BY KIT SIMPSON ’27

It’s a frigid November morning when I meet up with Rye Gentleman in the Skidmore College dining hall. As we make our way into the Murray-Aikens, we reflect on a performance by the cast of Skidmore’s Fall 2025 Main Stage, As You Like It, that happened at the Tang the night before. 

Dr. Gentleman got his start working on the more technical elements of theater, namely in lighting design, before feeling “confined by the types of productions he was working on.” Afterwards, he went back to school, and now is a Librarian for Performing Arts and Scholar at New York University in New York City. As a scholar, his work focuses on the intersection of trans theory and performance theory. As a dramaturg, he has worked on, in his own words, a “surprising amount of Shakespeare,” including productions of Twelfth Night, Taming of The Shrew, and Henry V.

This is not my first time meeting Dr. Gentleman; since Mid-June, he and I have exchanged dozens of emails as we worked together to dramaturg As You Like It, exchanging conversations about everything from mundane scheduling procedures to how to best format our lobby display; We’ve also met on Zoom a handful of times, often to discuss matters of the play in greater depth. 

However, it is my first time having a long-term, reflective conversation with Dr. Gentleman. He was brought onto the project so as to have an expert on trans performance theory – As You Like It. Dr. Gentleman claims himself to hold a “sense of stewardship” over the comedies, especially plays like As You Like It, wherein a character playing someone not of their birth gender is the helm of most of the comedy. 

In discussion of As You Like It and queer Shakespeare, Dr. Gentleman says that he believes Shakespeare’s cross-gender comedies are “begging for a queer justification.” He elaborates, “There’s a common phrase among dramaturgs and theater departments while pitching plays: why this play now? I’m interested in a slightly different methodological question, which is what does this play do in the world now? In the case of a play like As You Like It, there’s a desire to do it in a way that negates the trans-panic methodology, and besides, there’s so much room for queer interpretation and queer readings – take, for example, someone like Celia, who spends so much time with Rosalind and really seems to develop resentment against Orlando once Rosalind and Orlando’s fake-marriage seems to turn into real love for one another.” 

Everything Dr. Gentleman is saying is perfectly aligned with the work that he has been doing while working on As You Like It; much of the lobby display, curated by him and myself, centers on queerness and the turn of the twentieth century, as well as queer temporality and queer time in conjunction within the text of As You Like It. In addition, Dr. Gentleman cited one of his responsibilities as “providing resources to help ensure that gender was discussed and explored with care in the rehearsal room,” something that is especially important with a play such as As You Like It, wherein characters so loosely play with notions of gender.

In his scholarship, much of Dr. Gentleman’s work centers on trans theory, which he describes as “slightly different from queer theory. Queer theory came of age alongside performance theory, whereas trans theory is a little bit younger and thus a little-bit less in focus, so to speak. There’s also a difference in how both queer theory and trans theory treat gender. Queer theory views it as constructed and something to play with – something in the lines of, say, Judith Butler – whereas trans theory views it as something a little bit more real and concrete.”

Dr. Gentleman claims that the most rewarding part of the process has been watching queer joy in a younger generation. We circle back to our opening small-talk, returning to discussions of the Tang Event from the evening prior. After a while, Dr. Gentleman reflects that “seeing all of the young trans and gender-nonconforming folks getting a lot of joy from playing these parts is really magical.” 

This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.

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Kit Simpson ’27 is the Editor-in-Chief of the Skidmore Theater Living Newsletter