In recent shows, ias of gayns are expandg, bg and disappearg all at once.
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. * gay themed broadway shows *
Jt bee pri weekend is past don’t mean the celebratns of gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr people on and off Broadway are over. The heartbreakg drama tells the bgraphil story of celebrated graphic artist Alison Bechl as she disvers her sexual orientatn while tryg to unrstand how she relat to her father -- himself a closeted gay man who ms suici four months after she out.
“Sprg Awakeng” alum Gion Glick stars as Jordan Berman, the young gay hero at the center of Joshua Harmon’s relatable edy “Signifint Other. This poignant edy is “a sweet and pafully hont g-of-age story that’ll probably seem faiar to many 20-somethgs, gay or straight. The edy tak place Pennsylvania 1973, where a young gay teen (Urie, narratn) is troduced to theater through his lol muny troupe, lead by the vivac Irene (LuPone).
” Spahn plays two characters the show, one of them beg Dean -- a gay edorial assistant workg at a notor Manhattan magaze. A morn sp on the tradnal weddg edy, “It Shoulda Been You” is the only mil on Broadway to feature a gay weddg, a lbian weddg and a straight weddg. AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTCric’s NotebookIn recent shows, ias of gayns are expandg, bg and disappearg all at WisemanI don’t know whether was bee my parents were jt generally open-md, or bee they had a specific, kdly yet mortifyg agenda, but one of the first Broadway plays they took me to, June of 1977, was way too gay for fort.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GREAT GAY PLAY? EVERYTHG.
Jt bee pri weekend is past don’t mean the celebratns of gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr people on and off Broadway are over. * gay themed broadway shows *
The first phas of the gay play, ccial their moment, which broadly speakg enpassed the send half of the 20th century, are over. Some, like “A Strange Loop” and “Fat Ham, ” dramatize how the experience of racism amplifi that of homophobia, and vice fy expectatns by makg sexual orientatn a distctly sendary ncern among characters who “happen to be” gay or lbian, as “A Case for the Existence of God” and “At the Weddg. When a (male) love tert enters the picture, and they sg Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” as a duet, you feel somethg new has happened, as ntroversy melts to a blissful cloud of nonbary bubble is the equalizg, homogenizg fluence of pop culture at work — an fluence that some queer people unrstandably mistst.
Jackson’s “A Strange Loop” go further, makg the cross-pollatn of inty the prime source of s nflict, as the ma character nonts both the homophobia of his Black fay and the racism of his queer one. (One of the songs is lled “Exile Gayville. ) Its body, race and orientatn issu are left a kd of stalemate that suggts what might happen if a foundatnal gay play like “The Boys the Band” (which had only one Black character) were multiplied fun hoe mirrors ad fum.
That the Hamlet figure, lled Juicy, is Black and gay, wh an termtent csh on a Laert-like iend, suggts that the queer theme will domate, yet don’t; “Fat Ham” is really a play about Black masculy and, even more broadly, the vlent herance all men mt renounce. ” Beltran portrays a gay Black man hopg to adopt the young girl he’s been Klwich/The New York TimMy other favore queer plays of the past year likewise offer no bands; their gay characters (there are still far too few lbian on) operate as if their gayns were mostly ternal and pletely irrelevant. Hunter’s heartbreakg “A Case for the Existence of God, ” that turns out to be an illn, as a gay Black man, after fosterg a ltle girl for more than three years, fds his plan to adopt her undone at the last mute.