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The Boys in the Band (play)

The Boys in the Band is a 1968 American play by Mart Crowley.[2] The play premiered Off-Broadway, and was revived on Broadway for its 50th anniversary in 2018. The play revolves around a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party in New York City, and was groundbreaking for its portrayal of gay life.[3] It was adapted into two feature films in 1970 and 2020.

The Boys in the Band
One of early theatrical release posters
Written byMart Crowley
Characters
  • Hank
  • Alan
  • Bernard
  • Cowboy
  • Michael
  • Harold
  • Emory
  • Donald
  • Larry
Date premieredApril 15, 1968 (1968-04-15)[1]
Place premieredTheatre Four, 424 West 55th Street, Manhattan, New York City[1]
Original languageEnglish
GenreDrama
SettingManhattan

A sequel, The Men from the Boys, premiered in 2002.

Synopsis edit

The play is set in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, "a smartly appointed duplex apartment in the East Fifties",[4] and the backgrounds of characters are revealed in the course of a birthday party.

  • Harold celebrates his birthday. In the character's own words an "ugly, pock-marked Jew fairy",[5] he becomes increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks and claims that he no longer can attract cute young men. In the dramatis personae, he is described as being "dark" with an "unusual Semitic face".[6]
  • "Cowboy", an attractive blond hustler who is "not too bright"[7] and "too pretty",[6] is one of Harold's birthday presents.
  • Alan McCarthy, Michael's married college friend[8] and roommate, is an unexpected party guest. He is visiting New York and anxious to tell Michael something, but hesitant to do so in front of the others. It is suggested that he once had homosexual affairs while in college, but his sexual orientation is never explicitly stated, leaving it to audience interpretation. The dramatis personae describes him as "aristocratic" and "Anglo-Saxon".[6]

The party is given by Harold's six closest friends:

  • Michael is Harold's "smartly groomed"[6] "frenemy",[8] the host, and a lapsed Catholic as well as an alcoholic. He is the catalyst for most of the drama of the play.
  • Donald is Michael's ex-boyfriend, current friend (though the exact nature of their relationship is ambiguous) who has moved from the city to the Hamptons to spurn the homosexual "lifestyle", and is undergoing psychoanalysis. He has "wholesome American good looks".[6]
  • Bernard is an African-American librarian who still pines for the wealthy white boy in whose house his mother worked as a maid. In the dramatis personae, he is "Twenty-eight, Negro, nice-looking".[6]
  • Emory is a flamboyant and effeminate interior decorator. He is often campy in his sense of humor, which serves to irritate others.
  • Larry is a commercial artist who prefers multiple sex partners and is "extremely handsome".[6]
  • Hank is Larry's live-in boyfriend who has been married to a woman from whom he is separated and is divorcing. He "passes" as straight and disagrees with Larry on the issue of monogamy. Physically, he is described as "solid, athletic, attractive".[6]

During the party, the humor takes a nasty turn, as the nine men become increasingly inebriated. The party culminates in a "game", where each man must call someone whom he has loved and tell them about it. Michael, believing that Alan has finally "outed" himself when he makes his call, grabs the phone from him and discovers Alan has called his wife. The audience never learns what Alan intended to discuss with Michael in the end.

Title and creation edit

The Boys in the Band was written by American playwright Mart Crowley. In 1957, Crowley started working for a number of television production companies, before meeting Natalie Wood on the set of her film Splendor in the Grass[9] while working as a production assistant.[10] Wood hired him as her assistant,[10] primarily to give him ample free time to work on his gay-themed play.[5][11] Wood, Crowley's close friend, inspired him to move from New York to Hollywood.[10] According to Crowley's friend Gavin Lambert, Wood sympathized with Hollywood's gay scene, and financially supported Crowley[10][12] so he would be free to write his play.[13] Crowley worked as an assistant for Wood and her husband Robert Wagner for many years.[10]

After several Hollywood film productions he was helping on were canceled, his wealthy friend Diana Lynn hired him to housesit. He lived in the Hollywood Georgian mansion where he only had to "throw dinner parties and drink myself into oblivion." He began writing instead of drinking, and began working on The Boys in the Band.

