Roger Q. Mason & AFT’s Lavender Men featured in American Theatre magazine
This is a moment. Roger Q. Mason has three plays in production across the country and we are beyond thrilled to be home for one of them, Lavender Men, premiering at About Face.
Roger’s work was recently featured in a jubilant article in American Theatre Magazine by the insightful afrikah selah. At About Face we champion stories and artists that challenge the status quo to build a more just future. Inside this article, selah unpacks the layers of how Roger’s Lavender Men, collaborator and director Lucky Stiff, and a phenomenal team of Chicago’s finest artists, are interpreting this nuanced and groundbreaking play.
Offering steamy romance, political thrills, fantasia, and a journey of personal transcendence and healing, Lavender Men turns the tables and reclaims the narrative around our shared history. We know that sometimes our work sparks a conversation and sometimes we amplify a conversation. Through it all, we‘re glad to be in this conversation with you and we’ll see you at the show! Tickets are now available and previews start May 9th.
“Mason’s writing is embodied and rhythmic, with a call for active reimagination. Lucky Stiff, who’s directing Lavender Men, said that Mason’s “kind of fantasia allows us to imagine a past that could lead to a parallel future in this world, the one we have to live in, where sometimes trying to make change feels like trying to shove a marshmallow through a keyhole—if failing to do that came with the possibility of disaster or death. It’s an intoxicating possibility.” While Lavender Men’s action plays out “in a cabaret of self,” Stiff said, this is no mere entertainment. Taffeta, they said, “claims her place in the historical narrative as a matter of survival.”