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MAE WEST's controversial play "The Drag" will be onstage not far from the cornfields of the Midwest this weekend. Don't miss it.
• • Deanna Howard's feature in The Iowa City Press-Citizen gives some background. 
• • Deanna Howard writes: The second play of Dreamwell Theatre's season of "inciting theatre" is none other than Mae West's play, "The Drag." Organizers chose "The Drag" to coincide with local Gay Pride festivities.
• • "It's a chance for today's LGBT population to see how far we've come in the way of the social mindset, as how familiar some of the struggles are to our own today," said director Chuck Dufano.
• • "Things might get a little bizarre ... which is all in keeping with any good gay pride festival."
• • Dreamwell presents "The Drag" at 7:30 p.m. this Friday and Saturday and June 26—27, 2009 at the Universalist Unitarian Society. ...
• • Mae West wrote the play in the mid-1920s.
• • "For its time, it was a daring script," Dufano said. "She allowed gay men to speak in their own voice."
• • It's an interesting play because while it was cutting-edge then, by today's standards it's rather backwards, Dufano said.
• • "The Drag" centers on Rolly Kingsbury, a judge's son, who is set to inherit the family's ironworks business.
• • Kingsbury's marriage crumbles when the secret of a past affair with a man comes to light, as well as an affiliation with the local drag community.
• • Iowa City resident Gary Tyrrell plays one of the drag queens, Clem, in the production.
• • Growing up, Tyrrell was often encouraged to suppress his feminine side, to be ashamed of it.
• • Being in "The Drag" has allowed Tyrrell to come to grips with his childhood. He's enjoying the opportunity to show off his feminine side on stage. "It's been a lot of fun," Tyrrell said. "It's a good story. It has a lot of fun music from the Roaring 1920s."
• • WHERE: Universalist Unitarian Society — — 10 S. Gilbert Street, Iowa City, Iowa 52240.
— — Source: — —
• • Article: "Dreamwell presents 'The Drag'"
• • Play part of local Gay Pride events
• • Byline: Deanna Howard | Staffwriter
• • Published in: The Iowa City Press-Citizen — — www.press-citizen.com/
• • Published on: 18 June 2009
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• • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes surrounding "The Drag" and "Sex." Scenes in Act I dramatize Mae's interactions with her drag queen cast, the police raid on 9 February 1927, and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" has attracted the attention of a theatre owner and Is now seeking a co-producer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 28 March 1927 court trial • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
April 19th was a memorable date for MAE WEST.
• • By 19 April 1911, while touring on the vaudeville circuit in Minneapolis, Mae had uttered five obscenities and owed Little Gorman, treasurer of their Curse Club, fifty cents for these infractions. In truth, by cursing and acting up, Mae was showing the troupe how rapidly dissatisfied she had become with "marital bliss" and her limp biscuit of a bridegroom Frank Wallace. • • On 19 April 1933, bombshell Jayne Mansfield [1933 —1967] was born. Twenty-three years later, the starlet would be making the moves on Mickey Hargitay, then starring in the Mae West Revue. Miss Mansfield married the muscleman in 1957.• • On 19 April 1962, Curtis Cooksey, who had co-starred with Mae in "Diamond Lil" [1928], and had created the leading man role of the handsome Captain Cummings during the play's maiden voyage on Broadway, committed suicide. Charismatic Curtis Cooksey, who was born on 9 December 1891 in Indiana, had contracted cancer and did away with himself at age 70.• • • • Sentenced on 19 April 1927 • • • • 
• • Most unforgettably, on 19 April 1927, actress Mae West was sentenced for her performance in "Sex," the Broadway play she wrote, cast, and starred in. She was given ten days in prison and the jail time seems to have done her good — — from a publicity standpoint. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, friends, fans, and gawkers, Mae predicted, "I expect this will be the making of me!"
• • Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."
• • Last summer (July 2008), the cast of "Courting Mae West" acted out the chaos inside that Greenwich Village courtroom on 5 April 1927. The scintillating Yvonne Sayers, who portrayed Mae West, was on trial with Eric Eastman, who played her "Sex" co-star and co-defendant, Barry O'Neill. The judge's verdict ended Act I.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes surrounding "The Drag" and "Sex." Scenes in Act I dramatize Mae's interactions with her drag queen cast, the police raid on 9 February 1927, and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" has attracted the attention of a theatre owner and Is now seeking a co-producer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Source:http://maewest.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1927 • •
• • Feed — — http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MaeWestNYC
Mae West.
