FORBIDDEN! to Make U.S. Premiere at Plays of Wilton

Plays Of Wilton has announced that it will present the U.S. premiere of Forbidden!, a groundbreaking drama that was lost to time and widely regarded by many scholars as the world's first coming-out play.

Written by Dutch novelist and playwright Jo M. van IJssel de Schepper-Becker and originally presented in Rotterdam in 1922 as Wat niet mag! (Mustn't Do It!) public reaction to the play was immediate and hostile, leading to the show being cancelled after just two performances. But a century later, after being translated by theater historian Laurence Senelick, the play is being given new life as director Ronnie Larsen presents a limited six-week engagement Wednesday August 19 - Tuesday September 29 at The Foundry, 2306 N. Dixie Highway. Forbidden! will have its official opening night on Thursday, August 27, and is being sponsored by The Warten Foundation in the hope that as many people as possible will see this rediscovered and timeless production.

Forbidden! is a heartfelt drama exploring love and the suffocating expectations of family and society. Widely regarded as the first play ever written to place an openly gay lead character center stage and declare that homosexuality is normal and should not be criminalized, it is also believed to be the first in which a lead character comes out as gay to his family. Set within the seemingly respectable home of an upper-middle-class family, long-buried truths surface as one son's hidden life forces those around him to confront their prejudices, fears, and capacity for acceptance. 

The humanity and emotional honesty of Forbidden! remain every bit as powerful as they were when the show first premiered in 1922 at Rotterdam's prestigious Groote Schouwburg (The Grand Theatre), where it was mounted by the prominent theatrical company Het Rotterdamsch Tooneel. Public reaction was one of outrage, sparking intense criticism and institutional backlash that forced the production to close after just two performances. Local critics and medical journals published scathing condemnations, furious that the play dared to portray its central character as innately gay and deserving of empathy rather than condemnation. Audiences were essentially being asked to accept a gay man. The show  was promptly cancelled for being too progressive for its time, and what many scholars now believe to be the world's first coming-out play remained largely forgotten for generations until it was rediscovered and translated by theater historian Laurence Senelick in 2010, becoming one of the most significant rediscoveries in LGBTQ+ theatrical history.

 

““I've spent most of my life producing gay theater, and I couldn't believe I had never heard of this play" says Director Ronnie Larsen. "What amazes me most about Forbidden! is that a female playwright was saying things about gay people that the rest of society wasn't ready to hear a hundred years ago. Now, audiences in South Florida will be among the very few in the world who have ever had the chance to see it, and we're very proud to give it the full run it deserves."

The cast of Forbidden!  features Plays of Wilton alumni Seth Trucks (Fall Well), Sara Grant (Fall Well), Nicole Hulett (The Sound of Music), Alex Martinez (Torch Song) and Chad Raven (The Actors).

Forbidden!'s creative team features scenic design by Jeff Walters, lighting design by Preston Bircher, sound design by Panos Miltos, public relations by Dan Demello (DDPR), and Associate Producer Joseph Guidetti.

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