Mark Salyer's New Stages Will Present 'Queer Theater: From The Freaks To The Geeks' Beginning This Week

Starting on November 2nd and for 8 consecutive weeks on Zoom, New Stages will feature the class Queer Theater: From the Freaks to the Geeks, taught by Mark Salyer and with special guests including playwright Robert Patrick (Kennedy's Children) talking about Caffe Cino and director Randee Trabitz ("The Mystery of Irma Vep", "Blacktop Highway", "The Solid Life of Sugar Water") who will discuss the plays of Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theater.

Beginning with their New Year's show in January, New Stages[MS1] has had a great [MS2] year, in lieu of Covid, with thousands of seniors tuning in to their online programming. This past April, their Tennessee Williams workshop launched the company's Zoom Lecture Series. In June, Secret Lives was presented on Zoom and Vimeo over the four weeks of Pride month and was a huge success. Since 2012, New Stages has been a part of the City of West Hollywood's One City One Pride Arts Festival producing a show with the seniors of the LA LGBT Center each June. Over the summer, they had a class on Stephen Sondheim, that was widely popular. NewStages has also begun teaching classes for Jewish Family Services senior programs.

New Stages, a Los Angeles based theater company for seniors[MS3] , was originally an offshoot of Stagebridge in Oakland, CA, the country's oldest senior theater company and in 2014, they became a part of the award-winning Oasis Theater Company. In 2011, theater artist and teacher Bruce Bierman had a vision for bringing Stagebridge to Los Angeles[MS4] . Through a partnership with the LA LGBT Center's Senior Services and with support from the City of West Hollywood and the Grace Helen Spearman Family Foundation, NewStages was born. Since then, the company, under the direction of Mark Salyer, has brought classes, workshops and performances to thousands of seniors, including a yearly production for the One City One Pride Arts Festival.

Salyer, a theater artist with over twenty years of experience as an actor, director and producer, says teaching is his passion. "Teaching is storytelling. Throughout my career as an actor and director, I was always teaching. It just seemed the natural extension of my work." As a performer, his work has focused on Queer Theater with lead roles in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and an all-male version of Sophocles' "Electra."

In a 2015 study sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, researchers found "true health promotion and disease prevention effects" in participants in creative projects with professional teaching artists.

"I think the benefits of our program are undeniable," says Salyer. "We are forming creative communities and helping our clients connect to make art happen."

New Stages' work has often centered on personal narrative and storytelling. The program at the LA LGBT Center, for instance, offers LGBTQ+ seniors the opportunity to tell their own stories in a cabaret show presented each year during Pride Month.

For more information about NewStages or to join the Queer Theater class, please visit their site www.newstages.org or follow on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/artandaging

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