The Year in Gay Theater

The recent Broadway stagehands’ strike briefly cast a pall over the Big Apple, but before that happened, there was lots of great theater going on in New York – much of it involving openly gay artists and/or concerning gay themes and subject matter. All told, it was a very good year. Here's a selective rundown of the exciting, surprising, entertaining, and sometimes disappointing shows and performances that comprised gay theater in 2007, both on and off Broadway.

The Gayest Show of the Year
Xanadu, out playwright Douglas Carter Beane's wickedly funny takeoff on one of the worst films ever made. True, it wasn’t specifically gay, but starring the out Cheyenne Jackson and featuring disco balls, roller skates, and fabulous muses, Xanadu still takes this contest hands down.

Runner- Up: The Ritz, a sidesplitting revival of Terrence McNally's knockabout gay bathhouse farce, courtesy of the Roundabout Theatre Company. Honorable Mention for Achievement Off-Broadway: Die Mommie Die!

Best Performance by an Openly Gay Actor in a Broadway Musical
Not so long ago, it was unthinkable that there could ever be a tie in this category, but that's just what happened in 2007. As the male lead in Xanadu, Cheyenne Jackson is at once hilarious and devastatingly sexy – which, when you think about it, is a rare combination. And David Hyde Pierce is comic perfection as Lieutenant Frank Cioffi in Curtains, which boasts a score by the openly gay team of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb.

Lifetime Achievement Award
This one goes to Edward Albee, arguably our greatest living playwright and one of the first to be openly gay. His latest work is Peter and Jerry, a rewrite and expansion of his one-act The Zoo Story. The piece has no gay content to speak of, but it's very well done, and it boasts an amazing performance by Dallas Roberts as the creepy Jerry. Catch it at Second Stage Theatre before it closes on December 30.