The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center presents ROY COHN/JACK SMITH: REMEMBERING RON VAWTER

Join us for a rare screening of a tape of a live performance of Ron Vawter's legendary performance piece, Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, 25 years after it opened at The Performing Garage in 1992. Followed by a discussion with director Gregory Mehrten, author Gary Indiana, and critics and scholars David Román and Alisa Solomon. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Vawter's two-part solo performance is a double portrait of two complex minds and two opposing manifestations of gay sexuality. Roy Cohn, written by Gary Indiana, is a fictitious imagining of an after-dinner speech that might have been delivered by Donald Trump's mentor, the homophobic right-wing lawyer and sleazy back-room politico, Roy Cohn, to the "American Association for the Protection of the Family" in 1976. The second part, Jack Smith, is based on an audio recording of a performance by Jack Smith, the notorious underground filmmaker of Flaming Creatures fame, who, in flamboyant harem drag, constructed his own private theater of resistance from fragments of Arabian Nights kitsch, avant-garde film feuds, and passionate B-movie camp. Cohn and Smith had nothing in common except their homosexuality and their deaths from AIDS in New York in the late 1980's. Vawter, who embodies both men without imitation, died of AIDS in 1994. Born in 1948, he was a founding member of The Wooster Group, and also worked with many leading directors of the Downtown scene.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center [MESTC] is a non-profit center for theatre, dance, and film affiliated with CUNY's Ph.D. Program in Theatre. The Center's mission is to bridge the gap between academia and the professional performing arts communities both within the United States and internationally.

www.theSegalCenter.org