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Jacksonville Jaguars associate strength ach Kev Maxen has e out as gay. His announcement is a first for a male ach a major U.S.-based profsnal league.

Contents:

THE 10 BT GAY MILS OF ALL TIME

Gay-themed Broadway mils have e a long way the past fifty years. The on are the bt. * first musical with gay characters *

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. 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 BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

"High School Mil: The Mil: The Seri" on Disney+ troduced a gay love story volvg characters Carlos and Seb s Dec. 6 episo. * first musical with gay characters *

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

In recent shows, ias of gayns are expandg, bg and disappearg all at once. * first musical with gay characters *

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”. 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.

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

Gay characters the post-Stonewall era go a lot wir and eper than ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘Ellen.’ * first musical with gay characters *

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’

* first musical with gay characters *

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.

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

Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach a US men’s profsnal sports league to e out as gay. * first musical with gay characters *

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.

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

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. ”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.

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

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.

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.

Even Albee, who Crowley spects vted secretly the origal productn, once tarred the play as “a highly skillful work that I spised” bee “did ser damage to a burgeong gay rpectabily movement. And bee I’m wrg about plays that have shaped gay male life, ’s not surprisg that all the playwrights I name are gay hardly needs argug that one of them is Tony Khner, whose play “Angels Ameri: A Gay Fantasia on Natnal Them, ” opened on Broadway 1993.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* FIRST MUSICAL WITH GAY CHARACTERS

bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->1:23</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->0:00</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Read T a Poem | Michael Benjam Washgton</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The actor reads "The Unsung" by Keenan Teddy Smh.</h4></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">For the Old Port built and built aga: I am sure you are different to me. We are k, though; we are both refuge and warmth, petn and hope, nnected by seas. your boats here are plentiful, but your huddled mass are greater; I feel no one sgs the songs of our kd anymore, no one not our role safe passage. Five me if I’ve been too vted, too ialistic about our sisterhood. Perhaps ’s our shared brownns, our shared tis, our shared rilience agast time and the ficklens of men that ma so nnected as if I uld leap om notre dame and scend to wh love, our songs and sorrows guidg me over rooftops and fé smoke plum. Unsung sats, lyg open for the world, if the lost and found won’t buttrs wh honor, we shall always hold each other.</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><script type="applitn/ld+json">{"@ntext":","@type":"VioObject","@id":","scriptn":"The actor reads \"The Unsung\" by Keenan Teddy Smh.","url":","name":"Read T a Poem | Michael Benjam Washgton","thumbnailUrl":[",","],"embedUrl":","ntentUrl":","uploadDate":"2018-02-26T05:05:13.000Z","transcript":"For the Old Port built and built aga: I am sure you are different to me. We are k, though; we are both refuge and warmth, petn and hope, nnected by seas. your boats here are plentiful, but your huddled mass are greater; I feel no one sgs the songs of our kd anymore, no one not our role safe passage. Five me if I’ve been too vted, too ialistic about our sisterhood. Perhaps ’s our shared brownns, our shared tis, our shared rilience agast time and the ficklens of men that ma so nnected as if I uld leap om notre dame and scend to wh love, our songs and sorrows guidg me over rooftops and fé smoke plum. Unsung sats, lyg open for the world, if the lost and found won’t buttrs wh honor, we shall always hold each other.","duratn":"PT1M23.709S"}</script></div><div class="css-1cueeje" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%;transn:opacy 300ms ease--out"><div class="css-1ihorw"><img src=" alt="Vio player loadg"/></div><div class="css-ew1078"><div class="css-ptry2i"><div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ifea e1maroi60"><span class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">The actor reads "The Unsung" by Keenan Teddy Smh.</span><span class="css-cch8ym"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Cred</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span>Brendan Stumpf</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">There’s an irony this, as the same quali that ma those classics classic also ma them, their origal ns, almost impossible to stage. No one wanted to touch “The Boys the Band” at first: no producers, no theater owners, no actors. 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. She was, md you, the play’s agent too, a lbian herself. 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 . Mostly out of iendship for Crowley, a llege chum, he did.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Luckbill went on to have a very full reer onstage and on screen — and so, to everyone’s surprise, did “The Boys the Band.” As the sixth-row prence of Jackie and Groucho suggts, crossed over to mastream awarens and even found succs, nng for 1,001 performanc. William Friedk’s fahful <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">movie versn</a>, 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. As such, is whout doubt the first play the Amerin gay male theatril non.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">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 1958.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">But 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. If you doubt , look at the nam volved the 50th-anniversary revival: Jim Parsons plays the party’s host, Michael; Matt Bomer is Donald, Michael’s ambivalent ex; Zachary Quto is Harold, the “ugly pockmarked Jew fairy” birthday boy; and Andrew Rannells is Larry, one half of the play’s only tablished (if iffy) uple. 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 Mantello.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">This 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 <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">gay actors</a> who said, ‘We’re gog to live thentic liv and hope and pray our reers rema on track’ — and they have. I fd that profound.”</p><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-small css-nss59b e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-zgakxe erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:247.46666666666667px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">A still om the set of William Friedk’s 1970 film versn of “The Boys the Band,” which starred the entire theatril st.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Mptv Imag</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Crowley uld never have predicted that. In 1968 he sent his play to a world that, however much might lgh at his gay zgers, seemed likely to rema forever and fundamentally hostile. 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.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">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 one sense, then, the classic gay plays are tnal: remdg a placent generatn of the stggl and tragedi (and fabulons) that unrlie the glossy image of rapid progrs. The normalizatn of gayns that has most ways been a boon has also shnk the historil eye to, well, another peephole. Further progrs, much need, requir a fuller view. And who’s to say the momento chang of the last 50 years n’t be swiftly undone?