#last summer at bluefish cove

[harrison-wells]

Some pictures of a young Jean Smart in the off-Broadway play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, written by Jane Chambers.

For more photos and background info on the play, visit the picture source: John Glines' gallery.

Interview with Jean and fellow cast members for the Fountain Theatre's 40th-anniversary production

Jean also talks about this play in this recent interview:

[chronicowboy]

sometimes you just need to read a play about lesbians on vacation

[do-you-know-this-play]

[lenbryant]

Last night I saw the classic lesbian drama, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by the late-great playwright Jane Chambers. It’s the 40th anniversary production. The original version that was produced here ran for two years and launched the career of Jean Smart, who played one of the leads.

Be sure to see this show at the Fountain Theatre if you can. It's a masterpiece of our LGBT culture and a classic play that resonates deeply for anyone who has ever fallen in love and been surrounded by friends and chosen family. The decades have not diminished its power.

[thehours2002]

personally, i wish there were a few more ludicrously wealth lesbians in the entertainment industry to fund gratuitous revivals of "classic" lesbian plays. like, the lesbian equivalent of ryan murphy reviving the boys in the band. inquiring minds would like to know when cynthia nixon & co. will get it together and mount a production of last summer at bluefish cove.

[prozac-shaped-urn]

Just ONCE I would like to see an interviewer ask Jean Smart about something other than Designing Women, Frasier, 24, Mare of Easttown and Hacks. JUST ONCE.

She’s done so much!!!! The Accountant, The Yarn Princess, The Yearling, Audrey’s Rain (with her late husband!!), Getting Ed Laid, The Odd Couple II, Fargo, The District, OVERKILL: THE AILEEN WUORNOS STORY!!!!!!!

Like FUCK!!! Ask the woman about her niche work. I know she’s dyingggg to talk about it because no one fucking asks.

Give her something else to reminisce about. Take her back to her roots. Ask her about Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. Ask her about The Man Who Came To Dinner with Harriet Sampson Harris. Ask her about her Salem witch trials heritage. Ask her about working with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Ask her about working with Brad Pitt. Ask her about working with Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

ASK 👏🏻 HER 👏🏻 NEW 👏🏻 QUESTIONS 👏🏻

Gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr

(Fully aware this makes me look like a stalker btw. I had a hysterectomy and was on bed rest for 6 weeks. I needed something to do and a Jean Smart rabbit hole was good enough for me.)

[justangrymacaroni]

hey, could you send me the play about the 65 year old lesbians when you're done with it? it sounds so cool. also if you have any other stuff youve fond researching this--other plays about the 70/80/90's gay scene, resources abouy the scene, anything--id love to see them. if not that's alright but it just seems very cool

hi there! that's very sweet! i can't really send the play out when it's done, as it's in a development phase, but depending on how things go i could potentially send ppl info on how to watch a streamed reading of it

for research, my dramaturg has suggested these plays to me:

Jane Chambers: Last Summer at Bluefish Cove

Sarah Schulman: After Dolores, People in Trouble, Rat Bohemia

I'm looking in specific at the March on Washington in the late 80's. he's also having me research Queer Nation in the early 90's

[hacksarmchairquarterback1]

Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[beebooks]

last summer at bluefish cove by jane chambers was really good actually, i thoroughly enjoyed it. the ending i felt went by a little too quickly and there wasn't really any impact to it, but then again a lot of it probably would come through in the acting, i maybe can't expect reading a script to be as good as seeing it performed. but i really liked the dialogue (it's a script, it's like all dialogue) and i found the interactions in the group as a whole to be really entertaining. i loved how messy they were and all their arguments about feminist matters and The Movement and sculptor sculptress it's not that important kitty. kitty was great honestly, and donna and sue too. love them and their drama

[chronicowboy]

tfios wishes it had what bluefish cove has

[ashtonderoy]

Last Summer At Bluefish Cove review.

Written by Ashton Deroy Register on Eventbrite Okay so in real life. I am the nosy kind of friend when my contacts actually post their own Content on Social Media. Not a bunch of recycled memes. I saw my friend Candace Meeks was in a play January 11th 2023 at River & Main Theatre Company . Basically it was an affordable play 6 minutes from my house. That is why I went. Above is an embeded…

[madi2112]

Madi's Meanderings vol. #31

Rosie's and the "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove"

Roadtrip day!

Usually, this means pack up the stuff and head out to parts unknown with my trusty sidekick Mitze.

That was the case this morning but with a twist.

I had actual other people going with me!

Two of the women I've met through the Wednesday Meetup group on Facebook joined the roadtrip this time and it was so nice to have some company.

Plus we had someone who knew the area and made a great suggestion for brunch.

So off we went on a 3.5 hour drive to Wilton Manors Florida for a lesbian themed stage production and a pre-show brunch.

