Photographer Gregory Kramer first made a splash with his 2017 book Drags, featuring beloved New York drag performers like Sasha Velour, Peppermint, Murray Hill, Dr. Wang Newton, and countless others. With his new project, Downtown, he draws inspiration from another part of the city: New York’s downtown performance scene, which has been a hub of creative (and often queer) inspiration for decades, beloved for an unconventional and eccentric spirit not often duplicated in commercial theatre.
Kramer’s Downtown, available now, is a self-published newspaper in the style of the old Village Voice that used to circulate in the city’s downtown neighborhoods. It offers intimate portraits of some of the area’s most vibrant talents in theatre, dance, writing, design, activism, and more. Its black and white shots feature the likes of Alan Cumming, Bowen Yang, Justin Vivian Bond, and Gays Against Guns. The project launches tonight at esteemed downtown performance venue Joe’s Pub, with more performances planned for the next few weeks at Housing Works on Monday, July 29th at 7:00 pm and at Club Cumming on Thursday, August 1st at 7:00 pm.
As New York faces gentrification and commercialization — something so many New Yorkers, many downtown performers themselves included, moved here to escape — Kramer says the spirit of the downtown scene he first knew when he moved to the city in 1992 is alive and well. them. spoke with Downtown photographer Kramer about the importance of downtown performance to the queer community and vice versa, what drives him to document queer artists, and more.
What made you decide to start working on this project? The project started at the end of 2017. I had just finished Drags and started brainstorming what to do next. I thought of downtown and the people I’m drawn to, people who are the reasons you move to New York — all these lovely creatures who make downtown happen. I decided to focus on the downtown scene and I thought more of the project than just a photo project; I wanted it to be a printed piece but I also wanted it to have a life beyond that, so my idea was to do a series of shows when the book was released to showcase the people I photographed.
In your daily life in New York City, you’re missing the subway, you’re disappointed, as someone who works freelance you end up constantly being told you’re good but you’re not right for this project. At the end of the night when I go to Joe’s Pub and see a show, it allows me to escape. My husband and I just saw Amanda Duarte and with her take on feminism she punctured our world in the best way possible. When you go see a show, you’re supporting the local community as well, so it’s a give and take. I go to a lot of shows. I’m a huge fan of Bridget Everett, I’m a huge fan of Joe’s Pub, so that was pretty much my involvement, as an observer, less of a participant. I’ve been living in Manhattan since 1992, so over the course of over 20 years, I’ve had downtown crushes and I’ve turned those crushes into this project.
How did you choose its final format? I wanted to challenge myself as a photographer, and I was responsible for the lighting, the backdrops, if someone needed coffee. I really wanted the shoot to be a one-on-one experience, as opposed to most commercial shoots I work on, which have assistants, stylists, the art director, the creative director. I wanted to strip that away and focus on having an intimate experience with each person. When you’re one-on-one, you really have the potential to draw something out of the subject. There isn’t a third person hovering, saying I like that shot but it would be better if your hair was this way or if you were wearing a different outfit. [My subjects and I] sat down and we chose the final two images together.
And I’m a lover of books and printed pieces. I feel like now everything is captured via social media and there’s no hard copy anywhere documenting what’s really happening. The majority of photos you see are just snapshots of clubs, which is great, but few have really taken the time to pull these people out of their settings, give them a simple background, and allow them to really shine as these amazing downtown performers.
**What do you think is the importance of downtown performers to the queer community?** Being queer myself, I moved here from a really small town-slash-village in Michigan. I came from such a small place to this incredible city. It doesn’t matter if you’re queer or straight, New York City is so accepting of who you are. You can be whoever you want to be. If someone who’s new to New York City saw Cole Escola, Larry Owens, Erin Markey, they’d see they can live out what they came here to do without being judged. If they wanted to be part of that environment, I think downtown performance gives them this huge reassurance that they’re accepted here. Most of the people I photographed are queer. There’s very few people in the downtown scene who are not queer.
A lot of people I know say nothing’s happening in New York City. The main reason I wanted to do this project is to prove there is amazing stuff happening. You have Joe’s Pub and Club Cumming and La Mama and they’re all providing amazing platforms for artists, straight or queer, to come in. It’s also just giving the next generation coming up visibility. You can move to New York City and it’s not over, it’s still happening. I’m not experiencing what’s happening every night in New York City because I don’t go out like I used to, but the shows I do see still energize me, enough to do this project. I think downtown performers make you rethink your life. I think they’re there to make you laugh, make you cry, make you become obsessed with seeing them. With Drags and with this project, part of it was to give back to the community and say thank you for providing me with all this amazing energy and performance. In addition to that, all the money raised at Joe’s Pub goes back to Joe’s Pub, all the proceeds from tickets sold at Club Cumming go to the Ali Forney Center, and Housing Works ticket sales benefit Housing Works.
What do you think is the future of downtown performance? I think it will continue to grow and blossom and create hopefully even queerer paths, whatever that may be, in the future. You have amazing organizations like Gays Against Guns, which started out locally and now they have chapters across the United States. There are people who are really getting involved and making a change in what’s happening, whether it’s locally or nationally.
How do you think a scene like this subsists even in the face of gentrification on and off the stage?
I think Broadway has become very formulated. Most downtown performers do what they love versus working with a huge group of performers and directors, having producers tell you, oh, that’s great but it should be like this. Once you start bringing in that in, creativity gets pinned down a bit. Being queer is so much more accepted than it was 20 years ago or back when I was coming out, but there’s a sort of a new life of queerness developing in the scene. When queerness becomes more accepted, it gives queer artists the freedom to explore their sexuality more than in the past. I think downtown performance will continue to grow and blossom and create hopefully even queerer paths, whatever that may be, in the future.
I think New York is a place where you can come and be whoever you want to be. When you’re young and queer, whether you’re from a small town or a medium-sized town, I think coming here for the people and lives you idolize is one of the things that keeps the downtown scene alive. It’s a super expensive place to live, but I think there’ll always be room for artists to survive. That’s another thing I think is super important about New York City, the downtown scene is a family. Having the support is super important, that will allow downtown to grow even though it’s shrinking and venues are disappearing.
Interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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