Wednesday, Sept. 5, 7 p.m.—RANDOLPH—On Wednesday Sept. 5 at 7 p.m., Vermont Pride Festival at Chandler will present Paul Lucas’ groundbreaking play “Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women,” at the First Unitarian Universalist Society, 152 Pearl St., Randolph. The staged reading, in one act, will be followed by a talkback.
The play was given its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Scotland) in August 2015, where it won a Fringe First for New Writing. That production featured the real stories of six transgender women in a ballet of colors and emotions. Each story deftly intertwined with the others, the actors baring their souls to present the experiences of the interviewees, as told in the interviewees’ own words. The Boston Globe described a subsequent American Repertory Theater production as a “… moving testament about the search for self-identity … fast-paced, funny, intelligent, human.”
For “Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women,” Mr. Lucas conducted nearly four years of research, interviewing over 75 people of transgender experience. About the text to be featured, he wrote: “Each of the [now] seven characters’ parts – with the exceptions of three or four monologues – is directly drawn from a single trans woman’s story and experience. However, choices about which stories to include were often influenced by patterns that surfaced persistently. If several interview subjects related a certain experience, I made an effort to include that experience in the text.” Mr. Lucas has now embarked on a similar multi-year interview project with trans men.
Tickets are on sale at chandler-arts.org and by calling 802-728-6464: adults $22, students $17, tax included. Tickets will also be available at the door, by cash or check only.
Photo courtesy of Chandler Center for the Arts
“Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women” features the real stories of six transgender women in a ballet of colors and emotions.
