Seven sets of eyes stood not knowing what to expect. Theyglanced from one another to the red curtains closing them in andthen suddenly they simultaneously jumped as voices yelled frombehind the curtains, "Faggot! Fruit cake! Freak!"
Fifteen cast members from both Spectrum and its straight alliesacted out the last 100 years of the gay, lesbian, bisexual andtranvestite community's history in America in junior SarahBradbury's closet of oppression creation, "History, Her Story, YourStory, Our Story."
The audience began its journey in the L.A. Pittenger StudentCenter on Monday night with a look into the GLBT community's PinkParties that took place during Prohibition. At these pink parties,men and women wore pink ties and handkerchiefs to display who wereattending together and drank alcohol dyed pink.
As the history continued, onlookers learned that gays had oncebeen thrown into mental institutions from what was considered to betheir illness. The 1935 ban that both Broadway and the MotionPicture Association placed on refereces to homosexuality surprisedsome, who said in the discussion that followed the performance thatthey had never heard of this before.
Viewers watched actors protraying veterans of war speaking ofthe days when they had not only been asked to leave the army afterfighting for their country, but were asked to out any other gaysthey knew of who were still in the army as they left. Studentswatched as an actor lay face down, illustrating the 1978 murder ofopenly gay San Francisco public official Harvey Milk. Finally, theaudience was taken to the AIDS epidemic. The epidemic was the firsttime the GLBT community had been extensively covered in the media,and it was not positive coverage for the community's first chanceat national publicity.
As the progam wrapped up, members of the cast looked into theaudience and spoke of the 1,513 hate crimes that were reported in2002. The cast told about the AIDS quilt and the fact that it isnow over 51 miles long. Should anyone in the audience have beeninterested in contribnuting to this growing quilt, they were toldto go to AIDSquilt.org to contribute.
Bradbury said the play was a message for everyone at BallState.
"We want to show the entire campus that the GLBT community'shistory isn't just our history - it's the heterosexual community'shistory as well," she said. "That's why we begin the performancewith the words 'our history' and end it with 'your history.'"
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