By Joshua Robinson (Book)
Over ten years ago, I started writing Fairy Tale as a high school kid in Indiana. At that point, it seemed like the issue I was dealing with, albeit through a bawdy comedy, was too taboo to talk about, especially in a place like Indiana. Growing up gay in the Midwest is a strange experience. The Fairyland I was writing about was close to my reality. Everywhere I turned, the idea of having feelings for a member of the same sex was greeted with condemnation. Forget the idea of same-sex marriage; just having thoughts seemed like a crime. Fairyland was a much darker place at this point.
Now cut to the present. Things have changed…sort of. The dark show that I began has taken a lighter, more hopeful tone. I am sitting in rehearsal and the cast, led by Broadway vet and cabaret legend
Terri White, has me in pain from laughter. I am now engaged to my partner. Those are words I thought I’d never be able to say. We haven’t won the fight yet, but we have won a few battles. When I started the show, I wanted to scare the religious right into submission. Now I’ve learned a different path. Love restricted by gender is absurd; the way to show that is to laugh at it.
So I sit back in my chair and ponder while our villainous drag queen, currently in the guise of infomercial star Ms. Cleo, lectures a young boy on the negatives of being “de gay.” I take a break from concocting my next one-liner or contemplating a needed cut in the prologue of the show. I think about the little show I dreamed in my head as a high-school student scared of telling anyone but the blank page in front of me what I was feeling. I also think about the country I live in and the hope presented by potential change. Both the show and the country have come a long way.
