Rhino in the Castro: The Bat

Theatre Rhinoceros, San Francisco's groundbreaking queer stage company, has teamed up with the GLBT History Museum to present "Rhino in the Castro," a series of readings of plays reflecting the LGBTQ community and its allies — all with a history twist. The museum provides the space, and Rhino provides the scripts and actors. Performances take place the first Monday of every month. This month's reading is "The Bat" by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Reinhart. This murder mystery from the 1920s was one of Hopwood's most popular plays. The most successful American playwright of his time, Hopwood also was gay -- but his writing did not deal directly with the topic. The Rhino has engaged Hopwood scholar Jack Sharrar to direct this reading of "The Bat," and he's making gender alterations to the characters to showcase the gay subtext and to reclaim the play for queer history and culture. The GLBT History Museum 4127 18th St., San Francisco Admission: Free; $5 donation welcome