Several New Yorkers had seen Mae West's play "Sex" more than once — — including Sergeant Patrick Keneally, who had taken an exhaustive number of notes while attending three performances at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre in the line of duty.
• • Police action against "Sex" had been more in opposition to "The Drag" than to Margy LaMont's lascivious adventures, explains Jill Watts in her impeccably researched bio: Mae West: An Icon in Black and White. • • According to Jill Watts: While efforts to euthanize "The Drag" succeeded, "Sex" played to capacity crowds for several more weeks. However, by the beginning of March [1927], attendance had died off and profits shrank. Desperate to keep the production alive, the Morals Production Corporation ordered a 25% pay cut for everyone. Several players handed in their notices.
• • Finally, on Sunday, March 19, after the evening's performance, Morganstern announced that Mae West was physically exhausted and was closing the play. Yet he also emphasized her determination to fight the case to its end.
• • According to Jill Watts: Only a few days later, the New York State senate passed the Wales Padlock Bill, which required the district attorney to prosecute everyone associated with an indecent production and to lock down for one year any theatre that hosted such shows. It was less severe than mandating a stage censor and allowed the power over Broadway to remain with the district attorney, who in New York was the Tammany Hall loyalist Banton. The bill now sat waiting on Al Smith's desk.• • In Jefferson Market Police Court (on Sixth Avenue and West Ninth Street) the defendants from the "Sex" raid came to trial on 28 March 1927. The prosecution's case rested on the testimony of Sergeant Keneally and his ability to take rapid, accurate stenography in a darkened playhouse. New York's district attorney, perhaps addicted to the fortissimo eloquence of inner lives magnificently thwarted by the law, was prepared to step into his gladiator mode to do battle with the dauntless leonine jezebel of the Jazz Era — — Mae West.• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The serious-minded comedy "Courting Mae West" by Greenwich Village playwright LindaAnn Loschiavo, set during 1926 — 1932, explores Mae West's legal woes. Act I, Scenes 3 — 4 dramatize both the police raid on 9 February 1927 and the tense aftermath at Jefferson Market Police Court.
• • Using fictional elements, the text is anchored by true events and has several characters who are based on real people: actress Mae West; Beverly West; Jim Timony; Texas Guinan; a news seller on Sixth Avenue and West 9th Street; and Sara Starr, based on the Greenwich Village flapper Starr Faithfull, whose death inspired John O'Hara's novel "Butterfield 8" and a dozen other books.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" has attracted the attention of a theatre owner and Is now seeking a co-producer.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1927 courthouse • •
NYC
Mae West.
Publishers Weekly offered a capsule review of a new title devoted to Mae West. 
• • Speaking about the author Charlotte Chandler's latest release, the critic wrote this: Chandler (Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford) draws on her interviews with the 86-year-old Mae West, known for her “risqué brand of humor,” in this chatty memoir. West carefully constructed and guarded the image of her personality as a woman who enjoyed sex at a time when “skirts had to cover ankles.” She contended she was “never vulgar. The word for me was suggestive.”
• • West (1893–1980) craved the spotlight from a young age and had been a success in vaudeville, where she began to write her own material. Her screen legend perfected her sexually playful alter ego in such films as She Done Him Wrong, which contained her most quoted line: “Come up and see me sometime” [sic].
• • Chandler also includes Mae West's first-person account of her 10 days in jail — — when she was found guilty of producing an immoral Broadway show, her first full-length play, Sex. West remained a box-office draw into her 70s, appearing in the 1970 film Myra Breckinridge. Whether discussing her love life or advising on playwriting or beauty tips, Mae West was always entertaining. Photos. (Feb.)
• • Title reviewed: She Always Knew How: Mae West, a Personal Biography Charlotte Chandler. [NY: Simon & Schuster (336p) ISBN 978-1-4165-7909-0]
— — Source: — —
• • Article: PW's Nonfiction Reviews
• • Printed in: Publishers Weekly — — www.publishersweekly.com
• • Printed on: 12 January 2009
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • "Courting Mae West" features intriguing scenes dramatizing Mae's arrest and trials.
• • Offered onstage July 19th—22nd in New York City during the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival, "Courting Mae West" has been nominated for several awards. The black-tie awards gala will take place during April 2009 in Manhattan.• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • b/w detail from sketches for the Courting Mae West Comic • •
NYC
Mae West.