</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Boys the Band” helped ce those chang, allowg for s reappearance now as a triumph of liberatn stead of an embarrassment to the liberators. The mistake the play’s many gay crics have ma is thkg that transformative art should be a form of boosterism. Rather, transformative art is needlg, Cassandra-like, tellg unfortable tths you ignore at your peril. “The Boys the Band,” once seen, uldn’t be unseen. “The people who cricize the play have the luxury to do so <em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">bee</em> of the play,” Mantello says.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Ined, part of the reason “The Boys the Band” so clearly marks the start of the non is the way was swallowed up almost stantly by what helped to spawn. 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. 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. Even Albee, who Crowley spects vted secretly the origal productn, once tarred the play as “a highly skillful work that I spised” bee “did ser damage to a burgeong gay rpectabily movement.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Were there not nelli at Stonewall? In any se, when rpectabily me, me at an awful price. AIDS, which drove the last nail the play’s reputatnal ff, also killed off most of s st. Between 1984 and 1993, five of the gay men the origal productn, as well as the director, Robert Moore, and the producer, Richard Barr, died of the disease.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-full css-1kwayi3 e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:257.77777777777777px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-o5l7z4 ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">From left: Rannells. Watks. Actor ZACHARY QUINTO a Salvatore Ferragamo at, price on requt. Actor MATT BOMER a Sat Lrent by Anthony Vacrello jacket, $4,890, <a href="></a>, Ermenegildo Zegna polo, $565, (212) 421-4488, and Mr P. pants, $250, <a href="></a>. Actor CHARLIE CARVER a vtage Lee jacket, Office Générale T-shirt, $117, and Simon Miller jeans, $375, <a href="></a>.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Photograph by Inez and Voodh. Styled by Jay Massacret</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><h3 class="css-emk09r e1gnsphs0" id="lk-4af067d1"><span>Act II. The Canon</span></h3><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">AND YET AIDS, wh s gdy ironi, would create the ndns that turned a “rpectabily movement” to a civil rights revolutn. It would also create the ndns that produced — even necsated — most of the disputably nonil gay plays that succeed “The Boys the Band.” Bee both the disease and the revolutn were centered New York, the untry’s theatril pal, mak sense that those plays are all set the cy. And bee I’m wrg about plays that have shaped gay male life, ’s not surprisg that all the playwrights I name are gay men.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It hardly needs argug that one of them is Tony Khner, whose play “Angels Ameri: A Gay Fantasia on Natnal Them,” <a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">opened on Broadway</a> 1993. A revival, starrg Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield, opens on March 25 — but unlike “The Boys the Band,” “Angels” never really went away, never suffered a Siberian holiday of polil retn. Perhaps that’s bee Khner, puttg so much to , ensured would always have somethg to put out. If you don’t like the story of fahls Louis leavg his lover, Prr, who velops AIDS, there’s the one about the closeted lawyer (and Tmp fixer) Roy Cohn, nyg the disease outright. Or perhaps you prefer somethg more aerontil? There’s one of those tle angels for that, bearg a cryptic missn for mankd. Pl a heroic drag queen, a dg-addled wife, rabbis, Mormons and Ethel Rosenberg.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It’s what I ll a goulash work, though Khner prefers the term lasagna: a dish that almost melts the borrs of form s qut for sublimy. It is also, s more timate scen, so funny and argumentative, so vatic, so sharp and so unncerned wh gay rpectabily that you n see a straight le leadg back to “The Boys the Band.” Both plays, after all, are about closet s and fily and gay men takg re of one another — or not.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">I retract the “straight le,” though; more aptly, ’s a bent one, passg through other nonil plays, each ntributg an element of style or stagecraft along the way. In the 25 years between “The Boys the Band” and “Angels Ameri” there are two, or possibly three, by my acuntg. The two are Harvey Fierste’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” a llectn of three related one-act plays first seen on Broadway 1982, and Larry Kramer’s “<a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">The Normal Heart</a>,” om 1985. The third is Pl Rudnick’s “<a class="css-yywogo" href=" tle="">Jefey</a>,” which — a 1992 replay of Crowley’s 1968 experience — uld not at first fd a producer, a theater or a st.