The Boys in the Band (play)
Encyclopedia
The Boys in the Band is a play by Mart Crowley
. The off-Broadway
production, directed by Robert Moore
, opened on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four, where it ran for 1,001 performances, an extremely healthy run for both an off-Broadway production, and one not geared to a mainstream audience. The cast included Kenneth Nelson
as Michael, Peter White
as Alan, 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.
of Manhattan
, where six of Harold's closest friends are throwing him a birthday party. One of Harold's presents is "Cowboy", an attractive but obviously unintelligent male prostitute, since Harold, increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks, claims he no longer can attract cute young men. The other characters are Michael, the host and a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic undergoing psychoanalysis
; Donald, a conflicted friend who has moved from the city to spurn the homosexual "lifestyle;" Bernard, an African-American who still pines for the wealthy white boy in the house where his mother worked as a maid; Emory, who is extremely flamboyant and the most stereotypical of the group; and Larry, an aggressively sexual homosexual and Hank, who "passes" as straight, a couple living together but disagreeing on the issue of monogamy
. An unexpected party guest is Alan, Michael's allegedly straight college friend, who is in town and anxious to tell Michael something—but hesitant to do so when he sees the group.
During the party the self-deprecating humor takes a nasty turn as the nine men become increasingly inebriated. The party culminates in a game where each man must call someone and tell him he loves him. Michael, believing that Alan has finally "outed" himself when he makes his call, is stunned to discover it is Alan's wife on the line when he grabs the phone away from Alan. The audience never learns what Alan intended to discuss with Michael, but is left with the possibility that his decision to reveal his homosexuality was averted by his repulsion for the behavior he witnessed throughout the evening.
, actress Natalie Wood
, who sympathized with Hollywood's gay scene, financially supported Crowley, himself a homosexual, so he would be free to write his play. The playwright
, who first met her while working as a production assistant on the movie Splendor in the Grass
, worked as an assistant for Wood and her husband Robert Wagner
for many years.
The Boys in the Band was staged by Playbox Theatre, Melbourne
, in June 1969, having been brought to Australia by theatrical entrepreneur Harry M Miller. The staging resulted in three actors who had performed in the play, John Krummell, John Norman
and Charles Little
being charged by the Victorian Police Vice Squad with using obscene language in a public place. The Magistrate who heard the charge found the charges proved but then dismissed them on the grounds they were 'trifling.' The Vice Squad successfully appealed to the Supreme Court, with Justice Little ruling in September 1969 that "In my opinion the offence of obscene language in a public place cannot be regarded as of a trivial or minor nature." The case of The Boys in the Band was an important step in the breaking down of Australia's archaic censorship laws.
An all-lesbian production of The Boys in the Band was staged by of members of the Australasian Lesbian Movement in 1972.
The play had a brief revival at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village
in 1996, and in 2002, the sequel, The Men from the Boys premiered in San Francisco, and was produced in Los Angeles the following year.
The play was revived in 2010 in a site specific location in Manhattan by Transport Group Theatre Company under the direction of Jack Cummings III. The production received five Drama Desk Award nominations.
.
.
Mart Crowley
Mart Crowley is an American playwright.Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. After graduating from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1957, Crowley headed west to Hollywood, where he worked for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on...
. The off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production, directed by Robert Moore
Robert Moore (director)
Robert Moore was an American stage, film and television director.-Biography:Born in Detroit, Michigan, Moore is best known for his direction of the ground-breaking play The Boys in the Band, his Broadway productions , and his collaborations - three plays and three films - with Neil Simon,...
, opened on April 14, 1968 at Theater Four, where it ran for 1,001 performances, an extremely healthy run for both an off-Broadway production, and one not geared to a mainstream audience. The cast included Kenneth Nelson
Kenneth Nelson
Kenneth Nelson was an American actor.Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Nelson appeared in several television series in the late 1940s, Captain Video and His Video Rangers and The Aldrich Family among them...
as Michael, Peter White
Peter White (actor)
Peter White is an American actor.White was born in New York City, New York and studied acting at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. In 1968, White received critical acclaim for his role as Alan McCarthy in off-Broadway's The Boys in the Band. White, and the rest of the original cast, appeared...
as Alan, Leonard Frey
Leonard Frey
- Biography :Frey was born in Brooklyn, New York. After college, where he studied art with designs on being a painter, he studied acting at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner, and pursued a career in theater instead...
as Harold, Cliff Gorman
Cliff Gorman
Cliff Gorman was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie award in 1968 for the stage presentation of The Boys in the Band, and went on to reprise his role in the 1970 film version....
as Emory, Frederick Combs
Frederick Combs
Frederick Combs was an American film, theater and television actor, playwright and director.Combs is best known for originating the role of Donald in the play The Boys in the Band and then later in the 1970 film of the same name.He performed extensively in theater including Franco Zeffirelli's...
