Cheyenne in Broadway's Normal Heart?

By Advocate.com Editors

Cheyenne Jackson is in talks to join the first Broadway production of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer's landmark play about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, reports The New York Times.

Joe Mantello, a Tony award-nominated actor for Angels in America and Tony award-winning director of Take Me Out, will play Ned Weeks, the play's protagonist, based on Kramer. Love! Valour! Compassion!'s John Benjamin Hickey will play Ned's lover, Felix Turner. Ellen Barkin will make her Broadway debut as Emma Brookner, the wheelchair-bound doctor who realizes the seriousness of the AIDS crisis. Jackson will likely play Tommy, an activist. The production will be directed by Oscar- and Tony award-winner Joel Grey.

The Normal Heart will begin preview performances at the Golden Theater on April 19 and open on April 27, a day before the deadline to qualify for Tony award consideration. Kramer's play first opened on April 21, 1985 and ran for 294 performances. The revival follows an acclaimed staged reading of the play in New York last October, which raised $150,000 for charity.

A film adaptation to be directed by Ryan Murphy with Mark Ruffalo attached to star is in the works.

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Kramer: AIDS was Allowed to Happen

By Advocate.com Editors

"AIDS was allowed to happen," writes Larry Kramer in an article for CNN that lists "10 Realities About AIDS" the activist says he has learned the hard way. "[AIDS] is a plague that need not have happened. It is a plague that could have been contained from the very beginning."

In his intro, Kramer writes, "I want this article to break your heart. But it deals with a subject that has had a tough time of it in the break-everyone's-heart department. I'll bet that a number of you will be more angry at me than sympathetic by the time you finish reading it. If indeed you finish reading it.

From its very beginning, most people have not wanted to know the truths about AIDS. This is an indisputable fact that continues until this very minute. I have been on the front lines since Day 1, so I know what I'm talking about."

"Too many people hate the people that AIDS most affects, gay people and people of color" Kramer says. "I do not mean dislike, or feel uncomfortable with. I mean hate. Downright hate. Down and dirty hate."

He also calls AIDS "a plague that is not going to go away. It is only going to get worse."

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