LBGTQ TV: A history of gay characters, om Stonewall to 'Batwoman' | CNN

Contents:

• THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS
• THANKS TO WHNEY HOTON, ‘HIGH SCHOOL MIL’ HAS S FIRST GAY ROMANCE
• WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.
• LBGTQ TV: A HISTORY OF GAY CHARACTERS, OM STONEWALL TO ‘BATWOMAN’
• ‘HIGH SCHOOL MIL’ AIRS GAY LOVE BALLAD FIRST FOR DISNEY
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

In this chronologil list of semal events and selected theatril landmarks, you’ll fd a wi variety of gay, lbian and transgenr characters and stori – om gay men New York stgglg wh self-loathg The Boys the Band to a young lbian North Carola proudly facg her fay The Cake. 1975: The Rz by Terrence McNally(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3f, 14m) Terrence McNally managed to be both a tradnalist and a pneer wh this uproar 1975 Broadway h; he set his tradnal door-slammg farce a gay bathhoe.

1978: Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierste(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2f, 4m)In 1978, gay “clone culture” was on the rise; many gay Amerins tried to assiate by appearg more “straight, ” and Amerins beme more faiar wh imag of butch gay men. ) “At the height of the post-Stonewall clone era, ” wrote playwright Charl Bch a 2002 article for The Advote, “Harvey [Fierste] challenged both gay and straight dienc to champn an effemate gay man’s longgs for love and fay.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

1981: March of the Falsettos by William Fn(Full-Length Mil, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 3m, 1 boy) Two years after his experimental mil In Troers troduced a gay character named Marv ntemplatg the women (and men) his life, William Fn expand Marv’s universe the one-act mil March of the Falsettos, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons on May 20, 1981.

Wrten before AIDS reached the public nscns (and premierg jt two days after the first published report of what was later lled AIDS) Fn’s nrotic, lightful mil celebrat gay fai, therapy, Jewishns and personal growth wh no ht of the panmic to e. The show also troduced a powerful and endurg gay anthem; “I Am What I Am, ” which celebrat gay inty, beme the soundtrack for generatns of LGBTQ+ protts, march and celebratns. A barely fictnalized acunt of Larry Kramer’s life experience as -founr of GMHC and ACT-UP, the play ncerns Ned Weeks, a gay activist enraged at the difference of public officials and the gay muny.

THANKS TO WHNEY HOTON, ‘HIGH SCHOOL MIL’ HAS S FIRST GAY ROMANCE

Through several further llaboratns, cludg Brave S: Another Lbian Tragedy, The Secretari, Bris of the Moon and Oedip at Palm Sprgs, The Five Lbian Brothers ntued to create and perform over the next two s, a time when news of gay men and AIDS often overshadowed stori of lbian liv.

2004: The History Boys by Alan Bent(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 11m)First prented by the Natnal Theatre at the Lyttleton Theatre London on May 18, 2004, and subsequently prented on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on April 23, 2006, Alan Bent’s The History Boys subtly explored gay them s pictn of life among an unly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form (senr) boys a Brish boardg school 1983. A kaleidospe that ternnects to portray growg up gay and black, Bootyndy tells the story of Sutter, who is on an outrageo odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms, and even nursg hom.

2013: Fun Home Mic by Jeane Tori / Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron(Full-Length Mil, Drama / 4f, 2m, 1 girl, 2 boys) Nearly a half-century after the birth of the morn gay rights movement, Broadway fally weled s first mil wh a lbian protagonist. In s portra of a lbian artist and her memori of her closeted gay father, the groundbreakg work brilliantly and heartbreakgly picted, the microsm of one fay, the ntrast of generatnal experienc the LGBTQ+ muny. 2013, December 17: Part of a s-long wave of antigay legislatn Ai, The Uganda Anti-Homosexualy Act 2014 is passed, wh a punishment of life prison for “aggravated homosexualy”.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.

2015: Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 4f, 3m)Inspired by the te story of the earlit stirrgs of the gay rights movement, Perfect Arrangement merg madp s-style lghs wh provotive drama as two closeted U. Reachg back over 60 years before s premiere, Perfect Arrangement addrs the prediment gay and lbian cizens faced pre-Stonewall Ameri, turng a harrowg perd Amerin history to a rto but thought-provokg edy. Set Uganda, a untry subjected to severe anti-homosexualy laws, The Rollg Stone is an timate yet explosive fay drama about two brothers at odds – one a gay man a clanste relatnship, and the other a church pastor who fervently rails agast the liftyle his brother is forced to nceal.

2017: The View UpStairs by Max Vernon(Full-Length Mil, Drama / 2f, 8m)Des after the birth of the morn gay rights movement, this ntemporary mil, which opened off-Broadway at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre on Febary 28, 2017, revised the 1973 UpStairs Lounge arson attack and the ensug s of gay history.

When W, a young fashn signer om 2017, buys an abandoned buildg the French Quarter of New Orleans, he fds himself transported to the UpStairs Lounge, a vibrant seventi gay bar. The story revolv around a group of gay iends g together for a iend's birthday party Manhattan, and ends wh stori about long-lost lovers, and one character g out to his wife.

LBGTQ TV: A HISTORY OF GAY CHARACTERS, OM STONEWALL TO ‘BATWOMAN’

Created by out playwright John Cameron Mchell, Hedwig spired a feature film and a Broadway revival, wh gay actors like Neil Patrick Harris and Andrew Rannells takg on the Home This crilly-acclaimed Broadway mil was adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeane Tori om Alison Bechl's 2006 graphic memoir of the same name. The storyle was a darg productn for the time -- even though alt wh a lbian romance, was weled by the public and beme a huge Sex Another award-wng play by Harvey Fierste, Safe Sex premiered on Broadway 1987 and took dienc to the life of a gay man rg for his lover as he succumbs to AIDS-related illns. After his partner's ath, the protagonist mt meet his lover's wife and Pri Set both the 1950s and 2008, The Pri, wrten by Alexi Kaye Campbell, parallels two gay love stori two very different eras.

As most know, the stage productns were adapted for numero French films and a very famo Amerin remake, starrg Rob Williams and Nathan This 1979 play, wrten by Mart Sherman, revolv around the persecutn of gays Nazi Germany, and tak place durg and after the Night of the Long Kniv, the vlent 1934 uprisg that brought Hilter to power. 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. ”) 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.

‘HIGH SCHOOL MIL’ AIRS GAY LOVE BALLAD FIRST FOR DISNEY

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.

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. 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. “The guys that are the leads, ” Murphy says, “are the first generatn of gay actors who said, ‘We’re gog to live thentic liv and hope and pray our reers rema on track’ — and they have. Mantello pots out the startlg paradox that all the gay members of the origal pany felt pelled to stay the closet “even though they were a groundbreakg play about gay men.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

”But the way the world se gay people and the way gay people see themselv have changed so much, and of late so fast, that plays om even jt a few years ago n seem like Ken Burns documentari.

In the aftermath of the Stonewall rts of 1969, while the play still ran, s portrayal of gay male life me to be seen as unterrevolutnary, which was exactly backward, if unrstandable light of the rebrandg unrway.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

The characters’ promiscuo, boa-flgg, “Oh, Mary”-spoutg, drown-your-troubl--a-vodka-bottle histrnics were distctly off-msage durg the years when gay men were tryg to cultivate lawmakers and police wh their new imag as activists or pillars of the muny, not of Sodom.