This Pride Month, immerse yourself in the dynamic world of LGBTQ+ stories with our specially curated selection. Discover stories that challenge norms, celebrate individuality, and inspire change. These titles are sure to captivate your heart and mind.
Celebrate Pride by delving into these compelling stories!
Musicals
Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story; Book, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff
Relationships can be murder. Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story is a two-character musical drama that recounts the chilling true story of the legendary duo who committed one of the most infamous and heinous crimes of the twentieth century. Focusing on their obsessive relationship and utilizing Leopold’s 1958 parole hearing as a framework, Thrill Me reveals the series of events in 1924 Chicago that led about-to-be law students Leopold and Loeb to be forever remembered as “the thrill killers.” Nathan Leopold was passionate about Richard Loeb, who was passionate about crime and excitement. They created a secret agreement to satisfy each other’s needs. Soon Richard convinced Nathan that they embodied Nietzsche’s idea of the “Superman” and were above society. Then he drew him into his plan to lure a young boy to his death just to prove they could get away with it. But soon their perfect crime unraveled due to a careless mistake. Or was it so careless?
Plays
The Baltimore Waltz by
Photo by Cameron Whitman, 2019 Keegan Theatre production
When Anna, an unmarried schoolteacher, is diagnosed with ATD, Acquired Toilet Disease, a fatal new malady with a high risk factor for elementary school teachers, she and her brother Carl take flight to Europe. Anna decides she wants to drown herself in the sensuality of food and sex, while Carl becomes involved in a wild Third Mannish espionage scheme to find a cure for his sister on the Continent. Something is not quite right with the scenario, and the largest hint is dropped when Anna shows slides of their trip to Europe where each frame looks exactly like Baltimore. Carl’s quest for a cure dead ends with a mad Viennese quack. Their European idyll is broken by Carl’s death, and the tragic revelation that the entire play was Anna’s valiant fantasy to keep alive her brother’s spirit when she could not save his life.
The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project
Photo by Jennifer Taylor, 2013 Harvey Theater production
In October 1998, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten, and left tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised, and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half, in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, while others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences in Laramie. The Laramie Project is a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.
Indecent by
Photo by Carol Rosegg, 2016 Off-Broadway production
Indecent, by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, is a deeply moving play inspired by the true events surrounding the controversial 1923 Broadway debut of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance—a play seen by some as a seminal work of Jewish culture, and by others as an act of traitorous libel. INDECENT charts the history of an incendiary drama and the path of the artists who risked their careers and lives to perform it.
The Inheritance, Part One by
Winner of the 2020 Tony Award® for Best Play
Winner of the 2020 Drama Desk Award for Best Play
Winner of the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Play
Photo by Marc Brenner, 2018 West End production
Intended to be performed side by side with The Inheritance, Part Two
Decades after the height of the AIDS epidemic, THE INHERITANCE tells the story of three generations of gay men in New York City attempting to forge a future for themselves amid a turbulent and changing America. Eric Glass is a political activist engaged to his writer boyfriend, Toby Darling. When two strangers enter their lives—an older man and a younger one—their futures suddenly become uncertain as they begin to chart divergent paths. Inspired by E.M. Forster’s masterpiece Howards End, THE INHERITANCE is an epic examination of survival, healing, class divide, and what it means to call a place home.
Take Me Out by
Winner of the 2003 Tony Award® for Best Play and the 2022 Tony Award® for Best Revival of a Play
Photo by Catherine Wessel, 2022 Broadway Revival
Darren Lemming, the star center fielder of the world champion New York Empires, is young, rich, famous, talented, handsome and so convinced of his popularity that when he casually announces he’s gay, he assumes the news will be readily accepted by everyone. It isn’t. Friends, fans and teammates react with ambivalence, and when the slipping Empires call up the young phenom Shane Mungitt to close their games, the ambivalence turns to violence. Angry, lonely, guilt-ridden and confused, Darren finds some unlikely solace in the form of friendship with his new business manager, Mason Marzac—a brilliant but repressed guy, who, as everyone around him copes with disenchantment, blooms in the ecstatic discovery of baseball.
F**king Men by Joe DiPietro, adapted from La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler
Photo by Darren Bell, 2023 West End production
F**king Men is a free-wheeling adaptation of the 19th century play La Ronde, in which ten men in ten scenes sleep with and seduce one another; each encounter subtly, sometimes radically, changing their lives. The search for emotional fulfillment—the thread that connects the episodes in La Ronde—is given fresh resonance in Tony Award®-winning playwright Joe DiPietro’s hilarious and heartwarming take on the German classic, transposed to the gay subculture in contemporary Manhattan.
