Queering the Stage

<p><em>Queering the Stage: Inclusive Approaches to Performing Gender and Sexuality </em>addresses a history of stereotyping and provides inclusive approaches to navigating gender and sexuality in a way that does not reduce the broad spectrum of LGBTQ+ communities into a single monolith.</p><p><i>Butch it up! Be more manly! Add a little swish! Queen out! </i>These instructions make performers feel minimized erased and forced to fit in a binary that encourages underdeveloped portrayals of queer identities. This book will guide the reader in performance techniques for confidently embodying the masculine/ feminine gay/ straight binaries – as concepts of chosen choreography rather than reductive prescriptions – while also providing non- binary exercises to explore and expand the use of the body voice heart and mind to bring life to characters of sexual orientations and gender identities that do and do not align with the actors’ lived experiences. The reader will be presented with multiple tools for analyzing developing and embodying a diverse array of characters empowering them to make their own choices when it comes to performance. While there is no “right” way to teach performance this book will present tools rooted in trauma- informed practices that aim to prevent and undo harm in a group setting with a facilitator or individually.</p><p>This book is written for instructors of theatre performance and acting wishing to expand their curriculum to include queer concepts in their classroom and actors working in the industry who want to improve their ability performing characters of diverse genders and sexualities.</p><p>A companion website available at www.adicabral.com/queering-the-stage provides additional materials to support exercises given throughout the book.</p>