Photo Coverage: Gang's All Here! The Company of THE BOYS IN THE BAND Celebrates 50th Anniversary

The Booth Theatre was the place to be last night as the company of The Boys in the Band, directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Ryan Murphy and David Stone, celebrated the play's 50th anniversary ahead of its official opening tonight, May 31. We're taking you inside the festivities below!

Mart Crowley's fiercely funny and groundbreaking 1968 play, The Boys in the Band, centers on a group of gay men who gather in a NYC apartment for a friend's birthday party. After the drinks are poured and the music turned up, the evening slowly exposes the fault-lines beneath their friendships and the self-inflicted heartache that threatens their solidarity. A true theatrical game-changer, The Boys in the Band helped spark a revolution by putting gay men's lives onstage -- unapologetically and without judgement - in a world that was not yet willing to fully accept them.

A sensation when it premiered in April 1968, The Boys in the Band was originally scheduled to run for five performances at the Playwrights' Unit, a small off-Broadway venue. Overnight, the show became the talk of the town for its unflinchingly honest depiction of gay life, and transferred to Theater Four on West 55th Street, drawing the likes of Jackie Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Groucho Marx, and Rudolf Nureyev, among many others. The play went on to run for over 1,000 performances. The entire original company performed the show to great acclaim in London and also appeared in William Friedkin's landmark 1970 film version.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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