by Jerry Rabushka
based on a story by James Grauerholtz
A deliciously bitchy drama about a group of young friends, some gay, some straight, who may have hung out together just a little bit too long. Weston likes Lang, but Lang doesn't care. Willy likes Miranda, but Miranda doesn't care. Mickey likes Jimmy, but... Jimmy's dead.
Suddenly a handsome tattoo artist named Pierce is brought into their lives by an old friend who's visiting from San Fransisco. Suddenly everybody likes Pierce. As he pricks them with needles and with longing, lives, loves, and longtime friendships are altered irrevocably. Insightful and compelling; based on a true story.
CAST
Weston - Keith Clawson
Miranda - Tish Hunt
Pierce - Vic Dunahee
Mickey - Gerald C. Ortiz
Lang - Mark Lull
Stud - James Webster
Ike - Skip Hardesty
Angel - Keli Motanagh
Willy - Jason Bollinger
Director- Jerry Rabushka
Producer- Skip Hardesty
Stage Management - Skip Hardesty, Rob Shipman, Melissa Byers, Cory Popkey
Costumes, Hair, Makeup - Rob Shipman
Set/Lighting Design- Melissa Byers, Skip Hardesty
From The Riverfront Times, March 30. 2005
Skin Deep
Ragged Blade flashes its Tattoos
James Grauerholtz is perhaps best known as the Boswell to William S. Burroughs' Dr. Johnson, serving as a combination personal secretary, literary agent and dear friend. But just like Boswell, Grauerholtz had his own writing to keep him busy when he wasn't aiding Burroughs.
Jerry Rabushka has adapted one of Grauerholtz's stories into the play Tattoos, a drama about friends who have spent so much time together that they're getting on each other's last nerves (write what you know, eh, Grauerholtz?). When hot, young tattoo artist Pierce enters the group, flesh isn't the only thing to get pricked.
Ragged Blade presents Tattoos at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 7 p.m. on Sunday (April 1 through 10) at the Theatre at St. John's (5000 Washington Place; 314-276-8693 or www.raggedblade.com). Tickets are $10 to $12, and the Sunday, April 3, performance is a benefit for the Madison County AIDS Project, so bring a friend. -- Paul Friswold
James Grauerholz and Tattoos.
James Grauerholz grew up on Broadway musicals, and has been writing songs (in several genres) for 35 years.. On his way to being a guitarist-singer-songwriter, something funny happened he met William S. Burroughs, who was already James' literary hero. That 1974 meeting in New York, when James was 21, led to a lifelong collaboration until Burroughs' death at 83 in 1997 and beyond, as James is the trustee and literary executor of Burroughs' estate.
Grauerholz also teaches U. S. subculture courses in the American Studies Dept. at Univ. of Kansas: the Beats; gay & lesbian US history; licit & illicit psychotropic drugs in USA, 19th-20th cent's.; and the Evolution of the American Hobo Underworld.
During the past 10 years, James led a band performing his original songs in the blues, rock, R&B and country traditions. In 1996 he struck up a friendship with a young writer who re-introduced him to the world of musical theater, Whitney Platt. Inspired by Whitney's continual playing of Sondheim, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Lowe, Kander & Ebb, et al., James set out to write a modern-day Rent-inspired musical. After a year or so, he abandoned the project, unable to complete it on his own.
But he had written a detailed story line, and created an ensemble of characters to tell a modern version of an old story: what happens when a perfect paragon of beauty and fascination "the most beautiful boy in the world" lands in the middle of a web of close friendships?
The concept of the Tattoos story is that, if a tattoo commemorates some life-changing event, then we are all *covered* with tattoos ... even if you cannot see them. In the story, the Beautiful Boy (Pierce) who turns all heads male and female, gay and straight is a tattoo artist. Tattoos, says James, is the tragedy of Ganymede, ravishing favorite of the Gods, with a beauty too strong and too enormous to be contained in his slender, perfectly-proportioned frame. Inflamed by jealousy, the Gods quarrel over him, and in the process, he is destroyed. A corollary of the storyline is that those who are the most enviable and most desirable can also be the most tormented and unhappy.
Tattoos languished uncompleted for several years, until Grauerholz met Jerry Rabushka, of Ragged Blade Productions. Jerry picked up the story, and starting from James' detailed notes (and with a little further input and frequent prodding from James), he completed the stage play for Tattoos. James is very pleased with the final result!
