting with the word education.
Speaker 2:Public education is going to be a major issue in the upcoming spring legislative session in Texas, and there are great intersections between public education and LGBTQ identity. So it's going to be our responsibility to remain vigilant and show up when those times arise where our rights, our dignity, is going to be on the chopping block. And we're going to do all that we can with SEAT and hope that everyone listening in can join us in doing so to advance our rights as queer people and strengthen the foundation of our democracy through protecting and defending public education.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you both for being with us on Queer Voices.
Speaker 7:This is Queer Voices. Brian Yuka has created original interdisciplinary theater works for decades. He's an early participant in the development of Viewpoints Theory. He worked with Ann Bogart for years, culminating in forming Via Theater, which he took over as artistic director and became a part of the downtown New York City performance landscape of the 90s. And Via Theater produced two to three original works a year. It's amazing. You go back, you look at New York Times interviews and their raves and everybody loves it.
Speaker 7:But in Houston we get to experience Brian's work through Catastrophic Theater and Love Bomb opens on November 15th at the Match Facility in Midtown and runs into early December. This will be his fifth collaboration with Catastrophic and its forerunner, infernal Bridegroom Productions, including they Do Not Move, toast Last Rites and we have Some Planes. And we have Some Planes has a specific history to it because it landed Yuka and the Catastrophic IBP Ensemble on the cover of American Theatre Magazine, which they still talk about. So welcome to Queer Voices, brian Yuka. Thank you Happy to be here.
Speaker 7:I'm excited to have you because obviously I mean from this introduction you've done a lot and you're definitely an artist of note and you definitely made an impact here on the Houston scene and Love Bomb, the most recent work. It's touted as a conceptual musical about taxi dancers, set to the tunes of Melanie, the girl from Woodstock who everybody knows because of that dang song about roller skates Love Bomb, obviously. Now I have been a theater critic for 10 years and I missed. We have Some Planes it was before my tenure of doing that. For some reason, another Broadway role writer took the assignment for every other collaboration that you've done with Catastrophic, so I am coming in fresh. What can I expect from?
Speaker 3:Love Ball, oh boy. Well, what I do is interdisciplinary dance theater that has a loose narrative that can be interpreted differently from one audience member to the next. Text in my work is not the primary source of the experience. The text is as important as the music, as the movement, as the gestures, as the dance, as the songs, as what is happening between actors, relationship-wise from one to the other. And, as I say, you know the funny thing about we have Some Plans. There were eight company members in that and we had some people come back and see it eight times so they could just watch each person Because, honestly, if you, you know, depending on who you lom onto at any given moment, you're experiencing something different. So it's not just to be clear, it is not. It is not site specific, it is not interactive. It is not just to be clear, it is not. It is not size specific, it is not interactive, it is not audience participation.
Speaker 7:Melanie is a connection that we probably have, because I'm a big fan of Melanie as an artist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I heard that, which I think is crazy.
Speaker 7:It is kind of crazy. And she is the musical muse for this show. What made you want to do a piece exclusively with her music?
Speaker 3:okay, I was a teenage melanie groupie yeah, I saw pictures okay, I discovered her when I was 10 and I went to see her in concert for the first time when I was 11. Between the ages of 11 and 20 I probably saw her 40 times maybe. And then the joke is I then went from Melanie to Patti Smith. That was my grouping status. But so I mean I have known her for ever and for ages.
Speaker 3:I have always wanted to do a piece using her songs. I was planning to do this last summer. I never anticipated that she would pass away, which she passed away in January, so I actually never got around to asking her if it was okay with her. I have gotten the approval and the blessing of her family and her children and her record company and manager, so, but I think she would have been pleased. You know what I love about her and if you know her stuff, most people who know of her know her hit and have this conception of her as this you know, flower child, hippie girl. Her first two albums are very, you know they were very inspired by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. They're gems of songs about relationships, you know, and falling in love and stuff like that and falling out of love. Most of what we are using are songs from her very, very early career, which were written mostly when she was a teenager. So I've wanted to do this for a very long time and I'm finally happy to get around to it.
