Gallery Test

Director Victoria Bussert has a way of leaving a lasting impression with her productions. Here she changes the musical’s original ending and turns to the novel’s more poignant finale in a way that brings the moment back to our contemporary world. It’s sweet, sad and beautiful. Bring a tissue.

And the enthusiasts? They'll swoon, as evidenced at the sold-out opening-night house when they shouted lyrics and encouragement to performers, and wandered the lobby during intermission draped in colorful boas.

That's largely because the production, directed by Victoria Bussert, feels so joyful. As the chorus of "Dancing Queen" famously goes, those in the cast - a spicy mix of Great Lakes company members and students in Bussert's musical theater program at Baldwin Wallace University - seemed to be having the time of their lives.

Full Article:

How it does starts and ends with director Victoria Bussert, whose impressive resume boasts of complicated operas, elaborate national tours and innovative new musicals such as “Lizzie Borden.” And she is the director of Baldwin-Wallace University’s top-ranked music theater program. Bussert has no trouble finding any show’s heart and art.

As for ISF’s July 3 interpretation, if ever a performance could be described as a romp, this would be it. From the sparkling throwback costumes leading ladies Jillian Kates, Laura Welsh Berg and Jodi Dominick occasionally donned to the powerhouse vocals and full-cast dances, everything was exuberant and overblown, pulling the audience immediately into the fun and prompting a few to sing along. 

Take a pure American gothic tale that grabbed the headlines in a small New England town in 1892 and quickly went on to become a cause celebre across the nation. Set it to a volcanic, quaisi-operatic punk rock beat that captures the sense of female rage, retribution and betrayal, and feels custom-made for the current climate. And then just let it roar.

A rock apologia for she of the 40 whacks, “Lizzie” is the first production from Chicago’s new Firebrand Theatre, which declares itself to be “the world’s first and foremost feminist musical theater company.”

With an audacious claim like that you’d better come roaring out of the den, and that’s exactly what happens with the dynamic “Lizzie,” a thrilling all-female production that takes what generally has been perceived as a camp and pulpy piece of singing splatter theater and recasts it as a furiously performed declaration of feminist strength and survivorship in the face of abuse.

EXACT CHANGE is a solo play, and the solo form is very distinctive and becoming very popular these days.  Why did you decide to tell this story in this very particular medium?

I decided to write EXACT CHANGE as a solo play because the subject of the work, my transgender journey, is so very individual and personal. When you grow up with a gender disconnect, as I did, nothing makes much sense and even small things are distorted. For instance, in the play there is a scene where I, as 12-year-old Richard, see my first Playboy centerfold. And my first thought is, “Wow, that could be me!” Clearly, most boys don’t react that way. With so many of those moments, I felt it would be much clearer if the performer played all the roles, so that the audience can see the entire situation from my admittedly unusual perspective.

When Christine Howey came out as transgender in 1990, all she wanted to do was blend in. As a middle-aged woman in a society that equates visibility with youth, it wasn’t as hard as she had expected. Even friends and family failed to notice her as Christine at first. During her coming out party, she managed to hide against the wall, invisible in a sea of the people that loved her most.

Yet, after decades of seeing how easy it is for trans women and men to “disappear,” as she put it, and realizing how often trans people are attacked or killed or commit suicide, Howey decided it was time to tell her story. She knew turning her life into a one-woman show would be terrifying, but also that she was one of the few people who had the privilege of support to do so. And so she set about turning her experience with poetry and acting into “Exact Change.”

The gender gap pervades every industry and measurable statistic of modern life, except maybe roundups of gynecology patients. The theater is one of our worst examples. “But! But! ... “ a dude might stutter, on the verge of some real A+ mansplaining. “There are plenty of ingenues and women complicating the plot for male leads!”

“Exact Change” is, in large part, the story of Howey’s transgender journey—one that took place here, in her hometown.

“This play is my attempt to show others what it feels like to struggle with a gender identity conflict,” said Howey. “Most people, gay or straight, don’t have a clue about it.”

The play consists of 40 poems and monologues, many of which are funny and are delivered in a variety of character voices. It begins with pieces that cover a wide range of topics, as Christine searches for her own voice.

Longtime readers of the Gay People’s Chronicle may remember a review back in 2003 of Noelle Howey’s Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods--My Mother’s, My Father’s, and Mine, Howey’s autobiography and the tale of her father’s transition from Dick to Christine.

It was a marvelous book, delving deep into Noelle’s feelings about the ever-changing dynamics of her family, with a sympathetic and loving eye on both of her parents.

Of course, there is something to be said for hearing about someone’s transition first-hand, and that’s what audiences will get in Exact Change, the elder Howey’s new one-woman play about finding your voice and championing your identity.

A clever, caustic award-winning critic for the Cleveland Scene, she is also a former actor and director, a published poet and competitive Poetry Slam participant, and – with last year’s staging of her one-woman play “Exact Change” by the Cleveland Public Theatre – a produced playwright.

The autobiographical play, performed by Howey herself, takes us on her arduous transgender journey from Dick to Christine and does so through her personal poetry and powerful prose.

Twenty-five years before Bruce Jenner asked the world to call her Caitlyn, Dick Howey asked Cleveland to call her Christine.

Howey, a journalist, actor and poet, transitioned in 1990, before she had access to the Internet and before television shows depicted transgender individuals. She decided to live as the woman she always knew she was when “gender identity disorder” was still medically classified as a mental illness and transgender individuals were not so visible.

The story applies to anyone: “Everyone is trying to be who they are, even if they aren’t transgender. This is the story about becoming who you are, becoming comfortable with who you are, and navigating the transition into that place.”

This is Christine Howey’s take on her one-woman play, Exact Change, about her transition in the early 1990s.

Before transitioning in 1990, Christine Howey was Richard Howey, a celebrated stage actor in Cleveland, known for playing such heavy-hitting male roles as Lucifer, Goebbels, “Terrible Jim Fitch,” Richard Nixon, and God.

Exact Change explores Howey’s gender transition from many angles in a one-woman tour-de-force spiked with political rants, historical reflections and an incisive wit that packs a punch. Described as “rewarding and life-changing theatre” (Fran Heller, Cleveland Jewish News),

The autobiographical solo one-act, also performed by Howey and directed by Baldwin Wallace University professor Scott Plate, takes us on her arduous and often humorous transgender journey from Dick, a 45-year-old man with a wife and daughter, to Christine. It does so through her personal poetry and photographs, powerful prose, and dramatically simple staging. And it offers the perspectives of family, friends and a few helpful transvestites she meets along the way.