Redtwist Theatre Announces New Dates For THE NORMAL HEART

Award-winning Redtwist Theatre has announced that due to ongoing construction at the theatre, The Normal Heart, written by Larry Kramer and directed by Ensemble Member Ted Hoerl, will now run August 18 - September 22.

Larry Kramer's beautiful, searing play about the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, based on his experience organizing Gay Men's Health Crisis, opens Redtwist's newly renovated venue. The play, winner of Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Awards, tells the story of an advocacy group that struggled against government suppression and internal strife in the face of the disappearance of their community. This heart wrenching, humanist play, written more than 40 years ago about a small group of advocates calling for action from a government that insists that nothing is wrong, seems darkly familiar and more universal than ever.

The Normal Heart cast includes Peter Ferneding (he/him, Ned Weeks); Zachary Linnert (he/him, Felix Turner); Philip C. Matthews (he/him, Bruce Niles); Joshua Servantez* (he/him, Mickey Marcus); Cameron Austin Brown (he/him,Tommy Boatwright); Christopher Meister (he/him, Ben Weeks); Tamara Rozofsky (she/her, Dr. Emma Brookner); Gardy Gilbert (he/him, Hiram/David/Examining Doctor/Orderly); Caleb Crawford (he/him, Craig/ Grady/Orderly); Matt Fayfer (he/him, Ned Weeks U/S); Riley Lucas (he/him, Felix Turner U/S); Michael Oakes (he/they, Bruce Niles U/S); Eddie Ledford (he/him, Mickey Marcus U/S); Cameron Cai (he/him, Tommy Boatwright U/S); Phil Aman (he/him, Ben Weeks U/S) and Brenden Zwiebel (he/him, Craig/Grady/Orderly U/S).

The Normal Heart production team includes Ted Hoerl* (he/him, director); Rashaad A. Bond (he/him, assistant director); Taylor Pfenning (she/her, costume designer); Nick Bartleson (he/him, props designer); Ashly Demay (she/her, dramaturg); Cat Davis* (she/her, lighting designer); Amy Rappa (they/she, stage manager); Dusty Brown* (they/them, co-artistic director) and Eileen Dixon* (she/they, co-artistic director).

*indicates Redtwist Theatre Ensemble Member

The performance schedule is Thursdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:30 p.m. Press opening is Sunday, Aug. 18 at 3:30 p.m. The anticipated running time, including intermission, is 120 minutes. Single tickets will go on sale later this summer for $35 at RedtwistTheatre.org with discounts available for seniors, students and industry professionals and pay-what-you-can for all Friday performances.

ABOUT Larry Kramer, playwright

Larry Kramer was an American playwright, screenwriter and gay rights activist whose confrontational style of advocacy, while divisive, was credited by many with catalyzing the response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. Kramer found a new calling in activism in July 1981, following the announcement of an outbreak of Kaposi sarcoma, a form of cancer that was eventually attributed to AIDS, among gay men in New York and California. As gay friends and associates began succumbing to the then-mysterious illness, Kramer set off in pursuit of a solution. Bureaucratic, medical and political inertia, abetted by social prejudice against homosexuality, had resulted in an inadequate response to the AIDS crisis, with long waiting lists for trial treatments and often astronomical financial burdens. In August 1981, Kramer convened a group of interested parties, including one of the doctors who had initially noted the phenomenon, in order to devise a strategy for combating the disease. The group officially became the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in early 1982. Kramer dramatized his experiences as an AIDS activist in the play The Normal Heart. Kramer was himself diagnosed with the HIV virus in 1988, though the virus never developed into AIDS. In 1996, Kramer received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. His life and career were chronicled in the documentary “Larry Kramer in Love & Anger” (2015).(Britannica.com, 2024)

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