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AUDIENCE GUIDE 2016-2017 | Our 58th Season | Issue 2 IN THIS ISSUE Composer/Lyricist Jerry Herman Librettist Harvey Fierstein Original author Jean Poiret Perspectives on Drag This guide is available online at skylightmusictheatre.org NOVEMBER 18 - DECEMBER 23, 2016 Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman, Book by Harvey Fierstein Turn back the clock to 1983. It was the beginning of the AIDS crisis and Broadway and Hollywood were feeling its effects as many great talents were lost to the dreaded disease. On August 21,1983, an important Broadway musical opened. It was a big, brash extravaganza, yet revolutionary in its call for acceptance saying that we are all one. That musical was La Cage Aux Folles. Three decades later, it’s still wowing audiences with glitzy pizzazz and great hilarity while continuing to send its powerful message. The musical features a rousing score by Jerry Herman, famous for the mega-hits Hello, Dolly! and Mame. The witty book by multiple Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein captures the sentimentality and scandalous fun in a story with a heart. Herman recalled in his memoir, SHOWTUNE, that La Cage was meant to be "a charming, colorful, great-looking musical comedy, just old-fashioned entertainment." It is also a celebration of love, tolerance and family values, granted the family is a bit unique. The story focuses on an older gay couple: Georges, the manager of La Cage Aux Folles, a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, with Albin, his romantic partner as the star attraction. A comic farce ensues when Georges’ son, Jean-Michel, the product of a one-night fling, brings home his fiancée's ultra-conservative parents to meet his family. La Cage Aux Folles is based on a play of the same name by Jean Poiret, a French actor and playwright who wrote and starred in the original 1973 Paris production. The play ran for more than 2,000 performances and inspired a popular French film and two sequels. La cage aux folles literally means "the cage of mad women." Folles is also a slang term for effeminate homosexuals or “queens.” The original 1983 Broadway production broke box-office records and received nine Tony Award nominations and won six, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. Jerry Herman won yet another Tony Award for Best Musical. The show has had several successful revivals and it is the only musical to win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical twice (2005 and 2010), making it the only show to win a Best Musical Tony award for every one of its Broadway productions. A song in La Cage encourages us: “So hold this moment fast, And live and love as hard as you know how, And make this moment last, Because the best of times is now.” Enjoy!

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Page 1: NOVEMBER 18 DECEMBER 23, 2016 - Skylight Music · PDF fileLansbury; Mack & Mabel (1974) a dual stage biography of silent-film director Mack Sennett and star Mabel Normand starring

AU

DIE

NC

E G

UID

E

2016

-2017 | O

ur 5

8th

Season | Is

sue 2

IN THIS ISSUE

Composer/Lyricist

Jerry Herman

Librettist Harvey Fierstein

Original author

Jean Poiret

Perspectives on Drag

This guide is available online at skylightmusictheatre.org

NOVEMBER 18 - DECEMBER 23, 2016 Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman, Book by Harvey Fierstein

Turn back the clock to 1983. It was the beginning of the AIDS crisis and Broadway and Hollywood were feeling its effects as many great talents were lost to the dreaded disease. On August 21,1983, an important Broadway musical opened. It was a big, brash extravaganza, yet revolutionary in its call for acceptance saying that we are all one. That musical was La Cage Aux Folles. Three decades later, it’s still wowing audiences with glitzy pizzazz and great hilarity while continuing to send its powerful message.

The musical features a rousing score by Jerry Herman, famous for the mega-hits Hello, Dolly! and Mame. The witty book by multiple Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein captures the sentimentality and scandalous fun in a story with a heart. Herman recalled in his memoir, SHOWTUNE, that La Cage was meant to be "a charming, colorful, great-looking musical comedy, just old-fashioned entertainment."

It is also a celebration of love, tolerance and family values, granted the family is a bit unique. The story focuses on an older gay couple: Georges, the manager of La Cage Aux Folles, a Saint-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, with Albin, his romantic partner as the star attraction. A comic farce ensues when Georges’ son, Jean-Michel, the product of a one-night fling, brings home his fiancée's ultra-conservative parents to meet his family.

La Cage Aux Folles is based on a play of the same name by Jean Poiret, a French actor and playwright who wrote and starred in the original 1973 Paris production. The play ran for more than 2,000 performances and inspired a popular French film and two sequels. La cage aux folles literally means "the cage of mad women." Folles is also a slang term for effeminate homosexuals or “queens.”

