Portland’s Triangle Productions founder on 35 seasons of LGTBQ+ theater

Donnie Horn started Triangle Productions with an original play he wrote in 1989 that dealt with being a gay man during the HIV/AIDS crisis. The theater is now one of the oldest LGTBQ+ theaters in the country, celebrating its 35th season this year. The show that’s currently running is another Horn original: a musical on which he collaborated with musician Michael Allen Harrison called “JC: Gospel According to an Angel.” Horn is also working on the Umbrella Project, which draws together a wide array of stories focused on Oregon’s LGTBQ+ history. He joins us to tell us more about that project, the musical he wrote with Harrison, and how Triangle Productions has grown over the last 35 years.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Donnie Horn started Triangle Productions in 1989. The first play he put on was one that he wrote himself. It was about being a gay man in the midst of the AIDS crisis. Thirty-five years later, Triangle Productions is now one of the oldest LGBTQ theaters in the country. And it’s currently putting on another Horn original, a musical called “JC: Gospel According to an Angel.” Donnie Horn joins me now. It’s great to have you on the show.

Donnie Horn: Thank you for having me.

Miller: I want to start at that beginning that I just mentioned briefly. How did you decide to start your own theater back in 1989?

Horn: Well, there were eight theaters in Portland. I shopped this play to all eight of them and they all turned me down. But one of the theaters said, “Why don’t you produce it yourself?” And since I’d been on the board, I thought I could do that. But it was only gonna be one show. And when we opened the show, it sold out. I was surprised that I could do a show that I wrote that would sell out in Portland. It was at the Firehouse Theater on Montgomery – 65 seats. So selling that was fabulous, but at the same time it was a small house.

Somebody came up to me at the time, hit me in the stomach and said, “How come it’s always men in AIDS and not women in AIDS?” I never knew a woman could have AIDS. You educate yourself one way and not the other. She goes, “I’m HIV and also pregnant.” I learned a lot through that woman and I wrote another play. And it just snowballed from there. I’m stupid in some respects.

Miller: So you didn’t have a plan, in a sense, to start a company or to keep it going. That story takes us to your second play. Why did you keep going?

Horn: Well, I was an actor before this. I love entertainment. I love teaching people things. I love hearing the audience laugh, cry, applause and walk out, because some of them do.

Miller: And that’s a part that you love too, because they’re reacting?

Horn: Yes because you know that you’re affecting people.

Miller: As long as they all don’t walk out, you don’t mind?

Horn: That’s true. That’s true. We had one show where there were seven groups of season ticket people. They saw the show, waited out in the lobby. Then at the very end, they came back and they said, “We are not going to ever come to see the theater again because of the show you just put on.”

Miller: What was that show?

Horn: “What Every Girl Should Know.” It’s about four girls in a Catholic school and one of them got raped by a priest. She was gonna have an abortion. It was hard hitting, but at the same time it was something we had to do. I believe in telling every story, not just a single story. I said, “Great, I’m glad you guys came. I’m glad you guys supported me for a while, but I’m also glad you’re leaving because if this is not where you want to be, then please go.” Not easy though.

Miller: I mean, it seems like you stuck to your artistic principles, but that’s also future money walking out the door?

Horn: Yes, it is. But also, I want to say something. You only have one life and you have to live that life and believe that you’re doing the right thing. If they don’t like it, then they also have that choice. And you have to respect that choice.

Miller: How did this new show start? What was the first kernel?

Horn: I was working on a musical, another musical. Michael Allen Harrison was writing a song. He said, “Donnie, would you look at this book and see if you could adapt it?” I looked at the book and I thought, “Uh oh, it’s a religious book.” It’s not my cup of tea when it comes to this style of religion. I had gone to bible college. I was a Jesus person as it tracks on the street and everything. I said, “[I’ll] attempt it but I don’t know if I can do it.” The more I read it, I disagreed with a lot of things in the book because of what I was taught.

I started asking questions and I started going, wait a minute, you have questions too. You have always wondered where the middle book is of the Bible is. How come there’s no dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? The Bible starts. God created the heaven earth on day one. Where’s the dinosaurs? Where’s the caveman? Where is, where is, where is? And I thought this was gonna be fun. So I took the old man, which is me, and I made his journey into this book.

Miller: I have heard you say that the central question that you ask in the new show is, “Why is it that you believe in what you believe?” First of all, what do you believe?

Horn: Well, it’s interesting. I’m gonna tell you something. We all believe in everything. You believe the light’s gonna come on, you believe when you get in the car, the car is gonna start, right? You believe all those things. It’s an immediate belief. Why? Why do you believe that it’s gonna do this? Why does Shirley MacLaine believe there’s many lives after this one? Why do atheists believe that this is the end? Why?

This word “belief” is huge to me. What I believe is that there’s an exit sign in front of me. I’m 70. I know it’s coming. I want to know what’s on the other side, but I won’t ever know. I do know that the bones are here. Your body’s here, right? So I know that part of your life is gone. But there’s a spirit or a soul or something that moves on, I think. I wanna know the next level. But I believe there is something more than that.

Miller: Why? What you say is you want to know why people believe that. Why do you believe that there’s something next?

Horn: Because I have to believe. My aunt, in 1960, gave me a Bible and it said, “The sins of the world will keep you from this book, but this book will keep you from the sins of the world.” And I thought, “What sins? What is a sin?” And I started reading. That’s why I went to bible college and did everything.

There was a story. We had a pastor. We lived in Burns, Oregon. And this pastor came to us and my dad was always the “man of the house.” What he said, what he did, was gospel. This minister came in, sat down, had dinner with us, and then took a piece of bread, cleaned off his plate, flipped it over and waited for his dessert. My dad followed him. And my dad would never have done that with anybody else. I thought, “This man has power.” Then dessert was served and we looked at everybody around, so we all flipped our plates over and did the same thing. We thought it was really cool as kids. But I never saw my dad ever bow to anybody. I thought, “This is power.” Why? And that’s where my journey actually started.

