- "Boys in the Band" is a movie about eight gay men
throwing a birthday party for a friend.
An unexpected guest shows up and chaos ensues.
- Ask him if he's got any hot cross buns. (laughs)
- It's a historical piece for us in the gay community.
- It became a very big hit in New York Off-Broadway
and kind of changed the conversation
because people saw gay people for the first time
written by a gay person.
And it was revolutionary and still remains revolutionary
in many regards.
We did the Broadway revival in 2018,
with an all out cast directed by Joe Mantello
and produced by Ryan Murphy.
- To work with an all-gay group the way we had,
which it wasn't just the cast.
It was the director, the producer, the playwright.
I mean we were lousy with gay men on this project.
Honestly, it was a much more powerful experience for me
than I kind of thought it would be.
I thought it was neat.
I thought it was noteworthy.
But I didn't realize how much I would actually feel
the impact on a day-to-day being with this group of men.
- It's pretty amazing that 50 years ago,
well now 52 years ago, when this play was first run
in New York, the actors who signed up for the job risked
almost everything about their careers.
They were discouraged from taking part in this.
Not all of them ended up working much at all after
probably because of it.
Here we are 50 years later.
We're not only gay men, proud out gay men telling the story
about gay people, but we are making a moment,
or commemorating the fact of how much has changed
in those 50 years.
- It's a real window into what life was like,
and is still like for many people in the country
that live in communities or states where we don't have
the same rights.
Or if someone, you know...
It was a really difficult time and we're lucky,
we're fortunate now to not have, for the most part,
to live our lives like that.
And we can live more authentically,
but it's a real window into, you know,
what life is like when the societal mores are different.
- I couldn't care less what people do
as long as they don't do it in public.
- History is doomed to repeat itself unless it is studied.
Too many people fought too hard to get us to where we are
that we're not gonna stand for that.
- Mart wrote this because there was a need for real change.
And sure enough, Stonewall happened a few months later.
And I think it's one of the things
that makes this piece really resonate today
because you don't have to look far to see
what the cost of oppression is,
and the fact that it's still alive and out there
and that it needs to change.
- I think that, to that end, we all see this film
as a kind of call to arms,
to continue moving in the right direction toward progress,
toward inclusion, toward integration, toward acceptance,
and toward connection.
Recognizing the things that we have in common
before we recognize the things that separate us, you know.
- And so these guys, they sort of take it out on each other
because they're inside of the pressure cooker and they,
you know, it's gonna come out sideways
because they're told that they're not allowed to be
who they authentically are.
And after a while that pot boils over.
- I love you.
- Hank, why did you do that?
- Because I do love him and I don't care who knows it.
- If we could just not hate ourselves so much.
- These men, the rollercoaster they go on together
that night as a group and the sense at the end
that they're going to stay on the same ride together,
as rocky as it's been, is very moving,
and I think affirming to the desire of human beings
to connect and love one another.