Hi there everyone! Happy Pride!
I'm Jose Llana, and these are Iconic LGBTQ Moments in Theatre
You Should Know.
This year for pride
I've teamed up with Eric Ulloa, Roberto Araujo, the team of Playbill and three
other LGBTQ Broadway stars to empower and uplift you each week of Pride 2022.
Each week we're coming to you with a little
mini lesson about our glorious queer theatrical history.
So let's learn a little something.
So with openly gay plays thriving and openly gay characters on Broadway,
the stage was set pun intended for us to not only take home awards,
but to show producers and investors that our stories and our experiences
will not only emotionally valuable but fiscally valuable
When it came to the box office.
Today,
we're going to focus on the first Broadway play and musical that revolved around
queer stories to not only win the Tony, but also prove to be
commercial successes on Broadway.
And would you believe they both had one person in common?
On June 10th1982, right in time for Pride
Harvey Firestone's epic three part play Torch Song Trilogy landed on Broadway.
The play originally three separate plays had a tough start Off-Broadway
at La MaMa Theatre, where critics and producers as Fierstein
recalls, said: fabulous writer, fabulous play.
But gay. Goodbye.
Nonetheless, La MaMa
founder Ellen Stewart continued to shepherd these plays
as they took shape into the trilogy we now know.
Picked up by producing organization The Glines it transferred to the famed Actor's
Playhouse Off-Broadway, where it drew audiences for 117 performances
and where The Glines decided to set their sights on the great bright way.
Guess what
the bet sure paid off Torch Song Trilogy
ran for 1222 performances
and won not only the 1983 Tony Award for best actor Harvey Fierstein,
but made history by winning the Tony for best play.
This very gay Broadway play took home
the big prize and made even more history that night when producer John Glines
acknowledged his lover and co-producer Larry Lane during his speech.
We were loud.
We were proud.
Could we possibly get any gayer?
Enter Jerry Herman!
After a series of massive hits with Hello, Dolly! and Mame, the legendary composer had also
seen a string of flops on Broadway and was due for another success.
Full of his irresistible charm
and brimming optimism, but not right away.
Enter successful producer of the film Grease, Alan Carr,
who had his sights set on turning the film La Cage aux Folles into a Broadway musical.
The problem was he could only get the rights to the play that inspired the film.
But that wasn't going to stop him.
After first assembling a team comprised of Maury Yeston,
Jay Presson Allen, Tommy Tune and Mike Nichols to create an American musical version
of the French play reset in New Orleans
entitled The Queen of Basin Street,
The gay fates intervened and it all soon fell apart
and became the stuff of Ryan Murphy FX Feud series.
Now a new all gay creative team was assembled
with Arthur Lawrence at the helm, Jerry Herman on music and lyrics and new Tony
winning Broadway playwright
superstar Harvey Firestein on book.
First thing was first they returned the story back to its original locale
and restored the original title Back to La Cage aux Folles.
They also had one amazing thing going for them
literally just one thing at that point, but it was the song
that would go on to be the super hit of this show.
“I Am What I Am”.
The creation of this new musical was a bumpy road,
especially when notoriously difficult and tough
Arthur Laurents objecting to casting actual gay men in the leads
and to having the characters share even a modest kiss at the end of the show.
Mind you, Laurents himself was gay, but despite all that,
they were creating something special, something they wouldn't realize
till they opened in Boston for their out of town tryout.
Jerry Herman was even quoted as saying, “You know, we're crazy, right?
We're opening a show about transvestites in the city of Boston. We’re crazy!”
The roar and ovation of the crowd at opening said
otherwise, They had gold on their hands.
It was a hit!
It quickly moved to Broadway, where it was a smash
running for almost four years and 1761 performances.
And in 1984 it made history as the first Broadway musical with queer
characters at the center to take home the Tony Award for Best Musical,
not to mention five other Tonys to take home that night.
And in a perfect reminder of the often frustrating
and painful slow march towards civil rights,
George Hearn was made to put on a suit to perform a showstopping.
I Am What I Am.
During the ceremony, network executives deciding that
despite the standing ovations the show was receiving at the Palace
Theatre, TV audiences were not ready to see
a drag queen snatched for the gods and serving realness.
We had shifted.
We had moved the needle forward.
In fact, La Cage has taken home the Tony for best revival.
Both times it's been revived.
And don't worry, in the 2010 revival,
the two leads finally kissed as they walked off into the sunset.
I'll leave the last word to the man at the center of both of these history
making moments, because Harvey says it best in this quote
from the 2004 PBS documentary, The American Musical.
We were always in the theater, but whether we got seen by large
groups of people or not is the difference and this is America.
And unless you make money, it don't count.
So, La Cage aux Folles, hardly the first gay musical, but we were the first gay musical
to make money and that's what makes it count.
And did you know that as our community was about to face a horrifying
crisis, the company of La Cage aux Folles would be at the center of the fight?
- Really? - Yes!
But I won't tell you about it until next week.
So here's
where I leave you this week and tell you to keep going,
keep Googling, keep researching. Type in these topics.
I gave you an appetizer and there's a whole feast out there.
We'll be back next week with a new host and a new topic to remind you
of the powerful history of our gorgeous, diverse community.
Happy Pride, family!