October 11 is National Coming Out Day, and in celebration, BBox spotlights six shows worth seeing in which the protagonists are LGBT.
Harvey Fierstein’s Tony Award-winning dramedy is back on Broadway starring out actor Michael Urie as Arnold Beckoff, a New York drag queen desperate to find love and a family of his own. This extraordinary piece of theatre will have you laughing till you cry and then crying till you sob. Running at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre through February 24.
This moving two-hander is the second piece of Donja R. Love’s “Love Trilogy”, a look at queer love at three different points in Black American history. Fireflies is set in the Jim Crow South and explores the marriage between a charismatic and beloved pastor and Civil Rights activist and his wife, who crafts his powerful speeches but wants so much more out of her life. See how the surprising and sad drama unfolds. Running at off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company through November 11.
Another knockout play that will leave audiences buzzing is Daniel’s Husband. A gay couple with a seemingly idyllic life is at a crossroads when one man wants to wed and the other questions why gay men aspire to live within the heteronormative matrix. It’s an interesting debate that is dramatized for the stage with some surprising twists and turns. Running at off-Broadway’s Westside Theatre.
For a feel-good LGBT moment, get yourself over to the Tony-winning hit Kinky Boots! A story of acceptance, fathers & sons, friendship, and fierce drag queens, Kinky Boots delivers in every way. That finale of “Just Be/Raise You Up” should be played on TV’s throughout the country for National Coming Out Day. Running at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre through April 7.
It’s a queer kiki for the ages over at the new Go-Go’s musical. There are trans and non-binary characters, a lesbian princess, and a story that gives audiences hope that conservative white men can only hold onto power for so long before they are left behind by society. Running at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre.
This one doesn’t begin until October 23, but when it does, it’s going to be the most fabulous Broadway prom moment since Carrie or Footloose. The new musical imagines a troupe of Broadway actors needing an ego boost who decide to help a small-town teen take her closeted girlfriend to the prom, despite the town’s protests. Running at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre beginning October 23.
