OutFest’s plays explore gender and sexual identity

KITCHENER — Isaac Mulè, artistic director of Page 1 Entertainment, took over OutFest four years ago, knowing there was great potential for rich storytelling from the queer community in Waterloo Region.

“Five years ago, we didn’t have a gay bar, the community was suffering, there wasn’t anything to do for the community to come together,” he said. “The Tri-Pride parade had been cancelled, the Pride Prom had been cancelled, but there was a continued need for queer people to have a space, to have a voice.”

Starting this Thursday and running until Saturday, OutFest 2018 will give the queer community that voice when it presents three one-act plays and two dance pieces at the Registry Theatre in Kitchener.

This is the festival’s fifth season and given there are few opportunities for queer stories told on stage other than in larger centres such as Toronto, Mulè said the number of submissions they have been receiving every year has been growing.

This year, the festival received submissions from Hamilton and Toronto as well as within Waterloo Region and the three playwrights whose work was accepted joined a workshop in March presented by playwright Margo

MacDonald. They were then encouraged to return to their writing desks armed with new ideas and in May, they were back in Kitchener at the second workshop to do the final polishing.

Mulè said it was important that the playwrights understood all the stories could not be dark and depressing.

“Whenever you’re going to any marginalized community, you’re going to get heavy stories,” he said.

The skill they learned was to explore issues but in a way that would bring clarification to the audience leading to a deeper understanding.

The three plays include “The Frog King,” a 20-minute production by Erika Ressor, of Hamilton, about a lesbian couple Danny and Mia.

Kira Meyers-Guiden, of Toronto, created “Futch/Bemme,” a one-woman show about a young woman, Alex, who is trying on dresses for a wedding and feeling very uncomfortable as she struggles with what it means to have to look like a girl.

The third play, “Family Dinner,” is a comedy by Kitchener’s Jeff Fox, where a young gay couple invites their parents to dinner, planning on a coming-out event for them.