Aria da Capo – 1960 – 1st Datable Cino Production Photos

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Earliest datable Caffe Cino performance photos, 1960, donated by MAGIE DOMINIC.  BILL MITCHELL (in striped costume), says he convinced JOE CINO to present plays as well as poetry readings and folk singing. GLENN DU BOSE directed this and many other early Cino plays. KITTY MC DONALD and DEAN SELMIER (curly headed in white t-shirt) also appeared in many early Cino plays. PETER RATRAY says he was in “Aria da Capo” in April, 1960, but does not appear here, so he and Glenn Dubose assume these photos are of a summer revival. Photographer unknown.

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DEAN SELMIER and Unidentified Player

DEAN SELMIER and Unidentified Player

PROBABLY FIRST CINO PLAY FLYER-1960

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MAGIE DOMINIC shares what may in all likelihood be the first flyer for the first reading of plays at the Cino, Sunday, February 7th, 1960. Actor/director Bill Mitchell says “A Christmas Story” was the first “sit-down reading” at the Cino and that it happened in Feb. 1959, but that date doesn’t calendarically come on a Sunday. A Village Voice article of April 23, 1964 says, apparently citing Joe Cino, “In February 1960, he initiated Sunday night readings by actors of prose, poetry, and scenes from plays. The regular schedule of plays began in June, 1960.” However, actor Ron Faber says a photo of him dated Dec. 1958 (the month the Cino opened) is from a Cino production, and Bob Dahdah agrees, but adds that his own first production (fully staged and reviewed by the Village Voice) at the Cino was “No Exit,” also in February, 1960. Glenn Dubose staged “Aria Da Capo” in April, 1960, and Peter Ratray says the May 4, 1960 “Tea and Sympathy” was  “fully directed and staged.”  In addition, Joe Cino told me quite another story of when and how he began doing plays. So we are left with more, rather than less, ambiguity about the early days of the Cino, what I choose to call “The Silent Era.”

Early Plays, Late Plays, Gay Plays

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From 1958 to 1968, plays were produced on the floor of New York’s Caffe Cino. The first plays were pirated classics, but gradually new plays became the rule. More early Cino plays HERE. See Cino gay plays HERE..

The CAFFE CINO nestled quietly on a one-block long side-street, Cornelia, in New York’s Greenwich Village. Photo, JAMES D. GOSSAGE. Cino Wikipedia PAGE.

Founder JOE CINO. Photo by CONRAD WARD.

Earliest dated photo of a Cino play: RON FABER and HELEN HONKAMP in Here We Are by Dorothy Parker, Dec., 1958 (the month the caffe opened).

Probably 1st original Cino play: JAMES HOWARD, author of “Flyspray,” megaphones at JEREMY JOHNSON in the summer of1960. Below them, Wendell Stone’s description of the play from his book on the Caffe Cino, available HERE. Photo, ROWLAND SCHERMAN.

LARRY NEIL CLAYTON, PAXTON WHITEHEAD, JANE LOWRY, and GARY FILSINGER in the first of four 1961 Cino plays by DORIC WILSON, “And He Made a Her.” Doric later founded the first professional gay theatre, T.O.S.O.S. (The Other Side Of Silence). VIDEO TRIBUTE to Doric Wilson HERE.

NORMA BIGTREE!
Photo: CONRAD WARD
More DAMES!

EDITH LAURIE’s The War Against Women (her and CLARA HOVER, 1964). More on Ms. Laurie HERE.

MARY MITCHELL’s “Who Put That Blood On My Long-Stemmed Rose?”, the third “Cino at La Mama” production when ELLEN STEWART loaned JOE CINO her stage while the Cino was repaired after a fire, 1965. That’s PATRICIA PEARDON menacing HUGH CAMERON and DONALD MCCLEAN in CLIFF TOBEY’s production of Mary’s scatter-shot satire of all modern drama, e.g. a subway guard (Bob Dahdah) right out of LeRoi Jones confessed to a sex-starved southern belle a la Blanche Du Bois, “I have white blood.” Photo, CONRAD WARD.

SAM SHEPARD’s Icarus’s Mother, 1965. Better scan and director MICHAEL SMITH’s story of the production HERE!. Hear Sam accept a prize and read his short stories HERE.

HELEN HANFT in TOM EYEN’s Why Hanna’s Skirt Won’t Stay Down, set by JOSEF BUSH, 1967. Photo by Gloaguen.

CONNIE CLARK and unidentified actor in DANIEL HABEN CLARK’s The Singing Lesson, 1964.

JUDITH L’HEUREUX, PAUL BOESING, in PAUL FOSTER’s Hurrah for the Bridge, 1963. Photo by CONRAD WARD.

CLARIS NELSON’s The Clown (JAYNE HARRIS, DAVID STARKWEATHER, SOREN AGENOUX, LANFORD WILSON, ARNOLD HORTON, 1967). Photo by JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

DAVID STARKWEATHER’s You May Go Home Again (SHELLIE FELDMAN, KAY CARNEY, RON HANSEN, RON FABER), 1965. Photo by JAMES D. GOSSAGE.

CHARLES STANLEY in H.M. KOUTOUKAS’ Medea, 1965 (photo, JAMES D. GOSSAGE). SERMON on Harry’s death. PHOTOS of Harry’s memorial service.

DONALD L. BROOKS & ONDINE in SOREN AGENOUX’s Chas. Dickens’ Christmas Carol, 1966, dir. MICHAEL SMITH. Photo: CONRAD WARD.

NEIL FLANAGAN in WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN’s Thank You, Miss Victoria, 1965 (Carol and Victoria photos, CONRAD WARD).

An early Gay play: TOM BIGORNIA, NEIL FLANAGAN, and LUCY SILVAY in LANFORD WILSON’s “The Madness of Lady Bright.” Photo by CONRAD WARD. VIDEO TRIBUTE to Lanford Wilson HERE.

An early Gay play: WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN and me in my The Haunted Host, dir. MARSHALL W. MASON.



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An early Gay play: JIM JENNINGS and LARRY BURNS in BOB HEIDE’s The Bed, dir. BOB DAHDAH, 1965, photo by JAMES D. GOSSAGE.