“It was very different back then. You could get arrested for doing the things they do in this play. It was quite awful and ridiculous and demeaning,” said Crawley, referring to Boys In The Band.
Mart Crawley, a playwright who’s most famously known for his groundbreaking 1968 off-Broadway play The Boys In The Band, has died at the age of 84. Crawley truly created a long-lasting legacy for himself in the way he revolutionized queer voices in the theater and the ability to tell the stories of the voiceless; especially in the 1960’s.
Crawley was originally born in Mississippi on August 21st, 1935, he attended Catholic high school and the Catholic University of America in 1957 in Washington D.C. When he graduated he decided to move to California where he would begin working for multiple television companies including Four Star Television, one of the biggest studios in the 1960’s. It was there that he met famous actress Natalie Wood, whom he worked for as her secretary from 1964 to 1966. Wood and Crawley had a very close relationship, considering he basically was responsible for running her professional life, and it was her that helped inspire him to start writing his own plays; he wrote Boys In The Band while still working for Wood.
The play itself focused on a group of nine gay friends who were all gathering in New York for a birthday party. Keep in mind this was in 1968, so while New York was moving in a progressive direction, it was still in its beginning stages, so this type of play was unheard of, even for off-Broadway. Even so, critics still praised the play at the time for being one of the first productions to put gay narratives at the forefront of the plot without fetishizing or stereotyping homosexuality.
“It was very different back then. You could get arrested for doing the things they do in this play … Agents said it was a career killer. I have to acknowledge the bravery of the guys who did it anyway,” Crowley said in a 2019 interview about the original production.
Crowley (center) also said that he got the title for the play from a line in the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born. At the time, famous playwright Tony Kushner claimed that by creating a play such as Boys In The Band and pushing it to be in the public’s eye showed that Crowley “courageously answered the call of a historical moment.”
The public was reminded of the legacy of Crowley and what he did with Boys In The Band 50 years after it’s original off-Broadway debut when famous gay director Ryan Murphy (left) brought it to Broadway for a limited time. The actors playing the nine men, who all identify as members of the LGBT community in real life as well, have all already created a notable name for themselves in pop culture, drawing major attention to the production. Jim Parsons who played Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory,” Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, and Andrew Rannells are just a few.
The revival took place on Broadway for a limited time in 2018, but luckily Crowley was able to see it and even attend the Tony Awards that year to witness his play’s resurgence on the big stage win “Best Revival.” Ryan Murphy is also currently working on a Netflix adaptation of the play that will also star Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, and Zachary Quinto.
“I was thrilled with the revival! My God, it was a dazzling production. A simply gorgeous set by David Zinn — all red on red on red and mirrored walls so you could see the audience. I told him it reminded me of Diana Vreeland’s description of her apartment: a garden in hell,” Crowley said in a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
During its original 1968 production the play ran for over 1,000 performances due to its popularity and cultural relevance to the Gay Liberation movement. It also was ahead of its time in the sense that Crowley was open about the fact that his plays are all autobiographical, and the nine actors in the original play all identified as gay in their real lives as well.
In terms of Boys In The Band, Crowley claimed “Just before I began to write the play, I had…attended a party for a friend’s birthday and it gave me the idea of how to frame what had already been on my mind…All of the characters are based on people I either knew well or are amalgams of several I’d known to varying degrees, plus a large order of myself thrown into the mix.”
Crowley’s second play was Remote Asylum and his third, A Breeze From the Gulf, both of which have elements of his early life. His second play wasn’t nearly as successful as his first, but A Breeze From The Gulf earned him a second place vote for a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, putting him back on the map.
He went on to write a few more plays before returning to television in the 1980’s to write a television movie adaptation of James Kirkwood’s There Must Be A Pony.
This past Saturday, March 7th, Crowley unfortunately passed away due to complications from a recent heart surgery. While Crowley may no longer be here on Earth, it’s amazing to think about the 50 year legacy he’s created for himself. He was able to watch his off-Broadway controversial play about nine gay men dealing with the trials and tribulations of every day life turn into a mainstream success that started a much larger conversation about equality.
His perseverance to push gay narratives that, at the time, were deemed “uncomfortable” all while openly identifying as gay himself, is more than worth remembering. His stories will continue to be told as being part of a movement much bigger than all of us, and with the revival of his play onto a more modern platform, Netflix, his legacy will only continue to grow.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
