gorgeous story I love returning to at this time of year!

TLDR: it's completely fine to just say the humor doesn't work for you! But watching some of these critics jump straight to "ACTUALLY it's homophobic 😤" without taking a moment to be curious about WHY the show engages with queer identity the way it does is so head-slamming

Sexuality of Abraham Lincoln - Wikipedia

Here's the article. It includes the time very important queer activist/playwright Larry Kramer "found" (???) super secret documents "proving" Lincoln was gay, plus another century of iffy research and speculation. We have been so weird about Abe and Mary! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuali...

A hint of imagination might indicate why a queer artist would choose to have fun with this. A dash of political awareness might shed light on why US audiences would be so awe-struck by a production like THIS making it to post-Hamilton Broadway in this time/political climate/economy

Two minutes on the internet would reveal the wildest array of articles on whether or not Lincoln did it with guys and how much he did or didn't hate Mary and whether she deserved it and all the messy, questionable scholarship that's gone into unpacking all of this.

Literally the quickest skim of the Wikipedia article on all the weird speculation we've done about Abraham Lincoln's sexuality and his relationship with Mary Todd would give context to the queerness and absurdity and irreverence and anger of Oh, Mary!

I know there is so much else going on and this is really not that big of a deal, but some the British reviews of Oh, Mary! are killing me

Re-upping this to add that the history of how we got to the current fuckery is long and complicated, and the UK and US have been cross-pollinating on this for a while - blaming the UK for infecting the US or vice versa is a) oversimplification and b) does nothing to actually help trans people.

These executive orders on banning federally funded entities from recognizing trans people or disallowing them from using the bathroom are not self-executing or immediately enforceable. They require formal rule making at a minimum. They are a scare tactic. Ignore and do not comply in advance.

Hey I called it

Looking to connect with UK folk who are creating new musical theatre - artists, writers, companies etc - let me know if you’re here on Bluesky.

I would love to be added! thanks for organizing ☺️

👋My name is Bee! I am a:

🎭theatremaker: includes feminist/queer, music, interactive, sci-fi theatre

📝writer/editor: plays, genre fiction, games, audio dramas

🎓researcher: queer sci-fi theatre in US/UK

🌎US/UK dual citizen: I work in both countries & research how they influence each other