INTERVIEW: ‘Bright Colors and Bold Patterns’ returns to NYC
The acclaimed solo show Bright Colors and Bold Patterns, the brainchild of writer and star Drew Droege, returns to New York City for a limited engagement through January. In the play, which is currently running at the Soho Playhouse, Droege plays Gerry, a character who finds himself at the wedding of Josh and Brennan, yet questioning why the couple asked the guests to refrain from wearing bright colors and bold patterns.
The comedic play is a topical one that covers the issue of gay marriage, relationships, sacrifice and love. What happens at this fictional wedding in Palm Springs, California, is quite telling and transforms Gerry’s perception.
Even though there are several characters in the play, Droege is the only actor on the stage at the Soho Playhouse. Furniture serves as stand-ins for the other roles, making Bright Colors and Bold Patterns both intimate and creatively staged. Droege employed the directorial expertise of Michael Urie (Broadway and TV star) to help tell Gerry’s story.
Recently, Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Droege about the production. Here’s what he had to say …
On what audiences can expect from Bright Colors and Bold Patterns …
“It takes place the night before a gay wedding in Palm Springs at an Air B&B, sort of the house that some of the guests are staying at, and I’m playing one character who is a guest of the wedding who is really good friends with one of the grooms, who is going through a bit of a crisis himself. And so he’s there to sort of hold court and ends up ruining a lot of things, saying the wrong things. It’s a party until it gets dark.”
On the development of the play …
“I worked on it off and on for a few years. I wrote the initial version of it in L.A. It started in 2013, and it was just about 45-50 minutes long. I developed it, sort of figured out a lot more moments and fleshed things out over the years.
“It came about when I received an invitation to a real wedding asking the guests not to wear bright colors or bold patterns. … [The bride] really wanted to look really nice, and it was sort of her control thing to have everybody not look too loud and garish. When I saw that on the wedding invitation, it just struck me as such a title. It was like Bright Colors and Bold Patterns — that means something. What is that?”
On the topicality of the play’s subject matter …
“Then around that time gay marriage became legal, and I started seeing so many gay magazines immediately having wedding sections and so many couples immediately rushing into marriage. I was thinking, obviously, this is a wonderful thing, but I was thinking, like, all of a sudden, we were putting these expectations on ourselves that straight people have always felt. Now that we can get married, it’s like now we must all want, too, and we must get married as soon as we can. And so I just sort of thought to myself, what if this is a gay wedding in which the guests were asked not to wear bright colors or bold patterns, and what would that mean and are we doing that in our community.
“Are we scrubbing our queerness, our brightness, our boldness in order to keep up with the joneses? And so I wanted to create a character who was sort of at the end of his rope, who was a lot stronger and louder and drunker and fatter than I am usually. And I wanted to just play him and sort of see this reality through his eyes.”
On working with Urie …
“It’s been a blast. It’s been wonderful. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we’ve worked together on other aspects before we were on this show on Logo together. … And so this is our first theater piece working together, but it’s been a process. It’s really collaborative. We laugh a lot. He’s just a fountain of ideas, and he’s constantly coming up with new choices. ‘Play this differently or change this or try or consider this,’ and so it’s been great. I think we really trust each other and are both on board. He actually saw a workshop production of it a few years ago and asked me if he could be involved since he had a huge vision for the show, and so, of course, I said yes. It’s been a blast.”
On the future life of the show …
“At this point, we have the eight weeks planned, and we’re going to see where we go from there. We had a limited run last year … [but] we couldn’t get it back up again until this time this year. And now we’re going to see. I would love for it to go obviously on a longer run or to tour or whatever. Every step of the way with this show has been this really fun adventure.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Bright Colors and Bold Patterns, written by and starring Drew Droege, is now playing the Soho Playhouse in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
