Bay Windows (the homosexual newspaper in Boston handed out at Stop & Shop supermarkets and public libraries around the state) runs a series called "One of Us". This week it's about a "guerilla theater" group that hangs out in "gay cruising grounds."
The director of the group says it collaborates with Fenway Community Health (publisher of the Little Black Book) and is supported by Starbucks. (The director says he is also the "Men’s Health Coordinator at MAP for Health, a community-based organization working with Asians and Pacific Islanders on HIV Education and Outreach.")
"One of Us"? That implies this scene is typical of the "gay" lifestyle, and pertinent to readers of Bay Windows. The interview reads like a scene from hell. Here are excerpts:
…I direct guerilla theater in gay cruising grounds.
What form does that take? It’s a project named “Street Theater Named Desire.” We do short, short plays and safe-sex outreach.
Does that call a halt to the cruising? We want to make sure that the cruising continues, so what we do is intentionally hot: our actors generally only perform in their underwear, and we supply all the accoutrements a “fenster” [men cruising "The Fens" area in Boston] would need for a night in the park: condoms, lube, coffee, donut holes, water, bug spray, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, blankets to sit on and poster-size porn.
What do you think of the argument that the best way to stop endangering gays in the Fens would be to hack it down? I think it’s a denial of the power and the magic of horniness. I think hacking down the reeds will only move men into the garden plots, and I think it’s a denial of over 100 years of history....
And what does a Theater Offensive week look like? It includes rehearsing with A Street Car Named Desire; a chunk of designing and crafting; designing T-shirts and porn cards; starting the work on a community-based program called Repeat Offenders, working with our collaborator — Fenway Community Health, and other sponsors like Starbucks; weekly safer-sex outreach at Buzz; and more.