</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><figure class="sizeMedium css-sx232s" aria-label="media" role="group" data-ttid="VioBlock"><div class="css-1xb94ky"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Vio</span><div><div class="css-n27z15" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%"><div class="css-mm3pwi"><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars</tle><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_65hRV2Qwn" class="css-1fxvzwo" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC_ILVvi2tqx" class="css-1wnday1" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_oZ84Hna1GC"><rect x="34" width="6" height="36" id="el_qw_T_tngXw"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_p_9Pm85Ac" class="css-fwki7z" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU_WxG3R40yd" class="css-t3i5e6" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_mYVjkduhMU"><rect x="22.67" width="6" height="36" id="el_lf9GrROk6j"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_kYNRGDfcw" class="css-t9te0w" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw_3c3bzSjOJ" class="css-1r5375t" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_o-EuxhgoAw"><rect x="11.33" width="6" height="36" id="el_-iueO8klO0"></rect></g></g></g><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_y_fKcpSxn" class="css-qknaag" data-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="0"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC_R6bNB6_Ys" class="css-1vd04" ata-animator-group="te" data-animator-type="2"><g id="el_F7mSMPhqpC"><rect width="6" height="36" id="el_dS5TKNZZ5w"></rect></g></g></g></svg></div><div><div class="css-1t7yl1y">0:00<!-- -->/<!-- -->0:56</div><div class="css-og85jy">-<!-- -->0:00</div></div></div></div></hear><div class="css-uzyn7p"><div class="css-1vxyw"><p class="css-1nng8z9">transcript</p><h2 class="css-9wqu2x">Read T a Poem | Joe Mantello</h2><h4 class="css-qsd3hm">The director reads "Morng Scene" by Jamon Fzpatrick.</h4></div><dl class="css-p98d0w"><dt class="css-xx7kwh"></dt><dd class="css-4gvq6l"><p class="css-8hvvyd">Oppose him at this table aga and through the wdows the cy glterg, surreal as a sle mol, the cy miature – only mov a real way, bee is real. One of the wdows is open, some nstctn down on the street dron like a distant vacuum. It’s warm for January. Still his apartment has that dreamlike qualy of feelg like home though I know ’s not. Not me anymore – but how many people get to vis the past whout hurtg anythg? To e back and drk the same ffee om the same never-que-clean cup.</p></dd></dl></div></div></div></div><script type="applitn/ld+json">{"@ntext":","@type":"VioObject","@id":","scriptn":"The director reads \"Morng Scene\" by Jamon Fzpatrick.","url":","name":"Read T a Poem | Joe Mantello","thumbnailUrl":[",","],"embedUrl":","ntentUrl":","uploadDate":"2018-02-26T05:05:19.000Z","transcript":"Oppose him at this table aga and through the wdows the cy glterg, surreal as a sle mol, the cy miature – only mov a real way, bee is real. One of the wdows is open, some nstctn down on the street dron like a distant vacuum. It’s warm for January. Still his apartment has that dreamlike qualy of feelg like home though I know ’s not. Not me anymore – but how many people get to vis the past whout hurtg anythg? To e back and drk the same ffee om the same never-que-clean cup.","duratn":"PT56.682S"}</script></div><div class="css-1cueeje" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%;transn:opacy 300ms ease--out"><div class="css-1ihorw"><img src=" alt="Vio player loadg"/></div><div class="css-ew1078"><div class="css-ptry2i"><div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ifea e1maroi60"><span class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">The director reads "Morng Scene" by Jamon Fzpatrick.</span><span class="css-cch8ym"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Cred</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span>Brendan Stumpf</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">What mak “Jefey” jt a possible third? It’s a edy, and edi, short of Shakpeare’s or Wil’s, are unstable. Over time, they seem to pose more easily than dramas, revealg off flavors. Te, “Jefey” is not an ordary edy; ’s a edy about AIDS, and a romantic edy at that — a genre that shouldn’t have been possible, and wasn’t until Rudnick cid was need. “Comedy is often the only feasible antidote to a pletely jtifiable, but not very entertag hopelsns,” he once wrote. “Sometim, a wisecrack is a weapon.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">So “Jefey,” which ran for two years Off Broadway and was ma to a movie 1995, is crafted like a drama, squeezg patible thgs together a small space and forcg them to lli. But bee Rudnick’s characters — an terr rator, a bartenr, a chos boy “Cats” — are profsnally amg, so is the rult. Jefey himself is a gay ter-waer his 30s who, rather than worry about what is safe, cis to rema celibate forever. Everyone around him is horrified at this “one real blasphemy — the refal of joy,” even as one of his iends is dyg. “How dare you give up sex,” says a prit, “when there are children Europe who n’t get a date!”</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Jefey” is full of merriment but you always unrstand that the domtic problems faced by upl straight romantic edi have here been raised to an existential plane. “If you want edi to be really funny you have to have the biggt possible obstacl,” Rudnick says. “And that’s what AIDS hand me and everyone else.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In a way, then, “Jefey” is the verse of Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” and a ccial unterweight to . When “The Normal Heart” opened at the Public Theater jt four years after the first reports of what would soon be lled AIDS, felt ls like a play than like war reportg. Kramer was nothg if not embedd; this was his own story, lightly fictnalized the character of Ned Weeks and happeng real time. Emphasizg that, the set sign by Eugene Lee and Keh Raywood featured on the theater’s walls a nng list of the nam of the ad, along wh the mountg ath toll, subtotaled by state.