The Boys in the Band
by Silent House Theatre (SH.)

Jul. 18 - Jul. 28
Thursdays-Sundays

The play centers around a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party in New York City. When Michael’s “straight” friend from college comes to crash the party and the alcohol starts pouring, the energy of the nights goes through numerous peaks and valleys. Secrets, venomous games, lustful desires, and hard truths mingle through the house party while relationships are twisted and turned upside down.

One of the first plays that graced the American stage that took the gay experience as a rich reality instead of a freakshow, the power of Boys in the Band still resonates nearly 6 decades after its debut.

While Crowley was pitching the script, early agents stayed away from the project. For the production, it proved "nearly impossible to find" actors willing to play gay characters. An old college friend of Crowley's, 33-year-old Laurence Luckinbill, agreed to play Hank despite warnings from his agent that it would end his career, even though the agent was herself a lesbian. It proved hard for Crowley to find producers and theater owners who were interested.

 

 

The play premiered Off-Broadway on April 14, 1968, at Theater Four, and closed on September 6, 1970, after 1,001 performances. Despite the success of the play, all the gay members of the original company stayed in the closet after the premiere. Between 1984 and 1993, five of the gay men in the original production (as well as director Robert Moore and producer Richard Barr) died in the ensuing AIDS epidemic.

In the aftermath of such destruction, one wonders what the whole point was. Is this gay liberation? Is this what we are fighting for? What’s missing? Ultimately, the script leaves us with more questions than answers. But it shines as one step closer to unveiling what the gay experience really looks like for us here in the United States.

Putting up this show has been something that was talked about for awhile, but now feels like the right time. This play is a special piece of Gay American drama, and Silent House is honored to have the privilege to put this together with a mostly queer cast and crew. It’s funny. It’s tragic. It’s odd. It’s flawed. But it’s history. Now, Silent House gets to be apart of that history. Don’t miss this. It’s something special. Allow yourself to be challenged!

 

 

 

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The Boys in the Band
by Mart Crowley
Silent House Theatre (SH.)

Thursday, July 18th, 2024 at 7:30 P.M.

Friday, July 19th at 7:30 P.M.

Saturday, July 20th 2:30 P.M.7:30 P.M.

Sunday, July 21st at 2:30 P.M.

EXTENDED through July 28, 2024