Gay Side Story

The initial idea for a gay parody of West Side Story had been lurking around Diane Elze's mind for a couple years prior to any concrete attempt to bring it to fruition. Gay Side Story's script was a collaborative writing effort involving several people who met regularly during the fall of 1982. Characters were developed, a general plot outline was decided, and responsibility for the writing was taken. Generally, the men's roles were written by men and the women's roles were written by women, all subject to consensus approval. The meetings consisted primarily of reviewing, line by line, that which each person had written and of suggesting, compromising, arguing, backpatting, dreaming. We let our imaginations run wild in the writing, putting on hold any worries we might have had about the mechanics of making our fantasies real. During the fall, word was spreading and interest was growing throughout the Greater Portland gay community , and in January, with scripts in hand, the writers held a meeting for those who thought they might like to take part in the project to talk about casting, crewing, and commitment. We have been meeting at least once a week sometimes two, three, four times a week ever since. The near-miracle of finding almost thirty people to rehearse six to twelve hours weekly (the bulk of those hours falling on weekends) fades in comparison with the remarkable forging of team spirit and loyalty felt among the cast and crew. By the fourth rehearsal we were already feeling and operating like a unit, and by performance time numerous new friendships had bloomed and a healthy mutual respect was evident. Some of the cast have had experience on the stage prior to Gay Side Story; most have not. But working on this project, I think I'm safe in saying that the majority of us have discovered in ourselves new skills, new talents and new confidence which will carry over into our off-stage lives. So, in the spirit of Andy Hardy and Betsy Booth, we audaciously present to you Gay Side Story. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

-John Frank, 1983

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