Mae West & "The Drag"

Here's another opportunity to see "The Drag" by MAE WEST — — or to be cast in the production.
• • In Iowa Dreamwell's Artistic Director decided to present a season with a theme of "Inciting Theatre."
• • Their season opens with Ibsen's “An Enemy of the People," a play from 1882. Dreamwell is using a new translation and has cast women in several male roles to modernize it.
• • Then in late June, Dreamwell Theatre will present a play written by 1930s screen legend and sex symbol Mae West.
• • Rachael Lindhart, secretary and active member of the volunteer company, does not expect insurgence, rioting, padlocks, nor police raids in Iowa City even though she is aware that "The Drag" (which was doing its out-of-town tryouts back in January 1927) opened to an “avalanche of condemnation,” as one of Mae's biographers phrased it. Rachael Lindhart says Mae West’s “The Drag” was one of the first plays to portray gay men in a sympathetic light. Before “The Drag,” homosexual characters were used to add a more comedic element.
• • Subjects that were deemed unlawful or offensive to good citizens are considerably less so these days, however, Rachael Lindhart insists that the theater’s history of sparking debate is essential to the development of today’s dramas. By presenting a bill of old controversies, Dreamwell pays tribute to those brave playwrights who paved the way for modern vanguards of the stage.
• • “We have a history of somebody’s gotta be first,” Rachael Lindhart says. “There are a lot of things that we need to talk about from the stage that aren’t easy. I hope that this season will make people think that they should perhaps see a play before they condemn it.”
• • Auditions for "The Drag" will be held in Iowa during April and May in 2009. To audition, contact Brian Tanner: brian@dreamwell.com.
• • Dreamwell Theatre’s 2009 Season includes these four: “An Enemy of the People” [written by Henrik Ibsen]; “The Drag” [written by Mae West and directed by Chuck Dufano] on June 19th, 20th, 26th, and 27th, 2009; “Master Harold and the Boys” [written by Athol Fugard]; “Playboy of the Western World” [written by J.M. Synge].
• • All performances take place at 7:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Society, 10 S. Gilbert Street, Iowa City. Tickets are $12 with discounts available for seniors and students.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes surrounding "The Drag" and "Sex." Scenes in Act I dramatize Mae's interactions with her drag queen cast, the police raid on 9 February 1927, and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" has attracted the attention of a theatre owner and Is now seeking a co-producer.
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • 1927 trial • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West: March 19th

Several New Yorkers had seen Mae West's play "Sex" more than once — — including Sergeant Patrick Keneally, who had taken an exhaustive number of notes while attending three performances at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in the line of duty.
• • Police action against "Sex" had been more in opposition to "The Drag" than to Margy LaMont's lascivious adventures, explains Jill Watts in her impeccably researched bio: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White.
• • According to Jill Watts: While efforts to mothball "The Drag" succeeded, "Sex" played to capacity crowds for several more weeks. However, by the beginning of March [1927], attendance had died off and profits shrank. Desperate to keep the production alive, the Morals Production Corporation ordered a 25% pay cut for everyone. Several players handed in their notices.
• • Finally, on Sunday, March 19, after the evening's performance, Morganstern announced that Mae West was physically exhausted and was closing the play. Yet he also emphasized her determination to fight the case to its end.
• • According to Jill Watts: Only a few days later, the New York State senate passed the Wales Padlock Bill, which required the district attorney to prosecute everyone associated with an indecent production and to lock down for one year any theatre that hosted such shows. It was less severe than mandating a stage censor and allowed the power over Broadway to remain with the district attorney, who in New York was the Tammany Hall loyalist Banton. The bill now sat waiting on Al Smith's desk.
• • In Jefferson Market Police Court (on Sixth Avenue and West Ninth Street) the defendants from the "Sex" raid came to trial on 28 March 1927. The prosecution's case rested on the testimony of Sergeant Keneally and his ability to take rapid, accurate stenography in a darkened playhouse. New York's district attorney, perhaps addicted to the fortissimo eloquence of inner lives magnificently thwarted by the law, was prepared to step into his gladiator mode to do battle with the dauntless leonine jezebel of the Jazz Era — — Mae West.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes. Act I, Scenes 3 — 4 dramatize both the police raid on 9 February 1927 and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" has attracted the attention of a theatre owner and Is now seeking a co-producer.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Jessalyn Sizzles as Sara Starr

