XXX by “Austin Queen of Weird” Aralyn Hughes

XXX
Performed by Aralyn Hughes, 
Directed by Amparo Garcia Crow
Saturday, Nov. 9th at 9:00pm 
Recommended for: Adults.
Comedy, Storytelling, 75 min.
2013 United Solo Festival

When 65-year-old “Austin Queen of Weird” Aralyn Hughes posts an ad in the Austin Chronicle that reads: “Dominatrix wannabe looking for willing submissive playmate/slave who knows how to look, beg but not touch except on special occasions. Bette Midler personality with a whip,” the response is overwhelming and a new lifestyle (and possible retirement income) presents itself. 
 
Click here to purchase tickets.

2013 United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival, presents 121 productions! All shows are staged at Theatre Row: 410 West 42nd Street, New York City. TICKETS, with a price of $18, are available at the Theatre  Row Box Office and online through Telecharge at www.telecharge.com. 

You may also call Telecharge at 212-239-6200. When placing your reservation, please provide: the FESTIVAL name (United Solo Theatre Festival), the name of THEATRE (Theatre Row: The Studio Theatre), and the specific DAY and TIME of SHOW you would like to see.

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Interview with Aralyn Hughes

JACQUELINE LAWTON: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
ARALYN HUGHES: As a card carrying feminist, I fell in love with the work of LADIES AGAINST WOMEN a street performance group that used satire to ridicule the anti-feminist backlash of 1980s Reagan-era America, inspiring to me to consider theatre as way of protest and wild, comic improvisation.   I was part of a theatre company in Austin (Big State Productions) who around the same time period created a workshop inspired by the Richard Avedon photographic exhibit, "In the American West" that was meant to showcase a response to these photographs through a presentation of original monologues.   We had planned to present two performances but because of popular demand, the show ended up running for 8 years!  That-- was my real introduction to the theatre.  I then took a hiatus from the theatre for almost twenty years and have only recently returned to it full-time in my mid-60s.  I felt time was running out and even though I was fearful to come back to it at the age of 65, I was also driven to make it happen.  Amparo Garcia-Crow, my director,  has been my mentor and inspiration.  Because she was also an original company member of Big State Productions,  I contacted her  about helping me get my story on stage and the last three years we have presented a series of eight original shows under the umbrella title: "Aralyn's Home Economics presents. . . ."  The shows have been a hybrid of performance art meets storytelling meets sketch comedy resulting in me "painting my life on a canvas" which means I am creating on stage the life I want to live.  A life imitates art experience.

JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
AH: No writing ritual just a roomful of boxes, mostly journals, archival videos, photos, artifacts and the backs of napkins which Amparo was brave enough to sort through to begin directing my stories.  Typically  I write in spurts,  notes on my phone or ipad/computer,  mostly I capture ideas about events to remember how I felt, thoughts that tie into whatever "social experiment" Amparo guides me towards so that I become the live subject of "the matter."   She listens very carefully to what distracts or obsesses me and off we go into the heart of the subject.  In the three year-series of shows we just completed, she has finally graduated me into sitting behind a desk ala Spalding Gray to just tell the story!  The idea being to ease into becoming the graceful but loud-mouthed crone.  Because I tell my life story, there is no script until after the performance when I transcribe the various approaches to the story.  The so called script is changing until I go on stage.  Often in performance, the story will evolve and be different.  There is more of an outline and notes on what I want to remember to tell so the story flows but in truth, the story becomes more alive than even I can imagine! 