Crowley told Dominick Dunne about the title: "It's that line in A Star Is Born when James Mason tells a distraught Judy Garland 'You're singing for yourself and the boys in the band.'"[14]

According to Crowley, his motivation in writing the play was not activism, but anger that "had partially to do with myself and my career, but it also had to do with the social attitude of people around me, and the laws of the day". He says he "wanted the injustice of it all — to all those characters — known".[15] Crowley has also stated, "I was not an activist, then or now. I didn't know what hit me. I just wrote the truth."[10]

Crowley made no secret that all characters were based on real people in his life,[10] with Michael reminding him of himself, describing the character as "a complex person who is aware of what is politically correct but has a sort of contempt for it".[10] He called Donald "a foil for Michael"[10] and inspired by a droll friend he would periodically take wry comments from.[10] In the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet, Crowley explained, "The self-deprecating humor was born out of a low self-esteem, from a sense of what the times told you about yourself."[16] In The Boys in the Band: Something Personal, a short documentary accompanying Netflix's release of the 2020 film adaptation, Crowley clarified that Donald was based on Douglas Murray,[17] to whom the play was dedicated.[18] Harold, the character whose birthday was being celebrated, is a cipher for dancer/choreographer Howard Jeffrey, who died in 1988 of AIDS,[17] to whom the play was also dedicated.[18] Crowley took one of the key lines of the play, "I try to show a little affection; it keeps me from feeling like such a whore", from a hustler he danced with on Fire Island, telling, "I couldn't write anything that good!".[17]

Production history edit

Off-Broadway premiere, 1968 edit

While Crowley was pitching the script, early agents stayed away from the project, and it was championed by playwright Edward Albee and Richard Barr, who at the time was head of the Playwrights Units in New York.[10] For the production, it proved "nearly impossible to find" actors willing to play gay characters.[10] An old college friend of Crowley's, 33-year-old Laurence Luckinbill, agreed to play Hank despite warnings from his agent that it would end his career, even though the agent was herself a lesbian. It proved hard for Crowley to find producers and theater owners who were interested.[19]

The play premiered Off-Broadway on April 14, 1968, at Theater Four,[20] and closed on September 6, 1970, after 1,001 performances.[10] Directed by Robert Moore, the cast included Kenneth Nelson as Michael, Peter White as Alan McCarthy, Leonard Frey as Harold, Cliff Gorman as Emory, Frederick Combs as Donald, Laurence Luckinbill as Hank, Keith Prentice as Larry, Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy, and Reuben Greene as Bernard. The play was one of the early works to present a story centered on homosexuals.[21] In 1968, although only originally scheduled to run for five performances at a small venue off Broadway, it was a fast success and was moved to a larger theater. It went on to have a run in London as well.[22] The premiere's actors such as Laurence Luckinbill drilled a hole in the set so they could spy on whoever was in the house's best seats, and in the initial weeks, saw Jackie Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Groucho Marx, Rudolf Nureyev, and New York mayor John Lindsay. Despite the success of the play, all the gay members of the original company stayed in the closet after the premiere. Between 1984 and 1993, five of the gay men in the original production (as well as director Robert Moore and producer Richard Barr) died in the ensuing AIDS epidemic.[19]

Off-Broadway and London revivals edit

The play was revived Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1996, running from August 6 to October 20,[23] after its initial sold-out run at the WPA Theater. The Boys in the Band was presented by the Transport Group Theater Company, New York City, from February 2010 to March 14, 2010, directed by Jack Cummings III.[2][7]

A London staging in October 2016 at Park Theatre was the first revival there in two decades. It subsequently transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End. Positively reviewed, including in The Observer, the production starred Mark Gatiss as Harold and Ian Hallard as Michael, with Daniel Boys, Jack Derges, James Holmes, John Hopkins, Greg Lockett, Ben Mansfield, and Nathan Nolan.[24] The production was nominated for two awards in the 2017 WhatsOnStage Awards: Best Play Revival and Best Off-West End Production, with Hallard nominated as Best Actor in a Play.

