Queer crime stories: Two solo shows debut next week at Rhino & NCTC

  • by Jim Gladstone
  • Monday January 27, 2025
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actor/writer Nathan Tylutki; <br>John Fisher in 'Doodler'
actor/writer Nathan Tylutki;
John Fisher in 'Doodler'

Next week, San Francisco's two leading queer stage companies, the New Conservatory Theatre Center and Theatre Rhinoceros will each open a solo show with a murder at its center. In one, crime is very much a laughing matter. In the other, it's dead serious.

When actor/writer Nathan Tylutki reflects on living alone in his small Los Angeles apartment during pandemic lockdown, his perspective is unexpectedly positive.

"It was fun to be crawling on top of myself," he said in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter amidst preparations for the opening of his show "Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend" at the New Conservatory Theatre Center.

Tylutki was speaking literally. His main creative outlet at the time was teaching himself how to use green screen video technology. "I turned my bedroom into a black box studio," he explained.

Soon enough Tylutki was keeping himself company with not only a self-made doppelganger but versions upon versions of himself, all the way up to his octupleganger. This self-embracing squid game allowed him to develop new technical skills while creating childlike make-believe and dress-up scenarios.

In the first episode of "GEMIN8," the rough experimental series he posted on YouTube at the time, a sultry, negligee-clad Tylutki actually does crawl on top of another version of himself.

actor/writer Nathan Tylutki  

Creativity born of necessity
A native Minnesotan with a sociology degree from Manhattan's New School, Tylutki lived in San Francisco in 2016 and 2017, diving into the local queer theater scene (he played roles in two NCTC productions) and working in the mental health field alongside his acting career.

"Leaving San Francisco was bittersweet," he recalled, "I really loved the community I started to build there, but I wanted to be closer to the TV and film industry where the paychecks can be better. I felt like I was eking out a living, but wanted to see if I could make the odds work a little more in my favor.

"It went well in LA at first. I felt like things were coming together. I was getting some supporting roles. I guested on a faith-based series called 'The Baxters' which stars Roma Downey, from 'Touched by an Angel.'

"I played a cult member in the pilot for an Apple TV mockumentary that didn't get greenlit. I was on Ice T's true crime reenactment show, 'In Ice Cold Blood' where I murdered my wife and threw her in a pool.

"But things shut down during the pandemic, and it's been different here ever since. Eventually, I decided that instead of just going through auditions and waiting for someone to hire me, I would create something that I could work on for myself."


Combining stage and screen
Securing a slot to do a one-man show in this past summer's Minnesota Fringe Festival gave Tylutki a deadline to work toward, but he didn't want to do a typical monologue-based production.

Thinking back to his green-screen experiments, Tylutki began concocting "Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend." A unique hybrid of live performance and video. The show is a comedic murder mystery in which Tylutki plays nine separate roles (Eight are fictional characters, one is Jennifer Coolidge; just roll with it).

The piece's suspense is two-fold: First, there's the question of which character is the killer. Tylutki's script is effectively twisty. Second, there's the possibility — fresh with every performance — that the show will go off the rails technical.

Conversations are held between characters that Tylutki plays live and others who he plays on a single pre-recorded video that runs non-stop through the production's one-hour length.

If Tylutki hesitates for a moment on stage, his live lines will overlap his recorded ones. If he speaks too quickly, there will be a strangely artificial lag before the next line is spoken on screen.

Characters first seen on video later show up in the flesh. A dizzying mix of media, costumes, props and persona-defining quirks puts Tylutki in perpetual shuffle mode, entering and exiting on screen and stage. Watching him manage glitches on the fly is part of the fun. It's like some precarious cross of "Noises Off" and "Sybil."

Following its two-week NCTC engagement, "Frances Gray and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend" will have an April run at the New York Fringe Festival. After that, Tylutki hopes to find producers for a run in Los Angeles that could bring him to the attention of more casting directors.

In the meanwhile, though, Tylutki says he's come to a valuable realization.

"I really enjoy working with myself."

"Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Ex-Boyfriend," Feb. 6-16. $40. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Ave. www.nctcsf.org

John Fisher in 'Doodler'  

True crime
At Theatre Rhinoceros, discover homegrown true crime in "Doodler," written and performed by John Fisher, artistic director of Theatre Rhinoceros. He's also emerged from the pandemic, during which he created over five dozen solo shows through his Essential Services Project, writing, performing and webcasting at a breakneck pace.

He's further developed one of his favorites, a creepy San Francisco crime story based on real life events, and will perform it for in-person audiences at the Rhino beginning Feb. 6. Fisher shared details about "Doodler" in a recent email exchange with the Bay Area Reporter.

"There was a gay serial killer in the Castro who killed men he'd had sex with," Fisher wrote. "San Francisco was a dangerous place for gay men in the Seventies. The police hated us. You could be fired from your job for being gay. Gays got bashed. I tried to imagine being 18 and coming out into a world like that."

In his show, Fisher imagines a newly out 18-year-old whose first gay friend is murdered by The Doodler and takes it upon himself to track killer down.


Fisher imbued the characters in his play with autobiographical details:
"My loneliness as a pre-teen, my sadness at being treated by a doormat by someone I lusted for in high school, my sadness at being treated like a doormat by someone I loved (lusted for) in high school, my wondering why the hell I'd ever been born, my rage at bullshit authority, cliques, coolness, ambitious kids, everything. I put all that emotion, vulnerability and anger into the characters."

While "Doodler" was inspired by a long-cold case, Fisher hopes it provokes thoughts about today's world as well.

"The Castro is so important. Back then, the police were running amok, beating gays; the Doodler was killing people. But the Castro is always besieged. Now, stores are closing. It feels ghostly sometimes. Real estate is overvalued here, but valueless when you stand in front of it and look at it. It looks sad, waiting, undefined, unloved.

"Back then, the streets were dangerous but full of people — marching, partying, streaking, having sex. Is it safer now? I guess. But are gays fighting for things the way they did when the police and everyone else hated us? We whine a lot, but do we really care?

"The Doodler killed because he was gay and hated himself for it. Do we all still have self-loathing in us? Do we feel we deserve the persecution that we all fear is coming back? Is that why we watch and wait?"

"Doodler," Feb. 6-Mar. 2. $17.50-$25. Theatre Rhinoceros, 4229 18th St. www.therhino.org

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