FEBRUARY 4th, 2023
LIVE PHONE CALL READING: 669-275-1807
5pm PST, 6pm MST, 7pm CST, 8pm EST
starring Maxe Crandall, Emmett Ramstad, and Constantine Zavitsanos
with charles ryan long as switchboard operator
and Chandler Daily and Gem Cut as helping hands
If able, in lieu of ticket purchase, make a donation to: Brown Boi Project and/or Defend the Atlanta Forest
Content Warning: graphic sexual description, kinky/BDSM scenarios, death, AIDS
Access Notes: Email maxecrandall at gmail.com for text PDF.
Robert Chesley was a composer, activist, and playwright. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Chesley left New York City for San Francisco in the late 1970’s, where he became a central voice in the queer theater scene, first as a theater critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. His first one act, HELL, I LOVE YOU was produced at Theatre Rhinoceros in 1984. In the same year, Chesley’s NIGHT SWEAT was the first full-length production about AIDS. In a 1986 radio presentation, Chesley’s phone sex play JERKER was deemed “indecent, possibly obscene” by the FCC. Chesley died of AIDS in San Francisco on December 5, 1990.
Maxe Crandall is a poet, playwright, and director. His performance novel about AIDS archives and intergenerational memory The Nancy Reagan Collection made the NYPL’s Best 10 Poetry Books of 2020 and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist in Transgender Poetry.
charles ryan long is a Chicago based multi-disciplinary artist, activist and Black liberationist. He explores issues of representation, legacy, and loss through paper making, print, performance and other mediums that lend themselves to the principles of the democratic multiple. His work seeks out the audience and hopes to stir within them a push towards the future where we center the needs of those with the least amongst us.
Emmett Ramstad is an transdisciplinary sculptor exploring body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. He is a 2022 Mcknight Visual Arts Fellow.
Constantine Zavitsanos works in medium based time.
Special Thanks: Victor Bumbalo, Claudia La Rocco, Isaac Fellman and the GLBT Historical Society, What Would an HIV Doula Do?, Joe Tally and Theater Rhinoceros, Chandler Daily and Sylvester, Diana Cage and Judy Garland.
Love to our cast, co-conspirators, audiences, and lovers at past shows:
Radio: Diana Cage, Montez Press Radio, and Carly Dashiell.
Chicago: charles ryan long, Mel Leverich, Gary Wasdin, and the Leather Archives and Museum.
Philadelphia: Abdul-Aily A Muhammad, Gem Cut, John Anderies and the William Way LGBT Community Center.
Minneapolis: Chandler Daily, Claude Peck and Evan Allgood and Quatrefoil Library.
Brooklyn: Adam at Inferno, Stephen Ira, Aldrin Valdez, Liam O’Brien, Becca Teich
669-275-1807: Constantine Zavitsanos and charles ryan long.
Reading Courtesy of Victor Bumbalo of the Robert Chesley Foundation, Broadway Play Publishing Inc, and a Eureka Commission from Onassis USA.
LIVE PHONE CALL READING: 669-275-1807
5pm PST, 6pm MST, 7pm CST, 8pm EST
starring Maxe Crandall, Emmett Ramstad, and Constantine Zavitsanos
with charles ryan long as switchboard operator
and Chandler Daily and Gem Cut as helping hands
If able, in lieu of ticket purchase, make a donation to: Brown Boi Project and/or Defend the Atlanta Forest
Content Warning: graphic sexual description, kinky/BDSM scenarios, death, AIDS
Access Notes: Email maxecrandall at gmail.com for text PDF.
Robert Chesley was a composer, activist, and playwright. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Chesley left New York City for San Francisco in the late 1970’s, where he became a central voice in the queer theater scene, first as a theater critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. His first one act, HELL, I LOVE YOU was produced at Theatre Rhinoceros in 1984. In the same year, Chesley’s NIGHT SWEAT was the first full-length production about AIDS. In a 1986 radio presentation, Chesley’s phone sex play JERKER was deemed “indecent, possibly obscene” by the FCC. Chesley died of AIDS in San Francisco on December 5, 1990.
Maxe Crandall is a poet, playwright, and director. His performance novel about AIDS archives and intergenerational memory The Nancy Reagan Collection made the NYPL’s Best 10 Poetry Books of 2020 and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist in Transgender Poetry.
charles ryan long is a Chicago based multi-disciplinary artist, activist and Black liberationist. He explores issues of representation, legacy, and loss through paper making, print, performance and other mediums that lend themselves to the principles of the democratic multiple. His work seeks out the audience and hopes to stir within them a push towards the future where we center the needs of those with the least amongst us.
