Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Reviewers are generally embargoed from writing about shows until their opening nights. The producers of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opted for a different approach, inviting theatre bloggers to the first preview and giving us the go-ahead to write about the show immediately. They knew they weren't taking any chances--this production has already played Chicago and D.C. and received rapturous reviews. The only possible hitch would be if expectations had been raised too high.

No such problem. Thanks to exceptional direction and acting, this beautifully accomplished production hits every harrowing, exhausting, and funny note in Edward Albee's brilliant play.

Photo: Michael Brosilow

Carrie Coon is far and away the best Honey I have seen. In the least interesting, least developed role, she registers as a three-dimensional human being and not a living prop. And Madison Dirks is quite effective as Nick. You can feel his swagger and humiliation collide.

Tracy Letts is a full-blooded George whose deference to Martha is a tactic rather than a surrender. His love and his anger are both vividly etched, and the places where they overlap sizzle. He is a man who knows his limits but also his strengths. His final act is the logical conclusion to the evening, rather than the last-minute bravery of a timid man.

Amy Morton as Martha is as brilliant as I hoped she'd be. Having seen her superb performance in August, Osage County, I knew that she would be a powerful Martha. But she's more than that. She often underplays, making her Martha both less and more monstrous and completely original. She makes palpable Martha's addiction to drama--and to an audience--and how it exhausts and exhilarates both her and George.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is often presented as a domestic Grand Guignol, but this amazing production feels almost realistic as four deeply damaged people fight for their lives, or their sanity, or at least to make it to another day. Tremendous credit must go to Pam MacKinnon, whose clean, smart direction allows the play to be new and fresh without shoehorning it into some dumb concept, as so many revival directors like to do. 

The play itself remains breath-taking and odd and overwritten and yet not and wily and mean and emotional and shocking. I can't imagine how it must have felt to see it in 1962, but the fact that it was denied the Pulitzer Prize because it was not "uplifting" enough is surely a clue.

A few details struck me this time around. First, in many plays, movies, and TV shows, there comes a moment where one character should--and would--just leave. But the writer has to make the person stay, no matter how unconvincingly, so that the story won't abruptly end. Nick, on the other hand, has genuine reasons to stay. Martha would not have invited Honey and him over otherwise--as an experienced user, she can easily spot a victim.

Another overused--and often misused--device is the character who talks to him- or herself when alone. Again, this can be awkward and off-putting. But Martha talks to herself because she is the person she likes least in the world, and to sit quietly is out of the question. So she natters along, and it's convincing and elucidating and sad.

I think--and perhaps this is sacrilege--that the play could use to lose 10 or 15 minutes. But, then again, maybe that extra time is needed to completely exhaust the audience as the characters are completely exhausted. It's Long Night's Journey Into Day, but so much more perceptive and rich than O'Neill's work. 

At the first preview, the cast received a ragged standing ovation. It took a while for the audience to find our feet after having had them so thoroughly knocked out from under us.

(press ticket, first preview, third-row-center mezzanine)

"Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City"

See the picture above, of the happy, naked people embracing one another as they stand in a line? It was taken by Ormond Gigli in 1969, at the final--um--dress rehearsal of Oh! Calcutta! It's a stunning photograph, and I am thrilled that it was chosen for use on the cover of my forthcoming book, which is due out in late October or early November, and which can be pre-ordered here <Hard Times>, or here <Hard Times>.  Because there was some concern that a book with nudity on the cover could offend potential buyers, the picture has been--I think--most excellently altered. As the cover of my book, the photograph looks like this:

I don't mind the relative dearth of breasts or pubic hair on the cover--there are plenty of pictures of nudies within. First of all, books like these are hardly likely to top the New York Times bestseller list--or any bestseller list--so I'm happy to court all the potential buyers I can get. And second of all, the PG version of the book helps assuage one of the many anxieties I have about it just prior to its release: that people will be interested in it only because they think it will be titillating, in the way that pornography is titillating. These people will inevitably be disappointed because in the end, Hard Times is less a book about "porn-musicals" (which is the way some of my friends and acquaintances have described my book project in the past few years) than it is a scholarly treatment of the ways that the sexual revolution influenced musical theater in 1970s New York. This is no dense, overly-written tome, mind you. I think that for an academic, I am a pretty straightforward writer. Nonetheless, no matter how you slice it, Hard Times just ain't porn.

