10 Queer NYC Theater Events That Will Fill You With Pride
For the cultured queen in New York City, there’s more to Pride Month than parades and pier dances.
If you’ve got a hot date with the Big Apple for WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, attendance is mandatory at The Prom, the Tony-nominated musical comedy about a lesbian teen couple who create a media frenzy by trying to go to an Indiana high school dance. Besides The Cher Show, it’s the gayest party on Broadway.
But while you’re marching around town, float off the main route and drag your flags to these other LGBTQ-inclusive shows that are just as loud and proud.
The Rolling Stone
Inspired by the Ugandan newspaper that dangerously outed gay locals in 2010, Chris Urch’s Uganda-set family drama finds two brothers at odds: a closeted gay man in a secret relationship and a homophobic pastor.
LCT’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater through August 25.
A Strange Loop
Michael R. Jackson’s fearless musical firebomb—c’mon, poppers, Whitney’s ghost, a gospel number declaring “AIDS is God’s punishment”—stars Larry Owens as a black, queer usher creating a self-referential musical.
Playwrights Horizons through July 28.
Pride Plays
Michael Urie co-produced this festival of star-studded play readings from queer voices like Jonathan Tolins, MJ Kaufman, Trans Lab, and Five Lesbian Brothers, capped off by Terrence McNally’s Some Men with 40 actors.
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater through June 24.
Stonewall50 at La MaMa
La MaMa’s Pride series ends with Bearded Ladies Cabaret’s Contradict This! A Birthday Funeral for Heroes, a queer musical spectacle marking the 200th anniversary of problematic gay poet Walt Whitman’s birth.
La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre through June 29.
Stonewall
Following New York City Opera’s Angels in America and Brokeback Mountain, Iain Bell and Mark Campbell tackle the 1969 uprising with a cast of 45. It’s the first opera featuring a trans role created for a trans singer.
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater through June 28.
The Golden Girls Musical Parody: Pride Edition
The Golden Girls gets even gayer with Nick Brennan’s original pop score, an all-male cast (besides cabaret diva Lavinia Draper), and a kooky plot involving Ricky Martin and the Shady Pines Gay Pride Talent Show.
HERE Arts Center through July 6.
Galas: A Modern Tragedy
Camp alert! Ridiculous Theatrical Company legend Everett Quinton directs and stars in the first revival of Charles Ludlam’s gender-bending 1983 melodrama about a narcissistic opera diva loosely based on Maria Callas.
Theatre at St. John’s through June 28.
Julio Down by the Schoolyard
INTAR, one of the oldest Latinx theater companies in the U.S., presents J. Julian Christopher’s poetic play inspired by the 1990 Jackson Heights murder of Julio Rivera, the first anti-gay hate crime to be tried in New York.
INTAR Theatre through June 29.
Upright Citizens Brigade
UCB [laughs in gay] for Pride with a lineup of LGBTQ-focused comedy and variety shows at both NYC locations, including We Will Turn You Gay, GayTube (But Not Porn), and How Proud Are You, Bitch?: A Queer Pageant.
UCB Hell’s Kitchen and SubCulture through June 30.
Camp Morning Wood
The Rocky Horror Show meets Naked Boys Singing! in this silly but endearing musical about a gay couple stranded at a gay nudist colony promoting pride and body positivity. Cue the closeted conservative senator!
Peter Jay Sharp Theater through July 7.