At this year’s Atlanta Fringe Festival, four local LGBTQ+ acts are wowing audiences with poetry, theater, and comedy all about coming into your own and embracing the joy of queer life.
With multiple more shows until June 8, there is still a chance to see performances by Billie Sainwood, Andrew Autry, Mykal Alder June, and Vandy Beth Glenn before the festival closes its 11-day run this weekend.
36 Views: A Story of Tits and Poetry (18+)
The Supermarket Black Box
June 6, 7 p.m.
June 7, 10:30 p.m.
Inspired by a profound experience seeing Henri Riviere’s “The Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower,” poet Billie Sainwood shares 36(ish) views of her tits. From experiences from her youth as a socialized overweight boy, not laughing with her camp mates for fear of her shirtless body jiggling, to understanding her identity as a trans woman through her relationship with her body, Sainwood handles her stories with tender care. Not only is she a phenomenal poet – comparing the tux she was forced to wear to prom as “made-to-fit like a coffin” and her breasts to about 30 different images from rotting apples to the moon, all rattled off at the beginning of the set – Sainwood is also hilarious. Her poems are both deeply moving and side-splittingly funny, all painting a picture, just like Riviere, of the complex and ever-changing landmark of her life and body.
The show is brief, about 30 minutes, and not flashy; aside from two costume changes, there are no bells and whistles, no lighting design, no props. Just Billie, reading her poems at the podium. If you’re looking for a Fringe show that’s overstated and outrageous, you might want to look elsewhere. But if you want a preciously handled exploration of trans identity and joy in a political landscape that’s becoming increasingly hostile, you will not be disappointed by “36 Views.”
Content warning: grooming/statutory rape
Based on a Drew Story (18+)
Limelight Black Box
June 5, 8:45 p.m.
June 6, 7 p.m.
June 7, 5:15 p.m.
As the title suggests, “Based on a Drew Story” is inspired by the real-life experiences of writer/director Andrew Autry, told through actor Patrick Lacey. The coming-of-age story begins as the silly journey of Drew losing his virginity at age 20 and regaling his best friend Sadie, played by Luzia Parodia Penha, with his baby gay antics before it takes a sharp turn into the realities of loss, grief, and adulthood.
Autry’s writing is spot-on, absolutely fabulous, but it’s Lacey’s performance that makes this show completely unforgettable. They perfectly capture the innocence, insecurity, and contagious buoyancy of youth, which is heart wrenchingly juxtaposed with the authentic depression and anguish they portray in the latter half of the show. With only two folding chairs and a masterful grasp on physicality and space, Lacey creates a world that you can practically see, making the tragedy that much more visceral – and the show’s ultimately hopeful message about the power of kindness and human connection more resonant. I envy those who are able to watch this show for the first time, it truly is the closest live theater can get to perfection.
Content warning: drug overdose
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Last One Out (18+)
Dynamic El Dorado
June 5, 7 p.m.
June 7, 7 p.m.
Mykal Alder June – you can call her June – is absolutely phenomenal in her one-woman show “Last One Out.” June invites the audience to hang up their preconceived notions (or as she puts it, spit out their grandmother’s meatloaf) and come to terms with the fact that they (at least, the cis ones) don’t know what it’s like to be trans – and that’s okay. Sit down and listen as June tells you about what it’s like to be a 40-something with the hormones of a 15-year-old girl, told through the lens of her relationship with her first queer partner, Z, with other side stories and tangents interwoven throughout.
The show is all over the place, swinging from an orgy in the gay bar bathroom to first person who called her pretty, the little girl (Rhiannon, *sigh*) who asked her to join the church’s praise band. June is brash, then precious, then rageful, then heartfelt, then irreverent, almost all in the same breath. She takes these colorful fragments and makes them into a mosaic, together composing a splintered yet beautiful image of girlhood. We all transition in one way or another, and all people, trans or otherwise, can learn from June’s story about the power – and necessity – of saving your own life. (Also, June is genuinely so stunning that it’s worth the ticket price just to look at her.)
One Morning in the Office (12+)
Monk’s Meadery
June 4, 10:30 p.m.
June 6, 7 p.m.
June 7, 1:45 p.m.
We are not lucky to live in a world where transgender people have been fired for being trans. We are lucky, however, that it happened to somebody so hilarious. Comedian and award-winning LGBTQ+ advocate Vandy Beth Glenn tells the story of getting fired in 2007 after coming out as trans to her boss and the subsequent (successful) lawsuit. Glenn’s deadpan delivery may be jarring to some, but it’s wildly successful. Even when she stumbled, every joke landed (especially, to me, one in which she suggests that gender dysphoria is not a medical condition that warrants firing, but eczema is).
Even though she’s a standup comic, the half-hour set is more storytelling than standup, but in a world where it feels like every piece of news about trans people is a loss, Glenn’s story of winning against the transphobe is remarkably refreshing. She never dwells too much on the negative feelings of this undeniably traumatizing experience, and watching her make jokes about it almost 20 years later, alive, employed, and unapologetically herself is deeply satisfying.
Tickets for these and all Atlanta Fringe Festival shows are $18 and can be purchased at atlantafringe.org/events.