Starr Faithfull Inspired Sara Starr

A 95-minute serious-minded comedy, "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when actress-author MAE WEST was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway (New York City) — — combines real-life people and fictional personae. The story begins in December 1926, when Mae West is celebrating the 300th performance of her play "Sex" at a Greenwich Village speakeasy where she has hired some gay males and drag-queens to star in her upcoming production "The Drag." The final scene, set in December 1932, shows Mae West in her Hollywood dressing room, preparing to shoot a scene for a Paramount Pictures motion picture called "She Done Him Wrong" — — a screenplay based on her 1928 Broadway smash "Diamond Lil."
• • The cast of "Courting Mae West" includes some colorful characters. Meet Starr Faithfull [1906-1931], called "Sara Starr" in the play.
• • STARR FAITHFULL was a blue-eyed, red-haired beauty who lived in Greenwich Village with her mother, step-father, and younger sister, and kept a diary (bound in faded red silk) of her sexual escapades. The 5' 6" high-kicker, who died in an expensive silk dress purchased at Lord and Taylor, knew how to shop and party but did not hold a sunny view of the human condition. Reporter John O'Hara, who had observed the 25-year-old flapper at literary soirees, laced her into his Upper East Side novel, Butterfield 8, where she is renamed Gloria Wandrous.
• • Learn about her: StarrFaithfull.blogspot.com
• • In "Courting Mae West," Starr Faithfull's counterpart SARA STARR is stylish and greyhound sleek; as MAE WEST says, "Any skinnier, she could be cellophane." A diarist, she envies professional writers but is more interested in selling tips than manuscripts. In her early twenties, SARA STARR provides a novel sexual awakening for ELIZA ROURKE, a sheltered housemaid, and turns over her diary to MARIO "Shortie" de ANGELIS, an action that sparks several consequences.

• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets"
• • Cast size: seven [4 females, 3 males play rotating roles — — except for the MAE WEST role]
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• • SYNOPSIS [100 words] • •

• • Based on true events during the Prohibition Era, this 95-minute play follows a vaudeville veteran whose frustrations with the rules of male-dominated Broadway have led her to write her own material and cast her own shows. Is the Gay White Way ready for love stories that feature New York City drag queens instead of card-carrying members of the union? Is the legitimate theatre ripe for racially integrated melodramas set in Harlem? Is the Rialto raring to reward a working-class heroine determined to sin and win?
• • Come up and see Mae West as she challenges bigotry, fights City Hall, and climbs the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

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• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Illustration: Starr Faithfull • • artist: Rudolph Haybrook • •
NYC
Mae West.