The original 1983 Broadway production broke box-office records and received nine Tony Award nominations and won six, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. Jerry Herman won yet another Tony Award for Best Musical. The show has had several successful revivals and it is the only musical to win the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical twice (2005 and 2010), making it the only show to win a Best Musical Tony award for every one of its Broadway productions.

A song in La Cage encourages us:

“So hold this moment fast, And live and love as hard as you know how, And make this moment last, Because the best of times is now.”

Enjoy!

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AUDIENCE GUIDE | LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

Research/Writing by Justine Leonard for ENLIGHTEN,

Skylight Music Theatre’s Education Program

Edited by RayJivoff [email protected]

158 N. Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 (414) 291-7811 (Administration) (414) 291-7800 (Box Office) www.skylightmusictheatre.org

This project was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts

Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National

Endowment for the Arts

Season Sponsors

Jerry Herman is one of the most successful Broadway composer/lyricists of the late twentieth century. He has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Score five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage Aux Folles. In 2009, Herman received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2010.

In an era when many musical theatre composers were exploring dark themes and new forms of expression, Herman chose to write optimistic, entertaining shows with catchy tunes and happy endings. So, while his lyrics could be witty, they were usually light-hearted, and his music simple.

In JERRY HERMAN: POET OF THE SHOWTUNE, biographer Stephen Citron wrote that simplicity could be deceptive, noting "Herman's melodic gift depends not on complex chord relationships, but rather on taking a harmonic cliché and infusing it with life and color."

Jerry Herman was born Gerald Sheldon Herman in New York City on July 10, 1931. He grew up in Jersey City, N.J., the only child of Harry Herman, a high school gym teacher, and Ruth (Sachs) Herman, a high school English teacher. Both parents were amateur musicians, and he began playing piano by ear at the age of six. He never took lessons, and did not learn to read music.

When he was six, his parents began running Stissing Lake Camp, a summer camp in the Berkshire Mountains in upstate New York. Herman spent his summers at the camp until he was 23, and in his teens, began staging musicals there.

He first attended Parsons School of Design to study interior decorating, an interest he followed throughout his life. He has decorated at least 38 different residences and was featured in Architectural Digest. However, he was encouraged to pursue composing by Broadway composer Frank Loesser, and he transferred to the University of Miami to major in drama. He wrote and directed several college musicals as an undergraduate.

After graduation in 1954, Herman moved to New York City and worked as a cabaret pianist, writing special material for such nightclub entertainers as Tallulah Bankhead, Jane Froman and Hermione Gingold.

In 1957, Herman wrote and directed Nightcap, a one-hour musical revue that ran for two years. The show featured Phyllis Newman and Charles Nelson Reilly, who later co-starred in Hello, Dolly!.

In 1960, Herman was hired to compose the score for his first Broadway musical, Milk and Honey, about the founding of the state of Israel. The show, which starred Robert Weede and Molly Picon, opened October 10, 1961 to good reviews and ran for 543 performances.

JERRY HERMAN– Composer and Lyricist

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Producer David Merrick then hired him to write the songs for a musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's play, The Matchmaker. Hello, Dolly! opened on January 16, 1964. The show swept the Tony Awards that season, winning 10, a record that remained unbroken for 37 years, until The Producers won 12 Tonys in 2001. Herman won the Tony Award for best score. The original production went on to run 2,844 performances, making it the longest-running Broadway musical in history up to that time. Louis Armstrong's single of the title song was on the charts within a month, where it rose to number one. Herman won a Song of the Year Grammy Award for that recording. The cast album also hit number one.

Carol Channing starred in the original production and three revivals. The latest production, starring Bette Midler, will open on Broadway in the Spring of 2017.

In 1966, Herman created another musical with a strong female character, Mame, based on Patrick Dennis' novel Auntie Mame. The book was also adapted into a play and a movie starring Rosalind Russell. The smash hit musical starring Angela Lansbury introduced several Herman standards including the holiday favorite We Need a Little Christmas.

Recordings of the title song by Bobby Darin, Louis Armstrong and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass all charted prior to the show's opening. Eydie Gorme won a Grammy Award for Best Female Vocal Performance for her recording of If He Walked into My Life from the score.

Although not commercial successes, Dear World (1969) based on Jean Giraudoux's fantasy play The Madwoman of Chaillot starring Angela Lansbury; Mack & Mabel (1974) a dual stage biography of silent-film director Mack Sennett and star Mabel Normand starring Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters; and The Grand Tour (1979) based on S. N. Behrman's play Jacobowsky and the Colonel, starring Joel Grey are noted for their interesting concepts and their melodic, memorable scores.

