This Many People
This Many People was performed in June 2010 at CounterPULSE in San Francisco as part of the National Queer Arts Festival. All four performances of the show were sold out and one audience member commented that it was “the best play I have ever seen!”
This Many People shows the daily lives of various senior citizen members of the LGBT community in San Francisco. The play takes place in February 2004, beginning the morning of Friday the 13th. While the same-sex weddings are happening at San Francisco’s city hall, our story begins across the quad in the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. From there, our story takes us to many different locations including; an up-scale French restaurant near the symphony, a make-shift open-mic in the Mission, the legendary Wild Side West bar in Bernal Heights and a nine-car Daly City BART train.
Along the way we watch as several lives intersect and overlap among our main characters.
Belle - a 61 year old African American lesbian, originally from Ashville, North Carolina. She recently separated from her long-time partner, Sally, who is moving back East to be ‘straight’. Belle is both excited and scared at the prospect of starting over at her age. While she is full of energy, positivity and bravery, she is not remotely comfortable with the idea of getting old. Her biggest priority, besides finding her own place to live, is to go out and dance as soon as she can.
Zan - a Butch Dyke senior citizen and proud of it, damn it! In the 70′s she was deeply ingrained in the lesbian separatist movement on a farm where even the cats couldn’t be boys. After she moved back to San Francisco she split her time between being a librarian and a construction worker. Two words describe Zan: Work Ethic. For the most part, she is comfortable in her body, her self and her life, but longs for someone to share it with. She likes to pass the time playing with her soft-ball team, volunteering for various organizations, reading books about bird-watching….and actually bird-watching!
Edwin/Edwina - a trans person who identifies as ‘straight’. If she was wealthy, she’d have the surgery she’s always wanted. She would never tell you how old she is. Edwina is trying to maintain her patchwork existence in her beloved San Francisco, but is unsure how much longer she can do it. Like so many trans individuals, she has always had a difficult time finding full time employment. When we first see her, she is sorting through her size-able book collection to decide which ones she can live without, should she need to move back to Madison, Wisconsin….which is looking more and more likely.
Joe - a gay white male senior citizen. He has lived in the Bay Area for decades. He lost his life partner, David, to AIDS in the late eighties. Since then he has felt increasingly more invisible in the gay scene and in his Hayward neighborhood. He volunteers at the library: shelving books and helping patrons find what they need. To look at Joe, you would think he was calm, quiet, and content, but if he has to have one more conversation about gay weddings, his top is probably going to blow.
Clarence - a gay male African American senior citizen with a smile that lights up any room and a voice that can melt butter. Clarence also lost his life partner after a long struggle with AIDS. He and Joe and their respective partners were friends for years. A lover of life, Clarence is at peace with himself and the way of the world. He has the means to live out his life in the manner that pleases him.
Matthew - a gay white male in his early thirties. He’s a waiter who is “over it”. If he wasn’t so busy planning his dream gay wedding, he might be focusing on changing his situation for the better …but probably not. Matthew doesn’t get a lot of jokes, but he likes to laugh just the same.
Mal - a half Mexican half Caucasian lesbian in her early twenties. She and her friend Rox play music on the streets to make money. While they are technically homeless, Rox assures Mal that they’ll be fine as long as they stick together…which just got more complicated because they got drunk at the Lexington and hooked up. Ooops.
In addition to honoring the elders of our community and the painful struggles they endured in the fight for civil rights,
THIS MANY PEOPLE explores facets of the internalized homophobia that prevents us from becoming a true community. This is crucial to today’s current events. Just as we are making phenomenal headway in the continuing fight for civil rights, it is paramount that we look back now at how far we’ve come….and who got us here.
To read more about This Many People, please check out our PAST POSTS about the development and production of the play!
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