A West Coast feature "This Week in History" — — which mentions MAE WEST — — is glued together by the Santa Barbara Independent's news staff who, obviously, is a wee bit thick. Though reporters and fact-checkers have had eighty-one years to get their facts straight about what happened in 1927, here is the Santa Barbara Independent's inaccurate backwards glance on the date 19 April 1927. 
• • To wit: Actress/ playwright Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for writing Sex, a Broadway show about a gigolo, deemed “scandalous” by the courts. [Source for the incorrect info: Santa Barbara Independent: 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101; T. (805) 965-5205. Send corrections to this weekly here: corrections (at) independent.com. Their excuse for getting facts wrong was explained by Rachel, a staffmember, who assembles this feature and whose explanation appears below. They only do a quick cut-and-paste from The History Channel — — even if that means passing errors along. So if you want a job as a fact-checker or proofreader, reconsider which companies might value this service. At the Santa Barbara Independent, a more suitable title might be "This Week in Mystery" — — with trinkets given to the first canny readers who can spot the mistakes. This would be an inexpensive way to get the copy proofread as well, eh?]
• • Since when was Mae West's play "Sex" referred to by the inaccurate, tea-party word "scandalous"? In New York City, actresses do not get arrested, fined, and imprisoned because they are "scandalous." In Jefferson Market Court and in the courtroom transcript, this was called "an obscenity trial." The actors were fined and charged with giving an offensive and indecent performance. Mae West's manager and her producer also went to jail.• • Since when was "Sex" about a gigolo? Wrong plot and wrong-headed altogether.
• • Why? Well, since when would Mae West choose to star in a vehicle unless the narrative centered on the leading lady's role? She wouldn't and she didn't.• • Too bad the Santa Barbara Independent staff was not aware of the Aurora Theatre Company's critically acclaimed revival of "Sex" (starring Delia MacDougall in the role of Margy LaMont) onstage in Berkeley, California in November and December of 2007 — — a production that was widely reviewed in the West Coast media.
• • Synopsis of the 1926 play Mae West wrote in order to give herself a starring role: "Sex" is the tale of Margy LaMont, an ambitious young prostitute in Montreal, who is determined to get out of the skin trade and marry well. Margy takes the advice of a British naval officer [played in 1926 by handsome Barry O'Neill] to ''follow the fleet.'' That takes her to Trinidad, where she meets Jimmy Stanton, a naive rich boy from a blue-blooded Connecticut family. Jimmy proposes to Margy and whisks her home to his parents' well-furnished mansion.• • Well, there's no gigolo in that synopsis! Anyway this blog posting is set forth for all news media outlets who would like to have correct information [vs passing along the errors made by The History Channel].
• • On 5 April 1927 at Jefferson Market Court [on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village], the jury returned with a guilty verdict. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, photographers, and a mob of well-wishers, Mae told them, "You've got to fight in this world!" She added, "You've got to fight to get there — — and fight to stay there."• • On 19 April 1927, actress MAE WEST was sentenced for her performance in "Sex," the Broadway play she wrote, cast, and starred in. She was given ten days in prison and the jail time seems to have done her good — — from a publicity standpoint. As she left the courtroom, followed by reporters, friends, fans, and gawkers, Mae predicted, "I expect this will be the making of me!"
• • Though Mae West was sentenced to 10 days, she actually only served 8 days. The actress received "time off for good behavior."
• • The History Channel does not know this information yet — — nor do they use fact-checkers — — but Mae-mavens and history buffs are encouraged to contact them and ask them to correct errors. [Contact The History Channel: A & E Television Networks, 235 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017-3305; T. 212-210-1400.] And thank you to all who wrote to report other errors The History Channel has made.• • Plan ahead. Get ready to come up and see Mae onstage in New York City when the Annual Fresh Fruit Festival presents "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship and Secrets" (based on true events 1926 — 1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed) under the direction of Louis Lopardi at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street, NYC 10010] July 19th — 22nd, 2008.
• • "COURTING MAE WEST" opens at 7 o'clock on Saturday night July 19, 2008 at the Algonquin Theatre [123 East 24th Street — — near Park Avenue South].• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • Jefferson Market Court • • 28 March 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
• • The event's board of directors met and approved the director's pitch — — and the compelling history play "COURTING MAE WEST" has cleared the first hurdle to be onstage this summer during their annual early July festival in a theatre in Manhattan.
• • The Fresh Fruit Festival offers over 30 live acts. Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets is one of the two plays they will produce. The 95-minute serious-minded comedy will be shown FOUR times onstage [in a theatre with approximately 80 seats].
