When Bart Buch was creating his “Ode to Walt Whitman” — a “poetic puppetry-infused adventure honoring two queer icons” — he was looking for love.

This was 20 years ago.

“The gay chat rooms were just starting to pop up at that point and it was fascinating to me,” Buch says. “Anybody who’s ever dated online or made connections online — it’s a very weird experience.”

Buch’s “Ode to Walt Whitman” is currently playing at Open Eye Theatre through June 8.

It’s a whimsical and aching multimedia performance of camaraderie, love and lust named after the poem Federico García Lorca published in 1930 in honor of Whitman, the American poet who died in 1892.

Lorca’s poem explores the tenderness and homoeroticism of Whitman’s works, as well as the industrialization and urbanization of New York City a

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