Off Limits
by Jump-Start Performance Company
Nov. 13, 2014
Off Limits is a new play that recalls events from 1973. Just in time for Fiesta, a new gay bar opened near downtown on the banks of the San Antonio River. The San Antonio Country attracted a steady crowd right away, including Military Police intent on placing the bar "off limits" to members of the Army and Air Force who might wish to spend time at the welcoming establishment.
The Country's owner, Arthur P. "Happy" Veltman, and manager, Gene Elder, were summoned along with their legal counsel to hearings by a board of officers who tried to determine, with the help of testimony from Military Police, San Antonio Police Department detectives, and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission employees, just whether or not the club should be banned.
Elder, founder and curator of The Happy Foundation, San Antonio's gay archives, kept a journal of the experience, as well as letters between all parties and copies of the court transcripts. At the time, Hap Veltman, developer of many early businesses along the San Antonio River and of The Blue Star Arts Complex, said he thought the transcripts ought to be produced as a play. Elder included the experience of the hearings, the subsequent raid on the Country and the presentation of Fairies Fiasco - a response performed by the employees of the bar - in his book, Murder by Collage with Found Object.
"I have faithfully kept the documentation of the hearings and am happy this event in our gay history is finally being brought to the public by Jump-Start," said Gene Elder. "I know Hap would love it!" Veltman died in 1988. Based on the transcripts and Elder's observations, Off Limits will be directed by Jump-Start company member Kim Corbin. The cast includes members of Jump-Start's artistic company as well as guest artists. For more information, please call Jump-Start at (210) 227-5867.
Off Limits
Jump-Start Performance Company
Off Limits will be presented as a staged reading by Jump-Start Performance Co. on Thursday, November 13, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. at Jump-Start Theater, 710 Fredericksburg Road, San Antonio, Texas, 78210.Admission for the one-night-only reading is $5.00. Feedback from the audience will be sought immediately following the reading.
