Courting Mae West

The play "COURTING MAE WEST: Sex, Censorship & Secrets" is based on true events during the 1920s when actress MAE WEST was arrested and jailed in New York City for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway. Maybe she broke the law - - but the LAW couldn't break HER!

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Friday, February 15, 2008

Author! Author!

I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it. — Mae West
• • Native New Yorker LindaAnn Loschiavo is a journalist and dramatist caught in the spell of a courthouse with Verdi-worthy villains rising up against an actress who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong. True events that took place during the Prohibition Era in Jefferson Market's judicial chambers inspired an engaging work, Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets. The storyline uses specifics of Mae West's life to explore issues that still resonate today such as censorship, gay rights, celebrity, and the news media. A regular contributor to several newspapers and magazines, Loschiavo insists that some of her witticisms are not to be lightly tossed aside but rather shaken and stirred. Currently, she's also at work on a museum exhibition: "Mae West's New York, 1899 — 1959."
• • What others are saying:
• • "Loschiavo is a comic Dante, capturing human weakness and balancing tragedy and high hilarity in her dialogue." — — Mario Fratti, "Nine," Tony Award winner
• • "With her whip cracking one-liners, the playwright shows she is as much of a word jockey as Mae West." — — Steve Rossi
• • "In Courting Mae West, we have a sassy, beleaguered Mae West who can keep an audience not just on her side but in her lap." — — Joe Franklin
• • "Fortunately, Mae West was also a flotation device. If no backers materialize, there's always a USO tour!" — — Joe Piscopo

• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
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• • Photo: Courting Mae West
• • Maebill • •

Mae West.

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Thursday, February 07, 2008

Mae West in "Broadway After Dark"

MAE WEST sashayed through the debut column of "Broadway After Dark." How exciting to be featured!
• • Broadway After Dark
• • By Ward Morehouse III
• • February 6, 2008

• • It's 82 years since my father, Ward Morehouse, started writing his "Broadway After Dark" column for the old New York Sun. He continued it for The World-Telegram & Sun, Newhouse Newspapers and North American Newspaper Alliance. Although I used "On and Off-Broadway" for my theater column in The New York Post, I used "Broadway After Dark" when I was a columnist with the new New York Sun, amNewYork and Epoch Times. This is the first Broadway After Dark column for the website BroadwayAfterDark.com
* * *
• • This summer MAE WEST will get an extra special birthday gift: a spotlight. Director Louis Lopardi is getting ready to announce a casting call for the next MAE WEST. Can anyone fill the shoes of the Brooklyn bombshell? In preparation for a July production of the serious-minded comedy "COURTING MAE WEST" by LindaAnn Loschiavo, Lopardi will workshop the play next month in New York City.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" (based on true events when Mae West was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway) will be presented at The Algonquin Theatre during July 2008 as part of The Annual Fresh Fruit Festival.
• • According to Artistic Director Carol Polcovar, The Annual Fresh Fruit Festival encompasses theater, performance, poetry, comedy, spoken word, music, dance, visual arts and some talents that defy categorization. Artists come from around the city, nation and, indeed, the world.
• • A 95-minute play set during the Prohibition Era, "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" will be directed by Louis Lopardi, who has also worked with The Annual Fresh Fruit Festival as their very capable Production Manager and Technical Director.
• • The Algonquin Theatre (at 123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010) houses two air-conditioned performance spaces: the 99-seat "Kaufman" and the 40-seat "Parker." The Kaufman features a proscenium stage that is 21 feet wide and 23 feet deep.
• • The larger playhouse is named in honor of George S. Kaufman [16 November 1889 - 2 June 1961], an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. The petite playing space honors another Algonquin Round Table member: author Dorothy Parker [22 August 1893 - 7 June 1967]. Both writers attended performances of Mae West's plays during the 1920s and critiqued them.
• • • • SOURCE: http://www.BroadwayAfterDark.com
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre.
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• • Photo: Mae West
• • Maebill • •

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Saturday, February 02, 2008

Arrested in Connecticut

An arrest after "The Drag" made for arresting headlines. Pole-vaulted out of the ghetto of the clubby entertainment section, MAE WEST suddenly became notoriously noteworthy in the national news on 2 February 1927.
• • On Tuesday February 1st at 5:00 AM, the Brooklyn bombshell was arrested along with her sister and the director Edward Elsner in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• • According to The New York Times, Edwin [sic] Elsner of New York, stage director of "The Drag," which opened here last night, and Miss Beverly West of New York, sister of Mae West, author of the play, were arrested at 5:30 o'clock this morning in Miss West's room at the Arcade Hotel and will be arraigned in the City Court on Wednesday on technical charges of breach of the peace.
• • The police allege misconduct, but both Elsner and Miss West deny there was any wrongdoing, explaining that they were in the room going over the events of the opening night and possible changes in the play.
• • Elsner, known for his work in staging "Within the Law," "Bought and Paid For," "Pygmalion," "Sex," and other plays, was released under bond of $250, as was Miss West, after spending several hours locked up at Police Headquarters following a ride from the hotel in the police patrol wagon. . . .
• • The arrest at the Arcade Hotel is dramatized in the play "Courting Mae West." Beverly's drunken antics and Mae's strategies are featured in Act I, Scene 2.
• • Arcade Hotel — 1001 Main St, Bridgeport, CT 06604; Tel (203) 333-9376.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre.
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• • Photo: Mae West news
• • 1927 • •

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Friday, February 01, 2008

Barry O'Neill, leading man

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 Barry O'Neill [1898?-1952?], called "Barry O'Neill" in the play.
• • In reality, tall, dark, handsome Barry O'Neill had served during World War I as a lieutenant on a mine-sweeper. He was decorated for his bravery with the King George medal. In 1925, his Broadway career began and he starred in several dramas on The Great White Way until 1933. Since O'Neill played Lt. Gregg in "Sex," he was arrested with the cast.
• • This photo from March 1927 shows a less courageous leading man seated next to his co-defendant Mae West during their obscenity trial held at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. When the verdict came in on 5 April 1927, reporters took note of him. Barry O'Neill, wrote a news man, "wore an expression of fear in contrast to that display of levity which had characterized his attitude during the trial." Mae tried to cheer him up with soothing remarks such as "Don't worry, Barry! It'll come out all right" — — to no avail. "When the verdict had been recorded and the clerk of the court began to take the pedigrees of the convicted men and women, O'Neill face took on a deep red," according to The New York Times. As Mae "patted him on the back and spoke words of consolation," O'Neill buried his face in his hands and wept openly.
• • Learn about him: MaeWest.blogspot.com
• • In "Courting Mae West," Barry O'Neill's fictional counterpart BARRY O'NEILL is Mae's co-defendant. Apprehensive about the outcome, O'Neill retains his composure and a more realistic view of the jurors than Mae. Plagued by trouble with her vision, MAE WEST insists she can detect the jury's "love in laughter." But In ACT I, Scene 5, the audience sees the courtroom more clearly through Barry O'Neill's eyes.

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

• • 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.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
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• • Photo: Mae West and Barry O'Neill
• • 1927 • •

Mae West.

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