Debutante Balls Review

Southern skin

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Southern skin

Posted: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:00 am

By Dawnell Smith

The one-man show “Debutante Balls” at Out North this weekend uses the tradition of young debutants coming out in Southern society as a narrative that parallels the artist’s own coming out as a lesbian, radical feminist, transgender man and even middle class performance artist.

Scott Turner Schofield’s clever, funny performance examines the variations of wearing and living in one’s own skin. He ultimately wants everyone to enjoy a gala ball celebrating their coming out as whoever they are, but he has a good time unearthing the hilarity, dogma and even beauty of the conventional debutante ball of the South in the meantime.

After all, he grew up as a girl expected to help out with all her girlfriend’s debutante balls, and that freedom allowed him to explore his own skins and coming out.

Schofield grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and now describes himself as “a lesbian turned straight guy who is usually taken for a gay teenager.” It’s easy to see why. He’s capable of wearing all these skins, yet is poignantly only comfortable in one of them.

In his last show at Out North in 2008, he focused on the legal, medical and social elements of changing gender in “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps.”

He mines this material in “Debutante,” but also outside live theater. This month he vied for the top spot in an ABC reality show called “Conveyor Belt of Love,” (see Flashlight, page 6) in which 30 guys on a conveyor belt were given 60 seconds to woo five beauties with ample cleavage. Schofield made it to the final four – and, in a sense, the show’s set-up plays into his ongoing study of tradition and assumption, identity and acceptance, and the simplicity and complexity of human beings.

As for “Debutante,” well touches on many of these ideas through a delirious story of his coming out as a lesbian teenager and later as a transgender man. In a way, you could say that “coming out” is a performance artist’s mission, and Schofield does it admirably. His personable, accessible performance makes his many coming out stories real and moving, and though he sometimes points the spotlight at his audience, he never betrays them or puts them in artificially uncomfortable situations.

Theatrically, he leans on several props to link his many ideas. The set consists of a platform with a gown poised on a simple framework. He uses the gown in many ways: he hides behind it, uses it as a character, climbs under and through it, and even slides his arms into its sleeves until, finally, he dismantles its framework altogether. Representing everything from concealment to truth, the gown provides a visual conduit to his life experience. Its simplicity belies its depth.

On a more abstract level, he brings in sweet tea as the presumed beverage of the South, just as “whiteness” and “heterosexuality” make up the backdrop of life where he grew up.

Eventually, he points out, those with life experiences outside these presumptions need to decide whether to “spit or swallow.”

This notion of either being swallowed whole or having to spit oneself out returns again and again alongside the tea, the gown and the pragmatic truth that the invisibility of queer life can sometimes be an asset. To understand how and why, you’ll need to see the show yourself.

As it happens, Schofield’s Out North performances culminate his six-week stint as Out North’s guest artistic director. He has taken the show all over the country for years, and his timing and pacing show it.

“Debutante” never lulls, yet offers the audience plenty of time for contemplation, and though the material may seem outside of “normal” to some folks, it really just centers on an age-old message told in parables, folk tales, poems, films, songs and books: Just be yourself.

Soon, Schofield will do just that in New York City, where he will study and write.

Debutante Balls will show tonight through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. Tickets cost $20 atwww.outnorth.org, 279-8099 or at the door. Find out more about Schofield’s work atwww.undergroundtransit.com.

Southern skin - Anchorage Press: Arts:

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The Conveyor Belt of Love

Trans man Schofield pops up on dating show

By Mike Fleming | Jan 8, 2010 | 9:12 PM

1

Color us floored yet not completely surprised that writer, performance artist, trans man and Atlanta homeboy Scott Turner Schofield rolled past on ABC’s “Conveyor Belt of Love” reality dating show on Monday, Jan. 4.

One the one hand, we were floored because you don’t expect to see someone you know while surfing through ABC’s mindless Marry Me Monday lineup that also includes the new hottie on “The Bachelor.”

On the other, we weren’t really surprised because we’ve come to expect anything from Schofield (photo), whose introspective, articulate works include successful touring productions and repeated Atlanta runs of “Underground TRANSit” and “How to Become a Man in 127 Easy Steps.”

Schofield was also a 2009 Lambda Literary Award nominee and a 2008 Atlanta Pride Grand Marshal.

For a taste of this incredibly intelligent man’s viewpoint and sense of humor, his website describes him as “a man who was a woman, a lesbian turned straight guy who is usually taken for a gay teenager. A former debutante and homecoming queen coming out in the Deep South…”

ABC describes “Conveyor Belt”: “Five women take a shot at finding love when 30 men are given the chance to impress them as they pass by on a moving conveyor belt.”

