#indecent broadway

[erikahenningsen]

Then, like a lighthouse, those two girls.

[cascadeoceanwave]

musical theatre challenge: 1/1 seasons | 2016-2017 (insp)

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Last night they were acting Moliere in Fourteenth Street; Dickens was being played through the auspices of Nigel Playfair. Further uptown, George M. Cohan was unveiling the latest George M. Cohan musical comedy. But Broadway, being eternally curious, turned out in greatest numbers at the Biltmore Theater in Forty-Seventh Street, where the result of Mae West's latest encounter with the drama was being performed. This was the exhibit—play is not precisely the word—with a vaudeville background, whose preliminary trip through the Bronx and Queens had been followed by rumors that here was something that might arouse the police to action.

So began the review by an unnamed theater critic for the Times on October 2, 1928. It appeared, not in the arts section, but following a front-page story about the police ... taking action.

The play was Pleasure Man, a reworking by Mae West of her earlier play The Drag. It dealt not with vaudeville, as the critic said, but burlesque, and finished with a lavish drag ball.

Cops were stationed at all theater exits and just as the play was ending, reserves surrounded the front. When the cast tried to leave, they were arrested—56 in all, including West, who also acted in the show.

Of course this attracted audience members (some in evening dress, the Times noted) from other theaters nearby. The presence of cabs and other cars waiting to pick up theater-goers and actors added to the chaos.

Flashlights exploded as news photographers tried to capture the actors being led into paddy wagons. The police had to make five trips to get everyone to the station house on 47th St., where they were charged with indecency.

By 2:30 in the morning, Actors Equity posted bail. West's was $500, which may have been more than the others because she was doubly guilty, having written the play as well as acted in it. The producer, director, and theater staff were not arrested.

For some reason, the cops let the next day's matinee start, but raided it halfway through and arrested everyone once more. They had their own theatrical flair.

The trial wasn't held until April of 1930, and resulted in a hung jury. By that time West was a star, having triumphed in another play of her own called Diamond Lil. The next year she went to Hollywood.

Top photo: J.D. Doyle via Digital Transgender Archive Second photo: NY Daily News

[jewishsuperfam]

oh the THOUGHT i just had

so idk how old greta + jo are meant to be but

the god of vengeance was being performed in english in 1923. p much exactly 20 years before aloto. they'd have been....probably teenagers, right?? do you think they ever went to go see it????? bc if so: ouch

[aberfaeth]

was just reminded of the injustice of the broadway hadestown if it’s true changes. writers i am in your house & walls

[gatherround]

question: does anyone have a link to the pro-shot of Indecent (or a boot of another performance of it)? PBS had a pro-shot of it posted years ago, but it’s not longer available on their website. pls pls pls

[an-idyllic-novelist]

Husk with gender-neutral!reader relationship headcanons

Special thanks to @isuckatwritingsobenice, @nixie-writes, and a few other writers in the Hazbin Hotel community for helping me create a piece for one of my favorite characters from the 2019 pilot episode, Husk! :)

Warning: Husk's potty mouth and this is Hell, so indecent things are bound to happen but nothing to imply NSFW content.

Husk gave up on the idea of love years ago, preferring to drown himself in cheap booze and try his luck at the casino before Alastor pulls him away to do a job for him or some other shit because of his contract with the fucking asshole. Why else would he and Nifty be wastin’ time slaving away in a hotel that’s supposed to rehabilitate sinners? Least the pipsqueak gets to clean this place from top to bottom and away from the clients, and he’s stuck handling their drunk asses in the lobby bar.

Angel Dust has been the one who’s been trying to get into his pants since day one, but that’s a different story entirely. He’s persistent, Husk will give the prissy punk that much credit.

Though…he supposed it isn’t all too bad being here. Least since Vaggie hired you. Initially, the job offer she and Charlie had posted online was to manage the front desk, handle phone calls, and all of the other tasks required to be the hotel’s conceirge. However, since there still wasn’t enough staff to do everything, he would see flitting about carrying baskets of clean linens or giving tours around the hotel to potential clients, helping Vaggie with organizing meetings with the press, and so on.

He might be a drunk asshole, but if there’s one part in his body that’s still functioning besides his dick, it's his hearing.

