Production History
The Bald Soprano opened on May 11 in 1950 at Paris' Theatre des Noctambules, directed by Nicolas Bataille, who also played Mr. Martin. Bataille had asked his designer Jacques Noel to make a set for, the 1890’s play, Hedda Gabler. While rehearsing, they kept changing the name until one night, the actor playing the fire chief messed up his lines and instead of saying, “institutrice blonde” or the blond schoolteacher, he said, “contatrice chauve” or bald soprano, which ultimately became the name of the play.
In 1957, The Bald Soprano, moved to its current home at Theatre de la Huchette. To this day it is performed nightly along with The Lesson as part of The Ionesco Show. It was initially only supposed to run for two weeks but the run kept being extended until it became the permanent fixture it is today.
Because this production of The Bald Soprano will feature a 24-hour performance by LGBTQ performers, the focus of this production history will be on those productions that included drag, LGBTQ characters or performers, and 24 productions.
The first evidence of a queer interpretation of The Bald Soprano can be found in a 2004 production of Bald Diva! This adaptation that attempts to keep the spirit of the source material, features a gay married couple, Tim and Jim Jackson-Smith representing the Smiths when another couple, Craig and Greg Tyler-Martin, who are “gym boys,” arrive, representing the Martins. They attempt at conversation just like the Smiths and Martins until the Fire Chief arrives who is a scantily clad man who strip teases and gives a monologue about Tom Cruise being gay when the Jackson – Smith’s house boy, Mary, (yes, in proper gay tradition, he is named Mary!) enters and hilarity ensures. Several other substitutions are made, such as instead of being British, the play is set in Chelsea in New York City.
In 2009, Philadelphia based, BRAT Productions was getting ready to stage a 24-hour production of The Bald Soprano in January of 2010. BRAT’s founder, Madi Distefano felt that 2 or more iterations were insufficient and decided to mount a production that repeats this cyclical play 24 times.
The project was so successful the BRAT Productions remounted the production again in February 2012 at Plays and Players in Philadelphia. Later that same year, BRAT Productions collaborated with Ursinus College and their students in the Black Box Studio Theater performed a 24 version of The Bald Soprano in November of 2012.
Once again, in 2019, Swarthmore College hosted a 24-hour production of The Bald Soprano as a Theater Capstone for their graduating seniors of their theatre program. BRAT Productions and Madi Distefano are credited with the original concept.
In 2017, Philadelphia based Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium mounted a production of The Bald Soprano in the typical manner where the play only runs 70 minutes and does not repeat. However, in their production they cast Tomas Dura as Mary, the maid. This production introduces drag to the world of The Bald Soprano for the first time. This production was so successful that IRC remounted the same production with the same actors in February of 2020.
This goes to prove The Bald Soprano has the ability to take on many different interpretations, from the original staging as directed by Nicolas Bataille, to endurance testing 24-hour performances, and even queer and gender-nonconforming productions. Each time this play is done with a new interpretation it can reveal even more truths about reality than Ionesco ever imagined.