Members of our LGBT communities are to be found everywhere in theater, from top management posts; to designers and performers; to writers and composers; and to ushers and audiences ( naturally ) . We even hear there are gay stagehands, although don't say that to the stagehands union. Of course, no season in Chicago theater would be complete without a number of shows with special appeal to LGBT audiences, and hear are my top six for the winter and early spring.
The Little Dog Laughed ( pictured ) , About Face Theatre at the Center on Halsted, through Feb. 17Seen on Broadway just last year, this play by Douglas Carter Beane has more wit than depth and has a few big holes in construction, but it offers plenty of entertainment, four good acting roles and flashes of two naked bodies ( at least it did on Broadway ) in its tale of a closeted Hollywood star, his agent, a hustler with a heart of gold and his girlfriend. This is About Face co-founder Eric Rosen's final show as artistic director of the theater before taking over the much-larger Kansas City Repertory Theatre.
The Day on Which a Man Dies, Summer NITE at Links Hall, Feb. 1-10Here's something that's certainly odd and could be wonderful: a world premiere play by Tennessee Williams, written in the late 1950s, never produced and presumed lost. Not only thatWilliams was inspired by the writings and philosophy of iconic gay Japanese poet, filmmaker, philosopher and athlete Yukio Mishima ( whom Williams met ) , so stylistically The Day on Which a Man Dies should be interesting, as poet blends with poet. ( Pictured: Jennie Moreau and Steve Key in The Day on Which a Man Dies. Photo by Jim Womack )
La Cage aux Folles, Theatre at the Center ( Munster, Ind. ) , Feb. 7-March 9Oh, why not? You just can't get much gayer than a Broadway musical by Jerry Herman, Harvey Fierstein and Arthur Laurents ( adapted from the non-musical original French film comedy ) with outrageous characters, a live-and-let-live philosophy, a right-wing homophobic bad guy and a famously tuneful score. Rudy Hogenmiller choreographs and directs as James Harms plays Albin for the fourth time. Well worth the short drive across the state line, where gas is much cheaper.
A Man of No Importance, Bailiwick Repertory, March 17-April 20As gaudy and flashy as La Cage is, so A Man of No Importance isn't. Yet this quiet, soulful Off-Broadway musical by Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Terrence McNally ( the Ragtime team ) makes an equally powerful statement about being true to one's own nature, and being out-and-proud. The quirky tale is set within a world of amateur theatricals in contemporary Dublin, Ireland, where the ghost of Oscar Wilde inspires a lonely, closeted gay man. The show's in the good hands of director Scott Ferguson and musical director Robert Ollis.
A Passage to India, Vitalist Theatre and Premier Theatre and Performance at Theatre Building Chicago, April 8-May 18This should be a gripping production of the great novel of empire and its cultural failings by the long-closeted E. M. Forster. This is the American premiere of a stage adaptation by Martin Sherman, the American expatriate author of Bent.
Girls Will Be Girls, Hubris Productions at the Center on Halsted, Feb. 21-March 29Sometimes one must take a leap into the unknown when picking shows worth seeing, and this world premiere is a case in point. The folks at Hubris have adapted the film by Richard Day about three Hollywood women of different ages and their cat fights to reach and/or stay at the top of movie/TV food chain. We don't know whether the Hubris version will be a drag or in drag or both, but it could be an instant camp classic in the making.