Help raise the freak flag

A group of New York theater gals led by playwright Kate Moira Ryan, director Leigh Silverman and writer/actor (and New York Theater Workshop associate artistic director) Linda Chapman has teamed up with the equally excellent Hourglass Group, whose past productions include a wonderful stage adaptation of Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (starring the always fine Nina Hellman).

And to what end, you may wonder, already bedazzled by this introductory list of names, slathered with praise like jam on toast ? Well, they want to stage Ann Bannon's pulpy book The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, and they're now doing some fund-raising. The novel is a classic of overheated 1950s paperback lit, as examplified by its front-cover blurb: "Lost, lonely, boyishly appealing—this is Beebo Brinker—who never really knew what she wanted—until she came to Greenwich Village and found the love that smoulders in the shadows of the twilight world." Come on, what would you rather see on stage, this or the latest hairball coughed up by Richard Greenberg?

So giddyup and fork out some $$$. After all, it's the time of the year when we're meant to be generous. You can donate through their new website, or check in with the Hourglass Group.