Flex by
Photo by Sara Krulwich, 2023 Off-Broadway production
The pressure is on for the 1998 Lady Train high school basketball team—on top of a battle to bring home the championship trophy, it is also college scouting season. But the team’s performance on the court is tested as it ruptures under the weight of its own infighting, and the once-tight players begin to focus on their individual futures. What does it mean to be a Black girl on the brink of freedom and womanhood in a small town in the South? Does honoring your own wants mean sacrificing your friends, family, and team? This funny and frank play about getting a full-court press from life will have audiences cheering.
Open by Crystal Skillman
Photo by Maria Baranova, 2019 The Tank production
Open is a magic act that reveals itself to be a resurrection. A woman called the Magician presents a myriad of tricks for our entertainment, yet her performance seems to be attempting the impossible—to save the life of her partner, Jenny. But is our faith in her illusions enough to rewrite the past? The clock is ticking, the show must go on, and, as impossible as it may seem, this Magician’s act may be our last hope against a world filled with intolerance and hate.
Chicken & Biscuits by
Photo by Emilio Madrid, 2021 Broadway production
Can rivaling sisters Baneatta and Beverly bury their father without killing each other? This proves difficult when Beverly shows up to the chapel with her “blessings” on display. Meanwhile, Baneatta’s son brings his neurotic Jewish boyfriend along, knowing Baneatta disapproves, and Beverly’s nosy daughter keeps asking questions no one wants to answer. Baneatta’s pastor husband tries to mediate the family drama, but when a shocking family secret reveals itself at the pulpit, the two sisters are faced with a truth that could either heal or break them.
Beautiful Thing by
Jamie and Ste (short for Steve) are teenage neighbors in a working-class housing project in London. Jamie is bookish and shy while Ste is more athletic. Neither one has an ideal home life: Jamie’s mother Sandra is bitter over her financial situation and her romantic life, but she’s willing to settle for a bloke named Tony and cover up her disappointment with scathing humor; Ste’s father and brother abuse him in the form of escalating domestic squabbles and actual beatings. After one such fight, Ste asks Sandra if he can stay at her house and she lets him and Jamie bunk together. As their friendship grows, Jamie begins to realize he has stronger feelings for Ste, and one night, after Ste suffers a particularly bad beating, the two boys decide to experiment together. Both realizing they’re gay, Ste and Jamie begin a tentative relationship. Soon, Sandra hears the rumor that her son’s gay, and knowing that he’s been having trouble in school, she confronts him and he admits the truth. Ste and Jamie’s friend, Leah, is also in on the secret and she’s supportive of them, probably because of her own outsider status as a Mama Cass worshipper. The play ends with the two boys feeling less alone in the world than before; they have each other, and even the bickering Sandra and Leah call a truce and accompany the boys in a slow dance for all their neighbors to see.
Charm by
When Mama Darleena Andrews—a 67-year-old, black, transgender woman—takes it upon herself to teach an etiquette class at Chicago’s LGBTQ community center, the idealistic teachings of Emily Post clash with the very real life challenges of identity, poverty, and prejudice faced by her students. Inspired by the true story of Miss Gloria Allen and her work at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, Charm asks—how do we lift each other up when the world wants to tear us down?
In Fireworks Lie Secret Codes by
The scene is a penthouse terrace on Manhattan’s West Side, where a group of friends had gathered to watch the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display on the Hudson River. As they sip wine and call out the changing colors, they also reveal the unrest beneath their apparent ease: one of the two male lovers who share the penthouse has decided to return to his native England; another couple sheepishly admits that they are fleeing Manhattan life for suburban New Jersey. The play ends as it began—good friends exchanging amusing anecdotes in the spirit of relaxed companionship—but the glints of truth which have emerged make it clear that their lives are more troubled and uncertain than appearances might suggest.