Of course, potential disappointment among the men-in-raincoats set is hardly the most acute anxiety I am experiencing. Other, bigger concerns include: Will anyone even buy the thing, let alone bother to read it? Will anyone review it? Will the reviews be really, really mean? Or will everyone just ignore it?

I hope that Hard Times is not ignored, if only because so many of the musicals discussed in it have been ignored for so long, and I don't think they deserve to be. In fact, I've sort of fallen in love with some of them and, in the process, with some of the people who wrote them. And I hope that readers will fall in love with--or lust, or, at the very least, vague, flickering attraction to--them, too.

The show that sparked my interest in "adult musicals" was not Oh! Calcutta!--although I do admit to having had a real fascination with that long-running show, which advertised heavily in Times Square during its impossibly long run through the 1970s and 80s, and which my parents would never let my sister and me see when, as a young family, we waited on line at the TKTS booth debating what shows we'd try to get cheap tickets for. Rather, the show that led to this book was a revue called Let My People Come, which was a huge hit in New York and across the world in the mid-1970s, but which I'd never heard of when, almost a decade ago, the friend of a friend learned about my first book, on rock musicals, and responded by sending me a cassette tape simply marked "Bad Musicals." Side one had selections from "Nefertiti," a 1976 musical that was scheduled for Broadway but that fared so poorly in its out-of-town run in Chicago that producers thought better of bringing it to New York. They were smart: I couldn't get through that side of the tape.

The second side, though, had selections from a show called Let My People Come, which ran for several years during the mid-1970s at the Village Gate in New York, as well as on tour and in various other cities all over the world. Songs on the tape included "Give It to Me," "The Cunnilingus Champion of Company C," the titular number (have you noticed that I keep using words with "tit" in them? Hope so!), and the incredibly explicit "Come in My Mouth." This was on stage? At the Village GATE? I was astounded. I was fascinated. I had to find out more.

So I did. In the process, I interviewed a whole lot of people who were involved in writing and producing and performing these shows: The journalist Jonathan Ward, whose article "Come in My Mouth: The Story of the Adult Musicals of the '70s" was the first thing I read when I started my research (it's still online and you can read it here.). Many lovely, gracious actors, who answered my questions with enthusiasm and good humor, and more than one of whom joked that they'd be a lot more comfortable talking about their adult musical past were they to take off all their clothes (none did). Earl Wilson, Jr, who wrote and composed Let My People Come, and who is a doll. The co-authors of one of the first gay musical revues, Lovers, who joked and laughed and finished each others' sentences as they reminisced about writing their show for the landmark gay theater company, TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence). The son of a high-ranking member of the Genovese family who eschewed getting made because he wanted to be an escape artist and produce a burlesque show called We'd Rather Switch. And the late David Newburge, composer and author of the musical Stag Movie, who had me over to his West Village apartment, showed me his many, many, many birds, let me interview him, and then broke out some porn that he'd written the scripts for, was particularly proud of, and wanted me to see.

Yeah, that's right: I sat around with a total stranger in the middle of the afternoon and watched porn with him for the sake of this book. All in a day's work. You know what? He had a right to be proud--that was one wacky, layered, well-scripted porn flick. He even had a cameo in the middle of it, in which he played Madame Defarge. Don't ask.

