The Love Booth and Other Plays 


The Love Booth and Other Plays is a set of seven short, multi-media plays written by Tara Goldstein with contributions from Jenny Salisbury and Alec Butler about queer and trans activism in the early LGBTQ liberation movement. Kael was commissioned by Tara Goldstein to compose music to accompany The Love Booth and Other Plays.

Directed by Jenny Salisbury, The Love Booth and Other Plays was performed on June 9, 2023, at the William Doo Auditorium at New College, the University of Toronto during Toronto Pride month to mark the 50th anniversary of the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the American Psychology Association (APA)’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973. The first play in the set, The Love Booth, tells the story of the activists who helped make that happen. The other six plays tell the stories of other moments of activism that took place during the 1970s and early 1980s by queer and trans Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (QTBIPOC) activists and their allies. They include stories of activism undertaken by Shirley Chisholm, the first Black women to run for President in the United States in 1973 and several gay supporters; the work done by Iris de la Cruz to challenge the stigma and shame of living with AIDS/HIV; the creation of Kitchen Table – Women of Colour Press by Black lesbian poet Audre Lorde and Black scholar and writer Barbara Smith; the poetry of Two-Spirit artist and activist Chrystos, and the activism of trans activists Sylvia Rivera, Marcia P. Johnson, and Chelsea Goodwin to support unhoused young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women living in New York City.