JL: What inspired you to write XXX? What was the process of developing this piece? 
AH:  Bedicheck Jr. High in Austin, Texas choose me as one of the four most inspiring people in Austin and to honor that, they were painting my face as a mural on the side of the building!  I had no idea how they came upon me, I do not have children, I do not know anybody at that school.  Maybe they saw my "Keeping Austin Weird" art house on HGTV or my pink pig art car and my sidekick (a Vietnamese potbelly pig who used to perform with me around town) on the Discovery Channel or my visual art which hangs at different locations in Austin, but suddenly there I was, my face painted on the side of the building the size of a semi-truck  and it looked like me!  While I was there visiting with the students, I was introduced to their art teacher who put me on her email list and started sending me what 30 year olds are into.  One day she sends me the Rihanna video called S&M.  I opened it and LOVED the visuals of what I saw her doing and I found myself obsessing about her dominant actions and wondered-- what in the world is she doing?  Have I had my head in the sand?  Is this mainstream?  I now know it was a popish stereotype of the BDSM world but I found myself thinking: "If only I was 30 years old!"  I became so obsessed, my director said, why don't you research that for your next show!   I not only researched it, I tried on the role of dominatrix and the  universe of choices and rituals involved. For a 65 year old woman contemplating retirement, it opened up a radical dialogue and practice which  ended up changing my life.  Not because the practice was ultimately a lifestyle choice for me, but the process of becoming a dom ended up giving me the true to life role of a lifetime!  And without knowing how significant it would be to take this practice on with real submissive men in order to yield the monologue XXX,  the development of this story ended up taking me into a childhood sexual abuse incident I experienced at the hands of the Baptist deacon that lived across the street from my family in Elks City Oklahoma.  To uncover this enlightened me and liberated a lifelong (unconscious) oppression in me.

JL: What do you hope audiences will walk away thinking about after experiencing this play?
AH: I am saddened by the violence I see in our world and the lack of clarity and ease that exists with relationships between people.   What I present is a contradiction or at least a question or two that I hope contributes towards creating a less judgmental world, one in which there is more freedom of choice, and ultimately better communication, more peace (inside and out) and tolerance for diversity in the world--meaning, the more education we have about sexuality, oppression, fetish behavior and the desire for connection, the more understanding there can be for that fine line between pleasure and pain and how ultimately, everyone wants to experience their authentic,  true natures, in whatever form that arises.  The desire to no longer oppress those who are different--be it because of gender, lifestyle or personal choice is a life-long hope.  And a cause for which I have spent a lifetime rallying.

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About the Artists

ARALYN HUGHES is a storyteller/performer who for years as been called "The First Lady of the Keepin' Austin Weird movement."  She has been a lobbyist at the Texas State Capital for women's issues, having served as Director for the first abortion clinic in Central Texas in the 1970s; she's taught high school Home Economics (and been reprimanded for teaching sex education in the schools) and been a member of various board and commissions in Austin, Texas.  A dedicated feminist, she has been a successful business woman and a company member of Big State Productions and various improv companies in town

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AMPARO GARCIA CROW acts, directs, sings and writes plays, songs and screenplays.
She coaches individuals to follow their dreams BY DESIGN, a creative
and spiritual coaching dialogue that enlivens their art and life!  As a playwright her work has premiered Off-Broadway (INTAR, THE WOMEN’S PROJECT), Actor’s Theater of Louisville and been developed at South Coast Repertory.   Her films have premiered at SXSW and the Los Angeles International Latino Festival. She is currently in development with STRIP, a burlesque musical she began in residency with Mabou Mines. And in Austin, she hosts the monthly THE LIVNG ROOM: Storytime for Grown-ups.

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About the Festival

UNITED SOLO THEATRE FESTIVAL™ is an annual international festival for solo performances held in New York City. Through a diverse range of one-person shows, we explore and celebrate the uniqueness of the individual. From openly solicited submissions, we stage the most intriguing productions at the highly acclaimed Theatre Row in the heart of the New York City theatre district on 42nd Street. Renowned solo performers as well as new talents have opportunities in many categories (e.g. storytelling, puppetry, dance, multimedia, documentary, musical, improv, stand-up, poetry, magic, drama: tragedy or comedy). The artists also benefit from being presented by United Solo, a company made up of artists and producers with vast experience in solo performance. Submission is open in spring, and selected participants are announced in summer each year.

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