1964: The Birth of Gay Theater - The Gay & Lbian Review

Contents:

• DUMBLEDORE IS SO GAY!
• KNOW YOUR ENTERTAERS: SANDRA GAY
• THE VIEW STAR REVEALS WHY SHE AGRE WH SUPREME COURT LG FOR SIGNER WHO OPPOS GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY THEATRE
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS
• 1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER
• SPECTACLETHéâTRE : TROIS SPECTACL GAYS à DéUVRIR EN CE MOMENT à PARIS
• GAY FRIENDLY

DUMBLEDORE IS SO GAY!

Jerry Douglas's Tubstrip, a risque edy set a gay bathhoe, was a popular sensatn when produced onstage 1973-1974, the era of gay liberatn and the sexual revolutn. The play, often dismissed by mastream crics but hailed as "funny, sexy, and important" by the gay prs, ran for 140 performanc off-Broadway, then toured to eight ci over ne months, and returned to Broadway starrg the legendary adult film star Casey Donovan the lead role.

KNOW YOUR ENTERTAERS: SANDRA GAY

Dpe s unprecented succs and acclaim, the play was not officially published until wh the but publitn of the script of the play, this edn clus a foreword by Jordan Schildcrout tled "Tubstrip and The Erotic Theatre of Gay Liberatn", which exam the signifince of the play as one of a wave of erotic gay plays (most of them fotten or lost) that emerged between 1969 and 1974.

He went on to have a major reer gay male pornography, directg numero award-wng films between 1989 and 2007, such as More of a Man, Flh & Blood, Dream Team, and Schildcrout is Associate Profsor of Theatre & Performance at SUNY Purchase. Lee Barton, reviewg the play for The Advote, lled "funny, sexy, and important, " but wonred whether mastream crics uld "tolerate anythg gay that is so open and healthy.

Some crics regard the tour as "homosexploatn, " but the Philalphia Enquirer lled "somethg of an event the history of gay liberatn... One San Francis review praised Tubstrip as an exemplar of gay liberatn, remarkg, "When is the last time you walked out of a play or film about gays and felt good? From Bottoms and Problemistas to theatre mps and gay wrtlers, this summer has somethg for everyone — pecially if you're left: Tilda Swton Problemista; Ayo Eberi Bottoms; Franz Rogowski Passag.

THE VIEW STAR REVEALS WHY SHE AGRE WH SUPREME COURT LG FOR SIGNER WHO OPPOS GAY MARRIAGE

" A fiery, joyo portra of an unlikely in, Cassandro stars Gael Garcia Bernal as a man on a fearls journey to bee a rare openly gay star the Mexin wrtlg world of the early ReadIf wrtlg is art, then Kenny Omega is one of Canada's greatt performg artistsLed by an electrifyg Bernal, also featur great supportg turns om Roberta Coldrez (A League of Their Own), Raúl Castillo (The Inspectn) and none other than Bad Bunny. Rottg the SunThere's absolutely one thg Barbie and Oppenheimer fail at when pared to Sebastián Silva's rto meta-edy Rottg In The Sun: onscreen penis and graphic gay sex.

GAY THEATRE

Although she reloted to Indianapolis upon a iend’s requt, Gay found Actors Ink Theatre Productn Company 1981 after a productn of “For Colored Girls Who Consired Suici / When the Rabow is Enuf” at the Indianapolis Civic Theatre (now The Palladium). As a POCA pany, Gay said they ter to actors and performers over the age of 65 — her youngt pany member is 68 and the olst is 93 — learng, rehearsg and performg alongsi each other the same way any profsnal pany do.

Although some members of her troupe may have had knee replacements, hip replacements, back pa or breathg problems, Gay said everyone works hard bee they re about the art. Of urse, there are always workarounds for those who nnot stand for long or have trouble dancg, but Gay said she fds ways for them to not jt participate but she onstage. Even after all the years, Gay said her philosophy has not changed that rpect and believ she uld teach any subject, cludg math and language, g theater techniqu.

