Dachau for Queers

Overview

DACHAU FOR QUEERS

Workshop Production of a New Play by Daniel Neer

Directed by Ted Gorodetzky

Produced by The LAB 

It’s 1970, and runaway Jonah Goodson is confined at California’s notorious Atascadero Psychiatric Hospital. His “sickness”? Homosexuality. Navigating a psychotropic maze of barbaric treatments, he encounters the most unlikely guides – but are they real or imagined?

Gruesomely referred to as Dachau for Queers, the maximum-security forensic institution Atascadero Psychiatric Hospital was widely renowned for its experimental therapies of electrical and pharmacological shock treatments subjected upon inmates to “cure” them of their perceived sexual deviations. The fictional Jonah Goodson, estranged from his family and adrift in 1970’s San Francisco, gets caught in the belly of that beast and wrestles with his jumbled mind to carve a journey out. At times shockingly brutal and at others comically surreal, Daniel Neer’s new play is an innovative odyssey punctuated by surprising characters, leaps of fantasy, and heartfelt truths.

Written by Daniel Neer
Directed by Ted Gorodetzky
Cast:  Tristan Jenis, Lois Sach*, Neena Boyle, Ted Gorodetzky*, Avery Leach
(*appearing courtesy AEA)

Runtime: 80 minutes with no intermission.