In 1983, Herman scored a major comeback with his third huge hit, La Cage Aux Folles. It broke box-office records at the Palace Theatre and earned Herman yet another Tony Award for Best Musical.

Many of Herman's show tunes have become pop standards. His most famous composition, Hello, Dolly!, is one of the most popular tunes to have originated in a Broadway musical. It was a #1 hit in the United States for Louis Armstrong, knocking The Beatles from #1 in 1964. Gloria Gaynor’s recording of I Am What I Am from La Cage Aux Folles was a disco favorite and became an anthem for the gay movement. Put On Your Sunday Clothes, and It Only Takes a Moment from Hello, Dolly! are featured in the 2008 animated film WALL-E.

Herman was the first (of only two) composer/lyricists to have three musicals run more than 1,500 consecutive performances on Broadway (the other being Stephen Schwartz): Hello,Dolly! (2,844), Mame (1,508), and La Cage Aux Folles (1,761). He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982.

Herman was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1985. As noted in the "Words and Music" PBS documentary, "He is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see experimental drug therapies take hold and is still, as one of his lyrics proclaims, 'alive and well and thriving' over quarter of a century later." Herman's memoir, SHOWTUNE, was published in 1996.

Herman lives in Miami Beach, Florida.

2016-2017 | SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE

Sources include NY Times, Wikipedia.org, William Ruhlmann

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AUDIENCE GUIDE | LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES-The Play, the Movie, the Author

Jean Poiret’s 1973 stage comedy had long legs. Before it became a hit musical, there were several movie versions. The first was the 1978 French film La Cage Aux Folles co-written and directed by Édouard Molinaro and starring Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault. It was an international hit that was followed by two sequels: La Cage aux Folles II (1980), and La Cage Aux Folles 3- 'Elles' se marient (1985).

Like the play, the film tells the story of a gay couple – Renato Baldi, the manager of a St-Tropez nightclub featuring drag entertainment, and Albin Mougeotte, his star attraction – and the madness that ensues when Laurent, Renato's son, brings home his fiancée and her ultra-conservative parents to meet them.

In 1996, an American remake,The Birdcage, directed by Mike Nichols, was released. The film was relocated to South Beach, Miami and starred the late, great Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

Jean Poiret, (1926–1992) was a screenwriter, director and one of the most popular actors in the French theater. He appeared in about 40 movies but is primarily known for writing the original play, La Cage Aux Folles.

Poiret studied acting at the Rue Blance drama school in Paris. He rose to prominence in 1951 playing the role of Fred Transport, one of the heroes of the radio series Malheur aux Barbus. In 1952, he met Michel Serrault, his future co-star in La Cage. They worked together on many projects, including a popular sketch comedy, Jerry Scott, Vedette Internationale.

His first play, Douce Amere (Bittersweet), played in Paris in 1970. His second play, Fefe de Broadway, in which he also starred, was a smash success for two years at the Theatre des Varietes.

In 1973, Poiret wrote and starred in his stage play La Cage Aux Folles with Michel Serrault. It was an instant success unmatched by any other French play, running for seven years.

The 1978 film adaptation brought Poiret world-wide success. Although he was replaced by Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi in the role of Renato Baldi, Serrault reprised his stage-role of Zaza Napoli and won a César Award for his work.

In 1980, Poiret wrote Joyeuses Pacques (Happy Easter), in which he created the lead role. The show played to sold out houses for 4 years.

In 1992, Poiret directed his first and only film, Le Zèbre (The Zebra). This adaptation of Alexandre Jardin's novel starred Thierry Lhermitte and Caroline Cellier, Poiret’s wife.

Unfortunately, Poiret died of a heart attack in Paris on March 14, 1992, three months before the film's premiere.

Poster of the original play

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Harvey Forbes Fierstein, actor and playwright burst onto the Broadway scene in 1982 with dual Tony wins for both Best Play and Best Actor for his play Torch Song Trilogy, about a gay drag-performer and his quest for true love and family. His acceptance speeches brought a new kind of face into American living rooms during the awards telecast.

Fierstein scored again for La Cage Aux Folles (1983), winning a Tony for Best Book of a Musical. In 2003, he won the Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for playing Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. He will return to the role in Hairspray Live! which airs December 7 on NBC. He was nominated for writing the book for the musical Kinky Boots in 2013.