Anyway, the book was a lot of fun; one last anxiety I have been having is that I'll never land on such a fascinating, quirky little topic again. I hope among hope that I do. In a strange way, I'll really miss Hard Times when it's released--I guess in the same way a parent misses their kid when they go off to college or out into the world. But out into the world it must go. When it gets there, I hope people get as much enjoyment from reading it as I got from researching and writing it. The shows and the people I write about deserve that much.

New York Innovative Theatre Awards (the IT Awards)

(winners are in bold and underlined)

Artistic Achievement Award: 5 Lesbian Brothers

Ellen Stewart Award: The Theatre Development Fund (TDF)

Caffé Cino Fellowship Award:  Astoria Performing Arts Center

Outstanding Stage Manager: Katie Kavett

2012 Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award: Donnetta Lavinia Grays

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE

­ Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant Returns in: The Mothership Landing: Justin Badger, David M. Barber, Melody Bates, Stephanie Dodd, Jeffrey Fracé, Connie Hall, Kelly Hayes, Jerusha Klemperer, Peter Lettre, Rachel Murdy, Melody Bates, Peter Richards, Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant in association with the Irondale Center

• The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays Daniel Burnam, Brendan Donaldson, Cara Francis, Connor Kalista, Jacquelyn Landgraf, Erica Livingston, Lauren Sharpe, New York Neo-Futurists

• Eightythree Down Melody Bates, Ian Holcomb, Bryan Kaplan, Brian Miskell, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much Loren Amos, Duane Boutte, Alexis Francisco, Anthony Gaskins, Michael Alexis Palmer, David Roberts, Robert G. Siverls, Zook, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company

• Homunculus: Reloaded Adriana Chavez, David DeSantis, Lauren Elder, Regina Gibson, Mel House, Jennifer Luong, Eeva Semerdjiev, William Silva, Brett Teresa, Homunculus Mask Theater

• Urban Odyssey Penelope Armstead-Williams, Rocky Bostick, Ching-I Chang, Maura Donohue, Denise Greber, Alice Pasturel, Federico Restrepo, Gilbert Reyes, Kiku Sakai, Kayla Schetter, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with LOCO7

OUTSTANDING SOLO PERFORMANCE

­ Melanie Jones, Endure: A Run Woman Show, Collision Productions

• Bree Benton, Poor Baby Bree in I Am Going to Run Away, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club

• Greg Oliver Bodine, Poe, Times Two, WorkShop Theater Company

• Zac Jaffee, Heroes and Other Strangers, the cell theatre

• Juan Francisco Villa, Empanada For A Dream, Ballybeg & terraNOVA Collective

• Raïna von Waldenburg, Oysters Orgasms Obituaries, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with Center for Embodied Performance

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE

­ Stephen Alan Wilson, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, T. Schreiber Studio

• Karl Gregory, Frogs, Fault Line Theatre

• Ian Holcomb, Eightythree Down, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• Jason Howard, Advance Man, Gideon Productions

• Bryan Kaplan, Eightythree Down, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• Curry Whitmire, Christopher Marlowe's Chloroform Dreams, Lunar Energy

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE

­ Celeste Arias, Demon Dreams (Oni No Yume), Magic Futurebox

• Lauren Blumenfeld, Exit Carolyn, Sans A Productions

• Teresa Kelsey, The House of Mirth, Metropolitan Playhouse

• Marie Marshall, The House of Mirth, Metropolitan Playhouse

• Ryan Templeton, A Hard Wall at High Speed, Astoria Performing Arts Center

• Halley Wegryn Gross, Sex Good; Money Bad, Broken Watch Theatre Company

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A LEAD ROLE

­ Greg Horton, A Man of No Importance, The Gallery Players

• Adam Barrie, Dust, Tenement Street Workshop in association with Incubator Arts Project

• Hunter Canning, Dust, Tenement Street Workshop in association with Incubator Arts Project

• Karl Gregory, From White Plains, Fault Line Theatre

• Brian Miskell, Eightythree Down, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• Charlie Owens, A Man of No Importance, The Gallery Players

