Upstairs - a Musical Tragedy

Shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, his staff removed all history of the civil rights movement from the White House website. These same staffers allegedly delete or shred certain emails and other communications, including climate science data. Trump himself is known to delete many of his own tweets.

As ignorant as they seem in other areas, Trump and his cronies understand the power of history and the power of its erasure — an understanding that springs from a broader tradition. Whether it’s Holocaust denial in Europe or Trump’s own sowing of confusion about our Civil War, authoritarian movements require a broad-strokes narrative of heroes and villains, and the wholesale deletion of events that do not suit that narrative. In this climate — in any climate of repression — intentional omission of important events is a political act, and intentional reclamation of such events is an act of resistance.

In 1973, an arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge, a New Orleans gay

May 26, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Ross von Metzke
858-354-2841
[email protected]

Los Angeles, CA – In 1973, an arsonist set fire to the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans, Louisiana, claiming 32 victims in what was, until the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando, the deadliest mass murder of LGBT people in U.S. history. The arson remains unsolved and was largely forgotten in the intervening years.

Now, more than 40 years later, a new movement has begun to reclaim the lost stories of the fire’s victims and survivors. At the forefront of this movement is UPSTAIRS, a musical dramedy that will play at the Davidson/Valentini theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Center as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival beginning June 2.

“Sadly, Upstairs has never felt more relevant than it does today. We’ll be performing this show almost one year to the day after the tragic Pulse nightclub massacre, which happened the Sunday morning of the LA Prid