It was nice to have conversation going during the drive making the distance seem less then it actually was.

I did miss listening to an audio book at first (true be told).

The brunch spot called "Rosie's" was a good suggestion. It was close to the theater (a 5 minute drive) the food was good and the atmosphere was....interesting.

The place was definitely LGBTQIA+ friendly. More accurately it catered to the community specifically with rainbows 🌈 everywhere.

Which was nice to see.

The vibe was definitely fun, energetic and the food was good. The servers wore themed t-shirts with sassy sayings on the back. Such as "Not today Karen...not today" or "Things here are hot and spicy...even the food" and lots of sarcasm about the Florida's don't say gay legislation.

The only drawbacks (in my opnion) was the club like music playing throught the restaurant and as I was walked around the place there were but a few women and no other decernible transpeople (other then me).

Which suddenly made me feel slightly out of place.

It also reminded me of a similar situation I had last year in Key West.

The main event of the day was the stage production of the "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove "

The play was written back in the mid seventies by Jane Chamberlain and is the story of a group of lesbian women dealing with one of thier friends cancer diagnosis.

Friendship, love, loss and very real characters made the production an emotional one.

Those universal messages make the production timeless even in today's world.

Maybe even more so.

This production was very well acted, the direction spot on and the small theater space was used very well.

It was also the final performance so we got to partake in closing night ceremonies as well!

Snacks drinks and even a Cast Q & A session!

It made the long drive well worth it!

I wish this place was closer because they announced more lesbian-centric productions coming in the future.

All in all it was a great roadtrip

Until the ride home that is ....

[floatingbook]

EVA: I’m out of place everywhere, Lil. I’m out of place here, in my marriage, in my life. And I’m terrified to be alone. I’ve never been alone. LIL: Everybody’s alone, Eva, sooner or later—we do all the important things alone. EVA: Not me. LIL: You’re alone getting born, giving birth, dying. Oh, people may be standing around you, watching you, but you do the thing alone. You fall in love alone. Yes, you do. It’s not like dancing the tango, two people don’t fall in love in lockstep. One falls first, one falls later and maybe one never falls at all. You say Kitty’s book changed your life—it didn’t. It might have given you some courage but you’re the one who changed your life, Eva. You rented the cabin, you spoke to me on the beach, you asked me to be your friend—you’re not nearly so dependent as you think you are, Eva. Wherever you go this summer, I expect you’ll do just fine.

Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, Jane Chambers.

[rainespells]

I cant shsjdjdjd

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Source: Last Summer At Bluefish Cove; The JH Press Gay Play Script Series - by Jane Chambers

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week - 49

When Marnie Was There, a Beautiful, Beautiful Ghibli story of a lonely, introverted and sad 12-year-old girl who befriends a mysterious girl living in an abandoned mansion. Modern animation and old-fashioned sentiments. 8/10.

✴️      

2 With Tom Courtenay:

✳️✳️✳️ “...You know, you have three editions of this Kierkegaard book, and I don’t think you ever read past chapter two?...”

45 years, a subtle story about Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, a married old English couple, who live in a house with no family photos. The only 2 dramatic moments in the film bookend it: It opens with a letter telling the husband that a body of his former dead lover from 50 years ago was found in the Swiss mountains. And it closes with a final shot on her quiet, devastated face.

(Photo Above). 9/10

✳️✳️✳️ Working-class rebelliousness in Tony Richardson‘s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. He could run, but he could not hide. A mixed bag of realism and class consciousness in early sixties Britain.

With James Fox in an early uncredited role. 4/10

✴️    

Rachel Weisz X 2:

✳️✳️✳️ Paolo Sorrentino’s rich 2016 Youth. A wistful and patient movie about very old friends Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel vacationing at the luxury Hotel Schatzalp at the Swiss alps. Gorgeous, moving tableaux and subtle reflections on aging, regrets, life & death - Shocking it was created by a a man in his 40′s.

This is my second Paolo Sorrentino film. I must see the rest of his “oeuvre” now!

Eat your heart out, Wes Anderson & shut the fuck up! 9/10.

✳️✳️✳️ Disobedience, my 2nd film by Chilean director Sebastián Lelio (after ‘A Fantastic Woman’). A Jewish love story set up in a strict North London orthodox community. But what starts with a rabbi’s estranged daughter who returns for the funeral of her father, turn unexpectedly into a complicated and intense same-sex relationship. 'May you have a long life'... 7+/10

✴️      

Another Lesbian love story, my first Venezuelan film, Liz in September. It is based on ‘Last Summer at Bluefish Cove’ by Jane Chambers, a landmark Lesbian Play from 1980, transplanted into a tiny beach resort (Like the one me and Sammy sailed into in 2005). The short soft core scene when the two women finally make love is one of the few I ever saw in any regular, non-porn films, that worked.

