“Significant Other” represents “the heartbreaking realities of trying to find love in today’s overly distracted, social media-obsessed world.”
When Lindsay Mauck and Peter Reynolds co-founded Philadelphia’s floating venue Mauckingbird Theater 11 years ago, with the company mission statement of “innovative, affordable, gay-themed theater,” no one could’ve guessed the future of LGBTQ people, places, things, and circumstance.
Though there are miraculous changes in the law, most notably gay marriage, “we are still under threat,” said Reynolds. “If it was ‘progressive’ in 2008 to tell stories where being LGBTQ is a given circumstance, it is now obligatory. Forces in the U.S. are questioning our rights and taking them away in systematic ways. We must present our stories onstage and make them as commonplace as the heterosexually focused ‘rom-com’s on the Lifetime Network.”
Nearing twenty full productions and Philadelphia premieres, including pageants and mash-mix cabarets, has meant that compelling stories with great language, where being queer is a given circumstance, is both the norm and normal when it comes to the Mauckinbird stamp of approval.
The Philadelphia premiere of Significant Other from Joshua Harmon – the New York City playwright famously responsible for Bad Jews, Admissions and Skintight – is a next step in presenting that norm, an intense gay relationship dramedy (at the Drake Theater Aug 28-Sept 15) that takes on, what Reynolds calls, “the heartbreaking realities of trying to find love in today’s overly distracted, social media-obsessed world.”
About Post Author
