Photo Flash: Garrett Clayton & Charlie Thurston Star in LAVENDER MEN Staged Reading

Lavender Men, written by Roger Q. Mason and directed by Lovell Holder, had the largest audience yet for The Circle Series, a staged reading series hosted at Circle in the Square Theatre The Circle Series is a brand new reading series that presents new and developing work on Circle In the Square's Broadway stage, home of the Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma! Inspired by work like Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day, Lavender Men is a daring historical revisionist tale told through an experiemental queer lens. The reading played to a packed house on Monday, August 24.

Lavender Men follows Abe Lincoln, his legal assistant Elmer Ellsworth, and Taffeta, a gender-queer narrator who also transforms into Mary Lincoln, as they each fight for recognition and to be seen. Part fact, part gossip, all historical fantasia, Lavender Men mines the social mechanisms by which men become myths, myths beget lies, and lies give way to deeper civic and personal truth.

Former Disney Channel idol and recent star of Hairspray Live! and King Cobra Garrett Clayton played Elmer Ellsworth, Charlie Thurston played honest Abe, and playwright Roger Q. Mason played Taffeta. Lovell Holder, who recently directed a reading of the play at Skylight Theatre in LA, reprised his work for The Circle Series, making Lavender Men bicoastal in 2019.

Giving theatre lovers a new option to spend a Monday night on Broadway, The Circle Series brings together the New York theatrical community, showcasing new and developing work through the voices of New York's many talented artists on Circle in the Square's Broadway stage. The Circle Series is presented by the Pigasus Institute and produced by Rachel Shuey in partnership with the Circle in the Square Theatre School. All donations benefit Circle in the Square Theatre School.