LGBTQ mic history is so much more than a timele of who me out when and which songs beme gay anthems -- ’s also about the artists who weren’t aaid to be themselv eras when dog so often had real risks attached.
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GAY! A GAY MIL
Gay! A Gayook Productn mil aimed at a homosexual dience which appeared New Wimbledon Theatre 2007. Set the Thatcher years, the play follows the story of a young man tryg to fd his sexualy. The mil boasts a star-studd st, wh Andie Vg as Vibroman, Brian Hampton... * gay musical called gay *
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.
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. 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. A Chos Le won a Pulzer and ran for a rerd-breakg 15 years, and s msage me through loud and clear: Not jt that there were gay people on Broadway, but that there had been gay people on Broadway all along, kickg up their heels right unr our nos. Book wrer Jeff Whty and -poser Jeff Marx—joed by future double-EGOT wner Robert Lopez—brg a regnizably morn gay sensibily to the show, as exemplified by the characters of Nicky and Rod, Avenue Q’s take on Same Street’s rint odd uple, Ernie and Bert.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS
The origal 1966 versn of this portra of German life the early 1930s—wh a book by Joe Masteroff and a classic sre by John Kanr and Fred Ebb—scbbed the gayns om s source material, Christopher Isherwood's 1939 novella Goodbye to Berl. However, when me to the stori we were tellg, the narrative often shifted back to the heteronormative the begng, gay them were all the subtext and packed away as double entendr by lyricists such as Cole Porter.
Now regard as a Broadway classic, A Chos Le tells the stori of 17 Broadway dancers as they dn for plac a chos le of a fictnal Broadway you may not thk of A Chos Le as a gay mil the same way you thk of shows like Rent or Everybody's Talkg About Jamie was ground-breakg for s time as openly discsed gay stori on a Broadway stage. The mil als wh topics such as Jewish inty as well as beg gay the 1970s and 80s which clus how the AIDS crisis impacted the gay mil was nomated for seven Tony Awards where won Bt Book and Bt Sre.
When Alb stggl to play the role of macho 'uncle Al' he cis to fd more creative ways to f wh the Cage opened 1983 and was one of the first Broadway mils to foc on a gay uple. Roy, Moss and Jen, all heterosexuals, had been asked to the theatre by Philip, not knowg that he was actually gay, and were vastated when they disvered what show they were gog to see. LGBTQ mic history is so much more than a timele of who me out when and which songs beme gay anthems -- 's also about the artists who weren't aaid to be themselv eras when dog so….