Miller: That’s fascinating because it’s not about religiosity in particular. But it seems like your father was a strong personality who ruled the household. And here he was following somebody else’s implicit orders and you saw the power there.

Horn: Without ever saying a word, this guy did what my father probably would never do with anybody else.

Miller: Why did you leave the bible college?

Horn: The first night I was there, I got rid of all my Beatles albums, they were the originals, the whole [collection]. I was going to become this holy guy, right? This is what you’re supposed to do when you’re at the bible college. The first night I was in my bunk and I heard “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” playing in the basement. I was pissed.

Miller: Another fellow bible student …

Horn: There was a group of people.

Miller: … who still had a rock album?

Horn: Yes, they were downstairs playing it. I was so mad!

Miller: Playing it for a long time, a famously long song?

Horn: Exactly. [Laughter]

Miller: So you felt like you had been lied to?

Horn: No, I think what happened was, I went, “Aha.” And when that “aha” [moment] happened – and we all have those in our life – I thought that maybe I was led down the wrong path in my belief of what I’m supposed to do. Maybe I’m not supposed to be the minister. Maybe I’m not supposed to be what I think. And I also realized that everybody is human. Everybody has faults. Just because I want to believe something, I can’t give that to you because you have your own life to live. And that has to be something we have to remember.

On the very day before we opened the show, I added a paragraph to the play. And my actress said, “Uh, you want me to learn this in a day? It’s a whole paragraph!” And I said, “Yeah, could you do that for me because it says: you can build houses, you can have all the riches, you can be wealthy, you can do everything you want. But guess what, when you leave, you only have your soul. That’s all you got. So if you destroy everybody else’s lives, your life will still mean nothing at the very end.” And I hope that people realize that.

Miller: So Michael Allen Harrison, a well-known Portland musician, gave you this book to look at and said, “Hey, could you write a musical?” And your first thought was, “I don’t want to do a religious thing.” You read more and it seems like you figured out a way to do it in a way that was true to you. Do you see this as a musical that has a particular lesson that you want the audience to come away with or is it more a set of questions?

Horn: Well, it’s interesting. Some people have actually walked out and hugged me and said, “Thank you. This is exactly what I want.” Another lady walked up to me last Saturday and she said, “I don’t believe anything, but you had me starting to ask questions.” And I thought that’s all I care about. Theater is supposed to be provocative. Our art is supposed to give back to the community. And this is the way we can give back.

There’s a section of the show where John the Baptist says, “If I die, I die.” The same actor plays Judas who actually loves Jesus, and that’s not just to love Jesus. He really does love Jesus in a different way and he sings the song, “Without You.” And I think people need to see that maybe there’s more humanity than a statue or a book.

Miller: Let’s listen to part of one of the songs from the show. It’s called “A New Life.” We’re gonna hear Annah Heinze in this recording. Anything we should know about this before we press play?

Horn: This is Mary Magdalene. Mary is a prostitute, has seven sins, and she has been healed miraculously by Jesus. She sings that this is a new life for me. I get to realize that I have something new.

[“A New Life” playing from “JC: Gospel According to an Angel,” performed by Annah Heinze.]

I have a new life,

A new life for me.

And He has given me a new life,

A new life just for me.

For me.

For me.

When it rains and the drops come down from heaven, and hit the ground.

Smell the air when the wind blows through the trees.

Do you not know things are changing.

I feel there is something different.

I’m no longer tired, weak and worn.

My mind is through spinning around me,

Like I have been reborn.

I have a new life,

A brand new life.

I’m free.

I’m a new me.

[Song ends]

Miller: We started by talking about that first play 35 years ago. Now you have a new musical and there have been plenty in between. Is it still thrilling to have people up on stage reading or singing your words?

Horn: Yeah. Michael Allen Harrison took my lyrics and wrote the music, which I was surprised that he would take almost basically everything I wrote. It is very thrilling because you don’t know what you actually wrote until somebody speaks it.

Miller: What do you mean by that?

Horn: Last year, we did a show on Broadway, and I had audience members come and listen to my words. I had an actor on stage. I directed the show too. I wrote and I produced it. And people came and I’m going, wait a minute. This is unreal because I was told, as I was growing up, that I was a nothing. And to have my value and know that I feel like I’m a vessel doing this. This is just my spirituality, I guess.

But I really get excited because I don’t ever expect people to come. And when they walk in the door, it doesn’t matter my show or anybody’s show, cause I’m just surprised that people want to come to Triangle Productions after 35 years. Most theaters die after five or 10 years. And to be here for that long, tenacity. I still clean the toilets, I still do the things, but I believe in what I do. And I believe that if you do what you love, your life has got more value and more worth, and it shines with everybody else around you.

Miller: What do you still love about it?

Horn: I’m at the theater at 5 in the morning and I leave sometimes at 11 at night. I think it’s because I really do love what I do. There’s something about it. There’s the joy. Today I wrote a play about Gert Boyle, and we’re gonna do that this summer as a reading. I was just discovering a new life, discovering who she was, discovering these things that I don’t know about these people. I love history. That ignites me because why did these people become famous? How did they get there? What’s their journey like? That’s exciting to me.

Miller: Donnie Horn, congratulations on 35 years and thank you so much.

Horn: Thank you.

Miller: That is Donnie Horn. He is the founder and director of Triangle Productions. He is a playwright and an author. This new show, “JC: Gospel According to an Angel” is up now. The final performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening.

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