Island City Stage, one of the LGBT-centric theater companies based in Wilton Manors, will offer audiences an award-winning classic, big Broadway dreams, a pulp fiction musical, a neurotic family drama and murderous mayhem in their 12th anniversary season.
“Love! Valour! Compassion!,” Oct. 12 – Nov. 5, is Terrence McNally’s epic Tony Award and Drama Desk Award-winning dramedy about eight gay friends. Love, laughs, betrayal and life set the pace as they gather over the holidays one summer at a beautiful 100-year-old house in upstate New York. This groundbreaking play is one of the cornerstones of contemporary LGBT culture.
Ana Nogueira’s playful yet profound comedy, “Which Way to the Stage,” Jan. 18 – Feb. 11, is about friendship, ambition, and what happens when dreams fall just out of reach. Broadway superfans Jeff and Judy eagerly await their idol Idina Menzel every night at the stage door after her performances in “If/Then.” When a sexy stranger enters the scene and upends their decades-long friendship, the musical theater aficionados have to go off book and rewrite their own finale.
Reeling from her ex-husband’s engagement to a much younger woman, Jodi Isaac turns to her famous fashion-designer dad for support in “Skintight,” April 11 – May 5. Instead, she finds him wrapped up in his West Village townhouse with Trey – who is 20…and not necessarily gay…but an adult film star. At least, according to Jodi’s son – who is also 20…and definitely gay. Joshua Harmon (“Bad Jews,” “Significant Other”) brings neurotic family drama and confronts the age-old questions of how to age gracefully in a world obsessed with youth and where love fits into it all.
Charles Busch’s comic melodrama, “Die! Mommie Die!,” Aug. 29 – Sept. 22, evokes the 1960s “Grande Dame Guignol” films that featured aging stars such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner. Ex-pop singer Angela is trapped in a hateful marriage with a film producer. Desperate to find happiness with her younger lover, an out-of-work TV actor, Angela murders her husband with the aid of a poisoned suppository, in a plot that reflects Greek tragedy as well as Hollywood kitsch. This production stars Kris Andersson, better known as Dixie Longate, host of “Dixie’s Tupperware Party.”