PANEL ONE: QUEERING THE PRAIRIE STAGE (Joint Session with CLGSA)

Shawna Dempsey
Imitating Life: Cultural Activism by Mimicking the Mainstream

Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan began their long-standing artistic collaboration in 1989. Over the years the duo has created numerous performance, video, film and print projects. These works include: We’re Talking Vulva, Lesbian National Parks and Services: A Force of Nature, What Does a Lesbian Look Like?, Mary Medusa: A Testimonial, A Day in the Life of A Bull-Dyke and Good Citizen: Betty Baker. This work, the socio-political and artistic intentions driving the work, as well as spectator response to the work are the focuses of this discussion.


Doug Arrell, U of Winnipeg
Remembering Harry Rintoul

Manitoba playwright Harry Rintoul died in 2002 at the age of 45. His best known play was “Brave Hearts,” published in the collection Making Out: Plays by Gay Men edited by Robert Wallace and produced at Buddies in Bad Times in 1991. Other published works include Refugees and Between Then and Now.Harry was also founder of Theatre Projects Manitoba, which remains the most important small company in Winnipeg devoted to the production of new plays. In this paper, I meditate on my somewhat troubled friendship with Harry, and on the discomfort both the gay and straight communities experience with bisexuality. I suggest that much of his dramatic writing revolved around sexual ambiguity and the tensions that arise between men whose sexual identities are hidden or uncertain.


Wes Pearce, U of Regina
Loud and Queer: Gay Theatre in Regina

Within the somewhat conservative context of the Canadian West, it is obvious that when most theatre professionals think about communities of active queer theatre, Regina does not come to mind. Historically, Regina’s Globe Theatre has not been an overly gaylesbitrans friendly theatre (being that it was founded as a touring children’s theatre). However, this paper will argue that after several decades of silence, the Globe Theatre, under the leadership of Ruth Smillie, is the only mainstream institution that has not only fostered a queer subscriber base but has actively gone about developing queer artists within the community.