Boys in the (Heavenly) Band

Mart Crowley (full name: Edward Martino Crowley), best known for his 1968 play, The Boys in the Band, died on March 7 at 84. Here are obituaries from the Washington Post and New York Times, along with Clive Barnes' review of the original production. Barnes praised the production lavishly, though his wording (e.g., references to "queers" and "fag") and insistence that he himself is not a homosexual definitely reflect the era. But I think the review's final paragraph is a fitting epigram for the playwright:

A couple of years ago, my colleague Stanley Kauffmann, in a perceptive but widely misunderstood essay, pleaded for a more honest homosexual drama, one where homosexual experience was not translated into false, pseudoheterosexual terms. This, I think, "The Boys in the Band," with all its faults, achieves. It is quite an achievement.