✴️      

Kodi Smit-McPhee X 2:

✳️✳️✳️ The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion‘s restrained new neo-Western, based on a story of Thomas Savage, a closeted writer whose Western stories often told of sexually ostracized, mistreated outsiders in the prairies of the west. 1925 Montana is reminiscent of ‘Days of Heaven’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.

Best film of the week.

✳️✳️✳️ The Road, a dark, harrowing post-apocalyptic survival film, about life after “The End” in a world without color. Our future when we are the last humans on earth. Uncompromising, bleak and hopeless. 8/10. Re-watch.

✴️      

...”One side will make you larger“...

Disney’s classic 1951 Alice in Wonderland, one of about 25 film versions of the Lewis Carroll story. I think this is the first time I’ve seen it in full. Serious psychedelic vibes, especially in the smoking caterpillar and other “mad” characters.

✴️      

Disillusioned and uncompromising lesbian grandma Lily Tomlin is helping her cute granddaughter Julia Garner to get an abortion. 3 generations of females fighting for their rights in a road movie one day in Los Angeles. 7/10

✴️        

I re-watched Seven Beauties, a grotesque comedy-tragedy, a brutal struggle for survival, in a Neapolitan insane asylum, in war and in a concentration camp. About a clownish pimp obsessed with the notion of honor who has none. And in spite of the melodramatic flourishes, I actually found the graphic reality of the Nazi atrocities more ‘realistic’ here than most other descriptions (’Schindler’s list’, ‘Life is beautiful’, Etc.). The uncomfortable, jazzy opening sequence of course was brilliant.

RIP Lina Wertmüller.

✴️      

First watch: Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, about a struggling 27-year-old dancer in NYC and her platonic love-friendship with Sophie, her “best friend”. A black and white love letter to the French New Wave, and Frances (”France”s...) is a character that could be in an early Godard or Truffaut film. 8/10.

✴️      

2 American documentaries:

✳️✳️✳️ Grey Gardens, my first (and last?) Cinéma vérité documentary by Albert and David Maysles. Spending 90 long minutes with an eccentric fiftysomething woman and her sick mother, living in squalor at a decrepit mansion in East Hampton, crawling with raccoons, fleas and feral cats. They were two mentally-different, reclusive cousins of Jackie Kennedy, but listening to their endlessly-rambling monologues felt exploitative, cruel and depressing.

✳️✳️✳️ Vivian Liberto was the first wife of Johnny Cash. Their love was intense, and they were married very young. After she gave birth to his 4 daughters, and he became a country music superstar, he left her for June Carter Cash, and subsequently she was written out of his ‘official’ biography.

In My Darling Vivian her 4 daughters, now older, re-tell her story. It’s warm and touching, and she deserved better from her husband, but there isn’t much in the documentary besides setting the record straight. 4/10.

✴️   

First watch: Alfonso Cuarón’s explicit love triangle  Y tu mamá también, about two teenage boys who take a road trip with a slightly older woman. The parts I liked the most though are the throw-away little background shots of the villages they pass through and the people they meet along the way.

✴️    

Voir, a new Netflix series of short 'Explainer’ video essays about 'Cinema’ produced by David Fincher, a sort-of continuation of Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos of “Every Frame a Painting”. 6 uneven, and somehow shallow, episodes that try to appeal to living-room cinephiles. 5/10.

Instead I will watch Thom Andersen’s ‘Los Angeles Plays Itself’.

✴️      

Because of ^ Void ^, I re-watched 2 of the movies they discussed:

✳️✳️✳️ Jaws - The first summer blockbuster and the source of innovation of much of cinema language since. Still a perfect movie, full with a young person’s visions.

...”Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.

Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain”...

✳️✳️✳️ 48 Hours though did not age that well. In spite of the Walter Chow episode above analyzing it as a profound examination of systemic racism, it’s still just a dated 1980′s action flick. 3/10.

✴️      

The New Tenants, (on Youtube), a short written by Anders Thomas Jensen (Another Danish film shot in The US!). With the Librarian from Erin Brockovich (Jamie Harrold) and Vincent D'Onofrio. A meaningless story that sill manages to end with a lovely street dance by the two boys, and a recipe for Cinnamon Buns. 2/10

✴️      

In The kitchen, 3 Hell's Kitchen mob wives in the 1970s take over their husbands' rackets after the mobsters are locked up in prison. Similar story to Steve McQueen’s ‘Widows’ which premiered at the same time, but absolutely not as well-played, well-plotted and as emotionally fulfilling. 2/10

- - - - -

Throw-back to the art project:

Alice in Wonderland Adora.

The Road Adora.

Jaws Adora.

- - - - -

(My complete movie list is here)