Home > Start Here > "February House," A Premiere at The New York Public Theater

From the book by Sherill Tippins, a musical version of "February House" attracted full houses to the New York Public Theater during its Spring 2012 season.

"February House" tells the story of visionary editor George Davis who transformed a run-down Brooklyn boarding house into a bohemian commune for some legendary residents of the early 1940s: novelist Carson McCullers, poet W. H. Auden and burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, among others. These luminaries of 7 Middagh Street create a makeshift family and refuge as they search for love and inspiration in contrast to the looming war in Europe.

Inspired by the true events detailed in Tippins's book, "February House" - a powerful and funny new musical about unlikely housemates - marks the first commission of The Public's Musical Theater Initiative and it is presented in association with the Long Wharf Theatre. The play is directed by David McCallum with music and lyrics by Gabriel Kahane and a book by Seth Bockley. The cast includes Julian Fleisher (George Davis), Kristen Sieh (Carson McCullers), Ken Clark (Reeves McCullers) and Erik Lochtefeld (W.H. Auden).

Sherill Tippins appeared at the annual Carson McCullers birthday celebration on the weekend of February 17, 2012, in Columbus, Georgia, hosted by The Carson McCullers Center, a Southern Literary Trail partner. Tippins writes in her book: February was a month of birthdays at 7 Middagh Street -- so many that Anais Nin would later call it "February House." By the winter of 1940-41, Tippins adds, the remarkable and dilapidated house in Brooklyn "had developed a reputation as the greatest artistic salon of the decade."

McCullers wrote of her reflections on life at 7 Middagh Street in her article "Brooklyn is My Neighborhood": Comparing the Booklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister.

	Carson McCullers		Smith-McCullers House, childhood home of Carson McCullers		Carson McCullers' 95th Birthday Celebration (View Enlarged Poster)

Sources:

1. Page and contents by permission of The New York Public Theater, all rights reserved.

2. Poster image courtesy of The Carson McCullers Center, Columbus, Ga., all rights reserved.