I’ve written many director’s notes, but never one like this. But there’s never been a time like this, or a musical like this, so...

I WAS THINKING ABOUT WHY I so passionately wanted to direct A Transparent Musical, and here’s what came up: because it centers and celebrates queer people, and it centers and celebrates Jewish people (both of which I am); because it depicts family in a way that is relatable and that offers a path towards compassion and healing in our own; because it offers a vision of a possible world that is more inclusive, more loving, more fluid. But, as of this writing, another reason has sadly taken precedence: because the past is not past. Once again in human history, although it likely never actually stops being true, lives are being attacked and people are in danger. Trans people—and queer people, Jewish people, Black people, people of any color other than white, people who deviate in any way from the norm of the ‘standing order’ that built and continues to hold power and privilege in this country. If you’re unaware of the various and nefarious ways in which trans lives are currently under attack, I urge you to go to translegislation.com or aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights to overview the historic amount of anti- trans legislation at play in our country.

The queer world of Weimar Berlin just before the rise of Nazism serves well as a reflection of and warning about our own times. We want to go on living as if the past is history and not still alive—in our culture, in our dreams, in the ancestors that still reach for us—but the past is not past, and through this show we sing that and shout that, and we stand up and stand proud and put precious, vulnerable souls and bodies onto a stage to say we are here, we are queer, we are ‘deviant,’ we are different, and isn’t that wonderful and miraculous and something to sing and dance about? As the saying goes, “When danger approaches, sing to it." And so, we sing.

In my view (and that of the show as I interpret it), we all live within ‘a standing order’ in society, in our families, in our sense of self–our roles and our behavior are bound by both external and internal expectations. Binary ways of thinking dominate, and allow for and lead to forms of repression and control. Everyone’s stuck in roles, stuck in routines, stuck with labels, stuck by expectations. But what if we all could break free and enter a realm of possibility and fluidity and multitudinous identity, declaring as Walt Whitman did, “I contain multitudes”...? What if, somewhere in a possible future, there is a new standing order, where nothing is prescribed and everything is up for grabs and reinvention- where nonbinary ways of thinking allow for a greater variety and depth-where the fluidity of people and life, including how we define ourselves and who we are to each other, is embraced and celebrated?

The journey of transitioning from an old self to a new one is surely different for each individual, but also likely rocky for everyone. And often in families, a transition for one person leads to transitions for everyone. It’s hard and takes work but this is my wish, for myself and us all: that we embrace a transition into new ways of seeing and being, that every person is allowed and encouraged to be their most authentic self and that, in that self, they’re able to live in a world that offers support, safety, and recognition of their identity–even when they may transition again. And again. May we transition over and over into something way more multitudinous and contradictory and surprising than we ever dreamed possible. May we love and protect each other. For me, A Transparent Musical carries that dream.

—Tina Landau, A Transparent Musical Director

Please note: In our production, a multiracial cast portrays the population at the Institute for Sexual Research. However, this casting is not historically accurate. Despite the multi-racial makeup of Weimar Berlin, the milieu of the Institute was predominantly white. Our casting reflects a fantasy version of the Institute. We also hope that it can call attention to the white- washed lens of queer history and the erasure of queer and trans people of color from European LGBTQ history.