Who is TOMMY FINCH for?
The short answer to this is: everyone. The long answer is, well, longer.
I HATE TOMMY FINCH is a one-act, two-woman play about the ups-and-downs of a friendship between two girls between ages 8 and 35. The characters deal not only with regular coming of age issues (changing bodies, bullies, parent problems, college & career decisions, losing their virginity, etc.), but with questions about their own (and each other’s) sexual orientation.
But this isn’t a play just about being gay (or not.) It’s about having someone to lean on while you’re learning about yourself. Anyone who still remembers how hard growing up was will find something in I HATE TOMMY FINCH that makes them think, “Whoa. I went through that…and I survived. Yay, me!”
A beautiful range of collaborators / IHTF
The cast and crew of I HATE TOMMY FINCH includes a rainbow of folks, from straight guys and gals to friendly bi-folks to straight-up she-gays. We expect the audience to mirror this beautiful range of people.
I HATE TOMMY FINCH director Christin Mell runs tello, an online hub that focuses on content for, by, and about lesbians. Does this mean that all of the content intended for tello (including I HATE TOMMY FINCH) is only meant to be viewed by lesbians? No. What it means is that the audience for tello projects is at least in the ‘straight but not narrow’ category, if not in the rainbow area.
Writers Julie Keck and Jessica King (King also co-directs with Mell) created a story that isn’t just about being gay; it’s about growing up, making mistakes, being kind, and taking care of your own issues. You know how flight attendants always tell you that, in the case of an emergency, you should put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others? The lesson is to take care of yourself so that you’re better able to help others. This is as much a theme of IHTF as anything else.
As TOMMY FINCH musician Shannon Nicole said, “This isn’t just a story for gay people – there’s a lot here for straight people, too.”
So…does this sound like a project YOU’RE up for?
