Ridiculous Theatrical Co. Returns for Stonewall 50
Donation protected
STONEWALL 50/WORLD PRIDE NEEDS THE RIDICULOUS
Help bring to the stage the performance event of the season. Theatre at St. John's and Yorick Theatre Co. are presenting the first ever revival of Charles Ludlam's GALAS, inspired by the life of La Divina Maria Callas. This production will be directed by and star theater legend Everett Quinton, who served as Artistic Director for The Ridiculous Theatrical Company from 1987 onwards. GALAS is being mounted as part of Theatre at St. John’s series: Rebels, Revolutionaries, and Rowdies in celebration of Stonewall 50/World Pride. Within the series, a special spotlight is being shine on the artistic revolution that is The Ridiculous Theatrical Company (RTC). RTC had its home at One Sheridan Square from 1978-1995. GALAS will be performed from June 13-29th at St. John's Church, 81 Christopher St, a stone's throw from Stonewall and Ridiculous’ original home.
In the Mid-Twentieth Century, when naturalistic conventions, as well as societal preconceptions, dominated the theater, The Ridiculous Theatrical Company came along and rocked the New York stages. Radical, gender-bending, yet classic and bold, it was a place where high art and pop culture collided in a whole new way. Contemporary theater luminaries such as Taylor Mac, Bette Midler, Charles Busch, Tony Kushner and more have all cited RTC as an artistic influence. Some of you may be long time fans of RTC, some yet to meet the joyous power of its Art.
June 2019 is the 50th year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, considered to be the most important event leading to the LGBTQIA liberation movement in the United States. Because of Stonewall 50, New York City is this year's destination city for World Pride 2019. This June, the world will gather at the Stonewall National Monument to celebrate this most important anniversary. It is essential that the work of the iconic Ridiculous Theatrical Company be a part of this global celebration. We need your support to bring to life this theatrical event that celebrates the legacy of Stonewall, LGBTQIA culture, West Village history, revolutionary art, gender freedom... and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, which embodied them all!
The 2019 production of GALAS by Charles Ludlam will be directed by Everett Quinton. The cast members will be: Everett Quinton*, Christopher Johnson*, Mark Erson, Beth Dodye Bass*, Lenys Samsa, Maude Burke, Geraldine Dulex*, and Jenne Vath*. Stage Management by Karen Oughtred. Costume Design by Ramona Ponce.
*denotes member of Actor's Equity Association
Are You a Theatre History Fanatic? Keep Reading.
1983 ~ SHERIDAN SQUARE
In September 1983, Charles Ludlam, Everett Quinton and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company mounted the premiere production of Ludlam's play GALAS, inspired by the incomparable opera diva Maria Callas and her theatrical life. The production was written, directed by, and starred Ludlam. It featured RTC actors Everett Quinton, Black-Eyed Susan, Emilio Cubiero, John Heys, Deborah Petti, Julian Craggs, and Fred Segilia. The costumes were designed by Mr. Quinton. The sets were designed by Jack Kelly.
We'll let the critics of the day tell you more about it:
“Hilarious!... Ludlam, like Moliere, is one of the few theater artists attempting to speak seriously through the use of satire and comedy…. He has shaped the play so that each scene is a parody of a similar situation in grand opera.” Sy Syna, The New York Tribune
“A particularly adult mixture of comedy and tragedy. Not camp spoof, yet far from solemn, the amazing GALAS demonstrates the affinity of tears and laughter.” Tish Dace, The New York Native
“(Ludlam) is putting the art back in Commedia dell'arte.” Richard Corliss, Time Magazine
“(GALAS) is a comic creation of high order.” Frank Rich, The New York Times
“It is the authenticity and the style – or perhaps merely the authenticity of style that most impresses me about the work of Charles Ludlam and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company.” Clive Barnes, The New York Post
“Brilliant…. The fact that (Ludlam) and his company tend to work with drag and gender-bend casting, often for comic purposes seems half a way to make the tradition contemporary and half a throwback to its early antecedents. Like objects rescued from an antique shop and given new value by restoration, his ventures into old modes, texts, and structures are tributes paid to the present by the past signs… where we came from.” Michael Feingold, The Village Voice
FROM CHARLES LUDLAM’s original press release:
“Based on the life of Maria Callas, including many anecdotes privately recounted to the playwright and never before made public, GALAS is not a satire or a spoof, but an attempt to use nonconformist theatrical techniques developed by the Ridiculous Theatrical Company to lift the biographical material to the level of myth and metaphor. While GALAS is a tragedy, the pathos is tempered throughout by sophisticated humor. The play… should appeal to opera lovers and non-opera lovers alike.”
