The most altered concept in “Cyrano,” Stephen Sachs’ new play “inspired by” Edmond Rostand’s familiar classic, is that Troy Kotsur plays the title role without help from Max Factor. Playing a character so well-known that he no longer needs a last name, Kotsur’s nose is of fairly normal size. Rostand wove his tale around the fact that Cyrano has a proboscis so enormous that it isolates him from the world and the attention of his beloved Roxanne, but in this version our hero is deaf and his intended is not, making the possibility of romance inconceivable to him. “Speak to her,” his confidant, Bill (Bob Hiltermann), entreats. “And what?” Cyrano signs back. “Sound like a barking seal?”

Sachs has updated the story to modern-day L.A., where, despite declaring early on that he refuses to “enter the electronic age,” Cyrano learns to text and email, even adding his Roxy (Erinn Anova) as a Facebook friend. Their meeting at Starbucks—which begins with a hilarious charade between a deaf patron ordering a latte from a troglodyte barista—is a difficult, clumsy encounter, until these two people from different worlds take out their iPhones and communicate in text messages.

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photo by T Charles Erickson

The Eugene O’Neill Center recently awarded Michael Douglas their 12th Annual Monte Cristo Award for his contributions to the theater. At the gala event at the Edison Ballroom in New York, performers Colman Domingo and John Tartaglia performed a parody of “If You Were Gay” from the musical AVENUE Q – by lyricist Jason Rhyne.

The full text of the skit is below.

Two presenters take the stage.

A
Michael Douglas, what a career. From action star to pyscho-thriller king to a million other roles over the years — but in his next film is going to be something a little different. (turns to B) Not sure if you heard, but Michael is going to be playing Mr. Showmanship himself — Liberace — in the forthcoming HBO film, Behind the Candelabra.

B
Wow, really?

A
That’s right.

B
Huh…

A
What is it?

B
Liberace. That’s interesting. That’s fantastic.

A
Ok….

B
Well I guess I’d just never really added it all up that Michael Douglas might be….ahh…

A
Might be what?

B
Well, Liberace…

A
I don’t know what that means.

B
(looking for Michael in the crowd)

Oh no nothing, it’s just that ….

(‘If You Were Gay’ vamp begins.)

Where’s Michael? There he is. Good mercy is he handsome.

(he points)

Hi, I just wanted to say congratulations. And that it takes a lot of courage, a lot of resolve, a lot of bravery at this age. So. Congrats.

A
What are you talking about? Just because you play a role doesn’t mean you’re-

B
Liberace, please. I think we all know what’s going on here…

(he sings — directly to Michael)

IF YOU WERE GAY

A
Michael isn’t gay.

B
THAT’D MAKE MY DAY!

A
(spoken) He’s just playing Liberace…

B
BUT JUST TO PLAY
HIM MAKES YOU GAY HALF-WAY!

A
That’s –

B
(to Michael) IF YOU’RE NOT STRAIGHT

A
He’s actually very straight.

B
(shrugs) IF NOT THOUGH? GREAT!

A
He would have come out by now!

B
IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO SAY
THAT YOU ARE GAY!
(IF YOU ARE GAY?!)

(spoken) Michael Douglas, you just knock me out.

A
Michael has been one of Hollywood’s most notoriously heterosexual actors for over 40 years. I understand you may wish he was gay, but I’m afraid that’s just not the case.

B
It’s not just the Liberace thing that has me wondering. I’ve been noticing things about Michael for a long time.

A
Oh really..

B
HE HAS BEEN QUEER
HIS WHOLE CAREER!

A
Oh come on!

B
THE CLUES WERE CLEAR:
EXPLAIN THIS HERE TO ME!

(He points behind him and a large slide of a young, sleeveless Michael Douglas appears on a screen.)

(attention back to Michael, sings:)
WHAT IS THAT BUT PROOF
YOU’RE A LITTLE POOF!
SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOF TODAY:
“HEY, FILM-GOING AMERICA, I’M GAY”
(YOU ARE QUITE GAY)

YOUR PROFILE
ON IMDB,
SURE LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE STRAIGHT
….TILL YOU PLAYED ZACH IN A CHORUS LINE…

B
(spoken as music swells under him)
You listen to me, Michael Douglas. You may be a little late in The Game, but if you being gay is your Basic Instinct, then I call upon you to let it come Shining Through and for you to make a full Disclosure here tonight. And after that, you and I will run off and live on the Streets of San Francisco, which I do not care if anybody remembers but is a fantastic television show of yours from 1972 – 1976 that also features Karl Malden and includes San Francisco right in the title.