Fierstein was born on June 6, 1954 to Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jacqueline Harriet (Gilbert), a school librarian, and Irving Fierstein, a handkerchief manufacturer. Fierstein was raised in Conservative Judaism, but he is non-observant and considers himself an atheist.

One of America’s first openly gay celebrities, Fierstein is a product of the post-Stonewall, Off-Broadway and live performance art scene of New York in the 1970s. Fierstein combined elements of experimental theatre with the campy nostalgia, the heart-tugging showmanship, and the conventional formats of the tearjerker, the drag

revue and the sitcom. In the process, he proved to be a key figure in promoting the idea that contemporary gay and lesbian life could be a viable subject for mainstream entertainment.

He started his career as a stand-up comic and female impersonator. His talent for the outlandish was clear with his debut as an asthmatic lesbian cleaning woman in Andy Warhol’s 1971 play, Pork. During the ’70s, he wrote, performed and reworked his three one-act plays about gay culture that became Torch Song Trilogy. The show opened on Broadway in 1982.

Legs Diamond, his 1988 collaboration with Peter Allen, was a critical and commercial failure, closing after 72 previews and 64 performances. His other playwriting credits include Safe Sex, Spookhouse and Forget Him.

Acting roles in mainstream films began soon thereafter with a part in Garbo Talks (1984), and Fierstein eventually co-produced and starred in the film adaptation of Torch Song Trilogy in 1988. He supplied the moving narration to the Oscar-winning documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984) and played Dr. Lang for a time on the ABC daytime soap Loving. He gave hilarious performances on Cheers as Rebecca’s former boyfriend and on The Simpsons as Homer’s secretary. His unique voice was once described in New York Newsday as “that Brillo-and-bourbon growl.”

He had a small but very funny role as Robin Williams’ brother in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and played a key role in the sci-fi epic Independence Day(1996), about an alien invasion of the USA. He has performed in everything from Elmo Saves Christmas (video, 1996) to Disney’s animated adventure Mulan (1998) to barbarian fantasy like Kull the Conqueror (1997). He was Alicia Witt’s gay friend in Playing Mona Lisa (2000) and reunited with Robin Williams for director Danny DeVito’s manic Death to Smoochy (2002).

Fierstein won the Humanitas Prize in the Children's Animation Category in 2000 for Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child for the episode The Sissy Duckling.

In 2007, Fierstein wrote the book to the musical A Catered Affair in which he also starred. It opened on Broadway April 17, 2008 and closed on July 27, 2008. He wrote the book for the stage musical Newsies, with composer Alan Menken and lyricist Jack Feldman. The musical opened on Broadway in March 2012. Fierstein was nominated for the Tony Award for Book of a Musical.

Fierstein wrote the book for the stage musical version of the film Kinky Boots with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. It opened on Broadway in April, 2013 and was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards and won six, including best musical.

His play, Casa Valentina was produced on Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club. It tells the story of men who spend weekends at a resort in the Catskill mountains, dressed as women. The play opened in April 2014 and closed in June 2014.

Fierstein wrote the teleplay for The Wiz Live! NBC TV broadcast on December 3, 2015, featuring Stephanie Mills, as Aunt Em, Queen Latifah as The Wiz and David Alan Grier as the Lion.

2016-2017 | SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE

HARVEY FIERSTEIN-Book Writer

Sources include American Jewish Desk Reference (NY: Random House, 1999), p. 360; IMDB; photo courtesy of David Shankbone Wikipedia.org; www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/harvey-fierstein-3408.php and Playbill.com

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Synopsis

Act I

Georges, the owner and master of ceremonies of the St. Tropez drag nightclub, La Cage aux Folles, greets the audience. Les Cagelles introduce themselves (We Are What We Are). Zaza, the star performer, does not enter on cue.

Georges and his husband, Albin, live together in an apartment above the club with their "maid" Jacob. Albin performs at La Cage as "Zaza" and he prepares to perform (A Little More Mascara). Georges' 24-year-old son, Jean-Michel, conceived in a one-night liaison with a chorus girl named Sybil, arrives home with the news that he is engaged to Anne Dindon (With Anne on My Arm).

Unfortunately, Anne’s father is head of the “Tradition, Family and Morality Party," whose goal is to close the local gay clubs. Anne's parents want to meet their daughter's future in-laws. Jean-Michel has lied to Anne, describing Georges as a retired diplomat.