as Donald, Laurence Luckinbill
Laurence Luckinbill
Laurence George Luckinbill is an American actor.-Life and career:Luckinbill was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the son of Agnes and Laurence Benedict Luckinbill. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1956 and The Catholic University of America in 1958.He starred in the 1976 Broadway play...
as Hank, Keith Prentice
Keith Prentice
Keith Prentice was a Dayton, Ohio-born American TV, film and stage actor, whose most famous role was the part of Larry in both the original stage and film versions of The Boys in the Band. Prentice also appeared on the classic TV soap Dark Shadows during the series final months in 1971...
as Larry, Robert La Tourneaux
Robert La Tourneaux
Robert La Tourneaux was an American actor best known for his role of Cowboy, the good-natured but dim hustler hired as a birthday present for a gay man, in the original Off-Broadway production and 1970 film version of The Boys in the Band.-Biography:La Tourneaux made his Broadway theatre debut in...
as Cowboy, and Reuben Greene
Reuben Greene
Reuben Greene is an American film, theater and television actor. Greene, born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, landed the role of Dr...
as Bernard.
Plot synopsis
It is set in an apartment on the Upper East SideUpper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, where six of Harold's closest friends are throwing him a birthday party. One of Harold's presents is "Cowboy", an attractive but obviously unintelligent male prostitute, since Harold, increasingly morose about losing his youthful looks, claims he no longer can attract cute young men. The other characters are Michael, the host and a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic undergoing psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
; Donald, a conflicted friend who has moved from the city to spurn the homosexual "lifestyle;" Bernard, an African-American who still pines for the wealthy white boy in the house where his mother worked as a maid; Emory, who is extremely flamboyant and the most stereotypical of the group; and Larry, an aggressively sexual homosexual and Hank, who "passes" as straight, a couple living together but disagreeing on the issue of monogamy
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
. An unexpected party guest is Alan, Michael's allegedly straight college friend, who is in town and anxious to tell Michael something—but hesitant to do so when he sees the group.
During the party the self-deprecating humor takes a nasty turn as the nine men become increasingly inebriated. The party culminates in a game where each man must call someone and tell him he loves him. Michael, believing that Alan has finally "outed" himself when he makes his call, is stunned to discover it is Alan's wife on the line when he grabs the phone away from Alan. The audience never learns what Alan intended to discuss with Michael, but is left with the possibility that his decision to reveal his homosexuality was averted by his repulsion for the behavior he witnessed throughout the evening.
Productions
According to Crowley's friend Gavin LambertGavin Lambert
Gavin Lambert was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood...
, actress Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...
, who sympathized with Hollywood's gay scene, financially supported Crowley, himself a homosexual, so he would be free to write his play. The playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, who first met her while working as a production assistant on the movie Splendor in the Grass
Splendor in the Grass
Splendor in the Grass is a 1961 romantic drama film that tells a story of sexual repression, love, heartbreak, and manic-depression, which the character Deanie suffers from...
, worked as an assistant for Wood and her husband Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
for many years.
The Boys in the Band was staged by Playbox Theatre, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, in June 1969, having been brought to Australia by theatrical entrepreneur Harry M Miller. The staging resulted in three actors who had performed in the play, John Krummell, John Norman
John Norman
John Frederick Lange, Jr. , better known under his pen name John Norman, is a professor of philosophy and an author. He is best known for his Gor novel series.-Biography:...
and Charles Little
Charles Little
Admiral Sir Charles James Colebrooke Little GCB GBE was a senior Royal Navy officer who went on to be Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel.-Naval career:...
being charged by the Victorian Police Vice Squad with using obscene language in a public place. The Magistrate who heard the charge found the charges proved but then dismissed them on the grounds they were 'trifling.' The Vice Squad successfully appealed to the Supreme Court, with Justice Little ruling in September 1969 that "In my opinion the offence of obscene language in a public place cannot be regarded as of a trivial or minor nature." The case of The Boys in the Band was an important step in the breaking down of Australia's archaic censorship laws.
An all-lesbian production of The Boys in the Band was staged by of members of the Australasian Lesbian Movement in 1972.
The play had a brief revival at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
in 1996, and in 2002, the sequel, The Men from the Boys premiered in San Francisco, and was produced in Los Angeles the following year.
The play was revived in 2010 in a site specific location in Manhattan by Transport Group Theatre Company under the direction of Jack Cummings III. The production received five Drama Desk Award nominations.
Adaptation
In 1970, it was adapted for a motion picture directed by William FriedkinWilliam Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
.
Soundtrack
In 1969 a 2-disc vinyl LP set was released. It contained the full dialogue of the play as voiced by the original actors.Sequel
Matt Crowley's sequel to The Boys in the Band was entitled The Men From The BoysThe Men From The Boys
The Men From The Boys is a play by Mart Crowley. It was a sequel to the off-Broadway production The Boys in the Band.-Plot:The Men From The Boys takes place in a New York City apartment where friends are in for more than they expected after a memorial for one of their friends.-External reviews:*...
.