(sings:)
YOU MUST BE GAY
WONDER BOYS? I’LL SAY!
GREED IS GOOD, BUT GAY
IS BETTER ANY DAY!

IF YOU FOLLOW THROUGH
I’LL BE GAY WITH YOU!
WHAT I WOULDN’T DO FOR YOU!
MADE A RABBIT STEW FOR YOU!
RENTED WALL STREET TWO FOR YOU!

Finds Catherine Zeta Jones in the crowd.

AND LISTEN – HEY, I’M SORRY, CZJ!
HE’S GAY
(PLEASE GOD BE GAY!)

“Freud’s Last Session,” the hit off-Broadway play now in commercial residence at the Mercury Theatre, replete with the original New York cast, imagines that a dying and exiled Sigmund Freud invites a young man to his study in London, on the very eve of World War II. The man is C.S. Lewis, one of the few Christian writers and allegorists with a perennial following among agnostics and non-believers. “I wanted to learn how a man of your intellect could suddenly abandon truth and embrace an insidious lie,” the great man of science says to his nervous guest, once he arrives from Oxford. But Lewis gives as good as he gets. “There is a God,” he argues, in numerous different ways, “and a man does not have to be an imbecile to believe in him.”

So goes the argument of the night…

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Any debate between a believer and a non-believer (about anything, anywhere, at anytime) is probably going to remain frustratingly agnostic. There’s an evolutionary (already I have to use an incendiary term) reason for this called the ‘argumentative theory of reasoning’ and it does a lot to explain how our culture gets more, not less, polarized as time passes. Like the old fable of the wind vs. the sun, blowing harder only makes people draw their beliefs to themselves ever tighter, sometimes to the point of strangulation. With ever escalating and increasingly absurd arguments being bantered about and toted as fact—remember when Stephen Colbert coined the word ‘truthiness’?—it’s no wonder Mark St. Germain thought it was time to write something that said, “Let’s remember, we’re all still human here no matter which side you’re on.” Freud’s Last Session creates a fiction to bring two paragons of the 20th century together, not as a means of actually answering any of the questions it poses, but as a didactic illustration of the importance of a continuing and civilized debate…

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On the eve of Britain’s entry into World War II, Sigmund Freud, a Jew exiled to London from Vienna, is plagued with oral cancer, fast approaching death, and remains as avowedly unconvinced as ever, by the illusion of God.

Enter C.S. Lewis, an established middle-aged novelist and Oxford academic with unparalleled imaginative gifts who fervently believes in God.

This is the sure-to-go-well scenario concocted by the US playwright Mark St. Germain, whose thought-provoking play, ‘Freud’s last session’, debuted in 2009 and went on to win the Off Broadway Alliance’s Best Play Award in 2011.

Now, starring Jorge Suarez as Freud and Luis Machín as C.S. Lewis, Daniel Veronese’s Spanish language adaptation ensures all of the power, humour, and intimacy of St. Germain’s fictional rendezvous remains alive, if unwell.

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BAKERSFIELD MIST, the new play by Fountain Theatre co-artistic director Stephen Sachs, has been optioned by multiple Tony award-winning producer Sonia Friedman for productions in London and New York.

Sonia Friedman Productions has signed an option to produce the play on the West End in London with plans to bring it to New York for a subsequent Off Broadway or Broadway run. The cast and director have not been set.

“I’m thrilled beyond belief and couldn’t be happier,” says Sachs. “With the expert care and pedigree of Sonia Friedman Productions, the play is in very good hands.”

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New York’s hit play FREUD’S LAST SESSION opened its second foreign production on January 25th at the famed Multiteatro in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Under the title La Ultima Sesion de Freud, the play’s South American debut stars Jorge Suarez as Sigmund Freud and Luis Machin as C. S. Lewis, under the direction of Daniel Veronese.

Read more and watch video highlights courtesy of TV Publica Argentina

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“…As a Chekhov translator you could spend your whole life waiting for a person to have that kind of visceral response to Chekhov and never see it happen. I felt really blessed to be in the room to watch a young person hear Chekhov in a way that made her leap to her feet.”
-Curt Columbus, I AM THEATRE 

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Breast in Show explores the lives of five patients who build strength and create lasting friendships even though, beyond their diagnoses, they have nothing else in common.

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