|
PROVINCETOWN GUIDE
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| DIRECTORY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Provincetown :: Wednesday, February 8th 2012
|
|
|
|
|
|
Brutus, Inc. Provincetown Magazine |
King Me
Gender-Bending Theater
By Provincetown Magazine
PROVINCETOWN MAGAZINE
May 22nd, 2009
Since the early days of theater, playing with gender has been a critical, and sometimes controversial, element of performance. From Shakespeare to the Cockettes, mixing gender roles, and challenging stereotypes and expectations of behavior and dress for men and women has been a consistent part, especially in its most overt form - drag. But for the most part, men are usually the ones driving the theatrical conversation about what makes a man a man, and a woman a woman, and then filling the space between.
| “We sometimes call ourselves ‘modern vaudevillian cabaret’,” says Burgin. |
|
Provincetown has certainly been at the forefront theatrically when it comes to gender-bending theater, with its rich history of drag queens, gender-blind casting in plays, and liberal views on personal expressions of gender in everyday life. But drag kings are relatively new to the Provincetown performance scene, and they are making a mark all there own. Enter All The Kings Men, Boston’s premiere drag king theatrical troupe, which hits the Art House this Memorial Day Weekend.
But to say they are drag kings isn’t exactly accurate.
|  Provincetown Magazine (Brutus, Inc.) |
|
“There wasn’t really any other label to what we did,” says Leighsa Burgin, one of the founding members of All The Kings Men. “We do a lot of gender work in many different ways.”
Rosalind, in As You Like It may have been the first woman to don male drag when she fooled her true love Orlando, while hopping through the Forest of Arden. But in today’s evolving world of gender and theater, where views are changing and cultural understanding broadening, the ladies have something to say as well.
All of the women in All The Kings Men identify as women. And many see the definition of drag as dressing like a woman. So dressing up like a man isn’t necessarily drag in the opposite direction.
“I think drag is very different than what we do,” says Burgin. “I think at this point we are an all-female performance troupe with characters that are men, women, trans, and sometimes even animals or inanimate objects. There are no limits to what we do.”
Following a free-flow, gender-chaos theory allows each member of the audience an individual experience, as each individual person expresses their gender in different ways. We all fill a variety of roles of masculine and feminine. As RuPaul said, “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.”
With their performance work, All The Kings Men, (which in addition to Burgin includes Julee Antonellis, Katie Allen, Jill Gibson, Maria Kogan, and Karin Webb), convey comedic political and social commentary. With short skits, multimedia presentations, dancing, singing, and of course, the blurring of gender lines, All The Kings Men conveys a variety of messages complemented with laughs. Think of the fun and excitement of discovering a trunk in the attic of your grandparents’ home, filled with grandpa’s old Navy uniform and grandma’s feather boa from her days as a lounge singer. Regardless of whether you are male or female, as a child you are going to try both on. It just works. It’s fun and adventurous. That’s the spirit at the core of All The Kings Men.
“We sometimes call ourselves ‘modern vaudevillian cabaret’,” says Burgin.
Founded in 2002, All The Kings Men formed after several drag kings found each other and began working on group performances in each other’s living rooms. Then Kirsten Porter of the uber-popular Boston “Dyke Night” events asked them to headline a show. Without even realizing it, they were officially an ensemble, and their popularity has carried them six years and pushed the evolution of their creativity from drag king performances, to gender-queer theater.
And the response has been great. In 2004 the Boston Phoenix Reader’s Poll named them the city’s “Best Kept Secret” and Curve Magazine picked them as one of the top-ten nationwide winners of the “Best Lesbian Theater Award” in 2006. All The Kings Men have performed at the L.A. Women’s Theater Project and Toronto Pride, as well as at colleges and universities and youth LGBTQ events and conferences.
“The youth events we’ve done have been really amazing,” says Burgin. “We are showing them that you can be queer and be professional and do it with pride and that you can spread your message through art.”
The group has been hard at work trying new ideas and working on the show, which is always changing and “never the same show twice,” says Burgin. But one thing remains a constant, the commitment to producing quality performance, with a message and with a heart.
“We’re a lot more serious about what we do,” says Burgin of the change over the past six years within the group. “We realize we have a social obligation to the causes we discuss in our work. And we love it.”
All The Kings Men performs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, May 22 - 24 at the Art House, 214 Commercial St. at 9 p.m. Tickets are $25 and available online at www.ptownarthouse.com or at the box office. Call 508.487.9222 for more information. Visit www.atkm.com for more information on All The Kings Men.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Arts & Theater
Join Us on 
Classes
