This post was submitted by Bryan Garcia

Portland-based multimedia artist and former San Franciscan, Holcombe Waller, has returned to the Bay Area to complete an artist-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley. The prolific artist has recorded three studio albums for the label, Napoleon Records, and has composed, produced, and performed a number of live theater acts from coast to coast (and in Canada, too). This month, Waller has teamed up with Joe Goode, a choreographer and Artistic Director of Joe Goode Performance Group as well as a faculty member in Berkeley’s drama department, to produce Dead Boys. The “freak folk musical” about trust, gay activism, gender identity, talking to the dead, and the privileged culture’s pursuit of happiness is also inspired by current events shaping the queer community. On the eve of the Dead Boys debut at UC-Berkeley’s Zellerbach Playhouse, Waller took some time out to answer seven questions for The New Gay.

The New Gay: Hi, Holcombe! Let’s start off with an easy question. Can you tell us a little bit about your new musical, Dead Boys?

Holcombe Waller: It’s a show that follows characters living in a classic three-level Victorian flat in San Francisco. Anyone who’s lived in one of these 1906 structures knows the deal: rickety wooden staircase in the back, rear garden, enclosed front steps. They are all the same. The main character is a slightly neurotic, intellectual mid-twenties gay lad, Monroe. His two good friends and roommates, Brandon and Carly, have an ongoing romantic tension. The three are all just out of college, Monroe and Carly are grad students, and Brandon has a growing following as a singer/songwriter. They’re all growing up, and the differences once masked by college are becoming more pronounced.

The main thrust of the story is that Monroe is tormented by dreams and visions of the atrocities of anti-gay injustice around the world. He is working on a thesis performance (he’s in performance studies), and he is doing a lot of self-reflection and examination both around his feelings about these social injustices as well as his own issues forming meaningful intimate relationships with other guys. In a sense, the two issues become one. The monologues and music reflect this.

The other two apartments in this building are inhabited by characters who serve to catalyze both Monroe’s emotional movement through his issues as well as Carly and Brandon’s burgeoning relationship. On the top floor there are Dwayne and Luis, a very amicable couple that is deeply into BDSM. On the ground floor, there is the owner of the building, Anna, who is the soul and doyenne of the residence as well as a mediumistic channel who helps clients find the voices of the dead and the missing.

This entire scenario comes to a dramatic flourish when Carly’s friend, Roberta, stops by to visit, and discovers that she is in fact a mediumistic channel. With Anna’s guidance, Roberta begins to channel voices that seem to speak directly to Monroe from his dreams.

TNG: The musical is supposed to be inspired by current events like the passing of Prop 8 and the release of Matthew Limon. How did you interweave them into the performance?

HW: The issues tormenting the lead character, Monroe, are all taken directly from factual news events. These include references to a number of terrible events, including the boys hanged in Iran in the summer of 2005. These events also cause him a lot of anxiety about his particular place in life; he feels a lack of direction, a sense of malaise—that his ideas are meaningless. This stands in stark contrast to the blunt reality that, across the world and even here in our own country, gays and lesbians are being murdered for an idea. He is slowly realizing he needs to take action.

TNG: How much of this performance is based upon your own experiences as a gay man versus simply addressing the gay community at large?

HW: The whole piece, I think, reflects both Joe Goode’s and my feelings about both the political and the personal ramifications of being queer and the way these two facets of queer identity connect within each of our minds and hearts.

TNG: Is there a specific message that you are hoping the audience will take away from the experience?

HW: I’m hoping people will feel an emotional connection with the characters; and I truly hope that this connection will be the “foot in the door” to drive home the importance of not becoming complacent in working for queer equality internationally. People are still being murdered, attacked, and discriminated against, period. There is no excuse for this.

TNG: Do you normally incorporate multimedia elements in your work?

HW: I normally incorporate a lot of video work, and this piece also has a significant video component, although it is a real-time video display that projects Monroe’s “video diaries” to the audience. This was Joe’s idea; it’s great, and very effective because we see the details of emotion in Monroe’s face and eyes writ large against the big screen. It’s a great physical metaphor for how we are trying to connect the deeply personal with the more macro-political landscape.

TNG: Is there anything else you are working on while completing your artist-in-residence at UC-Berkeley? What can we look forward to both at Berkeley and in your own personal projects? Is there a new album in the works?

HW: I have, like, five new albums in the works, and frankly I just need to take it one at a time. Yes, there will be new material soon. I have created a course here [at UC-Berkeley] titled “Contemporary Song-Based Performance Art,” and it’s been a blast. We are halfway through classes; the students are all amazing. We are watching and discussing contemporary performance artists who rely heavily on the incorporation or adaptation of song in their work. The class is also an opportunity for me to research my next project, which is titled “Surfacing.” It is an epic narrative song that depicts a post-apocalyptic queer love story. The music will be accompanied live by real-time-edited video imagery. It’s quite ambitious; I begin writing it this January in residency and show my first excerpts in March in Alaska.

TNG: Lastly, is there anything you want to tell the readers at The New Gay?

HW: You rock. The old gay is so over.

Dead Boys Details:

UC-Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) presents:
Dead Boys: A premiere musical by Joe Goode created in collaboration with composer Holcombe Waller. The musical runs from October 9-18, 2009 at the following times:

• Friday, October 9, at 8 PM
• Saturday, October 10, at 8 PM
• Sunday, October 11, at 2 PM
• Friday, October 16, at 8 PM
• Saturday, October 17, at 8 PM
• Sunday, October 18 at 2 PM

The 2 PM performance on Sunday, October 11, will be followed by a post-performance discussion with director/choreographer Joe Goode and composer Holcombe Waller.

Location: Zellerbach Playhouse, UC-Berkeley Campus
Tickets: $15.00 and $10.00
Tickets available through the TDPS Ticket Office at the Zellerbach Playhouse, at (510) 642-8827 to charge by phone, at tdps.berkeley.edu, and at the door for that day’s performance.

---

First time here? See what we're all about... Get involved... Send us a tip!...

---