MJ Kaufman's Galatea: A Free Online Event With Red Bull Theater

An Online Benefit Reading
GALATEA
by MJ KAUFMAN
THIS Monday, March 22, 2021
7:30 PM EST | LIVESTREAM

GALATEA OR WHATEVER YOU BE is a trans love story set against the backdrop of a climate crisis. Loosely based on John Lyly’s 1585 play Gallathea, MJ Kaufman's GALATEA tells the story of two young people who escape a virgin sacrifice by dressing up as boys and running away to the woods where they meet and fall in love.
Directed by Will Davis (India Pale Ale, Men in Boats), this LIVE benefit reading will feature Grammy Award winner Ty Defoe, Esco Jouléy (High Maintenance), Jo Lampert (Hundred Days, Joan of Arc), Pooya Mohseni (Madame Secretary) ###strong (Netflix’s Jessica Jones), Futaba Shioda (Rent 20th Anniversary tour), and TL Thompson (Is This a Room). ###a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" href="https://redbulltheater.us9.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c2a3b2791397cbd62696750b1&id=8d13a3f3f2&e=1d240a172f" fg_scanned="1">FIND OUT MORE
This benefit reading is presented in collaboration with

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ABOUT GALATEA

by JULIE CRAWFORD | Columbia University

MJ Kaufman’s Galatea or Whatever You Be, a genderqueer translation of an already pretty queer Elizabethan play by John Lyly, is set in an unnamed village terrorized by the god Neptune – the “one with the big pitchfork-like thing” – who demands the sacrifice of the villagers’ most beautiful virgin every five years in order to save the village from destruction. (“I AM THE OCEAN,” Neptune crows, “I SWALLOW EVERYTHING”). In order to save their daughters Galatea and Phyllida from death, the villagers Melebeus and Titerys crossdress them as boys and send them off into the woods. There, the “girlboys” attract the unwanted attention of Diana’s nymphs, who, while normally devoted to “lesbian separatist solidarity,” are temporarily heterosexualized by Cupid’s arrows, and fall madly in love with one another...KEEP READING

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The recording of this past Monday's LIVE premiere of John Lyly's GALLATHEA is available until 7:00 PM EST this Friday, March 19 – then it disappears. Watch it at our website, HERE. It is also available directly on YouTube. Directed by Emma Rosa Went, this playful pastoral of love, desire, and finding yourself is an affirmation of identity–joyfully reclaimed for 2021.
The reading featured Olivia Rose Baressi, Helen Cespedes, Nathaniel P. Claridad, Yonatan Gebeyehu, Amy Jo Jackson, Layla Khoshnoudi, Rami Margron, Christopher Michael McFarland, Jason O’Connell, Aneesh Sheth, David Ryan Smith, and Zo Tipp. Presented in collaboration with The Drama League. GET DETAILS

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