First Mainstream LGBT Musicals

Recently I got into an absolutely maddening argument with someone who claimed Rocky Horror Show/RHPS was transphobic (I'm not even going to indulge everyone in this argument as it was truly bogus) but it made me bring up the point that in many ways, Rocky was one of the first LGBT musicals in our modern understanding of the term. I would love to know what everyone would consider being the first mainstream LGBT musical to be--and I'm limiting this only to musicals--meaning a musical with great influence in public knowledge. Although, from a strictly historical perspective, I am also curious what the first LGBT musical was. This website offers a pretty good list, but did they catch all of them? Also not all of them list years, and I'm far too lazy to double check all of them, as some don't even have Wikipedia pages.



Apologies if this has been posted.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 03:22 AM

Point to consider, and I don't want to derail, but it's possible for Rocky to be both one of the first LGBT-affirming musicals AND to be transphobic. The problem you run into with that show is that what was once bold and transgressive has now become trite and yes, possibly offensive. Frank is a walking collection of "predatory trans/bi person" stereotypes, and while depicting him was, at one point, daring, it can be VERY tricky to walk that line in an era of more gay and trans acceptance.

Think, by way of comparison, of Shylock. If you compare him to other contemporary portrayals of Jews, like Marlowe's Barabas, he's amazingly progressive. But apart from that one speech, he's still a pretty strong antisemitic stereotype, and it can be hard for directors to walk that line now. For like 300 years, they didn't even try, and Shylock was just "the evil Jew", and it's just as easy to accidentally make Frank "the evil queer".

That's why the 2001 RHS revival was, for my money, the only truly good modern production. They cut the gay camp angle in favor of the 60s sci-fi camp angle, they changed the tone from "These gays are having sex and it's WEIRD" to "These people are having sex and it's COOL", they made Frank the "manliest" character instead of mincing and effeminate, and they cast an actually gender nonconforming gay woman as Eddie.

But productions that don't take that level of care can very frequently wind up accidentally embracing some pretty regressive views. So I don't think your friend was as far off the mark as you might think. I don't know what their exact argument was, of course, but it's certainly something I've thought about.

A somewhat unique aspect of The Rocky Horror Show is that, despite the character's inherent "negative stereotypes", Frank-N-Furter is unequivocally the hero of the show. Virtually no one in the audience perceives the old man in the wheelchair as the hero, and everyone is sad when Frank is hunted down by Riff Raff and Magenta at the end. For all of his flaws, the audience adores Frank; he's the one they want to be.

Again, I really don't want to derail the thread, because it's a good thread concept.

This is a very nice topic. As far as I know -and that isn't much, I may be wrong and chances aren't slim-, Rocky was the first mainstram LGBT-themed musical. I've never heard of others before, so I'm assuming that if there were, they weren't very successful. Like I said, I may be wrong - this is all based on assumption.

On the other hand, if we're talking stage musicals (you didn't specify this, but this being a Broadway chatboard, I felt I should mention it), I'd say it was La Cage Aux Folles: first time two gay men in a relationship were the lead characters in a Broadway musical. Not only that, but the show is about their relationship, which makes it centered around an LGBT theme - that's what makes it the first mainstream LGBT musical in my opinion. The production was a hit, winning the Tony for Best Musical and running for 3 or 4 years. It's also good to mention that this happened during the AIDS crisis, so the impact of the show was much bigger.

However, one could argue about other musicals that had LGBT characters which came first - A Chorus Line and Cabaret come to mind (I'll admit I don't know how LGBT the original production of Cabaret was, though), both of which won the Tony for Best Musical too (A chorus line won the Pullitzer too), had successful runs and spawned revivals, movies and regional productions. Nonetheless, I wouldn't really call them LGBT musicals, just shows with LGBT characters.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 11:55 AM

I'd say they were two different approaches for two different time periods. Curry's (magnificent) performance wouldn't have played well in that production at all. This was basically proven when Terrence Mann took over and did it very Curry-style. (As I knew he would, he's always been an exceptionally Tim Curry-ish performer. They even looked almost identical in the 70s.) He just didn't fit.

As to Helvizz's point, I'm not sure we can count Cabaret. A LOT of the gayness was sanded off of the original production. I don't know much about it in any detail, but as I recall, Grey's MC was much more of the "wink/nudge" kind of gay, if anything. They didn't make anything explicit with him until the revival. And, of course, Cliff was totally de-gayed from the original play.

I've referenced this website in the past when researching gay musicals:

http://www.queermusicheritage.com/gaymus.html

The site discusses several 1970's musicals outside of NY including "The F****t", "Lovers," "Fascination," "Boy Meets Boy" and "Gulp!"

On Broadway the successful review "Side By Side by Sondheim" had David Kernan perform "Could I Leave You with lyrics unchanged in 1976. "Dance a Little Closer" flopped on Broadway in 1983 but featured a love duet and wedding for Brentt Barrett and Jeff Keller's characters.

William Finn's "In Trousers" was mounted Off-Broadway in 1979. "March of the Falsettos" followed Off Broadway in 1981. "Falsettoland" wasn't till 1990. The full "Falsettos" wouldn't get to Broadway till 1992.

This was followed by "Kiss of the Spider Woman" in 1993. That shows portrayal of a gay protagonist has probably aged worse than "La Cage Aux Folles" has.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 03:52 PM

There were probably earlier apparent gay characters, but the earliest one I know of would be Russell Paxton in LADY IN THE DARK (1941).

Far more apparent but more openly pansexual than gay would be Woof - what else would he be called? - in HAIR (1967).

The first unabashedly gay characters in Broadway musical was, as stated earlier, likely in the 1969-1970 season. First, Sebastian in COCO and then Dwayne in APPLAUSE. Sebastian is a nasty, vindictive piece of work. Dwayne's character is based on a woman's, Birdie's, in the sourced All About Eve.

Updated On: 11/10/17 at 05:01 PM

I know this doesn't "count" technically but I've always been convinced Bobby in Company is gay, and the first gay protagonist in a musical.

I've always been convinced Bobby in Company is gay, and the first gay protagonist in a musical.

You're the second person I've heard say that, and the reasoning the first had was that since Sondheim is gay, Bobby must be too, which is terrible logic on all sorts of levels. Can you elaborate? It's an intriguing idea, but I don't see it myself.

If Bobby is supposed to be gay, Company would be the most incompetent libretto ever written.

Which it’s not.

Updated On: 11/12/17 at 11:13 PM

Mister Matt said: "This reminds me when ReNt came out and everyone swore that it was ground breaking for having homosexual characters on Broadway for the first time

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that. Ever. It sounds like you surrounded yourself with a LOT of stupid people."

While it does sound silly, I would venture to guess that RENT was the first time anyone saw LGBT characters openly expressing their sexuality in a way that was deemed subversive, as opposed to the antiseptic asexuality of gay characters in LA CAGE, and even FALSETTOS.