Video: Watch an Exclusive Clip From Queer Abraham Lincoln Reimagining LAVENDER MEN
Check out the clip now, ahead of the movie arriving on digital platforms June 17.
By: Josh Sharpe Jun. 11, 2025
Just in time for Pride month, BroadwayWorld is excited to premiere an exclusive clip from Lavender Men. Based on the play of the same name by Roger Q. Mason, the film marks the latest entry in a growing list of projects serving as a reexamination of ABRAHAM LINCOLN through a Queer lens. In 2024, the movie was featured as an official selection at several film festival, including Out on Film, Seattle Queer Film Festival, and the Micheaux Film Festival. Check out the clip now, ahead of the movie arriving on digital platforms June 17.
The movie follows the lonely and frustrated Taffeta (they/them), who serves as the stage manager of an uninspiring play about the life of Abraham Lincoln. Moreover, Taffeta is recovering from a one-sided crush on the play's director, which has compelled them to work around the clock trying to salvage the misbegotten production, from washing the cast's dirty costumes to compiling extensive research on Lincoln, all for the director's approval. This would appear to be the story of Taffeta's life: they are constantly LOOKING FOR connection, romantic or otherwise, in all the wrong places.
After a particularly awful evening enduring the plights of both the badly-behaved performers and the narcissistic audience members, Taffeta finds themself alone in the empty theater, or so it seems. Taffeta's tentative attempt at propositioning a cute audience member quickly goes south upon learning the guy's already hooking up with one of the show's actors in the dressing room. When the older actor playing Lincoln then emerges from the shadows not long after, things go from bad to worse. The man appears charming at first but then forces himself on Taffeta, who nonetheless manages to shove him off. In the wake of the rejected actor's cutting insults on his way out, Taffeta plunges into their own mind, attempting to at last reclaim a story - any story - for themself.
What follows is an intricate fantasia in which Taffeta haunts the empty theater to recount Lincoln's legacy via their own point of view: an unapologetically queer romp through the future President's sexy secret love affair with his doomed legal clerk, Elmer Ellsworth in which Taffeta inserts themself into all the supporting roles, from an army cadet to a dancing chandelier to Mary Todd Lincoln herself. However, as the evening wanes on and reality intrudes, Taffeta must finally question why they are inserting themself into someone else's story rather than telling and living their own.
The film is led by Mason as Taffeta, Pete Ploszek (Netflix's You), and Alex Esola (Orange Is the New Black, After the Wedding). Lovell Holder directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Mason based on the stage play. The duo first shared the original play at a sold-out public workshop on Broadway at Circle in the Square, sponsored by the Circle Series development lab.
Following the success of that reading, the world premiere was set for April 2020, though the COVID-19 pandemic canceled those plans. Nonetheless, due to these circumstances, the play was named to the 2020 Kilroys List, which annually recognizes the best unproduced American plays of the year, with a specific focus on underrepresented writers. Finally, after many Covid delays, Lavender Men premiered in 2022 at Skylight Theater Company (in co-production with Playwrights’ Arena), where it had been developed originally under the theater’s SkyLab.
Videos