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The Arts Intel Report

Case Closed: The Dorian Corey Story

Sept 10 – Oct 10, 2021
24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012, United States

In 1993, Dorian Corey, a drag queen known for hosting fabulous salons in her Harlem apartment, died of AIDS. While Corey’s friends mourned her untimely death, a dressmaker and two men went to her abandoned apartment to find fabric. Instead, they found a mummy in Corey’s closet. Playwright Jeffrey S. Jones uses this true story as the premise for his new play, Case Closed, a comic murder mystery about Corey’s friends and the real skeleton in her closet. Produced by Notsew Productions, a company devoted to mainstreaming marginalized voices, Case Closed is Corey’s second moment in the spotlight. Once upon a time she made a cameo appearance in the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning. Like that film, this play is about the underground queer scene in 1980s New York City. —J.D.