”Grindr Help Desk: The Musical” Takes Center Stage at The Minnesota Fringe Festival

Grindr is one of the most popular “dating” apps in the world. It is the portal where people will find each other. Some successfully. Others, not so much.

What if the app had a help desk? What if it was run by a drag queen? Imagine such a call center…

During this year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival, you can see this exact scenario played out in “Grindr Help Desk: The Musical” playing at the Mixed Blood Theatre on select performances from August 5-13.

David Stillman, a local business author and speaker, stated that this his first musical he has written. According to Stillman, “Grindr Help Desk: The Musical” is about “Candice who works at the help desk of Grindr fielding calls. She helps callers with everything from profile pics to dating advice. As much as she helps others, she herself would love nothing more than to find her own love and not be on an app.”

In this musical directed by Kyle Weller, Candice, played by Jeremy Johnson, is competing in a drag competition while earning her keep at the call center. As Stillman explained, “She spends time at work getting ready for her competition which is taking place after her shift. This lended itself to some fun elements to the story line.”

The musical’s theme itself goes deeper into not only the plot of the story, but it also draws from Stillman’s own experiences. “Dating apps came out while I was still married and I wasn’t part of the original users,” said Stillman. “When I found myself single later in life, I obviously gave them a try. At that stage, I lacked some of the needed tech savviness and was always worried I would swipe or click the wrong way. I made the comment, ‘they need a help desk for these things’ — and thus came the concept for the show.”

Stillman continued, “I found that dating apps definitely made it easier to meet people as it could be done right from the palm of your hand, however, they still lacked a level of authenticity that you only get when meeting someone face to face.”

Why has a noted business author taken on the task of creating a musical loosely based on his own experiences? “Fiction seemed so exciting,” Stillman explained, “but also so daunting. Basically, anything can happen. I had proven to myself that I could write non-fiction successfully and wanted to take a stab at fiction. I also have always loved going to the theater, and since I had learned about the book publishing world already — I also wanted the opportunity to learn about playwriting.”

There is another reason that Stillman features a drag queen as the central character in this musical. “I saw certain parts of the country trying to ban drag as an art form,” explained Stillman. “This made what started as a fun element to the show a really important element. It felt good to be putting new material with a backdrop of drag out there while many were trying to take it away.”

Therefore, Stillman will donate a portion of the ticket sales from “Grindr Help Desk: The Musical” to the Drag Defense Fund. As Stillman said, “the show then becomes part of a larger mission.”

It is a musical with a purpose, but with a glimpse at our lives as LGBTQ+ people looking for love in the age of smartphone apps. Go see “Grindr Help Desk: The Musical” during its Minnesota Fringe Festival run at the Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis starting August 5!

“Grindr Help Desk: The Musical”

August 5 (2:30 PM), 6 (5:30 PM), 8 (10:00 PM), 9 (8:30 PM), and 13 (7:00 PM)
Mixed Blood Theatre, 1601 S 4^th St., Minneapolis

www.grindrhelpdesk.com
www.minnesotafringe.org/shows/2023/grindr-help-desk-the-musical