WAYS IN BEING GAY

AN EVIDENCE OF LETTERS. Staged readings of new works by Alexis De Veaux and Renee Armstrong.

[NOTE: Originally presented here as a staged reading to a sold-out house during Ways In Being Gay 1998, its development supported in part by a Theater Commission grant from the Individual Artists program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and a SOS grant from the Arts Council in Buffalo & Erie County, Evidence of Letters returned (but was ultimately postponed) for Ways in Being Gay 2000 as a fully realized production created and performed by noted author and performer Alexis De Veaux and theater artist Renée Armstrong. It is based on the real-life correspondence between two Black women who lived in Hartford, Connecticut in the nineteenth century, and follows their relationship as it is affected by the slavery question, the Abolitionist Movement, and the Civil War. Combining historical and contemporary perspectives, it moves back and forth between the 19th and 20th centuries as it explores the homoerotic aspect of Black women’s friendships. The collaboration of De Veaux and Armstrong brings to this new work more than twenty years each of artistic experience, as well as a shared commitment to creative exploration that brings to the stage Black women’s lives.]