As Is by
The time is now, the place New York City. Rich, a young writer who is beginning to find success, is breaking up with his longtime lover, Saul, a professional photographer. The split is particularly difficult for Saul, who still loves Rich deeply, but the mood is one of bantering and ironic humor as they divide their belongings. However Rich’s idyll with his new lover is short-lived when he learns that he has AIDS and returns to the goodhearted Saul for sanctuary as he awaits its slow and awful progress. Thereafter the action is comprised of a mosaic of brilliantly conceived short scenes, some profoundly moving, some brightly humorous, which capture the pathos of Rich’s relationship with friends and family; the cold impersonality of the doctors and nurses who care for him; and the widely diverse aspects of New York’s gay community—for which Rich’s plight is a chilling reminder of their own peril. In the end the effect of the play is emotionally overwhelming—an honest and unsparing examination of a deeply felt human relationship shattered by a mindless, destructive force which cannot be tempered or turned aside.
Gemini by
The play takes place in the backyard of adjoining houses in South Philadelphia: one house occupied by Fran Geminiani, a laborer, and his son, Francis, a Harvard student; the other by a boisterous, earthy divorcee named Bunny and her fat, asthmatic son, Herschel. It is the eve of Francis’ twenty-first birthday, and suddenly he is paid a surprise visit by two friends from college, a brother and sister named Hastings, who set up a tent in the backyard. The friends, Randy and Judith, are wealthy, attractive and from an elevated social background that contrasts painfully with Francis’ own humble circumstances. In addition, while Judith is in love with Francis, he is infatuated with Randy (or thinks he is) and it is from this unsettling discovery that the plot proceeds—a series of lively, funny, touching and revealing incidents that occur in fast-moving, antic succession until the final, joyous moments of the play.
Lonely Planet by
Jody is in his forties and runs a map store. Not one for the outside world, he stays in his store all the time. His friend, Carl is in his late thirties and has been bringing chairs of dead friends into Jody’s store and leaving them there. When Jody needs to take an AIDS test, Carl tries to convince him it is not only okay to leave the store but also that he must take responsibility for his life. If he doesn’t, he will join the set of chairs that Carl has taken great pains to place in the right spots around the store. Through their interaction, the two realize how grateful they are to have such a strong lasting friendship. Jody finally leaves the map store to take his HIV test and returns to find Carl sitting in a chair of his own. With this gesture, we know that Carl has joined the many of their friends who have died, but now Jody must take Carl’s place as the caretaker.
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman, based on the books I am a Woman, Women in the Shadow and Journey to a Woman by Ann Bannon
Set in pre-Stonewall Greenwich Village, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles follows the lives and loves of Laura, Beth and Beebo as they navigate uncharted territories of desire. Beth and Laura, secret lovers in college, went separate ways after graduation: Beth married and had children; Laura moved to New York. Both pine for each other, but before they can reunite, they find themselves entangled in the web of Beebo Brinker, a butch denizen of the bars with a soft spot for young lesbians fresh off the bus. Adapted from the 1950’s and 1960’s lesbian pulp novels by Ann Bannon, the play celebrates the era when “the love that dares not speak its name” began breaking the old rules.
The Young Man from Atlanta by
Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
In her review of the play, Marian Burkhart explains the story: “In The Young Man from Atlanta, a kind of elected ignorance has skewed the past and narrowed the future, for the Kidders, Lily Dale and Will. The two are attempting to cope with the death of their only son, Bill, who, unable to swim, walked into a lake in Florida and drowned. Lily Dale takes refuge in religion. She persuades herself that Bill’s death, in spite of its circumstances, was an accident. At the prompting of Randy, the ‘Young Man from Atlanta,’ who, though he never appears, is nonetheless the catalyst of the play’s action, believes as well that her son lived in the faith she herself professes. Will is made of tougher stuff. He acknowledges his son’s suicide and wants none of Lily Dale’s pseudo-comfort. But he has his own illusions, a belief that a hard-working, competitive, optimistic all-American go-getter like himself can triumph by achieving ‘the best and the biggest,’ and that the best and the biggest house in Houston, into which he has sunk his savings, can paper over the bitterness of Bill’s death. But he discovers that his job, the center of his life and his pride, is no longer his and that his kind of competitiveness cannot get him the bank loan he needs to start his own business. He discovers that his wife has not only communicated with the Young Man, as he has forbidden her to do, but has given Randy some $50,000 to ‘tide him over.’ This discovery only intensifies the pain of a previous realization that his son gave the Young Man money also. And he discovers the strength and endurance of his own body, which he has trusted as he has trusted his wife, has let him down, too, for he suffers a heart attack. This shattering of his life’s facade compels him to realize that his life’s core is an illusion. His single-minded pursuit of the American dream has left his wife not only childish but lonely, and it has denied him his son. Will chooses not to ask the Young Man why his son gave him the money. He does not want to know. Will and Lily Dale are reconciled. She will teach music. He will work at the lesser job his former boss offers him, and she will obey him, he hopes, even though she will cling to Randy, who for her, no matter what she now knows, is ‘the sweet boy’ who comforted her. ‘Everything will be all right,’ Will tells his wife. He will settle for what is merely ‘all right’ because the ‘the best and the biggest’ is as empty as the Young Man’s lies.”
