Jerker
This play is available below and is also included in the collection:
Play Description
In JERKER, alternatively titled “The Helping Hand, A Pornographic Elegy with Redeeming Social Value and A Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in Twenty Telephone Calls, Many of them Dirty,” J.R. and Bert’s anonymous telephone-sex relationship continues to evolve into something deeper until Bert’s health begins to fail.
Production Info
Cast: 2 total (2 male)Full Length Drama (about 70 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“… although Robert Chesley’s JERKER does indeed center around two naked men whacking off while exchanging fantasies on the phone (well, to tell the truth only one bares all), it is finally a funny, thoughtful, tender story that emerges … the most wonderful thing about JERKER is its sense of humor. Some performance artists have been known to do appalling things to their genitalia for no apparent artistic reason, but this playwright is not out simply to shock. And because Chesley peppers his scenes with gentle wit and good-natured joking, he eases our potential embarrassment at the play’s action.” —Diana Spinrad, Chicago Reader
“These strange, wonderful, heartbreaking plays go beyond magic realism into something very deep and primal. No matter where he began, in fairy tale or phone sex, Robert Chesley always took his audience someplace new. He could shift from the silly to the dangerous to the tender in the blink of an eye. His plays are not period pieces, but startling glimpses of a recent past that tell us things we badly need to know about our present and future.” —Christopher Bram
“Without question, Robert Chesley is the most incisive gay playwright at work in America today.” —Mark Thompson, The Advocate
“Robert Chesley wrote gut-wrenching plays.” —Linda Winer, Newsday
Author(s)
Robert ChesleyPlaywright, Composer, Author, Activist. B.A. in Music, Reed College, Portland, Oregon. Robert Chesley is best remembered as a playwright, though he was also an author, critic, and composer. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and taught in private schools in upstate New York for nearly ten years before settling in New York City in 1976. He relocated to San Francisco in the early 1980s where he became a part of the gay theater scene. Chesley composed during the ten-year period 1965 to 1975 and his compositions were almost exclusively for voice. Between 1966 and 1970 he composed 53 songs, mostly to texts by American poets including Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, and James Agee, and including sixteen settings of the British poet Walter de la Mare. There are also several choral works from the 1970s, with texts by Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman among others. His few instrumental works include the score to a 1972 film by Erich Kollmar, the "Sonata for Guitar and Harpsichord" (1974), and the "Little Concerto for Two Flutes and String Orchestra" (1968), which was revived in 1991 in a Benson Series concert of Downtown Music Productions, conducted by Mimi Stern-Wolfe. The transformation of Robert Chesley, composer, to Robert Chesley, playwright, roughly coincided with his move to San Francisco. In 1984 the city's Theatre Rhinoceros produced his first one act, HELL, I LOVE YOU and in 1984 Chesley's NIGHT SWEAT became the first produced full-length play to deal with AIDS. In all, Chesley wrote ten full-length and twenty-one one-act plays. Several works were premiered posthumously, and all of his major plays have been published. Robert Chesley died of AIDS in San Francisco at the age of 47 on December 5, 1990.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 10/1/2005 |
| Pages | 120 |
| ISBN | 9780881452679 |
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Upcoming and Recent Productions
Professional
Nonprofessional
Related Plays
Play Description
Sphinx & Amos, a country-pop duo, are the gay equivalent of Simon & Garfunkel. After their breakup, Sphinx pursued an unsuccessful acting career in Hollywood. Amos has finally had his first solo concert, and Leon, his manager, has arranged a surprise for him afterwards: Sphinx who has seen the error of his ways and wants them to get back together again.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Short Comedy (about 35 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
Trapped in horrendous and cramped living conditions with his father and grandfather, Rosario Cortez battles to break his family's cycle of poverty and remove his son from the violence and squalor of the urban ghetto.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Brad and Edgar realize they're in love. Brad is in the Air Force and has a few months left to serve. An officer arrives at the house, which belongs to a lesbian couple who have been entertaining men from the air base, and the neighbors have reported it. The officer is a closeted gay man and blackmails Brad in return for not reporting him.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Short Comedy (about 45 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
In the second part of Tony Kushner's epic, the plague of AIDS worsens, relationships fall apart as new ones form, and unexpected friendships take form.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 220 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Winner of the 1993 Tony Award for Best Play
Play Description
In the first part of Tony Kushner's epic, set in 1980's New York City, a gay man is abandoned by his lover when he contracts the AIDS virus, and a closeted Mormon lawyer's marriage to his pill-popping wife stalls. Other characters include the infamous McCarthy-ite lawyer Roy Cohn, Ethel Rosenberg, a former drag queen who works as a nurse, and an angel.
Production Info
Cast: 8 total (3 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 180 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
A fantastical/political/historical exploration of life in the Soviet Union in the earliest dawn of Perestroika. In scenes ranging from the inner chambers of the Politburo to a secret chamber beneath Lenin’s Tomb to a medical facility near a radioactive disposal site in Siberia, SLAVS! considers the difficulty, the failure, and the abiding importance of Socialism and of ongoing efforts towards building collective societies and a more just world.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (3 female, 7 male)Full Length Drama (about 80 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Two women find that they have everything in common until the death of a brother drives them apart. Part stand-up comedy, part stand-up tragedy for two. The redhaired mythology that glorifies and empowers two women leads them into a big love, but can't lead them safely out again. A play about the heaviness of the things we carry.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
AS THE BEAVER takes as its premise that Ward and June Cleaver’s youngest son, The Beaver, is gay. Joel Drake Johnson then spins this seemingly slight premise into a smart and funny and ultimately enriching exploration of American society and family.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (3 female, 7 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
The play follows a group of strangers in the waiting room of an AIDS clinic over the course of several months.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
Bill and Bob entertain young troops who are to be sent overseas to fight. They keep photo albums and correspond as often as possible. The young men put down Mrs B Batchelor as next of kin so that Bill and Bob will be notified if they're killed. When the father of one of the dead soldiers arrives, seeking to discover who Mrs B Batchelor is, he is stunned to learn that his son took part in gay parties and sex.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Short Comedy (about 45 minutes)
Single Set
Period Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
At the height of the AIDS crisis, Adam searches for answers, comfort, and a new place for sexuality as he witnesses the decline and inevitable loss of his beloved best friend.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (2 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
What would happen if you found that impossible love was indeed possible? And what would happen if two of these couples were a drag queen and a woman, and a priest and a boy?
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (1 female, 5 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes