Gently Down the Stream

Beau, a pianist expat living in London, meets Rufus, an eccentric young lawyer, at the dawn of the internet dating revolution. After a life spent recovering from the disappointment and hurt of loving men in a world that refused to allow it, Beau is determined to keep his expectations low with Rufus.

But Rufus comes from a new generation of gay men who believe happiness is as much their right as anyone else's, and what Beau assumed would be just another fling grows into one of the most surprising and defining relationships of his life.

A remarkably moving, brilliantly funny love story, Gently Down the Stream is the latest play from acclaimed playwright Martin Sherman. The play reflects the triumphs and heartbreaks of the entire length of the gay rights movement, celebrating and mourning the ghosts of the men and women who led the way for equality, marriage and the right to dream.

It received its world premiere at the Public Theatre, New York, on 14 March 2017 in a production starring Tony-award winner Harvey Fierstein.

Martin Sherman was born in Philadelphia, educated at Boston University and now lives in London. His early plays include Passing By, Cracks and Rio Grande, all originally presented by Playwrights Horizons in New York. Bent premiered at the Royal Court in 1979, transferred to the Criterion Theatre and was then presented on Broadway, where it received a Tony nomination for Best Play and won the Dramatist Guild's Hull-Warriner Award. Bent has been produced in over forty-five countries, and has been turned into a ballet in Brazil, and, in 1989, was revived at the National Theatre. It has been voted one of the NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century. His next plays were Messiah (Hampstead and Aldwych Theatres, 1983), When She Danced (King's Head, 1988; Gielgud, 1991), A Madhouse in Goa (Lyric Hammersmith and Apollo, 1989), Some Sunny Day (Hampstead, 1996) and Rose (National Theatre, 1999). Rose received an Olivier nomination for Best Play and transferred to Broadway the following season. Sherman has written an adaptation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India for Shared Experience (Riverside Studios, 2002; Lyric Hammersmith, 2004) and a new version of a Luigi Pirandello play, Absolutely! (Perhaps) (Wyndhams, 2003) He has also written the book for the musical The Boy From Oz which opened on Broadway in 2003. His screenplays include The Clothes in the Wardrobe (US title: The Summer House), Alive and Kicking, Bent, Callas Forever and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. Martin Sherman Plays: One was published by Methuen Drama in 2004.