Bootycandy
by Robert O'Hara

Houston Premiere

Ticket Price

Pay What You Can

We Suggest $35
More If You Have it
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Location

MATCH

3400 Main St

Houston, TX 77002

Venue Info

Performances

Feb 15, 2019 -

Mar 10, 2019

Thu 7:30p

Fri & Sat 8p

Sun 2:30p

“There is a physical memory after one chokes. Lingering. It makes you aware that all chocolate cake…ain’t the same.”

Cast & Personnel

Director

Vance Johnson

Cast

The Play

Robert O’Hara’s semi-autobiographical and wildly subversive comedy tells the story of Sutter, a young gay black man on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and his grandmother’s nursing home. At times poignant, shocking, hilarious, and wise, BOOTYCANDY is a kaleidoscope of scenes, sermons, sketches, and daring meta-theatrics. O’Hara uses bold social satire to explore the space between pain and pleasure and to take an unflinching look at attitudes toward homosexuality in black culture. Winner of the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Drama.

BOOTYCANDY’s original Off-Broadway production was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. The Times review praised the script for being “as raw in its language and raucous in spirit as it is smart and provocative” and for showing that O’Hara possesses “a sizable talent, not to mention another important asset for a playwright who wants to make his mark by shaking up the world, one audience at a time: fearlessness.” Directed by first-time Catastrophic collaborator Vance Johnson, whose production of PASSING STRANGE for Standing Room Only Productions won the 2017 Houston Press Theatre Award for Best Musical.

The Director

VANCE JOHNSON is a graduate of UCLA’s Department of Film, Theater and Television, and has worked as actor, producer, and director with a number of theater companies since moving to Houston in the ‘90s. He is a co-founder of award-winning SRO Productions, known for producing vibrant Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals here in Houston. For SRO Productions, Vance has directed, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; Avenue Q; the SRO original musical productions of Feeling Alright, and Heartbreak USA; and the Houston Press Best Musical of 2017, Passing Strange. Vance’s other directing projects include,The Complete Works of William Shakespeare-Abridged; Twelfth Night; Working; I Hate Hamlet; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Anna in the Tropics. Vance would like to thank the creative team at Catastrophic Theatre for giving him the opportunity to helm the challenging, and outrageously funny, Bootycandy.

The Playwright

ROBERT O'HARA received a 2006 Obie Award for his Direction of the World Premiere production of In the Continuum. He wrote and directed Insurrection: Holding History at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater. The piece received the Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play and was subsequently published by both Theater Communications Group and Dramatist Play Service. It has been produced around the country including at Mark Taper Forum and American Conservatory Theater. His new play, Antebellum, was workshopped at the O'Neill Theater Conference; American Ma(u)l was produced by ACT/Magic Theater and The Culture Project; The Spot, produced at Mark Taper Forum and NYSF; Down Low, produced by Mixed Blood Theater; and B.Candy, produced by Partial Comfort Productions. Current and recent writing projects are a rewrite (uncredited) for The Wiz, directed by Des McAnuff; Raw Pearl, Broadway bio-musical of Pearl Bailey, to be produced by Bill and Camille Cosby; a New Play Commission from LaJolla Playhouse; Good Breeding, (after The Oresteia), currently in production at UCSD; as well as My Place in the Horror, to be produced by Duly Noted Inc., as his feature film directing debut. He has written films for Martin Scorsese/Universal Pictures (Live, a biopic of Richard Pryor); Spike Lee/HBO (Micheaux, biopic of Oscar Micheaux); Avnet/Kerner/ABC (Parting the Waters); Sony Pictures (The Journey is the Destination); New Line/Fine Line Cinema (Boorda); and Artisan Entertainment (White Folks). His plays have been produced around the world and he has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, TCG Extended Collaboration Grant, NEA/TCG Fellowship, a Van Lier Fellow at New Dramatists, the first Mark Taper Forum's Sherwood Award, and the Tanne Award for Exceptional Body of Work. He is currently directing the World Tour of the Off-Broadway hit play, In the Continuum. He has been an artist in residence at the American Conservatory Theater, New York Shakespeare Festival, and Theater Emory, as well as a visiting Professor at DePaul University School of the Arts. His work has been developed at Seattle Rep., Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, NYSF, ACT, and CTG. He has been commissioned by Mark Taper Forum, National Endowment of the Arts, McCarter Theatre, Theatres de Nimes, Le Theatre l'Odeon, Theaterworks/USA, and Theater Emory.

Community Partner

The T.R.U.T.H. Project educates and mobilizes LGBTQ communities of color and their allies through social arts that promote mental, emotional, and sexual health. Founded in March 2011 by Kevin Anderson, The T.R.U.T.H. Project, Inc. has become known for raising community awareness about resources that address LGBTQ communities and their allies. Anderson has worked on the front lines in the field of HIV and other health disparities and recognizes the need to continue to foster a space for healing, personal transformation and social change. Since its launch, The T.R.U.T.H. Project has had the opportunity to align with Grammy Award winning artist Chrisette Michelle and Marsha Ambrosius for a special World AIDS Day installment created to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS stigma and HIV testing. The T.R.U.T.H. Project’s greatest impact has been facilitated with local and national artists at its quarterly installments focused on various art forms and concentrated messages.