New York’s provocative, polyamorous Off-Broadway hit Afterglow gets its UK premiere this summer at London’s Southwark Playhouse, where its strictly limited season runs from 5 June to 20 July 2019, with a press night on 11 June.
Josh and Alex, a married couple in an open relationship, invite Darius to share their bed one night. When a new intimate connection begins to form, all three men must come head to head with one another’s notions of love, intimacy, and commitment.
Afterglow had its world premiere in New York in 2017 in a production directed by author S Asher Gelman. The play is loosely based on Gelman’s real-life experience with his husband Mati, who also worked on the US production. Running in a tiny 69-seat theatre, it extended multiple times through to August 2018, selling more than 23,000 seats and grossing over $1million at the box office.
The UK premiere production will be directed by Tom O’Brien and presented by Broadway producer Adam Roebuck. Casting and the full creative team for London is still to be announced.
This one-act, 90-minute “steamy stripped-down look at gay intimacy’ (Huffington Post) contains strong language and nudity.
The New York production was an oft-extended Off-Broadway hit
Bios
S. Asher Gelman (author) is a director, choreographer, actor, dancer, playwright, and producer. Through his production company, Midnight Theatricals, he produced and directed his first original play, Afterglow, which ran for 14 months Off-Broadway at the Davenport Theater. He is currently producing the Off-Broadway musical We Are The Tigers by Preston Max Allen. Gelman’s second play, Safeword, opens Off-Broadway in April. Originally from Chevy Chase, MD, Asher received his Bachelors Degree in Dance and Theater from Bard College in New York in 2006, and his Masters in Fine Arts in Dance from The George Washington University in Washington DC in 2012. From 2006 to 2016, Asher lived in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he became one of the founders of The Stage, Tel Aviv’s premier English language performing arts organisation, serving as its first Artistic Director from 2013 to 2016. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Asher lives in New York City with his husband, Mati.
Photo © Darren Bell
Tom O’Brien (director) trained at Arts Ed, National Theatre Studio and with Living Pictures. As Director, theatre includes: Fabric (Marlowe Theatre Canterbury/UK Tour/Underbelly – Scotsman Fringe First Winner 2016); Foiled (Edinburgh Festival); Our Friends, The Enemy (UK Tour/Edinburgh Festival/Theatre Row, New York City); The Dogs of War (Old Red Lion); Remote (Drum – Theatre Royal Plymouth/St Ives Theatre); The Wedding Singer (The Lowry); The Fastest Clock In The Universe (Old Red Lion – Recorded for The V&A National Video Archive of Performance); How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (The Lowry); Coming Up (Soho Theatre); Judy The Righteous (King’s Head); Christmas Is Miles Away (Hen and Chickens Theatre).
Adam Roebuck (producer) is a producer and/or investor whose credits on Broadway include: Groundhog Day: The Musical; The Play That Goes Wrong; The Iceman Cometh; It’s Only A Play; An Act of God; American Psycho: The Musical; Legally Blonde: The Musical; Godspell; Ghost: The Musical; The Wedding Singer: The Musical; Macbeth with Alan Cumming; How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical; Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life; Allegiance; and Spring
Awakening (2.0). His West End and UK tour credits include: Blithe Spirit starring Angela Lansbury; Hamlet starring Andrew Scott; Young Frankenstein; INK; OSLO; King Lear with Ian McKellen; Killer Joe with Orlando Bloom; Glengarry Glenn Ross; and Single Spies. Adam’s award-winning productions to date are his three children: Carmela, Josephine and George.
