Groundbreaking queer playwright Mart Crowley, who penned the seminal The Boys in the Band has died. Crowley passed as a result of complications from heart surgery. He was 84 years old.
Writer Michael Musto posted to Twitter: “RIP, Mart Crowley, author of the groundbreaking gay play The Boys in the Band. He was Natalie Wood’s assistant and told me she encouraged him to write the play. He nabbed a Tony when the all-star version came to Bway in ’18 and the movie version of that will come out this year.”
RIP, Mart Crowley, author of the groundbreaking gay play The Boys in the Band. He was Natalie Wood's assistant and told me she encouraged him to write the play. He nabbed a Tony when the all-star version came to Bway in '18 and the movie version of that will come out this year. pic.twitter.com/ntNF9F5krn
— michael musto (@mikeymusto) March 8, 2020
Originally from Vicksburg, Mississippi, Crowley wrote The Boys in the Band, the first major American work of drama about gay men, while working as Natalie Wood’s assistant. It debuted off-Broadway in 1968, and foreshadowed the queer rights movement that would begin the following year with the Stonewall Uprising.
Despite its groundbreaking nature, The Boys in the Band would receive harsh criticism for homophobia, particularly after the opening of the 1970 film version. Crowley defended the play over the years, notably in The Celluloid Closet, as accurate to the time that it portrays. A 2018 Broadway revival starring Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Zachary Quinto earned wide acclaim, and will get the movie treatment from Netflix later this year.
russellhm
As a young, high school English teacher in the 60s and on, I was asked to also coach the plays and teach one drama class. I joined a “Play of the Month” club so I would receive “scripts” as I needed to have a raft of materials for the students to use as scenes to dramatize in class. When “The Boys in the Band” arrived, I was impressed by its candor and the characters’ appeal. But I struggled with how it might be perceived by the students. I kept a shelf of suitable “scripts,” mostly hardbound books of varying lengths and shelved “Boys/Band” with all the others. When a student selected it, I made certain he knew its theme. It was rarely chosen as that nagging fear the using a scene from a “queer”
play made you a queer, too, but the class always responded favorably and maturely. My memories of the play and the film are such that, in retrospect, it was as essential as all the other steps along the way to equality. And since fear is the result of ignorance, let’s always educate so we may tolerate.
radiooutmike
What a wonderful teacher you were! Are?
Den
Seeing the movie kept me in the closet for another full year. It seemed to reinforce all the existing stereotypes of gay men as superficial, backstabbing, emotional wrecks and ignored all the reasons for those stereotypes.
Kangol2
It was an important play for its era, and remains a landmark in American theater today. May Mart Crowley he rest in peace and plays.
trsxyz123
Never really liked the play. However there is no denying that getting it produced, was a milestone for a play that was centered on the lives of gay men.
Cam
The revival was amazing. The difference from the movie, i.e. having all of the characters played by out proud gay actors, really changed the overall attitude of it. Amazing to see!
stagehand1
There is no denying this was a watershed piece of theatre for it’s time. Whether you take issues with any characterization really says more about you than anything. The revival was amazing if for nothing more than the fact that, finally, it was a cast of out, proud, gay actors!