Broadway vets Arnie Burton (The 39 Steps, The Temperamentals, Mere Mortals) and Stephanie Pope Caffey (Chicago, Fosse, Smokey Joe's Café) are among the complete cast announced for the off-Broadway premiere of Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party. Described as a politically charged mash-up comedy, the show will begin performances on July 27 at the Acorn Theatre on Theatre Row and open on August 11 for a six-week limited engagement, directed by Chris Smith.
Joining Burton and Caffey will be Robert Hogan (A Few Good Men, Hamlet HBO's The Wire) Lisa Birnbaum (Lizzie Borden), Ted Koch (Death of a Salesman, The Pillowman), Pippa Pearthree (Boeing-Boeing, Frozen) and Ben Roberts (Walking Down Broadway).
Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party centers on a fourth-grade Christmas pageant in Lincoln’s Illinois hometown, which sets off a firestorm of controversy when it calls into question Honest Abe’s sexuality. Each of the three acts lets the audience see the story from a different character’s viewpoint—and at each performance, the audience decides in which order the acts are performed, creating a Rubik’s Cube-like theatrical event. The show premiered at the SF Playhouse in December 2008 under Smith's direction and was presented in New York at the 2009 International Fringe Festival.
The off-Broadway production will feature choreography by Vince Pesce, scenic design by Bill English, lighting design by Jeff Croiter and Grant Yeager and costume design by Rebecca Lustig. The show is produced by BlueRare Productions in association with Aaron Glick and Deborah Taylor.