As the old saying goes, "You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been."
And so, CBS' Sunday Morning took a deep dive into the upcoming 50th anniversary Broadway revival of Mort Crowley's groundbreaking play about New York City gay life in the 1960s, The Boys in the Band.
Premiering in 1968, the play was the first time a mainstream theater audience got a glimpse of what it was like to be gay. Using a birthday party as the setting, Crowley wrote characters who were unabashedly ho-mo-sex-u-al.
The same year Crowley wrote The Boys in the Band, CBS News aired a report on homosexuality that announced, "Americans consider homosexuality more harmful to society than adultery, abortion, or prostitution."
The attacks didn't come from just outside the gay community though.
In the era of the Stonewall riots, the community turned on the play and the playwright saying the production cast gay men in a negative, "self-hating" light.
Still, as history can attest, the play became a cultural sensation, ran for over 1,000 performances and was made into a major motion picture. Crowley returned to Hollywood where, among other things, became the head writer of 1970s TV series like ABC's Hart To Hart.
And now, instead of being attacked, the play is being celebrated by the LGBTQ community.
The new revival, directed by 2-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Wicked), stars one of television's highest paid actors, Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory). The entire cast is a "who's who" of successful, out gay actors including Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Carver and Andrew Rannells.
Currently in previews, the production will have a limited run through August 11 only.
For more info and tickets, head over to the official website at BoysInTheBand.com.
