When Nathan Lane was asked about his sexuality, he said "Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in musical theater—you do the math!"
Besides being a funny line, Mr. Lane was using a common stereotype to make an important point—GLBT actors, dancers, singers, writers, choreographers, designers, costumers, and so on, have contributed enormously to the creation, creativity, and success of the Broadway musical. In return, the theatrical community has provided a safe place for GLBTs and the heterosexual community to meet on a culturally neutral playing field, long before it accepted in other areas of society.
I've been a fan of musicals, on both stage and film, for as long as I can remember. The first song I knew how to sing all the way through was "Do-Re-Mi" that I learned from listening to my mother's Broadway cast album of The Sound of Music. Just like the priest (Nathan Lane again) in Jeffrey recalls:
"You got your idea of God from where most gay kids get it—the album cover of My Fair Lady. Original cast. ...George Bernard Shaw up in the clouds, manipulating Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews on strings, like marionettes. It was your parents album, you were little, you thought it was a picture of God. ...I'm telling you, the only time I really feel the presence of God are when I'm having sex and during a great Broadway musical!"
So let's put on our dancing shoes, warm up our voices, dim the house lights, and celebrate GLBTs in the wings and on the boards.
How Long Has This Been Going On?
It's pretty safe to assume that GLBTs have been involved in theater from its early beginnings. In his book, The Season, William Goldman speculated that "homosexuals, like other marginalized groups, tend to congregate in areas where they feel safest, and theater has long been a homosexual stronghold." Although—coincidentally—the first solid "Broadway musical" hit (The Black Crook) and the introduction of the word "homosexuality" occurred in America at about the same time (1866 and 1867, respectively), the first openly gay leading character in a musical was an English import.
Reginald Bunthorne, in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1881 operetta Patience, is a simultaneously ground-breaking and stereotype-reinforcing fop. Wearing a dark velvet suit, he displays outrageous hair, a feminine walk, a simpering expression, and clutches a lily in his hand through most of the play. But while Victorian sensibilities demanded Gilbert and Sullivan to have Bunthorne chase women on stage, the song "Am I Alone and Unobserved" reveals that his womanizing is just a pretext he maintains for public acceptance.
And everyone will say
As you walk your flowery way
If he's content
With a vegetable love
That would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly
Pure young man
This pure young man must be.
Whether you consider Reginald Bunthorne to be insulting or amusing, he was the most flamboyant male character the mainstream musical stage would see until a full century later in La Cage aux Folles.
The Roaring Twenties
By the start of the 20th century, Broadway musicals were gaining popularity and, in New York, people were openly defying Prohibition and many other "social norms". As a result, by the 1920s some of the most popular Broadway and vaudeville performers were female impersonators.
The biggest star to come out of this genre was Bert Savoy. Savoy’s persona was 24/7 over the top—in many ways he was his generation's RuPaul—at a time when many of his fellow drag performers made a point of showing themselves in traditional "virile male" activities offstage. His drag stage character (which eventually made him a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies) was a lavishly gowned, hip-swaying, seductive female and he relished playing her to the hilt. He was so well-known that many other performers based their characters on his stage show. Most famously, Mae West admitted that her trademark hip-swaying walk and her invitation to "come up and see me" were "borrowed" from Bert Savoy.
Anything Goes...Sort Of
By the 1930s, American theater was dominated by the Lee and Jake Shubert and for a very good reason—they had almost single-handedly saved Broadway. Not only did they refuse to sell their 31 Broadway theaters during the Great Depression, they hired more GLBT designers and chorus performers than anyone else in the business (despite both the Shubert brothers being infamously homophobic). Despite the tremendous popularity of gay/bisexual Broadway mainstays like Noel Coward, Cole Porter, and Moss Hart, acceptance was still slow in coming, even in the gay-friendlier theater industry.
"Gay men did not enjoy unalloyed acceptance in this work environment, to be sure, but the theatrical milieu did offer them more tolerance than most work places . . . Some men could be openly gay among their coworkers, and many others were at least unlikely to suffer serious retribution if their homosexuality were discovered."
— George Chauncey, Gay New York (New York: Basic Books, 1994)
Despite an at least partially closeted existence, GLBT artists began to use musical theater to engage in a more public display of their interests, desires and sensibilities. One of the masters of this high-wire act was Cole Porter. Fearing that the public wouldn't accept love songs written by a homosexual, he lived the paradoxical life of an openly closeted gay man. He was famous for songs that were intelligent, witty, charming and—being the master of the double entendre—risqué without being vulgar. But his love songs expressed romanticism and yearning that, even today, still demonstrate that love is love.
