I Am My Own Wife
is a play by Doug Wright based on his conversations with German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The one-man play premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 at Playwrights Horizons. It opened on Broadway later that year. The play was developed with Moisés Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project, and Kaufman also acted as director. Jefferson Mays starred in the Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, playing some forty roles.
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Plot synopsis
I Am My Own Wife
is an examination of the life of German antiquarian Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berfelde, who killed her father when she was a young boy and survived the Nazi and Communist regimes in
East Berlin as a transvestite.
Productions
In 2004, the play had its European premiere at
Stockholms Stadsteater,
Stockholm, starring
Björn Kjellman. In 2006, the play was staged in Hudson, New York at Stageworks/Hudson starring Broadway actor Jeffrey Kuhn, in
Toronto,
Ontario at
CanStage, with
Stephen Ouimette in the starring role, in
Vancouver,
British Columbia, at the Playhouse Theatre with Canadian actor
Tom Rooney, at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal with actor Brett Christopher, in
Portland, Oregon at the Gerding Theater starring actor
Wade McCollum, in
Portland, Maine at the Portland Stage Company starring actor Tom Ford, and in
Ann Arbor, Michigan at the
Performance Network Theatre starring actor Malcolm Tulip. In January 2007, the San Pedro Playhouse in San Antonio, Texas successfully mounted the play. It was also performed at the
George Street Playhouse, New Brunswick, NJ from Jan 16, 2007 to Feb 11, 2007. It featured Mark Nelson, and was directed by Anders Cato. A French translation (
Ma femme, c'est moi
) will be performed in February 2009 at Théâtre du Rideau Vert in
Montreal. Currently it is running at in
Port Jefferson, New York, featuring Jeffrey Sanzel through April 25th.
Between May 6 and May 23, 2009 it is playing in
Tasmania at the in
Launceston, and the
Theatre Royal, Hobart Backspace, produced by the , and featuring
Robert Jarman.
In the
Czech Republic, the play was premiered in 2008 by in
Prague, starring Pavol Smolárik. At the same time it was also staged by a Czech non-professional theater group with Libor Ulovec in the role. The latter was awarded the Best Czech Non-Professional Drama Performance 2009 and Libor Ulovec received (among others) the Best Czech Non-Professional Actor Prize 2009.
Awards and nominations
;Awards
- 2004 Drama Desk Award for Best New Play
- 2004 Drama League Award for Best Play
- 2004 Lucille Lortel Awards Outstanding Solo Show
- 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- 2004 Tony Award for Best Play
- 2004 Lambda Literary Award for Drama
See Also
References