HOUSE OF LEAR PLAY

HOUSE OF LEAR is a radical retelling of King Lear as a totally new drama. Set in the murky underworld of New York City in the 1980’s when AIDS ruled the city. Lear – now Mother Lear is a black drag queen dying of AIDS. Mother Lear is the most powerful legendary diva in all of New York City and commands a ball and vogue house of thousands of “children.” Her riches are many, even if her friends are few. Goneril and Regan are also drag queens and Mother Lear’s vicious daughters out to steal their mother’s house and control and install themselves as the new mothers of the HOUSE OF LEAR. But in this dangerous world no one can be trusted and everyone turns on everyone. The legendary beauty, Cordelia, has fallen victim to Mother Lear’s wrath and later the jealousy of her sisters. As an epic drama unfolds, Mother Lear slips deeper and deeper into dementia and illness, while still raging at her treacherous daughters and the famous storm, set on the New York City West Side Highway Piers. Mother Lear’s boy toys and loyal servants the glamour boys follow her each step of the way into madness and ultimately death. Death and deceit never looked so stylish and fashionable.