Poster and Photos by Jessica Storvik

Out Front on Main, Inc. is pleased to present Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band directed by D. Richard Browder, June 7-17 Thursdays-Sundays at 7:30pm. Out Front on Main, Inc. is located at 1511 E. Main Street in downtown Murfreesboro, beside MTSU. Tickets are $10. general admission and $5. students/seniors. Info and Reservations (615) 869-8617 or www.outfrontonmain.com
Mart Crowley’s first play, The Boys in the Band, is considered to be a groundbreaking work in  American theater, the first truly honest portrayal of the lives of contemporary  homosexuals. It opened in New York on April 14, 1968, at the off-Broadway  Theater Four and ran for 1002 performances before being adapted to a successful  motion picture. At a time when gay characters were seldom seen in commercial  media except as crude stereotypes, this play presented a well-rounded view of  what critics of the day referred to as ‘‘the homosexual milieu.’’ Taking place  in an apartment in New York’s posh Upper East Side, the action concerns nine  acquaintances who converge for the birthday of one of their friends. The group  includes Michael (Thomas Prunier), a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic who is undergoing  psychoanalysis; Donald (Blair Thompson), a conflicted friend who has moved far from the city to  spurn the homosexual lifestyle; Harold (Peter Depp), who is turning thirty and is morose  about losing his youthful looks; Bernard (D. Richard Browder), an African American who still pines  for the wealthy white boy of the house where his mother was a maid; Emory (George W. Manus, Jr.), who  revels in his homosexuality by acting flamboyant and girlish; and Larry and  Hank (Asa Ambrister and Ryan Vogel), a couple that lives together despite the fact that they do not agree on  the issue of monogamy. Joining them are a male prostitute (Zach Parker) who has been hired as  a ‘‘present’’ for Harold’s birthday and Alan (Patrick Goedicke), an old college friend of  Michael’s, who claims to be straight but who becomes a little too emotional when  his manhood is threatened and who is strangely reluctant to leave each time he  says he is going. Modern audiences may find these character types overly  familiar, in part due to the success of The Boys in the Band, which has  bred countless imitations.  Crowley’s characters are presented with  an honesty that is still effective today.

Let us take you back in time for a minute.  A time before Peter Depp could be open about who he is on TV, a time before Adam Lambert, before Will & Grace, before the AIDS crisis, before HIV has even been heard of, before pride festivals, before marches, before the Stonewall Riots.  Back when Homosexuality is against the law.  Homosexuality is listed as a psychological disorder.   Homosexuals are people no one knows.  We barely know each other in the United States.  To reveal ourselves puts too much at risk.  However, thanks to WWII the gays have found each other in the military.  Then when they came home they settled in communities of their own in the port towns.  Michaels Apartment is in one of these communities, Greenwich Village in New York City.  So welcome to the summer of 1968.  The United States is changing, free love, civil rights movements for the African-Americans, and overall civil unrest.  But the world is still against the gay man, even in New York City.  No man may dance within 3 feet of another man.  No homosexual may be served liquor by state law.  So there are no gay bars.  People found in a homosexual “establishment” or engaged in a homosexual acts are arrested on morals charges.  This arrest has your name run in the newspaper, causing disgrace, loss of employment, friends, housing, respect and more.  But we are gathering in numbers.  We are finding things in common, be it divas, theater, film, alcohol, drugs, or just the company of men.  The Boys in the Band brings the world a picture of what it is to be gay in 1968.  And the world finally listens and sees who and what gay men are, what gay men can be.  We are more than a punch line or a plot device.  We are real people with emotional range, people to relate to, people that are just, Boys in the Band.

The Boys in the Band Cast