• • 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. SARA STARR is portrayed by the scintillating, sultry Jessalyn Maguire.
• • JESSALYN MAGUIRE — — trained at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), the British American Drama Academy (BADA), and has a BA in Theatre and English from Wellesley College. While in London, Jessalyn worked at the Royal National Theatre and at the National Studio. Previous theatre credits include: The Merchant of Venice, The Bald Soprano, The Lesson, Antony and Cleopatra, and As You Like It.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [East 24th Street and Park Avenue South].
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to "COURTING MAE WEST" are $18 per adult.
• • Theatermania.com sells the tickets — — http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/144297
• • Questions? Phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae West, Texas Guinan, and the gang onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West cast • • Jessalyn Maguire • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mae West Is Coming!

How many actresses would like to portray MAE WEST? When director Louis Lopardi placed the official casting call for the play "Courting Mae West" in Actors' Access, within 48 hours 690 responses had flooded his mailbox.
• • Since "Courting Mae West" — — a serious-minded comedy based on true events during the Prohibition Era — — has a cast of seven, not every resume was intended for the "diamonds is my career" gal. Another actress will portray Beverly West and Texas Guinan, for instance.
• • But the largest number of replies, according to Mr. Lopardi, was for the role of Starr Faithfull [called Sara Starr in the play]. He received 270 headshots and cvs from actresses eager to play the fatal flapper. Starr's role calls for a very thin, stylish woman in her mid-twenties. As written, Sara Starr is a complex creature with a generous store of nervous discontent, harsh in her judgments of others, and quick to see individuals as defective because they are not enough like her. When John O'Hara wrote about the beautiful party girl, who met death at age 25, he renamed her Gloria Wandrous and made her the centerpiece of Butterfield 8.
• • As Mr. Lopardi heads for his first round of auditions on Friday and Saturday [April 25th — 26th, 2008] at The Producers Club in Manhattan, what will he look for in the next Mae West? "Her vitality was legendary," said the director. "And Mae West had industrial strength charisma."
• • What helps a stage director select the right individual? The first step is "typing-out by headshots plus experience," he explained, "and then short screening auditions."
• • What are some red flags? Showing up totally costumed for the role is a warning sign Mr. Lopardi is aware of. "An actress can suggest Mae West by wearing a boa — — but if she shows up decked out like Diamond Lil, I would be leery."
• • The casting and the elimination rounds begin today. Later there will be callbacks. Check this blog again to see who will play Mae in "Courting Mae West" in mid-July at the Algonquin Theatre in New York City.
• • No cameras were rolling in an Astor Place audition room in Manhattan (back in June 2005) when a New York City director was then conducting a talent search for MAE WEST for a short excerpt of "Courting Mae West” timed for The Annual Mae West Gala on 17 August 2005. But the dare-to-bare urge was in the air.
• • The playwright, the casting crew, and the director's personal assistant were astonished to see how many aspiring actresses interpreted the director's suggestion to "have fun with Mae's bawdy dialogue and be bold” as a green light to go blue.
• • Actor Richard Kent-Green, while playing a waiter in the opening scene, found himself adrift in fishnet hosiery and female garments as an Australian actress tossed her black apparel around. Ever the improv expert, Kent-Green anchored these cast-aways on a folding chair and stayed in character.
• • Is Janet Jacksons wardrobe malfunction becoming a trend? Richard Kent-Green admitted to a roving reporter that he had seen, in one night, more curves than a coastal highway.
• • Comedienne Louise ["Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”] Lasser said it is unfortunate when an actress puts her faith in the casting couch instead of her talent. Being bold during an audition, observed Miss Lasser, used to mean you showed some sass. Mae West may have had the two biggest props in Hollywood but she is remembered because her wit titillated. [That talent search took place in the summer of 2005. Marta Reiman was cast in the leading role.]
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 6 o'clock on Saturday evening July 19, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" — — showtimes
• • July 19th, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 20th, 2008 — — 2:00 PM matinee
• • July 21st, 2008 — — 6:00 PM
• • July 22nd, 2008 — — 9:00 PM
• • Tickets to COURTING MAE WEST will be $18 per person.
• • Discounts are available for GROUPS. Group Prices are available: write to artisticdirector@freshfruitfestival.com or phone 212-779-3051.
• • The play is 95 minutes long.
• • The air-conditioned theatre has 99 seats.
• • SPECIAL: $100 — $150 donation — — donor gets name in the Program — — and 1 free ticket to the play.
• • $151— $500 donation — — donor gets name in Program and TWO free tickets to the play and invited to all parties.
• • The Annual Fresh Festival: a non-profit group organizes this ambitious yearly festival [now in its 7th year]. The two-week arts festival is a money-losing venture sustained by funds from The New York City Council, a culture grant from New York State, a stipend from Senator Tom Duane, and donations from good people.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: Mae West • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

