Author: Ethan Mordden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190063122
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
A fascinating look at the gay and lesbian influence on the American stage by an internationally-recognized authority on the topic From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The Normal Heart to the women of Fun Home, and from Eva Le Gallienne and Tallulah Bankhead to Tennessee Williams and Nathan Lane, Gays On Broadway deftly chronicles the plays and people that brought gay culture to Broadway. Writing with his customary verve and wit, author Ethan Mordden follows the steady liberation of gay themes on the American stage. The story begins in the early twentieth century, when gay characters were virtually banned from productions. The 1920s saw a flurry of plays closed on moral grounds as well as the Wales Padlock Act, which forbade representation of "sex degeneracy". While authorities made consistent attempts to shutter the movement, the public remained curious, and after a few decades of war making, a truce broke out when The Boys In the Band became a national smash hit. From this point on, gay theatre proved simply too popular to abolish. With this change, theatre was graced with a host of unforgettable characters - from thrill killers to historical figures to drag performers, as well as professional gays (such as the defiantly effeminate window dresser in Kiss of the Spider Woman), closeted gays, and those run-of-the-mill citizens who don't reside entirely within the colorful nonconformist identity (such as the two male lovers in the dinner-theatre comedy Norman, Is That You?). Spoken plays and musicals, playwrights, directors, and actors all played their part in popularizing the gay movement through art. Gays on Broadway is an essential chronological review of the long journey to bring the culture of gay men and women onto the American stage.
Gays on Broadway
Author: Ethan Mordden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190063122
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
A fascinating look at the gay and lesbian influence on the American stage by an internationally-recognized authority on the topic From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The Normal Heart to the women of Fun Home, and from Eva Le Gallienne and Tallulah Bankhead to Tennessee Williams and Nathan Lane, Gays On Broadway deftly chronicles the plays and people that brought gay culture to Broadway. Writing with his customary verve and wit, author Ethan Mordden follows the steady liberation of gay themes on the American stage. The story begins in the early twentieth century, when gay characters were virtually banned from productions. The 1920s saw a flurry of plays closed on moral grounds as well as the Wales Padlock Act, which forbade representation of "sex degeneracy". While authorities made consistent attempts to shutter the movement, the public remained curious, and after a few decades of war making, a truce broke out when The Boys In the Band became a national smash hit. From this point on, gay theatre proved simply too popular to abolish. With this change, theatre was graced with a host of unforgettable characters - from thrill killers to historical figures to drag performers, as well as professional gays (such as the defiantly effeminate window dresser in Kiss of the Spider Woman), closeted gays, and those run-of-the-mill citizens who don't reside entirely within the colorful nonconformist identity (such as the two male lovers in the dinner-theatre comedy Norman, Is That You?). Spoken plays and musicals, playwrights, directors, and actors all played their part in popularizing the gay movement through art. Gays on Broadway is an essential chronological review of the long journey to bring the culture of gay men and women onto the American stage.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190063122
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
A fascinating look at the gay and lesbian influence on the American stage by an internationally-recognized authority on the topic From the genteel female impersonators of the 1910s to the raucous drag queens of La Cage Aux Folles, from the men of The Normal Heart to the women of Fun Home, and from Eva Le Gallienne and Tallulah Bankhead to Tennessee Williams and Nathan Lane, Gays On Broadway deftly chronicles the plays and people that brought gay culture to Broadway. Writing with his customary verve and wit, author Ethan Mordden follows the steady liberation of gay themes on the American stage. The story begins in the early twentieth century, when gay characters were virtually banned from productions. The 1920s saw a flurry of plays closed on moral grounds as well as the Wales Padlock Act, which forbade representation of "sex degeneracy". While authorities made consistent attempts to shutter the movement, the public remained curious, and after a few decades of war making, a truce broke out when The Boys In the Band became a national smash hit. From this point on, gay theatre proved simply too popular to abolish. With this change, theatre was graced with a host of unforgettable characters - from thrill killers to historical figures to drag performers, as well as professional gays (such as the defiantly effeminate window dresser in Kiss of the Spider Woman), closeted gays, and those run-of-the-mill citizens who don't reside entirely within the colorful nonconformist identity (such as the two male lovers in the dinner-theatre comedy Norman, Is That You?). Spoken plays and musicals, playwrights, directors, and actors all played their part in popularizing the gay movement through art. Gays on Broadway is an essential chronological review of the long journey to bring the culture of gay men and women onto the American stage.
