Gays play
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Several of the friends they introduced me to passed away; I’ve been thinking about the generations of creative people we lost during those times. Highlighting both the horrors inflicted by humanity and the compassion of which it is capable, The Laramie Project remains a moving and genre-bending classic of American theatre.
2002:Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 11m)
As of 2025, no professional baseball player have ever publicly come out as gay.
Mixing puppetry, mask and dance with modern devices such as digital media, Rights of Passage explores the struggle of Wayan, a young, gay Hindu man in Indonesia. In the bathhouse, he encounters towel-clad chubby chasers, go-go boys, bumbling detectives, and Googie Gomez, an over-the-top would-be Bette Midler looking for her big break.
The result was a deeply moving theatrical experience constructed from these interviews and their own experiences in Laramie. Valour!
'Messy White Gays' play to premiere off Broadway
The comedy play written by and starring Drew Droege makes its debut in NYC in October at the Duke on 42nd Street under the direction of Mike Donahue.
The new comedy play Messy White Gays will premiere off Broadway this fall, running at the Duke on 42nd Street from October 6.
That changed when Southern Comfort introduced a nuanced, compassionate portrait of a family of transgender friends. I don't even know if we could do this play in some of these states right now.
I’m hearing the words in the play differently than I did in 2008, too. Highlights include several rousing musical numbers and a jerk-off session between the cousins Bonnie and Connie, involving banal heterosexual fantasy and a vacuum cleaner.
1990: Falsettoland by William Finn and James Lapine (US)
(Full Length-Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 3m, 1boy)
Nine years after Marvin and his family kvetched and struggled their way to happiness in March of the Falsettos, the lovably neurotic characters returned to Playwrights Horizons on June 28, 1990, when Falsettoland debuted.
The show also introduced a powerful and enduring gay anthem; “I Am What I Am,” which celebrates gay identity, became the soundtrack for generations of LGBTQ+ protests, marches and celebrations.
1985:As Is by William M. Hoffman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2-4w, 6-10m)
Centered on the touching relationship between Saul and Richard, part of the wave of young gay Americans dealing with the growing AIDS crisis, As Is handled its troubling subject matter with poignancy, humor and compassion.
I think about what it would mean to be the age I am now at that time, in the 1980s. Beyond Wayan’s journey, the play expands to tell true stories of LGBTQ struggles and triumphs from around the world.
2013: Fun Home by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4w, 2m, 1 girl, 2 boys)
Nearly a half-century after the birth of the modern gay rights movement, Broadway finally welcomed its first musical with a lesbian protagonist.
While Belize tolerates and even forgives the ethically void Cohn, his real compassion is for Prior Walter, his former lover and good friend who has tested positive for HIV.
Maurice Parent on revisiting Angels in America:
Angels in America was the first play I did professionally, 15 years ago.
Conducting six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half, where Shepard had been brutally killed in an anti-gay hate crime, the writer/performers conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. She can’t really make a cake for such a wedding, can she? Encompassing everything from quack Viennese doctors to European locales that look shockingly like Baltimore, the play takes its audience on a thrilling ride before crashing down in a heartbreaking finale.
1992: Falsettos, a pairing of March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, opens on Broadway on April 29
1994, February 28: US Defense Department’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” takes effect, prohibiting discrimination against closeted LGB service members while barring openly LGB people from military service
1994:Love!
Seeking to debunk myths surrounding AIDS and present the lives of those afflicted with generosity, Hoffman’s work presents a look at the day-to-day problems facing Saul, Richard and thousands in their situation.
1985: The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 8m)
A searing drama about public and private indifference to the AIDS plague and one man’s lonely fight to awaken the world to the crisis, The Normal Heart opened at The Public Theater on April 21, 1985.
In his uniquely appealing voice, Arnold tells of his struggles through love, loss, the challenge of child-rearing and the fight for acceptance.
1979, October 14: The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
1979: Bent by Martin Sherman (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 11m)
Though it explored events that took place over forty years earlier, Bent was groundbreaking and unprecedented when it opened in the West End and on Broadway in 1979.
The Off-Broadway Messy White Gays cast also includes Tony Award nominee James Cusati-Moyer (Slave Play) as Brecken, Aaron Jackson (Dicks: The Musical) as Caden, Derek Chadwick (Scream Queens) as Addison, and Pete Zias (Total Trash Live!) as Thacker.