Italian.Queer.Dangerous
debuted at the Jon Sims Center in San Francisco in January 2005 and
played to sold-out audiences and rave reviews (see quotes above). It
returned for three nights at the National Queer Arts Festival in June
05 at SomArts in San Francisco. It was directed both times by Francesca
Prada, with lighting design by Joel Frangquist.
David Jenkins played flamenco guitar
live onstage in the June production.
A
one-man show, Italian.Queer.Dangerous
consists of 20 monologues and short vignettes that tell the story of a
gay southern Italian man growing up in working-class South Philly in
the 50s and 60s, a time when being Italian was considered too ethnic to
be completely white and being queer was a secret best kept hidden
away. Our hero, caught up in the fervor of the civil rights and
anti-war movements, comes out in 1971, joins the Gay Liberation Front
and soon is elected president of the group. He ends up on television
when a talk show needs a representative from the group for a debate on
gay rights. La famiglia finds out. A coming-out that has all
the passion of a Puccini opera takes place in his rowhouse the
following night. Life would take many interesting turns after that.
Tommi
Avicolli Mecca is a longtime writer and performer who first
took to the stage at age 10 when he and some friends put on shows in a
neighbor's yard. They caused quite a stir one summer night when during
a horror show, one of actors climbed over the fence from the alley and
jumped into the audience dressed like a vampire. The terrified kids
raced out of the yard screaming at the top of their little lungs. It
put an abrupt halt to his young theatre ambitions. His first
professional work was a 1978 production of Judgement of
the Roaches, a piece about a time traveler of the insect
variety who
comes back to find out why we humans were stupid enough to destroy
ourselves in a nuclear
holocaust. It won raves from audiences that packed the small
coffeehouse in the South Street hippie area where it debuted. It ended
up being performed at a college in West Virginia.
A few years later,
Tommi was starring in his first critically acclaimed one-man show, Giving Voice, produced at the Walnut
Street Theatre's Studio 5. By the mid-80s he was working with
Avalanche, a multi-racial queer troupe he founded. Their shows sold out
wherever they performed. They even rented a van one fall (thanks to a
generous grant from the Philadelphia Foundation) and took off on a
college tour of the Northeast. Students adored them, but administrators
hated the politically charged (i.e., leftist) and sexually liberated
material they presented.
Since moving to San
Francisco in 1991, Tommi has done both solo and group work, starting
with a month-long solo performance at Josie's Cabaret and Juice Joint,
then one of the city's top alternative entertainment spots. His group
gig was with Dhaiatribe, a multi-ethnic performance
troupe that did shows throughout the Bay Area and even brought works to
Bolinas and Santa Cruz. He also co-edited Hey Paesan: Writings by Lesbians and Gay
Men of Italian Descent, published in 1999.
In addition to being a
critically acclaimed artist, Tommi is also a longtime activist for
economic and social justice and works by day as a tenant's rights
advocate and counselor for mostly low-income renters. He was recently
honored for his 35 years of activism against war and the draft by the
American Friends Service Committee of San Francisco.
Tommi's latest theatre work was a
revival
of his play, the aching in god's heart,
which premiered at the Jon Sims Center in San Francisco while he was in
residence there in the late 90s (as part of the AIRspace program). It
sold out all performances. The show ran March 16-19, 2006 at St.
Boniface's Theater in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. He continues
to write and sing original songs, performing with two other folks in a
group called the Peaceniks. They are always available to perform.
Tommi is currently editing an anthology of writings about the early
1970s gay liberation movement (to be published in June 2009 by City
Lights Books). He is co-editing a collection of work by Italian
American writers dumping Columbus. Entitled Avanti Popolo: Sailing Beyond Columbus, it
will be published in October 2008. His regular columns appear at
beyondchron.org.
Contact Tommi at tommi@avicollimecca.com.
To read excerpts from Italian.Queer.Dangerous,
click on "ancestors" and "godless commies." There's also a beautiful
Italian translation of "ancestors" ("avi") done by Angela Cingottini
and a Portuguese version by Alessandro de Oliveira on
the "ancestors" page. To read selected works from his regular writings,
read "recent writings." For a sample of his short stories, read the
link of the same name. For a bibliography of writings with links
to sites on the webs, go to "bibliography." Enjoy this site.
This site is designed
and updated by the artist himself.
