In the Tony Award winning play I Am My Own Wife, actor Jefferson Mays, M.F.A., '91, must also be his own mother, father, friends and a host of other characters. This subtle one-man show, a rarity among the glitzy musicals of Broadway, will play at the 700-seat Lyceum Theater until November. It follows the life of a real person, German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who lived through Nazi and Communist repression. Her unique story is told in a blend of fact and fiction.

Mays deftly transforms himself into the people Charlotte meets along the way. With a shift of the head or change in accent he is able to smoothly transition between the soft-spoken German accent of Charlotte to the brash and loud talk-show host or the gun-crazy father.

Mays performs the one-man, two-hour show eight times a week. "I'm exhausted. I lapse into a welcome coma on Mondays," he says. This is Mays' first time flying solo on the stage. "I had always shied away from it. I thought it would be terribly lonely, just the sound of my own voice," he says. "But I've come to fall in love with being onstage alone."

Doug Wright's play began close to home at the La Jolla Playhouse as their 2001 Page to Stage production and Mays was involved from the beginning. "It is one of my favorite roles ever, though it is a bit demanding," Mays says. "At the end I feel like I've run a marathon and my head has been dropped and shattered into a hundred pieces, but it certainly is exhilarating."

It is a marathon that paid off on Broadway where Wife won the 2004 Tony for Best Play and Mays won the Tony for Best Actor.

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