By Kenneth Jones
04 Nov 2009

Daryl Roth and Stacy Shane will produce a 2010 commercial Off-Broadway return of The Temperamentals, Jon Marans' play about an early gay-rights movement in America.

According to The New York Times, the critical and audience hit seen earlier this year in two Off-Broadway engagements, will again feature Thomas Jay Ryan as Harry Hay and "Ugly Betty" star Michael Urie as his lover Rudi Gernreich. Other past cast members are likely to be invited back.

Director Jonathan Silverstein repeats his work. New World Stages in midtown Manhattan is reportedly the target venue. Previews will start Feb. 18, 2010, toward an opening night on Feb. 28.

The highly theatrical play, which uses direct-address and has actors playing multiple roles, concerns Hay's creation of the Mattachine Society in the 1950s.

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"Temperamental," according to earlier press notes for the Barrow Group Theater run Off-Broadway, "was a code word for 'homosexual' in the early 1950s, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate."

The earlier cast included Michael Urie, Tom Beckett, Thomas Jay Ryan, Matthew Schneck and Sam Breslin Wright.

The new play tells the story of two men, "the communist Harry Hay and the young Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich, weaving together the personal and the political to tell a relatively unknown chapter in gay history. It explores the deepening love between two complex men, while they build the first gay rights organization in the United States pre-Stonewall. . . . The characters consist of the actual men who founded the Mattachine Society, as well as prominent figures of the time such as Frank Tavener of the House Un-American Committee and the director Vincente Minnelli."

The production featured set and costume design by Clint Ramos, lighting design by Josh Bradford and sound design by Daniel Kluger. Classical composer and vocal coach Aaron Dai was the musical consultant.

Michael Urie and Thomas Jay Ryan
photo by Yuri Sivo