We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeff Desautels. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeff below.
Jeff, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
In 2022, my friend and colleague Amica Hunter and I decided to produce a mini-horror theatre festival in Portland, Oregon. We were inspired by the Twin Cities Horror Festival, and we both happened to be working on spooky-adjacent material. We knew other folks in town that would round out a weekend of performances, and named it Stage Fright. Last year, we went even bigger with two weekends, and we managed to capture a really special energy that I am excited to keep carrying.
This year, we are “coming out”, as it were, and explicitly calling ourselves a queer horror festival. I think our hesitancy in claiming this from the get-go is that it is hard enough to find people doing horror theatre, never mind queer horror theatre. As it turns out, the Venn diagram is a circle. Someone on the internet [https://www.dreadcentral.com/editorials/402352/the-history-of-horror-is-the-history-of-queerness/] made the argument that all horror is queer, and I have to agree. We have a built a little community, and it feels like what a lot of people are searching for. I am excited for the festival to draw a lot of people “back to the theatre”, as it were, and to also make room for different experiences in that space. […]
Click here to read to the full piece. This story was originally published by Canvas Rebel Magazine on April 17, 2024.
