Jordan Ahnquist cuts up off-Broadway as a flamboyant gay hairdresser.
By Brandon Voss
Sometimes it pays to run with scissors. Shear Madness, the longest running play in American history, celebrated its 35th anniversary in Boston earlier this year. Following hit productions all over the world, the comedy finally opens November 11 at off-Broadway’s New World Stages.
Adapted by Marilyn Abrams and director Bruce Jordan from a German psychodrama, it’s an interactive whodunit where the audience helps to solve a murder in a unisex hair salon. Jordan Ahnquist, who’s been with the Boston company for six years, stars in the New York premiere as Tony, the salon’s flamboyant proprietor. “Making him a caricature is an easy trap to fall into,” Ahnquist says. “The circumstances of the play are absurd, but it’s my job — and I take it seriously — to make sure he’s believable.”
Had you seen the largely improvised and regularly updated play back in the ’80s, it might’ve been a different story. “His being gay was more central to the character — some jokes would’ve made you cringe,” he continues. “The character’s evolved as time’s gone on. Tony is never the butt of the joke.”
So just how flaming is Tony in 2015? “Honestly, whether he’s gay or not, that’s not the point — and when other actors make that the point, they’ve not had much success with this role,” Ahnquist says. “Yeah, Tony’s a funny, flighty, excitable hairstylist who makes dirty jokes and wears bright-colored clothes. I don’t know who he sleeps with at night.”
Next, November 2015.