BTL founder brings stage show back home

He or she? It doesn't matter to MaxZine Weinstein.
"I am somewhat committed to screwing with gender," says Weinstein, 41. "It's fun to challenge gender stereotypes and roles, and hopefully the more people do it, the more society will get a clue and stop being so uptight."
As founder of Between The Lines, Weinstein (birthname: Mark) moved 12 years ago from Ann Arbor to a 243-acre queer art community tucked away in the hills of Tennessee.
Living in the buckle of the Bible Belt is quite different from the "hip and progressive" Ann Arbor area, Weinstein says.
He laughs, "The closest neighbor isn't too close."
In Nashville, Weinstein's been committed to fighting police brutality.
His partner, Gregory King, an East Nashville queer activist and filmmaker, is working with Weinstein on a documentary about homeless people's interactions with the police.
"The reason for the tour came about because of social justice work we've been doing to promote human rights in the face of ongoing racial profiling and police harassment," Weinstein says of their Detroit and Ann Arbor gigs.
Weinstein will use his superpowers of queer humor, satire and music to raise awareness of the political project.
"A couple of years ago we put my juggling together with his (King) martial arts and started working on doing movement performance," he says. "It gets a little hairy but it's a lot of fun."
The performances will entail plenty of costumes, mandolin playing, singing and lots of "mad kicks and wild swings."
Performing isn't anything new for Weinstein. He's been doing it since he was born, he says. In 1989 he co-founded a queer performance troop called Eggplant Fairy Players in Ann Arbor.
Weinstein says, "We decided we wanted to travel around the country wanting to do queer theater with a message."