West 9th & Mae West

Set in the theatre district, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Greenwich Village, "Courting Mae West" puts the spotlight on West Ninth Street. Produced in connection with the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival, "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship & Secrets" — — a play by a West 9th Street dramatist — — opens at the Algonquin Theatre on 19 July 2008.
• • Act I, Scene 1 is set in a former drag cabaret, which is now Village Restaurant [62 West 9th].
• • In Act I, Mae West's gay play "The Drag" gets her locked up in Jefferson Market Jail, and led to an obscenity trial held at Jefferson Market Police Court (on Sixth Avenue and West 9th) in 1927.
• • Though Village resident Starr Faithfull inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8," the seductive flapper did not live on the Upper East Side — — but with her parents at 35 West 9th.
• • Mr. Isidore, the news dealer at the Ninth Street Tubes Station, was the last one in Manhattan to see 25-year-old Starr Faithfull alive. [Her inquest tied up Jefferson Market Court for over 6 months and mesmerized the news media.] In Act II, Mr. Isidore argues with the newsstand owner about reporting what he knows.
• • An infamous West 9th manhole — — used by rum-runners during the Prohibition Era — — pops up in Act I, Scene 4.
• • And the West 9th Street boarding house, where much of the action is set, really did house famous writers during the 1920s such as S.J. Perelman.
• • Vintage West 9th Street photos are online: MaeWest.blogspot.com and CourtingMaeWest.blogspot.com
• • The play dramatizes a portion of Jefferson Market Court's fascinating cultural history.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" — — based on true events when Mae West was tried at the Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue — — will be onstage at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, New York, NY 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in mid-July 2008.
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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Artwork: detail from the comic book version of "Courting Mae West" • • Mae West is locked up in Jefferson Market Jail • • 9 February 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.