Stop Kiss by
“A poignant and funny play about the ways, both sudden and slow, that lives can change irrevocably,” says Variety. After Callie meets Sara, the two unexpectedly fall in love. Their first kiss provokes a violent attack that transforms their lives in a way they could never anticipate.
Next Fall by
Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall takes a witty and provocative look at faith, commitment and unconditional love. While the play’s central story focuses on the five-year relationship between Adam and Luke, Next Fall goes beyond a typical love story. This timely and compelling new American play forces us all to examine what it means to “believe” and what it might cost us not to.
Bright Half Life by
A moving love story that spans decades in an instant—from marriage, children, skydiving, and the infinite moments that make a life together.
Orange Julius by
Nut grew up the youngest child of Julius, a Vietnam vet, in 1980s and ’90s working-class America. As Julius suffers the toxic effects of Agent Orange, Nut worries their time together may run out before they can embrace something essential about their relationship. Paging through forgotten photo albums and acting out old war movies about brothers-in-arms, Nut leaps through time and memory, tracing the complex intimacy between father and child when the child is transgender, fighting for a mutual recognition before it’s too late.
Love! Valour! Compassion! by
Winner of the 1995 Tony Award® for Best Play
At a beautiful Dutchess County farmhouse, eight men hash out their passions, resentments, and fears over the course of three summer weekends. There’s Perry and Arthur, a professional couple of long standing, whose relationship, while strained, always manages to settle into the loving routine of a couple grown too familiar with one another, but happily so. The owner of the summer house, Gregory, is an aging choreographer who dotes on his younger lover, Bobby, who is blind. Their relationship seems solid, until an irresistible dancer, Ramon, callously flaunts his sex appeal and manages to seduce Bobby on the first night in the house. Trying to keep Ramon to himself is John Jeckyll, a soured ex-patriot Brit with a taste for melodrama—and cruelty. John rankles everyone around him, speaking the unspeakable in haughty nonchalance while probing the weaknesses of the others. The painful truth about his ire eventually becomes clear when he has to take care of his terminally ill twin brother, James. Unlike John, James inspires nothing but affection in those around him, and here lies both the crux of John’s complaint and the source of one of the play’s most blistering and revealing of monologues about the related questions of gay identity and self-esteem. Finally, there is Buzz, a maniacal lover of the musical theater. Like James, Buzz suffers from AIDS, and he has resigned himself to a life of humorous anecdotes and comforting trivia. Strange things can happen, though, and against all odds, Buzz finds himself falling in love for what may be one last summer.
Sugar in Our Wounds by
On a plantation somewhere down south, a mystical tree reaches up toward heaven. Generations of slaves have been hanged on this tree. But James is going to be different, as long as he keeps his head down and practices his reading. Moreover, as the Civil War rages on, the possibility of freedom looms closer than ever. When a stranger arrives on the plantation, a striking romance emerges, inviting the couple and those around them into uncharted territory.
The Last Sunday in June by
It is the last Sunday in June, the day of the annual Gay Pride Parade through New York’s Greenwich Village. Tom and Michael, his partner of seven years, intend to spend the day planning their impending move from the Big Apple to the upstate town of Nyack, but their plans are rerouted as one friend after another drops by to view the parade from the window of their apartment. An afternoon originally designated for shopping at Pottery Barn instead turns into a series of conversations about relationships, self-acceptance and the very meaning of what it is to be gay, eventually calling into question Tom and Michael’s relationship itself.
F2M by
It is parents’ weekend of Parker’s freshman year, but Parker’s very famous parents aren’t coming—which, trust him, is just as well. Confrontations both painfully funny and deeply poignant are sparked when Althea and Clarence show up uninvited, as Parker’s new sexual identity is put to the test, and as the family must grapple with the difficult choices of the child they love.