• Aidan Redmond, The Real Thing, Boomerang Theatre Company

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE

­ Renee Claire Bergeron, A Man of No Importance, The Gallery Players

• Melody Bates, Eightythree Down, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• Casandera M.J. Lollar, The Runner Stumbles, Retro Productions

• Charlotte Pines, Callous Cad, Tom X. Chao in association with Kim Katzberg

• Laura Ramadei, Exit Carolyn, Sans A Productions

• Christina Shipp, Ajax in Iraq, Flux Theatre Ensemble

OUTSTANDING CHOREOGRAPHY/MOVEMENT

­ Joe Osheroff & Evan Zes, Homunculus: Reloaded, Homunculus Mask Theater

• Jessica Isa Burns, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company

• Lee Sunday Evans, The Deepest Play Ever: The Catharsis of Pathos, CollaborationTown

• Christine O'Grady, A Man of No Importance, The Gallery Players

• Lauren Sharpe, The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays, New York Neo-Futurists

• Turner Smith, Romeo and Juliet, Northwest Passage

OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR

­ Joe Osheroff, Homunculus: Reloaded, Homunculus Mask Theater

• Kevin Laibson, Demon Dreams (Oni No Yume), Magic Futurebox

• Christopher Loar, The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays, New York Neo-Futurists

• Alex Roe, The House of Mirth, Metropolitan Playhouse

• Aaron Rossini, Frogs, Fault Line Theatre

• August Schulenburg, Ajax in Iraq, Flux Theatre Ensemble

OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN

­ David A. Sexton, The Spring Fling: My Best/Worst Date Ever, F*It Club

• Nick Francone, Miranda, MirandaCo

• Richard Kent Green, Poe, Times Two, WorkShop Theater Company

• Ben Hagen & Joe Skowronski, LoveSick (or Things That Don't Happen), Project Y Theatre Company

• Cat Tate Starmer, A Hard Wall at High Speed, Astoria Performing Arts Center

• Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant Returns in: The Mothership Landing, Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant in association with the Irondale Center

OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN

­ Sidney Fortner, The House of Mirth, Metropolitan Playhouse

• Denise Greber, Urban Odyssey, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with LOCO7

• Kim Katzberg, Penetrating the Space, Kim Katzberg

• Jessica Sofia Mitrani, Hypnotik: The Seer Will Doctor You Now, The New Stage Theatre Comapny

• Ayanna Siverls-Streater, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company

• David L. Zwiers, The Asphalt Christmas, Gracye Productions

OUTSTANDING SET DESIGN

­ Kevin Judge, LoveSick (or Things That Don't Happen), Project Y Theatre Company

• Stephen K. Dobay, A Hard Wall at High Speed, Astoria Performing Arts Center

• Sarah E. Martin & Sara Nelson, The Spring Fling: My Best/Worst Date Ever, F*It Club

• Steve O'Shea, Up To You, TADA! Youth Theater

• Sean Ryan, Clowns Full-Tilt: A Musing on Aesthetics, Clowns Ex Machina/La MaMa

• Andy Yanni, Felix and the Diligence, or a Play About Fishermen in the 1940's, Pipeline Theatre Company

OUTSTANDING SOUND DESIGN

­ Matt Schloss, Miranda, MirandaCo

• Martha Goode, Costa Rehab, Maieutic Theatre Works (MTWorks)

• Christopher Loar, The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays, New York Neo-Futurists

• Mark Parenti, The Spring Fling: My Best/Worst Date Ever, F*It Club

• Nathan A. Roberts, A Hard Wall at High Speed, Astoria Performing Arts Center

• Tim Schellenbaum, Urban Odyssey, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with LOCO7

OUTSTANDING INNOVATIVE DESIGN

­ Joe Osheroff, Mask Design, Homunculus: Reloaded, Homunculus Mask Theater

• Gyda Arber & Aaron Baker, Phone & Text Design, Red Cloud Rising, The Fifth Wall in association with The Brick Theater

