Remembering Damon Dering, Nearly Naked Theatre founder: 'Actor, director, button pusher'
Damon Dering was a well-known actor, drag queen and theater director in Phoenix who loved to push the envelope of what entertainment was and could be. After many years of illness, Dering died on Thursday, April 25, in his home.
Perhaps his biggest accomplishment was the two-decade run of Nearly Naked Theatre, where Dering created a space for those looking to experience a more provocative and experimental kind of performance both on stage and in the audience.
According to friend and colleague Ron May, the artistic director at Stray Cat Theatre, Dering's impact on the community was a complicated one.
"There's the progressive, beautiful side that left a joyful appreciation by many artists and countless audiences for the experiences and work he curated in the two-plus decades Nearly Naked was around," said May.
"He — and we — were shining examples of entities that absolutely should not succeed here. But we did, and in a pretty loud fashion. And did it consistently on our own terms."
Damon Dering was Miss Gay Phoenix America and Miss Gay Arizona America
It all began when Dering was fed up with never being cast in the roles he desired, according to his close friend and colleague Terre Steed.
"We both started in the early mid-'90s to pick up drag and become professional female impersonators here in town," said Steed. "And that was largely in part, for Damon, due to the fact that he wasn't really getting cast in anything. He's like, 'I'm never going to get to play the witch in 'Into the Woods' so why don't I just do it in drag?'"
That mindset won Dering the titles of Miss Gay Phoenix America and Miss Gay Arizona America in 1997 and eventually led him to open Nearly Naked Theatre.
"He started doing Nearly Naked Theatre in the late '90s and early 2000s and started doing one or two shows a season, and he started doing things that people wanted to see, things that in any other market would be considered mainstream and fantastic, but in Phoenix were considered edgy and cutting edge," said Steed.
Dering's Nearly Naked Theatre launched local actors
Some of those shows included the cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "The Who's Tommy" among many others. Dering's commitment to pushing the boundaries of theater in the Valley was evident in the shows he produced and the people he cast.
"He was instrumental to many actors in this town who are working full-time actors, who were able to work on the stages of Arizona Theatre Company and Phoenix Theatre. Damon gave them their start," said Steed. "Because they weren't getting cast anywhere else because they were different."
When Dering's health began to decline, the end of Nearly Naked happened suddenly and without warning. Dering disappeared from the spotlight.
"My life was inexorably woven with his for decades. He was a tremendous source of support and encouragement and laughter when everything seemed bleakest," said May.
"And his tenure inarguably helped bring about a significant amount of progress — or what feels like progress — in the theater landscape in terms of the kind of work that was being tackled out here, and what it meant to do theater in the Valley and, more importantly, what success could look like.
"We were competitive, to be sure, but we also were fully aware a rising tide benefits all ships."
In a Facebook post Steed wrote, "The art (Dering) made on the Nearly Naked stage was beautiful, painful, funny, provocative, filthy, but always unapologetically his... He was an actor, director, button pusher, provocateur, drag queen and Dungeon Master extraordinaire."
Meredith G. White is the entertainment reporter for The Arizona Republic | azcentral.com. You can find her on Facebook as Meredith G. White, on Instagram and X, formerly Twitter: @meredithgwhite, and email her at meredith.white@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix Nearly Naked Theatre founder Damon Dering dies
