This new Scottsdale theater company puts the 'queer' back in Shakespeare

USA Today

13-02-2025

This new Scottsdale theater company puts the 'queer' back in Shakespeare
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Ballroom in Phoenix: Video of vogueing at Stacy's at Melrose
Ballroom culture is a safe haven for Black and Latino queer and trans youth. Here are the dancers of vogue night at Stacy's at Melrose in Phoenix.
Jonmaesha Beltran, Arizona Republic
Founders of All Queer Shakespeare say Phoenix theater scene needed more representation.
The shows will star queer actors and bring in queer support staff, but allies are welcome to join.
The Valentine's Day cabaret was born out of a long Spotify playlist and honed to some show-stopping tunes.
On a recent evening, the cast of All Queer Shakespeare's latest show gathered in a room at the Scottsdale Neighborhood Arts Place.
They stood in a circle, breathing in unison. Their surroundings were modest but welcoming: faded carpet, comfortable couches, a collection of mismatched lamps. Colorful bunting ran across the room, displaying a diverse array of pride flags. The space, the black upright piano in the corner, and each other was all the group needed.
But first, they were trying to reset. They breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. In. Out.
'Let's breathe in some presence,' said Monica Sampson, who was leading the exercise. 'And exhale anything that's going to deter us from being mindful today.'
This exhale, the last, was particularly loud.
'Awesome,' Sampson said. It was time to rehearse.
They were preparing for 'Love is Love,' a Valentine's Day cabaret show that will feature three different couples as Romeo and Juliet: one male-presenting, one female-presenting, and one non-binary.
The depiction might sound very modern, but according to Sampson, it's not.
'Shakespeare at the time when it was written, would have been two men on stage performing Romeo and Juliet,' she said. 'And it wouldn't have been weird. It would have just been part of it.'
Back then, it was common for men to play female roles, to don dresses and act out intimate scenes with other men.
'No one in the audience would have thrown a tomato for that,' Sampson said. 'They would have thrown a tomato if it was boring.'
Shakespeare 'wrote for all people'
Sampson, who created All Queer Shakespeare and is the co-director of 'Love is Love,' grew up in Scottsdale and trained professionally at Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London.
It was there, standing on the stage of the reconstructed theater, that she truly understood Shakespeare's works as being for the people.
Back in the early 1600s, the people who bought the cheapest tickets were known as Groundlings and stood clustered around the stage. They paid a penny for entry, about a dollar in U.S. currency today.
They were likely illiterate, Sampson said, and had limited time away from work.
'They would have gone to see a piece on their one day off, choosing between doing that or going to the pub, or doing that and going to see a bear fight or a chicken fight.'
The plays were genuinely accessible, more so than the vast majority of theater today.
'Shakespeare acting today, we really think it's for the highest level of society,' Sampson said. 'And really, Shakespeare wrote for all people, from all walks of life.'
It's an ethos that gels with the queer community, and with inclusivity in theater more broadly.
After spending time in the London theater scene, Sampson felt a dearth of varied stories when she returned to Phoenix.
'As someone who is plus size and identifies as queer, I wasn't seeing my story represented when I came back home,' she said. 'And so then the idea came out from knowing that there needed to be a place not just for me, but for other folks like myself.'
On May 31, All Queer Shakespeare will officially turn one year old.
The 'All' in the name is important, Sampson said. It's not just a one-off queer show. Every show they do is created by queer people, with queer performers and crew and tech. (Allies are also welcome to participate.)
'A lot of companies feel like they can do one show with POC (people of color) artists and then be like, 'We're good,'" Sampson said. 'Or they can announce that they have two shows directed by women and then the next eight shows are not.'
'That's not inclusion. That's waving a flag.'
Slow progress for queer representation
On this Thursday evening, the show was just over a week out, but after their long exhale — and setting some faint anxiety about memorizing lyrics aside — the cast seemed relaxed.
Sampson ran over the schedule: a long Saturday rehearsal dubbed 'gay boot camp;' tech runs Monday through Wednesday; Thursday open for whatever they needed; and then, on Friday, it was showtime.
'Tomorrow, we're going to be a week away,' Sampson told the room, eliciting a jovial chorus of 'Ahhh!'
Then co-director Seth Tucker and musical director Tyler Bartlett took over, leading the cast through a series of tongue-twisting vocal warm-ups before launching into a number called 'Acceptance,' one they couldn't decide whether to cut.
Seated in a semi-circle around the piano, the cast sang through the song, following Tucker's instruction to make it as cheesy as possible.
'Anyone get convinced?' Tucker asked hopefully, after the final note.
'No.' 'No.' 'Sorry!'
'I'll take that as a loss,' Tucker conceded.
'Acceptance' was officially cut. 'Wow, I guess we don't accept each other,' a cast member joked.
Tucker, born and raised in Phoenix, is a longtime performer who moved back to Arizona from New York City just before the pandemic. Since then, he has immersed himself in the local theater scene.
Though theater has long been a natural home for queer people, representation in Phoenix is still a work-in-progress, Tucker said. 'It's slower than anyone would hope for.'
There are only a handful of theaters in Arizona, and the shows tend to cater to an older, straighter audience.
