Bayard Rustin, Brother Outsider

The Stones, Mick's White Dress, Butterflies, 1969

The Boy in the Band (1968)

The Boys in the Band (play) Tools From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Boys in the Band One of early theatrical release posters Written by Mart Crowley Characters Hank Alan Bernard Cowboy Michael Harold Emory Donald Larry Date premiered April 15, 1968[1] Place premiered Theatre Four, 424 West 55th Street, Manhattan, New York City[1] Original language English Genre Drama Setting Manhattan 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. A sequel, The Men from the Boys, premiered in 2002. Synopsis 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 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 Off-Broadway premiere, 1968 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 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 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 openly gay.[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 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 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 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 Main 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]

The Killing of Sister George

The Killing of Sister George Article Talk Read Edit View history Tools From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus that was later adapted into a 1968 film directed by Robert Aldrich. Stage version Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a district nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers. She is played by June Buckridge, who in real life is a gin-guzzling, cigar-chomping, slightly sadistic masculine woman, the antithesis of the sweet character she plays. She is often called George in real life, and lives with Alice "Childie" McNaught, a younger dimwitted woman she often verbally and sometimes physically abuses. When George discovers that her character is scheduled to be killed off, she becomes increasingly impossible to work and live with. Mercy Croft, an executive at the radio station, intercedes in her professional and personal lives, supposedly to help, but she actually has an agenda of her own. Although it is strongly implied that George and Childie are lesbians, and towards the end it is suggested that Mercy could be as well, this is never explicitly stated. Marcus intended the play to be a farce, not a serious treatment of lesbianism, but because there was so little material about lesbians, it became treated as such.[citation needed] The story is usually regarded as a parody of the killing of Grace Archer in The Archers (an episode much better known at the time the play was written than it would be in the 21st century). It may also have been inspired by the sacking of actress Ellis Powell from Mrs Dale's Diary, and has sometimes been compared with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.[1][2] The death of Martha Longhurst (actress Lynne Carol) in the British television serial Coronation Street in 1964 may also have been an inspiration. The Killing of Sister George premiered at the Bristol Old Vic on 20 April 1965, in a production directed by Val May.[3] After a tour, the production moved to the Duke of York's Theatre in London, opening on 17 June 1965, with the original cast including Beryl Reid as June Buckridge, Eileen Atkins as Childie and Lally Bowers as Mercy Croft.[4] In April 1966, the production moved to the St Martin's Theatre. On 5 October 1966, the show opened at the Belasco Theatre in New York City, with the original cast of Reid, Atkins and Bowers. Hermione Baddeley, Andrée Melly and Ambrosine Phillpotts had taken over their roles at the St Martin's in July 1966. Reid won the 1966 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for the Broadway production. A West End revival in 1995 starred Miriam Margolyes, Serena Evans, and Josephine Tewson. In 2011, a revival at the Arts Theatre in London featured Meera Syal as George. Directed by Iqbal Khan, the cast also included Elizabeth Cadwallader, Belinda Lang, and Helen Lederer. Film adaptation Main article: The Killing of Sister George (film) In 1968, the play was adapted into a feature film which was somewhat darker and made the lesbian elements more explicit. Radio adaptation John Tydeman adapted and directed the play for BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on April 25, 2009, Sarah Badel played George, Lucy Whybrow played Childie and Anna Massey played Mercy. References http://www.uxbridgegazette.co.uk/west-london-lifestyle/whats-on-uxbridge/theatre-uxbridge/2008/07/09/the-killing-of-sister-george-113046-21306075/ review of one production cjubb (2 October 2009). "The Killing Of Sister George at Trinity in Tunbridge Wells". Thisiskent.co.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2010.[permanent dead link] Coveney, Michael (16 April 2012). "Val May obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 15 June 2015. "Comedy Fulfilment Of New Writer". The Times. No. 56351. London. 18 June 1965. p. 15. External links ​The Killing of Sister George​ at the Internet Broadway Database BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Play: The Killing of Sister George

