The following was spoken by playwright Frank Siera as an introduction to the staged reading of his play Poetic Licence at 7 Stages on April 13, 2026.

In 2022, an exhibition space in Amsterdam called Beautiful Distress organised an exhibition inspired by the life and work of British playwright Joe Orton. Orton was a gay man in a time in the UK that homosexuality was considered both a mental illness and a crime. During the height of his career in the 60s, he was murdered by his life partner Kenneth Halliwell. Orton’s biographer described this crime as an act of jealousy, but also starts his biography by saying Joe and Kenneth were friends. Dr Emma Parker, a literature professor in Leicester and an expert on Joe Orton’s life and work, has made it her ambition to set the record straight: Joe and Kenneth were lovers, and the moment Kenneth killed both Joe and himself was more likely a state of psychosis than an act of jealousy.

Emma Parker was involved as a researcher and source of information for the exhibition in Amsterdam. A friend of mine was involved too and told me about it, saying there would be videographers, sculptors and other visual artists involved in the exhibition. My response was, “how can you set up an exhibition about a playwright, and not include the one discipline that the subject of the exhibition mastered? And I happen to know a playwright who would be interested..” And that’s how it started. 

My idea to write a play about Joe Orton happily coincided with the request of another friend of mine, a director, who asked me to write something about psychosis and the thin line between reality and fiction. Having been raised by a father who dealt with psychosis, this director had made it an ongoing quest in his artistic life to explore this theme. He was fascinated by how his father sometimes struggled to distinguish between fiction and reality, and feared he would suffer the same fate. Despite this, or maybe precisely because of this, he entered a career of playing with these elements, in theatre, first as an actor and then as a director. By taking control over fiction and reality, he hoped he would never not be able to know what’s real and what’s not. And now, he had asked me to write a play which made it clear how thin the line between the two can sometimes be. 

And so the idea was born: I began writing a play about a playwright, using fiction inspired by reality to write about how the two are sometimes dangerously similar. I started researching Joe Orton, reading his work and his biography. Simultaneously, the other artists involved in the exhibition, started researching Orton too. We all discovered that Orton was a talented playwright, with a witty nose for dark humour and the ambition to playfully provoke and challenge the zeitgeist. But he also seemed to be somewhat self centered, with a hedonistic focus on having quick anonymous sex outside of his relationship with Kenneth; which in itself is not necessarily a problem, but compared to the insecure and sheltered nature of Kenneth who barely ever found pleasure outside of their relationship, and seldom left their small apartment in London, it didn’t seem very sympathetic. Let alone a more problematic element: the two of them would sometimes travel to Morocco to have sex with underaged teenage boys. 

A meeting with all the artists involved was organised, to discuss the preparations for the event. During the meeting, the majority of the artists stated that now they had learnt more about the history of Joe Orton, they didn’t want to be involved anymore as long as Orton would still be the main topic of the exhibition. Even though I did understand the problems they had with Orton’s crimes with underaged boys – I felt the same way – I was also a bit surprised by their stance. My idea, instead of sweeping it under the rug and pretending that it had never taken place, was that we should talk about it. We should tell how it really went and then give the right context, formulate an opinion, ask challenging questions, provoke a conversation. Things that we don’t agree with now did happen in the past, and instead of ignoring them, we should address them and learn from them. It’s not about putting someone or his actions on a pedestal, it’s about using his life, work and actions as a starting point to have a conversation. 

Which is why Orton’s harmful actions did end up being a part of this play. And also why he’s being criticised and condemned for it, in the play. Because let me be very clear: as much as I think we should challenge our prevailing conservative ideas of what a romantic relationship should look like, having sex with underaged people is wrong and harmful and illegal for all the right reasons. It’s also, needless to say but nevertheless very necessary to explicitly mention, very different from being a gay man. Being a gay man and enjoying consensual intimacy with another gay man is in itself joyful, harmless and perfectly normal, whereas the other is never consensual or harmless. It’s where we have to draw a very clear line of how far we can challenge our conservative ideas of what should be normal and what shouldn’t be. Especially in times of renewed and increased pressure on queer rights, it’s important to stress the difference. And it’s important to talk about it and not shy away from the conversation. About what is or should be normal, and what isn’t or shouldn’t be. 

Because that is what POETIC LICENCE tries to do. It shows that over time, our perception of normality changes. Things that were seen to be insane and illegal in the 60s are now considered perfectly normal – or are, yet again, under pressure. It only goes to show how vulnerable our worldview is, and how we should never blindly accept what the world tells us to be the norm. Imagination, art and theatre can help in freely dreaming about a refreshing new world with new perspectives, but the absence of frames and boundaries can also sometimes lead to dangerous situations and the darkest corners of one’s mind. Especially for someone who already has difficulty to find the boundary between fantasy and reality. Like a critic wrote about the play: “In this way, the true purpose of Poetic Licence slowly becomes clear: it is an ode to the taboo-breaking power of imagination, which never loses sight of the dark side of a surrender to madness. Poetic Licence sketches a simultaneously oppressive and liberating portrait of the relationship between madness and exclusion. A surrender to fiction is like the wings of Icarus: an escape from the gravitational pull of stifling civic morality, but also a potentially fatal ascension.” And I couldn’t agree more.

