Gay actors on broadway
Chenoweth Fires Back at Newsweek for Criticizing Gay Actors
Postby Bill Minnick »
May 10, , am
Chenoweth Fires Back at Newsweek for Criticizing Queer Actors in Linear Roles
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in the Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises.”
Not that we have any beef with Kristin Chenoweth to begin with, but we’d ponder long and rigid about picking a war of words with her after this. On Friday, Ms. Chenoweth, the Tony Award-winner and star of “Promises, Promises,” posted a lengthy online rebuttal to a Newsweek article that she called “horrendously homophobic” for contending that gay actors could not play vertical characters, and citing her “Promises, Promises” co-star Sean Hayes as an example.
In the unique Newsweek article, called “Straight Jacket” and published online in April, Ramin Setoodeh wrote: “While it’s OK for unbent actors to participate gay (as Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger did in ‘Brokeback Mountain’), it’s rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse.”
Among the openly gay actors Mr. S
New York Theater
In his Tony acceptance speech this month, Jonathan Groff thanked his role as the queer character Melchior Gabor sixteen years ago in “Spring Awakening” for inspiring him “to come out of the closet when I was I&#;m now 39 and musical theater is still saving my soul.” But the character for which Groff won his Tony, Franklin Shepard Jr. in “Merrily We Roll Along,” is uber heterosexual, cheating on his second wife.
Broadway is an industry that has long employed LGBTQ people; a community that has served as a refuge; and an art form that’s offered a pioneering showcase for LGBTQ characters and their stories. But the showcase fluctuates
Last year, I counted eight Broadway plays or musicals that were running during Pride Month featuring Diverse characters, which seemed a record. Only two from that list remain.
True, tonight is opening night for a queer version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” one of the longest-running shows on Broadway. But the new production is not opening on Broadway; it’s at the Perelman Carrying out Arts Center at the Wor
June is Pride month, where the LGBTQ+ community and their allies honor the pioneers of the past, celebrate the present, and look ahead the future.
This year, New York City is gearing up for WorldPride to commemorate the 50th anniversary since the Stonewall riots (and the birth of the modern lgbtq+ right movement), with the annual Pride March taking place June Theatre has its own intricate history with the queer collective. While there is always more work to be done to ensure that the theatre is an inclusive community for all, it is often a room where LGBTQ+ stories are amplified and uplifted. Beyond onstage visibility, the theatre community is made up of many LGBTQ+-identifying artists, who bring their talent, trial, and artistry to tell vital stories across the country.
We asked our social media followers to share the LGBTQ+ heroes who inspire them.
Flip through the gallery to see 50 LBGTQ+ theatrical heroes:
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50 LGTBQ+ Theatre Heroes
Something queer this way comes: Best LGBTQIA+ shows on Broadway
Queer art and fun has been as much about the beauty and resilience of the group 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 preserve 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 time when the "gay capital of Europe" transitioned from a ut