• • Details and ticket prices will be posted when available.
• • After the 9 February 1927 performance of "SEX," Mae was hauled off to Jefferson Market Police Court on Sixth Avenue, where she spent the night locked up in Jefferson Market Jail with streetwalkers, pickpockets, and drug addicts.
• • "Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship, and Secrets" is based on true events during 1926-1932 when Mae West was arrested and jailed for trying to stage two gay plays on Broadway.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Illustration: Michael DiMotta • • Mae West star of SEX • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
In 1927 Mae West was prosecuted here on Sixth Avenue for obscenity — — particularly because of the homosexual content of her shows. 
But more recently the nineteenth century landmark was about to be raped by the pencil-pushers who rule The New York Public Library. Fortunately, Greenwich Village residents rallied in the name of justice and won.
• • The Villager recently published this news about the beloved Jefferson Market Courthouse turned library.
• • In his front page feature "Long-overdue library facade repairs finally fully funded," staffwriter Albert Amateau explained the cause for jubilation. He wrote: "Villagers who have long been demanding the renovation of the Jefferson Market Library’s exterior celebrated the announcement on Tuesday [21 August 2007] that new city funding has assured the project.
• • Council Speaker Christine Quinn joined State Senator Tom Duane, New York Public Library President Paul LeClerc and Village leaders in the community room of the landmarked library to announce that the new funding brings the total allocation to more than $7 million for renovating the facade, windows, roof, and tower of the landmarked building erected in 1877 as a courthouse.
• • The beginning of construction is planned for June 2009 and is expected to be completed in two years. A two-month design phase includes review by the Landmarks Preservation Commission because the building is a designated New York City landmark. A final design and development of construction documents will follow and be submitted to contractors for bidding.
• • Several Greenwich Village Block Associations ... renewed the call for preserving the deteriorating exterior of the library. Since 2003, the Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street sides of the library have been obscured by a sidewalk shed erected to protect people from fragments of limestone and brick falling from the facade.
• • “We all know that the Jefferson Market Library is one of the great library buildings in the city,” Quinn said. “In 1880, it was cited as one of the 10 most beautiful buildings in the country. But in the past few years you had to squint to see it because of the scaffold.”
• • Quinn recalled that when Duane was city councilmember for the Village in 1992 — — and she was then on his staff — — he was able to get more than $700,000 allocated for restoring the building. Added to that, Quinn this year allocated $2.7 million in addition to $1.39 million she earmarked in previous years. Also this year, Mayor Bloomberg provided matching funds of $2.2 million for the library restoration.
• • It was uncertain last year whether previous funds appropriated for a redesign of the library’s interior could be reallocated for facade and structural work. But in February 2007, LI/ Salzman Architects completed a report funded by Quinn and Duane that concluded that because of significant deterioration of the sandstone and brickwork, plus open mortar joints and cracked stone, water had penetrated the facade causing the stonework to shift and settle and allowing the building’s iron structure to rust.
• • In addition, it was found that the Sixth Avenue portico has detached slightly from the facade and leans slightly toward the street.
• • All but $184,000 — — spent for interior design work [a design that would have reconfigured the library's reference room into a music lounge for teens] — — of more than $2 million previously funded will be transferred to the exterior project. The work includes shoring up deficiencies that contributed to the deterioration and returning the building to its original splendor.
• • Community Board 2 called the library "the most iconic building in the Village.”
• • Designed by Frederick Clark Withers and Calvert Vaux in 1875 and completed two years later, the courthouse was where Harry K. Thaw was found guilty of murdering the architect Stanford White and where Mae West was prosecuted for the sexual content of her shows.
• • The courthouse was erected on the site of the Jefferson Market, where a 100-foot-tall wooden fire tower kept watch over the Village. The courthouse tower is also 100 feet tall and holds the original fire bell from its wooden precursor.
• • By 1945 the building was no longer used as a courthouse and other agencies had occupied it. A 1958 decision to demolish the building was fought by Village advocates . . .
— — excerpt — —
• • Source: The Villager — — www.TheVillager.com
• • Byline: Albert Amateau
• • Published on: 23 August 2007
• • Unfortunately, this landmark has not preserved the building's cultural history via a plaque nor a permanent exhibition inside, where there's lots of space for it — — and now the funding. MAE WEST and a heap of women's history-makers tramped through these corridors. Maybe. . . .
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Illustration: • • Mae West on trial • • 1927 • •
NYC
Mae West.
