After the show: 50 Years Before The Frock

Publicity Shot Cornwall Park 10 days before opening.
It shows the staging I used for the show recreated outdoors.

I did my laundry this morning and as I hung the three red tops & three pairs of black trousers I wore on stage (one pair each night) I decided it was time to record my feelings and discoveries about the initial run of my one woman show 50 Years Before The Frock. Initially I called it "50 Years Before The Dress" but Frock worked better for me.

The show is about the 53 years between my first questioning of my gender identity and the first time I publicly performed comedy as myself, Julia.

Memories of the AIDS plague

Written on World AIDS day 2017

I was most involved with the NZ male gay scene during the late 1970s and 1980s. I wasn't gay and didn't have much sex, but it was a safe place for me to be so I chose to be there.

In those days when men came out after years or decades of repressing their sexuality many (most) of them understandably went wild and spent 2 or 3 years having as much sex as possible before they calmed down and formed stable relationships. Back then even casual sex was normally unprotected and it was common for these men to go for a holiday to San Francisco for 2 weeks of casual sex with random men in the bath houses.

"So many men, so little time" was their mantra.

Then AIDS happened.