Bay Area Theater

Playwright Interview: Mart Crowley (1935-2020)

IN HONOR OF PRIDE

Mart Crowley, author of “The Boys in the Band” and its sequel, “The Men from the Boys,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky on October 31, 2002.

Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band, which deals with the lives of gay men in the 1960s burst upon the off-Broadway scene in 1968 and ran for a thousand performances, becoming a film directed by William Friedkin two years later. In 2002, he wrote a sequel titled The Men from the Boys, which took place 35 years later, after Stonewall and after the AIDS epidemic. It premiered at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre on November 9, 2002. This past year, Broadway saw a revival of The Boys in the Band, featuring Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannels and Jim Parsons. Several members of that cast, including Mario Cantone and Denis O’Hare return to their roles for a live stream of The Men From the Boys, directed by Zachary Quinto, airs through June 29, 2020 at playbill.com/prideplays

Mart Crowley died of a heart attack on March 7, 2020 at the age of 84.