Michael Emerson & Sally Field Will Lead All-Star Reading Of Oscar Wilde Docu-Drama Banned By Kremlin

What Moscow rejects, Manhattan embraces: Moisés Kaufman’s celebrated 1997 docuplay Gross Indecency: The Three Trials Of Oscar Wilde, recently canceled by the Kremlin during pre-production, will be presented in October by a star-driven cast as a fundraiser in New York.

Emmy-winner Michael Emerson (Lost, Person Of Interest) and Oscar winner Field (Norma Rae) will be joined by Jonathan Groff (HBO’s Looking and currently on Broadway in Hamilton), Michael C. Hall (Showtime’s Dexter), David Hyde Pierce (NBC’s Frasier, Broadway’s Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike), Tony Kushner (Broadway and HBO’s Angels in America), Judith Light (Amazon’s Transparent, Broadway’s Other Desert Cities), Darren Criss (Fox’s Glee, Broadway’s Hedwig And The Angry Inch), Tituss Burgess (Netflix’ Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and others. Emerson played Wilde in the original off-Broadway production.

Earlier this year, Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project were working with the Moscow New Drama Theatre and the U.S. State Department to produce a Moscow revival of Gross Indecency. In the middle of pre-production, the Kremlin blocked the production because of the play’s LGBTQ content. Kaufman and the company then decided to produce the benefit reading to spotlight the suppression of the rights of the LGBTQ community in Russia.

The reading, staged by Kaufman, will take place October 5 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on the West Side campus of John Jay College. Proceeds will benefit the Tectonic Theater Project and the International Gay And Lesbian Human Rights Commission. The reading will be sponsored by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Hilda Mullen Foundation. Info is at tectonictheaterproject.org.