Theater has a way of bringing unexpected stories to life, and On Q goes behind the scenes with the artists making them happen. In this online-only Q&A series, we talk with the performers and creative minds shaping the Twin Cities theater scene, exploring the stories they tell and how they bring them to the stage.
When Lanford Wilson’s “The Madness of Lady Bright” premiered in 1964, it was among the first plays centered on a gay character to receive mainstream attention. More than six decades later, the one-act remains strikingly relevant in its exploration of aging and the human need for connection. Presented by California-based Mannakin Theater & Dance, the play follows Leslie Bright, an aging drag queen living alone in a New York City rooming house. Over the course of a hot summer evening, he confronts his isolation and fear of growing old. This reimagining brings dance to the forefront, using movement to explore Leslie’s inner world and the memories that haunt him.
Nathan Cottam takes on three creative roles in the production: director, choreographer and performer as Leslie Bright. Drawing on his background in both dance and theater, Cottam places the two art forms on equal footing. The result offers a fresh perspective on Wilson’s landmark play while connecting its portrayal of gay life in 1960s America with contemporary conversations about loneliness and mental health.
Question: What drew you to “The Madness of Lady Bright,” and what made you want to bring this particular story to Minneapolis now?
Nathan Cottam: When I first read the script, I was impressed by so many things. It was a story of loneliness, our modern epidemic. It’s a tragic story, but it’s not only tragic to the LGBTQ+ community. It’s a tragedy that I think everyone can identify with—about how we hold on to unrealistic fantasies, and how they can muddy the path to real happiness, or numb the sharp pain of true loss. I think it’s fantastic that a play from 1964 has stood the test of time so well and come to us in 2026, with the main character, a gay man, bearing a human standard that will inspire a broad array of communities to understand themselves a little more clearly.
Dance is my primary background, so when I look at a piece of theater to produce, I’m careful to choose something that has a clear path to include dance. Leslie’s obsession with Giselle was an obvious connection, but it doesn’t end there. Leslie is a dancer. He prides himself on his natural sense of rhythm and he relishes the many compliments he’s received about his ability to follow and move both on and off the dance floor. One of his biggest laments is the loss of his ability to dance and the deterioration of his legs.
Why Minneapolis now? This is a great city for theater, full stop. It’s a national leader in drama and has a thriving dance community, as well. The Twin Cities are clearly on the front lines of the social landscape, and so I think the general theater community here will be welcoming of this play for all the right reasons: the universality of themes represented through the life of a gay man; rather than fetishizing the drag elements and treating it as a curiosity.
Question: Leslie Bright is an aging drag queen grappling with loneliness, isolation and the fear of growing old. What do you hope a contemporary LGBTQ+ audience recognizes—or perhaps sees differently—in Leslie’s story?
Nathan Cottam: I hope the LGBTQ+ community sees how far they’ve come in the eyes of society at large, especially here in the Twin Cities. As the world has divided, most of us, maybe every one of us, is experiencing something like what Leslie experienced. Not to the same degree, of course, but to where we get it.
I really do see art as a primal reassurance that we are not alone. That the things we feel are and have been felt by others. And we have the LGBTQ+ community to thank for experiencing a brand of loneliness, decades ago, that was poignant enough then to speak to all of us today.
Question: You’re both directing and choreographing the production, while also playing Leslie. How does bringing dance into the play change the way you tell Leslie’s story and experience his inner world?
Nathan Cottam: I have to say that it is extremely difficult to dance in your own choreography but, at least this time around, I am finding the experience of playing Leslie more like a calm in the center of a storm. With all the things going on around me, playing the part just makes sense.
At first, I was going to portray the Boy and Girl entirely through dance, with some voice-over, but I abandoned that idea for live (and local) actors reading from off-stage. The boy and girl are then loosely represented on the stage by dancers, but even then, not literally. There is not a “Boy” dancer and a “Girl” dancer, it’s more like a chorus of dance that represents those characters, and the boy and girl end up being more clearly figments of Leslie’s exhausted mind, fragmented into their component parts.
I’ve also taken the opportunity to connect with the incredible music community here in the Twin Cities. The Mozart concerto that figures into the play repeatedly and accompanies Leslie on certain mental episodes, will be played by a live musician, clarinet on the first weekend and oboe on the second weekend.
Question: Giselle becomes an important touchstone for Leslie. What does that connection between Leslie and Giselle reveal about him that the spoken dialogue alone might not?
Nathan Cottam: So much! Please, patrons, as soon as you buy your ticket, go online and watch the ballet “Giselle,” especially the end of Act I and the pas de deux of Act II and the interaction between Myrtha, Giselle and Albrecht. And if you make it through that, I hope you’ll want to go back and watch the whole thing.
At the end of Act I, she grabs the sword of the man who betrayed her, grabs it by the sharp end and circles the stage in one of the most iconic moments in the classical ballet corpus. I so appreciate Wilson’s subtlety and attendant confidence in his audience. For as many times as Giselle is mentioned in the play, her madness never comes up. Leslie never says, “I’m going mad, like Giselle.” He only says that Giselle danced to save her love and stood in his place. Everyone will love this play and, I think, identify with what they see, but people who know and love Giselle will see a different dimension.
Question: The play was written in the 1960s, but loneliness and the search for connection remain very contemporary issues. When audiences leave the theater, what do you hope they’re still thinking—or feeling—about LGBTQ+ community and connection?
Nathan Cottam: I suppose my hope as people leave the theater is two-fold:
First, that they might look around the world and be glad that, in many ways, things have changed for the LGBTQ+ community. Not completely, and not perfectly, but certainly by stages. Their lives need not be as lonely as they might have been in the ’80s and nearly unrecognizable from the ’60s.
And secondly, as I said, they would realize that the LGBTQ+ community has walked the lonely road before us. This play makes sense because we are, most of us, walking a road more lonely than we expected. Very often we don’t even know why. This play gives us a window to view the LGBTQ+ community as leaders as we navigate this path. They have been there ahead of us. Their footsteps are worn in the stone. And hopefully, they can show us the way out to greater community connection.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“The Madness of Lady Bright” runs at the Phoenix Theater October 16–25. For more information and to purchase tickets, head to mannakindance.org/performance.
