At a time when some people believe LGBTQIA+ people are more dangerous than guns, or trans folk are somehow less than others, it's important that we have shows like the Footlight Club's A Man of No Importance.
Kieran Kelly, Brian Bakofen, Carolyn Cafarelli, Michael Moses, Ian Flynn, and Juliette McClendon (Photo by Deborah J Karson Photography)
The Footlight Club’s production brings amateur theater production to life with a minimal set, period-appropriate costumes, a big heart and lots of talented vocalists.
Winner of the 2003 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, and created by Terence McNally, Lynn Ahrens, and Stephen Flaherty, the production serves as a strong reminder that love is what matters. All three previously won Tony Awards for Ragtime. The musical is based on a movie of the same name starring Albert Finney in 1994.
From left: Anna Poplawski, Brian Bakofen, Adam Sell (standing), Carolyn Cafarelli, Michael Moses, Juliette McClendon, Kieran Kelly, and Ben Oehlkers. (Photo by Deborah J Karson Photography)
The musical is about Alfie Byrne, a bus driver in 1964 Dublin whose heart holds secrets that he can't share with anyone but his imagined confidante, Oscar Wilde. When he attempts to put on an amateur production of Wilde's Salome in the local church hall, he is met with bigotry and shame for a love "that dare not speak its name." But the redemptive power of theater changes his life and brings his friends back to his side.
Adam Sell as Alfie Byrne, and Emma Walker as Lily Byrne. (Photo by Deborah J Karson Photography)
The Footlight Club's version is directed by Vito Abate, an actor, producer, director and writer who was in the Footlight Club's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike last year. Bethany Aiken is the music director, and is working with the Footlight Club for her fourth time. Stage management is by Jamaica Plain resident Coco Coviello, who is working on her tenth show at the theater,
A Man of No Importance opens April 15, and runs three weekends on Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm. Tickets are available at the door, or via the web at https://www.footlight.org/blog/2022/man-of-no-importance.
Ben Oehlkers as Robbie (Photo by Deborah J. Karson Photography)