He’s lost count of how many times he’s heard a snide remark from potential or current clients about your polite demeanor, if you’re actually a freak in bed, and a whole lotta other bullshit he did not want to hear when he’s still sober. He didn’t want to care but god fucking dammit it made his skin crawl at the idea of some asshole thinking they had a chance with you. You, who never seemed to lose your smile and would go out of your way to make Nifty’s day by belting out Broadway songs on top of the banister, completely lost in the character you were playing and not giving a shit about anything else.

Not gonna deny it, you had one hell of a voice. You could change the pitch of it so easily. From a high tone all the way down a low, smooth baritone that almost sounded like a siren’s song luring sailors to a watery grave.

When he actually musters the fucking courage (thanks to a lot of booze from earlier in the day) to ask if you’d like to go to a bar or even the casino, Husk thought you would reject him. After all, why would a someone like you would even want to hang around an old fucker like him?

But when he saw your face turn as red as a certain deer bastard’s suit and sputtered that you weren’t very good at the slots, though you were willingly to try your luck at the blackjack table as long it wasn’t a high stake one, Husk thought he had actually achieved the state of inebriation to where he was hallucinating.

However, he was proven wrong when you told him that you’ll be ready by seven to go to the casino. Since he’d been on good behavior and Charlie never had any issues with you as of late, the princess wouldn’t mind the two of you being out for a couple of hours as long as you kept your phones on you in case anything happened.

Alastor could care less since watching a tormented, loveless war veteran being bewitched by a beguiling songstress provided him with much needed entertainment~.

Upon arriving at the casino, Husk pulled you over to the slot machines. He showed you how they worked and how much money you should put in them, so you don’t lose all of it in under an hour. The old-fashioned ones with the levers weren’t so bad, though the rounds would go pretty quick if you weren’t paying attention to the denominations; same thing applied to the new tech ones, betting could go from 88 cents to up to two dollars.

In the end, you quit after trying three different machines and went to go find the restroom. Husk decided to go find a bar and order a couple of drinks. One for himself, and one for you. A couple of fellas, hellhounds by the look of ‘em, asked him if the ‘pretty little thing’ he was with earlier is with him or if you were single.

“They’re with me, so fuck off.” He grumbled.

“Ya sure about that, old man?”

Husker growled, feeling his hackles rise at the provocation, half of it he blamed on the booze. As much as he wanted to teach these punks a thing or two about showin’ respect….they weren’t worth ruinin’ his first date with you. First impressions made all the difference, least when he’d been alive. So he made a rude hand gesture and sat at the bar until he heard you call out to him.

“Everything all right, Husk? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything between you and your friends. The guys you were talkin’ to before they took off.”

He smirked. “Nah. If I knew them, they’d know how to play poker.” He stood up and grabbed his drink, handing over yours. “C’mon, let’s hit the blackjack tables and see how good you really are.” He said, leading you to your next stop for the night.

Turned out that you weren’t all talk. You were able to win five out of seven rounds, never showing any anxiety or indication that your hand was either good or bad. For kicks, Husk asked if you wanted to try the poker table. You agreed, but just to two rounds. If you weren’t comfortable continuing to play, please allow you to walk away. Husk agreed, opting to watch you from the sidelines as moral support instead of joining you at the table.

Three words could only describe what he saw next: holy fucking shit.

All you could do was smile sheepishly at him when he asked how the ever living fuck were you this good at gambling and didn’t say anything as the two of you left the casino with a hefty sum of cash.

“Would you believe me if I said I’d gotten banned from more than one casino when I was alive because I was just good at card counting?”

He stared at you for a long moment before he grinned widely, clapping you on the back. “I knew I had my eye on ya for a reason!”

‘Course, you’d never know that he wanted to show you that he’s one hell of a gambler at the casino instead of the other way ‘round. How he knew to play his cards right and treat you to something nice, show those little shitheads that a real gentleman knows how to win the game and a good-lookin’ partner all in the same night.

Still…gettin’ spoiled at a nice restaurant for a change wasn’t too bad…so long as no one from the hotel saw them. Especially Alastor.

And that was how your first date went. Nothing too crazy, least the two of you didn’t run into any trouble on the way back to the hotel. Husk walked you to your room, wished you good-night, and went to drink a little more before passing out in his own room.

Husk hasn’t been with anyone in an incredibly long time. There will be moments when he might seem harsher than usual towards you and tries to brush everything off, or chug it down with alcohol. He struggles to communicate with his feelings to someone else, so patience and respect for boundaries is key.