Broadway production, 2018 edit

A Broadway production of The Boys in the Band, directed by Joe Mantello, opened in previews at the Booth Theatre on April 30, 2018, officially on May 31, and ran until August 11, 2018. This production, staged for the 50th anniversary of the play's original premiere, starred Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto and Andrew Rannells, as well as Charlie Carver, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington, Robin de Jesús, and Tuc Watkins.[25][26] Quinto portrayed Harold, whose birthday sets the premise.[27] All of the actors who were in the 2018 production are out gay actors.[28]

This production won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play,[29] and Robin de Jesús was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.[30]

Reception and impact edit

When The Boys in the Band premiered in 1968, mainstream audiences were shocked.[31] The play was profiled in the William Goldman book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway, an account of the 1967–1968 season. In the same year, a two-disc, vinyl LP set was released, containing the full dialogue of the play voiced by the original actors. Crowley wrote the 2002 sequel The Men from the Boys.

In 2002, Peter Filichia from Theater Mania contended that the play's original production helped inspire the 1969 Stonewall riots and gay rights movement.[32]

After gays saw The Boys in the Band, they no longer would settle for thinking of themselves as pathetic and wouldn't be perceived as such any longer. Now that [characters] had brought their feelings out of the closet, this new generation would dare to be different. And, just as some whites' view of blacks changed after seeing A Raisin in the Sun, so too did the outlook of many straights after they caught The Boys in the Band. Some whom I personally know felt terrible and–I saw this happen!–actually changed the way they treated gays.

In 2004, David Anthony Fox from Philadelphia City Paper praised this play, its one-liners, and its live performance in Philadelphia. He rebutted criticism that the play portrayed "urban gay men as narcissistic, bitter, shallow".[8]

In 2010, Elyse Summer in her review for CurtainUp called it a "smart gimmick" full of dated "self-homophobic, low self-esteem characters".[7] In the same year, Steve Weinstein from the Edge website called it "Shakespearean".[33]

Awards and nominations edit

Year Award Category Nominee Result Ref.
1968 Obie Award Distinguished Performance by an Actor (8 awarded) Cliff Gorman Won [30][34][35]
1997 Obie Award Distinguished Performance (11 awarded) David Greenspan Won [30][36][37]
2019 Broadway.com Audience Awards Matt Bomer Favorite Featured Actor in a Play Nominated [38]
Favorite Breakthrough Performance (Male) Nominated
Charlie Carver Nominated
2019 Tony Awards Best Revival of a Play The Boys in the Band Won [29][30]
Best Featured Actor in a Play Robin de Jesús Nominated [30]

Sequel edit

In 2002, Crowley wrote The Men from the Boys, a sequel to the play, which takes place 30 years after the original. It premiered in San Francisco in 2002, directed by Ed Decker,[10] and was produced in Los Angeles in 2003.[39]

Film adaptations edit

The play was adapted into a feature film by Cinema Center Films in 1970, directed by William Friedkin.[40]