Gays on Broadway
Author: Ethan Mordden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190063106
Category : American drama
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
"This is a chronological review of both the plays and the people that brought the world of homosexuals, bisexuals, transexuals, metrosexuals, and the sexually fluid to the American stage. The plays--which take in a few foreign imports--treat strong gay content (e. g., The Boys in the Band or The Killing of sister George), or minor gay content (Season In the Sun, The Nervous Set), or even a phrase in passing (as in New Faces of 1956's joke about Rome's piazza Di Spagna, so niche that perhaps fifty people got it during the show's six-month run). I have included as well plays that portray gay through dog whistles (such as Bell, Book and Candle, in which the witches are really gay people) and even plays whose sense of parody or outright camp (such as Little Mary Sunshine or Johnny Guitar) are at least gay-adjacent. As for the people in the book--writers, actors, creatives-- I have included profiles of some who, though gay, had little interest in portraying gay lives--Edward Albee, for example, even as his influence not as a writer about gay but rather as a writer who is gay was extremely broad, so conclusive that he takes pride of place at the end of this volume. These so to say pre-Stonewall eminences--actor-manager Eva Le Gallienne is another one--are as much a part of the chronicle as such overtly gay-in-content writers as Terrence McNally"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190063106
Category : American drama
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
"This is a chronological review of both the plays and the people that brought the world of homosexuals, bisexuals, transexuals, metrosexuals, and the sexually fluid to the American stage. The plays--which take in a few foreign imports--treat strong gay content (e. g., The Boys in the Band or The Killing of sister George), or minor gay content (Season In the Sun, The Nervous Set), or even a phrase in passing (as in New Faces of 1956's joke about Rome's piazza Di Spagna, so niche that perhaps fifty people got it during the show's six-month run). I have included as well plays that portray gay through dog whistles (such as Bell, Book and Candle, in which the witches are really gay people) and even plays whose sense of parody or outright camp (such as Little Mary Sunshine or Johnny Guitar) are at least gay-adjacent. As for the people in the book--writers, actors, creatives-- I have included profiles of some who, though gay, had little interest in portraying gay lives--Edward Albee, for example, even as his influence not as a writer about gay but rather as a writer who is gay was extremely broad, so conclusive that he takes pride of place at the end of this volume. These so to say pre-Stonewall eminences--actor-manager Eva Le Gallienne is another one--are as much a part of the chronicle as such overtly gay-in-content writers as Terrence McNally"--
Out on Stage
Author: Alan Sinfield
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300081022
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 428
Book Description
This intriguing, authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day and examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Le Roi Jones, and Joe Orton.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300081022
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 428
Book Description
This intriguing, authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day and examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Le Roi Jones, and Joe Orton.
The Velvet Rage
Author: Alan Downs
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN: 9780738210612
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
The gay male world today is characterized by seductive beauty, artful creativity, flamboyant sexuality, and, encouragingly, unprecedented acceptability in society. Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a fa?ade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN: 9780738210612
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
The gay male world today is characterized by seductive beauty, artful creativity, flamboyant sexuality, and, encouragingly, unprecedented acceptability in society. Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a fa?ade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.
Mothers and Sons
Author: Terrence McNally
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 0822231832
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 48
Book Description
At turns funny and powerful, MOTHERS AND SONS portrays a woman who pays an unexpected visit to the New York apartment of her late son's partner, who is now married to another man and has a young son. Challenged to face how society has changed around her, generations collide as she revisits the past and begins to see the life her son might have led.
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc
ISBN: 0822231832
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 48
Book Description
At turns funny and powerful, MOTHERS AND SONS portrays a woman who pays an unexpected visit to the New York apartment of her late son's partner, who is now married to another man and has a young son. Challenged to face how society has changed around her, generations collide as she revisits the past and begins to see the life her son might have led.