He does not tolerate any disrespect towards you, even if you try to tell him to ignore the sinner who is catcalling after you when the two of you are walking through the Pride Ring to pick up stuff for the hotel. If it happened at a bar while you’re on a date? Be prepared to have chairs go flying or Husk tearing a new hole in the poor bastard who pissed him off.

He is not a fan of PDA. He has a reputation to uphold in the hotel and on the streets. Behind closed doors, however, he will be more lenient. Cuddles and midday naps are exceptional, with him pressing against your body with his tail loosely coiled around your thigh and one of his wings acting as a shield or even a blanket.

Speaking of feathers and fur, he does need to groom himself periodically, especially when it's molting season. You need to be gentle if you want to help him since his skin can be especially sensitive around this time of the year.

Actions speak a lot louder to him than pretty words. If you show him that you do care for him and will never betray his trust or loyalty, he will return it tenfold. He will do everything in his power to make you as happy as you have made him in this shithole.

Taglist

@angelltheninth

@isuckatwritingsobenice

@selineram3421

@nixie-writes

@dragonempress18

@ceoofdabicorpsensfw

@lbcreations-blog

@chroniccorvus

@food-theorys-blog

[angstics]

This play is sooooooooooooooo. So good. Watch now. It has a proshot. WATCH NOW!

[straightplayshowdown]

Indecent: The story of Sholem Asch’s controversial play, The God of Vengeance, and the passionate artists who risked everything to bring it to the stage. The story—about the daughter of a brothel owner who falls in love with one of her father’s prostitutes—was polarizing even at its first readings, with many of Asch’s fellows arising him to burn it. Nevertheless, it achieved great success on the stages of Europe and in the Yiddish theatre scene of downtown New York City. But when an English-translation was attempted on Broadway, the play—featuring the first kiss between women on a Broadway stage—proved too scandalous for the general public, and the entire cast was arrested and charged with obscenity. 

Arcadia: The show takes place in a single room on the Coverly estate in two separate times: the Regency period and the present. 1809 finds a household in transition, where an Arcadian English garden landscape is being uprooted to make way for picturesque Gothic gardens, complete with hermitage. Meanwhile, brilliant thirteen-year-old Lady Thomasina proposes a startling scientific theory that is only starting to be figured out more than 200 years later. In the present day, we find two competing scholars researching the world of the estate in the Regency Era.

Propaganda under the cut!

Indecent:

Best, most emotionally resonant play I have ever seen performed. It recounts the controversy surrounding the play God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, which was produced on Broadway in 1923, and for which the producer and cast were arrested and convicted on the grounds of obscenity. In God of Vengeance, the brothel owner's daughter falls in love with the female prostitute. Vogel's play goes far beyond recounting the censorship. It's a complex story that follows the show's playwright and performers and how their relationship to the material changes from the plays original run, to the Broadway censorship, to the Holocaust. It focuses on the need for hope and love.

A troupe of ghosts rise to keep alive the story of author Scholem Asch's most controversy play. In three languages & innumerable roles (including a turn by Katarina Lenk in the 2017 Broadway production) the lovers in God of Vengeance preserve for the stages of eternity one rain-soaked & sacred night. Meanwhile Asch, once a passionate defender of the plays love story against intracommunal accusations of fueling antisemitism and well, indecency...he gets quieter as Lemml becomes the stage manager of a story whose ending he will always forget. The play that convinced me that I could & would read Yiddish theater.

A breathtaking play about art, censorship, and Jewish lesbians, by THE Jewish lesbian. "He’s crafted a play that shrouds us in a deep, deep fog of human depravity: then like a lighthouse, those two girls. That’s a beacon I will remember."

Arcadia: 

it's the COOLEST. it's an exploration of entropy and how time scrambles popular perception and desire derails supposedly perfect plans and how knowledge makes its way through the years as sources get lost. 

it's about math and also lord byron is a character and there's a turtle

This is his best play (and pretty accessible for Stoppard). It’s an exploration of humanities vs. science, chaos theory, the interpretation of history, and also a love story. 

This is such a beautiful play about academia and how we do research and understand the past. And it's about love and friendship and biases and egos and so much more. 

