In “Between Two Worlds: Who Loved You Before You Were Mine,” five deviant queers, their mythical beast secret identities, and all of their ghosts walk into a cabaret… The result is a show about yearning for ancestors, the empty spaces left by the first generation of AIDS deaths in queer communities and the way the next generation is called to fill those spaces.
In this re-interpretation of Yiddish theater classic The Dybbuk, the consensual possession of a lover by the ghost of their beloved is a model for acknowledging the collective loss we hold and reflect in our queer bodies. The cabaret is a love letter to the ghosts among us.
Performance Dates
- Dixon Place HOT! Festival Premier (2009)
- Fire Island (2009)
- Short Mountain Sanctuary Fall Gathering, Tennessee (2009)
- Red Lotus Room, Brooklyn (2010)
Reviews
“This show is so moving and powerful. I wish that everyone I know could see it.”
— Justin Vivian Bond
Creative Team
- Play by Ezra Nepon (aka Killer Sideburns)
- Collaboratively written, directed, and designed with J. Dellecave & Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky
- Performers: Avory Agony, Bryn Kelly (z”l), Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky, Ezra Nepon, Irma
Preikschat (aka Spice Rack), Zachary Wager Scholl - Projection by Niknaz Tavakolian
- Stage Managers: Casey Llewellyn, Jamila Ruya Khan
- Makeup by Lailah Bragin and Gage Boone
- Original Accordion Music Written and Performed by Patrick Farrell (& one night by Max Fass)
- Opening performances (in Brooklyn shows): Jenny Romaine and NathAnn Carrera
- Short Mountain special cast: Chris Bartlett aka Lady B, Becca Raeleen, Mountaine, Rosza, Ezra
Funding
In 2007, I received a Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant towards development of this play, which provided funding to spend two months researching in Eastern Europe including studying Yiddish in Vilnius Lithuania.
Photo credit: color images by Nogga Schwartz, black and white images by Quito Ziegler
EZRA BERKLEY NEPON 