Episode 40
January 14, 2021
The Boys in the Band
Hosted by Chris Piuma and Suzanne Conklin Akbari
HAROLD. (Coolly.) Are you now? Are you warning me? Me? I’m Harold. I’m the one person you don’t warn, Michael. Because you and I are a match. And we tread very softly with each other because we both play each other’s game too well. Oh, I know this game you’re playing. I know it very well. And I play it very well. You play it very well too. But you know what? I’m the only one that’s better at it than you are. I can beat you at it. So don’t push me. I’m warning you.
Suzanne and Chris end 2020 (a little late) by reading something from one of the many notable authors we lost—in this case, Mart Crowley’s groundbreaking play about gay men, The Boys in the Band. The play was first produced in 1968, the year before the Stonewall riots; and a film was made in 1970. For the play’s 50th anniversary, the play was remounted, and then in 2020 a new film adaptation was made by Netflix. But what does it mean to read or produce The Boys in the Band in 2020? Is it a historical artifact—something you turn to in order to understand what life was like for some people in a particular place and time—or does it offer fresh pleasures and insights? Is this play being canonized, and if so, how?
![[Episode artwork]](/images/podcast/art/s/spouter.png)
Show Notes.
Mart Crowley: The Boys in the Band. [Bookshop.]
The Boys in the Band (1970) (trailer) and The Boys in the Band (2020) (trailer).
LitHub’s list of notable literary deaths in 2020.
Some interviews with Mart Crowley.
Next: Eli Clare: Exlie and Pride. [Bookshop.]