Ryan Murphy produced a second film adaptation for Netflix with the 2018 Broadway revival cast and Joe Mantello directing.[41]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b ​The Boys in the Band (1968–1970 production) at the Internet Off-Broadway Database. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
  2. ^ a b Brantley, Ben (February 24, 2010). "Broken Hearts, Bleeding Psyches". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Wild, Stephanie (April 1, 2018). "The Cast of The Boys In The Band Shares Group Photo From First Day of Rehearsal". BroadwayWorld.
  4. ^ Crowley, Mart (2003). The Band Plays: The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys. Taylor & Francis. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-5558-3831-7.
  5. ^ a b Biederman, Marcia (June 11, 2000). "Journey to an Overlooked Past". The New York Times. p. 1.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Crowley, Mart (2003). The Band Plays: The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys. Taylor & Francis. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-5558-3831-7.
  7. ^ a b c Sommer, Elyse (February 19, 2010). "The Boys in the Band, a CurtainUp review". CurtainUp.
  8. ^ a b c Fox, David Anthony. (June 17, 2004). . Philadelphia City Paper. Archived from the original on October 20, 2004. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  9. ^ Wagner, Robert J. (2008). Pieces of My Heart. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. p. 138. ISBN 9780061982316. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Roca, Octavia (October 26, 2002). "Boys to Men: Mart Crowley's latest play takes Boys in the Band through the past 30 years". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 27, 2007.
  11. ^ Dunlap, David W. (June 9, 1996). "In a Revival, Echoes of a Gay War of Words". The New York Daily News. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  12. ^ Kinser, Jeffrey (November 23, 2011). "Mart Crowley on His Friend Natalie Wood". Advocate. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  13. ^ Jaques, Damien (May 31, 1998). "Boys in Band returns to stage, tamer now but still honest, witty". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Document ID: 0EB82BA95CE4B17C. (subscription required)
  14. ^ Hofler, Robert (February 4, 2014). Sexplosion. From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange - How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-208834-5.
  15. ^ Lucas, Sherry (March 24, 2018). "Mississippi playwright's Boys in the Band marches triumphantly to Broadway". Mississippi Today. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  16. ^ Higleyman, Liz (February 6, 2004). . GMax.co.za. Archived from the original on May 4, 2004. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
  17. ^ a b c The Boys in the Band: Something Personal. Netflix. September 30, 2020. Retrieved October 3, 2020.
  18. ^ a b Crowley, Mart (2003). The Band Plays: The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys. Taylor & Francis. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-5558-3831-7.
  19. ^ a b Green, Jesse (February 26, 2018). "A Brief History of Gay Theater, in Three Acts". The New York Times. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  20. ^ "The Boys in the Band". Lortel Archives. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  21. ^ Lenker, Maureen Lee (November 1, 2017). "Ryan Murphy taps Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto for Boys in the Band Broadway revival". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  22. ^ Clement, Olivia (May 10, 2018). "Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, and Matt Bomer Lead The Boys in the Band on Broadway". Playbill. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  23. ^ ​The Boys in the Band (1996 production) at the Internet Off-Broadway Database. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
  24. ^ Kellaway, Kate (October 9, 2016). "The Boys in the Band review – stuff of great drama". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  25. ^ Clement, Olivia (November 1, 2017). . Playbill. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  26. ^ "Introducing the First-Ever Broadway Cast of The Boys in the Band". TheaterMania.com. January 23, 2018. from the original on January 26, 2018.
  27. ^ Broverman, Neal (May 16, 2018). "Boy in the Band Zachary Quinto on the State of Gay". The Advocate. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  28. ^ Singh, Shane Michael (May 1, 2018). "Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer hit Broadway". TimeOut. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  29. ^ a b Forstadt, Jillian (June 9, 2019). "Tonys: The Boys in the Band Wins Best Revival of a Play". The Hollywood Reporter. from the original on June 10, 2019. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  30. ^ a b c d e Reynolds, Daniel (April 30, 2019). "The Boys in the Band Is Finally Nominated for a Tony Award". The Advocate. from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  31. ^ Warfield, Polly (July 30, 2003). "The Men from the Boys review". Backstage. from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  32. ^ Filichia, Peter (October 18, 2002). "Bring on the Men!". TheaterMania.
  33. ^ Weinstein, Steve (February 12, 2010). "Mart Crowley: The Man Behind the Boys". Edge New York.
  34. ^ "Cliff Gorman, 65; Tony-Winning Stage, Film and Television Actor". LA Times. September 14, 2002. from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  35. ^ "1969". Obie Awards. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  36. ^ Lefkowitz, David (May 19, 1997). "Obie Awards Honor Best of 1996-97 Off-B'way". Playbill. from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  37. ^ "1997". Obie Awards. Retrieved October 11, 2020.
  38. ^ Wontorek, Paul (May 7, 2019). "Fan-Picked 2019 Broadway.com Audience Choice Award Nominations Announced; Be More Chill Leads With 12". Broadway.com. from the original on May 7, 2019. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  39. ^ Hitchcock, Laura (August 3, 2003). "Men From the Boys". CurtainUp. Retrieved March 27, 2007.
  40. ^ "The Boys in the Band" Turner Classic Movies, retrieved November 2, 2017
  41. ^ McPhee, Ryan (April 17, 2019). "The Boys in the Band to Be Adapted for Netflix With All-Star Broadway Cast". Playbill. Retrieved April 17, 2019.

Further reading edit

  • Lambert, Gavin (January 11, 2012). Natalie Wood: A Life (First ed.). New York: Knopf Doubleday. ISBN 978-0307816801.

