Diversionary presents McNally play
“Corpus Christi”

Diversionary Theatre will present the 1998 Terrence McNally play Corpus Christi as the sixth and final show of it’s 2007-2008 season, running May 1-June 1. Named one of the best plays of the year by Time Magazine in 1998, this vivid and moving passion play is a contemporary telling of the life of Jesus as if he were a gay man and grew up in 1950’s Texas.

McNally is the author of such critically acclaimed plays as Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, The Lisbon Traviata, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and the books for the musicals Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman. The New Yorker described the play this way: “In Corpus Christi McNally gives us his own unique view of the story of Christ, and in doing so provides us with one of the most vivid and moving passion plays written. McNally's play is an affirmation of faith and a drama of such power and scope that it has been hailed by audiences and critics alike as one of his best and most poignant works to date.” McNally won Tony Awards for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class as well as Tony Awards for Best Book of a Musical for Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman. In addition, Love! Valour! Compassion! won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and New York Drama Critics' Circle awards for Best Play. McNally has received two Guggenheim fellowships, a Rockefeller grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Diversionary’s production will be directed by Nic Arnzen, and features a cast of 13, with Trevor Bowles as Joshua and Rich Carrillo as Judas, and Scott Andrew Amiotte, Zachary Bryant, Tom Doyle, Kate Hewitt, Keifla, Brian Mackey, Jesse Allen Moore, Jessica Parsell, Anna Rebek, John Whitley and Rachael Van Wormer.

The play's form is story theatre: 13 barefoot actors perform a play within a play, starting with the birth of Joshua/Jesus in a Texas motel. Soon evils emerge, such as wife-beating, loveless sex, gay-bashing and clerical humiliations. The playwright uses this parallel story of Christ to tell a contemporary, colloquial tale of the fight against cruelty, division, hatred and, above all, hypocrisy. Love and acceptance are the antidotes.

The dramatic early attempts to prevent the play from being produced raised a flood of controversy on both sides - freedom of speech versus religious censorship. The New York Times, in an article headlined “Censoring Terrence McNally,” wrote, “What we are witnessing, once again, is the peculiar combat between freedoms that is repeatedly staged in America. The practitioners and beneficiaries of religious freedom attack the practitioners of artistic freedom - freedom of speech - without seeing that the freedoms they enjoy cannot be defended separately.”

Corpus Christi won the Drama Desk Award for Best Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.

Diversionary is pleased to welcome Los Angeles-based director Nic Arnzen to San Diego, who believes the play, though written ten years ago, still resonates with issues of gay marriage, discrimination and a universal search for something to believe in. “I love this show and am thrilled to be directing it again,” said Arnzen. “I am determined to make this show a comment on diversity, equality and basic love for your fellow man. McNally wrote the show with a respect to the source material and I plan to give it the same respect.” With permission from McNally, Diversionary’s production will include both men and women actors.
Arnzen has directed many productions throughout the U.S. and the United Kingdom. He has studied directing/writing/acting with Groundlings, Second City, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Drake University. He directed a production of Corpus Christi in Los Angeles in 2006, and that production has toured to the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and will tour to the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival this coming May. That production is being filmed as a documentary series focusing on the political and social climate changes since the plays opening nearly ten years ago, and is also the subject of a book by author Steven Susoyev – he has followed and will continue to travel with the show as he completes his accounting of the production/play and the affect it has on the audience and cast members. Currently working on his writing career and being a Dad, Arnzen’s first film script, “Gay of the Dead,” has been purchased and is currently in pre-production.

Diversionary Theatre was started in 1986. The mission of the theatre is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily.

Corpus Christi is the sixth and final show of Diversionary Theatre’s 2007-2008 season, and will preview on Thursday and Friday, May 1 and 2, and open on Saturday, May 3, and run through Sunday, June 1. Performance times are: Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday & Saturday at 8:00pm, Sunday at 2:00 & 7:00pm, and a Monday, May 12 performance at 7:30pm.

Single tickets are now on sale. Tickets are $29 for Thursday, Sunday and Monday performances, $31 for Friday nights and $33 for Saturday nights, with a $4 discount for students, seniors 60+ and active military. Tickets for opening night will be $45 and include a post-show cast party.

Groups of 10-29 receive a $4 discount, and groups of 30+ receive an $8 discount. For tickets or information, call the Diversionary box office at 619.220.0097 or log on to www.diversionary.org.

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The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture provides major support for Diversionary Theatre.