OUT of Site is Eye Zen’s multi-year performance-driven walking tour project, placing theater audiences in physical sites of LGBTQ ancestry in San Francisco neighborhoods. OUT of Site tours create an immersive spectacle in real time and in public space, using sidewalks, plazas, parks, and POPOS. In 2018, we launched OUT of Site as a pilot tour in North Beach/Barbary Coast reviving historic sites with stories from several decades. This on-the-streets approach marries the notions of community-driven, often overlooked history with an interdisciplinary performance celebrating the legacies of queer ancestors. OUT of Site is a unique collaboration with Shaping San Francisco, known for its walking and bike tours that document and archive overlooked stories of San Francisco.
A cast of fourteen portray thirty LGBTQ ancestors from an 18th century Native American Two-Spirit ritual to the Gay Liberation movement. The Grey Line bus tour “Where to Sin in San Francisco” makes several stops between Mark Twain Alley and Jackson Square. Transamerica Pyramid was once site of the artistic enclave the Monkey Block and Barbary Coast’s first gay bar, The Dash, where a nationally outlawed dance “The Turkey Trot” is policed by the corrupt chief of police and the bogus cross-dressing laws of the 1860s. There San Francisco’s 19th century Bohemian gay author Charles Warren Stoddard falls for Japanese poet Yone Noguchi. Divided by a decade of radical politics and gay activism from late 1950s to early 1970s, the first openly gay Latino to run for public office, José Sarria, performs at famed Black Cat Café where the right to serve gay patrons was won. And disco diva Sylvester, performs queer history at the corner of Columbus and Montgomery. 19th century transgender man Milton Matson is arrested for cross-dressing then forced to work at Dime Museum Freak show at The Hippodrome on Pacific Avenue. Pre-Beat queer Renaissance poets Gleason, Gidlow, Duncan, Broughton and Spicer, duel at City Lights Books where 100s of passers by witness the vociferous antics of Blabbermouth Nights. Once the most densely populated area of gay and lesbian bars from the 1930s to the 1960s the finale features three famed establishments of North Beach lore: lesbian bar Mona’s 440 brings to life famed lesbian singers Gladys Bentley, Kay Scott and Beverly Shaw. Last two stops are Finocchio’s featuring gay liberationist Harry Hay, female impersonators of the 60’s and queer radical performance troupe, The Cockettes at The Palace Theater of the 1970s.
COLLABORATORS
Written, conceived, and directed by Seth Eisen
Co-Director: Natalie Greene
Created in Collaboration with the Cast:
Jose Abad, Colin Creveling, Lisa Evans, Diego Gómez, Ariel Harris-Porada, Ryan Hayes, Jean-Paul Jones, Sarah Paradise, Earl Alfred Paus, Molly Shaiken, Silky Shoemaker, Miko Thomas aka Landa Lakes, Mary Vice and Sienna Williams.
Researcher and Co-writer: James Metzger
Musical Direction: Eli Maliwan
Visual Designers: Diego Gómez and Arial Harris-Porada
Dramaturge: Brian Freeman
Script Consultant: Ed Wolf
Created in Collaboration with Shaping San Francisco: Chris Carlsson & LisaRuth Elliott
Production Manager: Emelia Martinez Brumbaugh
Company Manager: Sydney Lozier
Tech Director/Operator: Cicily Clare Gruber
Stage Manager: Elle Jansen
Production Intern: Zulema Guzmán
Costume Angel: Jenna Kimberlin
Photography: Robbie Sweeny
Promo Video: Kat Cole
Program Design: Matthew Simmons
OUT of Site was made possible in part by a grant from The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous individual contributions. Eye Zen is a company in residence at CounterPulse’s House Artist Program.