How To Be Gay
Author: David M. Halperin
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674070860
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
No one raises an eyebrow if you suggest that a guy who arranges his furniture just so, rolls his eyes in exaggerated disbelief, likes techno music or show tunes, and knows all of Bette Davis's best lines by heart might, just possibly, be gay. But if you assert that male homosexuality is a cultural practice, expressive of a unique subjectivity and a distinctive relation to mainstream society, people will immediately protest. Such an idea, they will say, is just a stereotype-ridiculously simplistic, politically irresponsible, and morally suspect. The world acknowledges gay male culture as a fact but denies it as a truth. David Halperin, a pioneer of LGBTQ studies, dares to suggest that gayness is a specific way of being that gay men must learn from one another in order to become who they are. Inspired by the notorious undergraduate course of the same title that Halperin taught at the University of Michigan, provoking cries of outrage from both the right-wing media and the gay press, How To Be Gay traces gay men's cultural difference to the social meaning of style. Far from being deterred by stereotypes, Halperin concludes that the genius of gay culture resides in some of its most despised features: its aestheticism, snobbery, melodrama, adoration of glamour, caricatures of women, and obsession with mothers. The insights, impertinence, and unfazed critical intelligence displayed by gay culture, Halperin argues, have much to offer the heterosexual mainstream.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674070860
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
No one raises an eyebrow if you suggest that a guy who arranges his furniture just so, rolls his eyes in exaggerated disbelief, likes techno music or show tunes, and knows all of Bette Davis's best lines by heart might, just possibly, be gay. But if you assert that male homosexuality is a cultural practice, expressive of a unique subjectivity and a distinctive relation to mainstream society, people will immediately protest. Such an idea, they will say, is just a stereotype-ridiculously simplistic, politically irresponsible, and morally suspect. The world acknowledges gay male culture as a fact but denies it as a truth. David Halperin, a pioneer of LGBTQ studies, dares to suggest that gayness is a specific way of being that gay men must learn from one another in order to become who they are. Inspired by the notorious undergraduate course of the same title that Halperin taught at the University of Michigan, provoking cries of outrage from both the right-wing media and the gay press, How To Be Gay traces gay men's cultural difference to the social meaning of style. Far from being deterred by stereotypes, Halperin concludes that the genius of gay culture resides in some of its most despised features: its aestheticism, snobbery, melodrama, adoration of glamour, caricatures of women, and obsession with mothers. The insights, impertinence, and unfazed critical intelligence displayed by gay culture, Halperin argues, have much to offer the heterosexual mainstream.
The Flower Drum Song
Author: C. Y. Lee
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Originally published in 1957, one of the first novels of the Chinese-American experience is now back in print to tie in with the Broadway revival.
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Originally published in 1957, one of the first novels of the Chinese-American experience is now back in print to tie in with the Broadway revival.
The Torch Song Trilogy
Stagestruck
Author: Sarah Schulman
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822322641
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Stagestruck: theater, AIDS, and the marketing of gay America.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822322641
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
Stagestruck: theater, AIDS, and the marketing of gay America.
Double Life
Author: Alan Shayne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781936833023
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Gay marriage is at the forefront of America's political battles. The human story at the center of this debate is told in Double Life: A Love Story, a dual memoir by a gay male couple in a 50 plus year relationship. With high profiles in the entertainment, advertising and art communities, the authors offer a virtual timeline of how gay relationships have gained acceptance in the last half-century. At the same time, they share inside stories from film, television and media featuring the likes of Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Barbra Streisand, Laurence Olivier, Truman Capote, Bette Davis, Robert Redford, Lee Radziwill and Frances Lear. "We both grew up at a time when homosexuality was not even spoken about," the couple writes. "There were certainly no books that could help a young person understand that two people of the same sex could build a happy, productive and loving life together. When we entered our 50th year, another same sex couple told us we were 'an inspiration', so we began to feel we had the responsibility to make what we've experienced available to others. We also wanted to show people who were not gay that our life was not unlike theirs. We are all pretty much the same, so we deserve equal protection under the Constitution." Alan Shayne retired as President of Warner Brothers Television in 1986, following a career that included Broadway, playing opposite Lena Horne and spanned forty years. As a leading casting director, he worked on such films as Catch 22, All the President's Men and many others. At Warner Brothers, he shepherded such long-running television series as Alice, Night Court and The Dukes of Hazard. Norman Sunshine was a successful magazine illustrator in New York who went on to be a painter and sculptor whose works are in museums and in important collections. In the early years of his career, he was vice president, creative director of an advertising agency, and coined the phrase, "What Becomes a Legend Most?" as well as "Danskins are not just for Dancing." He