Speaker 7:Apparently since you were 10.
Speaker 3:Happy to get around to it the way, apparently since you were 10. Yes, apparently since I was 10, you know. The way that it's being structured is that in our dance hall the taxi dancers also work as cabaret performers. So the melanie songs are being performed as cabaret songs as opposed to having a book that the songs inform one way or the other. So they are informing the characters, but they're not unlike a traditional musical. The songs are not motivating the action of the play.
Speaker 7:It's more like a cabaret presentation and actually, ironically, the play cabaret sometimes has these musical numbers that are just presented as performances, which is kind of an interesting dichotomy there. But do you have like a favorite, melanie song? I just was really curious.
Speaker 3:Just I know it's like choosing sophie's choice, but well, you know, it's really, really weird because I would have answered that differently six weeks ago, but because of the seven, because of the seven songs that we are doing, I've fallen back in love with some of the early songs that we are doing.
Speaker 3:I've fallen back in love with some of the early ones that I had kind of forgotten about, including I don't even know if I should name them or not One of them was suggested by Melanie's manager and it has turned out to work out so brilliantly. The song is called Take Me Home, which I had kind of forgotten about, and he was like you should consider Take Me Home and I was, like you know, went and listened to it and I was like, oh my God, that's perfect. One of my favorite songs is Leftover Emotion, which we are doing, which was written in her later years but wasn't really didn't get the recording due that it should have gotten when she was younger. She did record it several times, you know, in her later years, but it didn't make it on any of the you know big albums in the 70s. The album photograph is my favorite.
Speaker 7:I think that that's her work of genius that didn't get to do it deserved probably one of my favorite songs is leftover wine, which I have a feeling probably wouldn't be in the show, but because it never happens and I also really like Lay Down, yeah, that's not in the show either you're killing me and neither is Brand New Key that I'm fine with.
Speaker 7:To me Brand New Key was always like the gateway drug to Melanie for people I felt like you know people kind of. It was the hit that you knew, but it really was kind of this novelty hit kind of thing and she did some things with her voice on it and it was a little bit it wasn't my favorite of hers, I think it's. It's a cute kooky song, very catchy and obviously used a great effect in film and commercials and everything else now and part of our pop culture. But I do think there are so many more wonderful. As you said, she's kind of the taylor swift of her time as far as like breakup songs and you know she was, I mean, and interesting.
Speaker 3:I I mean I honestly do feel like she didn't get her due, because in 70, 71, 72, she was, like you know, billboard's top female vocalist and I mean she started her own record company when she had a falling out with buddha. So she's the first woman that did that started. I mean mean, imagine a woman in 1971, starting her own record company, like that was completely unheard of. But then, you know, by 78, she was kind of like gone, you know, and also she will say, wanted to have children. So she had three beautiful children and that was more important to her than her career, I think.
Speaker 7:Now you mentioned a term going back to Love Bomb that some listeners may not be familiar with taxi dancer. What exactly is a taxi dancer?
Speaker 3:Well, a taxi dancer is a term for okay. It was something that happened in the 30s and 40s, before the, you know, around the war time period there would be clubs where and it's largely thought that it's mostly men going to women, but it also was women going to men where you could go and pay someone to dance with you and they were called taxi dancers because then afterwards everybody would get in their taxis and go home. But it's basically what Sweet Charity is based on. Sweet Charity is a taxi dancer. You look at the number Big Spender. That is completely about taxi dancers. I first heard it with an interview with Rudolph Valentino, because apparently he was a taxi dancer before he was famous and of course he implied that it was more than just being a taxi dancer that led into prostitution. I just found it very interesting in terms of a dance hall place that people would go to dance with somebody and pay them five cents or a nickel for a dance. So I think it's a great premise for human interaction.
Speaker 7:You know I would do it now.
Speaker 3:I'm going to be honest. You would go pay someone for a dance. Sure, absolutely.
Speaker 7:I see nothing wrong. We should bring this back.
Speaker 3:Maybe we should have a night after the show where we just taxi dance.
