The AIDS Plays Project
Queer Plays from Trailblazing Writers Lost to HIV/AIDS
The AIDS Plays Project
Queer Plays from Trailblazing Writers Lost to HIV/AIDS
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Description
This collection brings together scripts, essays, biographies, interviews and photographs to celebrate seven queer playwrights lost to HIV/AIDS: Charles Ludlam, James Kirkwood Jr., George Whitmore, Harry Kondoleon, Alan Bowne, Colm Ó Clúbhán and Robert Chesley.
From a drag-infused riff on La Traviata in nineteenth-century Paris to a subversive comedy about a bisexual ghost haunting rural Massachusetts, a San Francisco-set tragedy about phone sex, and a tense exploration of Irish politics in a London pub: these plays reveal the dazzling breadth of queer theatre in the US and UK during the 1970s and 80s.
They are the work of seven playwrights - some celebrated in their own time, others working on the margins of theatre - who blazed a trail on and offstage: introducing some of the first bisexual characters on Broadway, performing in drag on the streets of South London, or promoting sex positivity during the epidemic's darkest days.
Edited and introduced by Alastair Curtis, who directed each of these plays as part of The AIDS Plays Project in London, this book brings their plays into print - in some cases for the first time. They are accompanied by photographs of each playwright, interviews with those who knew and worked with them, and new essays by leading contemporary queer playwrights reflecting on their enduring legacy.
It is a memorial to a lost generation of queer writers who have all but vanished from the modern stage - and an invitation to a new generation to rediscover and reinterpret their work.
Table of Contents
Amelia Abraham
Introduction
Sam Moore and Alastair Curtis
Charles Ludlam (1943 - 1987)
“I'm not serious and I don't intend to be, ever”
In conversation with Charles Busch and Lola Pashalinski
Camille (1973)
Madcap Communal Ritual
Lauren John Joseph
James Kirkwood Jr. (1924 - 1989)
“The Baskin Robbins of writers”
In conversation with Arthur Beckenstein
P.S. Your Cat is Dead! (1975)
Wonderfully Promiscuous
Marcelo Dos Santos
George Whitmore (1945 - 1989)
“Mr Gay Plus Plus”
In conversation with Victor Bumbalo
The Rights (1980)
Intergenerational Gay Exchange
Jack Holden
Harry Kondoleon (1955 - 1994)
“His plays build toward something magical”
In conversation with Don Shewey and Stephen Soba
Christmas on Mars (1983)
Delight and Surprise
James Ijames
Alan Bowne (1945 - 1989)
“Good ol' William”
In conversation with Barbara Hayes
Spook (1985)
The Dirty Details
Charlie Josephine
Colm Ó Clúbhán (1954 - 1989)
“Out and proud and angry to be dying so soon”
In conversation with Mary Evans Young, Derek Evans and Stephen Gee
Reasons for Staying(1986)
An Irish Masterpiece
Margaret Perry
Robert Chesley (1943 - 1990)
“The kindest man”
In conversation with Victor Bumbalo
Jerker, or the Helping Hand (1986)
Intimate Theatre of Desire
Jordan Tannahill
Afterword
Michael Bronski
Product details
| Published | Nov 26 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 488 |
| ISBN | 9781350588073 |
| Imprint | Methuen Drama |
| Illustrations | 7 b+w author photos10 rehearsal photos (tbc) |
| Dimensions | 234 x 156 mm |
| Series | Methuen Drama Play Collections |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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