Mr. Isidore and the Newsstand

Back in the day when the names MAE WEST, Starr Faithfull, Jimmy Walker, Texas Guinan, and Daddy and Peaches were tabloid fodder, there were "tube stations" neatly networked underground on Sixth Avenue — — quiet concourses leading up to West 33rd Street.
• • Above ground, the Sixth Avenue elevated train creased the pavement with permanent perpendicular angles. The command of perpetual shadow-play felt perhaps like a suffocation.
• • A steady Greenwich Village presence, Mr. Isidore was a hard-working sidewalk vendor, a purveyor of good humor and the latest publications to busy New Yorkers. His newsstand was next to the Ninth Street tube station, not far from Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Here is where the latest headlines about Mae West's legal woes were hawked. This is also where Starr Faithfull [1906 — 1931] bought a newspaper from Mr. Isidore. When the police questioned him, his detailed description of her stylish clothing, French-style manicure, and jewelry helped investigators identify her badly bruised corpse that washed ashore after a Long Island boat party.
• • Take a look at the newsstand — — the last familiar site Starr saw in her neighborhood. Mr. Isidore sold her a paper, as usual, and she vanished into the Ninth Street tube station with a wave of her hand.
• • In the play "Courting Mae West," the newsstand is a prominent feature — — and the news dealer character Declan Rourke employs Mr. Isidore.
• • Here's a brief excerpt from their argument in Act II, Scene 3 (set during August 1929 just before the Wall Street crash).
• • Declan: Not a word to my daughter, Isidore. She'd tell Shortie. Ha! We're this close to a pot of gold.
• • Isidore: Oy vey! Made for this mishegoss I am not. I shouldn't mix in. My Gittel, by her it's...
• • Declan: Sweet suffering St. Patrick! You told your wife, Isidore. What if Gittel should slip?
• • Isidore: With gelt, she's as sure-footed as a Russian ballerina before Stalin. Asleep she can count money. By her, we should call the police. (stage whisper) The reward got bigger.
• • Declan: Minute the cops have this news, the reporters will be on them. But Mr. P. is holding the front page for US. We'll give the printer a nice head start. Then we visit the precinct. Leisurely.
• • Isidore: This cockamaimy scheme — (pause) my sister Sophie thinks we should get a lawyer to...
• • Declan: Your sister knows! I pay you to sell papers and you're in a drugstore screwed to a payphone.
• • Isidore: Hocking me who is hardly on the phone even. Just a bissel. Besides I got the goods — not you. . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Copyright © 2008 "Courting Mae West" — — by LindaAnn Loschiavo
• • Come up and see Mae during July in New York City!
• • http://CourtingMaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Courting Mae West • • newsstand • • 1920s
NYC
Mae West.

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]
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • 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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Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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

Mae West: A Sneaky Preview

West Ninth Street, Manhattan, is only one block long, from Fifth Avenue at one end to Sixth Avenue at the other, east to west. It was at the west end, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, where another West, a lady named Mae, spent one night in jail in 1927 in what is now the historic old Jefferson Market Library but was then the Jefferson Market Courthouse, wrote Jerry Tallmer in his article for The Villager about the play "Courting Mae West."
• • Jerry Tallmer continued: The full title of this serious-minded comedy is “Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets,” and the based-on-real-life characters in it include the pre-Hollywood Mae West; Mae's sister Beverly; Mae's lawyer-manager Jim Timony; night club queen Texas Guinan; gorgeous, doomed Starr Faithfull, a Greenwich Village good-time girl — the Gloria Wandrous of John O’Hara’s blazing “Butterfield 8” — whose corpse rattled many of the rich and powerful when it washed up on a Long Island beach; and a news dealer named Mr. Isidore who was the last person in Manhattan, from his stand under the El at Sixth Avenue and Ninth Street, to see Starr Faithfull alive as she disappeared into the PATH station on her way to the L.I.R.R.

• • There are also a number of fictional characters, notably Eliza Rourke, a repressed, glamour-worshipping, working-class Irish-American girl who slaves without pay in her parents’ boarding house on Ninth Street, and Mario “Shortie” DeAngelis, a young, over-eager New York newspaper reporter who dashes frantically between such headline events as the jailing of Mae West and the discovery of Starr Faithfull’s body on Long Island (which actually happened in 1931). Eliza is sweet on him; her mother is not happy about this budding romance.
• • Veteran news man Jerry Tallmer, who founded the Obie Award in the mid-1950s, is one of the few who realized the truth: that Mae West's arrest for obscenity was provoked by the midnight performance of her new homosexual play "The Drag." Variety Magazine reported that this "sneak preview" occurred in Daly's 63rd Street Theatre and, hours later, the vice squad showed up to raid Mae's performance in "Sex."
• • Headline-hungry tabloids rushed to photograph the new felon on 9 February 1927 at Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. Understandably, Mae West was upset that night. Little did she know what would happen to her in the near future because of her police record.
• • Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage during July 2008.
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Source:http://CourtingMaeWest.blogspot.com/
Source:http://courtingmaewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Courting Mae West
Mae West
• • Illustration: Mae West • • artist Michael DiMotta • •
NYC
Mae West.