GableStage and Palm Beach Dramaworks to Mount Separate Productions of INDECENT

GableStage Producing Artistic Director Joseph Adler and Palm Beach Dramaworks Producing Artistic Director William Hayes regret to report that due to circumstances beyond their control, their companies are no longer able to co-produce Paula Vogel's touching and powerful play, Indecent.

"Negotiations with outside entities proved to be an unexpected stumbling block and ultimately made our unprecedented South Florida partnership impossible at this time," said Adler and Hayes in a joint statement. "We will continue to look for opportunities to collaborate with each other in the future."

Both companies will instead be mounting their own productions of Indecent during the 2018-2019 season. PBD will present the previously announced production, to be directed by J. Barry Lewis, which opens the season on October 19 and runs through November 11. Adler will direct the GableStage version, which opens on January 26 and runs through February 24.

A drama with music, Indecent depicts the journey of playwright Sholem Asch's groundbreaking 1907 work, God of Vengeance, beginning in Warsaw in 1906 just before the first reading of the play in a literary salon, and continuing through 1952 when the playwright is about to leave America, his adopted homeland. At the heart of the piece is the ugly storm that erupted two weeks after God of Vengeance opened on Broadway: on March 6, 1923, the cast and producer were arrested for "unlawfully advertising, giving, presenting, and participating in an obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama or play." Their crime? The depiction of a lesbian relationship and a kiss between two women. Until that moment in time, God of Vengeance had been performed on stages all over the world, both in its original Yiddish and a multitude of other languages, and was recognized as an important work.

GableStage is a non-profit, professional theatre and is a member of the Theatre Communications Group, the South Florida Theatre League, Florida Professional Theatres Association, Florida Cultural Alliance, Dade Cultural Alliance, Americans for the Arts, and The Drama League, as well as Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce, Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce, and the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

Palm Beach Dramaworks is a non-profit, professional theatre and is a member of the Theatre Communications Group, the South Florida Theatre League, Florida Professional Theatres Association, and the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County.

Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg

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