• Maia Cruz Palileo, Animation and Sculpture, Penetrating the Space, Kim Katzberg

• Elizabeth Barrett Groth & Amy Mathews, Puppet Design, We in Silence Hear a Whisper, Red Fern Theatre Company

• Federico Restrepo & Angela Sierra, Video Editing & Design, Urban Odyssey, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with LOCO7

• Suchan Vodoor, Interactive Technology Design, Endure: A Run Woman Show, Collision Productions

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL MUSIC

­ Jeff Raab, 12th Night, Libra Theater Company

• Karolyn Bethke, Kris Kukul, John Sully, Elizabeth Swados & Martin Wallace, Urban Odyssey, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with LOCO7

• Sasha Bogdanowitsch, Erosion: a Fable, Loom Ensemble

• Christine Owman, Endure: A Run Woman Show, Collision Productions

• Kamala Sankaram, Miranda, MirandaCo

• Sxip Shirey, Prometheus Within, LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club in association with Skysaver Productions

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SHORT SCRIPT

­ Chisa Hutchinson, This is Not the Play, Mad Dog Theatre Company

• Lucy Boyle, Mort, The Spring Fling: My Best/Worst Date Ever, F*It Club

• Dean Imperial, The Needle Through the Arm Trick, Too Much Too Soon, Lesser America

• Vincent Marano, Artistic License, What I Meant Was... The Odd, Short-Ish Of Vinnie Marano, teatro oscuro

• Joe Osheroff & Evan Zes, Homunculus: Reloaded, Homunculus Mask Theater

• Anna Ziegler, A Map of Broken Glass, The Spring Fling: My Best/Worst Date Ever, F*It Club

OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL FULL-LENGTH SCRIPT

­ Melanie Jones, Endure: A Run Woman Show, Collision Productions

• Zac Jaffee, Heroes and Other Strangers, the cell theatre

• Mariah MacCarthy, The Foreplay Play, Caps Lock Theatre

• Michael Perlman, From White Plains, Fault Line Theatre

• Mac Rogers, Advance Man, Gideon Productions

• Juan Francisco Villa, Empanada For A Dream, Ballybeg & terraNOVA Collective

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE ART PIECE

­ Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant Returns in: The Mothership Landing, Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant in association with the Irondale Center

• The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 1, Early/Lost Plays, New York Neo-Futurists

• Empanada For A Dream, Ballybeg & terraNOVA Collective

• Endure: A Run Woman Show, Collision Productions

• For Black Boys Who Have Considered Homicide When the Streets Were Too Much, Modern-Day Griot Theatre Company

• Homunculus: Reloaded, Homunculus Mask Theater

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A MUSICAL

­ Miranda, MirandaCo

•  LoveSick (or Things That Don't Happen), Project Y Theatre Company

• A Man of No Importance, The Gallery Players

• The Secret Garden, Astoria Performing Arts Center

• Unville Brazil, FullStop Collective

• Up To You, TADA! Youth Theater

OUTSTANDING PREMIERE PRODUCTION OF A PLAY

­ Advance Man, Gideon Productions

• Demon Dreams (Oni No Yume), Magic Futurebox

• Eightythree Down, Hard Sparks in association with Horse Trade Theatre Group

• The Foreplay Play, Caps Lock Theatre

• From White Plains, Fault Line Theatre

• A Hard Wall at High Speed, Astoria Performing Arts Center

Fabulous Flux-ers

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A REMOUNTED PLAY

­ Ajax in Iraq, Flux Theatre Ensemble

• Frogs, Fault Line Theatre

• The House of Mirth, Metropolitan Playhouse

• Poe, Times Two, WorkShop Theater Company

• The Real Thing, Boomerang Theatre Company

• The Violet Hour, The Active Theater in association with Goode Productions