What makes a performance ‘queer’? How does one ‘act gay’ or ‘play it
straight’? How is queer performance staged, produced, and received
differently from other kinds of drama? What is the relationship
between politics and performance?  This course investigates the
relationship between queer theory and stage performance in America
from the 1950s to the present.  Readings will be drawn from
the ‘canon’ of queer drama, including work by playwrights such as
Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Caryl Churchill, and Tony
Kushner, as well as more recent work in queer performance by the
likes of John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Itch), among
others. We will further analyze these plays in reference to their
various adaptations to see how material specific to the theatre is
transformed by mass media treatment. In the process, students will
learn to think critically about the media environment surrounding
them and develop a broader understanding of the complex interplay of
social forces that work to construct and embody gender and sexual
variance. Special topics we will consider include the closet, butch-
femme aesthetics, cross-dressing, drag, camp, and the politics of
AIDS.