About the work
“The Legend of Georgia McBride” is a comedy with music and lip-sync numbers by the American playwright Matthew López. Mike Donahue directed the world premiere on 17 January 2014 at the Ricketson Theatre of the Denver Center Theatre Company, and in 2015 he also staged the play Off-Broadway at MCC Theater in New York. The German translation is by Hannes Becker; the first German-language production followed in Nuremberg in 2020.
Plot
In a run-down bar in Panama City, Florida, young Casey performs as an Elvis impersonator and barely scrapes a living from it. Just as the rent is overdue and his partner Jo is expecting a baby, bar owner Eddie replaces the Elvis act with a drag show run by his cousin, the drag queen Miss Tracy Mills. With her help, Casey soon takes the stage himself as a lip-syncing drag queen, a change of role that thoroughly transforms how he sees performing and himself.
Cultural significance
The New York production won two Lucille Lortel Awards in 2016, for Matt McGrath as outstanding featured actor and for Anita Yavich's costumes, which also won a Drama Desk Award; at the Outer Critics Circle Awards it was nominated as outstanding new Off-Broadway play. Since then the comedy about drag culture, acceptance and family has been staged at numerous American regional theatres.