The feature film adaptation of Andrew Holleran’s classic 1978 gay novel Dancer from the Dance about a lawyer who gives up his day job and immerses himself in the ’70s social scene of gay men in New York City and Fire Island has gotten a Director and will soon begin production almost 40 years after its literary debut.
Alan Poul’s TV directing credits include Six Feet Under, The Newsroom, Rome, Swingtown, and the feature The Back-up Plan. RT Features’ productions include Frances Ha, Love is Strange, Mistress America, and The Witch. Screenplay is by Joshua Harmon, John Krokidas, and Austin Bunn. Poul, Rodrigo Teixeira, and Mauricio Zacharias will produce. Production is scheduled for summer 2016 and WME is packaging.
The novel is known for its unflinching vivid imagery, lush language, and captivating depiction of gay men searching for love and acceptance in a harsh, dreamlike urban landscape.
Poul also co-produced the ’90s Tales of the City series which aired on PBS and Showtime.
TRIVIA: The title of the novel comes from the last line of William Butler Yeats‘s poem “Among School Children”, which ends, “O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,/ Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?/ O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/ How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
Reference: Post-Stonewall gay literature
I read this book was I was very young. I remember nothing about it anymore. I guess I will have to add it to my reading list. I wonder if I still have a copy? Hmmm.
I read this when I first came out. I read the “FRONT RUNNER” first. I have been waiting and hoping both these books would be made ito movies. Maybe the time is right!