My Story:
I am a collective member of WOW Cafe Theater. It's a women's and trans theater space. I joined many years ago as a budding actor, so that I would be able to use the theater space for cheap or free, being very self conscious about the fact that I was one of the only cis or hetro women in the the space.
Years past, and I began getting close to my fellow collective members. One night, one of the members said that she needed someone to fill the role of "Derek" in her play. While the character is male, she wanted it to be played by a woman. I found myself saying, "I can play a man!" I am not quite sure what possessed me to do this, but between my enthusiasm and the director/writer's desperation. I found myself wearing a beard and mustache as Derek. The process was so different from other plays I had been in, with a cast of mostly trans POC folks, it included Sunday dinners and many cast members pitching in to help with design aspects of the show. When we finally opened, I was surprised to realize that the piece had a great artistic value and audiences loved it. Our sense of community had ended up enriching the piece.
Months later, theaters shut down because of COVID-19. I helped organize a Go-Fund me campaign so that WOW could pay its rent. I was so impressed with how many people, from all over the world were willing to contribute because they had once been a part of WOW. I had said that people who donated would get a "shout out" at the fundraiser. Not knowing what else to do, I ended up pulling out "Derek's" beard and mustache and recording a song for zoom that included all of our donors. Six months later, another member of the collective "needed' me to play Derek in a virtual boy band for a holiday show.
Through community, WOW has survived as a theater collective for 40 years. It just keeps coming back and reinventing itself (even on zoom). Just like the character, Derek, I'm sure WOW has many performances still yet to come.
