UK premiere of The Twentieth Century Way at Jermyn Street Theatre

Jermyn Street Theatre announces its first production of 2017...

Ahead of its forthcoming productions of Cautionary Tales for Daughters, Beau Brummell An Elegant Madness and Stephen Sondheim's The Frogs, Jermyn Street Theatre in association with The Collective (a small company of RADA & AADA graduates) will stage the UK premiere of Tom Jacobson's tragi-comedy The Twentieth Century Way.

Directed by Marylynne Anderson-Cooper, the two-hander will feature cast members James Sindall and Fraser Wall.

"Los Angeles 1914 - a place where modern world reality meets 19th Century bigotry.  A time when law enforcement agencies are on a collision course with the clandestine and illicit gay community. In this environment, the police department of Long Beach, California hire two actors as "vice specialists" - their role "to entrap social vagrants" in a sexual act by posing as homosexual men. Lurking in public restrooms and bathhouses, they entice likely suspects into exposing their genitals, then arrest them and in so doing earn $15 a shot. Thirty-one men are arrested. At least one commits suicide.

 The Twentieth Century Way tells the true story of a dark chapter in the history of gay rights. Two actors take on a dizzying array of characters from cops to vagrants, lawyers to hacks, bait to quarry in a work that tackles the thorny themes of persecution, secret love, sex, deception and the relationship between dissemblance and performance."

Performances begin on 6th January 2017, before an official opening on 9th January and a limited engagement through to 28th January 2017.

Tickets are on sale now.