A new musical based on Southern
Comfort, the 2001 documentary film about the life of Robert Eads,
will premiere in the fall.
Kate Davis' film covers the final year
of Eads' life.
The 52-year-old Eads is living in the
back hills of Georgia when he is forced to battle ovarian cancer on
his own after two dozen doctors refuse to treat a transgender man.
By the time Eads finds a physician willing to help him, the cancer is
too advanced to be treated. During his final year, Eads falls in
love with Lola, a transgender woman, and at the Southern Conference
in Atlanta, the nation's preeminent transgender gathering, he takes
her to “the prom that never was.” (A trailer of the film is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)
The film won the Sundance Film
Festival's Grand Jury Prize and a Special Audience Award at the
Berlin International Film Festival.
According
to The
New York Times, the musical of the same name will
feature a folk-bluegrass score and star Annette O'Toole (The
Kennedys of Massachusetts, Smallville) and Jeff McCarthy
(Urinetown, Beauty and the Beast). Previews at Manhattan's
CAP21's Black Box Theater are to begin October 5.