External links edit

boys, band, play, boys, band, 1968, american, play, mart, crowley, play, premiered, broadway, revived, broadway, 50th, anniversary, 2018, play, revolves, around, group, gather, birthday, party, york, city, groundbreaking, portrayal, life, adapted, into, featur. The Boys in the Band is a 1968 American play by Mart Crowley 2 The play premiered Off Broadway and was revived on Broadway for its 50th anniversary in 2018 The play revolves around a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party in New York City and was groundbreaking for its portrayal of gay life 3 It was adapted into two feature films in 1970 and 2020 The Boys in the BandOne of early theatrical release postersWritten byMart CrowleyCharactersHank Alan Bernard Cowboy Michael Harold Emory Donald LarryDate premieredApril 15 1968 1968 04 15 1 Place premieredTheatre Four 424 West 55th Street Manhattan New York City 1 Original languageEnglishGenreDramaSettingManhattanA sequel The Men from the Boys premiered in 2002 Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Title and creation 3 Production history 3 1 Off Broadway premiere 1968 3 2 Off Broadway and London revivals 3 3 Broadway production 2018 4 Reception and impact 5 Awards and nominations 6 Sequel 7 Film adaptations 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External linksSynopsis editThe play is set in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan a smartly appointed duplex apartment in the East Fifties 4 and the backgrounds of characters are revealed in the course of a birthday party Harold celebrates his birthday In the character s own words an ugly pock marked Jew fairy 5 he becomes increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks and claims that he no longer can attract cute young men In the dramatis personae he is described as being dark with an unusual Semitic face 6 Cowboy an attractive blond hustler who is not too bright 7 and too pretty 6 is one of Harold s birthday presents Alan McCarthy Michael s married college friend 8 and roommate is an unexpected party guest He is visiting New York and anxious to tell Michael something but hesitant to do so in front of the others It is suggested that he once had homosexual affairs while in college but his sexual orientation is never explicitly stated leaving it to audience interpretation The dramatis personae describes him as aristocratic and Anglo Saxon 6 The party is given by Harold s six closest friends Michael is Harold s smartly groomed 6 frenemy 8 the host and a lapsed Catholic as well as an alcoholic He is the catalyst for most of the drama of the play Donald is Michael s ex boyfriend current friend though the exact nature of their relationship is ambiguous who has moved from the city to the Hamptons to spurn the homosexual lifestyle and is undergoing psychoanalysis He has wholesome American good looks 6 Bernard is an African American librarian who still pines for the wealthy white boy in whose house his mother worked as a maid In the dramatis personae he is Twenty eight Negro nice looking 6 Emory is a flamboyant and effeminate interior decorator He is often campy in his sense of humor which serves to irritate others Larry is a commercial artist who prefers multiple sex partners and is extremely handsome 6 Hank is Larry s live in boyfriend who has been married to a woman from whom he is separated and is divorcing He passes as straight and disagrees with Larry on the issue of monogamy Physically he is described as solid athletic attractive 6 During the party the humor takes a nasty turn as the nine men become increasingly inebriated The party culminates in a game where each man must call someone whom he has loved and tell them about it Michael believing that Alan has finally outed himself when he makes his call grabs the phone from him and discovers Alan has called his wife The audience never learns what Alan intended to discuss with Michael in the end Title and creation editThe Boys in the Band was written by American playwright Mart Crowley In 1957 Crowley started working for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on the set of her film Splendor in the Grass 9 while working as a production assistant 10 Wood hired him as her assistant 10 primarily to give him ample free time to work on his gay themed play 5 11 Wood Crowley s close friend inspired him to move from New York to Hollywood 10 According to Crowley s friend Gavin Lambert Wood sympathized with Hollywood s gay scene and financially supported Crowley 10 12 so he would be free to write his play 13 Crowley worked as an assistant for Wood and her husband Robert Wagner for many years 10 After several Hollywood film productions he