Speaker 7:Genius, let's do it.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 7:So I have heard urban myth, myth, whatever, but that you often come to houston with a concept and maybe you have a beginning, maybe you have an end. You get together with the cast, the catastrophic artists, you collaborate and create this whole show kind of organically. Is that tell me a little bit about your process and how you kind of differ from somebody that comes in with a full, fully realized, like a Michael Marr that has everything already done?
Speaker 3:Normally I have themes, I have ideas for things that will happen. There might be a structure that we play off of, like last Rites we played off of Rites of Spring Stravinsky's ballet. We have some really easy because it was text from the morning of September 11th. So we literally use that as the structure. They said the text at the time that the text was said. You know, that morning we will do composition work where the actors will create original characters. What they do is what becomes the basis for what the audience sees.
Speaker 3:We also use something called viewpoint improv work, which goes way back, which you mentioned earlier. But I did study with Ann Bogart and Mary Overly in 78 and 79 at NYU's Experimental Theater Wing, and also Wendell Beavers, who was Mary's husband at the time, and so we use the viewpoint method of improv to really create the human interactions that happen. We have pulled found texts from places. Occasionally we will have the basis for a text but, like even with Love Bomb, I tried not to have a text were a text. But, like even even with love bomb, I tried not to have a text, but I found that to put it together in four weeks we needed something structurally to ground it.
Speaker 3:I won't say what it is some people may recognize it and some people may not, but it does have something to do with serial killers and so I love you catastrophic artists Cause you always come to me with this kind of thing.
Speaker 7:But like go back and listen to my interview with Walt Zippering about Sarah Gaines cleansed he would not tell me.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, part of it is you also want people to be surprised and you don't want people to come in with a preconceived notion Toast. We use the script of Alien, of the movie Alien. Now, if I said that to people before they came okay, and that was just one thing, you know, there was a lot of other text with it If I said to people, we're doing the script of Alien, well, you would think that that's what you would think, that we were doing helium, which is not what we were doing. So that's why I don't want to say what the justice was, because it would lead people to think one thing rather than experiencing it for themselves.
Speaker 7:This blows my mind because obviously I told you you know, I've been a theater critic for 10 years and I've been an actor for a lot longer and I don't want to admit that how long I think about this and I'm like, if you wanted to restage, like we have some planes, it would be a different show, wouldn't it? I mean, even if you cast the same people, they probably would come up with different things. Or I mean what in this process?
Speaker 3:I think it would be interesting and I kind of would love to restage we have some plans, because so many people were afraid of it, because we did that in like march of 2002, I believe that the actors would have to learn what the actor's original score was, and then they could make changes to some extent, but you'd still have to honor what the person originally did. So, yeah, I mean my, my, there's only been one piece that I remounted and it pretty much we ended up having two or three actors replace the original cast, and it was pretty much the same so you just go through this process once and then, if you ever do it again, you've got kind of the basis well, yeah, we actually we don't have the history of that because we haven't really done it.
Speaker 7:If I do anything again, previously when I talked with jason, he was saying that you kind of work with them exclusively now or are you still working with Via?
Speaker 3:No, Via disbanded. I mean yeah, via disbanded, you know in the early aughts.
Speaker 3:You know, via Theatre was originally a company that was created for Anne Bogart to produce her work in New York and she wanted to open it up to other directors. So we did and we were doing that and I was the first, and then we all went to Trinity Rep for a year where she was given the artistic directorship and then when we came back a lot of the Trinity Rep performers kind of became the Via Theatre company. I kind of took it over because Anne was moving in other directions. You know and listen, I mean this is my hats off to Catastrophic. The administrative horror show of raising money to do theater in the United States is incredibly draining in the United States is incredibly draining. So you know, after 15 years of Via Theater, you know, every time we did a show we were $10,000 in debt.