The exhibition did take place, under a different name and with a broader theme – queer mental struggles in general – but was ultimately postponed because of financial difficulties. POETIC LICENCE did, however, premiere at the planned moment, as an event on its own. Dr Emma Parker came to visit from the UK and attended the premiere. She stated that although there have been more plays about Joe Orton than he had written himself, this was the first time she had seen a play so true to what she believed to be the real story. Even though, to balance the thin line between real and fictional, I took quite some poetic licence.

Let’s raise $100,000,000 and lift the arts in our region out of poverty.

Yep, you read that right. We’re going to raise 100 million dollars to stabilize our regional small and midsize arts organizations. 

It’s broken, let’s fix it.

Arts funding in Atlanta has been broken for decades, and a group of diverse arts leaders, Arts Capital | Atlanta,  have come together to try to fix it and undo some of the damage and inequities that have persisted.

The arts in Atlanta are thriving! There is so much going on all the time it is impossible to experience even half of it. We are lucky to live in the Cultural Capital of the South. However, the cost of this incredibly rich tapestry has been shouldered by artists and arts administrators at small and midsize arts organizations for far too long. The artists have told us loud and clear they are not willing to do it anymore, and they must be paid a living wage.

If Atlanta wants to continue to be a thriving beacon of culture for the south, it is going to have to figure out how to pay for it. To that end, over 20 arts organizations of all sizes and disciplines have been meeting weekly for 2 years to solve some of the systemic issues. We have been meeting with funders in our community with a strong history of arts support and have asked them to give even more, and to encourage their peers to also step up to assist. We are well on our way to success, and now we are asking our community to help lift our message.

If you love and support the diverse arts ecosystem in Atlanta, let’s be loud about it together! Atlanta has some amazing funders in the family foundation space, and we are grateful to each and every one. They have been giving consistently, but it is simply not enough to support all the incredible work in our community. There is an immense gap between the available funding and the work being done every day on stages, in galleries, studios, parks and just about every public space you can think of.

There is also immense wealth in our community, and we need to lift our voices and talk about the arts with friends, neighbors, the business community and the press—anyone who will listen. We have to lift this narrative that the arts in Atlanta are at a crossroads. If enough of us speak up about it, often enough and loud enough, chances are the right people with the right access and control will hear it and support this effort. We’re calling on you, Atlanta, to speak up for the arts. 

We know there are incredible challenges in our world these days and perhaps it seems there are other more urgent matters. As we like to say in the improv world, “Yes and…” We need the arts more than ever to make it through the atrocities we’re witnessing every day. Now is the time. Arts and Culture is under attack, along with our other constitutional rights. Lift your voice. Without the arts, it would just be the atrocities. We need the arts to survive. 

Over 200 arts orgs have been identified in Metro Atlanta, and after surveying them it became clear we need $100M to just get on stable ground.

Once our goal is met, we will not stop there. That won’t fix the systemic issue. We will continue to be loud and fundraise every year and create a new arts funding stream for long-term health, tapping the growing wealth in our community.

Georgia consistently ranks among the lowest funding per capita in the country. Currently about $0.14 per person. There are 8 states above $5 and 3 above $10! Even Alabama has over $1.50. It’s embarrassing! This year Fulton County, one of our largest funders, reduced the budget appropriations for Arts and Culture by almost 50%.

The American Rescue Plan propped up the arts community through covid and we almost had adequate funding for once. Georgia Council for the Arts had an additional $3,000,000 to award for a few years, and it still paled in comparison to other states. The Federal funding around the Employment Retention Tax Credit and the Shuttered Venue Operating Grant provided stability for arts organizations across the country for a short time. All of that funding has ended, while costs have grown exponentially.

The latest blow came May 2nd when the National Endowment for the Arts cancelled and rescinded hundreds, if not thousands (we’re still counting), of grants previously awarded across the country. AC|A is calculating the local impact but the national total is over $20M so far.

Join us in making some noise on behalf of the arts in our region.

• Visit https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/ to learn more about the current state of the arts in Atlanta and sign up for the newsletter.
• Talk to your representatives about why the arts are important to you and your community.
• Encourage your community to support arts organizations by attending events, donating, and volunteering.
• Write to your local paper.
• Amplify this message and your arts involvement, repost messages about the cuts and contract cancellations, post about your favorite shows and tell your friends when you make a donation. The arts need advocates!
• Tell everyone who will listen that you will be an arts voter in the next election.

AC|A in the News: https://www.artscapitalatlanta.org/news

AJC – NEA cancels previously awarded grants to GA organizations: 

https://www.ajc.com/arts-entertainment/2025/05/nea-cancels-previously-awarded-grants-to-georgia-arts-organizations/

Saporta Report – $100 Million needed to stabilize regional arts groups: 

https://saportareport.com/artscapitalatlanta-100-million-needed-to-stabilize-regional-arts-groups/columnists/mariasmetro/maria_saporta/

WABE – We’ve got about a $50 million dollar deficit:

https://www.wabe.org/weve-got-about-a-50-million-dollar-deficit-arts-capital-atlanta-advocates-for-more-investment-in-atlantas-art-scene/