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A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE
Full-Length Play, Drama / 9m
Mart Crowley
In 2018, The Boys in the Band made its Broadway debut at the Booth Theatre in an unprecedented production featuring a cast of entirely out-and-proud gay actors. “Its reappearance now is a triumph of liberation.” – Jesse Green, The New York Times
This is the 2018 revised version, used for the play’s Broadway premiere. The original version of The Boys in the Band is also available for licensing.
Image: 2018 Broadway Production (Joan Marcus)
In his Upper East Side apartment, Michael is throwing a birthday party for Harold, a self-avowed “thirty-two-year-old, pockmarked, Jew fairy,” complete with surprise gift: “Cowboy,” a street hustler. As the evening wears on – fueled by drugs and alcohol – bitter, unresolved resentments among the guests come to light when a game of “Truth” goes terribly wrong.
This groundbreaking play premiered off-Broadway in 1968 and ran for 1,001 performances. It was subsequently made into a feature film with the original cast, directed by Academy Award-winner William Friedkin. In 2018, The Boys in the Band made its Broadway debut at the Booth Theatre in an unprecedented production featuring a cast of entirely out-and-proud gay actors. This new edition contains both the original two-act script and the one-act Broadway version, as well as an introduction by celebrated playwright Tony Kushner.
he Boys in the Band was first presented at Theatre Four in New York City on 14 April 1968. It was directed by Robert Moore.
This version of the show premiered on Broadway at the Booth Theatre on 31 May 2018. Directed by Joe Mantello, the production featured Matt Bomer, Charlie Carver, Brian Hutchison, Robin de Jesús, Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Michael Benjamin Washington and Tuc Watkins.
This cast would go on to star in a 2020 feature film adaptation of the show, again directed by Joe Mantello and written by Mart Crowley with Ned Martel.
MICHAEL – Thirty, average face, smartly groomed.DONALD – Twenty-eight, medium blond, wholesome American good looks.EMORY – Thirty-three, small, frail, very plain.LARRY – Twenty-nine with a starkly simple sense of individual style and color in his clothes. Dark eyes, dark hair, extremely handsome.HANK – Thirty-two, tall, solid, athletic, attractive.BERNARD – Twenty-eight, African-American, tall, gaunt, nice-looking, dressed in Ive-League clothes.COWBOY – Twenty-two, light blond, muscle-bound, too pretty.HAROLD – Thirty-two, dark, lean, strong limbs, unusual face.ALAN – Thirty, aristocratic Anglo-Saxon features.
Michael’s apartment on the East Side in New York City. 1968.
“Revelatory and dazzlingly entertaining... the excoriating wit is still there.” – New York Post
“A drama that marked a turning point in the American theatre.” – Washington Post
“A play of real substance, one that deserves to be performed not occasionally but regularly.” – Wall Street Journal
“One of the few plays that honestly helped spark a social revolution.” – Associated Press
“Terrifically thoughtful... The Boys in the Band emerges remarkably universal.” – NY1
“Deliriously delicious.” – Gay City News
“Humor is still on key in this poignant, sparkling revival of a landmark gay play... The star of the evening is the play itself: solidly built, still moving and enormously entertaining.” – New York Daily News
“This is a play that takes the homosexual way of life totally for granted and uses this as a valid basis for human experience... the power of the play is the way in which it remorselessly peels away the pretensions of its characters.” – New York Times
ON BREAKING CHARACTER
Musical Theatre and the LGBTQ+ Audience: An Interview with Patrick Pachecoby Jim Colleran20 June 2019
Mart Crowley (1935-2020) was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi and educated at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. After graduating from the drama department, he went to New York to pursue a career in the theatre and landed jobs as production assistant to the d ...
by Mart Crowley
Larry Kramer
by Larry Kramer