THOMASINA: Oh, Septimus! -- can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides -- thousands of poems -- Aristotle's own library!....How can we sleep for grief?

SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?

[broadwaydivastournament]

Broadway Divas Tournament: Round 1C

Tyne Daly (1946) is one of two Divas on our list to win a Tony for portraying possibly the greatest role for a woman in musical theatre. That's right. Mama Rose in Gypsy (1990). She has also received nominations for Rabbit Hole (2006) and Mothers and Sons (2014), and has a long and illustrious stage career. Owing to a hospitalization just days before she was set to begin previews in Doubt: A Parable, Tyne had to withdraw from the production. She was replaced by Amy Ryan, and is on her way to a full recovery.

Tony-winner Katrina Lenk (1974) and The Band's Visit (2018) was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise lacking season. Much of her early career was on the regional stage. Broadway credits include Indecent (2017), Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (2012), and the gender-swapped Company (2022) which did not earn her the best reviews, but personally I was fine with it. The Band's Visit also earned Katrina a Grammy and a Daytime Emmy.

PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

"Devastated that Tyne Daly had to pull out of Doubt. It's a major loss to Broadway, especially since she could have been the only theatre veteran nominated in that category. Tyne's an old broad that brings the best from a bygone era. She's got sixteen Emmy nominations to her name, and six wins. But I don't know if I can forgive her for being why Angela doesn't have at least one."

"This woman has some of the hottest, dykiest photoshoots I've ever seen. Just look at her. Her cheekbones are too perfect to be believed. Her performance in The Band's Visit was so fucking gorgeous, and you know, I wasn't too bothered by her Company either. And it considerably improved during the course of the run, so props to her. I got to see it with the rain twice, so that was also exciting. Plus, she's kissed a lot of women on stage and screen, so that's a win in my book. (Though not in Company, even though Bobbie was almost bi (with a Jenn Colella Marta, can you believe what they robbed us of?)"

[seecarrun]

“Holy shit.”

Mike and Bill leaned forward to get a better look at the gift Eddie had just unwrapped. “What is it?” Mike asked.

“It’s…” Eddie started, pausing to fully remove the gift from the gift bag. “It’s a Broadway Limited Great Northern #2586.”

“Oh. Right, yeah. No one knows what that means, man,” Mike replied with a wry smile, making Bill snort next to him, but Eddie continued anyway.

“My dad collected these train cars,” he explained, turning the car over in his hands, reverently. “I told Richie about this one getting broken in the move from Derry, like, months ago. Fuck, this thing must have cost him a fortune. That’s why I never got it replaced in the first place.”

Mike whistled. “Damn. Didn’t realize ol’ Trashmouth had it in him.”

Bill scoffed. “C’mon Mikey, it’s Richie. Under that scruffy, borderline indecent exterior, he’s always been a hopeless romantic at heart. You know how he gets when it comes to Eddie.”

The room fell suddenly, devastatingly silent.

“Um,” Eddie squeaked, clearing his throat. “What was that?”

Bill’s eyes widened. “Uh,” he stammered. “Richie’s borderline indecency?”

“No, dumbass, the other thing. What do you mean he’s a romantic and ‘you know how he gets about Eddie’?”

Bill turned, still very wide-eyed to Mike, silently begging for help, so Mike sighed and rested a warm, comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eddie,” he began, almost apologetically, “you do know Richie is like, ridiculously in love with you, right?”

Eddie’s mouth fell open as his eyes widened comically. “…What?”

Well then. Guess that was a no.

[counttwinkula]

did you know that in 1927 three broadway shows were raided by police and the actors were charged with indecency? did you know that this was largely spurred by mae west's attempts to bring a play about homosexuality to broadway? did you know that that play by mae west was actually warning people of the dangers of homosexuality? did you know that one of the other plays raided in 1927 was the captive, a french play that had run with minimal issue in europe, which centered the dissolution of a marriage bc the woman was in love with another woman? did you know that the "other woman" in the captive, who fits the lesbophobic archetype of the older, predatory lesbian, never even appears on stage? that is to say: did you know that two of the plays that caused the broadway raid of 1927 depicted same-gender attraction through a homophobic lens and even that much of a glance at same-gender relations was considered too scandalous for the american stage?

[shtetlcore]

Lemml is the stage manager of God of Vengeance, the play featuring Broadway’s first lesbian kiss. But what happens when homophobic backlash means he and his cast are arrested for indecency?

