Harvey Back on Broadway

[edjames]

Fierstein, not Weinstein, and certainly not the hurricane...

 

Today's NYTimes reports:

 

Harvey Fierstein to Play Bella Abzug in New Solo Show

 

Harvey Fierstein, who donned a dress — and won a Tony Award — playing Edna Turnblad in “Hairspray,” is stepping back into women’s clothes for his next role.

Expect hats to be part of the wardrobe.

Manhattan Theater Club announced on Thursday that its 2019-20 season will include the world premiere of “Bella Bella,” a new solo show written by and starring Mr. Fierstein, which casts him as Bella Abzug, the outspoken New York congresswoman and activist.

In a news release, press representatives for the theater described “Bella Bella” as “raucous, heart-rending and absurdly humorous.” A synopsis gives the following description of the show:

Set in 1976, on the eve of her bid to become New York State’s first female Senator, “Bella Bella” finds this larger-than-life, truth-slinging, groundbreaking, hat-wearing icon squirreled away in the bathroom of a midtown hotel awaiting that night’s election results while a coterie of family and celebs await her entrance.

Kimberly Senior (“Disgraced”) will direct the production, which will be staged at the theater’s Off Broadway space at New York City Center — Stage I, beginning Oct. 1, with opening night scheduled for Oct. 22.

 

Mr. Fierstein’s breakthrough play, “Torch Song Trilogy,” in which he played a drag queen, was recently revived on Broadway under the name “Torch Song.” He has written the book for the musicals “Kinky Boots” and “La Cage Aux Folles.” Manhattan Theater Club presented his play “Casa Valentina,” about a group of heterosexual men who cross-dress at a Catskills vacation home, on Broadway in 2014.

[+ quoththeraven]

Ha, I thought you meant the play about the six-foot tall pukka rabbit, Harvey.