was helping on were canceled his wealthy friend Diana Lynn hired him to housesit He lived in the Hollywood Georgian mansion where he only had to throw dinner parties and drink myself into oblivion He began writing instead of drinking and began working on The Boys in the Band Crowley told Dominick Dunne about the title It s that line in A Star Is Born when James Mason tells a distraught Judy Garland You re singing for yourself and the boys in the band 14 According to Crowley his motivation in writing the play was not activism but anger that had partially to do with myself and my career but it also had to do with the social attitude of people around me and the laws of the day He says he wanted the injustice of it all to all those characters known 15 Crowley has also stated I was not an activist then or now I didn t know what hit me I just wrote the truth 10 Crowley made no secret that all characters were based on real people in his life 10 with Michael reminding him of himself describing the character as a complex person who is aware of what is politically correct but has a sort of contempt for it 10 He called Donald a foil for Michael 10 and inspired by a droll friend he would periodically take wry comments from 10 In the 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet Crowley explained The self deprecating humor was born out of a low self esteem from a sense of what the times told you about yourself 16 In The Boys in the Band Something Personal a short documentary accompanying Netflix s release of the 2020 film adaptation Crowley clarified that Donald was based on Douglas Murray 17 to whom the play was dedicated 18 Harold the character whose birthday was being celebrated is a cipher for dancer choreographer Howard Jeffrey who died in 1988 of AIDS 17 to whom the play was also dedicated 18 Crowley took one of the key lines of the play I try to show a little affection it keeps me from feeling like such a whore from a hustler he danced with on Fire Island telling I couldn t write anything that good 17 Production history editOff Broadway premiere 1968 edit While Crowley was pitching the script early agents stayed away from the project and it was championed by playwright Edward Albee and Richard Barr who at the time was head of the Playwrights Units in New York 10 For the production it proved nearly impossible to find actors willing to play gay characters 10 An old college friend of Crowley s 33 year old Laurence Luckinbill agreed to play Hank despite warnings from his agent that it would end his career even though the agent was herself a lesbian It proved hard for Crowley to find producers and theater owners who were interested 19 The play premiered Off Broadway on April 14 1968 at Theater Four 20 and closed on September 6 1970 after 1 001 performances 10 Directed by Robert Moore the cast included Kenneth Nelson as Michael Peter White as Alan McCarthy Leonard Frey as Harold Cliff Gorman as Emory Frederick Combs as Donald Laurence Luckinbill as Hank Keith Prentice as Larry Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy and Reuben Greene as Bernard The play was one of the early works to present a story centered on homosexuals 21 In 1968 although only originally scheduled to run for five performances at a small venue off Broadway it was a fast success and was moved to a larger theater It went on to have a run in London as well 22 The premiere s actors such as Laurence Luckinbill drilled a hole in the set so they could spy on whoever was in the house s best seats and in the initial weeks saw Jackie Kennedy Marlene Dietrich Groucho Marx Rudolf Nureyev and New York mayor John Lindsay Despite the success of the play all the gay members of the original company stayed in the closet after the premiere Between 1984 and 1993 five of the gay men in the original production as well as director Robert Moore and producer Richard Barr died in the ensuing AIDS epidemic 19 Off Broadway and London revivals edit The play was revived Off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1996 running from August 6 to October 20 23 after its initial sold out run at the WPA Theater The Boys in the Band was presented by the Transport Group Theater Company New York City from February 2010 to March 14 2010 directed by Jack Cummings III 2 7 A London staging in October 2016 at Park Theatre was the first revival there in two decades It subsequently transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End Positively reviewed including in The Observer the production starred Mark Gatiss as Harold and Ian Hallard as Michael with Daniel Boys Jack Derges James Holmes John Hopkins Greg Lockett Ben Mansfield and Nathan Nolan 24 The production was