However, the production is now minus one version of the Genet play. The show was titled The Maids x 2 because it offered two separate interpretations of the play, one with female characters, the other with male. The male rendition has now been eliminated.
According to a report in the New York Times, Lane Savadore, the head of Ego Po and now the artistic director of EgoPo/Cocteau, maintained that he had secured the rights to the play from the Genet estate, but had lost the paperwork when Ego Po's home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last fall. However, Samuel French, the play publishing house, said Ego Po had not won the rights to The Maids.
EgoPo/Cocteau plans to present plays in a "multi-city repertory," with different shows being presented on both The Bowery and Philadelphia at the same time. The collaborations will be supported by a third group, the Catskill Mountain Foundation, which will provide summer workshop performance space, as well as an annual residency with Julia Hansen's Theater Masters in Aspen, CO.
The Maid x 2 was seen in New Orleans and at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.