RANDOLPH — When Vermont Pride Theater at Chandler, an outreach program of the Randolph-based Chandler Center for the Arts, began a decade ago, its founders’ mission was simple: to amplify the voices of LGBTQ folks both on stage and in the community.
“For these 10 years we’ve been focusing on ways to have LGBTQ people appear as regular people in the theater,” said Pride Theater producer Sharon Rives. “They have issues with their families, they have issues with the communities and it gives a chance for the rest of the community to see that they are ‘just like us,’ quote unquote.”
More than 40 plays have been performed in the last decade and the program’s biggest event has been the Summer Pride Festival. Art exhibits, films and other spoken-word events that have also sprung from it. Vermont Pride Theater has also raised money for nonprofit organizations such as the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an LGBTQ education and advocacy nonprofit organization.
The last play ever that Vermont Pride Theater will host will also serve as a fundraiser, this time for GLAAD’s Transgender-Rights Project. Raggedy And, written by playwright David Valdes, will stream on Zoom at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6 and will be followed by a live discussion moderated by former gubernatorial candidate Christine Hallquist. Tickets cost $12 and can be purchased at chandler-arts.org. People will be able to view the play online through Feb. 13.
Post-performance discussions — known as “talkbacks” — have been a centerpiece of Vermont Pride Theater, providing a way for audience members to interact with performers, other LGBTQ community members and their allies.
“They’re our neighbors. They’re our family members, the people who are on our selectboards, the people who are up in the Legislature representing us,” Rives said. “They’re not some foreign kind of entity that we should be afraid of, and that was really important to do over the 10 years.”
Raggedy And was first performed at Chandler in 2016, and Valdes has updated the play — which is about a relatively unknown poet reading at a presidential inauguration — to reflect current events.
“When the play first happened in 2016, it seemed we were on the cusp of electing the first female president,” Valdes said. “It seemed we were moving forward in LGBTQ rights.”
The Trump administration placed a ban on transgender people serving in the military and argued that laws preventing sexual discrimination do not cover LGBTQ people, in addition to other actions. (President Biden recently reversed the transgender military ban.)
“There are references to ‘you can’t predict how long any kind of progress will last,’ ” Valdes said, adding that the inaugural poem the poet writes in the play has also taken on new meaning. “It just rings so differently now because the poem talks about the difficult work of justice and liberty and the trickiness of what freedom means.”
The play features four cast members: Pedro Gonzalez, of New York and Puerto Rico; Andra Kisler, of Northfield, Vt.; lead actor Jennifer Lord, of Danville, Vt., and Peter Ruiz, of Bloomington, Ind. The actors performed and recorded the play from their own homes over Zoom. While the pandemic has made it difficult for people to gather to watch live theater, Valdes said, it has allowed actors from all over to participate and expanded viewership to people outside the Randolph area.
“Even to this moment there are still so few plays with trans leads,” Valdes said. “To have a trans lead character played by such a wonderful trans actor, it matters. It matters to have these plays out there.”
Plans are now in the worksto create a Social Justice Festival at Chandler, which would focus on topics including Black Lives Matter and the status of undocumented migrant workers, Rives said. Due to the pandemic, the festival will likely begin in summer 2022.
“That will cover all of these different issues where people in our society are marginalized or their rights are disrespected,” Rives said. “We’ve done a lot in these 10 years, but it feels like the country has moved onto another set of issues that are more pressing for now.”
And throughout it all, those who have participated have seen the ways their work has impacted the community.
“We’ve realized theater is a powerful way to change minds or change lives,” Rives said.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
