Controversial Gay Plays

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Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 6:32pm

Hey folks, i need your help.
Could you be so kind to list plays no matter how big of small that were seen as controversial when they opened or still are seen that way.

Thanks so much

Namo i love u but we get it already....you don't like Madonna

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 6:36pm

The Normal Heart was very controversial at the time of its original opening.

The most controversial I can think of is "Corpus Christi" by Terrance McNally. Bomb threats were called in, death threats were made against the cast and playwright. Christians went apoplectic over this play (and still do whenever it pops up somewhere)

"I shall stay until the wind changes."

Updated On: 5/10/12 at 06:48 PM

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 6:49pm

I was a bit young, but I've heard that there were protests outside the theatre during the original run of La Cage aux Folles. Can anyone confirm this?

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 6:56pm

These all ruffled feathers in their time:

"The Children's Hour"
"Tea and Sympathy"
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
"Game of Fools"
"A Taste of Honey"
"Now She Dances!"
"The Killing of Sister George"
"Entertaining Mr. Sloane"
"The Haunted Host"
"Fortune and Men's Eyes"
"The Madness of Lady Bright"
"The Boys in the Band"
"Staircase"
"Norman, Is That You?"
"Kennedy's Children"
"Short Eyes"
"Gemini"
"Bent"
"T-Shirts"
"Blue Is For Boys"
"Jerker"
"Execution of Justice"
"As Is"
"Safe Sex"
"Adam and the Experts"
"My Queer Body"

"Tracy... Hold Mama's waffles."

Updated On: 5/11/12 at 06:56 PM

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 7:02pm

Laramie Project always seems to stir up some controversy.

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 7:03pm

Corpus Christie is by far the most controversial.

A production of Corpus Christie was done in my home town about 10 years ago and because of the protesting going on around the show and the negative publicity, the college auditorium where the play was being performed made the decision to not allow the theater company to perform their play on the school's property. So a "Liberal" Church stepped in and allowed the play to be performed in the Church.

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 7:41pm

Not sure if it was the first of it's kind, but "Torch Song Trilogy" was controversial when it opened in the early 80's. Made Harvey Fierstein a legend, deservedly so.

The only review of a show that matters is your own.

Updated On: 5/10/12 at 07:41 PM

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 7:46pm

Angels In America

#10

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 8:37pm

What was the name of that play in the 1980s about phone sex?

If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

#11

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 8:50pm

Just an observation, but aren't all plays with homosexual themes, dialogue and/or characters controversial because the subject of homosexuality was/is controversial. I don't think there is a "gay play" that is uncontroversial.

Updated On: 5/10/12 at 08:50 PM

#12

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 9:05pm

The Boys in the Band

Equus (presumed gay themes)

Bent

"Through The Sacrifice You Made, We Can't Believe The Price You Paid..For Love!"

#13

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 9:08pm

The Ritz

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (from those who claimed it was "really" about a gay couple)

The Night of the Iguana

"Through The Sacrifice You Made, We Can't Believe The Price You Paid..For Love!"

#14

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 9:09pm

I don't think there is a "gay play" that is uncontroversial.

I don't remember any controversy over Next Fall. And Take Me out had an intriguing plot and nudity, but again, I don't remember it being "controversial".

"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian

#15

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 9:13pm

You bring up a good point. Is the controversy over the text, production, or WHERE the production might be?

Could be any combination causes a stir.

"Through The Sacrifice You Made, We Can't Believe The Price You Paid..For Love!"

#16

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 10:40pm

What was the name of that play in the 1980s about phone sex?

Jerker, or The Helping Hand: A Pornographic Elegy with Redeeming Social Value and a Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in Twenty Telephone Calls, Many of Them Dirty by Robert Chesley.

#17

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 11:45pm

1973..Find Your Way Home starring Michael Moriarty. Not sure how controversial it was but I remember my mother went to see it with a group who had no clue what it was about and the rest of the group was not happy. My mother loved it.

Just give the world Love. - S. Wonder

#18

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 11:48pm

I honestly remember nothing controversial around Angels in America or Torch Song Trilogy.

Twitter @NamoInExile Instagram none

#19

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/10/12 at 11:51pm

"I don't remember any controversy over Next Fall. And Take Me out had an intriguing plot and nudity, but again, I don't remember it being 'controversial'."

True, for many people the representation of homosexuality in media is no big deal anymore. You're gay, so what? However, in some parts of the country, and in certain circles, the subject is almost as taboo as it was 50 years ago. I was really going along the fact that some people find the subject matter itself controversial, regardless of how it is presented- pretty much along the lines of what Playbilly wrote.

The location of a production definitely has an impact on how it is received. There was a controversy when my high school did Les Mis (which only made all of us want to do the show even more) and even a relatively controversial-free show like Legally Blonde got some people here in an uproar. We did them anyway though, and loved every minute of it. However, I went to school in a small, mid-western town that prides itself on its "traditional" values. Hardly the bastion of culture or open-mindedness. It seems though that those people are becoming fewer in number.

Updated On: 5/10/12 at 11:51 PM

#20

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 1:09am

In the 1990s in Georgia, a community theater production of Lips Together, Teeth Apart was the final straw for a town already rocked by M. Butterfly. Cobb County officials issued a resolution saying that homosexuality was incompatible with their beliefs, and they lost a ton of revenue dollars from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

And no one grew into anything new, we just became the worst of what we were."

#21

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 1:23am

^It's these kinds of towns that want Hello, Dolly! and High School Musical performed over and over again. Anything new or thought provoking is a bridge too far. They like their little world just so and don't want to see or hear something that might challenge their beliefs, or god-forbid, get them to think!

#22

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 3:45am

Controversial based on location of a production is different than controversial based on the year a play was originally written. I recall many years ago the plays "The Killing of Sister George", "Fortune and Men's Eyes" and, especially, "The Boys in the Band" receiving a lot of press for being controversial simply for existing. Later generations of plays may have had controversial reactions in segments, but it evolved over time to where it's not in wide swaths like it once was.

Going farther back, the film adaptations of some plays with a gay theme or subtext would almost inveritably be whitewashed or removed, such as the original film adaptation of "The Children's Hour" called "We Three" (1936). As I recall, "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" (195

really toned it down as well. I'm not saying these films are bad (they're actually quite good) but it is interesting to put them into the context of their times.

Updated On: 5/11/12 at 03:45 AM

#23

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 9:00am

Sholem Asch's GOD OF VENGEANCE (1907)

When it premiered on Broadway the entire cast was arrested. A couple tries to shield its daughter from the brothel they operate. Unsuccessfully. The daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes. Not your typical Jewish family drama.

#24

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 10:24am

Thanks morosco, that was the one.

If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

#25

Controversial Gay Plays

Posted: 5/11/12 at 10:53am

The phone sex play was Jerker or The Helping Hand . . . by Robert Chesley.

Oops - someone beat me to it.

Ummm - Also check out Hosannah by Michelle Tremblay. Or Untold Decades by Robert Patrick.

Updated On: 5/11/12 at 10:53 AM

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