Provincetown Theater Postpones Production of Mae West’s The Drag

The upcoming season will now launch with the world premiere of Sarah Schulman’s The Lady Hamlet.

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Provincetown Theater has postponed its production of Mae West’s The Drag, which was scheduled to kick off the 2020 season in Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 14.

The play, written under West's pseudonym Jane Mast, tells the tale of a closeted Park Avenue newlywed and his secret double-life with a pack of Greenwich Village drag queens and was shut down in 1927 for “corrupting the morals of youths.”

“Mae got cops shut down by the cops nearly a hundred years ago, and now Covid-19 is trying to take a swipe at her,” said Artistic Director David Drake in a statement. “But I’ll be damned if it’s going to stop us from eventually bringing her rollicking and relevant voice back to the American Theatre. And considering the theatrical legacy of Provincetown, and when we all reach the safe harbor, we’re committed to putting The Drag back on the boards on where it belongs. So stay tuned!”

The world premiere of Sarah Schulman’s The Lady Hamlet will now open the season in July. The new comedy concerns a duel of divas at the turn-of-the-century to see who will be the first—and best—female Hamlet on Broadway.

Also previously announced for the season are Jerker, Robert Chesley’s love story that follows two gay men in 1980s San Francisco; Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake, which centers on Della, a conservative baker who is asked by her deceased best friend’s daughter to bake the cake for the young woman’s same-sex marriage; and the Eugene O'Neill classic A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Visit ProvincetownTheater.org.

(Updated March 25, 2020)