D.W. Gregory’s Intimate Exposures will premiere Nov. 8  in Reading, Pa. Commissioned by the Reading Theater Project, the play is inspired by the work of Victorian-era photographer William I. Goldman, who quietly turned his lens on the “sporting girls” in the city’s most notorious brothel.

Intimate Exposures is directed by Jody Reppert and  will be performed at the historic WCR Center for the Arts at 141 N. Fifth Street, Reading. It features period songs as well as original music by Chris Heslop.

Performance dates are Nov. 8, 9, 15, 16, at 7.30 p.m., and Nov. 10 and 15 at 2 p.m. 

Goldman was a popular society photographer who worked in Reading from 1876 to 1921. Sometime in the 1890s, he secretly began to photograph women who worked in Sal Shearer’s “disorderly house” at Eighth and Walnut Streets in Reading. 

His collection remained hidden for a hundred years until art historian Robert Flynn Johnson discovered his photographs at a California flea market and traced them to Reading and Shearer’s establishment with the help of researchers at The Berks History Center. Goldman’s remarkable photographs are featured in Working Girls: An American Brothel 1892, Robert Flynn Johnson, editor.

A Scandal That Never Erupted

Goldman’s photographs  range from straight-on portraits in street clothes, to reproductions of famous art works, to playful riffs on classic subjects, to erotica (more than a few stocking shots in the mix), and to what can only be described as ‘life studies.’ And he took these photographs in an era of extreme social constriction and repression. Had they been discovered in his lifetime, it would have been a major scandal. As it was, he kept the collection a secret. There is no evidence he ever attempted to capitalize on them.

The play imagines how Goldman’s private collection came to be and its impact on him and the women who posed for him.

“It’s really a play about the power of art to transform our lives,” Gregory said. “When Goldman turns his lens on one of these women, he views her in an entirely different way than most men who come in contact with her.  He treats her with dignity and shows her the kind or respect any artist would who stumbles upon an exciting, inspiring subject. And how he looks at her begins to change the way she sees herself.”

More information about the play can be found at readingtheaterproject.org or by calling 484-706-9719.