Emmett Ramstad is an transdisciplinary sculptor exploring body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. He is a 2022 Mcknight Visual Arts Fellow.
Constantine Zavitsanos works in medium based time.
Special Thanks: Victor Bumbalo, Claudia La Rocco, Isaac Fellman and the GLBT Historical Society, What Would an HIV Doula Do?, Joe Tally and Theater Rhinoceros, Chandler Daily and Sylvester, Diana Cage and Judy Garland.
Love to our cast, co-conspirators, audiences, and lovers at past shows:
Radio: Diana Cage, Montez Press Radio, and Carly Dashiell.
Chicago: charles ryan long, Mel Leverich, Gary Wasdin, and the Leather Archives and Museum.
Philadelphia: Abdul-Aily A Muhammad, Gem Cut, John Anderies and the William Way LGBT Community Center.
Minneapolis: Chandler Daily, Claude Peck and Evan Allgood and Quatrefoil Library.
Brooklyn: Adam at Inferno, Stephen Ira, Aldrin Valdez, Liam O’Brien, Becca Teich
669-275-1807: Constantine Zavitsanos and charles ryan long.
Reading Courtesy of Victor Bumbalo of the Robert Chesley Foundation, Broadway Play Publishing Inc, and a Eureka Commission from Onassis USA.
JERKER, performance/Reading, 2022-2023
A collaboration between artists Maxe Crandall and Emmett Ramstad, this performance is a semi-staged reading of Robert Chesley’s 1985 play Jerker, or The Helping Hand: A Pornographic Elegy with Redeeming Social Value and a Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in Twenty Phone Calls, Many of Them Dirty. Jerker tells the story of two strangers who develop an erotic fraternal relationship through phone sex. As the two characters get each other off, they demonstrate the power of sexual fantasy in processing the grief, rage, and loneliness of living in pandemic.
This performance is Inspired by their obsession with Robert Chesley’s archive at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and supported by a Eureka Commission from Onassis USA. Their national tour is organized to provide free performances at archives and queer/trans spaces while allowing them to conduct ongoing research on a performance installation focused on “corresponding intimacies,” a term they use to describe deep bonds people create through experimental relations.
65 min semi-staged reading followed by 25 min discussion.
Content Warning: graphic sexual description, kinky/BDSM scenarios, death, AIDS
Playwright: Robert Chesley
Co-creators and performers: Maxe Crandall and Emmett Ramstad
Helping Hands: Chandler Daily and Gem Cut
Guest Performers: Diana Cage, charles ryan long, Chandler Daily, Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad, Aldrin Valdez, Stephen Ira, Constantine Zavitsanos.
Venues: Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago, June 4, 2022; Quatrefoil Library, Minneapolis, June 8, 2022; William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia August 16th; Inferno, New York City, August 20th (canceled); Free Live Phone Reading, February 4th, 2023: (669) 275-1807
Recording: Montez Press Radio
Readings of Jerker are given courtesy of Victor Bumbalo of the Robert Chesley Foundation, Broadway Play Publishing Inc., and through funding support from the Eureka Commission from Onassis Foundation USA.
Photo credits: Ivan Bujan, Maxe Crandall, Emmett Ramstad
This performance is Inspired by their obsession with Robert Chesley’s archive at the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and supported by a Eureka Commission from Onassis USA. Their national tour is organized to provide free performances at archives and queer/trans spaces while allowing them to conduct ongoing research on a performance installation focused on “corresponding intimacies,” a term they use to describe deep bonds people create through experimental relations.
65 min semi-staged reading followed by 25 min discussion.
Content Warning: graphic sexual description, kinky/BDSM scenarios, death, AIDS
Playwright: Robert Chesley
Co-creators and performers: Maxe Crandall and Emmett Ramstad
Helping Hands: Chandler Daily and Gem Cut
Guest Performers: Diana Cage, charles ryan long, Chandler Daily, Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad, Aldrin Valdez, Stephen Ira, Constantine Zavitsanos.
Venues: Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago, June 4, 2022; Quatrefoil Library, Minneapolis, June 8, 2022; William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia August 16th; Inferno, New York City, August 20th (canceled); Free Live Phone Reading, February 4th, 2023: (669) 275-1807
Recording: Montez Press Radio
Readings of Jerker are given courtesy of Victor Bumbalo of the Robert Chesley Foundation, Broadway Play Publishing Inc., and through funding support from the Eureka Commission from Onassis Foundation USA.
Photo credits: Ivan Bujan, Maxe Crandall, Emmett Ramstad