Whenever three-time Tony Award winner Nathan Lane is announced to star in an upcoming Broadway production, there is a collective sense that everything is alright with the world again. And so it was in September 2018 when producer Scott Rudin announced that Lane would star as the titular character in a world premiere comedy by the genius that is Taylor Mac. This brand new play is hilariously entitled Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus and is set in 400 B.C. after much gratuitous bloodshed and gore courtesy of the fall of the Roman Empire. Our guides through the play (and the bloody mess) are the two humble maids – Gary and Janice – as they begin the cumbersome task of clearing away all the human carcasses.
Playwright Taylor Mac has established himself in the New York City area as a mighty force of non-conformism and his work has frequently defied categorization. He previously made waves off-Broadway in the fall of 2015 with his gender-bending play Hir at Playwrights Horizons, but Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus marks his Broadway debut. He was also widely celebrated for his acting performance as Shen Tei in the 2013 Public Theater production of Brecht’s Good Person of Szechwan, earning a Lucille Lortel Award nomination in the process, but perhaps his most recent accomplishment was becoming a finalist in 2017 for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A 24-Decade History of Popular Music… a 24-hour epic performance marathon!
The pairing of Taylor Mac with Nathan Lane signals a match made in comedy heaven and Lane, of course, is one of the most reliable Broadway stalwarts when it comes to drawing a laugh from the audience. His iconic performances in The Producers and The Odd Couple, along with recent standout performances in comedies such as The Front Page and It’s Only a Play, have set the bar extremely high… in fact, only Lane himself could probably compete with it.
Let’s just hope we get a sequel to this tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek sequel to Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus...
(Photos by Julieta Cervantes)
This show has now closed. See our list of theatre tickets for shows currently on sale.
11 images In Gary, Taylor Mac’s singular world view intersects with Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus. Set during the fall of the Roman Empire, the years of bloody battles are over. The civil war has ended. The country has been stolen by madmen, and there are casualties everywhere. And two very lowly servants are charged with cleaning up the bodies. It’s only 400 B.C. – but it feels like the end of the world.
It has been announced that Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus will play its final performance at the Booth Theatre on June 16, 2019. The latest play by Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Taylor Mac, the Broadway production began previews on March 11 ahead of an official opening on April 21, and it will have played a total of 45 previews and 65 regular performances.
Broadway has gotten a little absurd… and that’s a good thing! The Broadway premiere of Taylor Mac’s new comedy Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus began previews at the Booth Theatre on March 11 and officially opened on April 21. This raucous limited engagement is currently scheduled to close on August 4, 2019. Kristine Nielsen & Nathan Lane in Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus What’s it all about?
The last occasion I spent time with theatrical performance artist, playwright and provocateur Taylor Mac it was for the 24-hour solo show A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, which I saw in one continuous 24 hour stretch back in October 2016 at St Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn in the one and only time judy (as Taylor Mac prefers to be known) performed it in this way.