Jean-Michel pleads with Georges to redecorate the apartment in a more subdued fashion and invite Sybil to dinner in place of Albin.

Albin returns from the show to greet his son when Georges suggests that they take a walk (With You on My Arm). They go to Chez Jacqueline, owned by Monsieur and Madame Renaud, where he attempts to tell Albin about Jean-Michel's requests (Song on the Sand).

Before he can break the news to him, Albin hurries back to the club for the next show (La Cage aux Folles). While Albin is performing, Georges and Jean-Michel start to redecorate the house. Between numbers, Albin finds them removing his gowns and Georges tells Albin of Jean-Michel's plan.

Albin then re-joins Les Cagelles onstage, stops the show and sings of his pride and refusal to change for anyone (I Am What I Am).

Act II

The next morning, Georges finds Albin at Chez Jacqueline and apologizes (Song on the Sand [Reprise]). He suggests that Albin attend the dinner as a more masculine, "Uncle Al." George, Jacqueline and Monsieur Renaud try to teach Albin to be less flamboyant (Masculinity).

Back at the chastely redecorated apartment, Jean-Michel complains about Albin's lifestyle and Georges reminds him of Albin’s devotion as his "mother" (Look Over There). They receive a telegram that Sybil is not coming, just as Anne's parents arrive (Cocktail Counterpoint). Hoping to save the day, Albin appears as Jean-Michel's mother. The nervous Jacob burns the dinner, and dining at Chez Jacqueline is arranged.

Once there, Jacqueline asks Zaza to sing, and he finally agrees (The Best of Times). Everyone in the restaurant joins in the song, and Albin, swept into the excitement of a performance, takes off his wig. The Dindons are appalled and plead with Anne to abandon her fiancé because of his homosexual

parents, but she tells them that she likes Georges and Albin and refuses to leave. Jean-Michel, apologizes to Albin (Look Over There [Reprise]).

The Dindons departure is blocked by Jacqueline, who arrives with the press, ready to photograph the notorious anti-homosexual activists with Zaza. Georges and Albin agree to help the Dindons escape through the nightclub downstairs.

Georges bids the audience farewell while Les Cagelles prepare the Dindons for the grand finale (La Cage aux Folles [Reprise]). The Dindons, dressed in drag as members of the revue, escape the paparazzi.

Albin and Georges celebrate a happy ending (Finale: With You On My Arm/La Cage aux Folles/Song on the Sand/The Best Of Times).

Scenic design by Liliana Duque Pineiro

AUDIENCE GUIDE | LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

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As long as there have been stages to play on and screens big and small, actors and actresses have been cross-dressing and appearing in “drag.” This history spans a wide range of historical, cultural and artistic traditions. Examples of drag can be found in ancient Greek, Norse and Hindi mythologies, Roman literature and Chinese theatre. The term “drag” refers to clothing associated with a gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origins of the word are debated, but drag appeared in print as early as 1870. One suggested root is 19th-century theatre slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor. Drag may be practiced by people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. The term ‘queen’ was considered a derogatory term to describe a gay man since the 18th century. The word has since been reclaimed in a more positive sense. Since it was illegal for women to perform in theatres in Shakespeare’s time, female roles were played by men or boys. Cross-dressing was a common theme. In As You Like It, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, a boy actor plays a girl, then dresses as a boy, who then dresses as a girl.

Japanese Kabuki theatre began in the 17th century with all-female troupes performing both male and female roles. In 1629 women were banned from the stage, but kabuki's popularity inspired the formation of all-male troupes to carry on the theatrical form.

Many operas feature trans-gender roles. Some roles were written for castrati, men castrated in boyhood in order to remain sopranos. Some roles of young boys were written for female voices and are performed by women en travesti (pants-trouser roles). The most familiar are Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage Of Figaro (1786), Hansel in Humperdincks’s Hansel and Gretel (1893) and Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus (1874) by Johann Strauss II.

From college musicals to ballet, cross-dressing has its appeal for audiences. The Hasty Pudding Theatricals at Harvard University are slapstick drag shows that have been presented annually since 1844. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-male ballet troupe has been performing parodies of classical ballet since 1974. Contemporary examples of theatre incorporating drag include: Charley's Aunt (1892) by Brandon Thomas and the 1948 musical by Frank Loesser based on the play, Where's Charley?. Stephen Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), based on an ancient Roman comedy by Plautus.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a 1975 film based on the 1973 musical The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O'Brien. A tribute to science

fiction films, it features Dr. Frank N. Furter, an alien transvestite who creates a muscle man in his lab. The movie remains a cultural phenomenon in the U.S. and U.K.

