Hometown: Born and bred in NYC
Education: Checkered
Favorite Credits: How about “rarest” credit? Collaborating with my parents (just the 3 of us) on the The Family Business presented at Dance Theater Workshop, New York Theatre Workshop and the Mark Taper Forum, etc
Why theater?: Oh hell, I was born in the proverbial trunk, performance is in my blood, and I love words.
Tell us about 217 BOXES?: 1972: Dr. John Fryer donned an oversize tuxedo, rubber joke shop mask, called himself Dr. Henry Anonymous and lent into a distorting microphone to challenge the American Psychiatric Association with these words: “I am a homosexual, I am a psychiatrist.” Dr Anonymous propelled medicine to declassify homosexuality as a mental disease but who, really, was the man behind that mask… the play asks three key figures in Fryer’s life to conjure the man they shared.
What inspired you to create 217 BOXES?: All my work is about the ways in which mainstream history has been a ruthless editing machine – I look for the those figures who have been swept (or forced) to the margins of public memory. AND I’m a gay man but have rarely sourced LGBTQ history – it was time.
What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: 1) I am more drawn to a complicated character amid his/her/their evolving thought then I am to seeing that person submit to the engine of a “well-made” plot. 2) I don’t need to understand where the event is going if I am sure that that the author/director/actor does – I like being in sure hands and relinquishing my authority.
If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: A few names from a long list of women: Kate Valk, Judi Dench, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Joan Macintosh, Roslyn Ruff, Linda Emond, Brenda Wehle
What show have you recommended to your friends?: The last Caryl Churchill play at BAM (Escaped Alone) and the upcoming one at NYTW (Light Shining In Buckinghamshire).
Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: Cate Blanchett in male drag or Jeremy Irons in American drag or Joaquin Phoenix less bearded. Call it Oh, yeah, HIM.
What’s your biggest guilty pleasure?: Consignment shops
What’s the most played song on your iTunes?: I’m on a 60’s/70’s bender: Superman by The Kinks
If you weren’t working in theater, you would be _____?: Unemployed (I frequently am) or, with luck, an archeologist.
What’s up next?: My show Radicals In Miniature (premiered May 2017) tours to the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven this June.
