by lisa lipsey –
Grafton Doyle, writer and director of Dope Queens is days from tying the knot with his favorite producer, John Reyes. They met in Spring 2018 and there was immediate chemistry, an instant connection that developed into a purposeful and sober, supportive partnership.
Doyle’s father, San José City Attorney Richard Doyle, will officiate his eldest son’s wedding and Reyes’s daughters will give their father away to their new stepfather.
“Both of our journeys have been filled with stumbles and scrapes and we are stronger men for it. We are proud of the life we have built and the partners, sons, and fathers we will be together,” shared Doyle.
To get to this day, Doyle, a producer for TomorrowLand Production Company, first had to rewind and honor where he was in 2007.“ About 12 years ago, I was basically heavily addicted to meth. I was arrested and served in Elmwood, the California men’s state penitentiary near San Jose. In serving my time, I was placed in protective custody where they keep gays, queers or transgender people who have not finished transitioning, drop-out gang members and child molesters. I come from a middle-class family, a suburban life of opportunity and I was raised to believe these people were the horrors of society,” Doyle shared.
“But I connected deeply with all the people in protective custody with me. I met these two girls of color who identified as trans, born male and we bonded. We romanticized going to San Francisco. Several months later, we did. Life was rough, but we supported each other. These women changed my life forever.”
Doyle is still in contact with one of the two women, the third he just learned is incarcerated. “This story is a gift to them. One does know about the show, we spoke several months ago when the possibility of production became real.”
In Dope Queens, Doyle introduces us to that post-incarceration summer, living in a single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel in the Tenderloin District. His story lovingly examines LGBTQ “families of choice,” addiction relapse and recovery, the outcast trans population, and the SRO world at the start of gentrification (redevelopment of areas prone to slum and blight). A time when Twitter, Google and Uber had all moved to town.
Doyle can pinpoint the moment of inspiration to write this semi-biographical play, “I saw the play Tea by Velina Hasu Houston, who is the head of the Playwriting Department at USC. It is the story of four women from Japan, who meet and marry American military men. They end up moving to Kansas and live in two worlds, never truly assimilating. Watching the show sparked a memory of my time in the Tenderloin District. The women I met were stuck between two worlds, I was also stuck between two worlds and barely over 18. When I started writing, what came was this story.”
“I hope audiences love Goldie and Angel, the way that I love them,” Doyle opined. “They come from traumatic backgrounds and the social networks of helping hands do not support certain people. Recovery seemed more possible in my case. My family could afford to put a deposit in at a rehab facility and they would have done anything to save me. These girls didn’t have that, they didn’t have family that could pay for rehab. They might be somewhat in contact with family, but it was not a good relationship. Social services will talk about preventing recidivism, a return to prison, but there is also generational recidivism built into the system,” he continued.
“Family rejection, that is the most painful thing. And, the way we criminalize sex work, when it is a means and source of income to survive. It’s a controversial subject, but they are not harming anyone. My message is one of love, to love all of our colorful characters.”
“I haven’t been back in a few years, so I don’t know how it has changed with more recent gentrification. In San Francisco, the Tenderloin might be the last hold-out,” Doyle observed. “I do know that SRO hotels have an intrinsic value that we need to protect. Life was manageable, possible in an SRO—it was temporary for me—but there are people who live in them for years. Now, people who have lived in the city 30+ years, fourth generation San Franciscans, can’t afford to live in the new high-rise condos. They can’t survive there without proper protection.”
Doyle was just 21 when he got sober, “I started studying acting, going to therapy. I found acting and theatre really saved me, the creativity allowed me to be myself. I then moved to L.A. and did several productions with Pop Up Theatre; where you build a show around an existing site,” shared Doyle.
“At 28, I decided I wanted to go back to school, so I applied and was accepted to USC. That culture and environment helped me find my voice as a writer. After graduating last year, I applied for Graduate School and starting in the fall, I will begin working on my MFA in Dramatic Writing at USC.”
Doyle is pretty thrilled with the nationwide casting search that occurred, “As I wrote Dope Queens, I had an idea about what it would sound like, and what the people look like. We held casting calls in New York, San Francisco and L.A. and we saw so many people. I don’t know if this is always true, we found it difficult to find trans actors that were trained for the theatre. We did find them, and one of the girls is played by a trans actor who fully embodies the soul of the character, and other actor we cast does a lot of drag work.”
When asked what’s next, aside from a wedding, Doyle offered, “Although this is a world-premiere production, it has also just been adapted to a screenplay. It is in development right now, for film production, so we’ll see.”
Dope Queens runs Friday, August 16 through Sunday, September 22, at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. For tickets and more information call 323.960.7738 or go to dopequeensplay.com.