Stolen away from fairyland

Lovers and madmen in Were the World Mine

Fairies, love potions, mistaken identities, straight people turning gay, and glam rock musical numbers. Yep, it's just another day in high school. At least it is for Timothy, the lovelorn gay boy with a secret crush on his school's star athlete, who's at the center of Were the World Mine. The fantastical movie musical, a contemporary mashup of Broadway, gay sensibility, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, is the glittering jewel in the crown of this year's Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

As in Shakespeare's classic comedy, Timothy finds that love potions, especially ones potent enough to flip-flop sexual orientations, lead to complications. Not content to ensnare the object of his desire, Timothy eventually turns the whole town gay, leading to a merry comedy of errors.

"We have mixed-up lovers throughout the film," chuckles writer/director Tom Gustafson. "All the main characters are either chasing someone they've fallen in love with, or are being pursued. In general, the film is a fairy tale."

But if the course of true love never did run smooth (and the world must be peopled!), it certainly runs fabulous. Were the World Mine sports eye candy galore: cute boys, saturated colors and elaborate sets (reminiscent of the stylized photography of Pierre et Gilles) set to a lovely and clever pop/rock score by Jessica Fogle.

Though the film's biggest influence comes from England in the 1590s, it really began five years ago in Chicago. That's when Gustafson first had the idea for a story about a gay teenager who finds empowerment through Shakespeare. The idea blossomed into his first short film, Fairies, which was a big hit on the gay film festival circuit. After hearing time and again from audiences that they would like to see a full-length Fairies, the subject matter for Gustafson's first feature film was a no-brainer.

"When we decided to expand it," Gustafson explains, "we wanted to expand it in a smart way. So we went back to the text of Midsummer and really used that to inspire the characters." Although the film is not a direct adaptation of Midsummer, elements of its plot and characters are echoed throughout the film. Echoes of Shakespeare's language are also heard, used to indicate the magical mood.

"Once our characters are affected by the love potion, they start speaking in a sort of affected language," Gustafston continues. "We took lines from Midsummer and tailored them." To further heighten the otherworldliness, all the song lyrics were taken directly from the text, although "we rearranged some of them, to tell the story we needed to tell."

That task of adaptation fell to Cory James Krueckeberg, the film's co-writer and production designer, and Gustafson's real life partner. You might think that producing and financing any independent film, let alone a commercially risky gay musical, would make a couple fight more than Petruchio and Katherine, but Gustafson assures me it was true love's labor. "We make a great team," he beams, though he admits it was tough to separate their personal lives from the project. "We've been living this 24 hours a day for five years," he sighs.

And their gamble has paid off. After all the difficulties in financing and casting ("We had a lot of agents tell us, there's no way my client will play a gay teenager," Gustafson reveals. "I really thought we had moved past that.") Were the World Mine has already starting positive notices, including a rave from The Advocate ("Hedwig had better move over!") The filmmakers have also been pleased at the warm reception the movie has received from straight audiences. Underneath the film's fun frivolity is a heartfelt sincerity Gustafson hopes will be felt by all, regardless of gender or orientation.

"When people are given the opportunity to walk in other people's shoes, hopefully that's a learning experience. We don't say gay is better, but maybe people can understand it more."

Were the World Mine is the opening night film of the 21st Annual Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. It screens at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 30 at Cinestudio, 300 Summit St., Trinity College, Hartford. Tickets $15. The Festival runs through June 7; for the complete schedule, or to buy tickets and passes, call 860.586.1136 or visit www.ctglff.org.