LGBTQ Broadway and the incredible contribution of the Gays!
Join us for a virtual Zoom talk that will reveal the extraordinary controbutions of LGBTQ to Broadway
Cost: $10. Please note that this fee helps keep our small business going during the crisis so we can get up and running right away when it is safe to bring people together again in person.
Tickets: lgbtqbroadway.eventbrite.com
Where did LGBTQ Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift get their start? Where were plays by Tennesse Williams, Edward Albee, and Tony Kushner premiered? Where was the famously "all gay" musical 'West Side Story' (with music, lyrics, book, and choreography all by gay people--and a gay lead actor) put on?
In New York's theater district, known for its main street as "Broadway." The theater, constitutes one of the city’s primary creative and economic forces, and the LGBT community had a significant and disproportionate impact on the Broadway stage. This included the contributions of major LGBT performers, playwrights, composers, lyricists, librettists, choreographers, set and costume designers, who created many of Broadway’s most iconic shows. Despite the New York Legislature-enacted Wales Padlock Law (1927) that made it illegal for theaters to show plays that featured gay and lesbian characters through 1967, some productions managed to get around this restriction and some became stage classics. This tour will touch on these themes, as well as the historic theater buildings, including:
Legendary early “female impersonators” Julian Eltinge and Bert Savoy
The God of Vengeance, which had the first lesbian love scene on Broadway and was shut down by censors in 1923
Hollywood stars who got their start on Broadway, such as Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Judy Holliday
Stars of the stage Alla Nazimova, Eva Le Gallienne, Noel Coward, Ethel Waters, Tallulah Bankhead, Clifton Webb, Mary Martin, and Joel Grey
Famous Broadway lavender couples Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, and Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic
Important playwrights Somerset Maugham, John Van Druten, Tennessee Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally, and Tony Kushner
Significant costume and set designers Orry-Kelly, Cecil Beaton, Florence Klotz, and Raoul Pene Du Bois
Songsters Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Jerry Herman, and Kander & Ebb
Choreographers Tommy Tune and Michael Bennett
“All Gay” productions such as West Side Story, created by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Oliver Smith, and Irene Sharaff
More about our speaker:
Jay Shockley is a co-founder and co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. He retired in 2015 as senior historian at the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission where since 1979 he researched and wrote over 100 designation reports covering all aspects of the city’s history. In 1993, he helped pioneer the concept of recognizing LGBT place-based history by incorporating it into the Commission’s reports. He co-authored the Stonewall nomination, which resulted in the first-ever National Register (1999) and National Historic Landmark (2000) listings for an LGBT site.