Hooray for Hollywood
There weren't very many GLBT images in the 1920s and 30s, especially not with major studio stars. One notable exception was Marlene Dietrich in Morocco. As a bisexual woman, Dietrich had enjoyed the gay scene in Berlin in the 1920s and, although she fiercely protected her private life, this was one of the few times she allowed audiences to have a fictionalized glimpse.
By the 1930s and through the 40s and early 50s, many talented Broadway GLBTs made their way to the Promised Land in California and MGM Studios became the center of the world for musical films. MGM's incredible success was the result of the leadership of Arthur Freed, but the creative genius behind MGM's Freed Unit was gifted Broadway composer Roger Edens. Edens first came to Hollywood as Ethel Merman's musical director, but soon he was working for Arthur Freed and assembling a team of directors, composers, choreographers, and others who set the standard for movie musicals. Because Roger Edens and so many of the other people in the unit were gay, they were known "Freed's Fairies" within the industry. They included composers Cole Porter, Frederick Loewe, Robert Wright, and Chet Forrest, choreographers Robert Alton and Jack Cole, and directors George Cukor, Charles Walters and Vincente Minnelli.
Under Roger Edens creative direction, MGM not only adapted many Broadway musicals to film (Little Nellie Kelly, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat) they also created some of the greatest movie musicals of all time, including For Me and My Gal (the screen debut of Gene Kelly), Cabin in the Sky (the screen debut of Lena Horne), Easter Parade, On the Town, Singin' in the Rain, Gigi, and many others.
In addition to his other numerous accomplishments, Roger Edens was also the musical mentor and lifelong friend of Judy Garland and his influence on her is undeniable. Lorna Luft (Garland’s daughter) credited Edens with teaching her mother to have the courage to show her vulnerability in her performances. "Without Roger," she commented, "we might never have had Over the Rainbow, at least not the way we remember it."
There’s a Place for Us
The 1950s and 60s were a difficult time for GLBTs in America. Many were persecuted in hearings by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which often turned in anti-gay witch hunts. In spite of this, many GLBT directors and choreographers who avoided persecution quietly came to the forefront in musicals. This new era was reflected both backstage (especially choreography, staging, and design) and with more frequent casting of gay performers.
Leading the way was a pianist, composer and conductor—who championed classical music (especially with young people) while mixing them with pop and jazz themes, created some of the most popular and the most controversial musicals of his time, and celebrated "highbrow" pursuits while presenting fine arts to the American public in a way that was free from the social snobbery—all wrapped in a brash and glamorous package named Leonard Bernstein.
Bernstein was one of the few 20th century composers who were able to be successful with both theatrical and classical compositions. While musicals like On the Town, Candide, and his masterpiece West Side Story secured him as a Broadway legend, his "serious" pieces like Mass (a theater piece commissioned for the opening of the Kennedy Center) showed his diversity and his willingness to take positions on controversial subjects.
Much has been written about Bernstein's sexuality. Because he was married to actress Felicia Montealegre for 27 years and had three children, many see him as bisexual. Others, including one of his daughters, saw him as a closeted gay man who—despite his increased openness as he got older—allowed his desire for a middle-class sensibility to keep him from living a completely gay life. There may be some clues in his last major work, A Quiet Place. In this opera, a bisexual male is the mediator between the other, more conflicted characters. The final message is one of reconciliation and acceptance among all people. Everyone has their own theory, but most agree on one thing: Leonard Bernstein was cool!
There's Good, There's Great...And Then There’s Sondheim
(Full disclosure: Sondheim is my favorite musical composer of all time, but I'll try to keep the gushing to a minimum. LOL!)
For a first-time lyricist, debuting with Leonard Bernstein could have been an overshadowing of such tremendous proportions that it lead to just a footnote in the book of musical theater lore. But for Stephen Sondheim, it developed into one of the most successful, innovative, award-winning, and iconic careers in Broadway history. His follow-up hit Gypsy (with Jule Styne) a year later established him as a new force that would help modernize musicals and lead them through the last half of the 20th century.
Sondheim is as uncategorizable as he is paradoxical, creating "a highly intellectualized gay perspective that prizes ambivalence, undercuts traditional American progressivism, and rejects the musical's historically idealistic view of sex, romance, and the family; but that at the same time eschews camp, deconstructs the diva, and is apparently oblivious to AIDS, the post-Stonewall struggle for civil equality, and other socio-political issues that concern most gay men of his generation.""[GLBTQ.com]
Inspirations for his musicals come from surprisingly non-musical sources: a painting by Georges Seurat (Sunday in the Park with George), stories of 19th-century serial murders (Sweeney Todd), political assassination (Assassins), and American imperialism (Pacific Overtures). As Sondheim began composing the music for his own lyrics, even Grimm's fairy tales were treated to his unique ability to blend musical styles, play with the English language ("There's no time to sit and dither, while her withers wither with her...") and at times be outrageously funny (Into the Woods).
