Provincetown Dramatic Arts to IDGTF Dublin!

PROVINCETOWN DRAMATIC ARTS GOES TO DUBLIN!

Provincetown Dramatic Arts is taking MISS FURR AND MISS SKEENE to the international stage! Provincetown Dramatic Arts has been invited to participate in the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2019 (www.gaytheatre.ie). We are honored that this will be our fifth time at this great festival! The play will run for seven performances, May 13 - 18, 2019  at the Teachers' Club Studio and we need your support to make this happen. 

MISS FURR AND MISS SKEENE is by Gertrude Stein, adapted for the stage by Lynn C. Miller. The cast of this comedic two-hander is Lynda Sturner, performing Miss Skeene, and Jane Macdonald, performing Miss Furr, the director is Margaret Van Sant, and the choreographer is Bart J. Murell. 

We want to bring MISS FURR AND MISS SKEENE to the Festival because of its significance in gay history. When published  in Vanity Fair (1922), it was the first published use of the word “gay” to mean same sex relationships. And in Stein's unique writing, she uses the word gay over 100 times to comic effect to describe the love and life of Furr and Skeene. The play presents the story of two adventurous and rule breaking mid-western American women, Ethel Mars and Maude Hunt Squire, striving to make their own path as artists in the alluring Bohemian worlds of Paris and Provincetown. 

The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival (www.gaytheatre.ie) is an annual event, celebrating contribution of gay people to theatre, past and present. The Festival was founded in 2004 to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Oscar Wilde, in his native city. With an emphasis on new or recent international and Irish works with a broadly gay theme or relevance, the Festival has grown to become the largest event of its type in the world.

One great development from our attendance at the IDGTF has been the creation of a further international collaboration with the IDGTF.  We have brought two plays from the IDGTF to Provincetown for performance. They were IDGTF Artistic Director Brian Merriman's EIREBRUSHED, about the gay and lesbian heroes of the Easter 1916 Rebellion and WRETCHED LITTLE BRAT, about Oscar Wilde. We are planning on bringing Brian's new play, PARTY BOY, about the life of an international Irish go-go dancer.

This will be Lynda Sturner’s third performance at the IDGTF, where she has also been represented as a playwright. Lynda was awarded the Eva Gore Booth Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female at the 2017 IDGTF. Lynda appeared on Broadway in OLIVER! and has been seen Off-Broadway and regionally. This will be Jane Macdonald's first appearance at the IDGTF. Jane  spent seven years with Edward Gorey’s Aubergine Troupe, (Floreat Batfrog!) She has appeared onstage locally, regionally, and Off-Broadway. Lynn C. Miller is a playwright, fiction writer, and director. Her novel, "The Day After Death", was named a 2017 Lambda Literary Award finalist and a finalist for the 2017 Lascaux Fiction Prize. She is co-author of "Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir" and editor of the literary journal bosque.

Margaret Van Sant is the Artistic Director of Provincetown Dramatic Arts. She has directed classic and contemporary theater, but has a special focus on the development of new scripts. She produces the annual Women’s International Theater Festival. For the past five years she has taken a play by to the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. In 2016 and 2017 the Cape Cod Times selected Margaret’s production of “Anna Christie” by Eugene O’Neill as best of the season.

The money we raise will be used solely for our Dublin performances and stay. We need $2600 for our housing, $300 for airfare (we are using air miles and comps), $200 for insurance, and $900 ($300 per person) for a stipend that will cover food, for a total of $4,000.

We realize not everyone can give. If you can, we are very grateful, and if you cannot, we totally understand and hope you will please pass this information on. 

Performances of MISS FURR AND MISS SKEENE are at the Teachers' Club Studio, 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin. Evening performances are at 21:00 and there is also a matinee on the 18th at 16:00. Tickets are 15 Euro, and the matinee is 10 Euro.

For tickets and complete festival schedule please go to the IDGTF website: www.gaytheatre.ie . Tickets are available at the Festival Box Office in April.

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