DONNIE’S BIO
Born: December 29, 1954 White Pines Hospital Ely, Nevada
Age 0-1 Pueblo, Colorado Age 1-10 St. Helens, Oregon and Burns, Oregon Age 10-12 Berryville, Arkansas Age 12-17 Cannon Beach/Sunset Beach/West Lake, Oregon the balance of his life in Newberg/Oregon City/Portland/Beaverton, Oregon.
Donald l Horn aka Donnie is a playwright, historian, LGBTQ leader, author, director, activist, set designer, and producer (of well over 250 theatrical productions in the past 34 years).
He is the founder and Executive Director of triangle productions!, a theatre company established in 1989 and based in Portland, Oregon. triangle is considered to be one of the oldest LGBTQ-identified theatres in the United States.
As an author his first book, Crumbs of Love (and that’s all you’ll ever get), was well-received, and he has finished the sequel, Pinch Me. His second book, Agapi Mou (my beloved), is part love story, heartache, and historical fiction about the Island of Zakynthos, Greece. It has been translated into Greek by Sophia Levandis. In 2011 he wrote three books: Gracie (a biography about Gracie Hansen), Gracie Hansen’s PARADISE, and Lost History of Oregon: A hotel by the name of Hoyt. Over the past several years he has been writing a trilogy entitled How Do You Say Murder in Greek? which deals with a twenty-five-year-old murder on the island of Zakynthos, Greece. He is also the author alongside collaborator Walter W Cole/Darcelle with Darcelle: Looking from my mirror and The Many Shades of Being Darcelle and four other books concerning Walter W Cole/Darcelle.
He has written two stories for the Oregon Encyclopedia:
Gracie Hansen: Gracie Diana Hansen (1922-1985) (oregonencyclopedia.org)
Nancy Boggs: Nancy Boggs Mullery (1833–1905) (oregonencyclopedia.org)
As a playwright, he has written over twenty plays and musicals. He is believed to be the first playwright to write about those who left behind, ‘survivors’ of those passing with AIDS in 1990 - After the Rain; the first playwright to write about women/children/HIV-AIDS in his 1990 play, “…tell momma, goodbye…”, and he is believed to be the first playwright to deal with Alzheimer’s in his 1994 play, “Don’t know the Colour of Rainbows, Actually.”
Some of his musicals include ’69-The Sexual Revolution Musical (which won two Portland Area Music Theatre Awards for Best Songs) and the musical about Gracie Hansen, Gracie – a musical adventure (nominated for four PAMTA’s including Best Original Work). His musical Ari-Maria about Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas premiered in Portland in 2013 and he premiered a new work about Native American jazz great Jim Pepper - The Jim Pepper Project in 2014. This received funding including National Endowment for the Arts to tour throughout the State of Oregon in 2015. He followed that project up with a musical based upon the legendary Portland theatre, Storefront entitled Storefront Revue: The Babes are BACK! a drama about George/Christine Jorgensen entitled TRANS-formation in 2018, and in 2019 premiered Darcelle: That's No Lady along with a Jewish comedy, Life. According to Morty and Ruth, a musical about Tammy Wynette entitled Me and Tammy and another historical musical this one about Nancy Boggs entitled Sex on the River. He will be represented off-Broadway in the fall 2023 with his show Make Me Gorgeous! starring Wade McCollum.
In 2021, he and his theater company triangle productions! received the second highest award from the State of Oregon - Oregon Heritage Excellence Award for his multi-faceted Darcelle Project. The Darcelle Project included: musical, Oregon Historical Society exhibit of Walter/Darcelle’s historic costumes and jewelry, book signings, street topper, five books, and he was the lead spearheading getting the first Oregon LGBTQ business or place on the National Register of History Places that being the Darcelle XV Showplace also getting the historic house Walter and his partner lived in on the National Register known as the Elmer and Linnie Miller House.
Continuing that work, he is currently working on gathering, documenting, and securing Oregon's vast LGBTQ history, The Umbrella Project.
He is a father of two boys (Jason and Nathan), stepfather of three (Shawnee, Trisha, and Sammy), a grandfather to Zackary, William, Dillon and a step-grandfather to eight more. He and his partner divide their time between homes in Portland, Oregon, Lincoln City, Oregon, Palm Springs, California, and Zakynthos, Greece.
He holds a BA and MBA from City University in Seattle, Washington, and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America [DG Career Profile | Dramatists Guild], Willamette Writers, and Women of the West.
You can contact the author at: donniehorn28@gmail.com