Although Stephen Sondheim didn't come out as gay until his 40s (and didn't create an explicitly gay character for a musical until 1999) he has still managed to achieve a certain gay icon status. His musicals explore themes that can hit strong emotional chords in the GLBT community: the inequality of the American Dream, the exclusion of individuals/groups from the mainstream, or the struggle to carry on after one's romantic illusions have been broken. He composed songs that became anthems for two very different generations of gay men ("Somewhere" and "Being Alive") and he continues to be recognized as one of the most innovative figures in musical theater—always willing to push himself, experiment, risk failure, and challenge assumptions.
Kicking Open the Stage (and Closet) Doors
By the 1970s and 80s, the cracks in Broadway's glass ceiling start to appear. No longer were GLBTs just influencing musical theater from back stage—suddenly likeable, gay characters (very different from unlikeable and often vicious characters that had been seen in earlier years) were appearing to rave reviews. Tommy Tune won his first Tony portraying a gay choreographer in Seesaw, and A Chorus Line was the first major Broadway book musical to let gay characters discuss :::gasp::: the sexual aspects of their lives.
Then in 1983, the first gay-themed musical took Broadway by storm. Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's adaption of La Cage Aux Folles, with its enormous popularity and record-breaking box office, suddenly made it acceptable for the tradition theater audiences (read: older, more conservative) to root for a gay couple struggling with middle age, empty nest syndrome, annoying in-laws, and being true to who they are.
Broadway's stars were daring to be more open in their personal lives as well. In 1983, John Glines (the producer of Torch Song Trilogy) became the first person to thank his same-sex partner during a Tony Award winner's speech and began the process of acceptance that has allowed performers like Michael Crawford, Anthony Rapp, Cherry Jones, and Michael Rupert to be open about their sexuality as well.
Tragically, at the moment when it seemed like the GLBT community was finally claiming its rightful place in musical theater, the AIDS crisis began. Suddenly, large numbers of incredibly talented directors, actors, writers and designers were becoming sick. AIDS would change the musical theater in ways no one at the time would have imagined.
During the 1990s, non-musical plays like Angels in America and Love! Valour! Compassion! dominated Broadway's portrayal of the AIDS epidemic, with two notable exceptions: Falsettos and Rent. While Falsettos was nominated for seven Tony Awards (and won two), Rent is the musical that left its mark on the theater-going public. Rent remains a controversial musical and has been accused of plagiarism, exploiting AIDS as a marketing ploy, and pandering to straight audiences. But to its credit, Rent had an ethnically diverse cast, was willing to discuss controversial topics with notoriously conservative Broadway audiences, showed a wide range of people affected by AIDS (gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and straight) and helped bring a younger audience into the theater.
Will Musicals Survive? Damn Right They Will!
At least once every decade or so, the theater pundits gravely announce "the demise of the Broadway musical" [cue scary music!]. And every time they do, the musical theater thumbs its nose and continues to showcase talented newcomers who breathe fresh life into this almost-150-year-old tradition. There is no denying that AIDS took an terrible toll on the GLBT theater community. But the 21st century has seen Broadway start to recover and musicals are starting to recover with it. (Pssst...it's even OK to start laughing again.)
In 2002, GLBT film pioneer John Waters gave his permission to adapt one of his classic films to the stage. They brought in Torch Song Trilogy veteran and gay icon in his own right, Harvey Fierstein, to play a leading role and the rest of the cast fell into place. The result was Hairspray, winner of 8 Tony Awards including "Best Musical".
In 2003, the writing team of Robert Lopez (straight) and Jeff Marx (gay) did something that no one thought they could do: combine musical theater, public television programming, and puppets (including a first-ever gay puppet character) into a hit Broadway musical. When Avenue Q pulled a huge upset at the 2004 Tony Awards by beating out Wicked for "Best Musical", critics who had predicted disaster for the show had to admit they were wrong—Avenue Q had gotten and younger, hipper crowd interested in musical theater by addressing issues like gay rights, racism, 20-something angst, and Internet porn in a playful and funny way.
The musical theater is in the process of reinventing itself once again and the GLBT community with be a part of this latest revival, just like it always has been in past. In fact, to insure success, take a tip from The Producers and make sure we are.