Gay broadway play
It's fair to say that without the LGBTQIA+ community, there would be no Broadway. That's because throughout the last century, the theatre has served as a refuge for artists to be authentically themselves and to give their stories—usually in the meet of a greater culture that sought to silent or ostracize them. And despite judgement and threats of censorship, those works own endured and inspired subsequent generations of artists.
From Tony Kushner's Angels in America, to Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, to the bubbly jukebox musical & Juliet—below Playbill spotlights 25 shows that showcase the many aspects of queer life. Celebrate Pride by looking back on these shows—many of which you can read the scripts for (Torch Song Trilogy), listen to the cast albums (Fun Home), or even watch on Broadway (& Juliet) and in your homes (Indecent).
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25 Plays and Musicals to Celebrate Pride
Something queer this way comes: Optimal LGBTQIA+ shows on Broadway
Queer art and entertainment has been as much about the beauty and resilience of the community as it has been about nuanced portrayals of the human condition. With heaping amounts of attitude and glamor thrown in, for good measure. While representation in film and television has been a struggle, especially after the passing of the Hays Code, theater has been an arena where the queer community has always shone.
Here are some of the best LGBTQIA+ shows that have graced the Broadway stages and left a mark for the ages.
Cabaret
A Kander and Ebbs masterpiece, Cabaret opened on Broadway in It has been revived multiple times on Broadway alone and earned so many awards, it's hard to keep track. But every award is well-earned. The musical is based on John Van Druten's play I Am a Camera which was itself based on Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin ().
The story is set in Berlin in , a period when the "gay capital of Europe" transitioned from a ut
The Big Gay Jamboree
THE BIG GAY JAMBOREE PLAYED ITS FINAL PERFORMANCE ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15,
From the Oscar-nominated producers of BARBIE and the delulu creator of the Off-Broadway hit TITANIQUE comes THE BIG GAY JAMBOREE, a big new musical comedy that’s pushing the envelope…and the gay agenda.
Help! Stacey’s fallen into a musical and she can’t get out. Last night, she got a little bit blackout drunk. This morning, she woke up in some b*tch ass Music Man world where everybody keeps bursting into lyric & dance, and where gay still just means happy. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe it’s an allergic reaction to her birth control. Or maybe it’s Maybelline (don’t sue us! sponsor us? we’ll talk later). But if Stacey’s truly trapped inside a Golden Age musical, there’s only one way out: chant out! Or find the stage door. Whatever gets the most applause.
Starring one of Vanity Fair’s “brightest stars of New York theatre” and the world’s second favorite Celine Dion, MARLA MINDELLE, The Big Gay Jamboree
It is no secret that many LGBTQ+ people have a adj affinity for Broadway musicals. "Keep it gay!" sings the flamboyant director in The Producers, and musical theater has lengthy drawn nonstraight folks to the ranks of its creators, performers and fans. But it is only in the past fifty years or so that tuners have actually featured openly gay characters onstage—and the result has been some of the best Broadway shows of all time. Here is our list of the top musicals with formidable gay themes, ranked for their combination of quality, historical importance and LGBTQ+ content. We've limited the list to ten, which means that some very fine shows did not quite construct the cut. But there's an awful lot here to be proud of.
RECOMMENDED: Complete A–Z listing of current Broadway shows
Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.
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