THEATER BOYS Being Recorded for Three Projects

Audiences attending the musical comedy "Theater Boys" at the 13th Street Repertory Theater might notice a camera or two--or three!--filming this week. Brian Gari is shooting an archival video of the entire two-hour show; Sam Donnenberg continues on-location shooting for his documentary about the making of the show, "For the Theater"; and award-winning independent filmmaker Max Galassi, from Newtown, Connecticut, will be shooting a short film in connection with the show.

ASCAP Award-winning playwright/director Chip Deffaa is happy for all of the attention. "We've been turning people away at the door," he says. " The video documentation can only help us as we take the show forward. We'll have three different cameramen at the theater this week." "Theater Boys" will have its first regional production this winter, playing Rochester, New York (Stageworks). The show is expected to play Fire Island next summer. And Peter Charney aims to do the first college production of an excerpt from "Theater Boys," at Hofstra. Audiences will have a chance to meet the filmmakers, as well as "Theater Boys" cast members, at the talkback after tonight's (October 23rd) performance.

"Theater Boys" has been playing this fall at the 13th Street Theater (50 W. 13th Street, NYC, www.13thstreetrep.org) in repertory with Deffaa's long-running "One Night with Fanny Brice" starring Chloe Brooks, and Israel Horovitz's "Line" (Horovitz himself is expected to attend "Line" this weekend, to help celebrate its 40th year at the theater; it is the longest-running theatrical production in New York). "Theater Boys" is Deffaa's third production at the 13th Street Rep this season. A fourth Deffaa production, "The Irving Berlin Ragtime Revue," is now in rehearsals. And a fifth production, "Mad About the Boy," will have its first reading next Thursday, October 30th, in preparation for its scheduled mounting at the theater in 2015.

The cast of "Theater Boys" includes Michael Czyz, Joseph Spitale, Philip Louis Calabro, Danny Coelho, Hawkins Gardow, Joris de Graaf, Andrew Lanctot Taylor Martin, Will Meredith, Ben Orlando, Ken Adams. Deffaa has written book, music, and lyrics (with a couple of standards thrown in for good measure), and is directing. Richard Danley serves as music director; Alex Acevedo and Tyler DuBoys are co-choreographers; Peter Charney is assistant director.

The cast album of "Theater Boys" has just been released (Original Cast Records).

Edith O'Hara, the 97-year-old founder/artistic director of the 13th Street Rep, notes proudly that "Theater Boys"-the biggest and most ambitious offering at the theater in years-is a gay musical playing at the very same theater where gay musical comedy was born. In 1974, O'Hara presented Bill Solly's ground-breaking gay musical "Boy Meets Boy" at the 13th Street Repertory Theater. The following year, O'Hara transferred the show to the larger Actor's Playhouse on Seventh Avenue, where it racked up a 463-performance-run--unprecedented for a gay musical. Additional productions of "Boy Meets Boy"--generally considered the first hit gay musical--soon followed in LA, London, and other cities. For 40 years, she's kept a photo of "Boy Meets Boy" in the lobby of her theater; it hangs next to shots of "Theater Boys" today.

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