ABOUT CHARLES LUDLAM AND THE RIDICULOUS THEATRICAL COMPANY
Charles Ludlam was born on Long Island in 1943, and graduated Hofstra University in 1964 with a degree in dramatic literature. He first joined the Playhouse of the Ridiculous founded by Ronald Tavel and John Vacarro in 1965. The American theater movement of Theater of the Ridiculous started with the Playhouse, for which Ludlam served as both performer and playwright. Tavel was the first to put a name to Theater of the Ridiculous. While he was studying the former Theater of the Absurd, he wrote a one-line manifesto for the new movement: “We have passed beyond the absurd: our position is absolutely preposterous.” Following a dispute with Vacarro, Ludlam broke with the Playhouse and founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967. Over the next twenty years, Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company were one of the major leaders in the independent theater movement and changed American theater for the generations to come.
Ludlam wrote, directed, and often starred in most RTC productions. One of his earliest celebrated roles was his award winning portrayal of Marguerite Gauthier in Ludlam's own re-write of Dumas' CAMILLE (1972), which he famously played in a very low cut period gown displaying his hairy chest. The success of RTC's bold and ingenious art offered them the financial stability to secure a home in the West Village at One Sheridan Square, the former site of the renowned nightclub Café Society. Charles Ludlam along with Everett Quinton, his partner in life and art, secured a community of beloved fans, who faithfully attended each new RTC premiere as celebrated events. The audience attending an RTC production was part of a special congregate, whose communion was laughter. Ludlam said above all theater must be fun.
RTC toured their many successful productions internationally. In his play THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP, Ludlam wrote one of the most popular and often produced plays in the American cannon. Ludlam received fellowships from several foundations and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the recipient of numerous Obie Awards, including the Obie for Lifetime Achievement. He has won Drama Desk awards and in 1986 was awarded the Rosamund Guilder Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Theater.
In 1987, at the age of 44, Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS. His life was tragically cut short that same year when he died of AIDS related pneumonia at St. Vincent's Hospital.
In 2009, Charles Ludlam was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. The street in front of the theater at One Sheridan Square was renamed Charles Ludlam Way.
EVERETT QUINTON
Legendary actor, director, playwright and designer Everett Quinton is a native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn and raised in Park Slope. After graduating school and serving in the military, Quinton moved to Manhattan’s West Village in 1975, a neighborhood he still calls home. It was in that year that he met Charles Ludlam. The following year he made his theatrical debut with the Ridiculous. “One of the hallmarks of the Ridiculous was it elevated drag…. Now it was art,” Quinton is quoted. “I met Charles on the street. It changed my life.” The two became partners in both life and art. And most famously in their collaboration on the wildly successful THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP. After Ludlam's death in 1987, Quinton took up the mantle of RTC Artistic Director and led the company into its next generations. Quinton kept the theater thriving with hit productions such as DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, and the award-winning BROTHER TRUCKERS.
Quinton has also has a prolific acting career on screen, television, as well as in the professional theater nationwide. He has directed Off Broadway and at major regional theaters around the country. Quinton is the recipient of multiple Obie and Drama Desk Awards, as well as the Bessie, Drama League, Helen Hayes, and Actor's Equity Joe A. Callaway Awards. He was honored with the 2011 Legend of Off Broadway Award. Michael Dale summed it up in his Broadway World article of Nov 12, 2017: “To watch Everett Quinton engaged in his classic brand of …ridiculousness is just as fulfilling a cultural experience as watching a great tragedian immersed in a dramatic Shakespearean role.” Anita Gates in The New York Times in 2014 summed it up simply: “Mr. Quinton is a genius.”
