Play Reading

London Performance Studios is pleased to present P.S. Your Cat is Dead!, a play reading directed by Alastair Curtis.

Jimmy Zoole is having a bad New Year's Eve.

If losing the only manuscript of his first novel wasn’t bad enough, he’s been fired from his job, dumped by his girlfriend and his beloved cat is dead. And now he has returned home to find a man has broken into his apartment and is trying to make off with his TV.

In a fit of rage, Jimmy captures the would-be thief and chains him to the kitchen sink. His name is Vito Antonucci and he is a charismatic bisexual with bad-boy charm. As fireworks light up the sky over New York, Jimmy discovers an unexpected attraction to his prisoner.

‘PS Your Cat is Dead!’ is a blackly comic and surprisingly tender tale of sexual discovery. It was blasted as ‘homosexual wish fulfilment’ when it premiered on Broadway in 1975. Directed by Alastair Curtis, this rehearsed reading is its first UK revival in nearly 40 years.

James Kirkwood was the son of two Hollywood screen stars. Best known for co-writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical ‘A Chorus Line’, he was also an actor, comedian, playwright and prolific novelist whose works, including ‘Good Times/Bad Times’ and ‘There Must Be A Pony!’, won praise for their ironic humour and frank depictions of queer desire. Like many of Kirkwood’s works, they have fallen out of print since his AIDS-related death in 1989.

The AIDS Plays Project is restaging and republishing the theatrical works of writers whose lives were cut short by HIV/AIDS-related complications. Striving for cultural recovery and repair, the project seeks to mend the connection between these trailblazing playwrights and a younger generation of queer artists and audiences in the UK. 

Creative Team

Direction: Alastair Curtis
Music: Helen Noir
Costumes and Set: Max Allen & Elliott Adcock 
Producer: Izzy Parriss & Tinisha Williams
Event Production: KIND (Katie Byrne & Max Laurie)
Intimacy Coordinator: Stella Moss
Stage Manager: Cara Dromgoole
Graphics: Tom Joyes

With thanks to Arthur Beckenstein, Sean Egan and Dickie Beau.