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HOME ENTERTAINMENT
One man’s bedroom drama
BY CAMILLE DODERO

First, there was the light. Three years ago, Jamaica Plain writer and actor Gabe Boyer watched his roommate change a light bulb and had an epiphany. "I looked at my room and was like, ‘It looks either like a heroin den or an experimental theater,’ " Boyer says. And then came the phrase: Bedroom Theater. A few months later, the dark-haired, curly-sideburned 28-year-old mentioned the concept of hosting experimental, lo-fi productions in his bedroom to a friend, who suggested they start the next day. They did.

Every week for more than a year, typically between five and 30 people would turn up at the apartment and cram into Boyer’s bedroom for short skits about talking swans, satanic fruit, and Dracula. Boyer even hosted Bedroom Theater in a truck: after a show at Cambridge’s Zeitgeist Gallery — and with his home furniture re-creating the titular setting — a group "climbed in the back of the U-Haul and did Bedroom Theater on the way to my house."

The following summer, Boyer and his girlfriend took Bedroom Theater on tour. " ‘Coming to bedrooms across America’ — I really liked the way that sounded," recalls Boyer, who’s worked part-time at the Coolidge Corner Theatre for more than a decade. The two set out to hit the nation’s boudoirs in a 1971 Volkswagen minibus. After a week, the couple broke up, the van broke down, and Boyer was already nearly broke. Yet they soldiered on, performing in Knoxville, New Orleans, and San Francisco, even hitting a youth hostel in Santa Fe "on the sly." When they reached Seattle, the girlfriend flew home, ditching Boyer, who was so damn poor he worked a local Hempfest for extra cash before heading to Nevada’s Burning Man Festival. If it sounds fun, Boyer insists it wasn’t: "The tour wasn’t great experience, but it was great to relive. I hated it the whole time."

When Boyer returned to Boston — after his dad flew to the West Coast to drag his thespian son out of a financial morass — the experimental playwright penned Seven Short Plays for the Bedroom, a tour-diary/short-play collection culled from his Bedroom Theater experiences. As the first release from Mutable Press, a DIY publishing effort funded by friend Zach Katz, the 56-page paperback was a poorly designed, hand-sewn, Kinko’s-quality creation that barely sold any copies. Like the tour, says Boyer, it was a "total disaster."

Now Boyer’s hoping to republish Seven Short Plays for the Bedroom in two volumes. So, he’s put together a Mutable Press fundraiser this Friday to pay for the first one. In typical Boyer fashion, it’ll be an experiment: musician Noah Webber will perform in a self-built 12-foot-wide bubble; Boyer wants the audience to wear masks; and most important, there’ll be sword fighting. "It could be totally awesome or it could be totally lame," Boyer says. "But it’ll definitely be one of those things that people will remember." Just like Bedroom Theater.

Gabe Boyer will host "Make My Wish Your Own," a Mutable Press fundraiser featuring Animal Hospital, Noah Webber, and sword fighting, at midnight on Friday, February 11, at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, in Brookline. Cost is $10. Call (617) 734-2500.


Issue Date: February 11 - 17, 2005
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