NOT JUST A STAGE.HOLLY HUGHES'S BATTLES HELPED HER RALLY 'ROUND TEENAGE PLAYWRIGHT SAMANTHA GELLAR'S CENSORSHIP FIGHT Holly Hughes Holly Hughes is a Republican National Committee member from the U.S. State of Michigan. She has been involved in grassroots politics since 1989. She has worked on numerous campaigns from envelope stuffer to campaign manager. is no stranger to controversy: The lesbian content of her often-autobiographical performance pieces (including The Well of Horniness horn·y adj. horn·i·er, horn·i·est 1. Having horns or hornlike projections. 2. Made of horn or a similar substance. 3. Tough and calloused: horny skin. 4. and Clit Notes) earned her a position as one of the NEA Four The "NEA Four", Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes, were performance artists whose proposed grants from the United States government's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) were vetoed by John Frohnmayer in June 1990. , a group of artists at the center of 1990's right-wing maelstrom Maelstrom, whirlpool, Norway: see Moskenstraumen. over National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Independent agency of the U.S. government that supports the creation, dissemination, and performance of the arts. It was created by the U.S. funding. Hughes challenged the establishment again in 1999 with her support of Samantha Gellar, a 17-year-old lesbian writer who won a playwright's award from the Charlotte [N. C.] Young Playwrights Festival for her one-act play Life Versus the Paperback Romance. Because of the play's one same-sex kiss, the Kiss, The sculpture by French sculptor Rodin depicting passionate embrace. [Art: Osborne, 988] See : Passion, Sensual Children's Theatre of Charlotte declined to stage it, deeming it inappropriate for the festival's teenage audiences. Gellar opposed the decision, and with the help of Hughes--who rallied the support of Terrence McNally This article is about the playwright. For the actor, see Terrence E. McNally. Terrence McNally (born November 3 1939 , Paula Vogel Paula Vogel (born November 16 1951, in Washington, D.C.) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and university professor. She is best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned To Drive, which deals with child sexual abuse and incest. , and other New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of theater heavy-weights--a reading of Paperback Romance, with Mary-Louise Parker and Lisa Kron, was staged at New York's Public Theater on June 14, 1999. Here, the two artists discuss the impact each has had on the other. I met Sam Gellar for the first time in The New York Times. In some ways I felt like I already knew her: "lesbian playwright censored," an old and, to me, all-too-familiar story that has not improved with countless retellings. But certain details leaped off the page, announcing that this Sam Gellar was very different, someone I hadn't met before. I was amazed at the way Sam, her family, and Time Out Youth had stood up to those in Charlotte who wanted to silence her. I was in awe at her belief in herself and her sense of--can I use this word?--entitlement. I'm not sure that this is the word I want--it's burdened with associations with gender and racial privilege--but I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. how else to describe Sam's confidence, her unshakable assertion that she wanted what was coming to her as a winner. Her belief that she was a winner ... Having taught for the past ten years, I've noticed that the most talented young women never have half the self-confidence of the least talented young men. Most young women would have internalized the judgments of the Children's Theatre, would have somehow bought into the idea that they had done something "wrong," but Sam resisted that, and I found that tremendously inspiring. She's my hero. Sam is an exciting writer. I am so lucky to have gotten to know her in a way that others didn't--that is, I got to actually meet Sam in the flesh and work with her on a reading of her play at the Public Theater in New York There are many famous theaters in New York, most notably the Broadway theatres in New York City.
--Holly Hughes Holly Hughes has affected me both as a person and a writer. Her camaraderie and assistance greatly helped me to achieve what I have to this day. She has a unique knack of taking the truth and making people listen to it. I may have done my own writing, but Holly found the audience who wanted to hear what I would say. Her taste for truth extends into her writing as well, giving young readers and aspiring writers volumes of work that say exactly what Holly Hughes thinks. This no-boundaries, damn-the-consequences, go-for-the-gold style of writing is more than entertaining; it shows that censors cannot reach everywhere. In America we are allowed to express anything we believe, think, or fantasize about in writing. Holly Hughes is a working model of how an individual can use this right despite the discouragement of outside parties. Her good example encourages all young writers to do the same: Write what they believe, not what society wants them to write. --Samantha Gellar Find more information on Holly Hughes, Samantha Gellar, and their work at www.advocate.com |
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