Julia Lynn Marsh is smoking a cigarette and drinking hot chocolate at a Lincoln Park cafe, oblivious to the people at the next table who keep looking over as she discusses her transition from male to female.The 18-year-old is used to explaining herself to people who have questions about who--or, if someone's asking more rudely, what--she is. She's matter-of-fact in her answer: She's a transgender person who's working to change her appearance...
Gertrude Stein is already dead when Win Wells' Gertrude Stein and a Companion begins, but it doesn't matter in the least. Certain larger-than-life figures refuse to die, and Wells' vibrant, vociferous Stein is one of them. The play, first done locally in a 1990 production at the now-defunct Area Stage, is a two-character romp for the actresses playing Stein and her ``companion,'' Alice B. Toklas.In his new production at Fort...
Hoop earrings, cleavage and lots and lots of leg - these days it's hard to know if you're watching models on the catwalk or athletes on the court. The distinctions are blurry, and the sponsors of the U.S. Open, which starts today in Flushing Meadow, would like to keep it that way. It is no coincidence that as the ensembles of female tennis stars have gotten brighter, skimpier and sexier in recent years, ticket sales have soared. Prize money for the Women's...
Modern-dance choreographers from Alwin Nikolais to Lula Washington have created pieces about the dancer-as-athlete, but Susan Marshall takes a broader view of the subject. In "Contenders," which had its Los Angeles premiere Friday as part of a four-part Marshall program in Royce Hall, UCLA, this 33-year-old, New-York based artist shows life itself as a contact sport.Against net walls and under stadium lights, her company lines up, waiting for the gun. We hear rink...
In a city and a high school named for an American athlete who found the rules of sport as difficult as the competition, a young wrestler has been struggling with both opponents and tradition.She is Michelle Green, 17, a 126-pound wrestler for Jim Thorpe High School. Acceptance of a girl in the once all-male domain of high school wrestling has come slowly in this scenic, snow-coated region of the Pocono Mountains.At the start of the season, coach Rich Flacco said, few members of the...