Speaker 3:The fact that Catastrophic has been doing this for 30 years is just phenomenal, and phenomenal that so many of the same people are there. You know to think that people that I did the shows with in, you know, 1997 are still a part of the company is just that's nuts, you know, or that you know of the seven people that are doing Love Bob, six of them have done other shows with me before. You know some of them have done three or four. So Tamri Cooper has done all five. So you know it's just amazing that they're. Because I so strongly believe in the concept of company and I think that what a company of actors can do, you know there's a shorthand that just doesn't exist. I think with you know you have to like get through that period with a new group of actors that when you have a company they just they fall right into some kind of a pattern and pace that is just genius.
Speaker 7:So well, I've always had the perspective that catastrophic is definitely one of the jewels of the houston theater scene because they do stuff that nobody would touch. Your larger companies are never going to do it. They're not going to take a chance with experimental theater, they're going to run away from it shrieking because they've got christmas carol and've got Christmas Carol and they've got Wicked and they've got Phantom of the Opera. That's going to make them tons of money. So you know, putting on a musical with Melanie songs about taxi dancers is not on their bucket list or whatever.
Speaker 7:And I love the, the viewpoint that they bring, the fact that they do have this longevity and they do have this history. And you do feel that as a audience member even you can feel that connection between some of their company and the through line of coming and seeing them over again and different iterations of themselves and watching them grow as actors and all of that. It's it's it's a neat feeling, I think, and it's one that I think is unique not only to Houston but to Catastrophic itself. I mean, I have not seen very many companies like this around the country. So, and so often we get artists that can't do business, and that's one of the problems with our industry is it's hard to fund these things because we're not financial people.
Speaker 3:That's why you know the theater system has managing directors.
Speaker 7:So it's interesting and Houston really embraces Catastrophic, which I think is wonderful and definitely anytime that you come to town it's always a big event. So there you go.
Speaker 3:And I have moved here. Have you? I have moved here? Yes, yeah, the story of this was I had done the first two shows with Infernal Broadgroom and then Jason was asking me every year if I would come and do a show and I kept saying I wasn't ready. Plus, my mother was very sick and I was taking care of her and blah, blah, blah and I had, you know, getting away from New York for six and I'm very unusual because I like to go to every performance. So it drives me crazy if I have a show running and I can't go. So, you know, atypically, I would do a show, open it, stay for a week and then leave for two weeks and then come back for the closing, which drove me crazy.
Speaker 3:With Toast, I had a Nest camera in the theater and I watched it every night from home. But no, the idea was, before COVID, I was going to buy, I was going to look for a place down here and snowboard COVID and people working from home and stuff like that, not to mention as somebody who lives in Manhattan trying to find a property in Manhattan, I mean. So basically, I found a condo in Houston. The bedroom is the size of what I could afford in Manhattan alone, and I was just like you know, I don't need to be there anymore.
Speaker 7:Well welcome to Houston as a resident. Absolutely yes, and that's exciting. Does that mean that we're going to see more collaborations with Catastrophic on a more regular basis?
Speaker 3:Well, we hope.
Speaker 7:All right. Well, brian Yuka Love Bomb opens November 15th at the Match Facility in Midtown. It runs into early December. You guys are in the traditional space, match 3, I believe, kind of the catastrophic home most of the time. Sometimes they drift into 4, but I think 3 is typically theirs and of course you've got different nights and things like that. Are there any special events with this one? I know that. Is there going to be a talkback with you?
Speaker 3:There will be a talkback, there will be an industry night. Obviously, we're not doing a show on Thanksgiving, because you know we are. But listen, let me tell you we are the ultimate Christmas holiday entertainment. I was thinking Love.
Speaker 7:Bomb yeah.
Speaker 3:We're really not.
Speaker 7:Take the whole family.
Speaker 3:I said to the company last week that we should sing one of Melanie's Christmas songs as an encore, because her Christmas stuff is great too.
Speaker 7:Well, one thing that you guys do is you do free beer Fridays, so every Friday you can enjoy a canned beverage with the company of Love Bomb and apparently Brian, because it sounds like you're at every single performance.
Speaker 8:So this has been Queer Voices, heard on KPFT Houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our Web page Queericesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka, deborah Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors, and Brett is also our webmaster.
Speaker 6:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species Views, opinions and endorsements. He's also our webmaster, Thank you.
