The Zero Hour
by Madeleine GeorgeFebruary 17th at 7pm
“A lucid drama. Appealingly brainy and messy, George’s play never settles for an easy metaphor or emotion. It cross-examines our pat notions of history and love.”
– The New Yorker
Join us for our next installment of Gay Play Tuesdays on February 17th at 7pm, when we will read The Zero Hour by Madeleine George (2010).
Rebecca and her chronically unemployed butch girlfriend, O, have built a home in their run-down walk-up in Queens, but things are starting to unravel. The more O pushes Rebecca to stop hiding their relationship, the more Rebecca’s work life—writing a middle school textbook about the Holocaust— begins to bleed into her personal life: She starts meeting World War II Nazis on the 7 train, passing as everyday New Yorkers, but hungry to come out about who they really are. This almost-love story explores the relationship between honesty and cruelty: How do you tell the truth about yourself when that truth might devastate the people you love?Madeleine George’s plays include Hurricane Diane (Obie Award), The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence (Pulitzer Prize finalist; Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award), Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England (Susan Smith Blackburn finalist), Precious Little and The Zero Hour (Jane Chambers Award, Lambda Literary Award finalist). Honors include a Whiting Award, the Princess Grace Award, the Hermitage Major Theater Award, and a Lilly Award. Madeleine was a co-producer on FX’s Dying for Sex and a writer/producer on four seasons of the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated mystery-comedy Only Murders in the Building.
What is “Gay Play Tuesdays”?
What makes a “gay play?” Is it dependent on the identity of the author or characters? The reception of the play by LGBTQIA+ audiences? The play’s politics or aesthetics? Or is there something else, less definable, that might make a play a gay classic?
Join our Resident Dramaturg, Jesse Marchese, for a monthly free play reading salon where we will investigate some of the most impactful, provocative, and fearless “gay plays” from the 20th and 21st centuries. Being a “salon,” this is not a professional performance. Rather, we treat each session as a classroom where the plays are our teachers.
We will treat every session as a first read through, assigning parts on a first come, first served basis. You are welcome to come and read a role out loud or just listen along – no experience necessary! Once we finish reading through the play we will engage in a short discussion of its themes and ideas.
