Matt Bomer, left, and Jim Parsons in a scene from ‘Boys in the Band.’
Boys in the Band opened off-Broadway in 1968, a year before Stonewall. I was a gay teen who grew up in New York, but didn’t see it until 1970. In just two years, it had become a dated play about self-hating homosexuals. I couldn’t really identify with those characters who were so last year. But as the only play running with gay characters, I also somehow identified. (Imagine Broadway without gay characters on stage).
In 2018, the play was revived on Broadway with an all-gay, all-star cast. It won Tony Awards and was recognized for as the insightful portrait of gay life in Greenwich Village pre-Stonewall. Gains in equality have made this a fascinating, even brilliant, period piece.
The award-winning Broadway production has been turned into a Netflix film with the Broadway cast — Matt Bomer, Charlie Carver, Jim Parsons, Robin de Jesús, Brian Hutchison, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, Michael Benjamin Washington, and Tuc Watkins — that began streaming this week. Bomer and Parsons, both Texans, have each appeared on the cover of Out North Texas, the official visitors guide for LGBT North Texas, which comes out every January and is published by Dallas Voice.
The play is by Mart Crowley, who lived to see the 50th anniversary Broadway revival, but died earlier this year of a heart attack. He wrote several sequels to Boys in the Band, but none ever made it to Broadway.
— David Taffet
Here’s the trailer to the Netflix film:
