David’s Friend
2 Nights only
Tues/Wed Jan 30 & 31st 8pm
Casita del Campo
Tickets $20 door/$15 advance at Brownpapertickets.com
Self-described “writer, performer, fag hag, mother, friend, and New Yorker” Nora Burns – of the comedy troupe Unitard – is performing her acclaimed one-woman show David’s Friend in LA later this month.
Described as
“A comic odyssey about crazy love… loss.. cruising… disco… drag queens… strippers… sex… the ’70s… AIDs… and New York City… from tall tales to torrid truths. A fast-paced multi-media celebration of passion, pleasures, and the power of great dance songs…”
The show celebrates her friendship with the gorgeous and gone-too-soon David Burns (his chosen surname to match hers), who died of AIDS in 1993. She writes:
“It’s weirdly hard to describe, because it’s not a tribute or a memorial service, but about a year ago I started desperately missing my best friend who’d died 22 years ago and I just had to do something, so I made a show and it’s about him and our crazy friendship, and crazy NYC and what it was like to live in an amazing time, but when so many of our friends were dying and how we’re just coming out of our stupor now, but it’s also funny and silly and about an amazing person who never got to grow up and we never got to grow old together – so blahblahblah, but people seemed to like it, from old queens who knew from whence it came, to a bunch of 22-year-old kids who somehow related, so doing it again and seeing how it goes!”
Written and performed by Nora Burns with direction by Adrienne Truscott, dramaturgy by Lucy Sexton, and visual collaboration by Len Whitney, featuring Billy Hough, this fast-paced show is a multi-media celebration of friendship, fun, freaks, fag hags, youthful passion, changing times, emotions, memories, Manhattan and music that moves your feet to a disco beat.
DAVID’S FRIEND TEASER 2017 from Carmine Covelli on Vimeo.
“A feisty and funny one-woman show…..her odyssey will bring alive the period and its pleasures (and poisons) with pungent animation…a continual pleasure”
“Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
“The show delivered on all fronts — it’s funny, it’s nostalgic, it’s touching, it’s poignant and it’s smart.”
Kenneth in the 212
“The beauty of “David’s Friend” is, you didn’t have to be there. Burns was, and she brings it alive for the rest of us.”
Marc Miller, NY Theatre Guide
“Hilarious and incredibly moving – captures a moment in time so many of us closed the door on.” – Jennifer Coolidge
“Nora is leading the charge out of our collective PTSD with love, humor and pelvic thrusts.” – Ann Magnuson
“A potent performance about the passing of a great era, beautifully captured, with wells of compassion and funniness. I wish I had known David, but now I do.” – Sandra Bernhard
“Brave and sad and thrilling and painful and raw and so magical.” – Tony Tripoli – Fashion Police
“Very funny, very heartbreaking – a beautiful valentine.” – Tim Murphy – author of the novel Christodora
