The Last Castrato

By Andy Eninger

THE LAST CASTRATO is the darkly comic, bittersweet tale of Joseph, who was born without a penis, and his love affair with Elena, who was born with her skin inside out. Elena, though, was blessed with a beautiful singing voice to balance her deformity, while Joseph has no talent whatsoever to make up for his missing member. "A penis," he muses, "in terms of artistic merit is worth nothing." The tale follows the lengths one man will go to to overcome his own mediocrity in an attepmt to connect with the one he loves.

THE LAST CASTRATO sprang from the mind and pen of Chicago playwright Andy Eninger after initial development as part of a solo performance workshop at The Blue Rider Theatre. Audacity Artistic Director Brad McEntire made contact with Mr. Eninger in October 2004 when they were both featured performers in Chicago's third annual Single File Solo Performance Festival. THE LAST CASTRATO recieved its world-premiere at Single File, performed by its author. The piece was then presented by Audacity Productions at the 2005 New York International Fringe Festival with Jeff Swearingen in the title role. It was subsequently presented exclusively by Audacity throughout 2005 and 2006 at theatres in Dallas, Addison and Austin, Texas. It played at the New Orleans Fringe Festival (2008), the Phoenix Fringe Festival (2009) and returned for a five performance run in Dallas in June 2009 at the Teatro Dallas Space.

The piece runs about 50-55 minutes and is performed by a single actor who portrays nearly a dozen different characters. The show is highly portable and easy to stage in a variety of spaces.

The piece is directed and designed by Brad McEntire and features actor Jeff Swearingen.

See THE LAST CASTRATO on MySpace