Help bring to the stage the performance event of the season. Theatre at St. John's and Yorick Theatre Co. are presenting the first ever revival of Charles Ludlam's GALAS, inspired by the life of La Divina Maria Callas. This production will be directed by and star theater legend Everett Quinton, who served as Artistic Director for The Ridiculous Theatrical Company from 1987 onwards. GALAS is being mounted as part of Theatre at St. John’s series: Rebels, Revolutionaries, and Rowdies in celebration of Stonewall 50/World Pride. Within the series, a special spotlight is being shine on the artistic revolution that is The Ridiculous Theatrical Company (RTC). RTC had its home at One Sheridan Square from 1978-1995. GALAS will be performed from June 13-29th at St. John's Church, 81 Christopher St, a stone's throw from Stonewall and Ridiculous’ original home.
In the Mid-Twentieth Century, when naturalistic conventions, as well as societal preconceptions, dominated the theater, The Ridiculous Theatrical Company came along and rocked the New York stages. Radical, gender-bending, yet classic and bold, it was a place where high art and pop culture collided in a whole new way. Contemporary theater luminaries such as Taylor Mac, Bette Midler, Charles Busch, Tony Kushner and more have all cited RTC as an artistic influence. Some of you may be long time fans of RTC, some yet to meet the joyous power of its Art.
June 2019 is the 50th year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, considered to be the most important event leading to the LGBTQIA liberation movement in the United States. Because of Stonewall 50, New York City is this year's destination city for World Pride 2019. This June, the world will gather at the Stonewall National Monument to celebrate this most important anniversary. It is essential that the work of the iconic Ridiculous Theatrical Company be a part of this global celebration. We need your support to bring to life this theatrical event that celebrates the legacy of Stonewall, LGBTQIA culture, West Village history, revolutionary art, gender freedom... and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, which embodied them all!
The 2019 production of GALAS by Charles Ludlam will be directed by Everett Quinton. The cast members will be: Everett Quinton*, Christopher Johnson*, Mark Erson, Beth Dodye Bass*, Lenys Samsa, Maude Burke, Geraldine Dulex*, and Jenne Vath*. Stage Management by Karen Oughtred. Costume Design by Ramona Ponce.
*denotes member of Actor's Equity Association
Are You a Theatre History Fanatic? Keep Reading.
1983 ~ SHERIDAN SQUARE
In September 1983, Charles Ludlam, Everett Quinton and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company mounted the premiere production of Ludlam's play GALAS, inspired by the incomparable opera diva Maria Callas and her theatrical life. The production was written, directed by, and starred Ludlam. It featured RTC actors Everett Quinton, Black-Eyed Susan, Emilio Cubiero, John Heys, Deborah Petti, Julian Craggs, and Fred Segilia. The costumes were designed by Mr. Quinton. The sets were designed by Jack Kelly.
We'll let the critics of the day tell you more about it:
“Hilarious!... Ludlam, like Moliere, is one of the few theater artists attempting to speak seriously through the use of satire and comedy…. He has shaped the play so that each scene is a parody of a similar situation in grand opera.” Sy Syna, The New York Tribune
“A particularly adult mixture of comedy and tragedy. Not camp spoof, yet far from solemn, the amazing GALAS demonstrates the affinity of tears and laughter.” Tish Dace, The New York Native
“(Ludlam) is putting the art back in Commedia dell'arte.” Richard Corliss, Time Magazine
“(GALAS) is a comic creation of high order.” Frank Rich, The New York Times
“It is the authenticity and the style – or perhaps merely the authenticity of style that most impresses me about the work of Charles Ludlam and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company.” Clive Barnes, The New York Post
“Brilliant…. The fact that (Ludlam) and his company tend to work with drag and gender-bend casting, often for comic purposes seems half a way to make the tradition contemporary and half a throwback to its early antecedents. Like objects rescued from an antique shop and given new value by restoration, his ventures into old modes, texts, and structures are tributes paid to the present by the past signs… where we came from.” Michael Feingold, The Village Voice
FROM CHARLES LUDLAM’s original press release:
“Based on the life of Maria Callas, including many anecdotes privately recounted to the playwright and never before made public, GALAS is not a satire or a spoof, but an attempt to use nonconformist theatrical techniques developed by the Ridiculous Theatrical Company to lift the biographical material to the level of myth and metaphor. While GALAS is a tragedy, the pathos is tempered throughout by sophisticated humor. The play… should appeal to opera lovers and non-opera lovers alike.”
