<strong>Tim Dowlg:</strong> I was tears over the two gay weddgs. Maybe was bee everyone was so credibly happy
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REV; OUR GAY WEDDG: THE MIL – TV REVIEW
* gay musical 2014 *
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.
1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER
Gay men have been fascated by mils for as far back as we n remember. Here’s our list of the queert mils to have graced the stage and screen. * gay musical 2014 *
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.
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.
THE BIG GAY MIL
Gay rappers, untry sgers, and hip hop artists are refg the role of LGBT mic. Follow Out for all the latt gay mic trends. * gay musical 2014 *
(Gay style and nsumer dollars to the rcue!
HONORABLE MENTION: Cabaret (1966)Cabaret’s unual evolutn giv a special place on this list, as s relatnship to gay ntent has been a ntual state of flux.
IF “GAY THEATER” is fed as beg by, for, and about uncloseted gay people, then 2014 arguably marks the 50th anniversary of the genre’s existence. * gay musical 2014 *
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. Even s newt form, Cabaret is hardly a Gay Pri show (spe the tle song’s paean to a hard-partyg Chelsea queen); s queer elements largely functn as nce, irony or obstacle. Deep to middle age, I've learned somethg new about myself: I cry at gay weddgs.
My vigilance now extends to babi om televisn other weddg was Our Gay Weddg: The Mil (Channel 4), which has the tw advantag of beg both a real mil and a real weddg.