Tell-All Tuesday: Alana
Today we catch up with our multi-talented queer librarian, Alana!
Tell us about your first Femme Show
As much as I loved performing in the show itself, my favorite part of my first Femme Show experience was all the stuff that led up to the performances: playing femme roadie for the August mini-tour, workshops, and dress rehearsal. I loved getting to spend hours and hours with this smart, fierce, funny, and lovely group.
What have you been up to since October?
I’ve helped with and performed in a couple of TraniWreck shows, but that’s it for performing. I’ve been involved in a variety of nerdy endeavors, though: I finished co-editing a book with two of my favorite librarians, worked on some projects with the Boston Radical Reference Collective, and participated in a couple of terrific reading groups with Artists in Context.
Why do you think the Femme Show is important?
I value how the Femme Show creates a space for its performers to expand notions of what/who “counts” as femme, to have fun and to critique at the same time. I love that members of the cast represent, embody, and complicate femme in really compelling ways. I also appreciate that the show emerges from a specific geographic context, and allows us to represent some aspects of local and regional queerness.
What are you most excited about for the Femme Show in 2010?
I’m excited about getting to develop a new act or two, and taking some new risks (i.e., doing something other than burlesque – and, like Miss Gingerita, maybe even talking onstage).
What is your favorite thing to do onstage? Least favorite?
Favorites: having fun, vamping, and getting to be a bit ridiculous.
Least favorite: I enjoy being a femme roadie and don’t mind crawling around on stage to pick up stripped-off costume pieces, props, and dollar bills. But I don’t like stage-cleanup surprises (especially when they involve liquids). Like a good girl scout, I want to be prepared!
Both! As a type 1 diabetic, I have a complicated relationship to sweet. I like things that are versatile & can work both ways, like biscuits and crepes. And I can’t say no to a slice of red velvet cake.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I would like to add that many Femme Show performers have offered me advice over the years, good and bad, solicited and otherwise. But few have been as passionate and eloquent as Ms. Alana in her recent ode to the Swingline stapler.