Cynthia Nixon to direct landmark lesbian play on Broadway
Actress and activist Cynthia Nixon is aiming to become a Broadway director as she directs the 40th anniversary revival of Jane Chamber’s landmark lesbian play, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove.
This play will have Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, and Lily Tomlin as its executive producers, together with Harriet Newman Leve and Jane Wagner.
What the lesbian play is all about
Chamber’s play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove was first seen off-Broadway in 1980. The story follows a close-knit group of friends composed of lesbians.
The group stay each summer at the fictional seaside town of Bluefish Cove. But when a straight woman who has left her husband wanders unknowingly into their refuge, things become messy.
At a time when plays featuring gay women were mostly absent from mainstream theater production, the play garnered plaudits for its well-rounded representation of lesbians.
Chambers said in an interview with The Times in 1981: “None of the women in this play apologize for being lesbians.”
“They accept it and go on to lead productive lives. I don’t know why that should be a threat to people,” she said.
Gay men have been featured frequently on Broadway in recent seasons. However, plays with prominent lesbian characters were few with the 2018 musical The Prom the rare exception.
Cynthia Nixon as a lesbian play director
This lesbian play will be Nixon’s debut as a Broadway director, with the high-profile lesbian power couple of DeGeneres and de Rossi backing the production.
The cast and creative team are also reportedly set to be all female. However, information about the dates, the casting, and the theatre have yet to be released by the Broadway-bound project.
But while this will be the first time for Nixon as a director, she is a New York stage veteran with more than 40 productions in her name. She made her Broadway debut in 1980 in revival of The Philadelphia Story.
She had reportedly been developing her skills as theater director with the off-Broadway productions Rasheeda Speaking, Steve, and MotherStruck!
Nixon is well known for her part as Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for this role in 2004.
She was recently seen with Sarah Paulson on Ryan Murphy’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest prequel Ratched for Netflix. She was also with Christine Baranski on Julian Fellowes’ Gilded Age on HBO.