Richmond Jim

Fridays and Saturdays at midnight on
June 29 and 30,
July 6 and 7, and August 3 and 4.
Performances at 8 pm are slated for
Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, July 10 - 12, Thursday, July 19,
Tuesday and Wednesday, July 24 and 25,
Wednesday and Thursday, August 7 and 8.
There are also 6 pm performances on
Sunday, July 15 and 22.
The final performance is August 8.
All tickets are $20.

Pride Films and Plays Revives Long-Lost Gay Play
RICHMOND JIM by Cal Yeomans
 
Pride Films and Plays is thrilled to present Cal Yeomans's award-winning but long-lost play Richmond Jim to celebrate Pride Month. Richmond Jim will be featured in The National Pastime Theater’s Naked July: Art Stripped Down summer festival at National Pastime Theater and runs June 29 to August 10.
 
As the play opens, a young man newly arrived in New York finds himself in the arms of Mike, an older man well-versed in the various pleasures of the body, and an erotic metamorphosis begins. The powerful slice-of-life drama offers "interesting statements about youth and innocence and how quickly both can disappear," according to the San Francisco Crusader. Robert Chesley, who later went on to write the gay classic Jerker, called it "the first genuine gay play."   
 
Richmond Jim stars PFP Ensemble Members Kris Hyland (as Jim) and Jamie Smith (as Biddy) with Chris Kossen as Mike. David Zak directs, with costumes by John Nasca.  Sound design is by Alex St. John, with movement by Steve Love. Lighting Design is by Garvin Jellison, with Charles O’Malley as Stage Manager, and Fernando Alverez as Assistant Stage Manager.
   
"As we explore our mission to develop 'what's new and who's next' in LGBT plays and screenplays," says PFP's Executive Director David Zak, "we have also had the chance to explore important writing that has come before. When I first read Richmond Jim, I felt strongly that this play - which is a wonderful reflection of gay life before AIDS - would touch those who lived through this period, and teach those who have been born since."
 
Richmond Jim was originally produced by Theatre Rhinoceros, was named as Best Gay Play of the Year, was chosen to play at the First National Gay Arts Festival in NYC in 1980, and won San Francisco's 1980 Cable Car Award for Outstanding Achievement in Drama. It has not been produced since 1983.  
 
Playwright Cal Yeomans was one of the founders of gay theatre. His plays were not only manifestations of the sexual liberation of the times, but were also attempts to overcome what he had been raised to despise, written at the pivotal moment of gay history between the Stonewall riots and the AIDS epidemic. In addition to Richmond Jim, his works include At the End of the Road, In the Shadow of a Rainbow, The Line Forms to the Rear, and many others. Yeomans died in 2001 at age 63.

Yeomans is the subject of the biography Queer Theatre and the Legacy of Cal Yeomans by Robert. A. Schanke, which Andrew Holleran describes as "an absorbing gay history--psychological, social, sexual, and cultural--expertly informed by Schanke's knowledge of the theatre. . . . It's an amazing story." Schanke is the author of Shattered Applause: The Lives of Eva Le Gallienne, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. His book That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta won the ForeWord magazine Book of the Year award in the best gay and lesbian nonfiction category. He co-edited Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History, Staging Desire: Queer Readings of American Theater History, and The Gay and Lesbian Theatrical Legacy.
 
Richmond Jim plays on Fridays and Saturdays at midnight on June 29 and 30, July 6 and 7, and August 3 and 4. Performances at 8 pm are slated for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, July 10 - 12, Thursday, July 19, Tuesday and Wednesday, July 24 and 25, Wednesday and Thursday, August 7 and 8. There are also 6 pm performances on Sunday, July 15 and 22. The final performance is August 8. All tickets are $20.

Buy Tickets

or call the box office at 773-327-7077 ext. 503
Group rates available for groups over 10.

For more information please go to www.pridefilmsandplays.com
For more information about The National Pastime Theater please go to nationalpastimetheater.com