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    Short North Stage Honors 30th Anniversary of AZT With Reading of The Normal Heart

    Short North Stage isn’t resting for long between their extended, sold-out run of Hand to God and their upcoming anticipated production of Spamalot. This week they’re staging a reading of one of the most important pieces of political theatre of the last 40 years: Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart. This reading coincides with the 30th anniversary of AZT’s approval by the FDA.

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    Larry Kramer founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in his living room in 1981 in response to what was then a mystery disease. David France’s 2016 book How to Survive a Plague vividly recounts the early days of the AIDS crisis through the introduction of effective antiretroviral drugs. Already an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and acclaimed, controversial, novelist, Kramer turned fresh wounds and justified outrage into art with The Normal Heart. Opening at the Public in Manhattan in 1985, it became a sensation that ran for 11 months. Mel Gussow for the New York Times compared it to Ibsen. Frank Rich’s review for the same paper said, “The blood that’s coursing through [this play] is boiling hot.”

    Kramer transmutes barely-disguised real people and events in this roman a clef into something that feels real in the way only an artist can make reality feel like a truer, more potent version of itself. The fever-pitch the work reaches struck a chord in almost everyone who heard it, through two New York revivals (one on Broadway) and HBO film and countless regional productions. CATCO then called Contemporary American Theatre, staged the Columbus premiere barely a year after its New York opening, in a Columbus not always as progressive or accepting of new voices or ideas. That CATCO production is still spoken of with reverence 31 years later. In a Dispatch article at the time, Van Ackerman, who played Kramer’s alter ego Ned Weeks, said, “None of us have any friends or close relations who have AIDS, we watched hours of training tapes for AIDS counselors. We also talked to a gay doctor, lawyer and minister about the prejudice people have against AIDS…Medicine can’t help but be political because we’re dealing with a whole nation’s health.”

    In the press release for the reading, “We have come so far in combatting this disease since the tragic early years when we lost so many loved ones,” says Rick Gore, Executive Producer of Short North Stage. “No play recounts the pain and struggle of that period better than The Normal Heart. It’s a heart-breaking reminder of this tragic period in our history and a way to portray, as only theater can, that era to a generation that didn’t experience it.”

    For bringing this to life, director Elliott Lemberg, drama director for New Albany-Plain Local has assembled a perfect cast. Todd Covert’s stunned audiences including this writer as powerful, complicated men from Dwight Eisenhower to Nathan Detroit and watching him tackle Ned Weeks promises to be a fascinating fit. John Stefano returns after his triumphant Teyve last year as Ned’s heterosexual brother Ben. Rob Philpott, intriguing and mercurial in MadLab’s Until He Wasn’t serves as Weeks’ dying lover Felix. This list just scratches the surface, with other actors who have made indelible impressions in every genre from Susan Gellman to Nick Hardin and more.

    As good as the film was, this is the kind of fire-breathing play that needs the physicality of actors in proximity to one another and an audience breathing the same air.

    The two March 19 performances feature talkbacks from Equitas Health about both the history and progress of the HIV/AIDS crisis but also challenges still in front of us. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation will sponsor a reception at 5 p.m. between the March 19 matinee and evening performances that includes a talk by their pharmacist on the evolution of anti-retroviral medications.

    The Normal Heart plays March 16 through March 19 with performances at 8:00 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more info, visit shortnorthstage.org.

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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