Doric Wilson's Play - Forever After

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Bernie Sanford, Tom Enyart, Brown McDonald and Terry Swenson in "Forever After", Portland, OR 1985

Back row: Melpomene (Bernie "Dora Jar" Sanford), Thalia (Tom Enyart)
Front row: Tom (Brown McDonald), David (Terry Swenson) - Portland, OR, 1985

"the transvestite muses of Comedy and Tragedy invade an unexamined relationship and turn it gratifyingly (and wittily) inside out" - Michael Feingold, The Village Voice (NYC)

Doric Wilson on Forever After

Casey Wayne is the funniest man I ever met (trust me, Casey Wayne is the funniest man you ever met). Whether it be the mime who never shuts up or the aging star of silent radio, his multiple personalities can send Dame Edna "straight" back down under any day of the week. I wrote Melpomene in Forever After for Casey. As an act of genuine respect and abiding friendship, I loaded the part with verbal sand traps and roller coaster tongue twisters (my apologies to the many actors who have had to navigate the role later). Mr. Wayne hardly batted a ten inch eyelash at my efforts and sailed through the play, a clipper ship hell bent for China.

Forever After opened in 1980 as part of the First Gay American Arts Festival organized by the Glines. (I don’t recall a second festival.) It shared the bill with every one from Jack Wrangler to Ned Rorem to John Rechy to Eartha Kitt. The Festival included premieres of plays that were to become central to the gay theater cannon. Jane Chamber’s haunting and heartbreaking Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (Jean Smart’s NYC debut); Robert (Don’t play with that word, you don’t know where it’s been) Patrick’s T-Shirts, a sweet three part invention on (amongst other things) the joys of aging; and Cal Yoaman’s neatly twisted Richmond Jim (a play I never fully appreciated until Jerry West’s production in Portland, OR). Playwrights also present (at least in the periphery) were the frog-voiced theatrical double threat Harvey Fierstein; butch mutchkin Victor Bumbalo; wicked waif Martin Sherman; and arguably the most original voice in gay theater (and my dear friend) Robert Chesley. In other words, the Festival (thank you, Larry Lane and John Glines) collected the very best New York gay theater had to offer in the 1970s.

Knowing that many of the above mentioned playwrights would attend my first night, I had great fun targeting some of them in Forever After (after first taking a pot shot at myself). To not appear gay chauvinistic, I included the certifiably heterosexual (fellow Cino alumni) Sam Shepard in my sights. After the performance Jane Chambers gave me a big kiss in gratitude for excluding her.

Having written Forever After as a pièce de occasion, I didn’t expect it to have a life beyond the Festival. It became one of my most produced plays (Boston did it countless times) and the muses still show up to "queer" the climax, most recently in Kansas City.

Forever After was also the first play Terry Helbing published in his JH Press Gay Play Script Series. For most of the 1970s, Terry Helbing was the mogul of gay theater. Conflict of interest was an alien concept to him, by the time of the Mineshaft production of Street Theater, he produced the play (as Meridian Gay Theatre), published it, acted in it (Jordan), represented it as my agent, and was furious because the newspaper he wrote for wouldn’t allow him to review it. He did everything in the theater except write plays for it. And he wasn’t as funny as Casey Wayne.

New York City, June 16, 2000

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Doric Wilson's FOREVER AFTER Copyright Notice CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that *Doric Wilson’s FOREVER AFTER* is subject to a royalty. The play is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, classroom or workshop performance, radio broadcasting, television, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved by the author. Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings and the use of this play for classroom, workshop or audition purposes, permission for which must be secured from the author and/or his agent in writing. No portion of the play may be published, reprinted in any publication, or copied for any commercial reason, excepting copies necessary for personal use or to assist in a production of the play, without permission of the author and or his agent. To acquire performance rights contact Doric Wilson, c/o TOSOS Too, 506 Ninth Avenue, Apt 3FN, New York, N.Y. 10018. Telephone: (212) 563-2218; Email: doricw@nyc.rr.com By submitting this form, you indicate you agree with the above stated Copyright Notice.