The Lisbon Traviata by
The first act is set in the fussily ornate apartment of Mendy, a ferociously dedicated opera buff who begs and cajoles his friend Stephen to let him borrow his copy of the pirated Maria Callas recording of La Traviata made during a performance in Lisbon, Portugal. Stephen, a blocked playwright whose detailed knowledge of opera exceeds even Mendy’s, delights in showing off his expertise while dodging his friend’s entreaties, but beneath their often hilarious banter it is evident that both men are deeply unhappy—Mendy because of his loneliness, and Stephen because he is aware that his longtime roommate (whom he loves deeply) is having an affair with someone else. Both it seems, are trapped within opera, with its grand but contrived passions becoming a neurotic substitute for real life. But in the second act, that takes place in Stephen’s starkly modern apartment, reality arrives with stunning force as Stephen confronts his roommate, Mike, and tries to salvage their relationship. Sensing his failure, Stephen turns on Mike and his new lover, Paul, driving the latter away and taunting Mike so venomously that all hope of a reconciliation is soon shattered. And, in the end, it is the operatic, the grandly tragic, which assumes control again as Stephen, unable to accept life and reality on their own terms, stabs his errant lover—tortured by his continuing lack of creative fulfillment and by the compelling need to preserve the illusion of love and fidelity to which he has clung so desperately.
Six Years Old by
Adalaide is six years old, and she knows a few things: Her stupid babysitter Kim is stupid, her younger brother Dewey is a naked mole rat, and she does NOT like being treated like a girl. Though Kim takes Adalaide’s frustrations seriously and tries to offer support, Adalaide’s family and peers discourage her, leaving her to seek out dangerous measures in order to transform into who she was born to be (her hero, Han Solo). Six Years Old is a comic and poignant play reflecting back on the wild fantasies and serious desires of queer childhood.
Sons of the Prophet by
If to live is to suffer, then Joseph Douaihy is more alive than most. With unexplained chronic pain and the fate of his reeling family on his shoulders, Joseph’s health, sanity, and insurance premium are on the line. In an age when modern medicine has a cure for just about everything, Sons of the Prophet is the funniest play about human suffering you’re likely to see.
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, or iHo by
In the summer of 2007, Gus Marcantonio, a retired longshoreman, summons his sister and his three children (who in turn bring along spouses, ex-spouses, lovers and more) to a most unusual family reunion in their Brooklyn brownstone. With humor and passion, the play examines the importance of connectedness and belonging—to a family, a community, a group, an ideology, a marriage—and what happens when those connections are lost.
On That Day in Amsterdam by
Photo by Jeenah Moon, 2022 Off-Broadway production
Kevin is a first-generation Filipino-American college student who, on his last night in Amsterdam, has a one-night stand with Sammy, a guy he meets in a bar. But when his flight gets delayed, Kevin finds himself spending the day with Sammy and what began as a one-night stand becomes a deeper connection. Years later, Kevin is still trying to capture that day in writing. Sammy was a refugee without papers—what was his home country? Surely Kevin asked, right? Did Sammy want to study art, or was it Kevin who wanted him to study art? As his memories become more and more elusive, one truth remains: The pair have not heard from each other since, and Kevin cannot shake his regret. Weaving in historical figures who also were touched by art and the uncertainty of life, On That Day in Amsterdam explores love, art, loss, and what it means to live.
Gently Down the Stream by
Beau, a pianist expat living in London, meets Rufus, an eccentric young lawyer, at the dawn of the internet dating revolution. After a life spent recovering from the disappointment and hurt of loving men in a world that refused to allow it, Beau is determined to keep his expectations low with Rufus. But Rufus comes from a new generation of gay men who believe happiness is as much their right as anyone else’s, and what Beau assumed would be just another fling grows into one of the most surprising and defining relationships of his life. A remarkably moving, brilliantly funny love story, Gently Down the Stream reflects the triumphs and heartbreaks of the entire length of the gay rights movement, celebrating and mourning the ghosts of the men and women who led the way for equality, marriage, and the right to dream.
Aunt Jack by
After a crushing breakup with his long-term boyfriend, Norman moves across the country to get away from his former life, much to the dismay of his fathers, George and Jack. When some troubling news brings Norman back home, he returns with his new partner, Andy, to make amends. But the long-anticipated reunion is challenged when differences in politics, sexual identity, and love threaten the bonds Norman has come to rebuild.
