Scarlet Masque Theatre Journal New Beginnings and Fond Farewells Vol. 1 | Page 11

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Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? earlier that decade. Barr and Albee formed their own
production company based off of some of the profits from Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?, so
Moore thought it would be the perfect place to test this new play out. Barr loved it immediately
and sent it to workshop production.
The Boys in the Band opened Off-Broadway at Theater Four on April 14, 1968. Cast on
opening night included Frederick Combs as Donald, Leonard Frey as Harold, Cliff Gorman as
Emory, Reuben Greene as Bernard, Robert La Tourneaux as Cowboy, Laurence Luckinbill as
Hank, Kenneth Nelson as Michael, Keith Prentice as Larry, and Peter White as Alan. 2 The play
centers around Michael, a self-loathing and domineering gay man who is celebrating his friend
Harold’s birthday with a group of friends in his apartment. Harold describes himself as a “thirty-
two-year-old, ugly, pockmarked Jew fairy” and spends the entirety of the play high. Things are
going just about as well as they can until Michael’s straight roommate from college bursts in
during Act Two and Michael turns against all of his guests. Harold then acts as a truth-teller by
the end of the play as he confronts Michael about his insecurities and the poor way that he
treats his friends as a way of projecting on to other people in the following quote:
You are a sad and pathetic man. You’re a homosexual and you don’t want to be. But
there is nothing you can do to change it. Not all your prayers to your God, not all the
analysis you can buy in all the years you’ve got left to live. You may very well one day be
able to know a heterosexual life if you want it desperately enough - but you will always
be a homosexual as well. Always, Michael. Always. Until the day you die. 3
Crowley created every character with bits of himself in them, but Michael was overwhelmingly
the most auto-biographical character in Boys in the Band. Crowley worked out his own demons
in Michael, and arguably exorcized them with more vigor than Michael could have with his
“The Boys in the Band.” 2016. Lortel Archives: Internet Off-Broadway Database. Lucille Lortel
Foundation. http://www.lortel.org/Archives/Production/3106
2
Christopher Bram. 2012. Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America. New
York: Twelve. 140-141.
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