Diversionary Theatre's Queer Theatre Program Presents LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM Reading 11/17

Diversionary Theatre's Queer Theatre program will present a reading of David Zellnik's play Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom, a comedy set in New York in 1996, and is about (variously): disability, gay porn, the pharmaceutical revolutions of the 90s, Chairman Mao, and the rise and fall of post-AIDS euphoria. It is the story of how to construct a life, a sex life, and a friendship after ten years of believing you would die very soon.

This one night event will be held at Diversionary on Tuesday, November 17 at 7:30pm. Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom has been described as quite funny, quite serious, part comic fantasy and part love story. The reading will be directed by guest director Igor Goldin, who is back in San Diego directing Diversionary's holiday production of "The New Century," and will feature Tom Zohar, Ira Spector, Markuz Rodriguez and Andy Collins.

With his brother, composer Joe Zellnik, David has written book and lyrics for several musicals, most recently Yank! which received a nomination for an "Outstanding New York Theater: Off-Off Broadway" award from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Yank! had its first major regional production at Diversionary Theatre in July 2008, which was directed by Igor Goldin and featured Tom Zohar. Yank! will have an Off-Broadway production at The York Theatre Company in February 2010, again directed by Goldin.

Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom has been performed in New York twice - it won the Off-Off Broadway Review's (OOBR) best play award, the All Out Arts best play award, a Jerome Grant, as well as some rave reviews from gay and straight papers alike from productions in New York and the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. Jillian Perlberger, writing for the OOBR, summed up the play: "What happens when a circle of gay friends and lovers emotionally prepare themselves for their own and each others' sickness and death, then suddenly find that modern medicine may be handing them a new lease on life? This question is explored with tremendous insight, poignancy and humor in David Zellnik's Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom, a play alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) wrenchingly funny and achingly sweet. The central character and narrator, Puppy, is a writer of pornography whose life in a wheelchair has placed no shackles on his imagination. He is the emotional center of the play: a man who cares deeply for his friends, engineers their growth and reconciliations, and, unfortunately, receives the least of their sexual love, of which his cavalier writings belie his yearning."

Started in 1986, the mission of Diversionary Theatre is to produce plays with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes that portray characters in their complexity and diversity both historically and contemporarily. Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom is part of Diversionary's Queer Theatre - Taking Center Stage play development program. The program honors the ideas, the energy and commitment people have made to tell LGBT stories.

Tickets are now on sale through the Diversionary Theatre Box Office. General Admission tickets are $12 ($9 for Diversionary subscribers). Call the Box Office at 619.220.0097 or visit the website at www.diversionary.org.