To Be Loved (Version 1.0)
Originally performed off off Broadway at chashama, November-December 2006
Written by: Alex DeFazio
Directed by: Jody P. Person
Produced by: Faye Rosenbaum
Dramaturg: Inga Meier
Cast: Bobby Abid (Dis), Albert Aeed (Seigen), Kelly Markus (Dorian), Jesse Soursourian (Paul), Elizabeth Sugarman (Anon), and introducing Brian Sufalko (Nino) and Brady Niederer (The Smiling Man)
Crew: Valerie Lenz (Stage Manager), Carol Zingone (ASM), Amith A. Chandrashaker (Lighting Design), Jessica L. Kosky (Set Design), Mark Richard Caswell (Costumes), Chris Gardella (Graphic Design), Priyanka Dasgupta (Photography), Nicole Russano (Intern)
Original Music: Chris Gardella
Publicity: William Lessard, PRwithBrains
Media Sponsors: The Village Voice & Next Magazine
Dorian's Audio Equipment: SOTA Turntables
Presented by chashama & Elixir Productions
Synopsis: A monk confronts the reincarnated soul of his dead lover, a boy, in this unsettling gay ghost story inspired by classic Kabuki.
To Be Loved was developed in part through the New Moon Reading Series at Luna Stage in Montclair, NJ. The cast of the reading was identical to the chashama production with the following exceptions: Josiah DeAndrea (Nino), Nicole Russano (Chorus / Stage Directions), and Michelle Wood (Anon).
Perry Brass, White Crane Journal:
"Seigen is a fairly Ted Haggard character: all lust, prohibitions, inhibitions, guilt, and meanness. But he is redeemed, sadly enough, by his own true heart, seeking Paul, the Ganymede-like boy he pushed earlier out of his life to suicide, then finally finding him. This is a play about the worship of strange beauty, something I am thrilled with, and chashama and director Jody Person kept much of that intact. The tiny theater backs on to a plate glass store-front window on 42nd Street; the stage's rear black-out curtains are opened at moments in the action, and life in New York pulses in. Strange beauty, always."