Anti-gay story comments inspire playwright

September 8, 2009 by Kurt
Filed under: commenting, social media 
Joan Lipkin

Joan Lipkin

A colleague of mine has written a story about playwright Joan Lipkin, a veteran of the drama scene in the St. Louis area, who found inspiration for a play from the story comments she found on our newsroom’s website, STLtoday.com.

As Doug Moore described it, the original story (which he also wrote) was “about prominent gays turning to activism.“ Readers posted at least 330 comments on that story, many of them less-than-supportive of the gay community. Unfortunately, the original story is no longer in the STLtoday database, so I can’t link to it. An excerpt from Doug’s follow-up story:

“It is ridiculous that there is a story about a successful gay man in the paper. Now I know why the Post is going under,” wrote one reader, identified as “W. Champion.” It is one of 16 reader comments sprinkled throughout a new play Lipkin has written with Sharon Bandy, a playwright from Chattanooga, Tenn.

And there’s this:

The play is called “Beyond Stonewall: Why We March” and references the long battle for gay rights, including a clash between police and gays in 1969 outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City.

The play begins with a television reporter sent to do a story on a prominent gay male in his new role as activist. But the interview goes off track when two ghosts from Stonewall, bloggers and a longtime African-American lesbian activist intervene.

Doug told me he wasn’t aware of another case in which story comments had inspired art. The play is freely available online (PDF here). Lipkin has waived any royalty rights and is encouraging companies to stage performances before the National Equality March in Washington on Oct. 10-11.

Here are some of the comments included in the play:

From “J.R.”: “Gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose; they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”

From “Justtruth”: “The real reasons for all the attention is not really for equality. All they want is the spotlight, and to push their personal agendas.”

From “Ophelia J”: “You all might think I’m kidding about this, but I am very serious! I think all people should be able to experience misery and that hopelessly trapped feeling of being married. Come on in. The water is fine!”

From “TaterSalad”: “I’m a business owner and I don’t care what they look like or what their sexual orientation is as long as their money is green.”

I’ve said for some time that just because some readers’ comments are hard to “hear,” it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed make them. This is an example of how some good might have come from them.

UPDATE :: I’ve substantially changed this post since it was written originally. Turns out, there was a controversy over one of the comments that the playwrights used. This post was never supposed to be about that controversy; it was supposed to be about the work inspired by the reader comments.

That said, I’m sorry for the damage that might have been done to “Shelley Powers,” one of the readers whose comment was originally used in the play. I’ve removed the quote that was attributed to her from this post. The playwrights later acknowledged that her comment was taken out of context and portrayed the exact opposite impression that she meant to convey. I had quoted the comment from the play; in a subsequent update I delved into the controversy that erupted. Since, again, that’s not what this post was supposed to be about, I’ve removed those references. The playwrights have revised the play without the use of Shelley’s quote.


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Comments

  • Wow. Powers "believed" her comment was misconstrued and taken out of context? Couldn't you, like, check and see whether it was? It's a verifiable statement, after all. At least it is for those with any reading comprehension skills.
  • Thank for your comment. I mentioned earlier that we didn't have the original
    comment string, so we couldn't verify what she said. The original story
    expired and took the comments (which are not archived) with them. The
    playwrights subsequently sent us the original comments (which are linked
    above). They acknowledged that they did take Shelley's comments out of
    context, which I was able to determine because, indeed, I have reading
    comprehension skills.
  • So why write that Powers "believed" a fact? As though what she believed was mere subjective opinion?

    Why not just state: "Powers' comments were taken out of context and used inappropriately." The constant "Shape of earth, opinions differ" type of writing is pernicious in modern journalism. Small things like writing "so and so believed [verifiable fact]" cast doubt on verifiable facts inappropriately.
  • I think I did in the updates at the end. I didn't rewrite the whole item; I only had time to add updates. Sorry if it was confusing.
  • In update 2: "I have to reason to believe they’ve been tampered with"? Is that "no reason" or simply "reason"?
  • Thank you, Sam. Good catch. Yes, I have no reason to think they were
    tampered with. I have fixed the item. Thanks again.
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