interrupted his painting career when Frances Lear asked him to spearhead Lear's Magazine in the 1980s. Upon the two men meeting in New York in 1958, "We didn't want to live together," says Shayne. "We didn't have any examples of what a good love relationship between two men could be. And there was always the problem of hiding so no one would know we were gay. There was no question that if I were known to be gay, living with another man, it would make it more difficult for me to get work as an actor." As an artist, Sunshine was able to maintain a moderately out lifestyle. But when the first exhibition of his paintings in New York brought on a profile in The New York Times in 1968, he was photographed in the apartment that he admitted sharing with Shayne. At both his advertising agency and Shayne's television production company, the article was met with absolute silence. Even in the 1970s, when Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Shayne's television productions, "Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event," he remembers. "Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it...'Better to be seen with a woman, ' we were advised by a very trusted friend, 'Makes everyone more comfortable.'" Happily, in 2008, the State of Massachusetts allowed the opportunity for the couple to be married on a beach in Nantucket. "We were like a long, empty, closed-up house where the windows have just been opened," writes Shayne. "The fresh air thrilled through us, and after years of only being who we were in the privacy of our homes or with a few friends, we were out in the world, under the sky, no longer pretending. We were at last free." Double Life is a trip through the entertainment world and a gay partnership in the latter half of the 20th century. As more and more same sex couples find it possible to say "I do," the book serves as an important document of how far we've come.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781936833023
Category : Artists
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Gay marriage is at the forefront of America's political battles. The human story at the center of this debate is told in Double Life: A Love Story, a dual memoir by a gay male couple in a 50 plus year relationship. With high profiles in the entertainment, advertising and art communities, the authors offer a virtual timeline of how gay relationships have gained acceptance in the last half-century. At the same time, they share inside stories from film, television and media featuring the likes of Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Barbra Streisand, Laurence Olivier, Truman Capote, Bette Davis, Robert Redford, Lee Radziwill and Frances Lear. "We both grew up at a time when homosexuality was not even spoken about," the couple writes. "There were certainly no books that could help a young person understand that two people of the same sex could build a happy, productive and loving life together. When we entered our 50th year, another same sex couple told us we were 'an inspiration', so we began to feel we had the responsibility to make what we've experienced available to others. We also wanted to show people who were not gay that our life was not unlike theirs. We are all pretty much the same, so we deserve equal protection under the Constitution." Alan Shayne retired as President of Warner Brothers Television in 1986, following a career that included Broadway, playing opposite Lena Horne and spanned forty years. As a leading casting director, he worked on such films as Catch 22, All the President's Men and many others. At Warner Brothers, he shepherded such long-running television series as Alice, Night Court and The Dukes of Hazard. Norman Sunshine was a successful magazine illustrator in New York who went on to be a painter and sculptor whose works are in museums and in important collections. In the early years of his career, he was vice president, creative director of an advertising agency, and coined the phrase, "What Becomes a Legend Most?" as well as "Danskins are not just for Dancing." He interrupted his painting career when Frances Lear asked him to spearhead Lear's Magazine in the 1980s. Upon the two men meeting in New York in 1958, "We didn't want to live together," says Shayne. "We didn't have any examples of what a good love relationship between two men could be. And there was always the problem of hiding so no one would know we were gay. There was no question that if I were known to be gay, living with another man, it would make it more difficult for me to get work as an actor." As an artist, Sunshine was able to maintain a moderately out lifestyle. But when the first exhibition of his paintings in New York brought on a profile in The New York Times in 1968, he was photographed in the apartment that he admitted sharing with Shayne. At both his advertising agency and Shayne's television production company, the article was met with absolute silence. Even in the 1970s, when Sunshine won an Emmy for the graphics and title design he had created for one of Shayne's television productions, "Alan and I agreed it was not a good idea for us to be seen together at an industry event," he remembers. "Alan, after all, was one of the very few homosexuals who had such a powerful, high profile job, and who lived openly with a man. Homophobia had its adherents and some ruthless climber up the executive ladder would certainly love an opportunity to use it...'Better to be seen with a woman, ' we were advised by a very trusted friend, 'Makes everyone more comfortable.'" Happily, in 2008, the State of Massachusetts allowed the opportunity for the couple to be married on a beach in Nantucket. "We were like a long, empty, closed-up house where the windows have just been opened," writes Shayne. "The fresh air thrilled through us, and after years of only being who we were in the privacy of our homes or with a few friends, we were out in the world, under the sky, no longer pretending. We were at last free." Double Life is a trip through the entertainment world and a gay partnership in the latter half of the 20th century. As more and more same sex couples find it possible to say "I do," the book serves as an important document of how far we've come.