The Nance at The Broadway, Pride Arts Center

Beane’s play recreates the naughty, raucous world of burlesque's heyday and tells the backstage story of a gay performer, Chauncey Miles, whose role in the burlesque show was to brazenly exploit gay stereotypes of the time in a most suggestive manner.  Chauncey's uproarious antics on the stage at a time when it was easy to play gay on stage stand in marked contrast to his offstage life, where the “gay lifestyle” had to be lived clandestinely. The New York Times called The Nance “A heartfelt new play set in the twilight of burlesque." It ran on Broadway in 2013 starring Nathan Lane as Chauncey Miles and was nominated for five Tony Awards, winning two.