ABOUT CHARLES LUDLAM AND THE RIDICULOUS THEATRICAL COMPANY
Charles Ludlam was born on Long Island in 1943, and graduated Hofstra University in 1964 with a degree in dramatic literature. He first joined the Playhouse of the Ridiculous founded by Ronald Tavel and John Vacarro in 1965. The American theater movement of Theater of the Ridiculous started with the Playhouse, for which Ludlam served as both performer and playwright. Tavel was the first to put a name to Theater of the Ridiculous. While he was studying the former Theater of the Absurd, he wrote a one-line manifesto for the new movement: “We have passed beyond the absurd: our position is absolutely preposterous.” Following a dispute with Vacarro, Ludlam broke with the Playhouse and founded The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967. Over the next twenty years, Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company were one of the major leaders in the independent theater movement and changed American theater for the generations to come.
Ludlam wrote, directed, and often starred in most RTC productions. One of his earliest celebrated roles was his award winning portrayal of Marguerite Gauthier in Ludlam's own re-write of Dumas' CAMILLE (1972), which he famously played in a very low cut period gown displaying his hairy chest. The success of RTC's bold and ingenious art offered them the financial stability to secure a home in the West Village at One Sheridan Square, the former site of the renowned nightclub Café Society. Charles Ludlam along with Everett Quinton, his partner in life and art, secured a community of beloved fans, who faithfully attended each new RTC premiere as celebrated events. The audience attending an RTC production was part of a special congregate, whose communion was laughter. Ludlam said above all theater must be fun.
RTC toured their many successful productions internationally. In his play THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP, Ludlam wrote one of the most popular and often produced plays in the American cannon. Ludlam received fellowships from several foundations and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. He is the recipient of numerous Obie Awards, including the Obie for Lifetime Achievement. He has won Drama Desk awards and in 1986 was awarded the Rosamund Guilder Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Theater.
In 1987, at the age of 44, Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS. His life was tragically cut short that same year when he died of AIDS related pneumonia at St. Vincent's Hospital.
In 2009, Charles Ludlam was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. The street in front of the theater at One Sheridan Square was renamed Charles Ludlam Way.
EVERETT QUINTON
Legendary actor, director, playwright and designer Everett Quinton is a native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn and raised in Park Slope. After graduating school and serving in the military, Quinton moved to Manhattan’s West Village in 1975, a neighborhood he still calls home. It was in that year that he met Charles Ludlam. The following year he made his theatrical debut with the Ridiculous. “One of the hallmarks of the Ridiculous was it elevated drag…. Now it was art,” Quinton is quoted. “I met Charles on the street. It changed my life.” The two became partners in both life and art. And most famously in their collaboration on the wildly successful THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP. After Ludlam's death in 1987, Quinton took up the mantle of RTC Artistic Director and led the company into its next generations. Quinton kept the theater thriving with hit productions such as DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, and the award-winning BROTHER TRUCKERS.
Quinton has also has a prolific acting career on screen, television, as well as in the professional theater nationwide. He has directed Off Broadway and at major regional theaters around the country. Quinton is the recipient of multiple Obie and Drama Desk Awards, as well as the Bessie, Drama League, Helen Hayes, and Actor's Equity Joe A. Callaway Awards. He was honored with the 2011 Legend of Off Broadway Award. Michael Dale summed it up in his Broadway World article of Nov 12, 2017: “To watch Everett Quinton engaged in his classic brand of …ridiculousness is just as fulfilling a cultural experience as watching a great tragedian immersed in a dramatic Shakespearean role.” Anita Gates in The New York Times in 2014 summed it up simply: “Mr. Quinton is a genius.”
Organizer
St. John's Church
Organizer
New York, NY