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JOIN US OPENING NIGHT, JUNE 19th
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Q & A with Scott Sublett, Playwright of The Loves of Lincoln
WHAT WOULD LINCOLN SAY ABOUT THE LOVES OF LINCOLN? As crafty as Lincoln was about keeping his own counsel and telling people what they wanted to hear, I think he would be tickled to know that there finally came a time when he could be known for who he truly was. We all want to be accepted for who we really are, and so few of us get that. DID YOU HAVE A PURPOSE IN WRITING THE PLAY? The play was written to fight the erasure of gay identity in. history. I got frustrated when I saw people resisting the fact that Lincoln was gay, established so insightfully in C.A. Tripp’s scholarly biography The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. Throughout history, LGBTQ people have been forced to participate in their own erasure—to go into the closet or be destroyed. And we owe it to those long-gone heroes to put a spotlight on their truth. I wrote the play because I wanted people to know that the greatest American of all was a gay man. And I wanted to bring him back to life through the magic of theatre! WHY DID YOU APPROACH THE EMERALD THEATRE WITH YOUR PLAY? My artistic sensibility is a perfect fit with the Emerald. They’ve been at the vanguard of LGBTQ theatre for 30 years, combining outrageous comedy with gay liberation. I love their energy and I love their people. The public maybe doesn’t quite realize that, with the Emerald, Memphis and the Mid-South have one of the most venerable and long-standing LGBTQ theater companies in the country. Emerald deserves more support than it gets. That they can do what they do on the money they get is testament to how art can thrive on limitations. |
