night in Bostons oldest and most notorious gay bar, the Playland Caf.
which at gay bars takes place in an enclosure. Read more about the film via WBUR, Boston's NPR affiliate. Playland is a boundary-pushing, transdisciplinary, hybrid film centered around. urban gay and lesbian groups in Renaissance Italy, Enlightenment France and. With Danielle Cooper, Lady Bunny, Kelly Mittendorf, Maine Anders, Aidan Dick, Miranda Quinn, José Lapaz-Rodrigues, Gatekeeper Adrian Elim, Dr. This film is what it feels like to be part of the magic trick that makes a simple gay bar - with its tinsel curtain and worn-out booths - into a playland every weekend. There is a basis of understanding, a shared language, endlessly rich nonverbal exchanges. Told through the perspective of the club’s staff - and specifically the queer women who ran the bar - Playland plops the camera in the middle of the club as it opens for the night. Playland is a boundary-pushing, transdisciplinary, hybrid film centered around the raucous activity of a time-bending night in Boston’s oldest and most notorious gay bar, the Playland Café. Miranda Quinn and Jos Lapaz-Rodriguez in Playland. By the 1990s, with the steep rise in property values and the spread of AIDS, the Boston Redevelopment Authority began to dismantle this district of immoral pursuits, selling it off to private owners.
Produced by Russell Sheaffer and Danielle Cooper The area became the site of the city’s gay and drag bars, including the Playland Caf. In terms of Boston gay bathhouses, the scene is relatively limited, with Club Body Center offering the main dose of gay cruising in Boston in the traditional sense of gay saunas. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to this project through our fiscal sponsor, the Dorchester Arts Project. For more than 50 years, Playland Caf was Bostons go-to gay bar in what was once the gritty Combat Zone area. While Boston may not be one of gayest cities in the United States, it still serves up a healthy gay scene that keeps the locals entertained.