transfigured examines what it means to be marked against one's will
How are we affected by the labels society brands us with? A new play called transfigured dramatizes the events surrounding a real-life attack during which a young man had the word HOMO carved into his back because he was listening to the rock band Queen.
Director Joe Salvatore collaborated with playwright Julie Marie Myatt and a cast made up of NYU students to create transfigured, premiering with a limited run at NYU's Pless Hall Black Box Theatre from February 25 to March 6, 2005. It is currently in development and will be presented at a variety of conferences in 2006. (For more information about that, visit www.joesalvatore.com)
The story of transfigured was based on a real event that took place in 1999 in western Massachusetts. A teenaged boy was listening to music by the band Queen in his dorm room at a prep school when his dorm mates suddenly decided it was a "gay" band. Three of his friends held him down and used a pocketknife to carve "HOMO" into his back. The carving, in 5-inch block letters, stretched from shoulder to shoulder and was deep enough to leave a scar.
The attack inspired Joe Salvatore, a professor at NYU, to explore complex issues. "When I first learned of this event, the inherent violence and homophobia of this action was, of course, upsetting to me," Salvatore says. "But I was even more disturbed by the ramifications of being physically branded with a word like 'HOMO.' I pondered some intriguing questions: How does a person move through life with this scar, particularly if he does not identify as gay? How does he explain the mark to other people? What power does that word hold over him? Does he become defined by that word on his back?"
Transfigured is an attempt to provide some answers to these questions. Salvatore and Myatt along with the actors, and the production staff have created a provocative play punctuated with several Queen songs.
"Our production depicts our interpretation of what might have taken place and how the real young man and his loved ones might have dealt with the impact of his scar," says Myatt.
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<<< transfigured cast members rehearse. Photo and poster images by Craig Hamrick |
Bios
JOE SALVATORE is a faculty member in the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University. Past directing projects at NYU include 5x Wilder, Pericles, and Romeo and Juliet.
Salvatore's other directing work has been seen at the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, LAByrinth Theater Company's Barn Series, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, New WORLD Theater, the Del Corazon Festival, INROADS: The Americas, Jump-Start Performance Space, Santa Fe Stages, and the University of Massachusetts.
Original plays and performance pieces include The Britney-Mary Chain, That's Not How You Do It , mindlynes, full of grace... (James Baldwin Playwriting Award), fag/hag , and At Wit's End: You Are Here.
Joe holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts and is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. He lives with his partner, photographer and author Craig Hamrick, in Manhattan.
MORE INFO ABOUT JOE SALVATORE.
JULIE MARIE MYATT has had plays produced in New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Most recently her play, The Sex Habits of American Women was produced at the Guthrie Lab in Minneapolis, and premiered at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco last October. She was commissioned with three other playwrights to write Fast and Loose - an ethical collaboration for the 2004 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Her ten-minute play Lift and Bang is published in 30 Ten-Minute Plays for 2 Actors from Actors Theatre of Louisville by Smith & Kraus, What he sent is published in The Best American Short Plays, 2000-2001 by Applause Books, and Cowbird is published in the anthology, Breaking Ground by Stage and Screen Books. She received a Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship in 1992-93, a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights' Center in 1999-2000, and a McKnight Advancement Grant for 2001-2002. She is a participant in the Guthrie New Play Project funded by the Bush Foundation, through which she traveled to Cambodia this past April.
Her other plays include August is a thin girl, The Pink Factor, Alice in the Badlands, Clamor, and 49 Days to the Sun.
For more information, photos, etc., contact Joe Salvatore: js1655@nyu.edu.
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<<< Julie Marie Myatt and Joe Salvatore at a rehearsal for transfigured in February 2005. For web or print publicity of transfigured; high-resolution images are available upon request: craig@craighamrick.com or joe@joesalvatore.com |