Support "I Am My Own Wife"
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In the fall of my freshman year of high school, I was handed a book that changed my life.
The outside of the book was black, with sprawling pink letters on the front and a top draped with white lace. I carried the book with me for a whole week of school, keeping it in my backpack as a tightly held secret. When I found a moment alone, I realized it was a script for a play. “I Am My Own Wife” by Doug Wright.
The play examines the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an openly transgender woman during the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Supported by a collection of thirty-three other characters, the play tells stories of LGBTQ+ persistence, community, isolation, and the pursuit of a shared queer history through the body of a single virtuosic performance.
The play hit me like a bullet.
After finishing the play, I realized that I had whispered the entirety of the script aloud to myself. After this day, I knew I would become a performer, and perhaps “I Am My Own Wife” would follow me.
What I did NOT know was that, three years later, the play would usher me out of the closet to my small community in rural Georgia.
I harbored the play as a secret for three years, with a DIY set built in my bedroom, and a costume at the ready. Unable to put into words how I felt about my gay, non-binary body at the time, performing the text to myself lit the path towards my pride.
In my last year of high school, my drama teacher and mentor, the generous and ever-so patient Mallory Nonnemaker, worked with me to mount an abridged version of “I Am My Own Wife” at my high school and at the 2016 Georgia Thespians Conference in Columbus, Georgia. Every day that we worked on it, I could feel my gender and sexuality-related shame peeling away, as my awe of what theatre was capable of grew. Before I performed queerness in my personal life, I performed queerness onstage - and I was utterly free.
Every time an audience gathered to hear me speak the words of this play, words of queer ferocity and complex ideas on gender, I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of acceptance and pride. That I could exist in a space, openly performing queerness, fiercely, and be celebrated? It allowed me to redefine my life. I have been openly gay and genderqueer since.
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Having taken four years to study my craft and build a family at the University of Connecticut, I realized it was time to return to the work that had led me towards my strength.
In 2018 I approached Willow Giannotti-Garlinghouse, a fellow non-binary queer artist in the department, with the prospect of their directing the production. I shared my experience and how my love affair with the play had been in secret. We began to dream of a rehearsal room filled with the most determined queer artists and socially-approved allies we could find. We envisioned a room in which hierarchy is questioned, accessibility is a necessity, where queerness is an ideology as well as an identity. Since my first time with the play had been so deeply tied to my own personal coming out, what would happen if we also put our focus on the themes of LGBTQ+ community and social justice in the play?
We began to imagine if a staging of “I Am My Own Wife” could reach beyond performance, but as a catalyst for conversation within the UConn Drama Department and University for people who feel or used to feel the shame I felt.
A couple of years later, I am proud to say that we have assembled a team of passionate, creative artists and have been hard at work on bringing “I Am My Own Wife” to Storrs, CT in April 2020.
But, we need your help.
Before mid-March, we must meet our goal in order for construction of the show to begin. Your support is needed in order to bring “I Am My Own Wife” to life in April 2020.
***Our likely showtimes:***
April 10th at 7:30pm
April 11th at 2:00pm & 7:30pm
----------
Here is what your contribution will go towards:
-Funds needed to rent space at the Ballard Museum & Institute of Puppetry in Storrs, CT.
-Puppetry! Along with featuring the full text of the play, our production will reimagine "I Am My Own Wife" with puppetry designed by two students in the renowned puppetry program at the University of Connecticut: Anthony Selitto and Kunzika Gabby.
-A set designed by Ray Dondero and lighting design by Kelly Daigneault & Allison Zerio that transforms the space of the Ballard, creating an immersive experience wrapping the audience into the story of “I Am My Own Wife.” What Ray and Kelly plan to do is something the Ballard theatre has NEVER seen before!
-The ability to let audiences see our play for free.
-The printing and distribution of a pamphlet about queerness, transness, war, imperialism, language, and how to create a creative space which centers those who have historically been marginalized.
-Resources for creating a series of “Queer Potlucks” at the UConn Storrs campus, including outreach materials and refreshments, in order to foster community engagement, conversation and camaraderie.
-DIY stickers, buttons, and t-shirts which will help us fund the project further, as well as advertise the show.
----------
We will update this page as we begin to meet our goal! Any size contribution is greatly appreciated.
Thank you kindly for your time,
Matthew Antoci,
Willow Giannotti-Garlinghouse,
and the creative team behind “I Am My Own Wife:”
Kelly Daigneault: Co-lighting designer
Ray Dondero: Set designer and head of promotional materials
Kunzika Gabby: Shadow master
Julianna Iacovelli: Stage manager, assistant director
Anthony Selitto: Puppet designer
Allison Zerio: Co-lighting designer
& Jack Dillon and April Lichtman as "Outside Eyes"
The outside of the book was black, with sprawling pink letters on the front and a top draped with white lace. I carried the book with me for a whole week of school, keeping it in my backpack as a tightly held secret. When I found a moment alone, I realized it was a script for a play. “I Am My Own Wife” by Doug Wright.