We’ll just say it. The show sucks, but we were tickled pink that Schofield’s gender status was never mentioned to the contestants, and that he rocked the fast-paced interview portion. Four of the women declined to put him on their “maybe” list, but one was intrigued. She later chose another guy—presumably born male, but who knows?—from the bunch for a date.

Better luck next time, Scott.

While we were picking our jaws up off the floor, PopEater.com was the first to catch Schofield’s identity and cite it as a victory for LGBTs everywhere in a Wednesday post. They also had this to say:

‘Conveyor Belt’ never disclosed the full story on Schofield, but ABC has a decent track record of representing the LGBTQ community, even casting transgender actor Candis Cayne on the brilliant but canceled ‘Dirty Sexy Money.’ Looks like this only adds to the network’s growing portfolio.

Well, PopEater almost gets that right. They seem to have forgotten November’s hubbub over Adam Lambert oddly being banned/not-banned from the network after his American Music Awards performance, and the allegations of homophobia and gender bias in the matter.

We forgive PopEater completely, though. “LGBTQ” just ain’t their everyday beat, and besides, who can fault a media outlet for total support like that? Extra credit for even knowing about the “Q.”

Schofield did tweet during the show’s airing that he “never thought this would air.” Apparently, he can’t talk about it in detail due to contractual obligations.

PopEater reached out to Schofield who declined an interview due to contractual obligations. “I have nothing to hide about myself, hence my decision to participate in a prime time reality TV show,” he wrote in an e-mail.

That’s OK. We’ll snag him the next time his shows roll him through Atlanta, and in the meantime, you simply must watch this video of his appearance on “Conveyor Belt of Love”:

Trans man Schofield pops up on dating show — Project Q Atlanta:

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Under :30 Sweet 16 2010

We made it on time to Out North last night for Under 30. (Under 30 refers to the time (minutes) of the performance, not the age of the performers. It seems they now spell it Under :30 which I thought was a typo, but now see it's trying to clarify the meaning.) Last week we got to Santaland Diaries a few minutes late and it had already begun and was full, so we weren't allowed in, although we had purchased tickets in advance online. We were able to transfer our payment to this show. So we got there early enough this time to check ou the retrospective exhibit of the Under 30: Sweet Sixteen Archive Exhibit.



The exhibit has a wall length time line of the Under 30 programs from the beginning. And then there were these various props from different shows over the years. We've been to a fair number of them and they are always interesting, and usually there's at least one performer we know.










The last page of the program has a recruitment ad for next year's Under 30.

Many of the performances over the years have been done by people who don't normally do theatrical work.  It seems like as good a way as possible to work on and present something important to the world.  A lot of the work is still in the development stage.  This is the first public showing and gets important feedback for the next stage, if the person wants to go further with it.  Some manage to work well even at this stage. 

There's a more complete proposal description on their website.

The performances were introduced by Scott Turner Schofield who is a visiting performer who will be putting on Debutante Balls Jan. 14 -17. He seemed totally comfortable onstage and I'm sorry we're going to miss his show, but we leave for Juneau on the 11th.










Given that taking pictures in the middle of the show is often forbidden I'm filling in with these pictures from the exhibit.

All four performances last night kept my attention, though for me the third one - Jonathan Lang's "Radio" - worked most fully. It was a retrospective of radio in Alaska, starting from when Jonathan's family arrived in Alaska through his days on radio in Anchorage. The juxtaposition of taped 'radio' in the background, some props on stage, and probably the relatively uncomplicated content, made it the most complete and unified piece for me.



Van Le's "Letters to Ho Chi Minh" represented, perhaps, the most ambitious work, as she tried to articulate her family's experiences as refugees who survived smugglers, pirates, refugee camp in Malaysia on the way to the United States and the cross generational conflicts of children who want to know what happened and parents who want to forget. Some of the obstacles she still has to work out in the piece are technical ones - jumping back and forth between different time periods. Others are probably more emotional - I think more reenactment rather than telling of the stories would be more powerful. I got to meet Van Le when she was volunteering for the Anchorage International Film Festival and so it was particularly fun to be able to see how she put this together. The photo was taken after her performance, but before they moved things off the stage for the next performance.

Don Decker's piece  integrated video into the performance.  I liked a lot of the parts - particularly the extreme closeups of the lines in the videos.  And he had some audience members laughing almost non-stop.  I just didn't follow how all the pieces came together as one coherent statement.  But maybe that wasn't intended.

