CAST OF VERITAS OFF BROADWAY ANNOUNCED
Published 2010-07-20
Perkins 28 Productions announces the outstanding young cast for "VERITAS" Off Broadway by Stan Richardson at HERE Arts Center Mainstage Theater, 145 6th Avenue (enter on Dominick, 1 blk south of Spring). Inspired by true events, "VERITAS" is the story of a group of young men at Harvard in 1920 whose promising futures fell prey to Harvard's "Secret Court": a gay witch-hunt conducted by school administration to purge Harvard of all homosexuality.
The talented cast of VERITAS includes Justin Blanchard, Paul Downs Colaizzo, Mitch Dean, Morgan Karr, Doug Kreeger, Eric Nelsen, Matt Steiner, Jesse Swenson, Sam Underwood, and Joseph Yeargain. It is directed by Ryan J Davis, with costumes by Matthew Pachtman, lighting by Brian Tovar and music composed by Rachel Peters. Nathan Vernon is the associate producer. The full cast will be announced soon. Performances will be Fri 8/20 @ 7pm; Sun 8/22 @ 8pm; Tue 8/24 @ 4:15pm; Fri 8/27 @ 5:15pm; and Sat 8/28 @ 8pm during the 14th New York International Fringe Festival-FringeNYC.
May 13, 1920: Cyril Wilcox, Class of 1922, on temporary withdrawal from Harvard due to nervous illness, is found dead from asphyxiation by gas in his childhood bedroom in Fall River, Massachusetts. His family discovers letters from friends, including Ernest Weeks Roberts, also Class of ‘22 and the son of a prominent former MA congressman, implicating Cyril in an underground homosexual community at Harvard.
A week later Cyril's older brother, George Lester Wilcox ('14), tracks down Harry Dreyfus, the owner Café Dreyfus and a recent lover of Cyril's, and violently extracts from him the names of known homosexuals at Harvard. He then visits Acting Dean of the College with these letters and names, demanding that Harvard take some action. The following day, Dean Greenough and President A. Lawrence Lowell, along with three other deans, covertly form "The Court."May 26-June 2: The proctor of Perkins Hall delivers to The Court a list of frequent attendees at "bitch parties" held in room 28 of Ernest Weeks Roberts. The first round of trials begins, including Roberts, Kenneth Day, a track star and Cyril's former roommate, Eugene Cummings, a dentistry student and family friend of the Wilcoxes, and Joseph Lumbard, speaking in defense of his effeminate roommate Edward Say who had been much named in the letters and interrogations. June 3-10: An informal conversation between the Asst. Dean and med student Nathaniel Wollf ('23) triggers a second wave of trials. Among those interrogated are Wollf, his sometime-lover Keith Smerage ('21), a newly-minted member of the Harvard Dramatic Club, Stanley Gilkey (23), who admitted an interest in homosexuality, but solely through the lens of criminology.
The next day Cummings commits suicide by poison at the Infirmary just before The Court hands down its verdicts. The "guilty"-including Roberts, Day, Say, Cummings, Wollf and Smerage et al-are forced to leave Cambridge immediately. March-June, 2002: A box marked "Secret Court" is found in the University Archives. After much bureaucratic wrangling, the University releases to the Harvard Crimson a redacted version of the records.
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