David Cale didn’t initially intend to write a love story about a writer and a ranch hand. When the Obie-winning playwright and performer arrived in Sun Valley, Idaho, for a month-long residency, his original plan was to craft a play about a visual artist who had left New York for the open skies of Montana. But then something unexpected happened.
“I got to witness the trailing of the sheep,” Cale recalled. “They drive about 1,500 sheep from the mountain through the town to warmer pastures, because it gets too cold in the mountain in the winter. I decided to make the play about a writer’s relationship to an elusive local ranch hand.”
That encounter — equal parts ritual, spectacle, and pastoral necessity — sparked “Blue Cowboy,” Cale’s latest solo work-in-progress, which he will perform at Ancram Center for the Arts on August 16 and 17 as part of its Play Lab 2025 series.
“It’s about two lonely people, one openly gay, one a rugged, macho guy,” he explained. “It’s a love story with a certain element of mystery.”
Though “Blue Cowboy” began in Idaho, it’s making an early stop near Cale’s home in Columbia County, just across the river from Ancram, where the playwright is no stranger. He previously workshopped “You Don’t Know the Lonely One” there, a collaboration with Dael Orlandersmith, composer Matthew Dean Marsh, and director Robert Falls. He’s also performed songs and stories at the venue to sold-out crowds.
This time, he brings a project shaped by vulnerability, sexual frankness, and personal doubt.
“Part of the reason I wasn’t thinking of performing “Blue Cowboy” myself was that the sexual frankness of the story made my shyness rear up,” he admitted. “I thought the story was genuine, but it frightened me, and I felt it was too vulnerable for me to do.”
He was concerned when the play had its first public reading last year in Ketchum, Idaho—in a 460-seat space.
“I personally was nervous about the explicit nature of the play, with the gay content,” Cale said. “The Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency folks really prepared the audience for it, partially at my insistence.” That included content warnings in advance publicity. “But it turned out to be not an issue at all.”
The audience, he said, responded with warmth. “It was very well-received. It’s accurate to that area. Authentic.”
What surprised him most, though, wasn’t the response to the love story. “There is a dog in the story—the dog is important in it,” he said. “Two details about dogs were objected to. No one said anything about the sex. The gay content was fine, but the dog information had to be corrected.”
Cale, who has played multiple characters in his own solo works since the 1980s, is no stranger to inhabiting the whole of a story himself. But recently, his writing has drawn star collaborators. “Harry Clarke,” his acclaimed play about a duplicitous Englishman living in New York, starred Billy Crudup at the Vineyard Theatre and later became a sensation in London.
“I couldn’t even get a ticket one night,” Cale said. “I thought I’d just watch from the light booth, which I’ve done in NYC, but the theatre didn’t allow that. So I went and had dinner, while my visiting friend from NYC watched the show.” He laughed. “I like being the writer. It’s energizing to be a hit.”
“Blue Cowboy” marks a return to the stage for Cale — but only because of a particular ask from director Les Waters. “He said he’d only agree to direct if I performed it myself,” Cale said. “It’s a very vulnerable piece, very simply presented. I had another actor in mind for it, but Les didn’t want to do it with anyone but me.”
That insistence meant something, especially in today’s industry. “Theatre is going through such a hard time financially. Stars help sell tickets,” Cale said. “So Les saying he’d like to do it with me was very touching.”
Cale’s writing often invited animals into the frame, not just as symbols but as quiet co-conspirators in the human dramas he constructed. “When I was looking at the house upstate and a heron flew and landed there, I knew it was the one,” he recalled.
During the pandemic, he bonded with squirrels in Tompkins Square Park. He documented those interactions in photos and commentary that eventually became gallery exhibitions — first in New York, then at the community library in Ketchum. While working in Sun Valley, he said it was the magpies outside Hemingway’s house that played a similar role.
“I am an animal lover staying in the hunter’s house,” Cale said, referring to the former residence of Ernest and Mary Hemingway. “The animals come. It’s now a safe place for animals. The magpies got tame.”
That reversal — of a place of conquest becoming one of refuge — echoed the tone of “Blue Cowboy,” which moves through cowboy poetry, western landscapes, and unexpected tenderness.
“In the play the writer and the ranch hand drive around to cowboy events. I went into the cowboy world. I’ve spent time in Montana as well as Idaho. Some of cowboy life is surprising. For instance, cowboys are very big on poetry. They write it and learn it by heart.”
For Cale, who took a detour from his early solo performances by crafting plays and radio monologues — “I contacted Steve Buscemi to read one and he did. From then on, they wanted famous people” — this new work returns him to a quieter, more intimate act of storytelling. It also returns him to Ancram, where some of his most personal stories have found an early voice.
“Blue Cowboy” will be presented at the Ancram Center for the Arts on Saturday, Aug. 16 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 17 at 4:00 p.m. Tickets are available online.