DAVID CALE
BLUE COWBOY

Showings:
Saturday, August 16 at 7:30pm &
Sunday, August 17 at 4pm
at Ancram Center for the Arts

Written & performed by David Cale

Three-time Obie Award winner and acclaimed monologist David Cale returns as part of Play Lab 2025 to present a staged reading of his latest solo work, an evocative tale about a NY screenwriter on assignment in Idaho and his encounters with an enigmatic ranch hand.

Ancram Center’s Play Lab provides theatre artists off all practices with time, space and resources to develop a new, innovative theater project to be presented in the future at Ancram Center or elsewhere. Selected artists spend a week-long residency in Ancram that culminates with a work-in-progress showing. Throughout the residency, Ancram Center makes efforts to connect the artist with the community in meaningful ways through a combination of interactive workshops, open rehearsals, audience discussions, and more.

DAVID CALE is the writer and performer of ten solo works, most recently his solo musical memoir, We’re Only Alive for A Short Amount of Time at The Public Theater and The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, for which he wrote the book, lyrics and co-composed the music with Matthew Dean Marsh (Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance, Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, and for which David and Matthew received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Solo Show and Chicago’s Jeff Award for New Musical). Other solo works include The History of Kisses, Palomino, A Likely Story, Lillian (Obie Award), Deep in a Dream of You (Bessie Award), Smooch Music and The Redthroats (Bessie Award). David wrote the book, lyrics, co-composed the music for and starred in the musical Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky (Playwrights Horizons, Goodman), inspired by his experience portraying Floyd Duffner in Alex and Andrew Smith’s film The Slaughter Rule. He collaborated with Dael Orlandersmith on The Blue Album, and with Dael and Matthew on You Don’t Know the Lonely One, which they performed at Ancram Center for the Arts. Also previously at Ancram, a show of David’s and Matthew’s songs, Songs for Charming Strangers. David made his London West End debut as a playwright last year with the sold-out run of his solo play Harry Clarke starring Billy Crudup (Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor). Harry Clarke premiered in NYC at the Vineyard Theatre, transferring to the Minetta Lane Theatre as Audible’s first theatre production (Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show), and subsequently enjoyed a record-breaking run at Berkeley Rep. His follow up solo play Sandra, with music by Matthew, and starring Marjan Neshat, also premiered at the Vineyard Theatre. As an actor, David’s recent credits include The Seagull/Woodstock, NY on stage at The New Group, on TV; the second season of Poker Face, directed by Natasha Lyonne; and on film; Faryl Amadeus’s short The Man in the Motel and Mona Fastvold’s upcoming musical, Ann Lee.