NEW YORK — A new movement is taking center stage on and off Broadway — and just in time for Pride Month.
Stage productions with Black and gay narratives are no longer the understudies on the New York theater scene.
These include the Tony-nominated hit musical “A Strange Loop” and baseball-themed play “Take Me Out,” the 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fat Ham,” the insightful Off-Broadway dramas “soft” and “what the end will be,” as well as the Theater Row adaptation of “B-Boy Blues.”
“A Strange Loop” is nominated for 11 awards, including best musical, original score, book of a musical and orchestrations, while “Take Me Out” garnered four nods, including best revival of a play.
Cultural critic Emil Wilbekin, the founder of Native Son, a New York City-based nonprofit created to inspire and empower Black gay and queer men, calls the spate of shows “a new revolution.”
“What’s so powerful about this Black queer movement on Broadway and off-Broadway is that the stories are diverse, thoughtful and authentic,” he told the Daily News. “These plays tell the tales of Black men who struggle with living at the intersection of their Blackness and their queerness. The characters are soul-searching and struggling with the complexities of their multifaceted identity — shame, stigma and society’s lack of acceptance.”
“The beauty of this Black queer theater revolution is that it creates representation of Black gay and queer men as human beings with full lives, emotional depth and stories that touch your soul,” Wilbekin said. “These characters are no longer marginalized, sidekicks or jokes. They are leading men with transformational experiences.”
The sea change has caught the attention of nongovernmental media monitoring organization GLAAD.
“The outstanding success of Broadway shows like ‘A Strange Loop’ demonstrate that audiences respond emphatically to storytelling that centers on the Black queer experience, and that Black LGBTQ theatre-makers deserve space and agency on Broadway, off-Broadway and beyond,” Anthony Allen Ramos, GLAAD’s vice president of communications & talent, told The News.
“Now that the trend of championing Black LGBTQ excellence is taking off, the only work that remains is to keep it going so that it becomes a staple.”
"Take Me Out," Helen Hayes Theater
The pandemic-delayed revival of Richard Greenberg’s baseball-themed drama already had a lot going for it with the announcement that three popular TV actors — “Grey’s Anatomy” heartthrob Jesse Williams, “Suits” star Patrick J. Adams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson of “Modern Family” — would star. Add to that scenes with full frontal nudity, and the show became a hit. The thought-provoking story deals with the fallout after a biracial sports superstar comes out as gay. Through June 11
"Fat Ham," The Public Theater
The 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama is a raucous and irreverent twist on Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Hamlet,” co-produced by the National Black Theatre. Marcel Spears of CBS’s “The Neighborhood” stars as Juicy, a plus-sized, queer University of Phoenix alum who is conflicted about avenging the death of his late father in this James Ijames-written romp, also starring Billy Eugene Jones, Adrianna Mitchell, Nikki Crawford, Benja Kay Thomas, Calvin Leon Smith and Chris Herbie Holland. Through July 3
"soft," MCC Theater
Donja R. Love’s latest play explores the passion and pain of a newly hired teacher at an all-male disciplinary boarding school program for at-risk inner city youth. In the Whitney White-directed stunner, Biko Eisen-Martin fights demons of his own after one of his most promising students unexpectedly dies by suicide. Newcomers Essence Lotus, Shakur Tolliver, Dharon Jones, Travis Raeburn, Dario Vazquez and Ed Ventura star. During the show’s limited run, the theater hosted nights for Black and queer theater fans. Through June 26
"... what the end will be," Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre
In Mansa Ra’s touching new comedy, the familial dynamics of three generations of gay Black men come to a head when the teenager (Gerald Caesar) comes out to his closeted father (Emerson Brooks) and the recently widowed grandfather (Keith Randolph Smith) — stricken with stage 4 bone cancer — moves in with them and decides to take his mortality into his own hands. Through July 10
"B-Boy Blues," Theater Row
Bestselling author James Earl Hardy’s 1990s tale of a 27-year-old music journalist and the banjee boy bike messenger he falls in love with takes on a new life for a new generation to embrace. The threadbare production is helmed by Christopher Burris and stars Ashton Harris, Bry’Nt, Damone Williams, Jermaine Montell, Kenè Chelo Ortiz, Reginald L. Barnes, Stephfon Guidry and Tieisha Thomas. Through June 25
"A Strange Loop," Lyceum Theatre
Marketed as a “big, Black, queer-ass American musical,” Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical comedy focuses on a Black gay writer who works as a Broadway theater usher while traversing the ups and downs of dating and working in New York. Starring L Morgan Lee, the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a Tony Award for her supporting performance, and newcomer Jaquel Spivey, who received a Tony nod for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical, “A Strange Loop” is the most nominated show this season with 11 Tony nods. Also stars Antwayn Hopper, John-Michael Lyles, James Jackson, Jr., John-Andrew Morrison and Jason Veasey. Currently playing
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