M. Butterfly (1988) is a play by David Henry Hwang loosely based on the relationship between a French diplomat and a male opera singer. Hairspray, the 1988 John Waters movie starring Divine is a cult classic. It became a Broadway musical, which won eight Tony Awards in 2003. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (1998) by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask is a rock musical about a rock band fronted by a genderqueer East German singer. Kinky Boots, with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and again, a book by Harvey Fierstein, was inspired by true events of a failing business owner who forms an unlikely partnership with Lola, a drag performer, to produce a line of high-heeled boots and save his business. The show opened in 2013, and is still running. There are plenty of examples of drag in silent films, including performances by Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. Among the more memorable and current examples are: Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby singing Sisters in White Christmas (1954); Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot (1959); Dustin Hoffman becoming the female star of a television soap opera in Tootsie (1982); Barbra Streisand dressing as a boy to study Jewish law in Yentl ((1983); Robin Williams disguising himself as a woman to nanny his kids in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993); The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert (1994) with three men traveling across the Australian outback to perform a drag show; Julie Andrews in the 1982 movie and 1995 stage hit Victor/Victoria.

2016-2017 | SKYLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE

A DRAG HISTORY

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The drag scene as we know it today first started, particularly in the US, in the 1950s. It didn’t flourish until the 1980s, when gay culture started to develop. In the 1950s and 60s, drag was underground and criminalized. After World War II, national paranoia in America was rife. Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, anything deemed ‘subversive’ was considered a national risk. In the 1950s the U.S. State Department decided that homosexuals were ‘subversive’. The FBI and police kept records of ‘known homosexuals’, and printed their photographs in local papers. Police performed sweeps of bars and nightclubs to ‘rid’ neighborhoods of gay people who were often publicly humiliated, harassed, fired from jobs, jailed or institutionalized in mental hospitals. The wearing of opposite gender clothes was banned and cross dressers were submitted to humiliating ‘gender checking’ and arrested.

The gay rights movement is thought to have begun in 1969 at the Stonewall Bar in New York. On June 28th, 1969, the police conducted a raid. However, it did not go as planned, and many, particularly the lesbians and drag queens, began to fight back. After drag queen Sylvia Rivera threw pennies at police, three nights of riots ensued. Another drag queen, Marsha P. Johnson, smashed a police car window with her hand bag. It was the first time gay people had come together as a community, and the events at Stonewall ignited worldwide LGBT activism. Starting in the late 20th Century, groups of drag queens have come together under a unifying identity to perform a charitable or activist function in their communities. Some perform to raise funds for charities, while others protest for LGBT and civil rights. These groups include The West Hollywood Cheerleaders and The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. These groups are consciously reviving the ancient archetype of drag queens as shamans and spiritual leaders. The most famous drag queen in popular culture today has to be RuPaul. Born in San Diego, he got his start in Atlanta and became widely known during the nineties. He acts, models, writes, sings and even has a Christmas album! RuPaul’s Drag Race is one of the most successful television competition shows of all time, currently in its ninth season. Ru Paul once said, "I do not impersonate females! I don't dress like a woman. I dress like a drag queen!How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, four-foot wigs, and skintight dresses?

What makes us laugh at drag and cross-dressing? The simple answer is there’s something funny about one gender trying to imitate another. A lot has been written about drag queens and queer theory. One of the main books on the topic was written by Carole-Anne Tyler, called INSIDE/OUT: LESBIAN THEORIES, GAY THEORIES (1999). She notes that drag queens aren’t always accepted within the gay community, as some believe that it reinforces sexist norms,

projects a limited and harmful image of gay people and impedes a broader social acceptance. This opinion is criticized for limiting self-expression and encouraging the idea that there are "right" and "wrong" ways to be gay. Many argue that drag queens aren’t being mean spirited – it is just plain entertainment. Or perhaps the true answer is we are all pretty much alike. We are all one.

Some documentaries about drag:

Paris Is Burning (1990) Wigstock (1995) Dragtime (1997)

Queens For a Night (1999) Glitterboys and Ganglands (2011)

Danny LaRue: A Fabulous Life in Drag (2013)

The Art of Drag (2013) Life’s A Drag (2014)

Sources include https:hashtagdrag.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/fabulous-history-of-drag-part-one/ www.advocate.com/drag;

AUDIENCE GUIDE | LA CAGE AUX FOLLES