Transport Group's production of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, directed by artistic director Jack Cummings III, will play its final performance on Sunday, March 28. The Boys in the Band plays in a site-specific production at 37 West 26 Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue, Penthouse.
One of the first frank treatments of gay life depicted in mainstream theatre, The Boys in the Band is a portrait of a birthday party turned vicious. The play, which deftly mixes sharp humor with emotional revelation, opened at off-Broadway's Theatre Four in April 1968 (after having been produced by the Playwrights Unit at the Vandam Theatre earlier that year) and played 1,000 performances, a remarkable number for any play and certainly for one with controversial subject matter for its time. William Friedkin directed the play's film adaptation, which was released in 1970, and which featured the entire original off-Broadway cast. The play, which has served as inspiration for a host of gay playwrights, received an off-Broadway revival in 1996. The Transport Group production marks the play's first major New York revival since then.
The cast includes
Jonathan Hammond (Ragtime) as Michael;
Christopher Innvar (110 in the Shade, Floyd Collins) as Larry;
Kevin Isola (
Brooklyn Boy) as Alan;
Jon Levenson (Irish Rep's The Hairy Ape) as Harold;
Kevyn Morrow (Olivier nomination for Ragtime, First Wives Club) as Bernard;
Graham Rowat (Lovemusik, Guys and Dolls) as Hank;
Aaron Sharff as Cowboy;
John Wellmann (TG's cul-de-sac) as Emory; and
Nick Westrate (A Moon for the Misbegotten) as Donald.
The Collected Plays of
Mart Crowley was published by Alyson Books in November 2009 and the film adaptation of The Boys in the Band was released for the first time on DVD in November 2008. A feature documentary, entitled Making the Boys, directed by Crayton Robey, about the impact and legacy of The Boys in the Band-both the play and film-had its world premiere this month at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival. The documentary's U.S. premiere and theatrical release are scheduled for later this year.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of The Boys in the Band in 2008
Transport Group presented An Evening With...The Boys in the Band, which featured a concert reading of the play followed by a panel discussion at the
Lucille Lortel Theatre. Participants in the evening included
Mart Crowley and original cast members
Laurence Luckinbill and
Peter White. The evening was hosted and moderated by
Michael Feingold.
Founded in 2001,
Transport Group, under the leadership of
Jack Cummings III, Artistic Director, and
Lori Fineman, Executive Director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that develops and produces work by
American Playwrights and composers with the aim of exploring the American consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002:
Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by
William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of
Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including outstanding revival of a musical. Recent productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including outstanding musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee
John Cariani; the first New York revival of
Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, Obie-winning production of
William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn, Marcy in the Galaxy, and Being Audrey, and the first New York revival of
Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead. Both First Lady Suite and Bury the Dead were filmed for the New York Performing Arts Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.
Transport Group is the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions."
For more information about Transport Group and The Boys in the Band, visit www.transportgroup.org.
