
After winning a Regional Tony Award at the end of last season, the first theatre in Pennsylvania to receive this, the Wilma Theater is starting off the season with a bang. With many experimental shows coming up, we’re getting to see a lot of really cool stuff before the season officially starts. One of these shows is Can I Be Frank?, a show about queer comedian Frank Maya. It sounds like it’s going to be a phenomenal and boundary pushing show, just what we want to be seeing right now. This is the time for new things to be coming to stage.
Although Can I Be Frank? only has a two night run, I have absolutely no doubt it’s going to be a beautiful piece of art. A one person show, performed by Morgan Bassichis with material directly from Maya, it sounds to me like this is a show that’s going places. Bringing this to the Wilma is just another step in a good direction for this show. I absolutely cannot wait to see Can I Be Frank? on stage.
Usually I conduct these interviews after I see performances, so we’re shaking things up a bit here. That’s okay. I got to talk to Morgan Bassichis about the show, including the material, the difference they hope to see from it, and their own personal identity. Honestly, it makes me even more eager to see the show! I’m going on Friday, and I’m super excited! Bassichis definitely had some wonderful stuff to say.
How does it feel performing at the Wilma so soon after they were awarded their Regional Tony Award?
It feels amazing because the Wilma has promised me I will also receive a Tony Award, which is totally unexpected, given that I haven’t even been nominated! I’m very excited to perform at the Wilma. My ex-boyfriend told me he had a transformative experience seeing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof there when he was 16, so that feels like a good sign. I hope people come! I’ve been promoting it on Grindr.
You wear a lot of hats in regard to this show. How do you separate aspects like comedian, musician, and writer?
They are less like separate hats than loose pills in my pocket that I know I’m supposed to take, but I forget which does what. They are each essential ingredients, and I can’t imagine not bringing them all with me everywhere I go. Am I describing a polycule? Frank Maya, the artist who the show is about, was also all those things–a musician, a comedian, and also a visual artist. We contain multitudes! I relate to the urgency of his moving between and across all of these strategies. Sam Pinkleton, my director, shares this urgency, and has made the show better than it ever would have been.
As someone who uses they/them pronouns, I know it can sometimes be hard to play a character who is on the binary. How did you balance your personal pronouns with playing a queer man?
Sometimes I can’t tell where Frank ends and I begin. It’s like a real relationship, you impact each other, you rub off on the other person. My experience of gender has always been deeply fluid, relational, seasonal, unknowable, and never static. I like the “they” because it implies multiplicity. We’re always trying to defend it grammatically, but perhaps we can also abandon the idea of being an individual at all?
What was it like working with Frank Maya’s material?
Life-changing, to be honest. It has felt like a deeply spiritual experience, to encounter this artistic ancestor, to immerse myself in his material. It has been deeply meaningful to get to know his loved ones, who have all been so generous with me. Frank Maya is a singular person and artist, and there are so many Frank Mayas in the world–beloved artists whose name did not get passed down to younger generations. What a gift that we are not the first, and will not be the last, and that we’re in this trans-generational, unfinished conversation with people we’ve never even heard of but who literally made us possible.
As a queer person, what’s your most major takeaway from putting together a show like this that is obviously going to make a difference to those who watch it?
Oh I hope you’re right that it makes a difference! We’re all living through so many horrible crises right now. Climate catastrophes that our economic system has created, and the rise of fascism globally. I believe firmly that it is movements and organizers who change the world through collective action, but that as artists we get to make things that fuel and feed and nourish those movements along the way. We are living in someone else’s apocalyptic story, and we get to remind each other that we have so much at our fingertips, right here, with each other. We are not powerless.
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Can I Be Frank? is playing at the Wilma this Friday and Saturday. As I said before, I’m very excited to see it, and I know I’m not the only one. I truly believe that this is a show that’s going to make a difference to people, whether they’re in the theatre community or just looking to see what promises to be an interesting show. This is going to be something beautiful and new. Let’s experience it.
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