Jocker, Play About Relationships in a "Hobo" Camp, Gets NYC Run | Playbill

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News Jocker, Play About Relationships in a "Hobo" Camp, Gets NYC Run Clint Jefferies' The Jocker, the award-winning play about Depression-era itinerants and their apprentices, gets a Manhattan revival May 11-June 9.

Opening night for the Wings Theatre Company production will be May 21.

Based on historical fact, The Jocker "explores relationships between men riding the rails during the Great Depression."

According to Wings Theatre, "It is 1931. In a hobo jungle near Flagstaff, Arizona, hobos and tramps begin to congregate, lured by the promise of work on a nearby rail spur. Early arrivals include Biloxi Billy, a tramp in his late 40s, and Nat, around 16 — a Jocker and his 'Gunsel' (combination servant, apprentice and catamite, a common and amazingly well documented relationship among hobos and tramps of the period). They soon encounter 'Bama Boy and Shakespeare, two men in a very different sort of sexual relationship. It's the men's conflicting and ever-changing dependence on one another that help them survive — but when Nat makes a desperate move to get away from his abusive jocker, he sets in motion a devastating chain of events that leaves two dead and other lives shattered."

Jeffrey Corrick directs a cast that includes Stephen Cabral, Jason Alan Griffin, Michael Lazar, Nick Matthews and Stephen Tyrone Williams.

The creative team includes costume designer Laura Kleeman, lighting designer Eric Larson and fight choreographer Kymberli E. Morris. The play was awarded First Prize in the John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Awards, was named a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writer's Conference Competition, and was a finalist in the South Carolina Playwrights' Festival, and a semi-finalist in the Bloomington Playwrights' Project.

The play was previously produced by the Wings Theatre Company. It has also been seen in Houston and Spokane. It will get a staging in St. Petersburg, FL, in the coming months.

Wings Theatre is a non-profit, Off-Off Broadway theatre located in Greenwich Village. Wings produces a year-round season comprised exclusively of new plays and musicals by American playwrights and composers under a Tier II agreement with Actors' Equity Association.

Performances will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday evenings at 8 PM, with Sunday matinees at 3:30 PM. All seats are $20. Students and seniors with current ID may purchase a ticket for only $16.

For more information, visit www.wingstheatre.com or call (212) 627-2961.

 
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