The play examines the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an openly transgender woman during the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Supported by a collection of thirty-three other characters, the play tells stories of LGBTQ+ persistence, community, isolation, and the pursuit of a shared queer history through the body of a single virtuosic performance.
The play hit me like a bullet.
After finishing the play, I realized that I had whispered the entirety of the script aloud to myself. After this day, I knew I would become a performer, and perhaps “I Am My Own Wife” would follow me.
What I did NOT know was that, three years later, the play would usher me out of the closet to my small community in rural Georgia.
I harbored the play as a secret for three years, with a DIY set built in my bedroom, and a costume at the ready. Unable to put into words how I felt about my gay, non-binary body at the time, performing the text to myself lit the path towards my pride.
In my last year of high school, my drama teacher and mentor, the generous and ever-so patient Mallory Nonnemaker, worked with me to mount an abridged version of “I Am My Own Wife” at my high school and at the 2016 Georgia Thespians Conference in Columbus, Georgia. Every day that we worked on it, I could feel my gender and sexuality-related shame peeling away, as my awe of what theatre was capable of grew. Before I performed queerness in my personal life, I performed queerness onstage - and I was utterly free.
Every time an audience gathered to hear me speak the words of this play, words of queer ferocity and complex ideas on gender, I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of acceptance and pride. That I could exist in a space, openly performing queerness, fiercely, and be celebrated? It allowed me to redefine my life. I have been openly gay and genderqueer since.
--------
Having taken four years to study my craft and build a family at the University of Connecticut, I realized it was time to return to the work that had led me towards my strength.
In 2018 I approached Willow Giannotti-Garlinghouse, a fellow non-binary queer artist in the department, with the prospect of their directing the production. I shared my experience and how my love affair with the play had been in secret. We began to dream of a rehearsal room filled with the most determined queer artists and socially-approved allies we could find. We envisioned a room in which hierarchy is questioned, accessibility is a necessity, where queerness is an ideology as well as an identity. Since my first time with the play had been so deeply tied to my own personal coming out, what would happen if we also put our focus on the themes of LGBTQ+ community and social justice in the play?
We began to imagine if a staging of “I Am My Own Wife” could reach beyond performance, but as a catalyst for conversation within the UConn Drama Department and University for people who feel or used to feel the shame I felt.
A couple of years later, I am proud to say that we have assembled a team of passionate, creative artists and have been hard at work on bringing “I Am My Own Wife” to Storrs, CT in April 2020.
But, we need your help.
Before mid-March, we must meet our goal in order for construction of the show to begin. Your support is needed in order to bring “I Am My Own Wife” to life in April 2020.
***Our likely showtimes:***
April 10th at 7:30pm
April 11th at 2:00pm & 7:30pm
----------
Here is what your contribution will go towards:
-Funds needed to rent space at the Ballard Museum & Institute of Puppetry in Storrs, CT.
-Puppetry! Along with featuring the full text of the play, our production will reimagine "I Am My Own Wife" with puppetry designed by two students in the renowned puppetry program at the University of Connecticut: Anthony Selitto and Kunzika Gabby.
-A set designed by Ray Dondero and lighting design by Kelly Daigneault & Allison Zerio that transforms the space of the Ballard, creating an immersive experience wrapping the audience into the story of “I Am My Own Wife.” What Ray and Kelly plan to do is something the Ballard theatre has NEVER seen before!
-The ability to let audiences see our play for free.
-The printing and distribution of a pamphlet about queerness, transness, war, imperialism, language, and how to create a creative space which centers those who have historically been marginalized.
-Resources for creating a series of “Queer Potlucks” at the UConn Storrs campus, including outreach materials and refreshments, in order to foster community engagement, conversation and camaraderie.
-DIY stickers, buttons, and t-shirts which will help us fund the project further, as well as advertise the show.
----------
We will update this page as we begin to meet our goal! Any size contribution is greatly appreciated.
Thank you kindly for your time,
Matthew Antoci,
Willow Giannotti-Garlinghouse,
and the creative team behind “I Am My Own Wife:”
Kelly Daigneault: Co-lighting designer
Ray Dondero: Set designer and head of promotional materials
Kunzika Gabby: Shadow master
Julianna Iacovelli: Stage manager, assistant director
Anthony Selitto: Puppet designer
Allison Zerio: Co-lighting designer
& Jack Dillon and April Lichtman as "Outside Eyes"
Fundraising team: Creative Team of "I Am My Own Wife" (2)
Matthew Antoci
Organizer
Storrs, CT
Julianna Iacovelli
Team member
