(Reprinted from the July 25, 2023, issue of The Bay Area Reporter)
Sure, the Castro boasts sidewalks studded with brass plaques celebrating icons of LGBTQ history. But given a couple hundred centuries of erasure, there are plenty of noteworthy folks who have slipped between the cracks.
Similarly, while our city boasts two relatively high profile LGBTQ theaters —New Conservatory Theatre Center and Theatre Rhinoceros— there's a third innovative company that flies under most queer San Franciscans' radar.
It seems altogether fitting that the latest production from Left Coast Theater Company is "QueerStory: Forgotten Figures from Queer History," which opens on Friday, August 4 at the Phoenix Theater, a nifty—and itself underappreciated— venue secreted away on the sixth floor of 414 Mason Street, just off Union Square.
Typical of Left Coast's productions, "QueerStory" is an evening of short plays (10-15 minutes long), each featuring a different writer's take on a common theme.
Among the based-on-a-true-story characters rising from the past at the Phoenix will be Albert Cashier, a transgender Union soldier who fought in the Civil War; Joachim Reticus, an uncredited gay collaborator of 16th-Century astronomer Copernicus; Pamela Coleman Smith, the lesbian who created the world's most famous Tarot deck; and Billy Haines, once the #1 male box office draw in Hollywood, who was driven off-camera during the Production Code crackdown of the 1930s.