Andy Warhol and Truman Capote were BFFs for a time. The king of pop art from Pittsburgh and the writer of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood” who grew up in Alabama, clicked.
Evidence of their friendship includes the many portraits Warhol created of Capote and the articles he printed of their chats. They hung out together, as friends do, and inveterate collector Warhol collected those conversations, as he did most things.
In the late 1970s, not long before Capote’s downward personal spiral and liver cancer led to his death in 1984, the pals were planning a Broadway play that never happened — but their conversations about it exist on tape, rediscovered by the director Rob Roth (Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast”) in the late 2000s.
With the support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Truman Capote Literary Trust, Mr. Roth will reveal the content of the tapes in the form of a play — the world premiere of “Warhol Capote,” directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer (“Spring Awakening”) for American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The play opens Sept. 9.
“Every word spoken in the play comes from the mouths of Warhol and Capote,” the announcement of the play has promised.
This is far from the first time that private conversations between Warhol and Capote have been made public — just the first time we will find out what they were planning for Broadway.
Some of their chats were printed word-for-word in Warhol’s Interview magazine. To whet your appetite for the coming “Warhol Capote” reveal, here is a snippet from a day the artist spent with writers Capote and Bob Colacello, part of the 1979 Interview piece by Warhol, “Is Truman Human?”
CAPOTE: I just live one day at a time. That's my new theory in life. I was always projecting all the time.
WARHOL: Mine is every day is a new day.
CAPOTE: Every day is a new day with me. All holds are off. All contracts are forgotten. I used to spend all of my time projecting. I was never in the moment. … That was one of the reasons I always had this sense of anxiety. One of the things I learned at Hazelden [for addiction treatment] was I just simply can't do that. It's one of those things that leads into drinking, which I don't want to do.
WARHOL: I don't understand. One day three weeks ago you went to the country and came back different. It was just overnight.
CAPOTE: I just decided it's now or never. I went to the country to think about it.
WARHOL: It's just incredible. You're like a new same old person. You really are.
No casting has been announced for “Warhol Capote,” but the writer will be portrayed on the big screen — again — by Carnegie Mellon alumnus and “Beauty and the Beast” star Josh Gad in “Party of the Century.” The movie, due next year, takes its name from the Black and White Ball attended by Capote’s high society friends at New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1966. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman, in an Oscar-winning performance, and Toby Jones are just two of the actors who have channeled Capote in films.
No word on who might play Warhol in “Party of the Century,” but we know he was there. It was a masquerade ball, but according to photographs and many who witnessed the scene, the one holdout who refused to wear a mask was Andy Warhol.
More than 50 years later, with the release of “Warhol Capote,” there is still more to be revealed — in their own words — about two of the 20th century’s most fascinating men of arts and letters.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: July 2, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