nominated for two awards in the 2017 WhatsOnStage Awards Best Play Revival and Best Off West End Production with Hallard nominated as Best Actor in a Play Broadway production 2018 edit A Broadway production of The Boys in the Band directed by Joe Mantello opened in previews at the Booth Theatre on April 30 2018 officially on May 31 and ran until August 11 2018 This production staged for the 50th anniversary of the play s original premiere starred Matt Bomer Jim Parsons Zachary Quinto and Andrew Rannells as well as Charlie Carver Brian Hutchison Michael Benjamin Washington Robin de Jesus and Tuc Watkins 25 26 Quinto portrayed Harold whose birthday sets the premise 27 All of the actors who were in the 2018 production are out gay actors 28 This production won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play 29 and Robin de Jesus was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play 30 Reception and impact editWhen The Boys in the Band premiered in 1968 mainstream audiences were shocked 31 The play was profiled in the William Goldman book The Season A Candid Look at Broadway an account of the 1967 1968 season In the same year a two disc vinyl LP set was released containing the full dialogue of the play voiced by the original actors Crowley wrote the 2002 sequel The Men from the Boys In 2002 Peter Filichia from Theater Mania contended that the play s original production helped inspire the 1969 Stonewall riots and gay rights movement 32 After gays saw The Boys in the Band they no longer would settle for thinking of themselves as pathetic and wouldn t be perceived as such any longer Now that characters had brought their feelings out of the closet this new generation would dare to be different And just as some whites view of blacks changed after seeing A Raisin in the Sun so too did the outlook of many straights after they caught The Boys in the Band Some whom I personally know felt terrible and I saw this happen actually changed the way they treated gays In 2004 David Anthony Fox from Philadelphia City Paper praised this play its one liners and its live performance in Philadelphia He rebutted criticism that the play portrayed urban gay men as narcissistic bitter shallow 8 In 2010 Elyse Summer in her review for CurtainUp called it a smart gimmick full of dated self homophobic low self esteem characters 7 In the same year Steve Weinstein from the Edge website called it Shakespearean 33 Awards and nominations editYear Award Category Nominee Result Ref 1968 Obie Award Distinguished Performance by an Actor 8 awarded Cliff Gorman Won 30 34 35 1997 Obie Award Distinguished Performance 11 awarded David Greenspan Won 30 36 37 2019 Broadway com Audience Awards Matt Bomer Favorite Featured Actor in a Play Nominated 38 Favorite Breakthrough Performance Male NominatedCharlie Carver Nominated2019 Tony Awards Best Revival of a Play The Boys in the Band Won 29 30 Best Featured Actor in a Play Robin de Jesus Nominated 30 Sequel editIn 2002 Crowley wrote The Men from the Boys a sequel to the play which takes place 30 years after the original It premiered in San Francisco in 2002 directed by Ed Decker 10 and was produced in Los Angeles in 2003 39 Film adaptations editMain articles The Boys in the Band 1970 film and The Boys in the Band 2020 film The play was adapted into a feature film by Cinema Center Films in 1970 directed by William Friedkin 40 Ryan Murphy produced a second film adaptation for Netflix with the 2018 Broadway revival cast and Joe Mantello directing 41 See also editLGBT culture in New York City List of LGBTQ people from New York CityReferences edit a b The Boys in the Band 1968 1970 production at the Internet Off Broadway Database Retrieved October 14 2020 a b Brantley Ben February 24 2010 Broken Hearts Bleeding Psyches The New York Times Wild Stephanie April 1 2018 The Cast of The Boys In The Band Shares Group Photo From First Day of Rehearsal BroadwayWorld Crowley Mart 2003 The Band Plays The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys Taylor amp Francis p 5 ISBN 978 1 5558 3831 7 a b Biederman Marcia June 11 2000 Journey to an Overlooked Past The New York Times p 1 a b c d e f g h Crowley Mart 2003 The Band Plays The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys Taylor amp Francis p 4 ISBN 978 1 5558 3831 7 a b c Sommer Elyse February 19 2010 The Boys in the Band a CurtainUp review CurtainUp a b c Fox David Anthony June 17 2004 Theater The Boys in the Band review Philadelphia City Paper Archived from the original on October 20 2004 Retrieved May 25 2012 Wagner Robert J 2008 Pieces of My Heart New York HarperCollins Publishers p 138 ISBN 9780061982316 Retrieved May 25 2012 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Roca