Former CWEnder Henry Biggs brings his play “Trompe L’Oeil” to The Sheldon

Henry Biggs, above, has checked off an extraordinary “bucket list” of accomplishments that to most people would seem a complete fabrication (more on that follows). So, news that he has written a play that will be performed at The Sheldon October 2 & 3 is not a total surprise. As one of his son’s remarked when asked at a neighborhood gathering what his father was up to, “I don’t have any idea.”  Nothing seems beyond the realm of possibility.

Biggs grew up on Pershing Place and majored in Latin at Harvard University—”where” he said, “the big money was. I directed musicals there, and have been writing lyrics for the last 35 years with hidden meanings—acrostics and so forth.”

Following graduation, Biggs served as chair of the French Department at Houghton University in New York State. He later moved back to St. Louis as Associate Dean in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. After earning 5 additional degrees at various universities, Biggs became a professor on the faculty at Wash U’s School of Law.

In 2017, Henry and Theresa Biggs, who was an Adjunct Professor of Italian at SLU, moved to France where they lived for 5 years before moving back to St. Louis. Henry is now General Counsel of a company that focuses on developing software for non-profits and higher education.

When Biggs was 25, he swam the English Channel. After that experience, he said he had had enough of swimming, “in fact, I don’t really like swimming.”  Nevertheless, in 2015 Biggs swam around Manhattan and raised $100,000 to endow scholarships for students in Ferguson following the unrest there. A movie, Swimming to Ferguson, narrated by Joe Buck, chronicles that effort. There is a 2015 news report about the event in Wash U’s Student Life.Biggs said that he is “honored to be bringing his production of Trompe L’Oeil to the iconic Sheldon Theater October 2 and 3. He describes the play as “a sort of updated, R-rated Alice in Wonderland with a dash of Cabaret and a splash of Cirque du Soleil.“Trompe L’Oeil was first performed off-Broadway in 2021. It then garnered great reviews during performances in London in 2022 and 2023. Biggs says that when the curtain closes on the St. Louis production, he will start gearing up for a 2025 performance in London’s West End.Biggs explained that “Trompe L’Oeil (an art form that literally means ‘deceives the eye’) is in many ways a modernized riff on The Wizard of Oz.  This version of Dorothy—Demi, a drag queen—finds herself euphoric over the progress that has been made in America circa 2015—a black president, legalized gay marriage and legalized marijuana! What more to want?! —only to get swept away into what is for her the Oz-like political landscape of Trump that follows in 2016, a landscape she cannot process.”

Biggs, above, portrayed Donald Trump in the 2021 Off Broadway production, but is not performing the role in St. Louis. (Kelly Howel is playing Trump at The Sheldon.)  “The former president is not a prominent character,” Biggs explained,”but instead part of the trompe idea—although it is in character for him to think it is all about him.”   Biggs sent this photo of rehearsals on step moves with Gentlemen of Vision at a Love the Lou event, above, two local organizations he is happy to support.  The groups’ members, Marlon Wharton, Javon Jones and Angel Muhammad, influenced the number for Trompe L’Oeil’s finale.

When I asked the playwright what it was like to be bringing this play to St. Louis, he said, “Wonderful! It’s a homecoming! I’m glad to have had 7 years for it to be this good.”  As of this posting, only single tickets remain available for Trompe L’Oeil, presented by Funky Tickle Productions at The Sheldon, 3648 Washington, October 2 & 3 at 8 p.m.