The little white goat is small, and it’s cute. It might be mischievous sometimes, but when it grows up it’ll give delicious milk!

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Mae West, 34, says goodbye to prison warden Harry Schleth after leaving Welfare Island, April 29, 1927. She had served eight days of a 10-day sentence (let out early for good behavior) for writing, directing, and performing in the play "Sex." Her pen name as playwright was Jane Mast.

In the drama, West played a prostitute who had to choose between two men: a young one to whom she concealed her profession, or an older one who accepted her for who she was. “People thought it vulgar, ridiculous, or funny, or a perfectly terrible play, laughed—and sent their friends to see the show,” wrote Thyra Samter Winslow in The New Yorker.

Photo: Associated Press via eBay

[100gayicons]

GAY ICONS - ALAN BATES

Alan Bates appeared in one of the most homoerotic scenes in movie history - wrestling nude with Oliver Reed in “Women in Love” (1969) - but I never considered he might be gay or bisexual… until…

Recently I watched “Tea With the Dames” (2018) a documentary where Maggie Smith and Judi Dench gossip about their careers. When talking about Shakespeare’s “Anthony and Cleopatra”, Maggie off-handedly mentions that Alan Bates would have preferred to play the role of Cleopatra!

That remark sent me off researching … and sure enough, several sites mention that Bates, although he was married with twin sons, had several male lovers throughout his life. This was confirmed in a biography “Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates” which was written in cooperation with Bates’ surviving son Benedict.

In the 1960s, Bates starred in a string of international hits, including “Zorba the Greek” (1964), “Georgie Girl” (1966), “King of Hearts (1966), and “Far from the Madding Crowd” (1967).

What was unknown by the public at that time, Bates lived with and was in a 10 year relationship with actor Peter Wyngarde. (Wyngarde himself was outed in 1975 when he was arrested for 'gross indecency' with a truck driver in the toilets of a bus station.)

But Bates was attracted to women as well. In 1964 Bates met actress Joanna Pettet when the both appeared on Broadway in “Poor Richard”. According to Pettit the two had an affair during the run of the show.

In 1970, Bates married Victoria Ward who was pregnant at the time. She gave birth to their twin sons the next year. From all accounts their relationship was rocky. They separate but both were involved in raising their children. Tristan, one of the twin, died of a suspect overdose in 1990. His mother Victoria couldn’t recover from the shock and she died in 1992.

In 1972, Bates met actor Nickolas Grace while they both were performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Grace was 25 at the time and described the relationship as:

“very close and very loving, in an intense affair that was one of the most important relationships of my life"

Bates denied to Nickolas that he was homosexual.

“(Alan) was free and happy, and … he took me to meet his family in Derby, where we had lovely weekends. But at other times he was reserved and frightened… he didn't want me to be seen with him.”

Bates later had a two year relationship with English Olympic skater John Curry. Curry was outed prior to the 1976 Olympics but the international press largely ignored it. In 1987 Curry was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1994. It’s been reported that Bates helped to care for his former lover and was with him when he died.

Bates had relationships with other men and women but the ones I mention above seemed the most significant.

Bates and Maggie Smith were reunited in Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park” (2001), the movie that inspired “Downton Abbey”. The next year Bates was knighted by Queen Elizabeth when she bestowed him with a CBE. The same year Bates rekindled his friendship with Joanna Pettit and she moved from the US to live with him. They had a common bond - her son had died of an overdose as well.

Bates needed hip replacement surgery in 2003. While recovering doctors discovered he had pancreatic cancer. And the final insult, a stroke. Alan Bates slipped into a coma with his son Benedict and friend Joanna Pettit by his side.

[do-you-know-this-play]

i'm gonna submit a bunch of plays i like! all of them can be found on show-score.com if you have trouble finding info/pics

Broadway: Life of Pi, Topdog/Underdog, Skeleton Crew, Indecent

Off-Broadway: Primary Trust, Des Moines, Heart, Gidion's Knot, Fat Ham, Confederates, Nollywood Dreams, Letters of Suresh, The Inheritance, A Letter to Harvey Milk, Incognito

Classics: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Crucible, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet

all on the queue except for “a letter to harvey milk”. that one’s a musical(send it over to “do you know this musical”!!)