After producing a staged reading of The Laramie Project that raised over $1,000 for Trans Families of Santa Cruz County, Renegade Theater Co. is back with another fundraiser: two performances of Stop Kiss, a 1998 play by Diana Son about two women falling in love against the backdrop of a violent hate crime.
Kyle Vasquez, the artistic director and CEO of Renegade Theater Co., praises Stop Kiss for its resonant themes of love overcoming adversity and its oddly uplifting tone. The shows will take place at the Santa Cruz Actor’s Theatre on June 28, the last Saturday of Pride Month.
Proceeds from this show will be split evenly between Trans Families of Santa Cruz and the Renegade’s Rainbow: Casper’s Memorial Fund, which the theater company created to memorialize the passing of young community member Casper (Damien) Miller. The Rainbow Fund will provide scholarships for LGBTQ+ teens who need financial assistance to participate in Renegade productions.
The original concept for the Renegade benefit came after the death of Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary Oklahoma high school student who, after being beaten unconscious by a group of fellow students, committed suicide the following day.
Benedict’s death brought national attention to the consequences of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The youth’s family told reporters that bullying by students worsened at the beginning of the 2023 school year, a few months after Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that required public school students to use bathrooms that matched the sex listed on their birth certificates.
Vasquez says that following Benedict’s death, the members of the company were “all feeling sad and angry and helpless, and it just felt like we wanted to do something actionable.”
After the success of the first benefit, another was set to take place before Miller’s passing. But the event took on new meaning after Renegade’s loss.
Originally, the benefit show was intended as “more of a preventative measure rather than in honor of a specific youth in our community,” Vasquez says. “We are hoping that it is still going to be a future preventative and a way that we get to keep alive the memory of someone who is really important and we all really love. Casper’s name will always be associated, and doing positive things at Renegade and in the community.”
The cast of Santa Cruz locals and others commuting from the Bay Area has a diverse range of ages and experiences. Some actors are returning after several Renegade productions, while others are making their company debut. Despite their differences in backgrounds, they are all united by their passion for socially impactful theater and LGBTQIA+ advocacy.
Renegade Theater Co. is a hub for the LGBTQIA+ community in Santa Cruz. The company’s unofficial slogan is “gayer than your average theater company”—a reference to the popularity of theater within the queer community and the fact that the majority of the staff and participants have LGBTQIA+ identities.
Kyle Vasquez is openly queer, the parent of a trans child, and comes from a queer family. Within this company, Vasquez wants to emphasize “how important theater is for youth who have mental health issues, youth who need a community to belong in.”
Vasquez elaborates, “Often queer youth specifically struggle with mental health, are looking for community and feel like outsiders, so theater can be such a crucial place for queer people of all ages, but especially for youth to explore who they are, explore identity, to find community, to find belonging and just be able to figure out who they are in a safe space.”
Stop Kiss will be performed at 2 and 6pm on June 28 at Actors’ Theatre, 1001 Center St, Santa Cruz. Tickets are sold on a sliding scale at renegadetheaterco.org.
