“Moonshot” and “The Heterosexuals” are two of the shows playing during the first season of the Lavender Performing Arts Festival, which kicked off at Out Front Theatre on June 19. The festival features queer talent and performers from across the U.S. and internationally.
“Moonshot” is a musical with a book by Marc Erdahi, music by Corey Everly, and lyrics by both Erdahi and Everly. The musical follows two college baseball rivals who end up falling in love.
“Moonshot” is a full two-act musical, but the production at Lavender Fest is a lightly staged version, running at about one hour. The truncated nature of the story probably takes away some of the development for the main relationship between Ryan (PJ Palmer) and Wes (Cedrick Ekra), but you can see the bones of the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers narrative. In this particular production, however, the relationship that stands out the most is between Ryan and his best friend Junie (Marianna Ban).
It can be difficult to immediately convey the depth or length of a friendship, but the script and Palmer and Ban’s chemistry manages to do so in an economic fashion. The banter between Ryan and Junie feels natural and modern – not so much in their references, or in the sense that you can feel Erdahi trying to make the script current, but more in the rhythm of their conversations. Ban in particular really shines, not only with her voice but with her stage presence, playing the role of the dramatic best friend with charm and ease.
If you’re a baseball fan, you might have to suspend your disbelief a bit on some of the rules – in particular, on what might happen if a mascot interfered with gameplay. But a few standout numbers (and some good baseball puns) should soothe any of that worry. A song about pineapple on pizza ties quite nicely into themes of getting away from a small town, but the team’s manager Evan (Ben Cole) steals the show with a funny, poignant number about being the only straight guy at a gay bar. The ensemble voices in “Moonshot” blend nicely together, supporting each soloist in turn.
“The Heterosexuals” is a one-person show from Johnnie McNamara Walker. While Thursday’s performance marked the American premiere of the show, Walker has performed it all over the world, and the quickness and ease of his delivery really shines through. Walker uses the premise of diving into the frightening world of heterosexuality (“Are the straights okay?” is the question of the evening), to relay to the audience his own journey of coming to terms with himself and his sexuality.
Walker takes the audience through his life, reminiscing with a hindsight that’s full of wit and biting insight. One of the funnier moments imagines Joss Whedon, J.K. Rowling, and Byran Singer – the big three of disgraced 90s creatives who once represented a sense of escape for those who felt like outcasts – as the leaders of a secret agent program who recruit Johnnie as a spy. His mission? Live among the heterosexuals and pass as one of their own, gathering intel along the way.
It’s an apt metaphor, almost a mode of escapism for someone who feels trapped in a world where they don’t feel welcome. Walker talks about his secret agent days with a healthy dose of humor, but as the show gets closer to its end, it becomes something a bit more reflective and bittersweet. At one point, we meet “Other Johnnie” (or John, as he likes to be called), the version of Walker that presented straight in the past. Walker’s relationship to this other version of himself – and how he views and thinks about that self now – is what ultimately forms the heart of the show.
“Moonshot” and “The Heterosexuals” will play again at Lavender Fest on June 22. The full schedule and information about the other shows can be found online.
