For a Dallas comedy troupe named Queertown to be making a run to Austin so soon after the state endorsement of Proposition 2 might be a sign it was seeking safe haven in the only county in Texas to vote down the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Well, Queertown isn’t seeking anything but a bigger audience for its upbeat sketch work, which has quickly captivated Big D. Though still in its first year, the nine-member troupe has been packing audiences into its monthly shows at the West End Comedy Theatre and snagged a successful main-stage performance at the 2005 Dallas Comedy Festival. Troupe founder Doug Ewart, who’s been providing music and arrangements to Esther’s Follies for a couple of years and just joined the Follies as a musician, hooked up his hometown troupe with the gang at the Pool, and Queertown hits the Capital City this week.
Austin Chronicle: It sounds like things have gone really well for you so far.
Doug Ewart: We’ve only done seven or eight shows, but every one of them has been to packed audiences. Our community has been very supportive, and not just the gay community but the straight community, too. Our cast is a mix of gay people, straight people, bi people, and we try to create a show that is very light and very fun. We don’t villainize straight people, we don’t villainize the government. It’s all very congenial. And I think it gives us a totally different feel than a lot of other gay shows. I was musical director at Second City for several years, and they had a gay show there called GayCo, which was a very, very funny show, but it was pretty much the stereotypical sketches of the gay-straight battle, and we don’t do those kinds of things.
AC: Is this what you thought Queertown would be like before you launched it last year?
DE: When we first auditioned for Queertown, I was expecting a thoroughly gay cast, and it didn’t turn out that way at all. The vast majority of people that auditioned were straight, and [troupe member] Paul J. Williams and I had to go out and find gay people that were quality writers and quality actors to participate in the show. But it has given us this incredible mix of people. If we’d had an entirely gay cast, I don’t think we could have come up with this much great material. The straight people we have in the show have never worked with any of these gay people. The gay people have never worked with any of these straight people, and yet they’ve come together to make this incredibly creative machine.
Queertown performs Wednesday, Nov. 30, 8pm, at Esther’s Pool, 525 E. Sixth. For more information, call 320-0553.
This article appears in November 25 • 2005.