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Alyson Lyon and Keith Ecker
This winter you've got at least one great reason to leave your house on a school night. Billed as Chicago’s only charitable first-person reading series, Essay Fiesta is a new monthly event that was held for the second time ever this past Monday at The Book Cellar, Lincoln Square’s cozy independent bookstore. Keith Ecker, founder of gay/straight sketch group The Alliance and host of OutWorld.tv’s “Word of the Gay” co-hosted the event with writer/actress Alyson Lyon of The Sarah and Alyson Show.
It was a perfect night to sit back (or stand, if you showed up late) and abandon yourself to the witty musings of local writers, comedians and actors. Perhaps it was enough to make you forget about the blustery weather outside or even the holiday looming at the end of the week.
Both Ecker and Lyon performed, along with sci-fi writer and former Mormon William Shunn, local comedienne Cameron Esposito, Shallot’s Web food blogger John “Fig” Newton, GayCo comedy troupe member John Loos, and actor/writer/comedian Mike O’Connell.
Standout performances included Cameron Esposito’s droll and heart-wrenching essay on the demise of her relationship with a foreign-born girlfriend and the hysterical coming-of-age and self-proclaimed "gay boy/fag hag" memoir recounted by John Loos, where he describes his coming out story as “falling ass-first out of the closet.”
Concluding the evening was Mike O’Connell’s treatise on busyness, which was by far the most crowd-pleasing of all the readings. O'Connell, whose booming, regal voice and theatrical volatility were the perfect match for his farcical revolt against being busy, complained that "the path to unbusyness is littered with chores," and that "the consistently ironic thing about writing critically about busyness is that you are engaging in the thing that you despise and wish to be done with."
So, what’s better than a Monday night spent surrounded by wry humor? When it's all for a good cause! And in this case, the cause is the Howard Brown Health Center. Located in Chicago, it’s one of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) healthcare organizations. (You may recognize the name from The Brown Elephant Resale Shops, which support the organization’s health and social services and are unrivaled as far as thrift stores in the city go!)
A platform for artists to share and perform work, a place to gather with friends and enjoy a night out of the house, and a raffle benefiting a local non-profit... could Essay Fiesta be any more fun? The answer is yes. There could be a piñata.
Essay Fiesta is a free event that takes place every 3rd Monday at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square (near the Western stop on the Brown Line). The next Essay Fiesta is January 18th. For more information, visit the Essay Fiesta's facebook page.
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