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KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
Photograph: Carol RoseggHedwig and the Angry InchGay-themed Broadway mils have e a long way the past fifty years. "Keep gay!" sgs the flamboyant director The Producers, and mil theater has long drawn nonstraight folks to the ranks of s creators, performers and fans. But is only the past fifty years or so that tuners have actually featured openly gay characters onstage—and the rult has been some of the bt Broadway shows of all time.
Here is our list of the top mils wh strong gay them, ranked for their batn of qualy, historil importance and LGBTQ+ ntent. La Cage Aux Foll (1983)The first Broadway mil to put gay characters center stage, La Cage Aux Foll is the fairy godmother of LGBTQ+ mil theater. If this same-sex central romance broke new ground, however, the show’s sre—by show-tune master Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly!)—wears s classic Broadway sound like a sash of honor, om the openg para of cross-drsed beti to drag queen Zaza’s first-act fale (and stant gay-pri anthem) “I Am What I Am” through the celebratory “The Bt of Tim.” Revived on Broadway 2004 and 2010, the old girl has held up surprisgly well as a morn twist on nostalgia.
At the re of the story is her relatnship wh her fsy, ntrollg father, whose tormented and closeted homosexualy driv him down dark paths. A Chos Le (1975)Broadway began movg toward gay visibily the post-Stonewall era—the gay-bar scene Applse, Tommy Tune takg a long step forward Seaw—but was 1975’s A Chos Le that blew the closet door off s hg. Several of the dners are gay, and Pl—a character moled on Nicholas Dante (who wrote the show’s book wh Jam Kirkwood Jr.)—is given one of the show’s only two solo spots onstage: an emotnal monologue about his trmatic childhood.