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DiPietro's Gay Take on La Ronde to Return to London
By Mark Shenton
04 Dec 2008
Joe DiPietro's Fucking Men, a contemporary take on Schnitzler's La Ronde relocated to a gay milieu, will return to London, where it received its world premiere staging in May 2008.
The production will play the King's Head Theatre in Islington, beginning performances Jan. 7, 2009, prior to an official opening Jan. 8, for a run to Jan. 25. Both its earlier and new incarnations are directed by Phil Wilmott.
Taking a look at a succession of couples and strangers as they negotiate the before and after of lust, love and betrayal and the pursuit of gay sex, the overlapping stories provide what the original publicity materials described as a "fascinating snapshot of the American male in pursuit of man-on-man action."
The cast will include Morgan James, Nicholas Keith, James Kristian, Timothy Lone, Chris Polick, Patrick Poletti and Adam Unze, all returning from the original Finborough production.
DiPietro is best known for writing the book and lyrics to the long-running Off-Broadway and international hit I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change that looked at the heterosexual dating game. It has been produced in over 500 cities around the world, including in London in both the West End (where it had a short run at the Comedy Theatre in July 1999) and subsequently on the fringe (including a production that was directed by Wilmott at Jermyn Street Theatre). DiPietro and his composer-collaborator Jimmy Roberts subsequently wrote The Thing About Men that came to London's King's Head in 2007. His other writing credits include the book to the Elvis Presley musical All Shook Up (seen on Broadway in 2005), and new adaptations of Rodgers and Hart's Babes in Arms and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Allegro, as well as Heaven on Earth, a "new" Gershwin musical. His other plays include the comedy Over the River and Through the Woods and the forthcoming drama, Creating Claire. He has written two new musicals with Bon Jovi's David Bryan – the Broadway-aimed Memphis and The Toxic Avenger.
Willmott's Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi, which he wrote the book and score for and was produced at Liverpool Playhouse earlier this year, has just been named Best Musical in the TMA awards. He has also been awarded a Brooks Atkinson playwriting award in New York and a Peter Brook Empty Space Award for his work at the Scoop amphitheatre on the South Bank. As a writer and composer, his work is widely published and produced internationally and includes The Dick Barton Trilogy, Around the World in Eighty Days and translations of Gorky's The Lower Depths and a co-translation with Germaine Greer of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. Other notable West End productions include Treasure Island at the Mermaid Theatre and the tenth anniversary cast of Fame at the Aldwych Theatre.
To book tickets contact the box office at 0844 412 2953 or visit www.kingsheadtheatre.org.
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