The Buzz Intro Interview | Mixed Revues

Responder: Stephen Banks, Artistic Director
Name of Company: Mixed Revues
Name of Show: Illegal In Florida

“The fact is that the things happening in Florida and elsewhere can have devastating effects on real people’s lives. This show lets you cheer on one of those people fighting back.”

Why should people see your show?

“Florida Man throwing a live alligator through a Wendy’s drive-thru window” isn’t the weirdest thing going on in Florida these days. Especially if you’re transgender. Or read a book somebody else doesn’t want you to read. Or want to know the truth about American History. Social Media and talking heads on the news can be a bit overwhelming and exhausting, but the fact is that the things happening in Florida and elsewhere can have devastating effects on real people’s lives. This show lets you cheer on one of those people fighting back, and laugh yourself silly doing it.

What about festivals intrigues you? And why the Atlanta Fringe?

I’ve always liked theater on the edge, or even a little over the edge. Fringe is the place to bring something biting to the stage and have a grand time working with other like-minded artists who want to do the same.

Full disclosure, I have a connection to the Atlanta Fringe – Executive Producer Dianna Brown is my daughter-in-law. That doesn’t get me any special favors, but she did encourage me to submit a show to the first AFF, and I’ve been involved with four other seasons since then.

What inspired you to create this?

I have friends and family and family friends who are under attack. I can donate to causes and politicians, I can speak out on social media, I can just be supportive of people who aren’t as, shall we say, “vanilla” as the 60-something year old heteronormative white mail I happen to be. But I’m a little drop in the big ocean of those things. The thing I can do best is expose the world with dark, fringy comedy, and give some other people the opportunity to join me doing it.

[Above: The cast of Illegal in Florida just chillaxin’.]

Life has been weird the last few years, to say the least. How has the “real world” affected the art you’re creating?

The real world has not been good to me recently. Not artistically, anyway. I sort of curled up at home during the pandemic, getting depressed and angry about what’s been happening around me. This is the first politically-oriented show I’ve produced, or at least the first specifically about American political shenanigans. There isn’t anything else as important to me right now, so it has definitely pushed me in a direction.

What have you learned from working on your show so far?

The best way to tell a story is to be involved with people who are affected by it.

There’s a mysterious stranger in the back row of your show, wearing a big ol’ N95 mask and a baseball cap and there’s something weirdly familiar about them, and then they come up afterwards to tell you they loved your show. In your WILDEST DREAMS, who is this mysterious stranger? (Bonus points if your mysterious stranger is an Atlanta celeb.)

Wildest dreams? Edward Albee. I know, I know. But still. I had invited Mr. Albee to come see my production of The Lady From Dubuque shortly before he passed. He couldn’t make it, but sent a very nice letter excusing himself because he was traveling at the time. I wanted nothing more than for him to see it and appreciate how much the show meant to me.

Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are you inviting your family to this show are “Hey, maybe sit this one out you guys…”

Oh, they are invited. But they’ve opted to sit some of my shows out in the past.

Will your show change the world?

I don’t think it will – the world is a big and frightening place. But it will change some individual persons, some of them on stage and some in the audience. And after all, those individuals are what our show is really about.