</p><div class="css-79elbk" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper"><div class="css-z3e15g" data-ttid="photoviewer-wrapper-hidn"></div><div data-ttid="photoviewer-children" class="css-1a48zt4 e11si9ry5"><figure class="img-sz-small css-nss59b e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group"><div class="css-zgakxe erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-ttid="lazy-image"><div data-ttid="lazyimage-ntaer" style="height:311.9111111111111px"></div></div></div><figptn class="css-1ybnr6m ewdxa0s0"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-1p4ky1 e13ogyst0">Actors on stage at Theater Four New York cir 1969.</span><span class="css-f4bmw8 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Cred...</span><span><span aria-hidn="false">Photo by Martha Swope / the New York Public Library</span></span></span></figptn></figure></div></div><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The actn largely tracks Kramer’s fur battle to get the ernment, the medil tablishment and gay men themselv to pay attentn to the disaster that was jt begng to engulf them. But Kramer was also battlg the gay theatril tradn, which he saw, even before AIDS, as petty, artificial and sufficiently polil. (He cricized “The Boys the Band” for s “ternalized homophobia.”) “The Normal Heart” is a fierce rrective to those perceived flts, but ’s not merely the rant some people remember. The story of Ned’s public efforts is mirrored his private effort to save his lover, Felix, a closeted New York Tim wrer dyg of AIDS. The play ends wh their “marriage” at Felix’s athbed — a marriage quot bee wouldn’t have been legal New York for another quarter century.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“The Normal Heart” is nonil not jt for s anger and prcience, though the should be enough to nonize Kramer. The play saved liv, srg s dienc to realy a way that the vague public-health rmatn of the time utterly failed to do. It also reamed the way we would forever look at gay men and gay theater. That did not mean abjurg love as a subject, but rather ennoblg while unrstandg s limatns. Hence the tle, taken om a passage Aun’s poem “September 1, 1939” about the “error bred the bone / Of each woman and each man.” That error is much adlier than mere disease. It is the impossible cravg of the “normal heart”: “Not universal love / But to be loved alone.”</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompannColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Aun, a poet, shows the driv as divergent; Kramer, a dramatist, looks at how they nverge. For him as for most playwrights, the njot them of society and self — twed an embrace that is timate yet suffotg — are the basis of all great theater. Whout the “self” part, a play is rarely engagg. Whout the “society” part, is (no matter how engagg) nsequential.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">That’s why my non starts when do. For gay playwrights wrg before 1960, the lk between self and society was severed by homophobia: The self uld not engage openly wh society, or not, at least, <em class="css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0"> ont of</em> society. Which don’t mean there were no great plays wh gay characters by gay playwrights: Look aga at “The Glass Menagerie.” Tom — as the performanc by Quto and Mantello the two most recent Broadway revivals make pla — n only be unrstood as a furtive homosexual. But Tom’s crypto-proto-gayns don’t make “The Glass Menagerie” a gay play; ’s merely a great one.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Turns out those celebri slummg at “The Boys the Band” mattered. Jt as whe bons vivants had been cultivatg (some might say appropriatg) black Harlem for generatns, the straights and A-listers headg to Theater Four their limos helped rry the news, like a vis, back wh them. I don’t mean to be snarky; this was not always a cultural safari, a hunt for the most exotic new trophi. Some me to learn, to be changed. And yet one of the thgs “The Boys the Band” (and the other plays I’m wrg about) did was to show nongay dienc jt how gay their liv already were. Their sufferg, their hubris, their sens of humor were more faiar than not. Who, after all, had been dog their hair?</p></div><asi class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="pann lumn"></asi></div><div><figure class="sizeMedium css-sx232s" aria-label="media" role="group" data-ttid="VioBlock"><div class="css-1xb94ky"><span class="css-1dv1kvn">Vio</span><div><div class="css-n27z15" style="paddg-bottom:56.25%"><div class="css-mm3pwi"><div class="css-1g7y0i5 e1drnplw0"><button tabx="100" class="css-1rtlxy" type="button" aria-label="close"><svg width="60" height="60" viewBox="0 0 60 60" fill="none"><circle cx="30" cy="30" r="30" fill="whe" fill-opacy="0.9"></circle><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M38.4844 20.1006L39.8986 21.5148L21.5138 39.8996L20.0996 38.4854L38.4844 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M21.5156 20.1006L20.1014 21.5148L38.4862 39.8996L39.9004 38.4854L21.5156 20.1006Z" fill="black"></path></svg></button><div class="css-rdbib0 e1drnplw1"></div><div class="css-18ow4sz e1drnplw2"><div aria-labelledby="modal-tle" role="regn"><hear class="css-1bzlfz"><div class="css-mln36k" id="modal-tle">transcript</div><button type="button" class="css-1igvuto"><div class="css-f40pzg"></div><span>Back</span></button><div class="css-f6lhej" data-ttid="transcript-playback-ntrols"><div class="css-1ialerq"><button tabx="99" type="button" class="css-1t9gw" aria-label="play"><svg xmlns=" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M8 13.7683V6L14.5 9.88415L8 13.7683Z" fill="var(--lor-ntent-sendary,#363636)"></path><circle cx="10" cy="10" r="9.25" stroke="var(--lor-stroke-primary,#121212)" stroke-width="1.5"></circle></svg></button><div class="css-1701swk"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 40 36" id="el_0kpS9qL_S"><tle>bars .

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