Until 16 September 2023 Sleepg Bety Tak A Prick TicketsSleepg Bety Tak A Prick at Charg Cross Theatre 23 November 2023 to 13 January 2024 Strangers Between TicketsThe Goln Goose Theatre is revivg classic Atralian drama Strangers Between by Tommy Murphy, which looks at the highs and lows of growg up gay morn Atralia. "Basilly, what says is, bee somethg like creatg a webse would be eedom of exprsn or speech, this would also — let's flip on s head — would protect a gay web signer om havg to create a bigoted, anti-LGBTQ webse.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

"You don't know somebody's gay unls you ask them, so if the web signer says, 'Um, we're booked up, ' they don't have to al wh that other stuff this woman ma this about.

" Goldberg prsed on, tellg Griff, "This is about beg able to say, 'I don't want to do a gay person's webse, ' that's what this is about. The Gay Theatre was the town’s post-War movie statn om 1947 until, apparently, 1955 when the theatre was offered for sale.

1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

Okay, there are jt a few dited LGBTQ+ performance venu the cy, cludg gay theatre hubs Above the Stag, Royal Vxhall Tavern and the Kg's Head. Expect everythg om genre-smashg queer baret to lbian romance to gay theatre classics to exploratns of trans experience.

In wrg , Crowley had liberately taken up the challenge tossed down by the theater cric Stanley Kffmann, who a 1966 New York Tim say headled “Homosexual Drama and Its Disguis” asked why that era’s most famo gay playwrights — meang Edward Albee, Tennsee Williams and William Inge — didn’t wre about themselv and leave straights alone.

Nor do homosexuals suffer om an “emotnal-psychologil illns, ” as he sually mentns — for this was an era which such public slurs were chic and permissible, pecially the guise of lerary cricism.

SPECTACLETHéâTRE : TROIS SPECTACL GAYS à DéUVRIR EN CE MOMENT à PARIS

”) Still, there was no nyg that ank plays about gay male life had never reached the mastream, never perated the circl which Kffmanns and Roths and social Crowley wrote the bt and funnit and gayt play he uld, about ne gay men (or maybe eight and a half) at a birthday party. Though some of the men fse the ambient homophobia of the time better than others, almost all of them suffer om the self-hatred that seemed then, and maybe now, to filtrate even the bt-fend personaly.

It is also an acknowledgment of a larger urgency about the reprentatn of gay men popular entertament: a moment that, the theater at least, is both sprgboard and logy. At a time when many of the classic gay plays are returng to the Broadway stage — “Boys the Band, ” “Angels Ameri” and “Torch Song Trilogy” among them — almost no new on are on the horizon to jo them. When Luckbill, then 33, agreed to play Hank — the “straightt” of the gay men, who’d left his wife and children — his agent said he might as well bid goodbye to his reer.

But so heavy and lgerg was the perfume of gayns g off the project that even a heterosexual actor like Luckbill was thought to be mtg theatril suici to book . William Friedk’s fahful movie versn, released 1970 and starrg the entire stage st, turned to a touchstone of gay style and sufferg for gays and straights well beyond New York.

GAY FRIENDLY

I wre that admirg many of s spirual forebears, om Tennsee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie” 1945 to Robert Anrson’s “Tea and Sympathy” 1953 to the early works of Doric Wilson, Lanford Wilson, Robert Patrick and many others who helped spark an efflorcence of downtown gay drama centered at Caffe Co, wh s makhift k-crate stage, startg while buildg on those — and, Crowley says, on Arthur Lrents’s screenplay for Aled Hchck’s 1948 film, “Rope, ” which two gay men murr a classmate for sport — “The Boys the Band” has had the more nsequential gay trajectory. They and the rt of the starry st are succsful, openly gay men, as are the producers, Ryan Murphy and David Stone, and the director, Joe was a liberate statement, meant to acknowledge how far the world has e sce 1968.