Alison Bechdel’s iconic eponymous Bechdel Test isn’t the same exam it was when the award-winning graphic writer (Fun Home, Dykes to Watch Out For) created it back in ye olden 1985. A quick refresher if you’ve been under a rock since then or are still entrenched in the patriarchy: In order to pass the Bechdel Test, stories—be they on stage, page, or screen—have to include at least two female characters. And those two women have to talk at least once about something other than men. Extra credit: The women have names.
But the test itself has evolved since Bechdel Fest debuted in the heart of the Obama administration, says director JD Caudill, who marks their fourth Fest this year. Bechdel 8, they point out, includes pieces centered on transwomen, nonbinary, and queer characters. Caudill is directing Lane Anthony Flores‘s going green (March 12), a futuristic tale of dysmorphic beauty standards and body modification so extreme nobody’s even tried it yet IRL. The synopsis sounds akin to Black Mirror meets Nip/Tuck meets Desperate Landscapes.
“I wanted to write a kind of queer romantic comedy—I don’t think we see a lot of those,” Sowlat says. “I also loved the idea of working history into it, and the concept of these intergenerational relationships.”
After that, she and her mother began scouting for plays by Black authors and featuring Black characters that they could bring to the schools. “We’d really hunt,” McAllister says. “We’d write our own things, do monologue nights we called ‘Different Perspectives.’ I mean, I just love stories. That’s how we communicate. That’s how we connect. Telling stories.”
1/29-3/26: available anytime through YouTube with new plays added each Friday, brokennosetheatre.com. F
