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Walk on the Wilde side. Celebrate Oscar Wilde’s 150th Birthday.
The festival honors the poet-personality-novelist-playwright’s impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender culture.
Join with us, and groups around the world, in celebrating the Sesquicentennial of Oscar Wilde’s 1854 birth.
In Los Angeles, the following four events, and an exhibit — “Wilde Family Values” — will run during WildeWeek, culminating in a Wilde Birthday Party.
Faking Oscar - lecture by C. Robert Holloway
C. Robert Holloway
photo: Louis Sahuc
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Oscar Wilde’s fascination with forgers and forgery form the basis of a talk by Author and playwright Holloway. He will also discuss his own book, “The Unauthorized Letters of Oscar Wilde,” which won the Hemingway award.
Following the lecture, there will be an opening reception for the “Wilde Family Values” exhibit, which chronicles the Wilde family history.
October 10, 2004
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, Calif.
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The Importance of Being Dolly by Lily Sauvage
Lily Sauvage
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Directed by Pamela Forrest
Down-on-her-luck L.A. actress Marguerite Davis hasn’t had a juicy part all year, so she decides to create one for herself, in the form of a fabulously tragic one-woman show based on the life of Oscar Wilde’s heartbreaking niece, Dolly. Brilliant, sexy, drug-addicted, and famously gay, Dolly promises to be the break-through role of Marguerite’s career. However, on the final rehearsal night, Marguerite has a break through of a very different kind …
Premiere; staged reading. Cast includes Lily Sauvage, Barry Saltzman, Ursula Schmidt, Ray Akin, Joey Bell, Paula Fins, Erin Treanor, Nancy Hendrickson.
October 13, 2004
Globe Playhouse, West Hollywood, Calif.
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Wilde Birthday Party
Paula Fins
photo: Peter Martin
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Celebration includes a performance piece — written by Bill Kaiser — about Oscar’s mother, Speranza. Cast included: Paula Fins, Bill Chrisley, Ron Edwards, with singer Steven De Muth.
The piece is followed by the Wilde Birthday Party in the ONE Archive garden. Proceeds benefit the ONE Archives.
October 16, 2004
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, Los Angeles, Calif.
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WildeWeek Festival Background - Produced by the Purple Circuit - Sponsored by ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
image: Eve Elloree
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For the past eight years, Oscar Wilde’s birthday — October 16 — has been celebrated in Los Angeles through the WildeWeek Festivals. They began with Bill Kaiser’s fascination for Wilde’s literary work, and also because Jim Kepner, founder of the ONE Archives, told him that gay people referenced Oscar as away of signaling a kindred spirit.
Celebrations have also taken place on May 19, the date Wilde was released from prison.
Over the years, events have included mini-festivals, with participation from people such as playwright Robert Patrick, actors Travis Michael Holder, Lily Sauvage, Kevin Dulude, Kevin Rettig, Philip Esposito (who staged a reading of Eric Bentley’s “Lord Alfred’s Lover,” and George Enell (who created a version of “De Profundis.”
The Purple Circuit 818-953-5096
Created in 1990 by Bill Kaiser, the Purple Circuit promotes gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual and transgender theater and performance throughout the world. After publishing a quarterly newsletter for 13 years, the Purple Circuit now maintains online listings of production, theaters, critical reviews, playwright listings and contact information.
ONE Archives 818-953-5096
Incorporated in 1952, ONE is the oldest, ongoing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization in the western hemisphere. ONE honors the past, celebrates the present, and enriches the future of all LGBT people by fostering acceptance of sexual and gender diversity through support of worldwide education and research about LGBT heritage and experience. ONE is dedicated to collecting, preserving, documenting, studying, and communicating LGBT history, challenges, and aspirations and is believed to house the largest collection of LGBT memorabilia in the world.
Celebration Theatre
Since 1982, Celebration has existed as the only community-based professional theatre in Los Angeles with the mission of accurately representing the gay and lesbian community to itself and to the community at large. Key to this mission is the development of new work by lesbian and gay playwrights, as well as the presentation of West Coast or Los Angles premieres of gay and lesbian work first produced in other theaters. Celebration also provides a forum for established and emerging lesbian and gay writers, directors, designers, and performers, giving voice to the experience of gay culture.
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