After winning awards in New York, Boston and Dublin while garnering rapturous rave reviews internationally, Bradford Louryk's mesmerizing and vibrantly sensuous reincarnation of the 1950's most famous woman on earth, "CHRISTINE JORGENSEN REVEALS", will make its historic return engagement off-Broadway at The Lion Theatre (410 West 42nd Street) on Thursday, February 26th.
Produced by GREG TULLY for the PLATFORM THEATRE GROUP, the return engagement of "CHRISTINE JORGENSEN REVEALS" will begin Preview Performances on Thursday, February 19th.
The show will run through Sunday, March 15th.
CHRISTINE JORGENSEN was born GEORGE Jorgensen, Jr. on May 30th, 1926 to unsuspecting middle-class Danish-American parents in the Bronx. She was drafted into an unsuspecting United States Army where she served out her time at a desk at Fort Dix in New Jersey from 1948 to 1950.
She then flew to Copenhagen, Denmark where she was re-born as CHRISTINE Jorgensen, the first American transsexual.
On December 1st, 1952 the New York Daily News printed a front-page story about Christine's miraculous transformation.
The headline read, "EX-GI BECOMES BLONDE BEAUTY: OPERATION TRANSFORMS BRONX YOUTH". FAME! CELEBRITY! NOTORIETY! COMPLETE LOSS OF ANY SEMBLANCE OF ANONYMITY! UNPRECEDENTED MEDIA COVERAGE! When she returned to New York on February 12th, 1953 her plane landed at Idlewild Airport to be greeted by the largest throng of photographers, reporters and news crews ever gathered in one spot to date.
She became the most publicized person on the planet Earth. She allowed this insanity to continue for four years without any interference from herself or her parents
with whom she lived in a house on Long Island that FAME built.
THEN.
In 1958 CHRISTINE JORGENSEN walked into a recording studio in New York and allowed herself to be interviewed - for 51 minutes. Arguably the most revealing, truthful and riveting 51 minutes ever set down on vinyl.
"CHRISTINE JORGENSEN REVEALS" is a one-man-tour-de-force-paintakingly-acurate-reincarnation
of those searing and revolutionary 51 minutes.
BRADFORD LOURYK is a wizard of deception and a master of the impossible as he morphs his six-foot frame into a completely convincing demure woman of the 1950's who stands no taller than 5'6" in a size 10 suit draped over an extremely petite 120 pound figure.
Within minutes MR. LOURYK literally disappears and the revelation begins.
Under the scrutiny of the questions posed by MR. RUSSELL, the interviewer, and under the uncompromising glare of very revealing lighting CHRISTINE JORGENSEN does what she ultimately became famous for. SHE TELLS THE TRUTH.
It is absolutely riveting. She backs away from nothing.
She faces each question head on. She never flinches. With eyes wide open she blinds her audience with complete candor. The result is a theatrical triumph of what almost became a lost treasure of communication.
THE RETURN ENGAGEMENT
"CHRISTINE JORGENSEN REVEALS"
THE CREATOR & STAR
Bradford Louryk
THE INTERVIEWER
Rob Grace
THE DIRECTOR
Josh Hecht
THE PRODUCER
Greg Tully
THE DESIGNERS
Costumes-Mary Ping
Scenery-Wilson Chin
Lighting-Josh Bradford
Sound-Rob Kaplowitz
Projection Design-Kevin French
Properties-Jung Griffin
Wigs-Jason P. Hayes
THE THEATRE
The Lion Theatre
410 West 42nd Street
(between 9th & 10th Avenues)
THE PLAYING SCHEDULE
Wednesdays - Saturdays @ 8:00pm
Saturdays @ 2:00pm
Sundays @ 3:00pm
TICKETS
$48
RESERVATIONS
www.TICKETCENTRAL.com
212-279-4200
59 E 59 - 2005
The Edinburgh International Fringe Festival - 2005
Dodger Stages - 2006
Studio Theatre - Theatre Row - 2006
The Boston Centre For The Arts - 2006
The Project Arts Theatre - Dublin - 2006
Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience
The Hilton Edwards Award for Outstanding Production
The Micheal MacLiammoir Award for Best Actor
GLAAD Media Award Nomination for Best Play
IRNE Award Nomination for Best Play
Drama Desk Award winner BRADFORD LOURYK is an actor and theater artist who most significantly conceived and performed the critically acclaimed Christine Jorgensen Reveals, which has played at 59E59 Theaters, The Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Dodger Stages, Theatre Row, The Boston Center for the Arts (BCA), and The Project Arts Centre in Dublin (where Mr. Louryk received the Hilton Edwards Award for his work). Christine Jorgensen Reveals also received a 2006 GLAAD Media Award nomination for Best Play. His other New York credits include his Klytaemnestra's Unmentionables at hERE; Clay McLeod Chapman's redbird and Rob Grace's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at The Culture Project for Studio 42; the American Premiere of First You're Born at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons; Jewish Mothers (also by Clay McLeod Chapman) for the Culture Project's Women Center Stage Festival; and New Georges' ManFest, in which he performed his Elektra. More recently, Mr. Louryk was named a Fellow of The Sundance Institute (where he developed his solo play Lukrezia Borgia at the Institute's Theatre Laboratory) and has had the privilege of working with Tony Award-nominated directors Moises Kaufman and Christopher Ashley. In August 2008, he headlined a cast of thirteen in the sold-out World Premiere of The Most Lamentable and Tragical Historie of the Barber-Surgeons before returning to solo work to present a concert version of his Klytaemnestra's Unmentionables for The Performance Project at The University Settlement in December 2008. Bradford has been profiled by or featured prominently in major international media including The New York Times, The Post, The Daily News, Newsday, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, The Scotsman, The Guardian, American Theatre, GOTHAM Magazine (as one of New York City's 100 Most Eligible Bachelors), and Backstage; on television and radio; and in the books Dionysus Since `69 (available from Oxford University Press) and We Will Have Justice, released in November 2008 by McFarland. He is the founding Artistic Director Studio 42 (a New York City-based, not-for-profit producing organization), a founding member of The Starving Artists Award Fund, and three-time Co-Chair of The Starving Artists Ball. Recent and ongoing collaborations include Version Mary with Josh Hecht, Jack Ferver, Mike Albo, David Grimm, Lisa Kron, Bryony Lavery, Wendy MacLeod, Pulitzer Prize finalist Theresa Rebeck, and Emmy Award nominee Kate Robin; BLOW with Bathsheba Doran and Ken Rus Schmoll; and an opera with Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner Yotam Haber and Kelly Dupuis.
