Theatre

NEW YORK — Terrence McNally’s new play opens with a woman of a certain age wearing a lush, black fur coat. It’s a provocatively politically incorrect garment — and a giveaway that what will come out of her mouth will be, too.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Neil Patrick Harris, dressed in a wig, lingerie and red heels, took the stage at Harvard University on Friday to accept the 2014 Man of the Year Award from America’s oldest undergraduate drama troupe.

OXFORD, Miss. — An audience consisting of mostly University of Mississippi students, including an estimated 20 Ole Miss football players, disrupted the University’s theater department production of “The Laramie Project” Tuesday night, heckling cast members and shouting anti-gay slurs.

Edward Albee is a celebrated playwright who won three Pulitzer Prizes and three Tony Awards. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” his first Broadway play, helped establish Albee as one of America’s greatest playwrights.

NEW YORK — Fresh off his success with “Kinky Boots,” Harvey Fierstein will be offering his first play in almost 30 years — and there’s plenty of kink.

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. — Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is being awarded one of the top honors in the arts world: the Edward MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement.

LINCOLN, Neb. — The superintendent of a Christian school in Lincoln says he lost his job because he performed in a community production of “The Producers,” a Broadway musical with gay characters, Nazi jokes, some coarse dialogue and racy lyrics.

NEW YORK — The Tony Awards will be a real drag this year: The two top musicals battling it out have leading men dressed as women and the night’s biggest celebrity will be Tom Hanks, who reminded everyone of his cross-dressing roots by teaming up in “Lucky Guy” with Peter Scolari, his “Bosom Buddies” co-star.

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. — The head of a western Massachusetts charter school says a student production of a play that retells the biblical story of Genesis with gay characters will go on as planned despite objections from some who say it’s offensive to Christians.

Arthur Laurents was a Tony Award-winning playwright, director and screenwriter. He wrote the scripts for “West Side Story,” “Gypsy” and “La Cage Aux Folles.”

Actor/playwright Steven Fales first came to my attention with his groundbreaking solo play, Confessions of a Mormon Boy, which was a hit off-Broadway and in cities around the world. The play chronicles Fales’ heartbreaking journey from being a devoted sixth-generation Mormon and father of two, to coming out as gay and being excommunicated from his church.

LOS ANGELES — A star-studded benefit reading of of Dustin Lance Black’s play “8,” featuring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, raised more than $2 million Saturday night for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), and gave YouTube viewers around the world a rare glimpse into the historic trial of Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.

BEL AIR, Md. — Students in a suburban Baltimore high school’s drama club are rejoicing after school administrators reversed a decision that would have prevented them from staging a play that included a scene in which two young men come to realize they are attracted to each other.

HARTFORD, Conn. — School officials at Hartford High School are catching some flack, but standing by their decision to allow production of a gay-themed play, and even made attendance mandatory for some of its students.

Alan Cumming is an award-winning film, television and stage actor. He has appeared in more than 100 films and television series, as well as major theatrical productions in London and on Broadway.

When The Boys in the Band opened off-Broadway in 1968, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. The play’s behind-the-scenes peek at gay men in their natural habitat was fascinating to audiences and greeted with enthusiasm from the gay community.

Earlier this week, in a rather simple statement and wonderful declaration of his second-class citizenship, New York musical theatre actor and model, Jonathan D. Lovitz challenged one of his civic duties — jury duty.

Tarleton State University has canceled Saturday’s performance of four student-directed plays, including “Corpus Christi,” the controversial production which portrays Jesus as gay. In a media release (PDF) posted on it’s website Friday night, Tarleton cited an unnamed professor’s decision to cancel the performances “because of safety and security concerns for the students, as well as […]

A class project depicting Jesus Christ as gay has hit a nerve in Stephenville, Texas. Tarleton State University is adding security for expected demonstrations Saturday when students perform the production, called “Corpus Christi.” The play, by Terrence McNally, opened in New York in the 1990s, and student John Jordan Otte chose the script for his […]

With “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the national headlines, along comes the York Theatre Company’s new off-Broadway musical about gays in the military. Set during World War II, Yank! chronicles the relationship between two servicemen long before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was part of the national discussion. With a lively score inspired by the pop […]