Leslie Gore

Making Queer History Apr 30 Lesley Gore Happy Endings "I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do," — Lesley Gore In honour of Lesbian Day of Visibility recently, we wanted to look at a woman whose music is incredibly well-known, but whose queerness is often erased. Her music has been used in PSAs and presidential campaigns alike, and she worked hard to become a prolific singer, songwriter, actress, and LGBTQ+ activist. Lesley Gore was a vibrant and proud Jewish lesbian. Unlike many of the people we write about, she was fortunate enough to have the language to talk about her identity—and did. It’s an unfortunate truth that one of the rare people we’ve written about who used clear terms to describe their experiences still had her experiences erased. Born in 1946 as Lesley Sue Goldstein, Gore’s family changed their name shortly after her birth, likely to combat rising antisemitism. She and her brother spent their childhoods in New Jersey. Gore’s early years were mostly uneventful—until she turned 16. Her vocal coach at the time recorded a demo that eventually found its way to the producer Quincy Jones. Jones would later go on to work with stars like Michael Jackson, but he and Gore found their start together. Gore found her first hit single with “It’s My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To).” It’s success boosted not only her career but also that of Jones, who quickly became the first black VP at Mercury Records. Gore’s success continued with a new style. When “You Don’t Own Me” was released in 1964, Gore went from a sweet, heartbroken young woman to an independent one. Even years later upon releasing a revised version, Gore felt it was a particularly special song: "It's a song that takes on new meaning every time you sing it." It changed not only the way the public viewed the singer but the conversations that were being had about women. It became an anthem of independence and feminist ideals. During the hype of her first few releases, she attended Sarah Lawrence College, studying literature. She noted that women there considered pop music uncool. "Had I been tall with blonde hair, had I been Mary Travers, I would have gotten along fine,” the young singer said. Still, she felt it was important to give herself options; music was a far too uncertain path to pursue without a backup plan. In fact, she only toured during the summer and holidays; she enjoyed spending her weekends holed up in the library. It was in school that she got involved in activism, first volunteering for Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Though she continued to perform music and act in films and television, even working with her brother to create music for the film Fame, she would come back to activism again and again. Later meeting Bella Abzug, the first woman mentor in her life and a leader in the women’s rights movement, changed her approach to activism. “She kind of mentored me as to what’s important for women and where to put my energies in terms of gay women, and what I could best do to help women in our community and children. And that’s pretty much what I live by now, pretty much where I like to concentrate my efforts. You can only bite off so much, so you gotta know what you want to do.” There’s something to be said about the fact that a woman whose music inspired so many conversations around men and heterosexuality was herself a lesbian. She lived at a time when heteronormativity was expected, perhaps even more than today. She dated men and women while she was young, but her first serious relationship in her twenties confirmed for her that she was a lesbian. Though she believed that her family and friends understood, she didn’t publically come out until 2004 when she hosted the PBS series In the Life, which focused on LGBT issues. It was easier to let the public assume who she was rather than risk her career—and her future. During the height of her fame, she allowed and perhaps encouraged the mixed perception of the public. She was a weepy teenager and an independent woman and a teen heartthrob and a young lesbian. She was a complex woman who could not and would not be condensed into easy terms. Though she was not open about being a lesbian yet, she said that she did not hide it. When she did come out in 2004, she said it “was just kind of my way of saying, here I am and this is what I feel I should be doing now, and it was sort of a natural evolution for me as opposed to, you know, this great gong in the head.” Lesley Gore passed away in New York at the age of 68. Her partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson, stayed at her side. Her music, particularly her rendition of “You Don’t Own Me,” continues to be a symbol of feminism and women’s rights; it’s been used in film, television, and ads for things like marriage equality and reproductive rights. Upon her death, rapper G-Eazy and singer Grace released their rendition of the classic. Grace said that she has been inspired by Gore’s career and wanted to give the song—and her—the justice it deserved. “It’s so important to go after what you want, to be strong. Lesley’s generation paved the way, so I felt like this was a way to say thank you and to keep that momentum going.” Gore spent her life in the limelight, and she walked a careful line between personal and private life. We often discuss the idea of coming out as if it is inevitable; for some, it is never. For others, it is a celebration. And for others still, it is quiet and constant. Lesley Gore felt that it was no one’s business but hers, and she came out in her own time. Those around her, she believed, already knew. Whether she worried about her career and safety or just wanted to have something for herself, she made a decision that is only hers to make. Each of us must decide when, how, and if we want to come out; it is a deeply personal experience. No one is owed your story, and choosing to share it is a courageous act.

Rudi Gernreich

The Designer Who Wanted to Liberate People from Gendered Clothing Looking back on the work and philosophy of Rudi Gernreich, who broke norms and made waves in the 1960s and ’70s. Avatar photoDan Schindel May 22, 2019 Share Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich at the Skirball Cultural Center (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic) LOS ANGELES — Rudi Gernreich had a vision that society still hasn’t fully caught up to. A fashion designer who made waves in the 1960s and ’70s, Gernreich sought to wholly decouple clothing from the preconceived notions surrounding it. He removed stifling boning from swimsuits and bras to create pieces that were comfortable but still stylish, introducing the first swimsuit with a built-in bra. He worked extensively on clothes for the “wrong” gender or in unisex, making caftans, pantsuits for women, skirts for men, and more. Gernreich’s life and design philosophy are on display in the new exhibition Rudi Gernreich: Fearless Fashion at the Skirball Cultural Center. The Skirball is an institution focused on Jewish-American history and culture, and Gernreich’s Jewish identity is inseparable from his philosophy. Born in Austria in 1922, he and his mother fled for the United States after Germany annexed Austria in 1938. In the US, however, the young Gernreich still struggled to feel accepted because of his homosexuality. For a time in the ’50s, he was a member of the Mattachine Society, one of the US’s earliest gay rights groups, as well as the lover of its founder, Harry Hay. Varying experiences of oppression shaped his conviction to break norms, devising clothing that was wearable, good looking, and made a statement. Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich at the Skirball Cultural Center Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich at the Skirball Cultural Center Gernreich brought the libertine interwar European attitude he’d been raised in to the cultural upheaval of the ’60s. He wanted to decouple nudity from sexuality, and called the acceptance of nudity “a natural development growing out of all the loosening up, the re-evaluation of values that’s going on. There is now an honesty hangup, and part of this is not hiding the body — it stands for freedom.” To this end he invented the topless bathing suit, the “monokini,” which could be seen as an intermediary step to help people loosen up their ideas of proper bathing attire. It naturally caused an uproar at the time, though Gernreich strenuously denied any lascivious intent. The exhibition nods to the controversy by displaying one monokini-wearing mannequin with a “censored” bandeau over its breasts. Gernreich experimented with making clothing as a political statement. One section of the exhibition presents a military-styled ensemble he created in protest of the Vietnam War. (Alongside it is a video of the original model speaking about how she thought that releasing the piece so soon after the Kent State massacre was ultimately in poor taste.) His thong designs (for both men and women) were a direct response to Los Angeles banning nude beaches in 1974. His work puts an entirely different spin on the idea of the personal being political, making the body itself into a statement. Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich at the Skirball Cultural Center Setting artistic and political impact aside, Gernreich made great headway in incorporating greater functionality into clothing without sacrificing style. A former dancer who also worked with different dance companies, he had an intuitive understanding for how to facilitate movement. This showed even in smaller ways; he had his models show either barefoot or in flats. (The exhibition reflects this in its specially made mannequins.) Discussions around gender identity and presentation have only in recent years entered the cultural mainstream. We still trail behind what Rudi Gernreich pictured. The monokini was a strong statement that didn’t quite take off, and certainly didn’t pave the way for eventual social acceptance of nude swimming. In this climate, there’s been an increasing reassessment and new appreciation of Gernreich, of which this exhibition is only one facet. Who knows, though, how long it will take before the free-gender utopia he envisioned comes about.

The Homosexuals (1967)

"The Homosexuals" is a 1967 episode of the documentary television series CBS Reports. The hour-long broadcast featured a discussion of a number of topics related to homosexuality and homosexuals. Mike Wallace anchored the episode, which aired on March 7, 1967. Although this was the first network documentary dealing with the topic of homosexuality, it was not the first televised in the United States. That was The Rejected, produced and aired in 1961 on KQED, a public television station out of San Francisco.Three years in the making, "The Homosexuals" went through two producers and multiple revisions. The episode included interviews with several gay men, psychiatrists, legal experts and cultural critics, interspersed with footage of a gay bar and a police sex sting. "The Homosexuals" garnered mixed critical response.

After Stonewall