'You're seeing a lot of 'golden age,'' Tucker said. 'You're seeing a lot of really straightforward, popular shows that aren't going to push any boundaries too much.'
All Queer Shakespeare, infused with queer sensibility, is a shake-up. For Tucker, getting involved was a no-brainer.
'Anywhere half as big as Arizona has twice as much theater, including maybe more than one queer-focused theater,' he said.
Now, part of one, he finds himself thinking: 'How did we not have this here before?'
In the All Queer Shakespeare rehearsal room, there is an emphasis on 'speaking in draft.' People are free to improvise and create, with no expectation of perfection or finality — until, of course, they're onstage.
'A lot of queer folks feel like they have to be perfect all the time,' Sampson said. 'They feel like they are the token lesbian, right? And if they don't behave or act a certain way or stand up for their people in a certain way, or don't stand up for other people in a certain way, then they're looked to.'
'When you have a group where everyone is sharing a queer narrative, then you really get to flourish in everyone's different queer narratives and celebrate who they are, as opposed to singling out that person.'
The environment feels different to Tucker, even compared to productions with plenty of queer individuals involved.
Queerness is intrinsic in every conversation, joke and perspective, woven into the stress and worry cast members might have carried through the day. It coalesces in an environment that does not merely welcome, but truly understands.
'It is something that we can all relate to, that … sense of safety,' Tucker said. 'A sense of hope and strength, especially when you're not alone.'
It's as much about community as it is about theater.
'If we didn't even do a show, the reward of us being together and creating and talking and building something is just worth it.'
From a long playlist to a full show
'Love is Love' started as an unwieldy Spotify playlist.
Sampson and Tucker and Bartlett added their favorite love songs, each bringing a certain flair (Sampson: '30s and '40s jazz, Tucker: '90s ballads, Bartlett: "Phantom of the Opera") until it was hundreds strong.
Over the holidays, as the cast was rehearsing for All Queer Shakespeare's first show — a queer retelling of The Christmas Carol — Sampson was driving to and from rehearsal listening to songs about love.
She would ask herself: does this song make me happy or sad? What's the narrative?
Eventually, they narrowed the playlist down to 50 show-suitable songs, and held auditions for the otherwise undescribed role of 'performer.' It wasn't until after casting that they landed on the Romeo and Juliet through-line and developed the show in its entirety.
This somewhat atypical process involved a lot of collaboration and playing to cast members' stories, desires, and strengths.
Shakespeare's works are in the public domain, ripe for adaptations and retellings. To Sampson, his plays are already so imbued with queerness — some scholars believe Shakespeare was himself queer — that rewritings aren't necessary.
"I haven't had to change any words because it's already gay," she said.
The songs they ended up with — such as 'All You Need Is Love' by The Beatles — aren't written through a queer lens, Sampson said.
'We're just queer people performing them. And we get to have that joy, and then they intrinsically get to be part of the queer narrative.'
They did, however, change some lyrics.
One of the numbers is 'Love Thy Neighbor' from the musical 'The Prom,' an upbeat song about the hypocrisy of cherry-picking teachings from the Bible.
Usually, the chorus goes: 'Love thy neighbor trumps them all'.
Not at All Queer Shakespeare. They sing 'Love thy neighbor tops them all.'
Queer art in the current moment
It's an interesting time to be navigating the early days of a queer theater company in Phoenix.
Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders designed to prevent transgender people from accessing medical care, serving in the military and playing sports.
In a time of strict government proclamations that there are two, unchangeable sexes, the gender-bending performances of Shakespeare's time come to mind.
'I think it's funny in a way that we've taken more of a step back than people did in 1603,' Sampson said.
These changing political tides have been felt at All Queer Shakespeare. Its first show was held in the shadow of the election; now its second is in the wake of the inauguration.
There have been some heavy moments in rehearsal. There have also been lots of happy ones.
'That's very important for me as someone who centers joy in the hard times, that we don't have to always choose the darker plotline,' Sampson said.
'In this space we create, we're going to focus on joy. And if that's the only thing we have for two hours, that's what we're going to do, because the rest of the day might not look that way.'
For Tucker, the current political moment makes the task of creating queer art feel more urgent than ever. Still: 'This show is not going to be about them.'
'This show is going to be about the beauty of what our community has to offer,' he said. 'What our community has to say.'
Sampson takes heart from the fact that in hard times past, queer artists have endured and thrived.
'Some of the best art that we have in the Broadway world came from a post-World War two climate,' Sampson said. How many musicals, paintings, and songs would be missing from the cultural canon if artists had simply ceased to create?
'So, this is just another renaissance in the artistic experience,' Sampson said, 'where we get to say: 'We're here and we're queer, and we're going to keep going.'"
If you go
Love is Love: A Valentine's Day Queer Cabaret
When: Friday, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday
Where: Scottsdale Neighborhood Arts Place, 4425 N Granite Reef Road, Scottsdale.
Tickets: Available at www.allqueershakespeare.com.