Garrett Clayton & Charlie Thurston Lead LAVENDER MEN Staged Reading

Celebrating one month of Monday night readings, The Circle Series has selected Roger Q. Mason's Lavender Men to round out the summer portion of the program. Staged at Broadway's Circle in the Square, admission for this and all readings in The Circle Series is by suggested donation, with all proceeds benefiting Circle in the Square Theatre School.

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. Lavender Men asks us to question which parts of our identity must be shed to receive the recognition of others-particularly when the "others" are two white men in a relationship we certainly haven't seen in our history books, and one of the pair destined to be a future President.

When asked about the play, playwright Roger Q. Mason said, "I've been obsessed with Lincoln and the Civil War for over a decade. To me, it was an era of Americana magic. We were superstitious, religious, ritualistic, baroque, gothic then. It's a rich place from which to build drama. It is the place where so many of the social and cultural horrors of today are born: the machine replacing manual labor; the distillation and exploitation of due process of law; segregation; sexism. It was all codified then."

Disney and Hairspray Live! star Garrett Clayton will play Elmer Ellsworth to Charlie Thurston's honest Abe, and the playwright himself will play Taffeta. Lovell Holder, who recently directed a reading of the play at Skylight Theatre in LA, will reprise his work for The Circle Series, making Lavender Men bicoastal in 2019.

The reading begins at 7pm and is preceded by a social hour at 6pm.

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.

For complete information about The Circle Series, visit www.circleseries.org