True Colors Project to Honor LGBTQ+ History Month With Online Performance of THE MAN WITH THE FLOPPY EARS

On October 17, 2020 at 7:00 p.m., True Colors Project will honor LGBTQ+ History Month with an online performance of The Man With The Floppy Ears, celebrating the stories of marginalized, oppressed communities. Playwrights Elwhy Jones and Philip Reissman have created The Man With The Floppy Ears not only as a witty play with music but as historical fiction. This is a virtual theatrical production and not a staged reading.

"It tells a compelling love story set in the 1930's. It also speaks of a global pandemic (Spanish flu), police brutality, the Depression and authoritarianism. All of which is eerily relevant to current events happening right now in the United States," says Jones. "I wanted to tell a story of everyday life of a gay man and his relationships in a context that was not permitted at the time and bring to light to what was happening to the common men of this period and their plight," he adds.

Reissman explains, in 1927, New York State's Wales Padlock Law threatened theaters "depicting or dealing with the subject of sex degeneracy or sex perversion," with being padlocked, shut down. In 1930, Hollywood followed suit with the Hays Code. "LGBT content on stage instantly became taboo. In writing The Man With The Floppy Ears, we wanted to tell a story that could not be told at the time," he says. "The Man With The Floppy Ears is set against this background, amid the Depression and the threat of a second World War."

Changes were happening for the worse offstage, too. With the end of Prohibition and in the absence of bootleggers, the State Liquor Authority (SLA) began a campaign against the LGBTQ+ community and establishments that served them. Needing to justify its existence, the SLA together with the New York Police Department targeted the few places where LGBTQ+ people could gather. This effort is the genesis of police harassment which eventually led to the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969.

The Man With The Floppy Ears was originally intended to be performed at WOW Café Theater, the oldest collectively-run performance space for women, trans and non-binary people. With COVID-19 mandated capacity restrictions on New York theaters The Man With The Floppy Ears will now be presented at the virtual platform On The Stage.

"The COVID-19 Pandemic is affecting the performing arts community in significant ways. Many artists have completely lost their income," says True Colors Project Founder Carolyn M. Brown. True Colors Project is stepping up to help artists in the time of COVID-19. "This is as a benefit performance to help us continue to support artists who want to create work with us," adds Brown. "We understand the impact of mission-focused theatrical performances."

The characters and cast in The Man With The Floppy Ears represent the wide range of culture and ethnicity of New York City but also a broad spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community. October is LGBTQ+ History Month, an observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history as well as gay rights and related civil rights movements.

FOR TICKETS ($10)

Visit On The Stage: https://onthestage.com/show/true-colors-project/the-man-with-the-floppy-ears-33431

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