12 seconds ago 2009-11-23T12:15:02-08:00
Daryl Roth and Stacy Shane will produce a 2010 commercial Off-Broadway return of The Temperamentals, Jon Marans' play about an early gay-rights movement in America.
A spokesman confirmed the plan on Nov. 5. It was first reported in The New York Times on Nov. 4.
The critical and audience hit seen earlier this year in two Off-Broadway engagements, will again feature Thomas Jay Ryan as Harry Hay and "Ugly Betty" star Michael Urie as his lover Rudi Gernreich. Other past cast members are likely to be invited back, but full casting has not been announced.
Director Jonathan Silverstein repeats his work. Previews will start Feb. 18, 2010, toward an opening night on Feb. 28 at New World Stages.
The highly theatrical play, which uses direct-address and has actors playing multiple roles, concerns Hay's creation of the Mattachine Society, a gay advocacy group, in the 1950s.
The set and costume design is by Clint Ramos, with lighting by Josh Bradford, and sound design by Daniel Kluger.
"Temperamental," according to earlier press notes for the Barrow Group Theater run Off-Broadway, "was a code word for 'homosexual' in the early 1950s, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate."
The earlier cast included Michael Urie, Tom Beckett, Thomas Jay Ryan, Matthew Schneck and Sam Breslin Wright.
The Temperamentals tells the story of two men - the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich - as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the United States, pre-Stonewall. According to production notes, "The play weaves together the personal and political to tell a relatively unknown chapter in gay history. It explores the love between two complex men, as their impossible dream of forming such an unheard of organization becomes a reality in this perilous, unpredictable world. It is an intimate portrayal of the men who created history and the epic struggles they overcame. The characters consist of the actual men who founded the Mattachine Society (Harry Hay, Rudi Gernreich, Chuck Rowland, Bob Hull, and Dale Jennings), as well as other prominent figures of the time in Hollywood and the film industry as well as the world of fashion."
Jon Marans' Old Wicked Songs was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama, winner of New York Drama League, L.A. Drama Logue Award, and included in Otis Guernsey's Best Plays of 1996-97. It has been produced in over a dozen countries including in London's West End with Bob Hoskins and James Callis.
Jonathan Silverstein recent credits are the acclaimed Off-Broadway revivals of The Dining Room (Drama Desk nomination; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble) and Tea and Sympathy, both for the Keen Company, where he serves as Resident Director. Full casting, performance schedule and ticket prices will be announced later.
For more information, visit www.thetemperamentals.com.
