OnStage - Goodman Theatre

IN THE OWEN
LEFT: Students at a gay pride parade in 2011. Photo by
Dan Leveille.
represent LGBTQ students on campus.
This dynamic is on display in Teddy
Ferrara as the university’s president
plans an informal forum with a group of
LGBTQ students to address the campus
environment—specifically, whether or not
it is welcoming to gay students. Echoing
the paternal nature of universities that
students railed against in the 1960s,
he articulates the university’s goals as
twofold: “to educate you and to take
care of you en route to your becoming
an adult.” In the interest of not rocking
the boat (and keeping costs down), he
hesitates to take action on the various
recommendations the students bring
forth, and instead suggests that cultural
change is slow and inevitable—and can
be improved only on a grassroots level
when students take initiative to reach
out to their peers.
But the president’s forum reveals the
inherent vulnerability of social movements
that advocate for individuals
with a common identity: no individual
defines him or herself by a single factor,
and each of us belong to myriad
groups based on our sex, race, nationality,
economic class, religion and so on.
Even though all four of the students and
faculty invited to the president’s forum
self-identify as either gay or transgender
and are in favor of creating a welcoming
environment for LGBTQ students on
campus, they themselves are a picture of
the diversity within the broader LGBTQ
community: Gabe is a gay undergraduate,
Ellen is a lesbian tenured professor,
Jaq is a transgender grad student and
Jay is a disabled gay undergraduate.
And they represent at least three separate
organizations that speak for LGBTQ
students on campus: Gabe is in the
Queer Students Group, a primarily social
organization that he is the president of;
Jaq is a member of the Gender Identity
Task Force, which addresses the needs
of transgender and gender-questioning
students; and Ellen heads the Social
Justice Committee, a group that aims to
promote the broad theme of “diversity,”
with a primary focus on LGBTQ issues
on campus. Though the four have been
recruited to represent LGBTQ students
primarily because of their sexual orientation,
over the course of the play, some of
them discover that their personal values
are incompatible with the goals of the
movement that eventually emerges to
This incompatibility between the individual
and the collective identity reveals the
inherent fissures in campus social movements
that focus exclusively on creating
a better environment for a specific demographic.
Movements often discover that
the building blocks of their success—a
group of young individuals invested in
self-discovery—form a weak foundation
in the long term, when individual group
members embrace aspects of their identity
that clash with the broader goals and
values of the collective.
References:
Morris, Aldon D. and Carol McClurg Mueller, eds.
Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992.
Laraña, Enrique, Hank Johnston and Joseph R. Gusfield,
eds. New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity.
Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1994.
Altbach, Philip G. and Patti Peterson. “Before Berkeley:
Historical Perspectives on American Student Activism,”
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, Vol. 395 (1971): 1 – 14.
Lukianoff, Greg. “Feigning Free Speech on Campus,” The
New York Times, October 24, 2012.
Buckley, Cara. “The New Student Activism,” The New
York Times, January 19, 2012.
Support Diversity at the Goodman
Each season, Goodman Theatre highlights its commitment to quality, diversity and
community with its Community Engagement Partners—Donors dedicated to promotion
and celebration of the Goodman’s education and diversity initiatives. Community
Engagement Partnerships are a unique way to give back to the theater with a
tax-deductible gift of $500 that comes with an array of benefits including, but
not restricted to, VIP tickets for related Diversity Night events, direct access to
purchasing house seats and production recognition.
To pledge your support as a Community Engagement Partner for Teddy Ferrara—
including an invitation to Diversity Night on February 20—contact Molly
McKenzie at 312.443.3811 ext. 597 or MollyMcKenzie@GoodmanTheatre.org.
14