The AIDS Plays Project / Play Circle

Play Circle is an intimate public workshop by The AIDS Plays Project in which audiences are invited into the rehearsal room. Performed with the cast seated amongst the audience, the reading blurs the line between performers and spectators, creating a unique shared experience. After the reading, audiences are invited to join a discussion about the play and its writer, guided by a guest director.

The season continues with a script-in-hand reading of ‘Cuba and His Teddy Bear’ by Reinaldo Povod.

Sometimes little lambs gotta be sacrificed so God can be revealed.

Cuba is a small-time coke dealer in New York’s Lower East Side whose pride and joy is his sixteen-year-old son, Teddy. Cuba forbids Teddy from drink and drugs, encourages his ambition to be a writer, and tries to shield him from his world of pimps and lowlife thugs. Unbeknownst to his father, however, Teddy has fallen for the charismatic Che—a queer, award-winning playwright turned junkie who has gotten him hooked on heroin.

Reinaldo Povod’s blistering portrayal of addiction and queer love was a sensation on Broadway in 1986, with Robert de Niro in the lead role. Twenty years later, this forgotten American classic receives its UK premiere in a reading directed by Emily Aboud.