Justin Vivian Bond, Zachary Booth & More Set for Player's Club's Reading of Justin Sayre's CLICK OF THE LOCK, 3/25

Justin Sayre's Play, The Click of the Lock, will be presented at The Player's Club as part of a new play reading. The cast will feature Tony Nominated Downtown Performer Justin Vivian Bond, Zachary Booth (Damages, Keep the Lights On), Rob Maitner (Urinetown, NY Fringe Festival; Bistro Award for Fairy Tales at the WPA Theater), Brian Barefoot, Jax Jackson, Grant Chapman & Chris Tyler. The reading will be held at the Players Club (16 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan) at 8:00 PM, with a cocktail reception starting at 7pm. To reserve a seat, please contact clickofthelock@gmail.com.

Set in Turn of the Century New York's Bowery, The Click of the Lock gives voice to what life was like in the "fairy resorts." Early predecessors of the gay bar, the resorts thrived from 1890 to roughly 1901 with such famous locales as Paresis Hall,(now the Village Voice Building) The Slide (lastly Kenny's Castaways), and Little Bucks. In the resorts young "fairies" with painted faces and affected lisps sold their wares to a diverse
clientele of straight men and many of the resorts became popular stomping grounds for "Slumming tours" for New York's wealthiest. The Click of the Lock, takes place at the last of the fairy resorts, The Dream and follows Grace, a young fairy at the end of her reign, she's turning 21. As Grace looks toward the future, she is stalked by an enemy from her past, Lillian Russell and is also confronted about her own ideas of love and possibility with a regular customer Daniel. The play deals with the invention of an identity as an individual practice but also as a group process, the rules we determine for ourselves and each other. With such self imposed boundarieswhere do we account for Love? for Hatred? for Hope?

The play was first read at The Cherry Lane Theater with Your Name Here Queer Theater Company. A second reading took place at LAByrinth Theater Company in partnership with Your Name Here. The first draft of the play was Finalist for The Eugene O'Neill Playwriting Festival in 2013.

JUSTIN SAYRE was described by Michael Musto in The Village Voice as "Oscar Wilde meets Whoopi Goldberg." Sayre is the writer/creator/host of the critically acclaimed The Meeting*, now in residency at Joe's Pub. The Meeting*'s yearly benefit Night of Thousand Judys, for the Ali Forney Center is now in its 4th year. As a comedian, Sayre is regular guest at Homo-Comicus at the Gotham Comedy Club and contributing writer to Murray Hill's ShowBiz on MTVX. An evening of his short plays, Justin Sayre Is Alive and Well... Writing - called one of the "Top 10 Events on the New York Stage" by the New York Daily News - sold out two shows at Ars Nova in 2012. Sayre is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and Flavorwire, as well offering playful and witty love advice at The Date Report. He is currently writing a young adult novel, which will be released by Penguin Books in 2015.