The Ellipsis.

So, none of this would be surprising, outside of Ann Arbor. If you've never been to Ann Arbor, it's kind of like Northampton, MA, but bigger, or like Madison, WI, but smaller.

A little over a year ago, I was out covering Ann Arbor in posters for Geoffrey & Jeffrey, a new comedy about a middle-aged gay couple. Inside the Kerrytown Shops, I was asked by one storekeeper, who was eyeing the poster with distaste, what the play was about. I explained to her the basic plot (which, I should add, was also written on the poster), and she reluctantly accepted one. Within the week, it was gone.

Naively, I went back when I was postering for the next show, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The same woman was at the counter. This is a real conversation:

ME: Hi, I'm postering for Performance Network Theatre.
HER: What show is it?
ME: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. (shows her the poster, two men in Renaissance garb)
HER: (acidly) Oh. Are they married, too?
ME: ...No. They're just friends.
HER: Mm. No, you see, we don't support the gay...

Dot dot dot: They, or at least she, does not "support the gay." Which gay, I wonder? Or did she just need a moment to find a term, or perhaps a collective noun, derisive enough to describe how passionately she does not support the gay?

Most likely, the ellipsis after "gay" was intentional, or at least, natural. She'd never been asked to opine on the subject, and would rather not think about it. The ellipsis describes an umbrella.

On the (somewhat) lighter side, here's a phone conversation I had with an uncomfortable patron during Geoffrey and Jeffrey.

PATRON: So, what is this play about?
ME: It's about two men who have been together for about 25 years--
PATRON: Are they just friends?
ME: Well, no, they're a couple, and one discovers he has a daughter--
PATRON: They're homosexuals?
ME: Yes--
PATRON: Are they really homosexuals?
ME: Um, yes. Oh, wait, did you mean the characters, or the actors?
PATRON: The people. The real people, are they gay?
ME: I don't know. I haven't asked them.

Now, when postering in Chelsea, storekeepers at least have an excuse, albeit a flimsy one: the brand of Chelsea, MI, itself. If a picture of two gay men (Geoffrey and Jeffrey, The Little Dog Laughed) or a large African-American man with a bat (Fences) makes them visibly uncomfortable, they can just tell me that they "don't want any Ann Arbor crap buggin' up my window." Yes, this happened too. Which is not to say that all Chelsea-loving storekeepers are bigoted. It's just that the purely Chelsea-loving ones don't scowl as much, or for as long.

The punchline here is that it's pretty easy to say, "Nope. Store policy" or "I'll give this to the owner" and that would be that. I guess that's what I was expecting, in these cases--that I'd never really know. Hey, I'll leave the poster, it's your store. Fool that I am, though...