Octavia October 26 2002 Boys to Men Mart Crowley s latest play takes Boys in the Band through the past 30 years San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved March 27 2007 Dunlap David W June 9 1996 In a Revival Echoes of a Gay War of Words The New York Daily News Retrieved May 25 2012 Kinser Jeffrey November 23 2011 Mart Crowley on His Friend Natalie Wood Advocate Retrieved May 25 2012 Jaques Damien May 31 1998 Boys in Band returns to stage tamer now but still honest witty Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Document ID 0EB82BA95CE4B17C subscription required Hofler Robert February 4 2014 Sexplosion From Andy Warhol toA Clockwork Orange How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos New York HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 06 208834 5 Lucas Sherry March 24 2018 Mississippi playwright s Boys in the Band marches triumphantly to Broadway Mississippi Today Retrieved May 16 2018 Higleyman Liz February 6 2004 What was The Boys in the Band GMax co za Archived from the original on May 4 2004 Retrieved May 25 2012 a b c The Boys in the Band Something Personal Netflix September 30 2020 Retrieved October 3 2020 a b Crowley Mart 2003 The Band Plays The Boys in the Band and its sequel The Men from the Boys Taylor amp Francis p 3 ISBN 978 1 5558 3831 7 a b Green Jesse February 26 2018 A Brief History of Gay Theater in Three Acts The New York Times Retrieved January 31 2020 The Boys in the Band Lortel Archives Retrieved November 2 2017 Lenker Maureen Lee November 1 2017 Ryan Murphy taps Jim Parsons Zachary Quinto for Boys in the Band Broadway revival Entertainment Weekly Retrieved November 2 2017 Clement Olivia May 10 2018 Jim Parsons Zachary Quinto Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer Lead The Boys in the Band on Broadway Playbill Retrieved May 16 2018 The Boys in the Band 1996 production at the Internet Off Broadway Database Retrieved October 14 2020 Kellaway Kate October 9 2016 The Boys in the Band review stuff of great drama The Guardian London Retrieved May 16 2018 Clement Olivia November 1 2017 Jim Parsons Zachary Quinto Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer to Lead The Boys in the Band on Broadway Playbill Archived from the original on November 7 2017 Retrieved December 5 2017 Introducing the First Ever Broadway Cast of The Boys in the Band TheaterMania com January 23 2018 Archived from the original on January 26 2018 Broverman Neal May 16 2018 Boy in the Band Zachary Quinto on the State of Gay The Advocate Retrieved May 16 2018 Singh Shane Michael May 1 2018 Jim Parsons Zachary Quinto Andrew Rannells and Matt Bomer hit Broadway TimeOut Retrieved May 16 2018 a b Forstadt Jillian June 9 2019 Tonys The Boys in the Band Wins Best Revival of a Play The Hollywood Reporter Archived from the original on June 10 2019 Retrieved October 11 2020 a b c d e Reynolds Daniel April 30 2019 The Boys in the Band Is Finally Nominated for a Tony Award The Advocate Archived from the original on October 11 2020 Retrieved October 11 2020 Warfield Polly July 30 2003 The Men from the Boys review Backstage Archived from the original on October 11 2020 Retrieved October 11 2020 Filichia Peter October 18 2002 Bring on the Men TheaterMania Weinstein Steve February 12 2010 Mart Crowley The Man Behind the Boys Edge New York Cliff Gorman 65 Tony Winning Stage Film and Television Actor LA Times September 14 2002 Archived from the original on October 11 2020 Retrieved October 11 2020 1969 Obie Awards Retrieved October 11 2020 Lefkowitz David May 19 1997 Obie Awards Honor Best of 1996 97 Off B way Playbill Archived from the original on October 11 2020 Retrieved October 11 2020 1997 Obie Awards Retrieved October 11 2020 Wontorek Paul May 7 2019 Fan Picked 2019 Broadway com Audience Choice Award Nominations Announced Be More Chill Leads With 12 Broadway com Archived from the original on May 7 2019 Retrieved May 7 2019 Hitchcock Laura August 3 2003 Men From the Boys CurtainUp Retrieved March 27 2007 The Boys in the Band Turner Classic Movies retrieved November 2 2017 McPhee Ryan April 17 2019 The Boys in the Band to Be Adapted for Netflix With All Star Broadway Cast Playbill Retrieved April 17 2019 Further reading editLambert Gavin January 11 2012 Natalie Wood A Life First ed New York Knopf Doubleday ISBN 978 0307816801 External links editThe Boys in the Band at the Internet Off Broadway Database The Boys in the Band at the Internet Broadway Database Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Boys in the Band play amp oldid 1214722910, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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