Mark Muro's monologue started shakey, then got into gear, and then seemed to veer into different directions.  Mark's done the Under 30 thing four times before according to the program and he could talk off the top of his head and it could be interesting and provocative.  And I've heard him do that more effectively than his piece last night - but then last night he had to carry it off for thirty minutes.  But Mark took the challenge and stood up and did his thing.

That's one reason people should go to the performance this afternoon at 3 or next weekend.  The challenge is out there for next year's Under 30.  This is something anyone could actually do.  The only thing different from those on stage and you and me is that they put in their proposals.  So, being in the audience is also a personal challenge.  What do you have to say and how could you say it so it would keep an audience's attention for 30 minutes? 

This post originates at: What Do I Know?: Under 30 at Out North

"under :30" 2010

adn.com | Not-so-average Alaskans focus on self in 'Under 30':

Quirky 'Under 30' monologues are more akin to lectures

NOT THEATRICAL: Use of notes by actors was a bit too distracting.

By MIKE DUNHAM
mdunham@adn.com

Published: January 2nd, 2010 09:27 PM 
Last Modified: January 2nd, 2010 09:28 PM

The current round of "Under 30" continues Out North's 16-year tradition of quirky and personal performance pieces written and performed by local folks. While a few of these short works -- the title refers to the expectation that each "act" will run no more than half an hour -- have featured ensemble acting or choreography over the years, most have been soliloquies. In the case of the "Under 30" presentations that opened on New Year's night and continue through next weekend, all four are monologues.

These are not theatrical monologues, however. The word "lecture" is more accurate. There seemed to be a lot of reliance on notes, sometimes built into the script, sometimes to the point of distraction, and only the most rudimentary non-verbal elements.

Don Decker's "Fear No Fear" opened with the speaker at a lectern, talking about things people fear, like death and public speaking. Answering the question "Where do we draw the line?" was a video of Decker doodling silently on a dry-erase board, making lines, loops, squiggles, designs, employing time-lapse techniques to create animation effects. This was probably the most beautiful part of the night; I was reminded of Alexander Calder's "Circus."

This was followed by another video, in which Decker donned phoney googly eyes and gums, pretended he was a night club comic -- a profession with no obvious fear of public speaking -- and delivered a series of unspeakably lame jokes like: "I wanted to get my G.E.D., but I couldn't spell it." This segued into an imagined encounter with Jesus on an airplane and a series of questions: "Are there really harps in heaven? Or is that just string theory?"

In "Letters to Ho Chi Minh," Van Le expanded on the intensely personal memoir about her family's escape from South Vietnam, initially developed for "The Women of ..." at UAA last February. Details of indignities dealt to her mother and father by the conquering North Vietnamese, the horrors of escaping the country by smuggler boat, being looted by pirates, refugee camps, eventual asylum in snowy British Columbia and subsequent visits back to Vietnam were interspersed with (pretty) songs and Le's questions to the long-dead revolutionary leader.

Why did he wage a war that left the people he claimed to be helping poorer, less educated, sicker, displaced and dead, she asked. Who were these officials for whom bribery trumped ideology? Why was liberation followed by such repression and enslavement?

In the end she has exhausted herself, venting her anger to a "ghost," unable to continue struggling over historical events that she can barely remember. On the other hand, she notes that her mother still considers the war worth fighting.

Jonathan Lang's "Radio" also addressed his personal formation -- but instead of war and exile, his touchstone was the more pleasant device of Alaska broadcasting. He spoke of living in Valdez when Anchorage's KBYR was the only station received in that town. The peculiar messages of "Caribou Clatters" on Glennallen's KCAM. He recalled the excitement of KWHL signing on. Herb Shaindlin's "Desperate and Dateless" show on KFQD. The cautionary tale of KMXS disc jockey David Taylor, shot by listener Kathy Hodnefield whom, Lang reported, Taylor married before she had completed her prison term.

In a sense, the piece was a pretty plain love song to music radio in the pre-digital days, with a flurry of quick hits and three-minute segments, but no distinct point, a bit like the medium itself.

Mark Muro's "Apocalypse When I Get Around to It" or "Civil War III, Part 1," was simple storytelling. It began with a description of how economic signals can be read in toy airplanes and morphed into the comic report of a recent road trip on which Muro and his politically opposite brother attempted to reprogram one another.

Those attending this year's "Under 30" presentations who have seen previous shows may want to take a look at the exhibit of photos and memorabilia from former "Under 30s" on display in adjacent gallery space.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2010/01/02/1077063/quirky-under-30-monologues-are.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

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