This collection brings together scripts, essays, biographies, interviews and photographs to celebrate seven queer playwrights lost to HIV/AIDS: Charles Ludlam, James Kirkwood Jr., George Whitmore, Harry Kondoleon, Alan Bowne, Colm a Clúbhán and Robert Chesley.
From a drag-infused riff on La Traviata in nineteenth-century Paris to a subversive comedy about a bisexual ghost haunting rural Massachusetts, a San Francisco-set tragedy about phone sex, and a tense exploration of Irish politics in a London pub: these plays reveal the dazzling breadth of queer theatre in the US and UK during the 1970s and 80s.
They are the work of seven playwrights - some celebrated in their own time, others working on the margins of theatre - who blazed a trail on and offstage: introducing some of the first bisexual characters on Broadway, performing in drag on the streets of South London, or promoting sex positivity during the epidemic's darkest days.
Edited and introduced by Alastair Curtis, who directed each of these plays as part of The AIDS Plays Project in London, this book brings their plays into print - in some cases for the first time. They are accompanied by photographs of each playwright, interviews with those who knew and worked with them, and new essays by leading contemporary queer playwrights reflecting on their enduring legacy.
It is a memorial to a lost generation of queer writers who have all but vanished from the modern stage - and an invitation to a new generation to rediscover and reinterpret their work.
| ISBN: | 9781350588073 |
| Publication date: | 26th November 2026 |
| Author: | Alastair Curtis |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 368 pages |
| Series: | Methuen Drama Play Collections |
| Genres: |
Plays, playscripts Modern and contemporary plays (c 1900 onwards) Literary studies: plays and playwrights |
This collection brings together scripts, essays, biographies, interviews and photographs to celebrate seven queer playwrights lost to HIV/AIDS: Charles Ludlam, James Kirkwood Jr., George Whitmore, Harry Kondoleon, Alan Bowne, Colm a Clúbhán and Robert Chesley.From a drag-infused riff on La Traviata in nineteenth-century Paris to a subversive comedy about a bisexual ghost haunting rural Massachusetts, a San Francisco-set tragedy about phone sex, and a tense exploration of Irish politics in a London pub: these plays reveal the dazzling breadth of queer theatre in the US and UK during the 1970s and 80s.They are the work of seven playwrights - some celebrated in their own time, others working on the margins of theatre - who blazed a trail on and offstage: introducing some of the first bisexual characters on Broadway, performing in drag on the streets of South London, or promoting sex positivity during the epidemic's darkest days.Edited and introduced by Alastair Curtis, who directed each of these plays as part of The AIDS Plays Project in London, this book brings their plays into print - in some cases for the first time. They are accompanied by photographs of each playwright, interviews with those who knew and worked with them, and new essays by leading contemporary queer playwrights reflecting on their enduring legacy.It is a memorial to a lost generation of queer writers who have all but vanished from the modern stage - and an invitation to a new generation to rediscover and reinterpret their work.
The AIDS Plays Project features in the following genres: Plays, playscripts, Modern and contemporary plays (c 1900 onwards), Literary studies: plays and playwrights
Paperback, Hardback. £67.50, down from the £75.00 cover price. Not Available.
The AIDS Plays Project was written by Alastair Curtis and published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
The AIDS Plays Project has 368 pages
Yes it is part of Methuen Drama Play Collections series
£67.50, reduced from £75.00. Not Available.