The cast of ‘The Martyr’ in rehearsals before it opens during the SheDFW Arts Summer Theater Festival. (Photos courtesy SheDFW Arts)
SheDFW Arts theater festival premieres the queer-centric play The Martyr this week
RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
On Tuesday, SheDFW Arts will present the inaugural Summer Theater Festival. Building on the initiatives of SheNYC Arts and the festivals held in New York City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, SheDFW brings that vision to North Texas. The festival features works created by women, trans and nonbinary voices of Texas for the weeklong festival.
The festival runs Tuesday-Sunday with four productions all held at Lyric Stage Studios in the Design District. The festival will include the premiere of The Martyr, about a queer couple at an all-girls Catholic school during the 1950s written by nonbinary/genderfluid lesbian Leo Rodriguez.
The show also marks the 25 year-old’s professional debut as a playwright so Wednesday, when the show opens, will be marked with a bit of trepidation for Rodriguez.
“As someone who’s so early in their career, it can be difficult to feel a lot of confidence in my work, and the She Festival has been such a supportive space in which to make my debut. I’m excited to see this story on its feet for the first time, but it’s also my first time opening this work up to such public scrutiny, and that’s obviously nerve-wracking,” they said.
The show has been a long time coming though. Rodriguez wrote the first draft as a college senior where they attend a Catholic university with a convent across the street from the student union. This caused fascination for the playwright.
“I’d learned a bit about the nuns and the history of monasticism in general. The majority of these women were over 70, and had grown up during times where the life paths for women – especially in the small-town Midwest – were very limited,” they said. “For many of them, becoming a nun provided a way to pursue academia, activism and the arts, independent of the pressures of being a wife or mother.
What Rodriguez also saw was how it provided an “inconspicuous escape route from marriage for people who might have been lesbian, asexual or even gender-nonconforming.” And yet, these women devoted their lives to an inherently oppressive institution.
With their own journey of queerness and religious trauma, Rodriguez found parallels between themselves and her neighboring nuns. This would begin to shape their work.
“In this play, I sort of married those two concepts together: the plot is shaped by this piece of history I find intellectually fascinating, while the character journeys are shaped by very intimate personal struggles,” they said.
The play was also inspired by a deadline.
“I was taking a course at the Playwright’s Center and our final was to write a one-act. Since this was the story that was bouncing around my head already, I decided to take a shot at it as a play,” they said.
About The Martyr (from SheDFW Arts):
1959: Priscilla has grown up a ward of the nuns of Saint Catherine’s Academy, and she’s desperately seeking a divine purpose in life — and reeling from her feelings for another girl. Scrappy, genderqueer Sky has been sent to Saint Catherine’s by parents trying to literally straighten them out. When Priscilla thwarts Sky’s attempt to escape the Academy, the two accidentally awaken the ghost of a student who died on campus decades prior. Attempting to set her to rest and solve the mystery of her death, they uncover secrets about the school that shake Priscilla’s faith — and form an unexpected connection.
A mix of religion, the paranormal and queer characters can make quite the theatrical cocktail. Rodriguez has always believed in ghosts. But they go a bit further.
“I think to be queer is to be haunted by the people who came before us: those who were erased, those who were victims of homophobia and transphobia, and those who made it possible for us to live as queer people today,” they said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my queer ancestors. So writing a queer ghost story felt like a way of making that part of the queer experience, that connection to the past, literal.”
For director Libby Hawkins, she saw how The Martyr challenges both religious and conservative ideas about femininity and sexuality. Hawkins applied to direct and then was paired with this production. Rodriguez and Hawkins didn’t know each other prior to this, but for Hawkins, there was an immediate bond in telling this story.
“When Leo and I met in an early meeting, there was a very clear connection based on our love of this story and our shared desire to create a space in which actors could be part of the development process,” she said. “Leo’s input about casting and the incredible amount of dramaturgy they provided us have been invaluable. I was so struck by the perspective Leo’s words offer around spiritual and self-love.”
So much so that Hawkins is cheering on the two characters in The Martyr.
The relationship between Sky and Priscilla-Jane is so beautifully written, I felt myself rooting for them almost immediately. But there’s also real magic in how Leo has captured the conversation many female and queer people have about where they fit in organized religion. That’s a conversation that’s near to my heart,” she said.
Religious or not, Rodriguez believes that queer audiences will find something to connect to in The Martyr. They remind us that queerness and religion aren’t always disparate.
“I think there’s a misconception that queer and trans people aren’t religious or don’t care about spirituality, because so many of us have been rejected by religion,” they said. “Accepting that you’re trans requires you to think about big things – about human nature, transformation and place in the universe. Trans people are some of the most spiritual people I know, and my own transition has made me feel so much more connected to the Divine. That celebration of queerness as an expression of the Divine is a huge theme of The Martyr.”
SheDFW Summer Theater Festival schedule:
Tuesday, Sept. 10:
For Bo by Ayvaunn Penn at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 11:
The Martyr by Leo Rodriguez at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 12:
Olivia O with book and lyrics by Jessica Carmona and Diane Currie Sam, music by Gil Yaron at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 13:
For Bo at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 14:
Olivia O at 1 p.m.
The Martyr at 5 p.m.
Under the Jello Mold by Jennie Fahn at 8 p.m.
Sunday
Under the Jello Mold at 1 p.m.
For Bo at 6 p.m.
All shows at Lyric Stage Studios
1170 Quaker St.
Two-show and full festival passes available.
For more information and tickets, visit SheNYCArts.org/She-DFW.