The Queer VOICES Theater Project returns to The Arts Campus at Willits this weekend, presenting a new collection of personal stories about the LGBTQ+ community titled “Authentically Versus…”
It features several works of “devised theater,” written by the actors themselves based on their lived experiences. They’ll share anecdotes about coming out, and unpacking their gender and sexual identity, supported by other members of the ensemble cast.
There’s music, too, performed by artists like Olivia Pevec.
Music can “inspire — it gives you courage, it gives you motivation,” Pevec said. “It’s an incredibly powerful force.”
Pevec appreciates the supportive environment cultivated by the cast and crew, too. They said this project has helped everyone in the show bond over shared experiences while listening to new ideas.
“It's amazing and wonderful to get to see myself (in others’ stories) — and I think that's the point of storytelling, is to connect with people in their own experience by sharing yours,” Pevec said. “And that’s how we recognize that we’re all a lot more similar than we are different.”
Transforming that identity and experience into theater can still be a vulnerable experience — “daunting,” even, said actor Blake Novy. But it has also been a highly rewarding experience, enhanced by the way cast members have helped one another shape their narrative.
“Honestly, the best part about developing this production has been the rehearsals with the rest of the cast,” Novy said. “Because once I was able to kind of conceptualize my piece … and I brought it to them, they were really able to help me mold it and make it into something that I'm really excited to share.”
Novy grew up here in the Roaring Fork Valley, and said a younger version of themself would have appreciated a show like this one.
“I was always a very outwardly expressive kid, and I didn't really know that everyone else could tell that I was queer for a really long time,” Novy said. “But yeah, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot as a kid.”
Pevec also recognizes the value of this production, in a world where conceptions of gender identity are growing and evolving.
“I've never had to hide who I am, but I have had to fight against boxes,” Pevec said. “And it just makes me feel so hopeful that there's a time coming when we just don't even have to worry about the boxes, we just get to be who we are.”
“Authentically Versus…,” runs Friday through Sunday at TACAW. It’s organized by the Roaring Fork Valley performing arts nonprofit VOICES, which also produces shows focused on the perspectives of women, the Latine community, youth and senior adults.
Each show this weekend will be followed by a different special event: There’s an artist talk-back on Friday, a “Super Gay Dance Party” hosted by AspenOUT on Saturday and a coffee-and-conversation session with the Two Rivers Unitarian Universalist group on Sunday. Tickets are available at tacaw.org.
