TRADE (1920s slang): working‑class or ostensibly straight men who sold or secretly offered sex to other men — the sought‑after, risky counterpart in the underground gay scene.
TRADE (verb): To buy, sell, or exchange goods or services.
Set in a neo-noire speakeasy, TRADE reimagines the 1920’s queer underground as a queer, drug-peddling mafia to explore gender expression in love and at war. What begins as a cruisey, boozy immersive walk-through experience transforms into a nightclub cabaret performance, complete with acts that tell stories from the queer underground and let us deeper into the characters we’ve been flirting with. Masculinity and femininity collide in explosive, beautiful, dangerous ways, confronting the audience with their own erotic desires tied into gender expression, class and power.
THE BLACK ORCHID is a bar where opposites clash in a limbo state. The time period is part 1920’s, part apocalyptic future. The location blends a seedy basement speakeasy with other exterior cruising spaces: the park and the carnival. In this surreal, fictionalized retro-future version of the 1920s, it’s less a slice of history than a poetic space to explore how gender consumes, confuses, and infatuates us then and now.
It is the backdrop where our STORY unfolds about an opium drug cartel and the murderous traitor who double crosses their mob boss to their own dismay.
The aesthetic pulls from both classic film noir and more modern touchpoints like “Sin City,” from history and from the present day. Other points of reference are Cabaret, The Wild Party, Hello, Again, and The Godfather.
Sonically, the music mashes modern and vintage sounds and sensibilities together. The 1920’s sound is achieved through Post-Modern Jukebox-style arrangements of contemporary songs, and the modern sound is achieved through electro-swing music that samples vintage music.
Artist examples include Post-Modern Jukebox, Parov Stelar, Tape Five, St. Vincent, Hozier, Thievery Corporation, and Caravan Palace.
CHARACTERS
Daddy, a butch lesbian mob boss, and her rough trade hustlers: The Soldier, The Piers Worker, The Sailor, and the College Boy
Momma, a prominent drag-queen madame, and her girls: a rowdy group of femme-boy drug runners with a bite.
Frankie: The chaotic twink, right hand to daddy. A power hungry traitor.
The Husbands: Middle class men leading a double life, tied up in the mafia’s trade of drugs and erotic fantasy, sometimes to their detriment.
The Butch Lesbians: Daddy’s muscle. Fosco, Sam, and Charlie.
The Sirens: Three Andrews Sisters-inspired fem lesbians, and daddy’s girlfriends. Lila, June, and Ruby.
The Cop: He may wear the badge of the law, but everything is negotiable.
The Fortune Teller: Representing the mystical and mysterious nature of queerness. The only person Daddy goes to for advice, and for love.
The show is half walkabout, immersive experience, with private rooms, booze, and cruising, half cabaret acts on the main stage that tell us stories featuring the characters we’ve been flirting with. This format allows us to flesh out the characters that the audience has already grown interested in on their own personal journeys in a way that everyone can enjoy.
We reinterpret the lyrics to the songs of Modern Jukebox, presenting MainStage acts depicting scenarios that are unexpected, and more dangerous as juxtaposition.
Examples of acts:
We explore the art and danger of the cruise in “WANNABE,” where three trade hustlers seduce and eventually rob A Husband to the sound of three Andrews Sisters-like singers.
In “LOVE FOOL,” our Mafia Prince holds the soldier hostage in his boudoir, who eventually succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome and falls for his captor.
The Sailor and The Husband explore gender expression in “NO DIGGITY” when the sailor has the masculine husband change into woman’s lingerie and become his sissy, dancing from suit to stockings into his dance.
Set to St. Vincent’s “SALVALJE,” the latin piers man struggles with his sexual identity and acts against his religious upbringing. This could never an aerial number.
In Hozier’s “WORK SONG,” a moment of tenderness, real love, is shared between a femme boy and his masculine lover.
Momma and Daddy fight over a new hustler recruit (an audience member) in “THAT BOY IS MINE,” exploring their own dangerous attraction to each other.
In “MAMBO RAP,” trade enjoys being Daddy’s sugar baby, later learning the cost that comes with being spoiled.
“I Put a Spell On You” explores the tender relationship between the mob boss Daddy and the Fortune Teller she goes to for advice.
Every act is a way to get deeper into each character, and ultimately explore their complicated power dynamics. These acts are primarily danced, but may also include aerial. In the acts, and in the struggles and antics they reveal, we discover an incredibly creative means of survival and strength to forge a place somewhere in society when the rest of it wants you to disappear.
Prospective Layout
