Page 6 - The Clare Connection_Spring 2018 Flipbook

2 6 CLARE CONNECTION

Artist Profile

John Clum:

Theatre Expert, Playwright “When I retired from teaching, I didn’t feel

Continues Work in the Arts I was retiring from writing,” John says . “If
anything, I’d have more time for it .”

AT A YOUNG AGE, Clare resident John Clum fell hard
for theatre.
Tennessee Williams and on gay drama and musical theatre.
“Like most things, it’s He also wrote a number of plays, many of which have been
kind of an irrational love,” produced both locally and nationally.
John says. “My parents
took me to the theatre as “Sometimes they were based on things that I saw happening
long as I can remember.” in an area, and sometimes they were just ideas that came
to me,” John says.
There’s one instance in
particular that stands Early on, his method of writing plays was slightly
out to John as a pivotal unconventional, but for John, it worked.
moment. He was 11 or 12 While driving the 10 hours round trip between Durham,
years old, and his mother North Carolina and Baltimore to visit his partner, now
bought him a matinee husband, Walter Melion, John improvised dialogue and
ticket to a play called recorded it.
Inherit the Wind while “I must have looked crazy to the people on the road next
she went shopping.
John Clum to me, this guy talking to nobody in the car,” he says. “But
“I was just mesmerized it was very helpful, concentrating and having that time. I
by it,” he says. “I thought in some way or another I want couldn’t do anything else, so I made up plays.”
something to do with [theatre]. And I came to a point in the One of John’s most memorable plays, titled Randy’s House,
early 1970s where I realized I can’t live without it.” left its mark in the LGBTQ community.

Luckily, John found himself in a position where theatre Around 1993, when Walter had gotten a job at Emory
opportunities were abundant. After going to graduate University in Atlanta, John learned of outrage over a
school at Princeton University to study dramatic literature, supposedly pro-gay play (“which was odd, because there
John was offered a job at Duke University in the English were no gay people in it,” John notes). A county neighboring
Department. There, he launched a summer theatre Atlanta then made an official resolution as a result, stating
program and helped to establish a drama discipline for gay people were not welcome.
undergraduates, which he headed for 10 years. He directed
several plays and operas, and wrote in his spare time. “I kept thinking about that and how bizarre it was,” John says.
Of all these experiences, John says the most nerve-wracking And so came the inspiration for Randy’s House, in which a
times came when his own plays were produced. family has a child who is gay while living in such a scenario.
It took a few years to write and get workshopped, but the
“I’ve been an actor, I’ve been a director, and I’ve been a response to the play was tremendous.
playwright,” he says. “And the scariest opening nights are
when you hear your own words spoken.” Often, Randy’s House was produced in conjunction with
chapters of PFLAG, the first and largest organization in
On Writing Plays the United States to provide peer support, education and
Over the years, John has written nine books on modern advocacy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer
contemporary American and British drama, on people like individuals and their families. In one instance, Randy’s House